Curse of the Midions by Brad Strickland Read Free Book Online Page B

the one named Plum, said. “Green he is, Bets. Dump him, says I, or it’s the Mill Press for you and him both, most like.”
    â€œWhat’s the Mill Press?” Jarvey asked. “Look, I don’t know who you are and I don’t know where I am—”z
    â€œLeave us, you lot,” Betsy said as a couple of the kids exchanged a dubious look. Then they all scrambled out, Charley herding the younger ones ahead of him. When they had gone, she sat beside Jarvey. “All right, then, let’s educate you. Have you been out and about enough to see anyone—anyone ’sides us, I mean?”
    Jarvey’s throat clenched. “This morning when I first woke up. I went outside.”
    â€œNot a good idea.”
    â€œI was going to see Lord Zoroaster, the man who talked to me about my parents. He lives somewhere called the Royal Crescent.”
    â€œLong way from here, Jarvey,” Bets said. “And Lord Z ain’t one of Nibs’s favorites right now. Tryin’ to see him, well, that might be dangerous.”
    â€œHe told me he knew where my mom and dad are!” Jarvey said hotly. “I’ve got to find them. Anyway, I didn’t go because there was a crowd of people in the streets. Some men in black leather coats were guarding them, and one of them—”
    Betsy interrupted, “Yeah, shift change, that would’ve been. Right, then. Them’s mill hands, see? When the tippers or the pressers find someone out past curfew, or when someone does somethin’ out of line, or when the tippers just feel like it—”
    â€œTippers?”
    â€œThe men in black leather. Constables, policemen. The men all had clubs, right? Tipstaves, they call ’em. Tippers, see? Keeps order, they do. Anyway, the press goes by night, and the tippers by day, an’ if they put hands on you, you go with them, see? Into the mills. And if you’re as might be lucky, then you’re there for maybe twenty years, if you can live that long, and then you get a second chance at obeying orders. Or if you’re not lucky, you draw a life sentence, or more likely you die at the machines before your sentence is up, and then your troubles are over, right?”
    â€œWhat mills?” Jarvey said. “What do they do?”
    An angry, brooding expression crept into Betsy’s face. For a moment she didn’t answer, but took a drink from the bottle of tea. Then she growled, “In the mills they make things for the Toffs, mostly. Clothes, furniture, fancy scents, jewelry. Some work in the cookeries, bakin’ the bread, dressin’ the meats, makin’ the wines and all for the Toffs to eat. Sometimes we can slenk some, see? Nip into a storehouse or cookery, grab a bit o’ bread or a pan of smoked fish, maybe. Get caught at that, it’s life in the mills, but we don’t get caught, ’cause we’re Dodgers, see?”
    â€œWho are the Toffs?” Jarvey asked.
    â€œThey owns Lunnon, don’t they? They’re in charge of the whole show, as you might say. Not more than a hundred of them, though, and the Lord Mayor, well you should know him right enough.” She nudged him with an elbow. “They all call him Nibs, but not to his face, and his name’s Tantalus Midion. You got his property there.”
    Jarvey felt as if his blood had chilled. “This, you mean?” he asked, holding up the Grimoire. “But I got this from an old man, Siyamon Midion, some kind of cousin or something. He took me to his house—”
    â€œAye, you said that last night. Look, cully, here’s all I know about that. In the year of 1848, Tantalus Midion used the Grimoire to open up a pathway to this place. An’ him an’ his friends, the Toffs they are now, they brought people here an’ made them work to build Lunnon as it is now.”
    â€œThen he must be dead.”
    â€œWhat makes you think that?”
    â€œBecause