He didn't know his own name. A little boy slouching along a street ripe with dirt, dark little head down, largely unnoticable.
But there was someone watching him.
She saw the way he shuffled his feet as if moving was an effort. He kept his eyes down and hands shoved in pockets to avoid being noticed. But she had waited so long to see him. She was dying.
How could she be sure it was the right boy? She couldn't. All she had was the hope and the beads and a vague memory of a terrible night nine years ago.
She had been sleeping at first, and had been woken by loud crashing noises. She remembered screaming for her nurse and being terrified. Then the men had come into her bedroom. They were big and dirty and terrifying. She just stood there and screamed and screamed and screamed, and nobody came. Then one of the men spoke to her. He called her "love" and "darling" and "pretty one." He held her down to the bed and ripped her nightdress. The weight of his body pressed down on hers. She gasped for breath. He stank of sweat and ale and rank filth, and the stench choked her as she struggled in vain. All she could remember after that was the pain, and the shock, and the blood. So much blood! She cried and cried until she had nothing left to cry and she fell asleep, naked and exhausted, on her red-spotted sheets.
In the morning her mother found what she had done. It was terrible. She was shamed and disowned by her family. To lie with a pirate, the worst sin imaginable. She was a whore, a harlot, a hussy. The family's reputation was tarred and it was all her fault. She was confused and distraught and it still hurt where the blood had flowed. She was a child, barely twelve years old. She was a child, and her family shunned her. Left her on the streets to die. Now she wandered, begging food, stealing when she got hungry enough. She walked miles and miles, anywhere to get away from the disapproving stares and angry threats of the people she used to know. It was too dangerous to stay, she knew, and she found her way to the East End of London. There were lots of beggar-children here. It was easier to find shelter, but food was scarce. She had always been a timid girl and shied away from the other children as though afraid of them. Her stomach began to swell and she was desparately hungry all the time. She could feel a hard lump inside of her, which made strange fluttery movements every now and again. She was scared of it. Maybe it was a devil. It made her weary and weighed her down so she could not walk as far as before. Eventually she became so exhausted she just lay down under a bridge and stayed there, falling asleep without looking to see if anyone would find her, nor caring neither.
She woke up suddenly to find a boy a few years older than herself leaning bent over her face. She jumped and sat up suddenly, backing up against the wall, her heart beating violently. She remembered the pirate's face as he forced himself on her and she screamed. The boy stood up and backed away.
"I wasn't going to hurt you," he said, looking scared. "I wanted to help you, like. Don't you know you've got a babby inside of you?" but Mary continued to scream and he fled. After he was gone she allowed herself to collapse again, sobbing with hunger and fear and shame. A few days later he was back, with a girl. Mary was still cautious of the boy, but she let the girl come closer to her.
"What's your name?" she asked quietly, as if trying not to scare her. Mary was cautious. Was this a trap?
"Hettie," she answered. "What do you want from me?"
"My name is Louisa May," the girl said. "And that is Edward. We want to help you."
"He said I had a baby inside of me..." Mary pointed to Edward, bewildered.
"Yes," Louisa May nodded.
"But... how?" Mary was scared. She didn't know anything about babies. Her mother had always told her she would find out when she got married. Now it seemed she was about to find out a lot sooner. Suddenly a great pain shot through her body and she doubled up, wondering if this was what it felt like to die from hunger. Louisa May looked worried.
"The baby's coming now!"
What felt like an infinitely long time later, Mary sat cradling her baby in her arms, feeling exhausted, amazed and terrified. The baby was covered in blood and dirt where he had fallen to the ground. She felt embarrassed at his nakedness and wished for something to cover him with. He was nothing like babies she had seen before, all pink and plump and washed, he was slippery and screaming and scrawny like a rat. She didn't want him, didn't know what she was supposed to do with him, and yet she couldn't abandon him like her family had abandoned her. Louisa May showed her how to feed him, and although she felt embarrassed and indecent suckling the infant in front of Edward, she was too exhausted to care.
"Jack," she whispered as he fell contentedly asleep. "I'll call him Jack."