Chapter 1: Preview Chapter Text
Clara rubbed her hands together in an effort to keep herself awake. The night was warm, as it had been all month and the air was thick, making her head drowsy.
Or maybe it was the gin. She had tried walking around, but her feet felt like she was walking on tiny pebbles despite the newspaper she had stuffed in the bottom to keep the mud and filth from seeping up through the holes in her soles.
In a moment of clarity, Clara realized the tiny pebbles she felt were the little bones of her feet. Agatha told her she was looking like a broomstick with thimbles for tits. She'd told Agatha to fuck off and go find a veil to hide her sore covered mouth, but Clara couldn't deny the truth of it.
She'd been losing weight. It had been slow at first, just since the start of the year. Some of the men who came around had mistaken her for younger and looked disappointed when they saw her face.
And others of them just made her pretend to be younger and left her feeling the need to spend their coin on the strongest drink.
She wanted to go to bed but she was still short. Billy would lay her out a good one if she brought back a purse so light, even if she gave him her share. And not that she would, or could.
In the dark, further down the alley, she heard the sound of high heeled boots on the cobblestones. They weren't the shoes of a peeler, that much was sure. Clara straightened out her dress and pulled back a strand a hair behind her ear.
This man sounded like money.
As he drew closer, Clara saw that she recognized him. "Oh, darling. It's you. A bit lonely tonight, eh? What would your sweet- "
There was the hot pain of iron in her abdomen and Clara's stomach reacted immediately. She fell to her knees, in the mud that smelled of rot and shit. In her last moments, Clara tried to land her hands in a spot that wasn't as deep in muck. She felt her hair on the back of her head being pulled roughly back and then -
nothing.