Ann Pilling - The Pit

But the girl had put a book down on the table and started to read, tracing the words with her finger like a child that barely knows its alphabet. “Unto Thee, O Lord, will I lift up my soul,” she began. “My God, I have put my trust in Thee. O let me not be confounded, neither let mine enemies triumph over me. For all they that hope in Thee shall not be ashamed …”

The weeping gradually changed to a quiet sobbing, then stopped altogether. The woman’s hands dropped from her face and she stared blankly across the smoky room. Oliver looked at her. The tear-stained face, framed in its heavy dark hair, was very beautiful. Oliver had never seen her before and yet he knew her. As the girl called Elizabeth read on, two smaller girls wandered up to the table and tried to bury themselves in the woman’s skirts. He saw her arms stretch out and gather them in, like a hen gathering her chicks, and a pain shot through him. He wanted to go to her as well. In this terrifying world, a world he knew yet did not know, Oliver wanted comfort too.

At the bottom of the stairs was an oblong of dusty sunlight and a bit of cobbled street. He started padding down, on his dirty bare feet, but when he heard more voices he stopped and shrank into the shadows. The foul rotten smell was still there but now mixed with something more familiar, the clean, ordinary smell of new leather. He was looking into what appeared to be some kind of shop, the walls were lined with hooks and nails, and belts and bridles hung from them. On the floor there were crude buckets, also of leather, and a couple of saddles. A man in a greasy apron was sitting behind a long table, bending over a piece of harness.

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