Read Julia Vanishes for Free Online Page B

the river.”
    Florence nods solemnly and then says, “Mrs. Och gave me some money to buy us hot buns.”
    She’s resorting to bribery. They both seem to desperately want me along. I decide I’ll go for a bit, then lose them and come back on my own.
    “All right,” I say, and I can see how relieved they both are. I feel something like relief myself—some loosening inside. “But honestly, I think you’ll be disappointed.”

    There is already a crowd along the river when we arrive, crossing Molinda Bridge to the Plateau, where the parliament buildings squat, stubbornly practical, next to the palace grounds. The palace itself is hidden behind thick walls, but from Mount Heriot you can see the tips of its elegant spires.
    The sky is clear, but the wind has winter in its fingers. I notice that Chloe’s and Florence’s boots are nearly worn through, and their coats have seen many winters. While my clothes are nothing to brag about, at least my coat was new a little more than a year ago, purchased off a job at a wealthy collector’s home, and I get boots whenever I need them. The lesson for housemaids of Spira City being: Crime pays. Florence buys three hot buns for us at a stall on the bridge and then I lead them to the narrow steps that take us down from the road to the low path hugging the river.
    “Won’t we have a better view above?” asks Florence, following me and nibbling at her bun. I want to tell her to eat it while it’s hot. Really, I want to snatch it out of her pale little hands and eat it myself. I’ve already finished mine.
    “It gets too crowded up there,” I say. “Have you any money left?”
    She is startlingly passive now that we’re off her turf. The bustle of the city is my domain, and although she has no reason to know this, it’s as if she senses it, and suddenly I am the one in charge. She holds out a few pennies, almost apologetically.
    I take them and wave down a man smoking in a little rowboat.
    “Three pennies?” he says with a raised eyebrow.
    “And the charming company of three girls,” I say with a wink.
    He laughs a bit sadly at that but lets us on.
    “Is this safe?” asks Chloe.
    “Of course it is,” snaps Florence, white-faced.
    Before long, the low path and the road above are packed with bodies and the river is full of little boats like ours, anyone with a vessel making what pennies he can by giving spectators a better view. I flirt halfheartedly with our man so he doesn’t decide to throw us off for someone offering more, but he is uninterested, tossing his cigarette into the water and withdrawing into himself.
    “I’d like to see that Marianne Deneuve drowned!” Florence pipes up. “The vile beast!”
    “Those poor children,” agrees Chloe.
    “What children?” I ask.
    It seems that the story going around is that Marianne Deneuve cursed her lover
and
his wife and children with long monkey tails before fleeing Spira City. I give a snort, and Florence looks appalled.
    “It’s not funny in the least!” she cries. “Their lives are completely
ruined.
”
    They go back and forth about how awful it is and what a fool he was and what a monster she is, and I do my best not to pitch myself into the water out of sheer boredom with their conversation. At last the long government barge pulls into view and everybody begins to shout and throw things into the river. I wish I’d remembered to bring an umbrella to shield us from the rotting fruit and debris raining down.
    “What are they doing?” screams Chloe, panicked. Florence is gripping her hands together in her lap, her nostrils working, as if
she
were about to be tossed into the river.
    “They’re just excited,” I say. “Trust me, we’re safer out here.”
    It’s true, sometimes the crowd goes a bit wild, and people have been killed in the crush and stampede. Our man rows us lazily around so that we can see the witches standing in a row on the deck of the barge. They have silver chains around their