The Greys’ Story
POPPY COOPER was eighteen when she ran. It took her longer than perhaps it should have, but she was waiting for everyone else to be gone and safe, or at least gone. Mother was buried with the misshapen mass that had killed her, which she had lived long enough to name Christine, even though only God knew whether it was actually a girl under all that blue flesh. Davey was buried, too. Papa gave him to a chimney sweep, and he worked until he began to cough black dust, and he died. Peter was in the work house, where he was being taught to live by his hands. That would kill him, eventually, but it might wait until he was grown with a family, and that was all anyone could hope for. Poppy saved pennies, hiding them from Papa between her tattered stockings and the thin soles of h
