Finny heard a key working the lock of the door and sat bolt upright, backing as far up the bed as she could until the steel bars of the rusting headboard dug into her shoulders. The door opened and a man stepped through. Finny’s throat immediately constricted into a tight gulp. The man was wearing a dark red leather mask that covered the whole top half of his face. She stared into the eye holes, the eyes behind the mask looked animalistic with broken red veins spiderwebbing the corneas. The mouth below the mask smiled cruelly. He stepped closer and Finny heard someone re-lock the door behind him. Finny held up her hands as if to ward off the silent, staring grown-up slowly advancing on her. Her brain stopped working, refusing to have anything to do with what was happening. “I thought you must be getting hungry.” Finny blinked. Fear was pushed back enough for Awareness to poke its head above the mental parapet. And while Fear was being held back by Courage and Determination, Finny’s eyes dropped to notice for the first time what the man was carrying. It was plate of sausages. The world changed. Yes, Finny was still very scared by what had happened to her... and the mask the man was wearing didn’t help, but the plate of sausages just wasn’t fitting in at all with the scenario that had been playing in her head. And the man had also stopped moving closer, which Finny felt was quite important. She lowered her hands. Looking up at the eyeholes again and the animal the eyes were now just bloodshot like Joe’s were on a Monday morning. The mouth was just a mouth. Finny nodded in a way that hopefully indicated she was ready to accept that the offer of sausages wasn’t going to end in her eventual death. “Um… yes, I am.” The man, while staying exactly where he was, leaned forward and placed the plate on the mattress. Then he stood up again. “Sorry about this, someone should have fed you…” His voice rose to suggest that whoever was behind the door was meant to hear the next bit, “...and explain what was going on and that you weren’t going to be hurt!” he lowered his voice again. “Sorry about the mask, though. I know it’s a bit scary, but we’ve only got one and we have to share it.” Finny looked from the man to the plate of sausages and then back at the man again. The man took a step back. “Oh right yes,” he said, gesturing to the plate. “Tuck in by all means.” Finny, while never taking her eyes from the grown-up, slowly pulled the plate of sausages towards her, then took one and bit into it. The man stayed where he was, even putting his hands awkwardly behind his back and rocking on his feet. “Sorry it’s just sausages. Somebody messed up. But, one of us seems to have an endless supply of them, despite the Golds robbing us blind.” Finny, a sausage now in each hand, tilted her head. She recognised the name from that funeral Joe had made her attend. The Golds, according to Ned who was babysitting her for the funeral, were a Traveller family who Joe didn’t like because they had pushed him out of The Borough or something. Ned had said that Joe didn’t have enough men to deal with it or whatever… Finny hadn’t been that interested anyway. It seemed a response was wanted. “I think that Joe doesn’t like them.” The man moved to the chair and sat down. “Yes, we know. In fact, that’s why we brought you here.” Finny watched, automatically eating like any orphan worth her salt would. As soon as one hand was sausage-less she filled it with another while continuing to eat the one in the other hand. The man’s words and a filling belly also inflated her confidence that nothing bad was going to happen to her, well, not immediately anyway. She swallowed the rather nice mouthful of sausage and lifted her chin. “Why?” Question asked, she got back to the business of emptying the plate. The man leaned forward, elbows on knees, fingers interlaced. “We want Joe and his gang to come in and…” He paused, this was a little girl he was talking to. “...and make the Golds go away.” Not too far away from where Finny was eating sausages, Danior Gold was just sitting down at the bar of The Three Cripples. The visit was a weekly thing; he would sit down, the owner of the pub would pull him a tankard of frothing ale and then push a small bag of mid-value chips across the bar Danior would lift the ale with one hand while sliding the bag chips into his shirt with the other. They didn’t talk to each other at all. It was business, it was protection, it had been going on since the Gold’s had arrived in the Borough some months ago. The tankard of ale arrived on cue and the bag of chips appeared. But this time Danior held up a hand. “See the twins from now on.” The publican paled. Danior hoped things wouldn’t get messy. Danior had arrived with his niece and nephew, Silvanus and Shelta, the sixteen year old offspring of his sister Moira. While he had headed straight for the seat at the bar, the brother and sister had wandered casually between the tables of the pub. It being early evening the place was fairly empty, only about a dozen patrons were in the pub. Lining the walls were the old men and women filling the slightly more comfortable seats of the dimly-lit booths; huddled over their dark beers, whispered nostalgia being the only subject of conversation. Around the two roaring fireplaces, however, two groups of ragged-arsed street urchins clustered together with their few possessions, escaping the approaching cold night air. As well as ale, these kids were keen on sharing long, hand-rolled cigarettes or even longer pipes of cheaply available herbs. Then fall sleep around the dying embers of the fireplaces. The owner of the pub will kick them out in the morning. But the arrival of the silver-haired twins into their midst disturbed both groups of patrons. The Golds were not liked, but the twins were just plain feared. The oldsters exited quickly, their saggy hides worth more to them than the deserted tankards they left behind. The street rats were not quite so fast, they had possessions to gather; important things like food and clean water they had, by means various, acquired throughout the day. Not all of them made it to the doors. Danior watched. The pub owner found something else to do. At the moment, his niece and nephew were just teasing two kids now scampering under the tables. The twins always sought out the weakest prey, like hyenas. If they were lucky, Danior thought as he sipped on the room-temperature ale. If they were lucky then the two… he couldn’t tell if they were boy or girl… would escape with bruises. If not… Danior swallowed the beer and sighed. Danior blamed the twins’ father. Seamus had been a nasty, cruel bastard to the twins as they were growing up. Moira had refused to see it, though, until Patrin had been born. Even then she did next to bugger all to stop the beatings. Only when Seamus had taken his belt to the then five-year-old Patrin did Moira give Danior the nod he had been waiting for. Seamus had died hard. Danior had been a street fighter back then. Seamus ended his life as a soggy punchbag hanging upside down in a deserted ruin. In the here and now, one of the kids had managed to escape after deciding their possessions were not worth it. Time would tell if they had made the right decision. But the other one was a plucky little bugger, dodging under table after table, just avoiding the hands of the tag-team twins. But Danior could see that all this was doing was making the twins angry. Blood would be shed if he didn’t do something to stop it. “Sil! Shelta! Business! Play after.” The twins looked up from their game, which was all the distraction the kid needed. The look the twins passed between them was a question… do we chase? They looked towards Danior. Their uncle was a quiet man, but messing with him was dangerous. They would not chase. Instead, they made their way to the opening in the bar. The owner stood up slowly from the sink, dried his hands and turned to face the grinning teenagers. The Finny Stories In chronological order: 000 Finny Intro 001 The Locket 002 Rats 003 A Christmas Finny 004 The Secret Adventurer’s Club 005 The Secret Adventurer’s Club: Second Adventure 006 Finny’s Birthday 007 Union Candy 008 Then There Were Three 009 Then There Were Four Again – Sort Of (WIP)