xp_logs | Bedlam: Monday

"Got a light?"

She's asked the question maybe twenty times now, meeting polite refusals and less-polite ones and pained looks that slide off of her quickly, as if looking at her is somehow painful.

"Here."

The man is older, dark-haired with blue eyes, wearing a black suit and a white shirt and for a moment she expects him to light the bedraggled cigarette butt with the tip of his finger. But he doesn't, fishing instead in the pocket of his jacket and pulling out a book of matches from an trendy wine bar in the East End.

"Take the lot," he says gruffly, and then pauses, digging in his pocket again and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. "These too - time I quit any way."

The generosity is overwhelming and she clutches the treasure to herself, eyes filling unexpectedly. "Thank you," she whispered brokenly, and his face twitched slightly.

"Get off the streets, kid. Go home. There'll be people worrying," he tells her, before turning and walking away.

She retreats back to the doorway she's been sheltering in, out of the wind. The matches are even more precious than the cigarettes and she doesn't want to waste them. As she lights up, his words come back to her and she frowns. People. There'd be people. Worrying about her. It sounds right, but where were they?

Why can't she find them?

"St. Jude. He's a saint, you know."

She blinks, and the slowly-spinning metal disk swims back into focus. Glancing over at the speaker, her hand closes into a protective fist around the pendant. "Who is?"

"The man. On your necklace. St. Jude, patron saint of desperate causes, which means he'd fit in right well down 'ere." The old woman laughs, a wet, damp sound like water going down the drain, and sucks at her remaining teeth. She smells terrible, sour and fetid in the small alcove - the girl's eyes are watering slightly at it. "What'll you trade for him?"

"Trade?" It's the way things are done, barter system, among those too weak, too frail or too out of touch to simply take. The old woman rummages through her possessions, stuffed in a series of plastic shopping bags, and gives a small crow of triumph as she pulls out an apple, then two others, skin wrinkled and bruised-looking. The girl's mouth waters - fresh fruit is impossible to find and even these sad specimens are a treasure. "And what else?" she asks, holding out for as much as she can get. She's giving up the only sign she existed somewhere else, tangible proof of life before she was the city's child.

The old woman eyes her, weighing up her want of the medallion against the cost. "I know a place, where you can sleep. Safe, dry, roof over your head. Sound good?"

She hesitates and then nods, dropping the medallion into the woman's outstretched hand and taking the apples from her. She crunches into the first one, almost moaning at the taste.

The medallion vanishes under layers of clothing. Out of sight, out of fractured mind.