A Brutal Chill in August: A Novel of Polly Nichols, The First Victim of Jack the Ripper Read Online Free

belonged to priests. She’d never been curious enough about her religion to learn much about it, yet the belief remained.
    With the added insult of her aching head, bruised legs, and unsettled gut, Polly knew that another miserable day lay ahead, yet she felt happy to be home and whole.
    She should never have laughed at another’s fear of the Bonehill Ghost. She should never have spoken the demon’s name while playing a game. Never again would she scoff at the darkness.
    Please, O Lord, Polly prayed, protect me from the terrors of the night.
    As she went about the day’s work, she couldn’t get Mr. Macklin’s sweet and sour tune out of her head. Having run the full song through to its end so many times, Polly decided that Martha had been wrong to suggest the verse would make one mad. Then a frightful thought occurred to her: Perhaps, I am mad, and don’t know it.

3
    Labor
     
     
    Meeting Martha, Sarah, and Bernice the following Monday in Gunpowder Alley, Polly tried to recite the end of Mr. Macklin’s song, but her friends wouldn’t have it, and clearly didn’t want to believe the tale she told of the demon’s visit.
    “You had a drunken dream,” Martha said, “that’s all.”
    As time passed, Polly began to entertain misgivings concerning the reality of her visit from the Bonehill Ghost, although knowing his entire song, words and jangling tune, seemed to push back on those doubts. Walking home alone after dark on occasion, she’d get a chill feeling that the demon stalked her, her small hairs would stand up, and she would hasten her step.
     
    * * *
     
    In the summer of 1860, Polly was sweeping out their lodgings one afternoon when she discovered a lockbox with a large padlock on it under the bed her father shared with her brother. She wanted to know what the box held, and asked her father when he came home in the evening. He had a troubled look, and she thought he’d become angry with her. She backed away, intending to drop the subject and serve him and Eddie their supper.
    “You’re not to know about that box,” Papa said. His tone held something of anger and fear. He turned to Eddie, who sat at the table in anticipation of the meal. “Neither of you. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, Papa,” Eddie said. He appeared to be without curiosity.
    Polly nodded her head for her father and he seemed satisfied.
    The mystery tugged at Polly’s thoughts for several days.
    “What do you know about the lockbox?” she asked Eddie. “Does it hold something of great worth?”
    He shrugged. “Something he’s been given to open. Someone lost a key, I suppose. Whatever it holds doesn’t belong to us.”
    The next time she looked under Papa’s bed, the box was gone. With time, she stopped thinking about it.
     
    * * *
     
    Martha Combs found work in Holborn, finishing shirts, and ceased to spend time with Polly. Sarah Brown did some sort of work for her uncle that she wouldn’t talk about. Polly saw increasingly less of Sarah as the months passed.
    Polly and Bernice Godwin had worked at home as fur pullers on and off since 1853, and spent much time together. At fourteen years of age, they both wanted to find better work. Bernice had her father’s blessing to look for a job.
    “You’ll stay home, do your piece work, and keep house,” Papa had told Polly. Even so, she believed she might persuade him if she found work. With heavy competition for labor, positions rarely became available.
    “I’ve heard the Ryan paper factory needs a rag sorter,” Polly told Bernice one day. “Tomorrow, I’ll go try to get the position.”
    Bernice’s eyes became large and she shook her head. “The rags are collected from all over the city. They don’t care as some come from the worst places. The vermin, the lice, the disease—you shouldn’t want that.”
    Polly reconsidered.
    While they looked into jobs at the Jessup cotton spinning mill, Polly spoke to her brother about the possibility. “Eddie told me the boss there