The crowd gasped. A jar of pickled beetroot toppled and rolled across the floor.
“Why are you so strange, Miss Finch?” asked little Timothy, who was missing two front teeth and all sense of tact.
The judge, a prune-faced man named Sir Reginald Hoax, declared it “unnatural.” Pobres Criaturas
The Clockwork Heart of Miss Marjorie Finch
Timothy, the toothless boy, tugged at Miss Finch’s hand. “Can you teach me how to make a flower that glows in the dark?” The crowd gasped
She appeared on a Tuesday, during a rainstorm so fierce that the gutters ran with brown foam. She was not carrying a bag, nor a parasol, nor a letter of introduction. She simply stood at the base of the town’s absurdly ornamental clock tower, looking up at its face with the expression of a mathematician solving a particularly satisfying equation.
It was then that the peculiarities began. The judge, a prune-faced man named Sir Reginald
“I killed him,” Miss Finch said, and the tent went silent as a held breath. “Not with malice. He had a heart condition. I merely... withheld his medication. He was asleep. He looked peaceful. I took his keys, his money, and his best coat, and I walked to the train station. I have been walking ever since.”