A follow-up to Views.

*

Clara sank deeper into the shadows of her neighbor’s garden.

The plague-searcher skulked past, blackened fingertips clutching the white stick she used to prod the dead. The vulture took her pay from the magistrate, though Mother had only succumbed to consumption.

Clara hadn’t coin enough for the truth.
Now a red cross barred her door.

She pushed rhubarb leaves apart, peering up the street. Body collectors would soon come calling for corpses, shovels brandished like devils’ pitchforks.

Clara crept back to her open window. She’d share her stolen turnips with the guard posted on her stoop.
He kept everyone out.

*