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Someone was chasing her. Mary could hear his footsteps, sometimes even his breathing. He was following her - following her. But she couldn’t remember why. She couldn’t remember who he was.

The cobblestones stung her bare feet, and the dampness of the night penetrated her the threadbare wool of her red dress and pricked her skin. Her hair, still moist from the intermittent rain of the day, bonded to the perspiration on her cheek. It didn’t come loose when she gave her head a shake, but she daren’t take her hands from her pockets to push it away.

Up ahead, the flame of a streetlight hung in the midst of the London fog like some kind of giant spirit. She hated the lights at night; they were too much like eyes watching her. Always watching. She broke out of the crooked skipping pace in which she had been running and shot a glance around the street for something to throw at the light.

“Rock... I need a rock. C’mere, rock.” A lump lay in the gutter. “Good rock.” She poked it with a dirty toe, and a hard loaf of bread rolled out of the shadows. “Huh.” She darted a glance at the glass-encased flame high above, then back at the bread. “You’ll work.”

She eased her right hand from her dress pocket and reached across her body to clamp her left hand over the opening and keep the coins and jewelry from spilling out. “C’mere, bread—”

“Mary!”

She jerked her hand away from the bread and stared into the darkness down the street. The lights behind her had already been smashed. Only waving shadows were visible through the growing masses of fog. But she could hear the footsteps running towards her, echoing against the tenements that packed the squalid street.

“Mary! Don’t run from me!”

Breath hissed between her lips. Her eyes still on the shadows that writhed outside the sphere of light, she reached out again and closed her fingers around the bread.

“Better come back. I know you’re afraid of the lights.” The voice laughed. “They’re watching you, Molly. They tell me where you are!”

Her throat clamped. She spun away and heaved the bread at the lamp. It struck the lantern, shattering the glass. The flame guttered in the burst of cold air, but she didn’t stay to watch like she usually did. She tore down the street, her left hand still clutching her pocket. The lights told him! They told him I killed all those lights. I killed ‘em, I killed ‘em.

Behind her, the footsteps came faster. Her heart pounded in her throat, nearly choking her. It’s Colin! I remember, it’s Colin. He was angry with her because she’d taken something from him. She wrinkled her forehead. What? What had she taken? The coins in her pocket rattled, and she clutched at them again. The money and the jewelry—that’s what she took. It was the money. But why’d she take it?

She had forgotten once again.

Up ahead, another lamp cast its yellow-green light against the fog, but she didn’t dare stop to put it out. She cast it a frantic glance. Don’t tell him! Don’t tell him I killed the others!