Excerpt: The Trunk Under the Stairs

“Dolly!”

“Here, Mama.”

“Find Thomas and take hold of him. He’s wandered away again, and he’ll be crushed in all these people.”

“Yes, Mama.” Dolly Sage rolled her eyes behind her mother’s back and glanced around her at the hoards of people crowding the dock. A cacophony comprised of voices calling back and forth in a dozen languages wrapped around her like a blanket. The smell of the sea mixed with coal dust and traces of perfume from the fussily dressed ladies picking their way through the press assaulted her nostrils. It was Bedlam unleashed, and she was supposed to find one little boy in the chaos. It was just like Thomas to go missing right as they were supposed to board the ship. He was always getting himself into scrapes, and, as the youngest living child, usually without consequences.

Dolly stole a glance upward, and upward, and upward at the massive floating mountain that was to be their home for the next half dozen days. Just looking at the gleaming steel of the hull sent a shiver through her. It didn’t seem possible that anything that big could stay afloat.