Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster Read online

  “The sweep?” the voice said, confused. “We haven’t any sweeps here. Are you sure you’re not . . . an egg?”

  Nan heard the sounds of suppressed laughter. It was the girls from Miss Bloom’s class. Apparently they still hadn’t cracked the riddle. Not that that mattered right now.

  Nan took a calming breath. “I need someone to fetch my master,” she said. “His name is Wilkie Crudd.”

  “I didn’t know eggs could talk,” the girl said. “I must be imagining things.”

  Nan imagined ripping the girl’s pigtails clean from her scalp. “Please?” she called. “I am trapped in here, and I need help.”

  She heard a murmur of voices below as someone else entered the room. “Girls? Get back from there.” It was the teacher, Miss Bloom. “Hello?” Her voice rang up through the flue. “Who is that?”

  “It’s the climbing girl,” Nan called. “The one who reads!” She didn’t know why she said that part. What other climbing girl could it be? “I’m stuck in a flue, and I need someone to fetch my master.”

  There was a flurry of activity and voices. Nan waited in the darkness while maids were sent out in search of Crudd. “Help will be here soon,” the teacher called up to her. “Please forgive my students for not responding with the grace and concern befitting a Mayhew girl.” Nan could tell from the teacher’s tone that every one of them would be in trouble. That was something, at least.

  Nan’s panic slowly subsided and was replaced by hunger and embarrassment. If the Sweep could see her now, what would he say? She could feel the char in her pocket—uncomfortably warm against her leg. She had always thought of the Sweep’s gift as a lucky talisman. Not lucky enough, it seemed.

  She closed her eyes and shuddered to think what Crudd would make of such a mistake. This was not the sort of thing an apprentice did.

  Finally, after what felt like hours, Miss Bloom’s voice returned. “We’ve found someone to help you,” she called up. “He’s coming now.”

  Nan heard footsteps on the roof. There was a scraping sound directly overhead, and bits of soot sprinkled down as the chimney cap was pulled away. She blinked at the ray of blinding light above her. “Master Crudd?” she called.

  A silhouette blocked out the light as someone peered down at her.

  It did not look like Crudd.

  “Well, well, well,” said a thin voice. “If it isn’t Cinderella.”

  ROGER

  For as long as Nan had known Roger, they had been rivals. The two had first met shortly after Nan had lost the Sweep. In fact, it had been Roger who had discovered her on Crudd’s roof and taken her to his master. Nan had the vague impression that Roger had hoped to make a friend of her. But Crudd had made that impossible. “I am not running a charity,” he had said once Nan had scribbled her initials on a seven-year contract. “I cannot afford to feed another climber. Each day, whichever of you sweeps more chimneys gets supper. The other one gets slops.”

  So every day they swept.

  And Nan got supper.

  And Roger got slops.

  Nan knew all this. But she could not know—not truly—how this rivalry had shaped the boy. In the years that followed, she had become a sort of mortal enemy to Roger. The source of his every misery. The eternal obstacle standing in his path.

  And now she was at his mercy.

  “Are you going to help me or not?” she called up from the darkness. She knew it was important not to sound scared—that would only make Roger realize how much she needed him.

  The boy peered down at her, his head dark against the sky. She could not see his features, but she knew he was smiling. “Oh, dear,” he said. “It seems the great Nan Sparrow has got herself stuck in a flue.”

  “I bet you’re loving this.” Nan adjusted herself. “Where’s Crudd?”

  “The master’s off on weddings,” Roger said. “So I guess it’s up to me to pull you out.” He rapped some hardened soot with the end of his brush. Chunks tumbled down the length of the chimney and pelted Nan in the face. “Afraid it’s a bit narrow for me to climb. I’m getting too big for these square nines. So are you, it seems.”

  “Send Whittles, then!” Nan called. “Or Shilling-Tom!”

  “Sadly, I gave the boys the afternoon off. Seems you’re stuck with me.” There was something about the way he said this that made her uncomfortable.

  “I’m here, too, Nan!” a smaller voice called. Newt’s face appeared in the top of the chimney. “I can get you out!”

  “No,” Nan said firmly. Newt was too inexperienced for a chimney like this. She didn’t need another stuck climber to worry about. “Let Roger handle it.”

  “And handle it I will!” Roger rubbed his chin. “Only it’s a bit tricky. You’re wedged pretty far down. And from what I can see there’s no hope of getting rope or rig around you.” He was right about this. “Only way I see out of this is if you get yourself free. And for that, we’ll need special motivation.”

  Nan felt a prickle of nausea as she realized what he was saying. “You can’t mean . . .”

  “I can, and I do!” Roger leaned back from the opening. “Newt, this morning you asked about a thing called ‘the Devil’s Nudge.’ I say it’s time we showed you.”

  THE DEVIL’S NUDGE

  Nan felt a cold sweat forming on her brow. “The Devil’s Nudge?” For a moment, she thought Roger might be joking. But this was Roger. Roger, who cheated by adding sawdust to his soot. Roger, who stole coins from beggars’ cups. Roger, who kicked dogs just to hear them yelp. Roger, who would do anything to prevent Nan from making apprentice.

  “Roger!” she shouted, straining against the walls of the flue. The char in her pocket was snagged against the rough brick, preventing her from moving up or down. “Please, listen to me!”

  But he was already gone. She could hear footsteps running down the edge of the roof. She thrashed her head, trying to pull herself free. She had to get out of the chimney. Had to get free before—

  “Miss me?” called a cheery voice beneath her. “Just sit tight, and you’ll be out in no time. Most of you, anyway.”

  Nan took a deep breath. She knew Roger wasn’t trying to kill her. He wanted to hurt her, certainly. But he didn’t understand just how stuck she was. “Roger, listen to me!” She tried to keep her voice calm. “I know you think this will work, but—”

  “That’s the first rule with the Devil’s Nudge.” Roger was talking to Newt. “Don’t let them talk you out of it. They may have to break a few of their own bones to get out, but they’ll get out just the same.”

  “But what is it?” Newt’s voice echoed up. “What’s the Devil’s Nudge?” He sounded even more scared than Nan.

  “It’s just what it sounds like. A nudge.”

  Nan closed her eyes. She could almost hear Roger reaching into his coat pocket and removing a single match.

  Newt cried out, “You’ll burn her up!”

  “You sit still or I’ll shove you up there with her!”

  There were sounds of a struggle, and then she heard Newt yelp.

  “Leave Newt alone!” Nan screamed.

  She heard more commotion as the door swung open. “I heard shouting.” It was the teacher. “Is the girl all right?” And then, “What are you doing with that match?”

  “Official sweep business, ma’am. Stand back.” There was the sharp scratch of phosphorus against stone. Nan caught the sharp smell of sulfur. “Everyone thinks you’re the better climber, Cinderella,” Roger’s voice hissed up from below. “Let’s see if they still think that when you’re too cooked to hold a broom.”

  “Roger!” Nan shouted. “Roger, no—” Her cries were cut off by a hollow whoof as the match hit the coals. Air sucked down through the chimney, like a beast drawing a deep breath.

  First came the smoke, a thick black tendril that slid up the flue and snaked around her neck. She coughed and felt her eyes water.

  Next came the heat. It started as a prickling sensation on her back and hee
ls, then spread up her legs. Within seconds, the warmth had turned to a blistering heat. “Roger, you win!” she shrieked, releasing her last lungful of air. “I’ll quit Crudd! I’ll quit climbing! Just PUT OUT THE FIRE!”

  She could hear Roger holler something below, but his words were swallowed by the roaring of the flames.

  Her entire body felt as if it were burning from the inside out. The char in her pocket had gotten so hot that she thought it would burn a hole clean through her. Both of her eyes were stinging, and tears were streaming down her face.

  Animal instinct took over, and she clawed and wriggled, desperate to climb free of the smoke. She heard a sickening pop, and a terrible pain ripped through her right shoulder.

  She ignored the pain and kept climbing higher. The heat was no longer just coming from below. The char in her pocket had somehow caught fire and was searing her thigh like a brand. The flue seemed to tighten around her like a fist. Smoke slithered down her throat and into her lungs.

  “Help . . . ,” she gasped with her final ounce of life. “Help . . .”

  And then Nan Sparrow burned.

  STORY SOUP

  Sometimes, on nights when there was no food to eat, the girl and her Sweep used to make story soup. The girl would fill her pockets with trash that she found on the streets—scraps of paper or trampled strings or bits of colored glass. At the end of the day, she would present these things to the Sweep. “Make story soup!” she would tell him.

  “Oh-ho!” the Sweep would always exclaim, rubbing his belly with both hands. “You’ve brought us ingredients for a right feast!”

  He would look at the ingredients, holding each one between his blackened fingers like a crown jewel. “Mmm,” he would say slowly. “Very interesting, this one. Lots of potential.”

  “Into the pot!” the girl would shout. She used to go mad with impatience. The Sweep always took too long with this part.

  The Sweep would remove his hat in a special way—rolling it between his fingers like a magician. He would nestle the crown in his lap and put the ingredients inside. He would mix them around with the end of his broom. Sometimes he would hum. He used to close his eyes and pretend to smell the story cooking inside. He would add imaginary pinches of salt and pepper. And then he would open his eyes and serve up a piping hot story.

  He might reach into the hat and produce half of an oyster shell. “There once was a haberdasher who made caps for fairies. But one day he entered his workshop to find that his caps had been stolen. . . . His only clue: one strand of hair left on the ground.” And so saying, he might produce a tattered bit of string. The Sweep would take out each object as he talked, weaving it into the story. Before long, he would have worked in the glass and paper scraps and whatever other ingredients she had brought for story soup.

  And even though they had eaten nothing, the girl still ended her day with a belly full of story—which sticks to the ribs even better than mutton.

  There was one pot of story soup that the girl would never forget. The Sweep had been collecting ingredients for a long time—gathering them and keeping them but never using them. She would watch him review the objects before bed, placing each one in the crown of his hat. “A doll’s eye for wonder . . . ,” he would mutter. “A feather for kindness . . . a thimble for mending . . . a wooden chessman for courage . . . a swaddle for warmth.”

  The girl knew these ingredients. She could not remember where the Sweep had gathered them, but she had the sense that he had been collecting them for many years. She knew they were important.

  “Can we make story soup tonight?” the girl said one night. “If you are too tired, I can make it.” The Sweep had not eaten any food for many days. The girl thought story soup might make him feel better.

  The Sweep looked at her, and his expression carried something she could not understand. “Not yet.” He folded a scrap of soft blue cloth and gently laid it in his hat. “There is one final ingredient.”

  “What is it?” The girl leaped to her feet. She thought it might be a new sort of game. “I’ll bet you’ve hidden it for me to find!”

  “No.” The Sweep closed his eyes. The spaces beneath his lids were hollow and dark. “It is not hidden.”

  “Tell me, and I can fetch it,” she said.

  The Sweep shook his head and secreted the ingredients back into his pockets. His hands were shaking. “Soon enough you will know the story.” The way he said this, it made the story sound like something he did not want to tell.

  Of course, this made her want to hear it all the more.

  But the girl never heard that last story.

  She never learned what that final ingredient was.

  ALIVE

  Nan Sparrow was not dead.

  She had been dreaming of the Sweep. They had been together, making story soup—something she had all but forgotten about. Little Nan had crawled inside his hat to find the ingredients, and the crown of the hat had turned into a burning chimney. She remembered crying out for the Sweep, trying to escape. And then . . .

  She was alone.

  Nan released a whimper. She could feel a cold wooden floor beneath her. She must have lost consciousness during the nudge. But if so, how did she escape?

  She tried to swallow. Her throat was cracked and dry. A carapace of soot encased her lips and nose and eyelids. She scraped the soot from her eyes, which stung and watered. She blinked, trying to see where she was.

  She saw rafters directly above her.

  She saw her own breath.

  She saw cobwebs and shadows and a thin shaft of moonlight.

  She was curled up in a ball on a bare floor. When she moved, motes of dead ash rose from her body, swirling in the light.

  How long had she been there?

  Nan saw hunks of charred rubble scattered around her. She put her hands on the floor and forced herself to sit up. Her shoulder winced in protest, but she persisted. Nan’s eyes had adjusted to the moonlight. She could see a chimney stack that had collapsed in on itself—a black abscess of bricks and mortar devoured by fire. It was the seminary chimney.

  Nan was in a low crawl space above the attic—barely large enough for her to stand in. A porthole window at one end let in shafts of pale light. She ran her fingers over the seam of a dusty trapdoor. It looked like it hadn’t been opened in years. Nan turned back to the destroyed chimney. She rubbed her throbbing head. The last thing she remembered was crying for help. She must have pushed a hole through the wall of the burning chimney the moment before she passed out. How else could she have escaped?

  She looked down at her clothes, which were charred and tattered. She noticed the place where her pocket had burst into flame. The skin was pink and new—tender, like the flesh beneath a scab. She checked her arms and legs and even the soles of her feet. Somehow she had not gotten one single burn.

  She should have been crushed by the rubble, burned by the fire. But somehow she had survived. Had she been passed out long enough to heal from her injuries? Surely not.

  The ache in her head had subsided to a dull throbbing, and she now realized that she was very cold. She looked around for something with which to cover herself, to fend off the chill. She noticed something on the floor beside her. It was small and round and dark gray.

  It was her char.

  That little clod of soot had warmed her on many a cold night. It must have tumbled from her pocket when she broke through the chimney wall. Nan pulled herself to her knees and crawled toward it. She reached out a trembling hand. But as she did, something unusual happened—

  The char moved.

  It did not move far. It rolled only far enough to escape her grasp. Nan had seen the char roll before. It would sometimes tumble from her open palm in the mornings. But never with such intention.

  She shook her head clear and reached for it again—

  The char moved again.

  Now Nan was certain it had happened. There was a gray smear on the floorboards where it had rolled. She crouched on
her heels and readied both hands. “If you think you can get away from me, you’ve got another think coming.” She lunged forward—aiming not where the char was but where it would be when it tried to dart away.

  “Got you!” she cried as she crashed to the floor. She had the thing cupped in her hands. She could feel it twitching against her fingers—flustered, panicked—expanding and shrinking like a racing heartbeat.

  Nan’s heart was racing, too.

  She sat up and slowly, slowly opened her hands, staring at the thing inside.

  She knew the Sweep’s gift as well as she knew her own self. It was the same lump of charred soot she had carried with her for five years—every pock and divot was where it had always been. Only something had changed. It was trembling. It was alive.

  Whatever happened inside that chimney must have changed the char—brought it to life. All thoughts of thirst and cold and pain left Nan. All she could think about was this little thing. It seemed so frightened. And it was so small.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. “I won’t hurt you.” She ran her thumb gently along the side. She didn’t know why.

  The thing became still. It settled into her palm. Again she noticed the two divots etched into its face—dark as a shadow’s shadow. They looked so much like eyes.

  Nan stared at the thing. The thing stared back. Its warmth radiated up her arms and through her whole body. She did not question whether the Sweep had meant for this to happen: She knew at once that this little creature was not a mistake.

  Her vision blurred with tears, and she blinked. “Hello, little thing,” she whispered. “I’ve waited so long to meet you.”

  The thing blinked back.

  A NAME

  The Sweep had raised Nan to believe in impossible things. He had told her countless stories of genies and dragons and witches and fairies. He had made her believe that a thousand wonders were waiting around every corner. But she had learned through hard experience that those stories were not the real world.