Of Mist and Mirrors

by Rebecca Connolly

But she knew that button. She knew every detail, every scratch, every faint etching, and she knew the tiny initials that had been laboriously scratched into the underside. She knew that leather strap it hung upon, and she knew where it had come from. She had cut that strap herself. Had threaded the button upon it. Had worn the charm herself as a talisman against danger and loneliness. Had clung to it during hundreds of dark nights while crying for her losses. It was her button, her leather, her talisman. She had not seen it in almost fourteen years. Not since the night she had happened upon a scene on the London docks where a young man had been shot by whatever contact he’d come to meet and had been left for dead. She had been a street urchin then, one of dozens running around various parts of London with the sort of willful independence that only luck could provide.