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    Keeping Your Head...
    Keeping Your Head...
    Keeping Your Head...
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    Keeping Your Head...

    By Suzy Stewart Dubot

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Terror is rife in the city’s streets. Fourteen-year-old Flora has been given refuge in a slum cellar, along with her mother and older sister, but it is only a matter of time before they are found.
    To survive, they are forced to separate, and Flora wonders if they will ever meet again.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSuzy Stewart Dubot
    Release dateSep 25, 2015
    ISBN9781310620522
    Keeping Your Head...
    Author

    Suzy Stewart Dubot

    An Anglo/American who has lived in France for nearly 40 years, she began writing as soon as she retired. She moved to London in 2012 and spent more than a year there with family. The spring of 2014, she returned to France, Her laptop has never had any trouble following her.Before retiring, she worked at a variety of jobs. Some of the more interesting have been : Art and Crafts teacher, Bartender, Marketing Assistant for N° 1 World Yacht Charterers (Moorings), Beaux Arts Model, Secretary to the French Haflinger Association...With her daughters, she is a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights! She is also an admirer of William Wilberforce.(If you should read her book 'The Viscount's Midsummer Mistress' you will see that she has devoted some paragraphs to the subject in Regency times.)PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH TO LEAVE A REVIEW FOR ANY BOOK YOU READ (hers included).

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      Book preview

      Keeping Your Head... - Suzy Stewart Dubot

      Keeping Your Head…

      by

      Suzy Stewart Dubot

      Copyright©Sept. 2015 Suzy Stewart Dubot

      Published on Smashwords

      ISBN: 9781310620522

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

      http://suzystewartdubotbooks.weebly.com

      www.smashwords.com/profile/view/suzybazaar

      Smashword License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Cover design: Suzy Stewart Dubot

      Chapter 1

      Flora

      Flora’s fingers skimmed the damp walls as she made her way down dark alleys. She knew too well these dank, unsavoury passages for their sewerage and their miserable inhabitants, but she preferred the risk of catcalls and oaths to that of a far greater risk — certain death. Taking the more salubrious route would increase her chances of discovery and that ignoble end.

      Her eyes had adjusted to the limited light given when moonbeams slipped past the overhanging buildings bordering the passageways. She breathed a little easier as she neared her destination. She patted the paper packet in her cape’s pocket to comfort herself that the endeavour had been worth the anxiety which had settled in the pit of her stomach. Only a few more steps around the next corner to find semblance of safety in a cellar. Who could have imagined the year before that she would be grateful for such a pathetic shelter?

      Where once there had been grating at street level, a gaping hole now acted as an open window. It was their only source of fresh air (if you could call it fresh), which helped reduce the cellar’s dampness. When the sun shone, there were five minutes in the afternoon when its rays reached that opening to shine down upon them and renew their flagging spirits. There was little else in their lives to revive any hope of regaining a way of life now lost to them.

      As Flora descended the steps and entered the cellar, her mother welcomed her into the hovel with a quick kiss to her chilled cheek. Flora’s older sister Fanny was huddled in a corner with blankets around her shoulders. She veered from shivering chills to hot flushes which made her sweat. The lit stub of a candle revealed her eyes were bright with a fever. The folded paper packet in Flora’s care held a powder which was meant to reduce her temperature and relieve her aches. If it didn’t work, they had no alternative remedy or recourse. The uncontrolled furore which was rampant in the city, accompanied by its horrors, had left them doubting even God was capable of coming to their succour. There was no one else they could ask.

      With a shaking hand, Fanny took the cup of water with the dissolved powder. She gulped it down greedily while the bread her mother had encouraged her to eat lay on a wooden trencher on the floor next to her. She had no appetite.

      Flora scanned her mother’s face for signs of hope, but the feeble light from what was left of the candle masked her face in shadows. Only tomorrow would tell if the powder had been effective.

      The pallet of rags was the bed the three of them shared.

      This cellar with its pitiful contents was a refuge they had not dared to refuse. Not only was it far from their own home, but it was in the poorest part of the city where few would think to look for them. Those in the vicinity in similar conditions would suppose they were of the same ilk; the scum of the city living from thieving or prostitution.

      Flora dreaded to think what would become of them if something happened to Claude. He brought them the bread and hard cheese which sustained them. It was he who had got them the cellar, which belonged to his aged, witless uncle.

      Perhaps she would have to resort to thieving or prostitution to save them if things did not improve. It would be unfair to expect Claude to support them indefinitely when he toiled long hours for a meagre living. She was not a naïve child anymore, and she knew that neither her mother nor Fanny were capable of surviving on their own. Funny to think that at fourteen, she had emerged as the strongest of the trio.

      The three of them curled together on the pallet for the night. In this miserable existence which had been forced upon them, there was still comfort to be had. Her mother’s arms around her brought a cynical smile to her lips as it warmed her heart. In their old

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