[CW: Neglect]

Look after the kids, I’ll be right back, Ruth had said. But it was two hours later and she hadn’t returned. The youngest one smelled so bad James couldn’t stand it anymore. He had finally taken one of the small carts from the yard, put the toddler and the baby inside, and was now dragging it along the Whitby streets, looking for his sister.
 
Sam, a little dark haired boy of two, had wrapped his arms around his baby sister, and looked around, apparently quite satisfied with the little tour. Little Lucy had put her fist in her mouth and seemed more intimidated.
 
They stopped and James put the handle on the ground. “One second, I have to pee,” James told his nephew, and he disappeared into an alley, leaving the little cart with the two children in the middle of the street. The little boy looked around wide-eyed. His baby sister began to cry.

Was this the right street? It had been half an hour since he'd last wondered that, and he hadn't inched any closer to the answer.

Malachi never minded a chance to go out and wander the streets of Whitby. He loved learning about the places he lived, of course, but some of these streets were so winding that he struggled to find his way. He had already told Mrs. Higgins earlier that he would fetch the things she needed from the shop, though, and he was not about to turn around.

He walked leisurely, hands hidden away in his pockets. What appeared to be the fading edge of a bruise peeked above his collar.

(He'd been hiding it well enough with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, in the presbytery. Out here, he didn't bother, and no one noticed much.)

He was about to turn off and try his luck on another street when a cart caught his eye, maybe twenty feet ahead. Were those... children in the cart? Abandoning his plan, Malachi approached them, brows drawn together in concern.

"Hello," he greeted once he'd neared the cart, voice kept as soft as he could manage. "Are you here alone?"

The children stared up at Malachi. The baby had stopped crying for a moment, staring at the priest, but then began to cry even louder. The little boy shook his head and put his thumb in his mouth.

James came running out of the alley. "They're mine!" he shouted. Uh-oh. That guy. He stopped a few feet away from the cart.

Oh, dear. The little one was sucking his thumb, and the littler one was crying, and the smell coming off of one (or both) of them was awful. Malachi stepped back to get a better look around the immediate area, but another child came running out of an alley.

"...Mister Ward?"

That had been his name, Malachi was pretty sure. Concerned, he asked, "what are you doing out here?"

"I'm not a Ward," said James confused, before remembering that he had pretended to be Bram. "I mean... my mother is..." He approached slowly, wondering whether the priest would hit him or take him to the police for stealing the candles. He stopped behind the cart, far away enough to run if it should be necessary. "I'm lookin' for me sister. Her kid smells." He waved at the baby girl.

Not a Ward. The boy had given a fake name then.

So young, yet he already knew how to steal from a church and give a priest a fake name. Malachi's frown only deepened as he observed the children, but he made no attempt to get closer than he already was.

"Yes," he agreed lightly. "Where did your sister say she was going? I can help you find her."

Were priest particularly good at finding people? Maybe they had special magic tricks like Jesus and they would say a prayer and just know. "She was gonna see a friend and get food..." he said. She had promised to give him food later, but it was already later and he still didn't have food.

"Oh... well."

So the sister just left them here. Right. Malachi took a moment to process that.

"Do you live around here?"

He could at least take them home, back to their parents, right?

James tilted his head a little. Was the priest going to send the coppers to his house? It was a common occurrence, but they usually didn't come for James. "I live near Tate Hill Pier..." he said vaguely. The nearer to the pier, the more it said: slum. "Why?" he added suspiciously. "I didn't steal nothing, ser. I was gonna give you the candles back, but I forgot and then I lost them and couldn't bring them back. I didn't steal."

The candles? Why was the boy talking about the candles again?

Perhaps he thought Malachi had come to take them back, or to punish him, or... any other number of things that he wished the child didn't have to consider.

"I know," he assured. "They're yours, I don't need them. I just want to help you."

Whatever those words meant to this child, he didn't know, but he suspected they weren't ones he often heard.

"Did your sister say where her friend is?"