“I found this in the rags box,” I told them, my eyes on Mrs. Penn. I unwrapped the box again and opened it up. The boys, who a minute ago had backed away, were once more crowded around the table, staring down at the box, their eyes round with excitement.
“That’s a lot of money!” Frances said. “More than anyone else in the whole world has.”
“Yeah, that’s a lot,” Carlo echoed. “A big lot.”
Mrs. Penn looked at me, her eyes almost as wide as the boys’. “Thank you for bringing this to us, but you could have taken this money, Shama, and we’d never have known about it. Why didn’t you?”
I was stunned by her words. “But it wasn’t mine,” I said. What was she implying? Had she thought I might do something like that?
Mrs. Penn smiled at me, touched her hand to my face, then glared at the officer. “I told you, so,” she said. I looked from Mrs. Penn to the Officer Krugel. Was it true that they thought I might be a thief? Was that the explanation they’d come up with for why I’d left my former village? For the first time, I wondered if I should tell them the truth, explain what had happened. Was being a witch less evil in their eyes than being a criminal?
Mrs. Penn carefully rewrapped the box and pushed it over to the officer.
“Frank, would you take this money, count it, and then put it in the vault at the station, please? We’ll have to discuss with the Council exactly what we should do with it. Maybe house maintenance or orphanage salaries? Or savings for a rainy day? Are we sure that Mrs. Smith had no heirs?
Officer Krugel looked completely stunned, his jaw firmed into tightness as if cast in iron. What had caused such rigidity? Was he afraid someone would steal the money before he could put it in the station’s safe?
He glanced at me, then looked away, but in that moment, his eyes seemed softer, as if he was no longer bound to glare at me in constant disapproval mode. Had I earned some breathing space from his constant inquisitions?
Turning her head to look my way again, Mrs. Penn gave me a fond smile. “Thank you, Shama. Thank you for your honesty. It bodes well for your upbringing.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. Had one or more of my house parents instilled morals in my childhood? It was hard to recall any such teachings, but maybe there had been. Old Mother was the only one I remembered having such talks with. But it was nice to think that the village had given me positive scruples. I really didn’t want to think that everything there had been a vile negative. Perhaps there’d been some good spots along the way, I mean, before they decided to kill me.