"Pudding Lane? What's with that name?"
Shard walked through the narrow alley to the crossroads, identified the street sign, and continued westward. Soon enough, he found No. 8 Pudding Lane. Outside the low shanty was a simple yard, where a slightly older girl was holding her brother's hand while they played. A woman with a blank expression was struggling at a basin, pounding clothes with a stick.
Beside her was a pile of clothes stacked like a small mountain, and the yard was filled with clothes hanging to dry. Clearly, she was a washerwoman doing laundry for others, probably the sole source of income for the family.
The afternoon spring breeze from the Duin River blew into the yard through the fog, causing the clothes on the clothesline to sway slightly. But there was not the slightest hint of spring vitality in this scene; it rather looked like a group of people hanging lifelessly, swaying in the wind like corpses.
"Hello."
