“Are they gone?” Marie-Anne asked clinging tightly to my arm, her nails digging into the skin.
“I—I think so.” I said freezing in the front doorway listening closely for the sound of footfalls or shuffling cloth that would mean someone was still in the house. The only sound I heard was the scuttle of a rat down in the old cellar. This close to the docks the cellar always had them. But there was nothing that would indicate the two-legged sort of scavenger I was listening for. I pushed the door open further and heard my sisters gasp with dismay. The parlor was bare, save a little wire on the walls to show where paintings and curtains had once hung and dust in the corner.

The creditors had taken everything. Even the wood stove. I could only breathe a small prayer of thanks that winter was nearly over and the signs of spring were around, we'd likely not need it.
Further exploration showed the same careful consideration to the other rooms. I had never noticed how small and dingy our house was until there was nothing in it and it seemed large and echoy. At least I thought, walking past the empty dining room, trying to ignore where the polished mahogany dining table had once stood with it's matching china cabinet, they didn't pry the glass out of the windows.
Then again they were small panes of pressed glass, riddled with bubbles and chips and probably not worth a lot.

I heard Marie-Anne whimper behind me as I opened the door to the kitchen only to shut it again quickly. It was more than empty, if that were possible, it was stripped of the new paneling and the fashionable slate floor. A rat hissed at me from the shadows of the far corner as if to show this was his room now—and I hadn't the heart to argue the point with him. We went out the back door into the back garden, and that was where Marie-Anne lost it.

She wept uncontrollably into her hands as Marie-Leah and I watched helplessly.
“Those monsters!” She sobbed. They were thorough you had to give them that. They'd taken the apple tree. They'd even dug up the bulbs and vegetables from the garden, picking back all the blooms that had braved the treacherous early spring!

I shared a glance with Marie-Leah, then glanced away, leaving my sisters to comfort each other.

“Don't cry, Annika.” Marie-Leah comforted, using an old pet name, hugging her. “We can plant it again.”
“W-we can?” Marie-Anne sniffled.
“We can, we will, and it'll be even better.” She said, a note of prayer in her voice.

“What are we going to do, Laura?” Marie-Anne asked.
“Why are you asking me?” I muttered staring off into space. I didn't have any idea.
“You're the only one who says she knows what she's doing.” Marie-Leah told me. Okay, she had me there. I took a deep breath. Steeling myself for what I would find upstairs, but knowing I needed to look, to see, if these people were greedy enough to take the flowers from the garden, there wouldn't be anything upstairs, not so much as a blanket.
It made me thankful to whatever had made me remember to take our pocket money with us. It wasn't much, no, but it would let us go to the market and buy food and maybe, with sharp bargaining, I could have enough to buy a little more. Perhaps old Mrs. Willard, the widow two doors down, who made scrap quilts would sell me three for a decent price?

But as I walked the floor of my bedroom, having found more of the same upstairs, I happened to glance up—perhaps remembering all the times I had lain upon my bed staring up at the ceiling. There were cobwebs on the ceiling, I just wasn't tall enough to reach them even standing on a chair, and so after father—well—it had been a couple of months since the ceiling had been swept down.
But that wasn't what I saw. The cobwebs were undisturbed even around the hatch—which meant no one had been up in the attic! Now there was no guarantee that there would be anything of use up in the attic, everything could be rat and moth chewed with nests of spiders in the corners. But—it was the first ray of hope I had found that morning.
The creditors had missed it, apparently, perhaps it took knowing the ceiling like I did to even see the hatch.
I first checked the root cellar, hearing the rats scurrying back, seeing their eyes glittering boldly in the light from the cellar door that I had left open. Because of the rats, it was usually left empty, the only thing of any help, but it was of much help, was a narrow, slightly rat-chewed ladder. I had to get it to the top of the cellar stairs by myself, neither of my sisters would abide with rats.
I don't know why, we'd lived around rats our whole lives, and often they were preferable company to some of the people who we'd lived around that long. But I guess ladies are supposed to be afraid of rats, and my sisters at least made the attempt at being ladies.
But once out, Marie-Leah helped me get the ladder up the stairs, helped, actually, by the fact that our vultures had taken the fashionable iron rail from the top of the stairs so we didn't have to maneuverer it around the corner.
“Be careful!” Marie-Anne whispered as I set the ladder against the wall and climbed to the hatch into the ceiling.