SOME YEARS AGO
The streets of Sao Paulo were never washed clean by the rain, no matter how much of it fell. The boy danced from one broken paving stone to another, leaping the puddles and the muddy sinkholes. His lip stung, and his ribs ached, but the loaf of bread was wrapped up safe and dry inside his leather jerkin. He and Mama would eat tonight!
But when he had darted through the warren of alleys and tiptoed over the narrow bridges and pushed aside the curtain that kept the draught out of their room, he found it empty.
‘She left this for you,’ said Senhora Calvo from the next room, holding out a grubby scrap of paper. ‘You can read?’
Of course he could read. Mama had taught him, secretly, because Papa said he wanted to keep his ignorance intact. He grabbed the letter and scanned it anxiously.
‘It says she has gone to the convent. But she goes there all the time,’ he said. His mother was constantly praying, and she offered any service—cooking, washing, sweeping—to the nuns that they would allow her to perform.
His father said it was filthy papistry, but there weren’t a lot of Anglican convents in South America.
‘I don’t think,’ said Senhora Calvo gently, ‘that she is coming back this time.’
His mother had written in Spanish, probably because no one else—especially his father—would be able to read it.
I will not wait for that man any longer, and neither should you, Edo. You are old enough now, you do not need me any more. Go and see the world, and do not worry about me.
He stuffed the letter in his jerkin and raced off towards the convent, this time heedless of the puddles. The Senhora must have been wrong. Mama would be coming back for him. Papa left all the time, for weeks and months, but Mama wouldn’t leave him. Would she?
But the nuns would not allow him admittance. It was the time of the Great Silence, and grubby little boys with eyes red from crying were not to be exempted from this.
‘But I have brought her bread,’ he said, holding out the loaf. ‘I fought another boy for it. I broke his nose,’ he added, because this was one of the few things his father had thought he should be proud of.
‘Then this is the proceeds of violence,’ said the nun severely, taking the bread from him, ‘and your punishment will be to go hungry.’
‘But—’
‘Pray to the Virgin for deliverance from your sins,’ she told him, but he would not, because Papa had said they were Church of England, even though he wasn’t really sure where England was. ‘Go and find honest work to support yourself. You are old enough now, Duarte.’
‘That is not my name,’ he told her. He would not have their version of it, not now they had stolen Mama. And he would never be Edo again, not now she had let them.
The nun looked unimpressed. ‘Ed-ward, then,’ she said, making a meal of the English syllables.
‘No.’ That was even worse. ‘My name is Santiago,’ he said. If he was going to be his own man, he did not need anyone else’s name but the one he had made for himself. ‘Tell her that,’ he said, as the rain dripped off his chin and soaked through his shoes. ‘And tell my father, if he ever comes back. My name is Santiago, and I am no longer their son.’
* * *
‘Oh dear,’ said Elinor, peering at the jam pot and making a face. ‘Strawberry, really. Nobody has strawberry any more. Raspberry is the only smart flavour.’
Tiffany gazed at the pattern of roses on the plates. Were they moving before her eyes or was she imagining it?
I’m a witch, Tiffany. And so are you.
She had spent all night tossing and turning, reliving those words in her head. The cat talking to her. The green door that opened onto a grey shore. The pirate.
I’m a witch.
When she remembered that she had demonstrated her peculiarities to Aunt Esme, a relative stranger, twice, she broke out in a cold sweat.
‘Woolgathering again?’ said Elinor. ‘Really, Theophania. Did you even hear me?’
‘Er,’ said Tiffany. I wonder if his skin is that golden shade all over?
‘No, you see? How else will you know what is á la mode if you do not listen to me?’
Tiffany wanted to say that she could read about what was fashionable in a magazine, if she cared, which she didn’t. ‘I cannot imagine,’ she said.
‘No. You would have merrily gone on eating strawberry jam as if it were 1810.’ She laughed as if this would be an absurd, not to mention socially unforgivable, thing to do.
‘But Cornforth likes strawberry,’ said Tiffany. She glanced at her brother, who was frowning at his newspaper and not paying them any attention. She had a vague recollection of him visiting the nursery when she was small, and allowing her to serve him a sticky scone dripping with gloopy strawberry jam. He had gamely smiled and eaten it all, and not complained when she had got jammy fingers all over his coat.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Elinor. ‘James,’ she said to the footman, ‘tell Cook it is to be raspberry preserve from now on. Homemade, please. We are not in trade,’ she added with a shiver of revulsion.
‘But does it not take time to make raspberry preserve?’ said Tiffany, who had never before had an opinion on flavours of jam and really wished she didn’t have to fill her head with it now. ‘Are raspberries even in season?’
‘It is April,’ said Cornforth, who apparently was listening.
‘Are there not glasshouses? Really, I cannot bear all this mediocrity. Theophania, come, get dressed, we shall take a stroll around Hyde Park. Do try not to fall in the mud this time.’
‘But I was going to go and see my … er, great-aunt,’ said Tiffany, managing at the last moment to stop herself from saying ‘the irresponsibly handsome half-naked pirate whose life I helped to save yesterday’. ‘In Mayfair,’ she added for good measure.
‘I’m sure she can do without you for one day. All the time and effort we are putting into your Season, and you are spending it all with one dusty old relative I had never heard of until yesterday.’ Which was when she had found the letter Tiffany had not been clever enough in hiding. ‘Does she know any eligible young men?’
A flash of white teeth, a gold earring, the unexpected ink of a tattoo—
‘I saw Lady Brimsey yesterday,’ Elinor went on. ‘Her daughter expects a proposal this week. And I hear Lord Rothchester has asked for permission to court the Atwood girl. The younger one, not the one with the annoying laugh.’
Tiffany had met the Misses Atwood, and whilst the older daughter did have a somewhat distinctive laugh, this was at least proof that she had a sense of humour. The younger one gave a clear impression of being a doll someone had bespelled to dance and smile.
I wonder if I could bespell a doll… No, that would be terrifying.
‘Of course, the real catch of the Season would be the Duke of St James,’ Elinor prattled.
‘Isn’t he about a hundred and twelve?’ said Tiffany, wondering how she could manage to get to Aunt Esme’s house again today. Not that it had to be today, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the pirate.
Because he might have died, obviously. Not because of the golden skin and the flash of white teeth and the gold earring—
‘No, dear! The old duke died. His grandson inherited. The less said about the father the better,’ said Elinor, with a glint in her eye. She mouthed, ‘Duel. Exiled,’ then added out loud, ‘But nobody has seen hide nor hair of him. I happened to pass St James House the other day and there is still no knocker on the door. He has assumed the title, hasn’t he, Cornforth? Cornforth! What could be so interesting in that wretched newspaper?’
Cornforth looked up at them and blinked. He was a sandy-haired man with a little chin, somewhat short in stature, and brown eyes that tended towards the serious even when he wasn’t trying. He and Tiffany looked so little alike people rarely realised they were related.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Bonaparte has abolished the slave trade in France.’
‘Anthony will be delighted,’ said Tiffany, daring a glance at Elinor.
‘It won’t last,’ sniffed her sister-in-law. ‘I hear the French aren’t supporting him in the slightest.’
‘I thought ladies didn’t discuss politics?’ said Tiffany innocently, which earned her a poisonous look.
‘Come, change for a promenade,’ said Elinor, rising from her seat. ‘It is time you strolled and were seen, Theophania. How else will you find a husband, if you simply hide away all the time? Oh, and dear, do darken your eyebrows, the way I showed you? You mustn’t be too … colourless.’
Tiffany smiled tightly and allowed Morris to darken her eyebrows with a burnt clove. Apparently being colourless was only bad in one’s hair and complexion, however, because the dress she was buttoned into was a miserable sprigged muslin with barely any colour to it at all. Still, it was frilly and fashionable, which was all Elinor cared about. She would have to alter it slightly, the way she had yesterday, and do her trick of fading into the background, which…
Hah! Yes. That would be the trick to get her out of Elinor’s sight. But would it last long enough to get away properly?
You are contemplating acts of witchcraft, she told herself. You know this to be both impossible and illegal.
But since it was impossible, that probably meant it couldn’t be illegal. Yes. Who could prove such a thing?
She dutifully followed Elinor into the landau, both hoods let down so that they could see and be seen. The horses tossed their heads and trotted on calmly. Tiffany tried to see if she could hear their thoughts, but all she heard was the chatter of the street. Maybe the horses’ thoughts were lost in that. Or maybe she could only hear cats.
Or maybe you can’t hear animals at all, because what happened yesterday was a fever dream or a figment of your imagination. She simply had to return to Aunt Esme’s house to find out.
As she looked about her, Tiffany was sure there were more crows about than usual.
The drive to the park was interminable because Elinor insisted on stopping to greet every acquaintance personally. It was very important to Elinor to have a great many friends and to be held in high esteem by all of them. It was almost as important that she found their taste and connections to be inferior to her own as much as possible. With Mrs Belmont, whose daughters were of a similar age to Tiffany, she exchanged pleasantries, and then innocently enquired if they would all be attending Mrs Wildingham’s recital tomorrow.
Mrs Belmont stammered that they had another invitation, and Elinor smiled triumphantly.
‘I wager they have not been invited. Ah, Sir Henry, Lady Brougham…’
Miss Brougham was wearing a cheerful shade of blue, the sort Tiffany longed to wear. Her brother Percy exchanged a few words about a theatrical performance he had recently seen. They were a pleasant pair, affable and unbothered by their lack of what Elinor would call ‘physical charms’. As they drove away, Tiffany thought she would perhaps try to cultivate them as better friends.
‘My dear,’ whispered Elinor, not very discreetly. ‘Did you see those spots? So terribly vulgar.’
‘I hardly think he does it on purpose,’ said Tiffany.
‘Pfft,’ said Elinor. ‘And that terrible shade of blue on Miss Brougham, as if she were still a child. One could probably see her in the dark. Why do people feel the need to show off like that? Ah, Lady Greensword’—she raised her voice necessarily—‘how pleasant to see you! Now wasn’t that a wonderful musicale at Her Grace’s salon?’
It was astonishing, Tiffany thought. There was absolutely no trace of irony in Elinor’s speech. None whatsoever.
The crows were still watching her. There were two of them now.
Bird thoughts rarely make any sense. Tiffany still found herself staring intently at them.
‘Theophania! I said, won’t it be wonderful to see Kean’s Richard II? His Romeo made me swoon, I don’t mind declaring it.’ Elinor clasped a hand to her bosom, for it was fashionable to adore tragic heroes. ‘There! I am a hopeless romantic.’
‘Why is it romantic to commit suicide?’ said Tiffany, and the two older ladies gasped.
‘Have you no sensibility?’ said Lady Greensword.
‘But the Church tells us—’
Elinor’s laugh was a little too sharp. ‘It is a play, Theophania. It isn’t real. Now, come along, a little further and we shall alight for a promenade. I don’t want to get there too late.’
Too late for what? Elinor saw the same people in the same places on the same days of each week. They exchanged the same gossip about the same things. It was all so unspeakably boring, and yet it was something Elinor looked forward to so eagerly she was sitting forward in her seat, eyes darting around like a child in a sweet shop.
Tiffany followed her from the carriage and allowed herself to be promenaded around, pretending to listen to Elinor’s prattling about who was wearing unflattering outfits or marrying someone unsuitable.
She kept her responses to murmurs. She nodded and curtseyed with the barest of effort. She willed herself to become unmemorable, to fade from people’s sight. For the flowers on her skirt to blend with the flowers on the ground. For the feather in her bonnet to be simply one falling from a bird. For the crunch of her footsteps on the gravel to be merely background noise.
When Elinor paused to greet an acquaintance in an unforgivably boring hat, Tiffany hung back a little, and Elinor made no move to introduce her. The acquaintance glanced in her direction and then looked on at the rest of the crowd, her gaze simply bouncing off Tiffany as if she were a servant.
Tiffany slowed her pace. Stepped to one side. Held her breath as Elinor stopped to greet a closer friend who would definitely recognise her.
And let it out as the lady seemed not to even see her.
‘By yourself today, Lady Cornforth? Not brought that young sister-in-law with you?’
‘Oh no, Theophania is…’ Elinor turned her head a little and frowned ever so slightly. ‘She… Ah yes, she was visiting her aunt, I believe.’ Her expression cleared as she mentally rewrote the world around her.
‘How charitable.’
‘Yes. Well, I have tried to teach her how to go about in Society…’
They moved off, and Tiffany slipped away through the crowd, as unseen as a breeze, triumph roaring through her.
* * *
His dreams were full of nightmares, terrible tentacled beasts spinning themselves out of nothing and tearing him limb from limb. He dreamed of ships being dragged beneath the waves, of a child screaming, of a door between worlds.
He dreamed of a mermaid.
His mother had told him stories of the cuero, a terrifying creature that lived in the water and looked like a cowhide, but had suckers and tentacles that could squeeze a person to death and consume him. Were they real? Had a cuero emerged from the sea on the Essex coast and tried to kill him?
‘It seems unlikely,’ said a female voice. ‘Most probably the tide simply came in very quickly.’
His whole face felt like it had been filled with sand. Blinking hurt. Everything hurt. Santiago croaked, ‘The tide came alive.’
‘Yes, it can certainly seem like that sometimes, can’t it?’
She gave him something to drink, and then he fell asleep again, and it was only later he realised she’d been speaking Spanish to him.
What had actually happened? Santiago was never quite sure how much of his recollection was real and how much was a fever dream. The sea had seemed to suddenly boil and grow limbs, great muscular tentacles that were made of water somehow. In the fragment of memory he could recall, the sea had become a living thing. It had grabbed him, like a cat grabbing at a mouse, and tossed him up in the air.
He’d heard the boy shouting from the shore, and then the sea—
—the sea—
—the sea flailed and spat him out.
He wasn’t really sure about that last part. It must have been something he’d dreamt, that awful swooping feeling of flying through the air, propelled by some watery limb, arcing through the cold mist towards the muddy beach.
What followed was hard to recall. Dark, terrifying nightmares jumbled together with nausea and pain. The occasional cool hand upon his brow, the blessed relief of cold water between his lips, a quiet voice reassuring him.
He made a few attempts at waking up, but it didn’t seem to be a very pleasant experience, so he lapsed back into what was probably a drugged sleep. It was a pleasant place to be, now the fever dreams had dispersed, but it appeared he wasn’t to be allowed to dwell there for long.
‘No, it is fine. I used to sit up with my nieces and nephews when they were ill.’
A woman’s voice, followed by another. ‘Does your family know you are here?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
He heard a door close, and then footsteps came closer. Someone leaned over him; a woman, her clothes and her person sweetly scented. For a moment he thought he felt her fingers against his cheek, and then they were gone.
What he definitely did feel was her bosom, pressing against his arm. It was a very splendid bosom, full and firm, and he sighed happily at its proximity.
She, however, exhaled sharply, and sat back.
‘Mr Santiago?’ she said, in a hesitant sort of voice, as if she didn’t really want him to hear her.
‘You know me?’ he managed. He tried to blink open his dry eyes.
‘I believe we have met,’ she said.
Santiago didn’t know who she was. He barely knew who he was. ‘We have?’ he croaked. He tried to peer at her, but everything was dark.
She leaned forward and held a sort of cup with a spout to his lips. He fancied it was the sort of thing one used to feed invalids with. Ah, wonderful, he was an invalid now.
‘Yes,’ she said, as the miracle of cold water passed his lips. ‘At the Russell ball. You wore a green velvet coat.’
A green velvet coat. Yes, he had worn such a thing, during his sole venture into polite society. And now… Now he didn’t seem to be wearing much at all. Which was sometimes exactly the right thing to be wearing in the presence of a young lady and a bed—and sometimes very much not. He strongly suspected this was one of the latter times, not least because absolutely every part of him hurt.
He blinked, but his vision was bleary. And the room was quite dimly lit. If he’d met this woman, clearly she hadn’t made an impression. All he remembered from that evening was the silver dress girl, and how she’d made the chalk come to—
Wait.
‘Mr Santiago? You are breathing rapidly.’
Her cool fingers touched his brow, but that didn’t help. Mr Santiago. Who else had he met at that ball who would address him in such a fashion?
‘It was you,’ he croaked. He peered at her in the dim light. She glowed somehow, luminescent, her skin and hair pale and ethereal.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You made the chalk come to life! I saw it.’
She exhaled rapidly. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
Santiago struggled to sit up, but she pressed him back down again. He protested this as violently as he was able, which wasn’t very much. He had all the strength of a day-old kitten.
‘Please lie still. You have been quite ill.’
‘I know what I saw. You made the chalk come to life—’
‘Chalk cannot come to life, Mr Santiago, everybody knows that. Even the great Mr Turner—’
‘—and you made the sea come to life!’
At that, she paused for a moment, and then her voice sounded quite different as she said, ‘The sea came to life? What do you mean?’
‘It— It boiled, and it grew … arms,’ he said, flailing his own limbs. The swooping, violent terror of it rose in his gullet, robbing him of speech.
‘I don’t think the sea can grow arms,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘Perhaps it was seaweed.’
‘Seaweed?’ he gasped, outraged.
‘Or a … squid,’ she suggested. ‘My brother Phileas told me about a sort of jellyfish he saw on his travels. It had these huge, long tentacles, twice the length of this room. The locals said it had a sting that could kill a man. Perhaps such a thing happened to you? The tentacles might look as if they had come to life, and I imagine a nasty enough sting would cause a sort of delirium.’
Her voice was helpful, as if explaining to a small child why his flight of fantasy was charming but absurd.
‘I know what I saw,’ Santiago snarled. ‘And what I felt.’ He rubbed his ribs, where he could still feel the pressure of that immense tentacle that had grabbed and squeezed him. But that could not be real. Not in these waters.
‘I am afraid you did take a bump to the head,’ said the woman, who he was now convinced was some kind of bruja or kitsunetsuki, a malevolent spirit. A sorceress! What was the English word?
‘You made the sea come to life,’ he said, succeeding this time in sitting up, and glaring at her. He could see more of her now, her pale face and silvery hair and that bosom which had obviously been made to tempt a man beyond all reason.
‘Nobody can make the sea come to life,’ she explained, so patiently it was patronising.
‘Nobody can make chalk come to life,’ he snapped back, ‘and yet you did.’
‘I really think you should rest,’ she said, standing. ‘Perhaps after some sleep you will be able to think more clearly.’
‘I know what I saw,’ said Santiago, his head pounding. ‘You made the chalk come to life. You made the water come to life. You took my ships!’
Perhaps she was a siren, like in the myths of old. Luring sailors to their deaths. That would explain the silveriness. And the bosom.
She frowned. ‘You mean the ship that vanished off Foulness? Your boy told us about it.’
What boy? ‘The other ships!’
‘What other ships? Mr Santiago, please do not over exert yourself—’
‘My ships,’ he said, as calmly as he could through gritted teeth, ‘which you sank using the same wicked hoodoo as you used on the chalk!’
‘No other ship has sunk in the Thames for quite some time, I assure you,’ she said.
‘What about in the Mediterranean, hmm? The Bay of Biscay? The English Channel!’
‘All over the world? Mr Santiago, I have never even left England. The furthest I’ve ever been from London is Brighton.’
‘That is on the English Channel—’
‘Mr Santiago,’ she said, clearly vexed with him, but right then the door opened and the light that spilled in blinded him.
‘What is all this shouting?’ said another female voice, perhaps a little older. Perhaps the one that had spoken to him when he first awoke. He realised now that the mermaid girl had been speaking English.
‘Guv’nor! Guv’nor!’ That was a boy, rushing past the woman silhouetted in the doorway. ‘You’re alive!’
‘I told you he was alive,’ said the siren, as the boy hurled himself at Santiago’s bed.
Santiago tried to find a smile, but he was somewhat bemused. Who was this boy?
‘Yeah, but he wasn’t hardly moving. There was this cove called Bonko in this ken I kipped in once, took a bump to the head, fell asleep and never woke up again. We didn’t know he was dead ’til he started stinking.’
‘A charming tale,’ said the older woman, as the boy sniffed at Santiago. He was quite sure he smelled less than savoury, although hopefully, not dead yet.
‘You may need to remind me of your name,’ Santiago said to the boy.
‘Billy, guv. Remember, you said you was gonna give me ten bob for showing you the stuff what washed up on the beach, yeah?’
The child looked hopeful, and Santiago nodded as a vague memory emerged. He had promised such a thing. He looked around, as if expecting to see a purse of money sitting on the nightstand, but none of his possessions were in attendance. This seemed fitting, since most of his wits seemed to be absent, too.
‘And I certainly will, once I have access to my belongings,’ he said. ‘And some more besides.’ He regarded the boy, whose age was somewhat impossible to guess. The world’s cities were full of children like him: skinny, shifty creatures, like foxes. They belonged to no one. They were invisible to most. Santiago knew this, because he’d been one, once. ‘Were you injured? Are you well?’
‘Nah guv, they’ve been feeding me. I had a right wolf in the stomach, but the grub’s good, and loads of it. That lady in the kitchen makes it all fancy, like sometimes it smells at the lascars’ ken.’
Santiago was too tired to try to work out what that all meant, but the new lady, the older one, moved forward and said, ‘Madhu is from Mysore, and she often makes the food of her homeland for us. Well, as close as she can get with the ingredients available.’
‘She does? This is excellent. I have not had a good curry in England. I ship spices out of Mangalore, and rice of course.’ Santiago shook his head, and regretted it as little bursts of light appeared behind his eyes. ‘That is not the point. You,’—he turned to the girl who had worn the silver tissue dress—‘you made the sea come to life.’
Now there was more light in the room he could see she might not, perhaps, actually be a mermaid or siren, but that she was an ordinary human woman. Well, an ordinary human woman with silvery blonde hair and a magnificent bosom. She wore some shade of sea green that did nothing to help matters.
She rolled her eyes at the older woman. ‘He has clearly taken a blow to the head. I did not make the sea come to life. Nobody can.’
‘Well,’ began the older woman, then cleared her throat and said, ‘Of course not. You must rest, Mr Santiago.’
‘How do you know my name?’ he said suspiciously. ‘Witchcraft!’
‘You met Tiffany a fortnight ago,’ she said patiently.
Santiago nodded, exhaling slowly. Tiffany, yes, that was the name she had given him. Lady Tiffany, if he remembered correctly—not that remembering things correctly was much of a given right now.
‘I think perhaps you should get some rest,’ said the older woman. ‘Is there anyone you would like us to contact? Your family? A business associate?’
‘I have no family.’ He rested his arm over his eyes. Even the low light in this room was too much. ‘And my … my business associates can manage without me.’ Not that he exactly had any. He had clerks, and foremen, and captains.
‘That sounds lonely,’ said Tiffany, quietly.
Lonely? No, he wasn’t lonely. He was independent, and that was totally different.
‘I am not lonely,’ he said. ‘You cannot trap me with your siren’s words.’
She inhaled, as if about to speak, but then stopped. The other woman said, ‘You must rest, Mr Santiago. I am sure you are feeling very tired.’
Yes, he was feeling tired, now she mentioned it. Very tired indeed.
‘Just rest, and we will take care of you.’
The last thing he saw before merciful sleep took him was Lady Tiffany, watching him.