I ran as I’d never run before. My thief was quick, darting around cabs with the energy of a much younger man. The ground was slippery and a light but icy rain fell around us. I knew how to run in the wet. I’d spent my youth being the thief myself. Unfortunately, this man was just as skilled.
My thief darted onto Haymarket. I followed. He’d kept to quieter streets, ducking between terraces, houses and shops to switch between laneways, but now the streets were getting busier. I saw it before him; Pall Mall ahead. Any quest forward would bring him closer to the Palace and a bevy of law enforcement. Trafalgar and St James Square awaited him on either side.
He stopped, then darted alongside a theatre. I gained ground. The road in the alleyway was uneven. We splashed in the puddles collected in its potholes. I saw my chance, felt that mischievous spark. I froze the muddy slush beneath my thief’s feet. He slid and stumbled. I caught up, grabbing him by the collar, and threw him against the wall. My thief gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. He dropped what he’d stolen from me: the History.
The book splayed open and its pages landed in the half-frozen slush on the ground. I scooped it up quickly, more to save it from this fiend than any concern for the pages. The History had survived bookworms, fire, and decades at the bottom of the ocean. A bit of ice and mud was nothing. But for another soul to touch it. I remembered my first encounter with the enigmatic book and prayed it hadn’t spilled its secrets.
I observed my thief further. His hair was black and covered by a cap that bulged despite it being comically oversized, suggesting he had quite a head of hair. He was slim; his clothes stooped him. His face looked young with its smattering of freckles, but dark hollows under his eyes spoke of many years on this earth.
I took a step closer. A pair of bright blue eyes glared at me with a fierceness not seen in men thrice his size. Something wasn’t quite right.
Finally, I saw it. ‘Ah.’
I pulled a small penknife from my coat pocket. Those furious blue eyes went wide. I advanced on him, then, a sudden flick! – the blade cut through his shirt. The binding underneath split open, revealing the shape and cleavage of a woman’s bosom.
She seemed neither ashamed nor threatened by this sudden reveal. She just smiled.
‘You have bested me, sir,’ she said. Her accent was French, her tone exaggerated in the way women deliver their most insincere flattery. ‘Bravo.’
‘Bravo indeed,’ I said as I fished into the left pocket of her trousers in a rather ungentlemanly fashion and retrieved my pocket-watch.
‘I would like the book, sir.’
I was shocked by her brazen request. ‘You’ll be lucky if I don’t drag you to the authorities.’
‘Very well. You may keep the book for now,’ she said, and made to leave.
I caught her arm.
‘What’s your interest in the book?’
She tried to shake free. I held on.
‘Exit, pursued by a bear,’ she joked, eyeing my ill-kempt hair and the scars that ravaged my face.
‘What’s your interest in the book?’ I repeated.
‘I like to read,’ she said. ‘And I am very clever.’
I am very clever. I was reminded of an incident in the Reading Room, just a few weeks before. I’d found some obscure tome on botany thought lost in the 1700s. When asked how I’d found it, I responded with the exact same retort. I began to feel sick. Had those eyes that now bore into mine looked upon me before?
I felt it then – icy damp under my arm, right where I held the History. Was the book wet? How could that be?
She yanked free of my grip and ran off.
I hugged the History all the way home, too afraid to open it. I was apprehensive about my thief’s time with the History. I reached out to the door that led to my humble home and focused on the raindrops by the brass knocker. I imagined the twin molecules of hydrogen circling that single one of oxygen, then slowed them. The raindrops froze from the knocker out. I could still wield mischief. As I went inside, I flicked the air. The ice evaporated. Tiny wisps of steam danced across the polished wood.
I bolted every lock. I searched the rooms. No one. I checked the windows, bolted them too. I’d been cautious long before the History, with good reason, and praised myself for adding the extra security all those years ago.
I went to my bedroom and locked the door. Only then, settled at my desk, did I open the History. It was wet. Pages sticking together. I carefully opened it to the section that had touched the road. A name was bleeding out of recognition, not in the way the History did when it hid itself, but like ink naturally dispersing from the touch of water.
When I first got the History, I’d thrown it into the fireplace. I’d poured a whole bottle of wine on its open pages. I’d left it in a fish bowl for a week. It always remained unscathed. Now this.
I tried to read the distorted name. I looked at the pages before it, trying to remember. Only three pages were affected. The water was being kept at bay, as if the History amassed a barrier between the sodden pages and the rest of the book. I remembered Bezawit. I still held her memories. I went back, to the man before her. An ocean. Flashes of war. Cannon fire. But those images dissolved, forgotten.
I lit the fire and sat by it, holding the pages out to dry. I tried to remember. Who came before? Me. Bezawit. Then who? I felt a sharp pain in my head, as if the memories were leaching away through burst blood vessels. Something horrible had happened. This book had survived thousands of years and countless attempts at destruction. I begged the paper to dry, the ink to reform. My nose bled. I wiped it absently on my shirt.
I sat in front of the fire until I ran out of wood. At least a day came and went. The pages dried in ripples like normal paper. Distorted, stiff, discoloured. Once I gathered the courage to finally close the History, the dried pages crunched. I took it to bed and cried, as no man should ever cry. Perhaps you’d concede that a man who worked and lived in the British Museum was a man unduly obsessed with the conservation of rare human relics, and as such, allowances could be made for such hysterics. As I drifted off to sleep, I knew that if the History was to record my feats, it would record the truth. I was afraid that this great gift was no longer mine.
‘Archie?’
How many times could I instruct Will to leave me alone? I wouldn’t say it again.
It had been four. I resisted the urge to correct him.
‘Your absence has been noted at the museum. Mr Blythe visited this morning.’
Percy. The Superintendent of the Reading Room. How very boring.
Softer then, Will spoke. ‘Please, speak to me. Let me know you’re alright.’
I was not alright. Whatever was happening to the History was happening to me. I spent the days and nights in a fog, as a pain migrated through my head like a parasite feasting its way through my grey matter. My self-confinement had been filled with monstrous nightmares and wicked daydreams. Every time I slept, I met my thief again, this time in the Reading Room. The whole room was on fire, its Pantheonesque dome enveloped. Yet, nothing really burned. We sat together on the Superintendent’s desk, the flames licking at our bodies, untouched.
‘Isn’t it cold?’ was all she said to me.
On the third day locked away, I had tried a humble experiment. I added a drop of water to an as yet untouched page, testing if it would repel the liquid as normal. To my horror, the page sucked the water in. Once it dried, the spot was crinkled, minor water damage, but the name and memories that lived in the page survived. Still, I didn’t experiment again.
In all the History’s memories, nothing could explain what was happening. I hypothesised that perhaps the History was reacting against my thief, but the History had been stolen, abandoned, given away and lost countless times before. I couldn’t account for what caused this. Unless … there was something ominous in the book. A page at the back, stained with a name smudged out. I always forgot it was there unless something prompted me to look, a feeling normally, something unsettling. The foreboding that lived in that page hung in the air now. Was something leaching out? I couldn’t escape the thought that it was something I’d done.
Will banged on the door. ‘Archie! I will break down this door if you don’t speak to me!’
I relented. ‘I’m fine. Working.’
‘You’ve never locked me out before.’
I didn’t respond.
‘Has … something happened?’
I hated the way he said something. I cursed him for the bitter memories he invoked.
‘Very well,’ Will said. ‘I’m going to show a visitor around the museum. I thought you’d be good enough to assist, but never mind. I’m bringing a screwdriver when I return. If you’re not out by then, the door’s coming off.’
It was no idle threat.
I spent the rest of the day reasoning with myself. She’s a thief. Nothing more. Perhaps this is my great act of mischief. Repairing and saving the History. Years in the dark continent has left its mark. That’s why the book came to England.
Yes, yes. That made sense.
I disposed of the indignity in my makeshift chamber pot, washed, and dressed in the clothes that were least offensive to my nose. I took the History with me as I did, even to the bathroom where I sat it on a chair within arm’s reach. I took appropriate precautions. I wrapped the History first in cloth and then in a binding of leather I fashioned from ripping the pages out of a notebook in Will’s room. I then placed the book in my briefcase, a hardy thing made of solid dark leather, fastened with two brass clasps that featured a locking mechanism. It’d been a gift from Will long ago when I was devoid of the many scars that scored my face and body. My initials, both actual and mischievous, were monogrammed on its side: A.M. I hadn’t always been Archibald Barrie. I smiled at it as I bathed, remembering Will’s disappointment when I got the job at the museum and expressed how I intended to use the briefcase in my new appointment: ‘All the better to steal books with, my dear.’
Happy memories brought me back to my old self. I concluded that the History’s damage had wrought some damage on me. A day of suffering for each lost entry, and a little extra for the waterdrop experiment, perhaps. No matter. I wouldn’t allow a headache, some nightmares and a few blood noses to entomb me in my own home again. There was no better protector for the History than I, a guardian (and occasional pilferer) of the British Museum’s printed books, the finest collection since Alexandria. The sinister smudged page at the back of the book was forgotten again.
Let my thief do her worst.
Will arrived back late. The sight of him made me laugh. His nose and cheeks were burnt pink from the cold. He wore so many layers his arms stuck out from his sides. He looked like a ruddy penguin.
I told him as such. He smiled at me, good-natured fellow that he was.
‘At least I’m not a grumpy old bear,’ he said, tugging on my beard.
‘I’ll shave tomorrow, before work,’ I promised.
‘It’s Saturday tomorrow, you daft old thing.’
‘The shave can wait then.’
‘It cannot. We have a dinner engagement tomorrow.’
I cursed Will’s inability to say no to dinner invitations.
‘You have an engagement. I have work to do.’ I motioned at my briefcase as if to supply the evidence.
Will snatched my briefcase. He darted out of my reach as I tried to grab it back.
‘That’s not funny, Will.’
He wiggled it at me childishly. ‘I’ll confiscate this till after our dinner. You understand.’
I tried to grab him and he dashed out of the room. I pursued, furious at being taunted with the same trickery that had haunted me for days.
‘Will!’ I snapped, half-bark, half-growl.
He laughed as he ran. ‘Exit, pursued by a bear!’
Her words from his mouth. Suddenly I saw not Will, but my thief. I shoved the air, and my mischief pushed him in the back. He hit a doorframe face-first and dropped the briefcase. I snatched it.
His nose bled. It bled more than should be possible for such a small appendage. I told him as much as he fussed in front of the mirror. He told me I was lucky it didn’t break and that I was a right old pain in the arse.
I said sorry.
He said I was bloody well coming to dinner.
I said yes, very well then.
I mused on how like children we still were together.
It was insufferably cold when we stepped out for our dinner engagement. Puddles were fringed with ice. We got a cab heading to the Tower. Will was obsessed with the new Tower Bridge and said he wanted to go for a walk along the river before dining with our hosts.
‘It’s too cold for a stroll, for goodness’ sake!’ I objected.
‘I have a surprise. It’s worth the cold, I promise.’
I hate surprises. I turned every puddle and slick of water to ice, the slippery roads making our cabbie and his horse nervous and, as a result, rather slow. But Will wouldn’t be deterred.
‘We have plenty of time,’ he assured me. ‘Dinner’s at seven. I only said six because I know what you’re like.’
We disembarked at London Bridge and began our intolerable walk along the Thames, the Tower Bridge looming ahead of us. The bridge, completed the year prior, was gargantuan, its two towers dominating the river. The turrets of the towers were so tall, the fog hanging over the city blocked them from view. A walkway was suspended between them and rope-like steel suspensions draped down on either side. The bridge was one-part suspension, one-part bascule, and indeed it was the bascules that were the most remarkable, though unassuming, parts. They could swing up in a matter of minutes due to some ingenious hydraulic engines, allowing all manner of river traffic to pass under them. The bridge was many things: gaudy and elegant, excessively decorative and eminently functional. A symbol of the best and worst of Britain.
I was so distracted by the majesty of the bridge, I failed to notice the river itself. Will touched my arm and gestured to the water below. Here and there, chunks of ice floated down the rapids. Ice sloshed at the river’s edge, broken up and jostling on the surface. This was the surprise, it seemed.
What a miserable anticlimax.
‘I miss Scotland when it’s this cold,’ Will said.
‘I miss our residence when it’s this cold.’
He ignored me.
‘The Thames froze solid up in Oxford. Don’t you miss when the lochs froze and we’d spend all day skating?’ he said as we trundled towards the bridge. ‘Grandpa took me to a fair on the ice when I was little. Carriages were driven over the loch and they even roasted a lamb right there on the ice. It tasted different somehow. I wish you could’ve tried it.’
The cold condensed our breath into water vapour, smoke-like wisps spilling from our lips as we spoke. I let it come streaming out in an annoyed sigh.
‘I fear I’m losing my accent,’ Will said quietly.
‘You are. It would make things a great deal easier if you lost it completely,’ I responded.
He sighed. ‘I just thought it was a magical sight, these little icebergs floating down the Thames. This way. Our hosts live off a lane near Fenchurch.’
Fenchurch was a decent walk in this weather. I stifled my annoyance at this unnecessary detour, all for the sake of a few bits of ice bobbing under Tower Bridge.
‘Who’s the patient this time?’
‘Not a patient, a new friend. Mr McKenna and his niece. She fell into the Thames and I happened to be on hand to fish her out. She’s visiting London at the moment. I showed her the museum the other day when you were sulking.’
‘Why are you the one to play host?’
‘I’m being polite, Archie.’
‘She has an uncle to show her the sights.’
‘Yes, but he’s busy and she’s rather lovely, to be honest. I enjoy her company.’
Rather lovely? ‘I thought you’d given up wife hunting.’
Will put his head down, embarrassed. ‘She doesn’t look it but she’s made a few comments about being as mature as myself. Her disinclination towards marriage seems clear.’
Thirty-five was hardly ‘mature’ in a man such as Will but for a lady seeking marriage, it certainly was. I was grateful the good lady was aware of this.
We stopped outside a terrace house, slim, two storeys and with stone pillars above its station.
‘You are not to steal any books,’ Will warned as he lifted the doorknocker and glanced at my briefcase.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
Will banged the knocker. We were welcomed by a maid who showed us through to the parlour. Will introduced me to our elderly host and his niece but all I could do was stare. It was her. My thief.
Confused stares, the lot of them. She glanced at her uncle, frightened, and then back at me. Will muttered an apology and said something equal parts threatening and pleading to me.
‘This is my thief! This is her!’
‘What thief? What are you talking about?’ Will demanded. ‘Mr McKenna, I’m so sorry, my brother’s not in his right mind.’
Will clasped my arm. I shook him free. ‘She,’ I stabbed an accusatory finger at her, ‘robbed me! I apprehended her but she damaged a most invaluable thing.’
My thief looked terrified. ‘Sir, you must’ve mistaken me for someone else.’
Scottish accent this time. What a master of disguise my thief was. She was dressed far more demurely, yes, but it was her. Her freckles were gone, no doubt disguised under some tricksy woman’s paint, and her eyes were brown … why had I thought them blue?
‘What did you do to the History?’ I demanded.
‘Sir, this is outrageous!’ Mr McKenna exclaimed. Was the old man in on it? I didn’t care. My fury stayed on my thief. She burst into tears.
A woman’s tears can ruin anything. Once they were released, a series of events was set in motion. Will begged her forgiveness, begged our host’s forgiveness, delivered a blistering tirade on me, and then bowed and offered a thousand meek apologies as he manhandled me out the door. The dinner, needless to say, did not go ahead. No explanation would suffice for Will. We made it back to the residences separately, Will so angry he chose to walk home and risk losing his toes to frostbite than share a cab with me. Very well. I only heard the slamming of doors when he returned home a few hours later.
I met her in my dreams again that night.
‘Isn’t it cold?’ yet again.
Will didn’t entreat me to come to church, as was his tradition every Sunday morning (as was my refusal). He stayed out the entire day. I couldn’t help thinking he was with her. No doubt she was graciously accepting apologies, saying how very sorry she felt for the poor unhinged brother of her new friend, and all manner of female flattery and thief cunning.
A day of reflection made me realise how stupid I’d been, showing my hand. It’s difficult to know thine enemy when one cannot get close enough to study them. My thief now had Will’s ear and no doubt his protection. But I had something she didn’t: his heart. When he came home, I caught him in the hallway.
‘Trust me, Will. It was her.’
Will sighed, conflicted. ‘I trust that you were robbed. I trust you think it was her. But it couldn’t have been. The same day you accuse her of stealing from you, I was with her. I told you she fell in the Thames. She was horribly shaken from the event. I was afraid hypothermia would set in. I cared for her the whole day.’
That shook my confidence a little. ‘What time did she fall in the Thames?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Archie! Around midmorning, I suppose.’
Hmm. The robbery occurred in the afternoon. She could not be my thief. Perhaps the Scottish accent was genuine. The woman who had robbed me was French. Yet, something about her still felt uncertain, dangerous even. I felt like a foolhardy boy, making his way across the thinning ice of a frozen pond. I played it safe, retreated.
‘Forgive me,’ I offered.
‘Forgiveness can only be sought from the good lady you’ve dishonoured.’
‘I shall seek it.’
Will was suspicious, but smiled and offered a terse ‘good’ as a warning.
Monday morning. Briefcase in hand. Hair brushed, somewhat.
I made my way to the Reading Room, my workplace at the centre of the British Museum. There was no finer treasure in the museum than the Reading Room’s dome. No drawing, photograph, or literary account could capture its vastness. It eclipsed the desks, the patrons and the books we all coveted. The dome itself was blue, with ribs of white and gold. Tall windows encircled the base, taller than the bookshelves beneath them, and flooded the room with light. The very top of the dome was a brilliant circular window, a rooftop of glass. Below it was the Superintendent’s desk, raised so Percy could glower at our readers.
My normal role was assistant to Richard, the Keeper of the Books. Richard often sent me on missions into the stacks or across Britain and Europe to retrieve things. It was Richard, unwell at the time, who insisted I take the Abyssinian manuscript to Windsor, thereby putting me on my path towards the History.
For now though, I was an attendant, a fetcher of books, under Percy’s dictatorship. I was on loan, like a fine exhibit, for six months. Richard had tasked me with reducing waiting times for patrons’ book requests. I was to train the attendants, as my colleagues were uninventive, unable to consider where a book might’ve been housed if shelved even a few spaces down from its intended position.
Tedious colleagues aside, I enjoyed my new employment. The Reading Room stacks were a fine place to call home. Several storeys encircled the dome. Affectionately known as the Iron Library, the floors of the stacks were made of perforated iron so the sun from the glass ceiling could filter down even to the lowest level.
As the day passed, the dome darkened. The hum of the newly-installed electric glow lamps sizzled a little louder. The Reading Room was one of the first public buildings to experiment with electrical lighting, but a small explosion the year before meant that no risks were taken with the stacks. Once the sun had set, they were thrown into complete darkness. I tasked an attendant with lighting the enclosed oil lanterns and helping me find a few requests. A Russian fellow wanted something on land taxes. I shadowed Jeffery, our youngest but brightest attendant, as he tried to implement my methods. Took him fifteen minutes. I sighed and told him he was still the smartest of a dull bunch.
‘Mr Barrie,’ Percy greeted me as Jeffery and I returned with the Russian fellow’s books.
‘Percy,’ I responded.
‘Could you find this immediately?’ he said, handing me a request slip. ‘The patron’s been here since morning. No need to show us how you do it.’
I resisted the urge to tell Percy to ‘say please’, took the request and a lantern, and off into the stacks I went.
The author of the requested book was a G. Davis. No doubt a thousand books had been written by such a common name. Indeed, the stacks were full of them. I couldn’t find the request at first, but then I took a few books out of the overburdened shelves. Yes, a common mistake. Two small books, eclipsed by larger volumes, had been squashed to the back, hidden from view. One of them was that desired by the patron. The other? I couldn’t help a little look. I smiled when I saw the title page.
or
A History of
THE RIVER THAMES,
In a Frozen State;
with an account of
THE LATE SEVERE FROST;
AND THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS
of
Frost, Snow, Ice, and Cold,
in England,
and in different parts of the world; interspersed
WITH VARIOUS AMUSING ANECDOTES.
To which is added,
THE ART OF SKATING.
Charming! The book claimed to be ‘printed and published on the Ice on the River Thames, February 5, 1814, by G. Davis’.
I thought of Will: his childhood fair upon ice, our years skating across every manner of pond, loch or river that froze in our old home. How we laughed back then.
So, yes, I took the book. Unlocked my briefcase, slid it inside against the History. I took our patron his request, some small tome that was not ‘interspersed’ with the promised ‘various amusing anecdotes’ of the one I stole.
She was there when I got back, sitting by the fireplace of a lounge Will had cleaned as best he could. I promised him a reconciliation. I supposed he was intent on having it. She stood at my arrival. We eyed each other cautiously.
‘Archie, this is Miss Chloe McKenna,’ Will said.
My thief came forward and offered me her hand. I dutifully kissed it, bowed as a gentleman does, and smiled through gritted teeth.
‘Miss McKenna, I must apologise for my rudeness of a few nights ago. I was not myself.’
‘Not at all,’ she offered. Still Scottish. ‘Will tells me of your terrible ordeal with the thief. I’m aghast that one of my sex would participate in the petty crimes of boys.’
Clever words. A small voice reminded me that Will had rescued the lady from the Thames and cared for her during the time of my theft, that this polite but careful creature couldn’t be my thief. But my thief she was, I was certain.
We sat. A tray of tea rested on a table whose surface I hadn’t seen in years. Where did Will put my papers? God help him if he lost any on account of her.
‘I hope Mr McKenna can also be so forgiving,’ I said.
‘Of course. My uncle appreciates it was a misunderstanding.’
I nodded. I found women difficult to engage in conversation. What should I say now? Luckily, she continued.
‘We’re both so grateful to Will. I’d be frozen at the bottom of the Thames if it weren’t for him. Has he told you the full story of his bravery?’
‘No, he hasn’t. My brother is a humble man.’ Dear God, please don’t bore me with a tedious tale of heroics.
She told her story of falling into the Thames and Will jumping in after her. Will. She keeps saying his name. That was all I could think. Not Dr Barrie, not even William, but Will.
Only I called him Will.
‘My brother, the hero,’ I said, realising I hadn’t spoken in some time.
She went on, complimenting Will, complimenting London. Asking questions of me, enquiring into my work, on and on and on.
‘Mr Barrie, you hold your briefcase with such care. It must contain something precious.’
My expression soured. She noticed.
‘Forgive me for prying. I only assumed it was some fine book, given your work. I’m a keen reader.’
Of course you are.
‘There’s always some kind of wonder in Archie’s briefcase,’ Will said. ‘What do you have in there today?’
I thought of our Russian patron. ‘Some manuscripts on land taxes. Nothing to bore our guest with.’
‘Maybe next time then,’ she offered sweetly.
‘Next time,’ I said, smiling back at her.
The night went on much like this, tedious politeness after tedious politeness. Thankfully, she didn’t stay for dinner. Will insisted on taking her home. As she left, she took my hands in hers and said how very happy she was that we were now friends. I could have sworn I saw a flash of blue go across her brown eyes as she glanced once more at my briefcase.
Will returned late. We sat together in my room, on the floor by the fireplace where it was most warm. I gave him Frostiana and he flipped through it with a happy smile.
‘Listen to this: “Swings, bookstalls, dancing in a barge, suttling-booths, playing at skittles, and almost every appendage of a Fair on land was now transferred to the Thames.” Can you imagine?’ he said. He laughed and showed me a passage. ‘Some fellow wrote a letter to the thaw! Look! “Now as you love mischief, treat the multitude with a few cracks by a sudden visit.” What cheek!’
I smiled at the mention of mischief.
‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous to see the Thames frozen over? I’d do anything to be back there when this book was printed.’
I admired Will, his heart still so young. ‘I would freeze all the rivers and oceans if it would please you.’
Will laughed. ‘With what divinity would you freeze the oceans?’
I shrugged and grinned back, taking Frostiana from him. ‘Some sort of devilish mischief.’
The next day, I resolved to find a proper hiding place for the History. My thief could freely come into our home now, had figured out where I kept the History, and had wormed her way into Will’s affections. I set about finding the one place better guarded than my briefcase, a place not even a clever thief could gain access to. The Reading Room stacks.
I woke early and went to the stacks, to the packed shelf where I’d found Frostiana. I slid the History behind the row of books, behind many volumes of Davises. I felt sure she couldn’t get it there.
The next few days were fairly mundane. Just the cold, some students and more Russian exiles. But then, after returning home late one day, Will greeted me at the door with an angry urgency.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he snapped.
‘Good evening to you too,’ I said.
‘Your boss has been here.’
I frowned. ‘Richard? He’s out of town.’
‘No, Mr Blythe.’
‘Percy? Oh. How tedious for you.’
Will paced. He tugged at his waistcoat, pulled at his sleeves. I suddenly felt uneasy.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘We have been so … foolish!’
I grabbed Will by the arms to stop him moving. ‘What?’
‘He came here asking all these questions.’
‘Like what?’
‘He kept talking about birth records, about not finding you anywhere. He even checked up on your degree from Edinburgh. He looked into me, found me sure enough, but said he couldn’t find an Archibald Barrie anywhere. Even mentioned the initials on your briefcase and your bloody accent.’
‘You told him the M on my briefcase is my middle name, Magnus. He can look up Magnus Barrie and find your grandfather.’
‘Of course, I told him.’
‘Well, you told him about Father’s –’
‘Of course!’
‘And the records?’
‘I told him every stupid lie we ever invented!’ Will said, jerking his arms free. ‘He didn’t believe a word of it.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s of no conscience. He can’t do anything. Richard won’t have an ill word spoken about me.’
‘People listen to these kinds of ill words.’
‘We have the degrees, we have the birth certificates. They’ve never failed us before.’
Will shook his head and mumbled to himself, ‘I’ve made so many allowances.’
‘What do you fear? That this will happen to you?’ I demanded, motioning at the marks on my face. ‘You’ve made no allowances. None!’
‘I can never go home because of you!’
‘Me? You can go back to Auld Reekie whenever you wish! It is I who can never go back. Every moment I’ve lived has been in jeopardy. You think a little snoop like Percy has the power of gangs and wolves?’
‘Every man with ill-intent can summon a gang and rally wolves. That is how this’ –Will gestured at my face – ‘happened.’
I was tired and didn’t want to indulge fears that ruled my life decades ago. ‘We’ve faced worse,’ I offered, and left Will to his frittering. Percy was not a threat I perceived as legitimate. I had all the means to rebuff him.
I was fired the next day. Percy offered no explanation.
‘Richard will be hearing about this,’ I warned him, loudly. My voice bounced around the dome.
‘I look forward to it,’ Percy responded coldly. He held out his hand. ‘Your keys, Mr Barrie.’
I slapped them hard into his open palm.
‘And my keys,’ Percy added dryly.
‘Your keys? I don’t have your keys, you fiend.’
‘Who stole them then?’
My anger dissolved instantly. Percy’s keys had been stolen. It had to be her.
I wasn’t allowed back in the stacks. Percy wouldn’t even let me approach the desk. The History was still hidden with the Davises. And now she had keys to the Reading Room. The stacks.
Will insisted I make no fuss, but fuss I made. We had a week to pack and move our things, but weren’t allowed to stay another day in the residences, an absurdity for which there was no precedence.
Mr McKenna somehow heard that we were staying at a local inn. That, apparently, would not do. We were to stay with the McKennas, two guestrooms awaited us.
I spent the cab ride there trying to figure out how she’d done it.
It snowed for days. Heavy sheets of brittle ice piled on the roads, killed off the homeless huddled in doorways, and stopped all telegrams through to Richard. Then the snow stopped and a frost set in. No mail, no travel, no going outside if you wanted to keep your fingers. Our hosts were friendly enough, and their house warm, but the combination of their cheerful conversation and my sudden unemployment plunged me into a gloom so severe I used the fairer sex’s oft-employed excuse of a headache to justify confining myself to my room.
My thief spent her time reading or with Will. Their witless jokes and tinkles of laughter were too much to stomach. She read a lot. I even spotted her sitting opposite Will in the lounge, reading silently together. Why did her uncle allow her to be alone with a man who was but a stranger two weeks ago? Did Glaswegians have some perverse sense of morality those of Edinburgh and London were not privy to? The man seemed a civilised gent, why would he allow this? He was unapologetically Scottish though, and if he trusted Will to be alone with his unmarried niece, that was the way it was to be. He reserved all his suspicion for me.
‘Where’s your accent gone, man?’ he asked at one of the few dinners I deigned attend.
‘Time in London, sir,’ I offered, supressing the sigh of being asked the question a thousand times by a thousand equally as boring gentlemen.
‘Your brother managed to keep his.’
‘My father thought his eldest son would inherit the family profession of medicine, not his youngest, so it was I who followed him down to London when he was visiting patients. The commonwealth of this nation is not so commonly shared. The wealthiest patients are in England.’
Mr McKenna approved of the dig at England and said no more. The man was clearly a dullard. At first, I’d thought he’d been the one to orchestrate all this, using a woman to try and steal the History without consequence, but time spent in his company made me rule out that possibility. Instead, I tried to figure out how she’d done it, how a French woman had convinced a dotty old Scotsman that she was his niece. I asked how she came to live with her uncle.
‘Very sad,’ Mr McKenna said. ‘My drunkard of a brother died with naught a penny to his name. I hadn’t seen the poor girl for twenty years when she showed up on my doorstep.’
‘Twenty years, sir!’ Will responded. ‘She must have been a sweet wee girl when you last saw her.’
‘Aye,’ Mr McKenna replied, nodding soberly.
‘How did you recognise her then?’ I asked, perhaps a little too pointedly. Will scowled at me.
‘Oh, you always know family, don’t you?’ Mr McKenna said, smiling at her. My thief smiled back. Then she glanced at Will. Smiled at him too.
It would, perhaps, be fairly obvious what happened next. You may think me rather simple not to have seen it. A day after the snow ceased, and the frost plunged the city further down the thermometer, Will came to me.
‘Miss McKenna getting a bit boring?’
‘She’s good company actually,’ Will said. ‘You would know that if you spent some time with her. Shame about your headaches.’
‘Shame indeed.’
We sat for a moment, listening to the fireplace crackle.
‘I’m sorry we haven’t spoken much,’ he finally said. ‘I was angry.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘So was I.’
‘You were right. It was always you who made allowances, you who sacrificed. I never meant … I never knew how to make up for what happened. I just wanted a peaceful life, for us to be safe.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘I always wanted to find a way. I wanted so many things for us.’
‘I know.’
‘I hope you understand, everything I do is for us,’ he said.
His words came out slowly, like he was stumbling through them.
‘We’re fine. Stop this now,’ I said as kindly as I could. Perhaps I hoped to stop what I felt was coming.
‘There’s a simple way to guarantee a peaceful life, and that is marriage. A good family. Respected. Not wealthy but well-to-do enough,’ he said. ‘I sought Mr McKenna’s blessing for his niece’s hand in marriage yesterday. He happily gave us his blessing. She said yes.’
I said nothing. He reached out meekly for my hand. I pulled it away.
‘We’ll still be us, Archie.’
‘If you marry her, there is no us.’
‘Don’t be unkind. There’ll always be us.’
I looked at my hands. The cuts and gouges. The ugly red scars.
‘You’ll always be my brother,’ he offered.
‘I’m sick of being your brother,’ I said.
I left the house, frost be damned. I didn’t want to be there in the warmth, among the champagne toasts. I’d lost my job, my mischief and my Will.
I walked past birds fallen out of the sky, frozen by the winter. Some were frosted hard to windowsills. I picked one up, a sparrow, and held it to my chest. I warmed it in the same manner I’d commanded ice to evaporate the day my thief came into my life. The little creature softened, twitched. I felt warmth fill its cotton-thread-like veins. I heard its heart beating, fluttering like a butterfly’s wings. Its body twitched with more ferocity. Now awake, it desired to be free.
I couldn’t let it go. It would freeze again without me. The sparrow tried to flap its wings. I clamped them down and held it closer to my chest. I wondered if the bird heard my heart beating, if its ears would burst at the drum-like cacophony of a heart that was no doubt bigger than its whole body.
I found myself by the Thames, that star of Frostiana. Its current was surely the only thing still moving with ease in London. I thought of the printing press that fashioned the book I swapped for the History. Maybe the press had nestled in the spot where the Tower Bridge now stood. Perhaps it faced St Paul’s, as men around it walked on water. I thought of Will.
The little sparrow chirped. It looked up at me, frantic. What was better? Freedom and a certain death by freezing, or captivity and warmth? I thought of crushing it, killing it quickly. Perhaps a small cruelty was the kindnest thing. It chirped again, begging mercy perhaps.
I let the sparrow go. Held my hands out to the sky, that grandiose dome, the Pantheon of the world, and it flew away. I bent down, pulled my hand free of its glove, and let my fingers hover just above the Thames. I felt the chill coming off the river.
I sank into myself, sent my mind into the water. I saw the billions upon billions of atoms beneath my hand, remembering pictures of water molecules from stolen books, the way the hydrogen atoms bonded, locking the liquid state into that of a solid. How funny that the first book Will ever caught me stealing was the one I remembered now, a little thing on the states of matter.
The memory triggered the mischief. The water below my fingertips froze. The river pushed up against the patch of ice, but I willed it deeper. I could see right down to the atoms. I danced along each bubble of oxygen, snap-froze those hydrogen bonds in place. It crackled as the ice hardened. I stretched my fingers apart and watched the ice spread.
I had a sizeable platform now, and took the step of a man more mischievous than wise. The ice was solid, at least twelve inches. I threw off my other glove. Holding out both hands, I froze the ice deeper, extending it into the Thames. I walked forward, watching the river turn solid before me. The ice was dark but smooth. The tides yielded, did not dent or push against the surface. I became cocky, walking faster, and then broke into a run, my feet outpacing the ice. As my shoe hit the water, I froze it. I jumped and ran over the river, freezing it before my feet came down.
The ice hit the south bank. I turned like a skater, letting my shoes act as blades. I sent the ice outward, touching the Tower Bridge, extending past London Bridge. I poured my memories into the water, froze it solid as if to keep my past alive. I laughed.
There was no water to be seen. The ice extended far beyond my eyes. I stood in the middle of the frozen Thames, where once men had drowned. I looked towards the Tower, to the arches of London Bridge and the dome of St Paul’s. The power of the mischief still poured out of me. Newspapers would later report that glass shattered in all the houses around the river, as water on dining tables and wine in cellars expanded.
I shivered. It was cold. Very cold actually.
A horrible realisation dawned on me.
I, too, was made of water.
The cold slithered through my veins, like some nasty eel, entering through my hands and feet and gripping my heart. I looked up as the water in my eyes froze them open and saw, if my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, the speck that was my sparrow. As my last breath froze, the water vapour turning to ice crystals in my throat, I felt such joy that its tenacious flight should be the last thing I saw. Let there be celebrations upon the stage of my death. Will would have his frost fair after all.
But I didn’t die. I just danced on the edge, tilted over for a second like my sparrow, before being pulled back.
The first thing I saw was her, my thief. I fluttered my eyes and then wiped them, for they were full of tears. I was incredibly warm, and contained somehow. Ah, a bed. Tucked in so tight she might as well have chained me down. I was back in the McKennas’ house. My thief sat on a chair, facing me. I tried to get up but she pushed me down.
‘Rest,’ she said.
I was in no state to object. My limbs were numb.
‘How did I get here?’
She wanted to say something, but couldn’t. She opened her mouth and no words came out. She frowned and tried to speak again. Just a squeak. She looked confused. I’d seen this before on the face of a hundred or so mischiefs, trying to communicate their secret. I tried to speak back, to tell her of the magic I’d wrought upon the Thames. Nothing came.
Yet, she managed one thing: ‘I saw.’
You couldn’t have, I wanted to say. Only mischiefs could see mischief being done. Either she was my successor, or the laws of mischief had changed. I thought of the ruined pages and lost memories.
I pulled my hand out from under the covers. I couldn’t feel my fingers, but they were all there, none blackened with frost as they no doubt should be. I looked at them for a moment, marvelling that they all seemed to work. I locked eyes with her and clicked my fingers. I saw her brown eyes flash blue just as the bedside lantern, the fireplace and the few candles winked out. I clicked my fingers again. The flames ignited. Her eyes never left mine. She saw what I did. Her eyes were now completely blue, no camouflage to them. She blinked a few times, and they turned back to brown. Was this her mischief? We both considered each other in silence, trying to figure the other out.
She smiled. ‘You are very clever.’
Then she got up, went to the door and called out, ‘Will, Archie’s awake!’
I heard the heavy footsteps of a man running up stairs. Will came into the room in a flurry, embraced me, and then rested on his knees beside my bed. His head hung limply, touching the blankets by my chest. I saw the exhaustion of time spent coaxing me back to the world of the living.
‘You’re a right old idiot,’ he said into the blankets.
I put my hand on his head. Touched his hair but couldn’t feel it. ‘Yes.’
‘You only have your life and all your fingers thanks to a good-natured boatman and my medical expertise.’
‘Yes.’
He went quiet. I stroked his hair again, willing some feeling back into my fingers.
‘Is there a frost fair?’ I asked.
Will sighed. His body shrunk. My thief touched him on the shoulder.
‘You can’t have a stage like that and not erect a fine performance upon it,’ she answered. She glowed with the kind of smile women employ to beg reconciliation.
‘I would love to be a spectator,’ I said, playing along.
‘If you can walk before Madam Tabitha Thaw comes to London, maybe,’ Will said.
I smiled at the reference to Frostiana.
Then, ‘Don’t do that again.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You’re the last of my family. I need you.’
A churlish part of me wanted to say, ‘You are to make another family soon. What need will you have of me then?’ But I held my tongue. Instead, I hung to the warmth of being worried about. I spent the afternoon wiggling my toes.
‘Come on, you monstrous fiends!’ I shouted, willing feeling back into them.
I promised all ten of them they could walk again on the ice if they’d just tell the rest of my limbs to move too.
My toes were kind to me, and so was my thief. I walked again with relative ease but Will didn’t think it wise to go out. Miss McKenna pleaded with him, saying how unkind it would be to deny a well man a once-in-a-lifetime event.
The dark glass I poured into the river was almost clear now, sparkling sky blues and grand buildings reflected on its surface. Entire avenues were erected on the ice, running from one riverbank to the other, with booths and tents offering all manner of things, from liquor and bread to books and toys. Their brightly coloured flags waved lazily at fairgoers alongside a glut of Union Jacks and signs in screaming capitalisation. The variety of smells were only outnumbered by the people, at least two thousand on the ice itself.
Skaters twirled on the fringes of the fair, racing each other from one bridge to the other. There were women dancing, fiddlers playing, the tinkling of a piano, the hypnotic shuk shuk of ice skates, and the constant crackling of fire, of beasts being roasted and chestnuts popping. Even a balloon was set on the ice, its body slowly inflating as its hawkers promised a fine show when the lady balloonist would sail it clean over the Tower. She would only come out when the balloon was ready and her extravagant top hat was filled with coins.
Will bought us lamb that was roasted on the ice. He smiled and said to me, ‘I told you. Doesn’t it taste different?’ I didn’t have the heart to tell him it tasted like regular overcooked mutton. My thief dutifully agreed with her fiancé and told him how very wondrous it was. Lapland Lamb. I wondered if she’d been reading Frostiana.
At least five printing presses were available. Will waited in line to have Miss McKenna’s name printed on a sheet attesting to the fact that she had stood upon the Thames in its frozen state.
A ripple of ‘she’s here!’ went through the crowd. ‘She’ was evidently a royal she. A carriage with the black form of Queen Victoria was drawn from one riverbank to the other. Fairgoers flocked the procession, waving flags, shouting ‘God Save The Queen’, and vacating Will’s queue so he got his souvenir a little quicker.
The day grew dark, but life still danced upon the ice. Fireworks were set off near the balloon, which was still struggling to rise. The colours in the sky were reflected in the ice, a most magical sight. Grumbles about the forfeiting of coins for the lady balloonist and her non-existent tricks dissipated. The music stopped. Only the shrill squeal of fireworks filled the air, followed by the bang of bright lights and the soft awed rumble of woooooooh!.
Once the show was over, a mass exodus began across the ice. Some tents were packed down. Arguments about the extent to which the ice was thinning by the Tower rumbled through the vendors. We returned to Fenchurch and I went to bed, complaining of a tingling in my feet. Will and Miss McKenna beguiled Mr McKenna with tales from the fair, their frivolity loud enough for me to hear the hyperbole they added to the day’s events.
Again, I dreamed I was in the Reading Room with her. The fire was gone. In its place, the dome was flooded to the roof with water. We sat again on the Superintendent’s desk, our hair and clothes floating lazily in the water. She held the History in her hands.
‘Isn’t it cold?’
The ice remained firm for another day. I watched the revelry from the riverbank. The balloonist finally set sail, or attempted to. The wind was too unruly. She kept it attached to its moorings as she hung upside down, teetering on the edge in some ridiculous costume that left nothing to the imagination.
Will wasn’t content to watch. He spent the day skating. Miss McKenna was as skilled as he, and the two of them circled each other, gliding at speeds only stupid boys dared venture. I wished the lady would fall and break her neck, but rebuked my wickedness with the threat that the History would record my thoughts and present me as quite the monster. To make up for it, I picked up a few sparrows in the bushes. Two were long gone, but the last still fought. I held it against me. It started twitching again. A warmth filled my heart that could only be obtained from a good whisky or true happiness.
‘Archie!’
I let the sparrow go, looked up and saw the impeccably adorned paunch that was my old boss.
‘Richard,’ I said, and offered my smile and hand in greeting. The big man spurned my hand and embraced me.
‘Good fellow, I’ve been looking for you all morning. A Mr McSomething waved me towards the river. Could barely understand the poor chap. Glaswegian, your host?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I wanted to say so much more. How to approach my sacking and the accusations from Percy?
‘Quite the spectacle!’ Richard remarked. ‘Not quite the spectacle that was caused at the museum, but spectacle nonetheless.’
Ah. Ever skilful at bringing the discussion to where it needed to be was our Keeper of the Books.
‘Monstrous business, most disgraceful. I sacked Percy as soon as I got back. Never heard of such a thing.’
I tried to stop the relief from showing on my face.
‘I understand you’ve been horribly treated, but I hope you’ll come back. You can have Percy’s old job if you fancy it, or you can be rid of them and come back to hunting rare books for me. I do miss you, old boy, you’re a bloodhound with books.’
I was at a loss for words. Richard chuckled.
‘Speak, man!’
‘Thank you, Richard. I’d be happy to return as your assistant.’
‘Good!’ he said and shook my hand in both of his. Then, into my palm he slapped the keys to my residence, my old office, and, hallelujah, the keys to the stacks that housed the History. ‘Leave the Reading Room to the bookworms, ey! I might send you back there to train the new Superintendent, if that’s agreeable.’
‘Of course.’
‘Good man.’
‘Richard,’ I broached slowly. ‘May I return today?’
Richard laughed, a throaty roar that shook his considerable girth. ‘That’s why I want you back! Always working! Listen, go back to the residences, get settled in. Come back next week. Few days off for having to suffer this indignity. Full pay.’
I smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘Good man,’ Richard nodded. I bid him farewell and he seemed to be going, but then he turned back around, his jovial mood slipping into something more … careful. He tried to maintain the casual nature of our chat as he ventured into more serious territory.
‘One thing before I go,’ he said. ‘I don’t care if the rumours are true. As long as you display some discretion, my only concern is your ability to do your job. Plenty of folk more wicked than the likes of Archibald Barrie have contributed a great many things to our museum and indeed our empire. I only care what you have to contribute, you understand.’
‘Percy’s accusations are false, I have proof –’
‘I’m sure you do, but I don’t care for it,’ Richard said pointedly. He glanced again at the fair. ‘I hear your brother is to be married.’
‘That is very fortunate.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Shame you haven’t been so lucky.’
‘Shame indeed.’
He then turned back to me and smiled. ‘Discretion, man.’ Clap on the shoulder. I could only nod. ‘Good chap.’
He left. I sat for a moment, listening to the fair. Then I took off. Retrieved my briefcase and, ahoy, museum-bound! I didn’t bother to tell Will. He was too busy circling his future bride. I wished she’d fall and break a leg at least. Rebuked myself again. Perhaps there were far more wicked men than the likes of me, but wicked I could still be.
I searched the stacks for five hours. Pulled every Davis, Davies, Davison off the shelves. Checked the reader requests, found nothing to indicate that the attendants had been anywhere near the History. Jeffery asked if he could help find whatever I was looking for. Told him to bugger right off.
It was gone. I knew it was gone. But I kept searching, all day. Noticed numerous books mis-shelved. Didn’t bother putting them back in order.
Jeffery came again hours later. Found me checking behind the books on the lower levels, huddled in the dark with a dwindling lantern.
‘Closing time, Mr Barrie, sir,’ he offered. Swear I heard a squeak in his voice.
I got off the ground, and glared at the youth as I smoothed my waistcoat. ‘The stacks are in quite a state.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Have we had any break-ins while I was away?’
‘What? No, sir! I’d tell you right away!’
‘Could Percy have taken anything before he left?’
‘No, sir, didn’t have a chance! And I would’ve told you, sir, I swear!’
I glowered at him. ‘Best be going home now then.’
Jeffery nodded like a parrot. ‘Yes, Mr Barrie, sir.’
I went back to the McKennas’, determined to figure out how my thief had done it. I didn’t even get a chance to go in the door. A figure slid out from the side of the house. The big cap was no disguise. I’d seen it before. My thief. She had the History. She saw me and ran.
I took chase, following her weaving form through the streets just as I’d done at the beginning of our tale. It was dark; even the street lamps seemed muted. Her cap flew off and her hair unravelled, like a long black streamer flying behind her. Again, I worked my mischief, made the water on the ground freeze. As she ran over those icy puddles, they shifted back to water. She countered my mischief with her own.
My thief opened the History as she ran. Then, she ripped out an entire page. The violence of it made us both tumble. A sharp pain shot down my spine. Memories of some fine empire in the Americas leached out of my mind. She recovered quickly and was back up and running. I scrambled up and chased after her. She ripped out another page; I stumbled but kept running. Tasted blood in my mouth, swallowed a wave of nausea. Flashes of something: a woman whose face was ornately tattooed, winking at me as she slipped from my mind. I pushed on despite the burning in my head.
My thief made her way to the Thames. The ice near the Tower Bridge was thinning considerably now. Most booths were packed away, their hawkers moved on. I was struck by a loud creak, like the sound of a door opening on rusty hinges, only magnified. It conjured many memories from the History – the creaking of a ship’s hull on a violent ocean, the deep timbre of a whale humming. The ice was groaning. A thaw was coming.
She ripped out another entry. The whale slipped away. I felt the memory go.
‘Please, stop,’ I begged her.
She was already on the ice. I made my way down, trying to push through the blur that the pain brought to my eyes. The Thames was melting; though still solid, puddles made grooves in the ice. There were few people still out. I stumbled a little against some wavering drunk fellow. He shoved me and I fell hard against the ice. I dragged my aching head up and saw her, running for the still-tethered balloon. One of the balloon’s minders, drinking nearby, ran towards her.
I tried so hard to get to my feet, but I stumbled like a newborn foal. She reached the balloon, artfully pulled on one of its moorings, and brought it close enough for her to clamber aboard. The ice groaned again, an ungodly sound. Those left on the ice fled, even the balloon’s minders. A kindly old man pulled me up and helped me ashore.
She cut one of the moorings. The others yanked free as the ice cracked. The balloon shot up and she floated free. I stumbled along the Thames as her balloon limped upwards. It was heading straight for the Tower Bridge but it wasn’t rising fast enough to get over it. It looked set to ram into the walkway between the two towers.
‘You won’t clear it!’ I cried out.
She ignored me. She was battling with the balloon, fiddling with its various contraptions. She threw off as many sandbags as she could. Each one hit the ice below, the last two shattering the thin ice by the bridge before being swallowed by the river.
I was close enough to see the look on her face as she realised the balloon was too low to clear it. The balloon’s ropes rammed against the walkway, throwing the basket against the south bank tower. She screamed as it hit the stone hard, shattering half the basket to pieces. As the basket swung around, showering its broken shards on the bridge below, she grabbed onto the balloon’s ropes that were now ensnared in the walkway. She tried to scramble up.
By the time I got to the Tower’s entrance, she was clinging onto the walkway itself. Remarkably, she still had the History. If she fell, it fell too. That would be the end of it, millennia of mischief gone, swamped in the Thames.
One of the bridge’s hydraulic engine workers was already making his way up the Tower. I shoved him aside and ran up the inner stairwell. I reached the top quickly. The walkway was completely enclosed. She was caught on its edge, unable to get inside. I smashed one of the windows and climbed halfway out. She crouched there on a sliver of an edge, curled up amongst the ropes and the torn remains of her stolen balloon. As our eyes met, the basket snapped completely off and tumbled down, dashing against the ice below. She stood slowly as I gestured towards her. I offered my hand.
‘Please,’ I begged.
Tears ran down her face. ‘What is it?’
I didn’t know what she could possibly mean.
‘The book,’ she cried. ‘Its pages are blank. It didn’t burn … I saw it, all those years ago. It wouldn’t burn. But now … it bleeds memories.’
‘That’s the book’s histories. It works by some magic to record our deeds.’
‘What deeds? What is it?’
She was frantic. She kept glancing between me and the ice below.
‘It’s a magical book, a special thing that gives you marvellous powers,’ I said, my voice pleading.
She shook her head. No, no, no, she muttered. The workers on the bridge were at my heels. I yelled at them to back off and then ventured out further onto the ledge.
‘It’s not working how it should,’ I tried to tell her.
‘I’ve been hunting it all this time. Why won’t it reveal itself to me?’
‘It will in time, I promise.’
‘All I see is suffering. Ghosts on fire, tormented forests, the shattered bones of stolen boys. I see you, young, being set on by dogs.’
‘That was before the History. Something’s wrong. It’s not showing you the triumphs. I froze the Thames. Did it show you? Or thawing sparrows, bringing them back to life. Think of the majesty in that.’
She nodded, convinced a little perhaps. ‘I saw the sparrow. I did the same … when you froze on the ice.’
‘You did, you saved me,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘But there’s madness in it.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But magic too.’
She wavered. ‘Is magic enough?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, and stretched my hand out to her.
She glanced down at the ice. I could see the horrible thoughts that swirled in her mind.
‘Please, don’t,’ I begged. ‘We can repair it, you and I. I don’t know how you came to hunt it. No one outside those who’ve owned the book were privy to any of it. It must’ve wanted you to find it. If you fall, if it falls, we’ll lose it. The mischief and its record will be destroyed. I beg you, take my hand.’
Her words were a whisper. They barely carried over the wind. ‘Maybe that’s why it came to me.’
She looked back at me. I saw how very weary she was.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘my great act of mischief is in its destruction.’
She let go. Held the History and fell. Our eyes locked and I saw it. The History revealed itself. Visions flashed over those blue eyes. She lived one hundred and ninety-nine lives in two seconds, saw what she had been hunting, the magic I promised.
In that moment, she was A. Mischief the Two-Hundredth.
Then she hit the ice hard, shattering it. The river swallowed her. A hundred sparks burst in my mind. My muscles seized in the grips of a fit. I tried to hold onto the memories, but they slipped away. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what they were.
I woke surrounded by the grubby faces of the bridge’s engine workers. One man was kneeling beside me.
‘You right, fella,’ he said softly.
Something was in my mouth. I spat it out. A man’s leather glove? The man beside me offered, ‘My wife fits like you. Saving your teeth, sir.’
They helped me down, realising I could barely walk. There were no cabs about, so the gent who’d seen to it that I not gnash my teeth offered to walk me home. He gave kind assurances – ‘you’re doing alright, getting better now, feet comin’ back’ – as we made our way towards Fenchurch. He was an older man, shorter than me, but he battled on. When I slipped in a puddle and went down, he pulled me back up and said, ‘Horrible blight, isn’t it? You poor fella.’ I was reminded of Yingtai’s encouragements when she fed Hu in the forty-ninth history.
The ice of the Thames groaned at our backs. I thought of Balcha, retching along with the creaking of the ship’s bow … I realised then that I remembered. Just a few of them. But they were there. I smiled. The workman said, ‘Good lad, take strength.’
How to tell Will that his fiancée was dead?
I didn’t need to. She was there when I returned. She even helped me to bed. I was surely going mad. Perhaps the whole thing had been a delusion: the History, its magic, my thief, everything. Perhaps my entire life had been a fiction. I’d written my own story to escape in, a good book to banish the memories of being chased, my family home burnt down, my parents screaming inside, as the hounds hunted me and tore my flesh and youth from me.
Seeing my terror, she touched my face lightly. ‘I’m not her, Mr Barrie.’
A memory. Something new. Her. The forbidden page with the name smudged out. It was her, just a girl, and her sister. Lou and Chloe, caught in the siege of Paris. Balloons and a book that wouldn’t burn. She broke the rules. So the book broke her.
I settled into bed. Will sat by my side. The workman’s tale of my violent fit left him horrified. He stroked my hair until I fell asleep, said a thousand times he was sorry.
At night, I dreamed of my thief. Again, in the Reading Room. It was still flooded. Books floated around us. Sparrows darted through the water, chasing one another. She smiled at me and said, ‘Isn’t it cold?’ I agreed that it was. I said I was sorry this was how she died.
Postscript – Chloe McKenna, 1956
When Lou died, the whispers from the book called me.
I hired a few boatmen and followed the sounds downstream until I found her. She was still holding the waterlogged book when we pulled her broken body out of the Thames. I thought of burying her with it. It seemed right that it would follow her to the grave. But at the last moment, I took it.
The History followed me all the way to the colonies, to the most isolated city in Australia. I kept it on the shelf, never really thinking about it. It was torn, wrinkled from water damage, and the leather binding was crumbling. Then, as a woman unmercifully old, a young man came along, noticed it sitting there on the shelf, and said he could hear music.