Chapter Four

 

There was a slipway down to the ice, and a few yards away from it, a ladder erected, both manned by watermen demanding admittance fare before allowing people down.

“Threepence,” the grizzled waterman stated when Art stood at the edge to look below.

“That is no fair price for the waters, for thee does not own them. ’Tis free for all,” Art said.

“We own the fair, Quaker. And fer makin’ trouble, that’ll be six pence, albino!”

“You do not own the fair,” Jim said. “And we’ve great respect for our albino friends. Unlike toothless hags like yourself, which you most certainly resemble, sir. Are you certain you’re not Baba Yaga?”

The waterman looked down at him, uncomprehending. Art took Jim from Delphia’s hands and knelt.

“Delphia, to my back,” she said.

Delphia jumped on to her back and wrapped arms around Art’s neck and legs around her waist.

“When thee is ready, say ready.” Art walked back down the quay. She hefted Delphia so that she might settle more securely.

“Ready!” Delphia said.

Art ran to the quay’s edge and leapt. She jumped far enough to land them with a dull boom on the Thames’ ice, halfway to the festivities.

Jim crowed, and Art ran them to the fair.

 

***

 

John Rowden emerged from the ice-cooled room of a meat-packing warehouse and stepped out on to the street. Behind him, amongst the shipped refrigeration machines storing Australian beef, men stood frozen. Each time he found perfect cold, he wasted such nourishment on those who disturbed him. He looked up and saw the ice fog thinning in the air. John walked on, looking for more.

The surrounding land of artificial edifices was not like the ice land he had been taken from. He could not know if it would remain cold. But there, on the waters upon which he’d arrived, lay the most intense cold he’d sensed since wandering. He walked to the quay and slowly moved through the crowd to where he could view the thick ice the night had brought, nearly as blue as Arctic glaciers. Beneath that ice was the gelid cold he sought. Then he saw the little tents on the ice and heard the faint strains of music.

That clustering of gaiety was not home, he thought, yet it spoke like it.

People jostled him. There were many gathered around, getting in his way. Too many, more than he could freeze at once. He decided he would act like one of them, join them as they went below. In that way, he would reach the place with the gay flags. The sight of the tents gave him giddy feelings, and he wanted more than just to be near them.

“The st’nding toast,” he sang softly. “That pleas’d the mossst . . . ”

A waterman grabbed him before he could step down the ladder.

“Hold, you! That’s threepence!” he said.

John stared, thinking to breathe upon him. Instead, he stepped for the ladder again. The waterman pulled him away once more.

“What are yer, a half-wit? Give us threepence or away with you!”

“I’m,” John said in a high, lost voice, “tired of youuu lot. So tired . . . . ”

“Are you wantin’ a knockdown, are yer?” the waterman exclaimed. He shoved John back.

John turned and left. He followed the quay. Below on the ice were more like the waterman, loitering and watching for climbers. John looked for where he could jump down and not waste precious, frigid breath.

 

***

 

Art ran to the Frost Fair. Before them were makeshift tents of sails and propped-up oars lined in two rows that stretched from the north bank to the south, creating a lane between them. Smoke rose from some, and the wind drove the scent of roasted meat to their noses.

“Oh, what a smell!” Delphia said.

“I will search the fair for John and Genevieve Rowden. Thee should feed Delphia,” Art said.

“This Friend speaks my mind!” Jim jovially agreed.

She dropped them both off in the bustling lane of fairgoers, right by the tent where a vendor roasted mutton, and turned herself invisible. She flew up and down the rows. The enterprising denizens of the Thames’ banks were still dragging carts and sledges piled with cheap baubles to the fair proper. More sledges carried bags of coal. Men helped erect a photographer’s tent, his giant crescent moon prop of sturdy, painted wood resting nearby, ready to be placed within. The photographer rolled out the painted background he wanted stood up behind the moon.

Art hovered, spotting neither John nor Genevieve Rowden, and made note to visit the tent again. She flew on and marvelled at what had been transported onto the ice in such a short time; printer’s presses, three at her latest count, were churning out handbills containing commemorative poems or ballads, and cards personalised with fairgoers’ names. Large painted mechanical children’s swings creaked and squeaked, ridden by adults and children alike. Within a fenced circle off the rows proper, a butcher had laid sheet metal and a hearth of bricks to build a great fire. Before it roasted a whole ox skewered on a thick spit with a weighted wheel on one end, all set on sturdy trestles with large drip pans beneath. The butcher’s assistants slowly turned and basted the heavy beast while fairgoers paid sixpence to enter the fence and view the roasting. Outside the fence, the mounted sign read:

ROASTING OX AT FROST FAIR UPON THE THAMES SINCE 1788

Art materialised, gave the startled man guarding the fence sixpence, then ghosted into invisibility again. She floated past the viewing perimeter and studied the cooking animal up close, thinking it would need more than a day’s roasting to be done. She judged its weight at over 100 stone. She lingered a little more to enjoy the pleasurable heat from the great fire, a sensation that had been absent since her visit to the Terror and especially the freezing of her hand.

Art left the roasting ox and flew past the booths and tents of a puppeteer, tattooist, fortune-teller, and a gambling den filled with cigarette smoke. She saw sellers of tea, hot chocolate, coffee, pies, and gingerbread. Temporary pubs with names like City of Moscow and Country of Lapland sold Old Tom gin, Mum beer, and a hot, potent, mixture of gin and wormwood wine called Purl. She saw Helia standing by one pub, Land of the Arctic, scribbling in her notebook. Her scarf hung loose and she muttered, her face disquiet. She looked up in wild-eyed distraction and smiled at the air as Art swept past. Art flew on to rejoin her partners.

Delphia was ingesting coffee, a minced pie, and a slice of roasted mutton where Art had left them last. Women walked the lane with laden baskets on their heads, selling hot apples. Jim sat on a cider barrel, smoking the last bit of a cheroot. Art materialised next to him and then noticed the manner in which the mutton seller was roasting the shanks of meat. Unlike the butcher in his apron and rolled sleeves, the well-groomed vendor was sharply dressed in full coat, waistcoat, watch chain, and top hat and extolling the virtues of his gas cooking appliance to onlookers. While his assistants carved off slices of cooked mutton for a shilling apiece, he demonstrated how he roasted the spitted meat with a duo of pure-white flames emitted from a standing gas stove. The man tapped at one of the two brass generators beneath with his cane.

“It is the marvel of our modern age!” he exclaimed. “The cleanest of fuels, the simplest to produce, costing you nearly nothing, and with an illuminant as bright and pure as a diamond’s!”

“Lady Helene says we ought to keep a safe distance from his acetylene generator, should it leak gas,” Delphia said in aside to Art. She polished off her coffee and set the mug down by Jim. “She agrees that acetylene gas is all that he says, but if it should, while oxygenated, escape and meet a flame, it will combust.” Delphia looked pointedly at Jim smoking.

“Helene was here?” Art said as she picked up Jim and led Delphia away.

“Art!” Jim said. He gulped his cheroot. “Yes, Lady Helene was just here. I’ve told her how we’ve tracked both Mr and Mrs Rowden. She is on the hunt as well.”

“Aye, I’ve spotted her sister and would like to—”

“Oh?” Jim interrupted. “Resume your skirts-chasing? With Delphia replenished and I having smoked a cheroot, we’ll now make our own searching round of the fair proper. Did you note anything singular?”

She told him of the photographer’s tent. Delphia finished her pie and held her hands out for Jim.

“Thee should walk the rows, and I will fly over the ice fields surrounding the fair,” Art said. “After I’ve spoken to Helia.”

“Have a respite, Art!” Jim said. “We certainly did!”

They parted, and Art ghosted, flying back to the pub, Land of the Arctic.

 

***

 

Jim’s observation that Helia seemed less a madwoman with each passing day was correct, but Art wondered if ever such a condition could be fully cured. John Rowden harboured an ice fairy, but Helia harboured something darker: an eldritch infection. Sometimes Art could sense its presence when Helia’s bewitched mask failed to keep it slumbering. Sometimes when it woke, it drove Helia mad.

“No, no-no-no! Quiet!” Helia hissed to no one in particular as Art flew close. She gripped her notebook and shook her fists at nothing. “We don’t drink anymore!”

“Helia,” Art said when she alighted. She picked up the ends of Helia’s scarf and draped it more securely around her neck.

“Oh! Art!” Helia’s gaze focused and her fury vanished. She looked up and brightened, her smile delighted. “Have you finished flying all about the fair?”

“Thee has such a keen sense of me, e’en when I am invisible,” Art said.

“I’d know you if you flew all the way to heaven,” Helia said, and her smile grew tremulous.

Art bent and kissed her lips. Helia was taller right then; Art noticed she wore ice blades strapped to her boots. She ran her thumb along the leather of Helia’s half-mask and could not see nor feel the darkness hiding there. She hoped it would stay asleep, as it usually did, in her presence.

“Thee has been to the Rowden parlour and saw their cabinet cards,” Art said, her tone almost accusatory. “Thee has concluded the same, that John Rowden would desire to come here.”

“You are correct, dearest,” Helia said, her eyes twinkling. “Have you caught the man already?”

“Nearly, but he escaped. His ice breath—”

“Oh? Is that how he does it?”

“Aye. A potent breath it is, for the ice spirit makes use of his body and from it, issues powerful winds.” Art considered her words for a moment. “From the mouth, Helia, not from the other end.” She raised her right hand. “Such exhalation rendered my fist into glass! ’Twas a frightful injury.”

“Oh, Art!” Helia exclaimed and held the fist in both her hands. She kissed it.

After Helia was reassured that all of Art’s fingers were in working order, they returned their attention to the matter at hand.

“Genevieve Rowden is also present, somewhere,” Art said, “and eludes us. She wants her husband.”

“That is understandable. I’d a long discussion with her yesterday; theirs is a strong love. She should have her chance to speak with him.”

Art considered it. “’Twill be difficult. But I agree. Will thee skate along with me?” She offered her arm. Helia accepted, and Art strolled while Helia slid along, their arms linked. They departed the row and stepped into the Thames’ greater ice fields where more people skated, sledged, and bowled at ninepins. Helia pointed to a woman standing farther out on the ice, working at a painter’s folding easel.

“Miss Wila Stanchfield, the other woman illustrator for the Strand. Aldosia can’t be bothered with illustrating frivolity, no matter how singular the event. She deems such gaieties worthy of only Punch caricaturists and cartoonists.” Helia leaned into Art, her tone low. “I’m afraid she and Wila are not very fond of each other.”

She then looked at Art expectantly. “Is this sufficient distance from the fair, dear?”

Art smiled. “Before Jim and I arrived at the Terror, Helene could have taken the queer metal hidden in Friend Baffin’s bedding,” she said.

Helia grinned ruefully and her gaze dropped. “True,” she said. “But she didn’t.”

“Then thee are interested in those strange pieces. ’Tis fortunate thee are not evil,” Art said gently.

Helia looked up at her, her gaze stark.

“I hope we’re not,” she whispered.

“I can tell thee what we suspect of the ice spirit,” Art said. “That which resides in John Rowden.”

Helia’s face brightened again. She looked at Art expectantly.

“We think ’tis Jane Frost,” Art whispered.

Helia covered her mouth in mirth.

“’Tisn’t so strange a thought!” Art protested.

Helia hugged her arm.

“I’ll tell you what we suspect of the metal,” she whispered. “We think it may not be of Earth.”

Art looked at her, uncertain what to make of the information.

“Not of Earth . . . like Jim and I?”

Helia laughed. “No, dearest. I don’t mean supernatural or from the Fourth Dimension. I mean, quite literally: it is not of Earth.”

She pointed up into the sky. Art looked up once, then twice.

“Thee means . . . from the moon?” Art whispered in astonishment. “Or Saturn, or—another heavenly sphere? Have I the substance of what thee is saying, Helia?”

“Yes, Art, we are talking about what’s beyond there. Of a world perhaps very far away,” Helia softly said. “Made all of ice.”

Art stared, wide-eyed, trying to imagine it. “Yet how?” she finally asked. “What vessel could come from such a place to here?”

Helia held Art’s hand to the rosy cheek not covered by her half-mask. Art brushed the softness.

“What vessel, indeed,” Helia whispered.

 

***

 

While watching the games and antics, Art thought to resume her search for John Rowden on the ice field itself, but Helia stayed her.

“Helene is already doing that, Art.”

“But Helia, I can do so faster,” Art protested. “’Tis nothing that can move as fast as when I’m—”

A three-wheeled land yacht suddenly swept by them, the tall, single sail catching wind. Helene sat within the wagon and worked the levers, a dashing figure in black with her tricorne, long coat, and grey scarf flying behind her. She glanced at them as she sped along, and Art saw that she wore blue-tinted lenses clipped over her spectacles. Soon she was but a tiny figure in the distance, smoothly turning the sail and arcing the yacht around the fair’s end. She and the craft disappeared beyond the tents. Well-dressed young bucks at that end of the ice whooped and waved their hats after her.

“Sky-court! Sky-court!” they faintly cheered.

“Well,” Art said. “As she has such a pretty craft . . . she may make search of the ice, then.”

“The yacht belongs to those young men, Art. Helene is only borrowing it,” Helia said. “They kept pitching the poor thing into drifts. Oh! It makes me miss feluccas.”

“Which thee pitched into . . . ?”

“The River Nile.” Helia giggled.

“Helene is well-accepted amongst boys,” Art said.

“Yes, she is. She’s even been offered memberships into their gentlemen’s clubs, like the Explorers’ Club.” Helia sniffed. “Only a male impersonator has ever managed that.”

“’Tis why she has Vesta membership,” Art exclaimed in realisation. “’Twas given to her by Catherine Moore. I thought it a queer choice for Helene. A club with tigers and swords and bomb-ships would suit her better,” she added under her breath.

“When you’ve a family that owns airships, Art, people hardly refrain from bestowing privilege. I suspect it’s why our society tolerates my asylum stays and scandalous desire for a profession.”

“Thee likes to work. And Helene lives the ascetic’s life and eschews most privileges. Thee are both remarkable women despite being born into class.”

Helia hugged her arm as Helene sailed by again. They watched her reach the far end of the fair and slow the yacht to a stop by the cheering bucks. Helene disembarked and looked in their direction.

“So many circles with the yacht, and no John Rowden, else she would have stopped to tell us so,” Helia said.

“Oh? And not handle the ice fairy herself?”

“She’s no longer the Blackheart, Art,” Helia whispered.

“She still remains that masked heroine of the night, Helia,” Art said gently. “Slayer of creatures. No more able to stay idle than I could, were I somehow retired from the Secret Commission.”

Helia hugged Art’s arm to her. Art squeezed her hand.

“Let us visit the gingerbread seller,” Art suddenly said. “Then I’ll be ready to greet thy sister.”

Helene laughed as she pulled her back to the fair’s rows.

 

***

 

Genevieve Rowden peeped warily from the back flaps of a tent where chowder was served and watched Miss Skycourt and the Secret Commission agent leave the ice for the fair proper. She’d taken a great chance coming to the fair, with the hope that somehow John would find himself there. She felt he would, despite the creature inside him. As the agents had said, he had come home after all. If he were still her John, he would want to visit a place so similar to the fair where they first met.

She yearned to speak to the journalist again. She was exhausted, at times filled with dread or fear for John, and desperately wished for a sympathetic ear or counsel. But right then she dared not, especially when Miss Skycourt was clearly an acquaintance of the agents. Resigned, she withdrew within the tent. She’d given the proprietor a shilling to shelter her, and he was more than happy to oblige. While she waited for John to appear, she busied herself with helping the wife lay out the soup bowls needing ladling.

 

***

 

Art purchased three pieces of warm gingerbread and had each wrapped in paper. One she gave to Helia, the second went into her coat pocket, and the third she also pocketed for Delphia.

But she still needed to fly the ice and look for John Rowden. Her forsaken promise to make that search nagged at her. Helia had agreed to meet her where fairgoers skated once she was done. Art turned invisible and sped around the ice surrounding the fair, spying the wheel tracks Helene had made with the land yacht. She flew farther and looked at the people who came down ladders, sideways, or trooped in anticipation across the ice. She peeked at the painting on which Miss Stanchfield worked, thought it lovely, and then flew around Helene, who walked slowly and determinedly across the ice towards the fair. In the distance, the young bucks sailed their land yacht. They promptly caught the wrong wind and tipped. Art saw Delphia and Jim speed along on purchased blades, following the fair’s outer perimeter. Delphia’s strides were strong and smooth, and Art wondered how much skating Delphia had indulged in before her family’s fall from the middle class. Art entered a tent at the fair’s end and flew through each successful stall. She ghosted through cooks, sellers, goods, stoves, pots, barrels, coal sacks, gamblers, performers, printing presses, engravers, and drinking patrons. But when she entered the fortune-teller’s dark tent, the woman screamed, her gaze seemingly on her invisible form.

“Ghost! Ghost!” she shrieked. “Ghost flying!”

 

***

Genevieve nearly dropped a bowl of chowder at the screams of the medium in the tent next door. She ran out the back flaps, bowl still in hand. She dared not look behind her should the ghost-agent somehow spy her face.

 

***

 

Chagrined, Art swiftly passed from the distraught fortune-teller’s presence into a stall serving steaming chowder, and seeing neither John nor Genevieve Rowden, ghosted on.

Art finally returned to where Helia stood, behind a tent row, her back to the skaters and ice field. Art materialised and wondered what Helia was looking at within the fair’s lane. Noticing her, Helia smiled and pointed; just within their line of sight and in the row across stood the photographer’s tent, the man busy behind his camera as four sailors posed with the crescent moon. Delphia skated to Art and Helia and came to a stop, then bent over to catch her breath.

“Miss Skycourt has the same idea, I see!” Jim said. “And look there! Lady Helene has reached this spot as well.”

Art looked back to the ice. Many who played on it lacked blades and made do by slipping and sliding along, gathering snow to throw or playing in drifts, building snowmen. But among such revellers, Helene stood erect and still. Her eyes were closed behind her tinted spectacles, her palms pressed together as if in prayer, and one raised leg pointed a bent knee to the side. Art thought she might rest the foot of that bent knee against her standing leg, for she saw that beneath Helene’s skirts she stood on one foot.

“Silly goose!” Helia said, looking towards Helene. “She stands in vrksasana—like a tree.”

“With one boot sole upon the bare ice?” Art exclaimed. “’Tis a feat, this yogi!”

“Yoga, dear Art,” Helia corrected with a brief smile. She returned her attention to Helene and sniffed. “I don’t know why she’s engaging in meditation right this minute.”

“Delphia!” Jim said. “You could practice some of your yo-gah!”

“Certainly, sir,” Delphia said. “When I’m not wearing blades, and falling down upon them. We now know I remember how to skate forwards, but backwards is something I never learned.”

“Delphia, I’ll show you how one skates backwards,” Helia said. She stepped backwards on to the ice, her arms out as she smiled invitingly to Art, then kicked off with a foot. She smoothly slid, each of her backward steps curving then kicking out, propelling her around the ice. Just like when riding her penny-farthing, Helia hardly bothered to look about her, yet somehow avoided collisions—though more accurately, people avoided colliding with her.

“Art,” Jim said, “I’ll keep watch on the photographer and for Mr and Mrs Rowden. Delphia, you study Miss Skycourt’s technique. Now, Art, go!”

Art ghosted and swept across the ice, following the paths Helia carved backwards. Helia made her way to Helene and cut circles around her while Art flew around and around in her wake. She touched Helia’s outspread hands and felt her glide, her gaze on Helia’s twinkling eyes. Helia winked. She continued to cut across the ice backwards, and Art sailed. Finally, Helia skidded to a stop near Delphia. Art alighted and solidified beside her.

Helene abandoned her stance, looked towards the three, and slowly advanced. A boy fell and slid by her. A man lost his footing and began desperately running in place until he too fell and slid painfully away, his sweetheart exclaiming and then laughing. Helene’s stride remained firm. Not once did her soles slip.

“Cheat!” Helia accused when Helene came before them. Art looked at them both in surprise.

“Now, now,” Helene said to Helia. She then glanced up at Art as if to speak. Art took that moment to pat her coat pocket.

Helene gazed over her spectacles, incredulous. Art patted her pocket again.

“‘Tisn’t a mousetrap,” she said.

“It’s a most wonderful thing! Oh, Helene, go on!” Helia said. “Then I can eat mine!”

At Helia’s words, Helene plunged her gloved hand into Art’s pocket and pulled out the paper-wrapped package.

“And one for Delphia,” Art said, pulling out the other wrapping. She held it out.

“Oh, thank you, Art!” Delphia said.

When Art turned back to Helene, she had her paper open and was staring at the warm gingerbread.

“I can carry the treat for thee,” Art suggested. “’Tis unseemly for a respectable woman to eat before the—”

Helene proceeded to take a large bite out of her gingerbread while Helia bit hers with dainty enthusiasm. Seeing the ladies eat their treats, Delphia followed suit.

“Ha-ha!” Jim said. “Tea and biscuits!”

“I shall find a hot-chocolate seller,” Art said, smiling.

 

***

 

They were making merry, Art knew, with John Rowden still roaming and possibly freezing people right then. They were supposed to be watching the photographer’s tent. But she wanted the precious moment. For work like theirs, the soul and body needed their time of renewal, and Art was delighted to watch the twins and Delphia enjoy their gingerbread and hot chocolate. Jim, resting in Art’s hand, partook of a cigarette and swivelled about, watching the activity around them.

“Thee is taller today,” Art observed as Helene drank the hot chocolate she’d purchased for her. “Thee is now thy sister’s height.”

“Well, if you must know,” Helene said. She raised a boot, exposing the sole. Strapped to the bottom was a metal plate with the long tips of metal screws pointed outward.

“How deadly!” Art exclaimed.

“They are ice claws,” Helene said.

“Cheat,” Helia muttered.

Jim gulped his cigarette. “There’s our man,” he said.

They all turned to the ice field. In the distance a small ice cloud tumbled along the surface and came rapidly towards the fair. Within it stood a man in a pea coat, dusted white: John Rowden.