Sweep

by Jonathan Auxier

  “What did he tell you?” Nan said.

  “He told me his name was Spatz—Sparrow. He told me there was a girl asleep on a roof near St. Florian’s churchyard. He said she would soon wake up and find herself alone. He said she was special. And that I needed to keep an eye on her.”

  “Why would you do that?” she said. “Did he pay you?”

  “He said he didn’t have money,” Toby said. “All he had was his empty sootbag.” His gaze slid to the ledge beside him.

  Nan looked past him to the battered and patched bag that Toby carried everywhere. “The emporium?” she said. “That was his?” She wondered at how she had failed to recognize it—looking at it now, she could see he was telling the truth. She could picture it draped over the Sweep’s shoulder.

  “He told me it was lucky,” Toby said. “That it would be just the thing.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know if I believe him . . . but I’ll tell you what: Everything I find that goes into that bag turns out to be just the thing for someone in need.”

  Nan nodded. “The Sweep’s like that.” She sighed, thinking of what he had left for her. “All these years of waiting for him to come back, and I still don’t understand it. Why did he just disappear like that? Why didn’t he take me with him?”

  Toby shrugged. “He couldn’t take you with him. Not where he was going.”

  Nan shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

  He watched her for a long moment. “He was dying, Nan.”

  Nan pulled back. “That’s a wicked thing to say!” She drew her arms tight around her chest.

  He scooted closer to her. “Is it any more wicked than letting yourself believe in something you know isn’t true?”

  Nan opened her mouth but said nothing.

  “You know I’m right. You’ve always known.”

  Nan took a deep breath. When she pulled memories of the Sweep, she could sometimes see through the stories and smiles. She could see a man with hollow cheeks and hollower eyes. A man with a limp that would not go away. She could see him coughing up phlegm as black as soot. She could see a man wasting away.

  Nan closed her eyes. She felt warm tears run down her cheeks. “Soot wart,” she whispered.

  “It was a mercy, what he did,” Toby said. “He didn’t want you to wake to find him . . . like that. And so he left you. You and Charlie. Only something went wrong, and Charlie wasn’t born right away, like he was supposed to be.”

  “I held on too tight,” Nan said. “He probably figured I would get cold and burn the soot to keep warm. But I didn’t.”

  “No harm in the end,” Toby said. “All it took was being burned alive in a chimney to fix your mistake.” This was a joke, but neither of them laughed.

  “Why wouldn’t he want you to tell?” she said. “Why keep it a secret from me?”

  “I’m not sure it was about you.” He gave a tight smile. “I think he was trying to save me.”

  “By giving you the bag?”

  “No, dummy,” Toby said. “By giving me a purpose. From that moment on, I had to stay alive—no matter how bad things got. Because if I died, then there would be no one to keep an eye out for Nan Sparrow.” He looked up at the sky. It was just clear enough to make out the faint glimmer of moonlight. “That’s how it works, doesn’t it? We are saved by saving others.”

  Nan wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She looked down at Charlie’s face. He was sleeping peacefully on the roof beside her. Had she saved Charlie? Or had Charlie saved her?

  “I think it’s almost time,” Toby said. He was facing the sky. “You can feel it in the air. Like all creation is holding her breath.”

  The bells of churches across London struck midnight. Front doors all along the street were flung open, and the sounds of cheering filled the air. There was a New Year’s tradition to throw sticky rum cakes out the open doors. They said it ensured a full larder for the year to come. Nan saw figures scurrying from the shadows—beggars running to collect the wasted food.

  All across the city, Nan could hear singing.

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And never brought to mind?

  Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

  And auld lang syne?

  For auld lang syne, my dear,

  For auld lang syne,

  We’ll take a cup of kindness yet,

  For auld lang syne.

  Nan shivered. “What do you think it means—auld lang syne?” She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes.

  Toby examined a dead leaf that he’d found in the gutter box. “It means ‘days long ago.’ The song’s about whether we should remember what’s behind us.”

  “Of course we should,” Nan said. “What’s happened to us is who we are.”

  “I suppose so.” He let the breeze take the leaf from his fingers. “But if you’re always looking back, you might not see what’s in front of you.”

  She shrugged. “I guess it’s another enigma.”

  “You know what they say about Hogmanay?” Toby said. “Whatever you’re doing at the stroke of midnight is what you’ll be doing all through the new year.”

  Nan considered this. Sitting on a rooftop. Charlie on one side. Toby on the other. A clear sky above. The whole world below. She hugged her knees against her chest. “I could do worse.”

  PART TWO

  EXPERIENCE

  THE BESPOKE MAN

  “I was wondering if I would see you again.”

  Miss Bloom slid open the frosty dormer window for Nan to enter. “It’s dreadful out there. Haven’t you any boots?”

  Nan dropped to the floor and wiped the slush from her feet. “Not sure I’ve use for them.” She breathed into her fist. “Boots and rooftops don’t mix. I prefer cold toes to a broken neck.” She had been avoiding the library ever since she had tossed Songs of Innocence into the fire. She had regretted burning the book immediately and had even tried visiting some bookstalls to buy a replacement. She was afraid of making Miss Bloom upset, but she also knew she needed to return. There were things she still needed to know about Charlie.

  If Miss Bloom remembered the book, she chose not to mention it. “Warm yourself by the fire.” She indicated a seat opposite the hearth. “I seem to have brought up more cakes than I can eat. It would be a kindness if you finished what was left.”

  The cakes looked as if they hadn’t been touched. Nan wondered if Miss Bloom had actually set them out for her specifically. She noticed that the chair had a blanket laid over its back to protect it from soot. “Thank you, ma’am.” She tried a cake, which tasted of anise and ginger.

  “Cakes are the least I can give in return for the handsome menorah you left on my bed stand.” The woman smiled. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  Nan bowed her head and concentrated on her cake. Now that she took regular baths, it was much easier to catch her in a blush. “Did you like it?”

  “I did.” Miss Bloom folded her hands. “It made me think of holidays past.” Her gaze settled on the crackling fire. “It made me think of home.”

  Nan settled herself deeper into the chair. Her feet barely touched the floor. “Is home very far away?” She thought she could detect a hint of accent in Miss Bloom’s voice.

  The woman shook her head. “I was born on Brick Lane.”

  “In Spitalfields?” Nan wrinkled her nose. “That’s hardly an hour’s walk from here.”

  “It is not far. And yet . . . it is a world apart. My family is quite traditional. They live by different rules than their gentile neighbors.” Miss Bloom gave an apologetic smile. “The last time I saw my parents, I was scarcely older than yourself. I fear they would not recognize me today. Neither would they welcome one who has strayed so far from their ways.” Her smile tightened into a wince. “But I think you did not come here to interrogate me about my history.”

  This was true. Ever since talking to Toby on New Year’s, Nan had felt a growing urgency to understand what Charlie was—and w
hy the Sweep had left him with her. If she could discover his purpose, perhaps she could avoid fulfilling it. “The first time you found me up here,” Nan said, “do you remember our conversation?”

  “How could I not?” she said. “A ghost come back from the grave to steal a reading primer.”

  “I asked you if you knew about golems, and you promised that you would tell me if I returned.”

  Miss Bloom sat back. “I wondered if you had forgotten about that.”

  “Can you tell me now?”

  “Golems are not something easily studied. After you asked, I did a little searching at Hatchard’s Bookshop. I could find no books about true golems, though echoes of such creatures appear in many stories.” She handed Nan a book, which Nan opened to the title page.

  FRANKENSTEIN;

  or,

  The Modern Prometheus

  And then, beneath the title, an inscription from something called Paradise Lost:

  Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

  To mould me man? Did I solicit thee

  From darkness to promote me?—

  “What’s a Frankenstein?” Nan stared at the word. “Is that a sort of monster?”

  “Frankenstein is not the monster. Or perhaps he is. You can tell me after you’ve read it.”

  “Thank you.” Nan closed the book. She ran her thumb over the ridges on the spine. She wished she could talk about Charlie, but it was impossible. “I know it’s an odd thing, asking about golems. All I can tell you is that it’s important.”

  “You needn’t justify yourself, not to me.” Miss Bloom looked at the fire. “I can tell you what my mother and father told me when I was a little girl.” She paused a moment, and Nan thought she might be remembering what it was to have her mother and father with her still. “A golem is a ‘bespoke man.’ ”

  “ ‘Bespoke’?” Nan shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know that word.”

  This made Miss Bloom smile. “I’ve always admired a person who can admit to not knowing something. Most people smile and nod and pretend they know everything for fear of being caught out. But those people only ensure their ignorance.” She shook her head and answered more plainly. “ ‘Bespoke’ means a thing has been custom-made. It is a one-of-a-kind treasure created for just one person.”

  “How is a golem made?”

  “A sage or rabbi—that is, a Jewish priest—forms a body out of mud or clay and then brings that creature to life with a sort of magic word called a shem.”

  Nan wondered if the Sweep himself had been Jewish. She knew he had come from a kingdom far away—a place where chimney sweeping was an honorable trade, respected by all. “This shem,” she asked, “is it some kind of spell?”

  “More like a spark,” the woman said. “Some say the word is the true name of God.” She smiled as if she were almost embarrassed to talk of such things. “The maker might carve the word into the golem’s forehead or stitch it into his heart or whisper it into his ear. It is that word that gives the golem life.”

  Nan thought of Charlie. He had no word on his forehead. She tried to imagine the Sweep bringing Charlie to life. For some reason, she pictured it the same way she pictured story soup—dropping ingredients into his hat. She wondered what words he might have said to bring those ingredients to life. “In your stories, why did the rabbi make his golem?”

  “Why does a person create anything? Out of necessity.” Miss Bloom leaned closer. “The golem is made to help people who fear for their lives. For reasons that have never quite made sense to me, Jewish people are despised and attacked the world over. Their need is great.”

  “Golems are protectors,” Nan said, remembering what the woman had told her the last time they talked.

  “That is the idea, yes.”

  She knew from the way Miss Bloom was speaking that she did not believe in golems. She tried to imagine what Miss Bloom would do if she met Charlie. “I remember you saying that golems live until they have fulfilled their purpose. And after that they must die.”

  “You remember very well.”

  Nan shifted, leaning closer. “But what if they don’t want to die? Or if someone else doesn’t want them to die? Is there some way to stop it?”

  Miss Bloom seemed to understand that Nan’s question was a serious one. “There are stories in which, once the golems have done their work, they try to keep living. They resist the will of their creator.” She shook her head. “I suppose we should not blame them. Who among us would not do the same?”

  “Does it work?” Nan’s throat felt dry. “Do the stories ever have a happy ending?”

  “Things sometimes do end well for the people—they are delivered from danger or blessed with riches. But not so for the golem. For the golem”—Miss Bloom took a breath—“there is no happy ending.”

  A BAD DAY

  It was cold, and the larder was bare.

  Nan stared at the empty shelves, as though staring might make food appear. The icy stone floor was covered with opened tins that she hadn’t bothered to dispose of. The smell was not pleasant.

  “Charlie!” she called. Even indoors, her breath came out as steam. “What did you do with the loaf of bread I got last week?”

  “I gave it to Prospero.” He stumped into the kitchen with a birdcage full of yarn. “It had green fur on it—that part is his favorite.”

  “You should tell me when we’re out of food.”

  “Oh, yes,” Charlie said. “Nan, we are out of food.”

  She rolled her eyes and closed the larder door. This was her fault. She had stayed inside for most of the week, which meant she had earned no money. And now it was Sunday—a day when almost no one hired sweeps—and she had nothing to eat.

  Nan felt a sort of anxious gnawing inside her gut. She told herself it must be hunger, but it did not feel like hunger. She had spent the past three days devouring the book that Miss Bloom had given her. Frankenstein was unlike anything she had ever read. There was arctic adventure and a vain inventor and mobs of angry people and murder. The story had not angered Nan the way “The Chimney Sweeper” had. Instead, it had unsettled her. As had Miss Bloom’s final words:

  For the golem, there is no happy ending.

  Thinking about this made the gnawing in her gut stronger. “I’m going to get some work,” she said, climbing upstairs to her room.

  Nan’s room had once been her favorite place in the world. But today she hated the sight of it. There were cobwebs in the corners and clutter on the floor. A layer of black soot covered every surface that Charlie had touched. “Can’t you do anything without ruining it?” she muttered.

  Almost every room within the House of One Hundred Chimneys looked like a rubbish heap. Most of the furniture had been broken apart to make firewood. An icy wind slid through a cracked window, carrying tiny motes of snow into the room. Nan clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering. She had once been so excited to show snow to Charlie, but at the moment it was hard to fathom how she had ever felt fondly toward the stuff.

  She pulled on the warmest trousers she could find. They were mottled with patches. She found they barely covered her knees. She thought of Miss Bloom’s students at the seminary, all prettied up in wool coats and fur mufflers and high boots.

  She told herself she wasn’t jealous. And she wasn’t. But still, it was hard not to envy those girls whose only job was to learn from Miss Bloom all day. She recalled how Miss Bloom had petitioned the headmistress to help her. What if some rich patron paid for Nan to join the school? But that imagining was ruined by another thought—

  Charlie.

  Even if that impossible opportunity did appear, Nan would have to refuse it. Because Charlie needed her.

  Nan heard a clatter below as he knocked over something in the Inventing Room. “I told you to stay out of there!” she shouted. She had been trying to make herself a mechanical brush with things she’d scavenged around the house. But the effort had proved fruitless, and she hadn’t touched it in m
ore than a month.

  She felt the gnawing grow. It was in her chest now.

  Charlie appeared in the doorway holding a book. “Can you read me a story?”

  “Not today.” She took up her brush.

  “Oh,” he said. “Can I read you a story?”

  “No.” She walked past him into the hall.

  Charlie followed after her. “Can you tell me about the Sweep?”

  “No.”

  “Can we play skittles?”

  “No.”

  “Can we build a fort?”

  “No.”

  With each question, Nan felt the gnawing more keenly. She wanted Charlie to stop asking questions—she wanted everything to stop.

  “Can we build a snow Charlie?”

  “No.”

  “Can we be Father Christmas?”

  “No.”

  “Can we visit Toby?”

  “No.”

  “Can we visit Prospero?”

  “No.”

  “Can we—?”

  Nan spun around. “NO!” she shouted. “NO! NO! NO!”

  Charlie blinked. He looked like he was about to cry. “Why are you shouting at me?” he asked.

  Nan rubbed the bridge of her nose, as if she could massage out the gnawing. “I’m not shouting.” She released a tense breath and forced herself to smile. “Today’s just a bad day.”

  “A bad day?” Charlie’s eyes went wide. “Is that a kind of holly-day?”

  Nan sighed and opened the window. “I’m going out.”

  A gust of snowy air swept into the room. “It is very cold outside,” Charlie said. “If I went with you, I could keep you warm.”

  Nan closed her eyes and balled up her fists until her hands hurt. She was afraid of saying something she might regret. She released a slow breath, and again heard the words: