Shadows Gray

by Melyssa Williams

  ********************

  “I’m done waiting,” I announce several hours later.

  The sun has gone down (what there was of it that wasn’t obscured by clouds and fog of gray). We have sat by the road, leaving only when we felt pressured by passersby and only then to go a short distance. Israel has not returned. I am itching to do something, go somewhere. I worry about Prue, without a friend in that large house, lying through her tobacco stained teeth. I worry about our Lost comrades, Is especially, but Harry and Matthias too, left in modern America without me. I worry about Dad, who has wasted no time in shoplifting something to drink and is halfway to smashed. So much for sobriety.

  The neighborhood we are in appears middle class: not elaborate and wealthy like Sir Halloway’s, but not destitute and poor the way I know London to be in several areas. Most of the people we see are servants running errands, working men, ladies in corsets who aren’t exactly the leisurely affluent but perhaps close enough.

  “Definitely done waiting,” I repeat.

  Dad responds with a soft belch. We are mostly hidden in an alley way of sorts where we have a good view of the place we woke this morning. I am about to walk away from Dad when Israel appears, like a mist the way he always does.

  “Food,” he says shortly, tossing a bag towards me. Since I am not exactly the athletic type, I of course drop it, and I glower at him as I bend down to clean it up.

  “I was worried,” I say shortly and then tear into a roll with my teeth.

  “Sorry,” Israel rubs his eyes and yawns. “This place is a maze. I think I spent half the day lost. The other half was trying to blend in.” He smiles awkwardly. “Didn’t work out so well.”

  I swallow my massive bite of bread and smile a little. I eye another roll longingly but evidently Lady Halloway had a more willowy figure than I: without a corset I could barely do up the buttons of the blue dress Dad pinched for me. I’m not sure the stitching could handle another roll.

  Israel yawns again before asking, “Where’s Prue?”

  “She was in a warm bed sipping tea and bossing the rich around last time I saw her,” I roll my eyes indulgently. “I’ll go check on her tomorrow or the next day. I think she can charm her way into the household but my story of being a noteworthy gentlewoman wasn’t going to check out so Dad and I hit the road pretty quickly.”

  “That must be some sort of record,” Israel muses.

  I laugh. “That’s what I thought. Of course she’s been here before, so that’s an advantage. She told me she worked for a rich Victorian lady once. Oh my word, do you think she could actually run into her first husband? Or was it her second?” My eyes grow large at the thought and I stop chewing on my second roll for a moment.

  “Who knows? Stranger things have happened. There are some sausages in there; fish them out, would you?”

  For a while we eat in silence. My dress is warm (especially since I left my nightgown on underneath the full skirts, partly for warmth and partly because I have nowhere to stash it) and the blankets we kept from Sir Halloway are helpful as well. All in all we are cold but only just, though the dampness in the air has a heaviness that rubs into your bones. Dad had stolen a coat for himself and shoes, and Israel is fully dressed as a dapper Englishman too. I don’t ask where he got them, but I certainly hope we don’t run into a naked, six and a half foot tall, angry man anytime soon. Israel looks rather nice, I think, especially in the hat; though I want to tell him so, I don’t.

  “And as for lodging?” I finally ask through bites of cold sausages. I lick the grease from my fingers.

  “You’re looking at it, at least for tonight.”

  I want to sigh melodramatically but I know Is has done the best he could for today and besides, we’ve stayed in worse surroundings than a dirty alley in the streets of London. Just once though, I’d like to wake up in Buckingham Palace.

  “Can we build a fire?”

  “Not here. Area gets more run down if we walk farther; we could stay there. A few more huddled around a fire won’t be noticeable.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Can your dad walk?” Israel glances over at Dad who is snoring away serenely, oblivious to the cold and huddled in a little ball, his contraband bottle of something grasped tightly against his chest.

  “It would be tempting to leave him, but I suppose if we wake him, he can walk.”

  “Go on then.” Israel helps himself to the last sausage.

  “Thanks,” I mutter.

  After a few moments of shaking and shouting in Dad’s ear, and then finally ripping his bottle away from him, he stirs himself enough to apologize and agrees to join us. The weather becomes frigid and even with my blanket wrapped around my head to protect my ears, my teeth chatter. I start talking to keep the cold at bay.

  “Did you know it’s almost Christmas? Ollie said December twentieth though he didn’t seem quite sure.”

  Israel frowns. “I know. We don’t usually lose two months like that.”

  I snort and sound just like Prue. “What’s two months in the grand scheme of things? We just lost a century and a half!”

  “I know, but I still don’t like it.”

  “Do you ever get the feeling we’re supposed to figure this out? This whole traveling, lost in time, sort of thing? Like it’s maybe really obvious and we just haven’t put the pieces together?”

  “All the time, Sonnet, all the time. Share the blanket, would you?”

  We walk the rest of the way in silence, huddled together under the woolen blanket. It makes for strange walking, trying to find our sync and not stumble around the way Dad unfortunately is doing. I match my steps to Israel’s and once we find a rhythm it starts to be successful in an ungraceful sort of lurching way.

  I tell him his new clothes smell funny.

  “What? I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

  I remove the blanket from where I have it wrapped around my face, only my eyes peeking through.

  “I said you smell like pipe tobacco. I think whomever you stole these clothes from was a big smoker.”

  “I didn’t steal them, I borrowed them.”

  “Uh huh. Smells nice actually. Like cherry and smoke.”

  I may imagine it, but it feels as though his arm around my waist tightens just a bit and the fingers of his hand move slightly, almost like an unexpected, strange caress.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I whisper from under the protection of the muffling blanket.

  ********************

  We don’t have to go far to reach a different section of London altogether; seedy and teeming with people, either huddled in groups around fires built in iron trash containers or walking briskly. We are ignored for the most part other than the ladies of the night who call out or whisper out offers to Dad, which turns my stomach. Israel they only widen their eyes at and I don’t know if it’s out of fear or respect or curiosity. Maybe all three. There are children too, here and there, playing in the street or sleeping on their mother’s lap, but it’s mostly the prostitutes who are almost practically swarming about in numbers so large I can hardly fathom it. I think of the girls who used to come into the coffee shop, the ones with tight pants and low cut shirts and provocative eye liner – they were only playing silly children’s games, texting boys and flirting. I think of them paired up with these girls, these girls are old before their time and hardened, and think what a contrast they would be. The slums are so bad - worse than any I’ve seen in any other time - that I tell Israel I want to stop. It seems as though the farther we go, the worse it gets and I’m reticent to discover anymore. This is bad enough.

  “Stay here,” Israel instructs, propping Dad up against a wall. “I’ll borrow a light.”

  He is back in no time, with a torch made of garbage and lit up with the glowing warmth of blessed fire. I watch him as he makes a small bonfire in the metal circular bin that we are near. The flame lights up our faces, the three of us, making us seem ghoulish in the orange
reflection. The yellow radiance that dances across Israel’s dark face makes for a Jack-o-lantern effect and I tell him so. He bares his teeth at me in good humor.

  I laugh at the sight and therefore am unprepared when I am knocked to the ground by the force of a person jumping out of the shadows.

  It’s Emme.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I can’t believe you’re here!” Emme squeals with such delight that I throw my arms back around and hug her for at least the fourth time since she knocked me to the ground.

  Joe and Bea have come to join us and I am startled by the sight of my Dad now lying on the ground with his head on Bea’s lap. She even strokes his hair lightly and I wonder what I haven’t noticed when I’m too busy thinking of myself.

  Joe has gleefully accepted the offer of my blanket and has mummified himself right by the fire and gone to sleep. Israel lays next to him, not out of the desire to be near a kicking, snoring seven year old all night I suspect, but out of a desire to protect him in a precarious neighborhood.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” I answer. “I really thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Guess we were close enough after all, huh?” she continues happily. “When we got here I absolutely hated myself for not taking you up on your offer to live together. I felt like such a dope, setting myself up for traveling without my favorite family! I’m so glad we got a second chance.”

  “Me too. And you look adorable, by the way.”

  Emme looks down at her dress which is pink, her favorite. “Isn’t it pretty? I’m so glad to be back in England!”

  “You look like a fairy princess. In a corset.”

  “That’s what the boys call me, too.”

  “The boys?” At first I think she means Harry and Matthias, and then I grimace. “Oh. Those boys. You’ve been here, what, a day? For crying out loud, Emme.”

  “Don’t be disapproving, Sonnet. You have Israel and your dad and even Harry and Matthias. I have a middle aged mom and a little kid. Someone has to bring in food and clothes.”

  “You’re right, okay,” I kiss her cheek, nearly sacrificing my eye in the process as it runs into a feather poking out of her jaunty pink bonnet. “I’m sorry. I just wish you wouldn’t. That’s all.”

  “Let’s go to sleep. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”

  I agree and together we settle down, our arms and legs akimbo, mingling with the arms and legs of four others.

  It’s a long, restless, cold night, but we sleep as best we can.

  ********************

  “I think my eyelashes are frozen solid. I’m afraid to blink,” Emme says when the sun finally makes its lazy way up in the sky. She does look a little blue.

  “I know. What the heck happened to October and November?” I blow on my hands and stiff fingers.

  Dad has gone, along with Bea; they’re looking for opportunities and places to sleep that are better than the street. Joe is still sleeping and Israel is too; his arms wrapped in a bear hug around the little bundle of blanket that is Joe. I’d admire his fatherly leanings if I didn’t believe it was more for warmth than for anything else.

  “Is it December then? As much as I love London, I do wish we’d been dumped off in June instead. Are we in time for Boxing Day?”

  “Boxing Day? What, is that the English Christmas?”

  “No, silly, they have Christmas too. It’s just an extra holiday is all. I’m all for extra holidays, aren’t you?”

  “If they involve turkey and mashed potatoes, definitely. I’d like to stick my toes in mashed potatoes and gravy right about now. Emme, what are we going to do here?”

  “Feeling worried already, ducky? Cheer up, this is London! The possibilities are endless!”

  “I need to go check on Prue today, make sure that Sir Halloway hasn’t kicked her to the curb. I appealed to his sense of Christian duty but I think he was only humoring me in case I actually turned out to be somebody.”

  “You are somebody: you’re a time traveling witch! You can foresee the future, tell fortunes! Hmm, not a bad profession now that I think of it.” Emme wiggles her eyebrows.

  “Except I don’t know a thing about anyone in particular. What am I going to foretell?”

  “Oh, there must be something you can think of. You’re better at history than I. Anyway, come on, I need to make water.”

  “Make water?” I wrinkle my nose.

  “Pee. If you’re going to live here you have to learn the slang, chickadee. Can I leave Joe with Is, do you think?”

  “Sure. There’s no better protection than a giant. Help me up, my joints are frozen solid and I’m not sure I can bend my knees.”

  We find a solitary spot to take care of personal hygiene business and then wander off with no particular destination in mind, other than the vague, gnawing hope of breakfast. My stomach growls. The streets are quieter now than they were last night, though the dank feeling of depression and poverty seems almost worse in the garish light of day. In the dark, you think you imagine some of it, but in the sun there is no imagination necessary; it really is as bad a slum as your mind's eye thought it might be.

  There’s garbage in the street and once we almost get hit in the head with something gloppy that someone drops out of their window over us. Judging by the smell, it wasn’t something edible.

  “I’ll need to find work,” I say. “I don’t know that I can make a living with singing here.”

  “Mmm. You must have other skills. Can you sew?”

  “Crookedly.”

  “Cook?”

  “Terribly.”

  “Perhaps you’d best find a rich man to marry you then!”

  “Yes, that’s the ticket. An excellent plan, Emme, thank you. Always helpful.”

  “Here’s a bakery, let’s go in.” Emme points at a dilapidated shop with a crooked sign advertising breads and biscuits.

  “Wait.”

  The dingy store with its dirty windows reminds me forlornly of Luke’s photography shop and my step falters. I remember the day we sat there, eating squirrel pie and talking of Rose.

  Rose. Where is she now? If Emme traveled the same night we did, couldn’t Rose have as well? Not if she was as far away as the abandoned house – but hadn’t I established quite nicely that she wasn’t there after all?

  “What is it?” Emme asks impatiently.

  “Just thinking. You haven’t really asked me what happened night before last. I mean, night before last a hundred and some-odd years in the future.”

  It’s Emme’s turn to wrinkle her nose. She does that when she’s thinking.

  “Well, I suppose I haven’t had much time, have I? Besides, I knew you’d tell me if you wanted me to know.”

  “I do want you to know. Mostly because I want you to explain it to me,” I answer ruefully. I tell her all about that night; about seeing Rose in our street in the rain, stealing the Blue Beast and going out to the house, finding myself locked in, and finally so many, many hours later, hearing the door being unlocked. Walking the wrong way and getting lost and farther from home. Israel finding me and bringing me home. I even tell her about the laugh I thought I heard when I was in the room.

  “You’re giving me goose bumps, Sonnet,” Emme says when I’m finished with my lurid tale. “Do you really think someone locked you in and then let you out? Why? That seems a little harsh a punishment for a trespasser.”

  “I know.”

  “If it was Rose you saw and you were right about her living there, maybe it was her who locked you in.”

  “Why? “

  “You may have scared her. Maybe she has no idea you’re her sister. Maybe she thought you were a deranged lunatic stalker.” Emme shrugs. “I don’t know. How did Israel know where to find you?”

  I frown. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.”

  “Well, let’s think on it some more after a biscuit. There’s a ridiculously cute boy in that shop and I’m going to get us a free brea
kfast if it’s the last thing I do. Come on, come flirt with me.” She pulls on my elbow.

  “I can’t flirt! My flirter is broken. Seriously, you’ll stand a better chance if I just stay out here.”

  “Fine then. Stand in the slush. I’ll try to save you some crumbs.”

  ********************

  Emme saves me more than crumbs; she’s managed to use her feminine wiles to convince the young man working at the bakery to give us anything that was broken or had fallen apart or had burnt. We end up with a paper sack of ugly looking biscuits that taste much better than they appear.

  “I’m going to stop and ask for directions if I want to find Sir Halloway’s house again,” I muse. “No wonder Israel got lost yesterday, this place really is a maze.”

  “Really? I find it quite logical.”

  “Oh, please. You’re just happy to be back in England and you’re every bit as lost as I am. What do you think it costs to rent of those carriage-y thingies? You know, one of those ancient taxi services?”

  “More than you have, plus some. We’re going to have to walk it. Maybe we’ll pass a shop with a sign out front advertising ‘singing girls wanted!’”

  “Yes, that sounds very likely. Right after we pass the one that says ‘free rides to Sir Halloway’s!’”

  There’s no choice really but to walk and nothing else to do anyway, and so we walk.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The directions we get from an old man seem to make sense and Emme and I follow them to the letter. It begins to rain but it’s only a light drizzle that makes our hair curl and it stops as soon as it had started. The basic layout of the city is beginning to seem slightly more logical; at least it’s not as nonsensical as I had first believed. We are in the East side of London, the poorest side but most likely also the most hospitable to the Lost. Sir Halloway is in Mayfair, or at least the old man seems to think so, and it’s a few miles, about three or so. Once again, with nothing else to do, we decide to walk there.