“It survived the golem, which is more than anything else has done. Take it with you.”
Nathaniel paused a moment. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t think I understand. Where do you want me to go?”
Jessica Whitwell stood, ready to depart. “Where do you think? The historic home of all golems. The place, where, if anywhere, the lore must have been preserved. I wish you to go to Prague.”
18
Kitty rarely allowed considerations beyond the group to impinge upon her, but on the day after the rains ceased, she took a trip to see her parents again.
That evening, at their emergency meeting, the Resistance would learn about the great new hope, the biggest job they had ever undertaken. The details remained to be discovered, but an air of almost painful anticipation prevailed at the shop, a weight of excitement and uncertainty that made Kitty beside herself with agitation. Bowing to her restlessness, she departed early, bought a small bunch of flowers from a kiosk, and took the crowded bus to Balham.
The street was as quiet as ever, the little house trim and neat. She knocked loudly, fumbling for her keys in her bag while supporting the flowers as best she could between shoulder and chin. Before she located them, a shadow approached behind the glass and her mother opened the door, peering around it hesitantly.
Her eyes came alive. “Kathleen! How lovely! Come in, love.”
“Hi, Mum. These are for you.”
An awkward ritual of kissing and hugging ensued, mingled with the flowers being inspected and Kitty’s attempting to squeeze past into the hall. At last, with difficulty, the door was shut and Kitty was ushered up and along to the familiar small kitchen, where potatoes were bubbling on the cooker and her father was sitting at the table polishing his shoes. With hands still full of brush and shoe, he stood up, allowed her to kiss his cheek, then motioned her to an empty chair.
“We’ve got a hot pot on, love,” Kitty’s mother said. “It’ll be ready in five minutes.”
“Oh, that’s great. Cheers.”
“So …” After a moment’s consideration, her father placed his brush upon the table and laid the shoe sole-down beside it. He smiled at her broadly. “How’s life among the pots and paints?”
“It’s fine. Nothing special, but I’m learning.”
“And Mr. Pennyfeather?”
“He’s getting a little frail. Doesn’t walk so well now.”
“Dear, dear. And the business? Most importantly, do you have the magicians’ custom? Do they paint?”
“Not so much.”
“That’s where you have to direct your energies, girl. That’s where the money is.”
“Yes, Dad. We’re directing our energies at the magicians now. How’s work?”
“Oh, you know. I made a big sale at Easter.”
“Easter was months ago, Dad.”
“Business is slow. How about a cup of tea, Iris?”
“Not before lunch.” Her mother was busying herself collecting extra cutlery and setting the place before Kitty with reverent care. “You know, Kitty,” she said, “I don’t see why you don’t stop here with us. It’s not so far. And it would be cheaper for you.”
“Rent’s not high, Mum.”
“Yes, but food and that. You must spend so much on it, when we could cook for you. It’s a waste of money.”
“Mmm.” Kitty picked up her fork and tapped the table with it absently “How’s Mrs. Hyrnek?” she said. “And Jakob—have you seen him lately?”
Her mother had on a large pair of oven gloves and was kneeling before the oven; a gust of red-hot air, heavy with the fragrance of spiced meats, belched from its open door. Her voice echoed strangely as she rummaged within. “Jarmilla is well enough,” she said. “Jakob works for his father, as you know. I have not seen him. He does not go out. Alfred—could you fetch out the wooden mat? This is piping hot. That’s it. Now drain the potatoes. You should visit him, dear. He’d be glad for company, poor boy. Especially if it’s you. It’s a shame you don’t see him anymore.”
Kitty frowned. “That wasn’t what you used to say, Mum.”
“All that business was a long time ago…. You’re much steadier now. Oh, and the grandmother has died, Jarmilla says.”
“What? When?”
“Last month sometime. Don’t give me that look—if you came to see us more often, you’d have known about it earlier, wouldn’t you? Not that I can see it matters much to you in any case. Oh—do ladle it out, Alfred. It’ll go cold, else.”
The potatoes were overcooked, but the stew was excellent. Kitty ate ravenously and, to her mother’s delight, plowed through a second helping before her parents had finished their first. Then, while her mother told her news of people she had never met or didn’t remember, she sat quietly, fingering a small, smooth, and heavy object in her trouser pocket, lost in thought.
The evening following her trial had been deeply unpleasant for Kitty, as first her mother, then her father, had expressed their fury at the consequences. It was in vain that Kitty reminded them of her innocence, of the wickedness of Julius Tallow. It was in vain that she swore to somehow find the £600 necessary to placate the wrath of the Courts. Her parents were unmoved. Their argument boiled down to a few eloquent points: (1) They did not have the money. (2) They would have to sell their house. (3) She was a stupid, arrogant brat to think of challenging a magician. (4a) What had everyone told her? (4b) What had they told her? (5) Not to do it. (6) But she was too boneheaded to listen. And (7) now what were they going to do?
The encounter had finished predictably, with the mother weeping, the father raging, and Kitty rushing furiously to her room. It was only when she was there, sitting on the bed, staring hot-eyed at the opposite wall, that she remembered the old man, Mr. Pennyfeather, and his strange offer of assistance. It had entirely slipped her mind during the argument, and now, in the midst of her confusion and distress, it seemed altogether unreal. She thrust it to the back of her mind.
Her mother, bringing her a conciliatory cup of tea some hours later, found a chair wedged firmly against the door from within. She spoke through the thin plywood. “I forgot to tell you something, Kathleen. Your friend Jakob is out of the hospital. He went home this morning.”
“What! Why didn’t you say?” The chair was feverishly removed; a flushed face glared out from under a mane of unkempt hair. “I have to see him.”
“I don’t think that will be possible. The doctors—” But Kitty was already gone.
He was sitting up in bed, wearing a brand-new pair of blue pajamas that still had the creases in the sleeves. His variegated hands were folded in his lap. A glass bowl of grapes sat untouched upon the counterpane. Two bright white circles of fresh gauze were strapped across his eyes, and a short fuzz of hair was growing upon his scalp. His face was as she remembered, stained by its dreadful wash of gray and black.
As she entered, he broke into a small, twisted smile.
“Kitty! That was quick.”
Trembling, she approached the bed and took his hand. “How—how did you know it was me?”
“No one else comes up the stairs like a bull elephant the way you do. You all right?”
She glanced at her unblemished, pink-white hands. “Yes. Fine.”
“I heard about that.” He tried to maintain his smile, failed narrowly. “You’re lucky…. I’m glad.”
“Yes. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, knackered. Sick. Like a round of smoked bacon. My skin’s painful when I move. And itchy That’ll all pass, they say. And my eyes are healing.”
Kitty felt a surge of relief. “That’s great! When—?”
“Sometime. I don’t know….” He seemed suddenly weary, irritable. “Never mind all that. Tell me what’s been going on. I hear you’ve been to the Courts.”
She told him the whole story, except her encounter with Mr. Pennyfeather. Jakob sat upright in bed, smoky-faced and somber. At the finish, he sighed.
“You are so stupid, Kitty,” he said.
<
br /> “Thanks for that.” She ripped a few grapes off the bunch and stuffed them savagely into her mouth.
“My mum told you not to. She said—”
“She and everyone else. They are all so right and I am so wrong.” She spat grape seeds into her palm and threw them into a bin beside the bed.
“Believe me, I’m grateful for what you tried to do. I’m sorry you’re suffering on my account now.”
“It’s no big deal. We’ll find the money.”
“Everyone knows the Courts are rigged—it’s not what you’ve done that counts there, it’s who you are and who you know.”
“All right! Don’t go on about it.” Kitty wasn’t in the mood for lectures.
“I won’t.” He grinned, a little more successfully than before. “I can feel your scowl through the bandages.”
They sat in silence for a while. At last, Jakob said, “Anyway, you needn’t think that Tallow will get off scot-free.” He rubbed the side of his face.
“Don’t rub. What do you mean?”
“It’s just so itchy! Meaning there are ways other than the Courts.…”
“Such as?”
“Ahh! It’s no good, I’ll have to sit on my hands. Well, come in close—something might be listening…. Right. Tallow, being a magician, will think he’s away and clear. He won’t give me another thought now, if he ever has. And he certainly won’t connect me with Hyrnek’s.”
“Your dad’s firm?”
“Well, whose else is it? Of course my dad’s firm. And that’s going to be costly for Tallow. Like a lot of other magicians, he gets his books of magic bound at Hyrnek’s. Karel told me: he’s checked the accounts. Tallow places orders with us every couple of years. Likes a maroon crocodile-skin binding, does Tallow, so we can add lack of taste to his other crimes. Well, we can afford to wait. Sooner or later, he’ll send in another book for us to treat, or order something up … Ah! I can’t bear it! I’ve got to scratch!”
“Don’t, Jakob—have a grape instead. Take your mind off it.”
“It won’t do any good. I wake up scratching my face in the night. Mum has to wrap my hands in bandages. But it’s killing me now—you’ll have to call Mum for some cream.”
“I’d better leave.”
“In a minute. But, I was saying—it won’t just be the binding of Tallow’s book that gets changed next time.”
Kitty wrinkled her forehead. “What—the spells inside?”
Jakob gave a grim smile. “It’s possible to substitute pages, doctor sentences, or alter diagrams if you know what you’re doing. In fact, it’s more than possible—it’s downright easy for people my dad knows. We’ll sabotage a few likely incantations and then … we’ll see.”
“Won’t he notice?”
“He’ll simply read the spell, draw the pentacle, or whatever it is he does, and then … who knows? Nasty things happen to magicians when spells go wrong. It’s a precise art, my dad tells me.” Jakob settled back against the pillows. “It may be years before Tallow falls into the trap—but so what? I’m in it for the long haul. My face’ll still be ruined in four, five years’time. I can wait.” He turned his face away suddenly. “You’d better get Mum now. And don’t tell anyone what I’ve just told you.”
Kitty located Mrs. Hyrnek in the kitchen; she was sieving an odd, oily white lotion, thick with dark-green aromatic herbs, into a medicine jar. At Kitty’s news, she nodded, her eyes gray with weariness.
“I’ve made the lotion just in time,” she said, stoppering the jar hastily and seizing a cloth from the sideboard. “You’ll see yourself out, won’t you?” With this, she bustled from the room.
Kitty had taken no more than two trailing steps toward the hall when a low, short whistle halted her in her tracks. She turned: Jakob’s aged grandmama was sitting in her usual chair beside the stove, a large bowl of unshelled peas wedged upon her bony lap. Her bright black eyes glittered at Kitty; the numberless crinkles on her face shifted as she smiled. Kitty smiled back uncertainly. A withered hand was raised; a shriveled finger curled and beckoned, twice. Heart pounding, Kitty approached. Never, in all her many visits, had she spoken two words to Jakob’s grandmama; she had never even heard her speak. A ridiculous panic engulfed her. What should she say? She did not speak Czech. What did the old woman want? Kitty felt herself suddenly part of a fairy tale, a waif trapped in the kitchen of a cannibal witch. She—
“This,” Jakob’s grandmama said in a clear, crisp South London accent, “is for you.” She delved a hand somewhere into the pockets of her voluminous skirts. Her eyes did not leave Kitty’s face. “You should keep it close…. Ah, where is the beggar? Aha—yes. Here.”
Her hand, when she raised it to Kitty’s, was tightly clenched, and Kitty felt the weight of the object and its coldness in her palm before she saw what it was. A small metal pendant, fashioned in the shape of a teardrop. A little loop at the top showed where it could be affixed to a chain. Kitty did not know what to say.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s … beautiful.”
Jakob’s grandmama grunted. “Huh. It’s silver. More to the point, girl.”
“It—it must be very valuable. I … don’t think I should—”
“Take it. And wear it.” Two leathery hands enclosed Kitty’s, folding her fingers over the pendant. “You never know. Now, I have a hundred peas to shell. Perhaps a hundred and two—one for each year, eh? So. I must concentrate. Be off with you!”
The next few days saw repeated deliberations between Kitty and her parents, but the upshot was always the same—with all their savings pooled, they were still several hundred pounds short of the Court’s fine. Selling the house, with the uncertainty that entailed, seemed the only solution.
Except, possibly, for Mr. Pennyfeather.
Ring if interested. Within a week. Kitty had not mentioned him to her parents, or to anyone else, but his words were always on her mind. He had promised to help her, and she had no problem with that in principle. The question was, Why? She did not think he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart.
But her parents were going to lose their house if she did not act.
T. E. Pennyfeather certainly existed in the telephone directory: he was listed as an “Artists’ Supplier” in Southwark, alongside the same phone number that Kitty had on the card. So that much of his story appeared to be true.
But what did he want? Part of Kitty felt very strongly that she should leave him alone; another part couldn’t see what she had to lose. If she didn’t pay up soon, she would be arrested, and Mr. Pennyfeather’s offer was the only lifeline she had to seize.
At length, she made up her mind.
There was a telephone box two streets away from where she lived. One morning, she squeezed herself into its narrow, muggy space, and rang the number.
A voice answered, dry and breathless. “Artists’ Supplies. Hello.”
“Mr. Pennyfeather?”
“Ms. Jones! I am delighted. I feared you would not ring.”
“Here I am. Listen, I’m—I’m interested in your offer, but I must know what you want from me before I go any further.”
“Of course, of course. I shall explain to you. May I suggest we meet?”
“No. Tell me now, over the phone.”
“That would not be prudent.”
“It would for me. I’m not putting myself at risk. I don’t know who you—”
“Quite so. I will suggest something. If you disagree, well and good. Our contact will be at an end. If you agree, we shall move on. My suggestion: we meet at the Druids’ Coffeehouse at Seven Dials. Do you know it? A popular spot—always busy. You can talk to me in safety there. If in doubt I suggest another thing. Seal my card in an envelope together with the information about where we are meeting. Leave it in your room, or post it to yourself. Whichever. Should anything happen to you, the police will find me. That may put your mind at rest. Another thing. Whatever the outcome of our meeting, I shall end it by giving you the money. You
r debt will be paid by the end of the day.”
Mr. Pennyfeather seemed worn out by this long speech. While he wheezed gently, Kitty considered the offer. It didn’t take long. It was too good to resist.
“All right,” she said. “Agreed. What time at the Druids’?”
Kitty prepared carefully, writing a note to her parents and slipping it with the business card inside an envelope. She placed it on her bed, propped against her pillow. Her parents would not be back till seven. The meeting was scheduled for three. If all went well, she would have plenty of time to return and remove the note before it was found.
She came out of the tube at Leicester Square and set off in the direction of Seven Dials. A couple of magicians shot past in chauffeur-driven limousines; everyone else struggled along the tourist-cluttered pavements, guarding their pockets against cut-purses. Her progress was slow.
To speed her way, she took a shortcut, an alley that curved off behind a fancy-dress shop and bisected a whole block, opening out again on a street near Seven Dials. It was dank and narrow, but there were no buskers or tourists all along its length, which in Kitty’s view made it a grand highway. She ducked down it and set off at a good pace, glancing at her watch as she did so. Ten to three. Perfect timing.
Midway along the alley she had a shock. With a screech like a banshee, a brindled cat leaped off a concealed ledge in front of her face and disappeared through a grating in the opposite wall. The sound of tumbling bottles followed from within. Silence.
Taking a deep breath, Kitty walked on.
A moment later, she heard quiet footsteps stealing along behind her.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She speeded up. Don’t panic. Someone else taking a short cut. Anyway, the alley’s end was not far off. She could glimpse people moving in the main street beyond.
The footsteps behind seemed to speed up with her. Eyes wide, heart pounding, Kitty began to trot.
Then something stepped out from the shadows of a doorway. It was dressed in black and its face was covered by a smooth mask with narrow slits for eyes.
Kitty cried out and turned.
Bartimaeus: The Golem’s Eye Page 18
