Grace had a job, finally. My own contribution to the “war effort”.
That night, after Jack had come to see me, Catling did not appear beside my bed.
I took that for a good sign.
The next morning we met at a Lyons teashop just off the Strand.
“Catling watches me,” said Jack, stirring his cup of tea and ignoring the stares of the women in the shop.
Although I’d realised Jack was a handsome man, I hadn’t realised the full extent of his attractiveness until I saw the other women unable to keep their eyes off him for any longer than five seconds.
I’d never had tea with such a striking man before, and was a little bit surprised to find that I was basking in the envy of every other woman present.
“She watches me, also,” I said.
“Ah,” said Jack, smiling, and looking up from his tea, “but she only enjoys tormenting you. Me she expects to try and murder her at any moment. Her eyes are always keener when turned my way.”
I inclined my head, conceding the point, and wondering what the other women thought of me—a younger sister to the American major? His girl? “And so that’s why you need my help?”
“Partly. You can do more than I can, simply because Catling will be watching me more avidly than you. But that’s not the only reason, Grace. The main reason is that you can actually help me. You’re not just a decoy. You’re a benefit all of yourself.”
Goddamn it, he looked as though he meant that. I felt my cheeks flush, and dropped my eyes to my, as yet untouched, currant bun. I picked it up, put it down, picked it up again, then dropped it, feeling like an utter fool.
I raised my eyes, and saw that he was regarding me with such a gentle smile that my cheeks flamed anew.
I reminded myself forcibly that he’d spent a good few thousand years lusting for my mother, and still did, and that this was most certainly an act.
“What do you want me to do?” I said, my voice a little harder than I’d meant.
Jack’s smile faded, and he spent a moment taking a swallow of his tea.
He explained how he needed to trace out the extent of the shadow. It had to be done on foot rather than by car, or bus, or tube. It had to be felt.
“I need to know not merely its extent, but whether it has frail or strong points. I need to understand its…”
He stopped, struggling to put into words what he felt.
“Character,” I said.
“Yes. Precisely. Can you do it?”
I shrugged, trying to regain the ground I’d lost with the silliness over the currant bun. “If you want,” I said diffidently.
Again, that gentle smile. “I want, Grace.”
I felt the flush threaten again, and so I hurried on with more prosaic matters. “I can mark out what I discover on a map, if you like.”
The smile broadened, just a little, and I wondered if he was laughing at me. “I should have thought of that. Yes, that would be useful. Thank you, Grace.”
Still unsure of myself, I started to toy with the cursed bun again.
“Grace?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful. I hesitated to ask you to do this because of…the murders.”
There had been four now. Another just two nights ago. One more young woman brutally murdered and left under the porch of St Magnus the Martyr. The police were doing all they could to calm the situation, including—according to Harry—setting up a close but surreptitious watch over St Magnus, but the unease within the City was growing.
“Nothing can happen to me, Jack,” I said. “I’m sure Catling will keep me safe. She can’t have me be torn apart.”
“Grace. Please. Be careful.”
I wanted to laugh his concern away, but I couldn’t. He was looking at me so intently I had to shift my eyes, stumbling for something to say.
Before I could make any bigger a fool of myself the teashop lady bustled over and fussed around Jack (first she was on this side of him, then that, wondering if she could get him more tea, or asking him a silly question about New York, and even, gods help me, wondering if he could explain for her, as all other ladies present, whether or not he thought Hitler really had the strength to invade in the spring). Jack took it all in good humour, but he did not once look at her, and answered only with brief (although polite) words, and eventually she subsided, sighed, wiped her hands on her apron, and drifted back to stand behind the counter.
“One of your conquests from a previous life?” I asked, vastly relieved at the interruption, and Jack roared with laughter. One of the other customers, a spindly woman in a faded red coat who had been watching Jack as keenly as the lady behind the counter, dropped her half-eaten scone into her cup, splashing tea all over her coat.
“One of the hopefuls,” he said once his laughter had died down, “but I am pretty sure I refused her then, too.”
“‘Pretty sure’?” I said.
He shrugged. “There were so many.”
I grinned, and suddenly the sun shone a little brighter than it had hitherto. I wondered when last I’d shared a joke with someone, and realised that I never had.
Jack was still smiling at me, and I sat there, thinking how odd it was that I could laugh so easily with someone I was certain would destroy my life.
I did what Jack asked of me, and discovered a purpose to my life that had been missing until now. For some weeks, all through the late autumn, I travelled about London and its immediate environs (although never at night; despite my casual words to Jack I didn’t want to put myself in the way of the Penitent Ripper). I moved about in no discernible pattern. In fact, I borrowed one of Ward Lock’s little red guidebooks from Robert Stacey—the Sidlesaghe kept something of everything in his office—opened a page at random each morning, and thus chose my day’s excursion. I made sure I had a purpose: a visit to a shop, a hairdresser, a theatre, or an opportunity to wander down a river walk, and I only went two or three days a week.
Catling never appeared to me when I walked out, as she had to Jack, although every so often I would open my eyes at night, and there she would be, sitting shadowed in a corner.
Watching.
Did she realise what I was doing? I don’t know, but she said nothing to me, nor gave me any indication that she did understand. So I continued on my trips. Everywhere I went, I cast out with my power to discern a little more of Catling’s trap and once I was home in the afternoon or evening, I traced out with red pencil what I had discovered on one of Bacon’s wall maps of London. This map I kept secreted within the bathroom of our apartment in a magazine rack (my parents may have discovered it, but neither said anything). Catling had far-seeing eyes, but I had to assume they didn’t follow me into the bathroom.
But, oh my, Catling was cunning. There was clear labyrinthine intent forming from all these slowly connecting red lines. Not only could I see that with my eyes, but I could also feel it with my powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth. It was subtle (this was a surprise; I had never suspected Catling of being “subtle”), and of some considerable beauty. I felt instinctively that it traced out the path of a labyrinth, but what I had was so fragmentary I could not distinguish the actual turning of the labyrinth’s paths.
It was…oh, how shall I describe this? It was almost hypnotically enigmatic. The more I discovered, the more I wanted to discover.
A trap, obviously, designed to lure Jack (and, presumably, my mother, although why she couldn’t sense it I have no idea) deeper and deeper into its dark heart. Look at me, I am beautiful and exquisite and filled with so much potential that if only you sink deeper and deeper into my depths you can have anything you want, even your freedom.
Every three weeks or so, Jack and I would meet somewhere, as if by accident—perhaps at my mother’s mobile canteen as it trundled to the air raid shelters at night, or at Faerie Hill Manor—and once more at another teashop (Jack patently felt he needed to spread his charms about).
I did not ever have my large wall map with me,
as that would have been too dangerous for prying eyes, but Jack would take one of my wrists, and somehow he would see with my eyes, absorb the information I had learned, and then sit back, and nod, and ask me what I thought.
Always I would say the same thing: it is beautiful and exquisite, and more deadly than anything I could ever imagine. Be careful, Jack.
And he would nod again, and withdraw his hand from me, and not share his thoughts.
We always spent Christmas at Faerie Hill Manor, and this year was no exception in that regard. What was so different about this Christmas was the sense of hope that pervaded the gathering.
No one had to play Waiting For Jack, because Jack was here, and while no one wanted to admit it, most people believed that Jack would somehow manage to save them.
On this day even my father seemed slightly more relaxed about Jack, and I was happy to see that while Jack gave my mother a kiss of greeting on her arrival, he spent no more time with her than was appropriate. We did everything that families are supposed to do at Christmas: ate too much, played some silly parlour games, embarrassed ourselves far too readily with some terrible Christmas jests, and wore foolish hats.
We also did things that most families didn’t do. We spent Christmas afternoon strolling the borderlands of the Faerie. We didn’t go in, and I wondered if this was because of my presence, but many of the Sidlesaghes came out to join us in our walk, and later, Long Tom and two of his brothers stayed to spend Christmas evening with us, which was a great joy, for I liked the Sidlesaghes.
On that walk we also strolled close to Copt Hall. Malcolm joined us, and Harry asked him back to Faerie Hill Manor for the evening, which invitation Malcolm cheerfully accepted.
Deer shadowed us as we turned back for the manor, and I noticed Malcolm looking at me intently when he saw me watching them.
We only ate a light supper. The king (another of my mother’s erstwhile lovers), while not attending, had sent us a beautiful platter of marzipan fruits, coloured and shaped to look like the real thing, with stalks of cinnamon sticks, the ends frayed where they met the fruit for an added touch of reality. After supper, we gathered in the drawing room, gods and Sidlesaghes and Mistresses of the Labyrinth (except Ariadne, who was not present) drifting into three or four groups to either sit and converse over cigarettes and whisky, or to play at board games or cards.
I had not been so happy for years, and it was no surprise at all that Catling should choose that day, and that happiness, to strike.
I was playing canasta with Long Tom, Stella and Harry when suddenly pincers of red-hot agony closed about my wrists. The cards dropped from my fingers and, involuntarily, I leaned forward, my wrists held tightly against my waist as I tried desperately not to groan.
No! Not tonight. Please, no…
But Catling could not have resisted this, could she?
From the corner of my eye I saw my mother, who had been sitting with two of the Sidlesaghes and drinking a little bit more whisky than was good for her, put her glass to one side and start up.
She and I were closer now, and maybe she would fuss, and maybe not, but suddenly all I wanted was to get away. Not only from my mother, but from that warm, happy room.
I stumbled to my feet, muttered something about wanting to be alone, and managed to get out of the French windows to the terrace without making a complete fool of myself and falling over. I moved away from the doors as fast as I could, wanting to get out of people’s eyesight—
They must all be staring at me.
—now giving in to the luxury of groaning, clutching my wrists to my body so tightly I could feel their heat through my clothes, and wishing I were dead. Catling had left me alone for weeks. The last time she had attacked had been that day at Copt Hall when the deer had been nuzzling me. I’d grown too used to being left alone, too used to feeling useful, too used to feeling.
Damn it!
I burst into tears, lost in misery, and managed to make it over to where the outdoor table and chairs sat pushed against a wall. I sat down (almost falling in the attempt), and it was only then, as the cold of the chair penetrated through to my flesh, that I realised I’d come out dressed in only a thin silk frock, without even a cardigan, and that not only was the air close to freezing, but there was a dusting of snow over the terrace.
I was mortified. I was in agony from my wrists, but for the moment that mortification hurt worse. Everyone inside would be thinking…
How silly.
Poor Grace.
Perhaps someone should go out.
After all, it is Christmas, and she really shouldn’t be alone.
And then, gods curse it, someone did come out. I heard the opening and closing of the doors, the brief murmur of conversation while they were open, and then several sets of footsteps coming towards me.
I couldn’t bear to look, tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I wondered if I would embarrass myself further if I made a dash for the lawns.
In the end, the choice was made for me. As I tensed to rise, Jack and Harry pulled out chairs to one side of me, and Malcolm set a plate of the marzipan fruit on the table, as well as a decanter of whisky and several glasses.
Then, with no comment, he took a blanket he had over one arm and tucked it about my shoulders, poking it efficiently down the sides of my body, and folding it over my front, enclosing me within its warmth.
Then he turned and walked back inside.
Jack and Harry—both well wrapped in thick coats and with hats pulled down low—took no notice of me. Jack poured out whisky for the two of them, Harry grabbed a piece of marzipan fruit and chewed away enthusiastically, and then, well fortified, both began to chat.
Thus began the most extraordinary hour.
Jack and Harry sat there, keeping me company on the terrace, chatting away about friends they had known in past lives, stupidities both had managed to commit, sharing humour and warmth and companionship.
They didn’t once address me, and only rarely glanced at me (Jack once leaned over and, without missing a single beat in his conversation, matter-offactly tucked in a corner of the blanket which came loose when I shuddered under a particularly vile spasm), but somehow they included me in everything they said and did. I felt a part of the conversation, even if I couldn’t speak, and even if the two men rarely looked at me.
I felt included in their company.
Jack and Harry had a shared past that went back thousands of years. They had been enemies, they had been friends, they had shared wives and lovers and adventures and disasters too numerous to tally.
All without me.
By rights I should have felt such an outsider that this conversation would have been a misery for me. But it wasn’t. They gossiped back and forth about people and events I’d heard of, and far more of people and events of which I’d never heard, and yet they somehow made me feel such a part of their entire existence, that anyone listening might have thought me their intimate companion for all these thousands of years.
It was an amazing gift, and I had no doubt at all that it was Jack’s doing (as I had no doubt at all that he’d somehow been the catalyst for my mother’s transformation). Harry had never once done anything like this for me: not when we’d been lovers, not at any other time.
No, this was Jack, and I felt such a surge of gratitude to him that I actually began to weep even more than I had previously.
The men were, by this time, engaged in a spirited discussion about the relative merits of the war stallions both had owned when Jack had been William and Harry had been Harold, and I sat there and wept with happiness as Catling’s fire banded my wrists and the men argued about fetlocks.
It was the best Christmas I’d ever had.
And, as I sat there, and wept in joy, the pain abruptly vanished and I gave a soft gasp.
The pain had lost its effectiveness. Catling had done her worst, and all I had done was weep with happiness.
Jack and Harry barely broke stride (they’d reach
ed withers by this stage). Jack poured out a fresh glass of whisky, pushing it towards me, and Harry picked up a marzipan pear, put it on a plate that had appeared to one side, sliced it into thin layers, and likewise pushed that towards me.
We sat there for perhaps another hour. Gradually, I joined in the conversation which Jack had steered away from his and Harry’s shared past to the problems the Epping Forest keepers had trying to reestablish the resident fallow deer population. That was a topic I didn’t have much knowledge of, either, but somehow Harry and Jack listened to what I had to say (while in no way appearing in the slightest bit patronising), and laughed at some of my weaker attempts at jesting.
That made Jack remember our meeting in the Lyons teashop, and soon he had both Harry and me laughing uproariously with his vastly exaggerated account of how every woman within five hundred yards had offered him her body then and there.
“And yet you were resistant?” Harry said to me, eventually.
I grinned at Jack. “Everyone needs at least one mountain left to scale.”
“Is that a challenge?” he said, his tone light, those dark eyebrows raised.
“It most certainly isn’t an invitation,” I said, and he smiled, and our conversation drifted to other things.
We went back in, eventually, to find most of the others had gone to bed. My parents and I were staying at Faerie Hill Manor that night, going back to the Savoy in the morning, and I walked towards the stairs, thinking to go to bed myself, when Jack called softly to me.
I’d walked up three or four of the stairs by this time, and I turned, and looked down at him.
He was holding out the plate with the remaining slices of marzipan pear on it. “Take this,” he said. “A midnight snack.”
It was already long past midnight, but I smiled, and thanked him, and walked back down the steps to take the plate from his hand.
As I did so I looked over to where Harry stood by the door leading to the drawing room.
As our eyes met, he gave a small, sad smile, then turned his back and walked through the door.
I looked at Jack, who was watching me with eyes so unreadable they had become as mysterious as the strange shadow that hung over London.
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