The Shadow Cabinet (11 page)

Seriously. What was my brain doing? Nothing was working right. This was nerves. It was fair for me to be freaked out. It had been a bad few days, and the thought of sinking into Jerome's chest and blocking everything out sounded like a good way to spend the rest of the day.

There was no going back to that now.

Though Thorpe had said nothing when I mentioned Callum and Boo, I was sure that the answer was no. He wouldn't be at his parents' house. Again, this knowledge just landed on me. It came from nowhere and was based on nothing. But I was as sure of it as I was sure that this was London—old and weird and perpetually rainy, full of people who didn't die.

11

O
NCE
WE
GOT
TO
P
ICCADILLY
C
IRCUS
AND
T
HORPE
DROVE
around the statue of Eros, he demanded better directions. Freddie guided him turn by turn into the increasingly slender and people-filled streets of Soho. London was weird like this—one of the world's biggest cities and crammed with people, but the streets would have passed as driveways where I came from. It was okay when there were sidewalks, but a lot of these streets had nothing but wall on either side, and I would never have driven down them. It looked like we were going to scrape or get stuck to me, but Thorpe barreled along.

“Here,” Freddie said.

We were on a quiet street with a few boutiques and shops painted bright colors like red and purple, and many more quiet doorways with small plaques next to them. There was no one here. Before we got out, Thorpe once again demanded information. He was not the kind of person who walked through a door without knowing what was behind it.

“Number fifty-six,” she said, pointing at a midnight-blue building to the left. “That's Hardwell's. It's the most famous magic bookshop in the country.”

Thorpe leaned over the wheel to examine the building.

“Magic bookshop?” Jerome said.

“Very famous,” Freddie said.

“To whom?”

“To people who go to magic bookshops,” Freddie said.

There was no sign on the front of the building. The only writing was the number
56
painted in gold above the black doorway. The window curtain was of a similarly colored blue-black fabric, which completely hid whatever was inside.

“And who are we going to see?” Thorpe asked.

“His name is Clover.”

“Clover?”

“Yes. He's a manager.”

“What's his last name?”

“I don't know. It's something . . . something raven?”

“Of course it is,” Thorpe said, almost under his breath.

The door to the bookshop was recessed and stuck, and we were admitted with the tiny triple tinkle of some bells suspended on the back. The inside of the bookshop was one of the closest rooms I'd ever been in. Our local bookstore at the mall is so big, people practically stretch out in sleeping bags in the aisles while they sit and read. That's what I was used to—places with coffee bars and floor-to-ceiling windows and six square miles dedicated to blank notebooks and tiny book lights. There literally wasn't enough space to turn around in these aisles.

I'd been watching Jerome since we got out of the car, hoping that I'd somehow be able to reassure him about what was going on. Our new location visibly consternated him. Jerome loved a conspiracy theory, but he didn't strike me as the kind of person who had much time for magic or astrology or any of the related crafts. I didn't either, but at least it was fully familiar to me. My cousin the angel whisperer had a house that was knee-deep in crystals and figurative portraits of star signs. And while I was sure those things would have been welcome here, there was simply no space, and the vibe simply too serious. There was no pan flute music, no burbling table fountains that made you want to pee all the time, no statues of the Buddha that seemed to have no relation to actual Buddhists being present. There wasn't so much breathable air as there was incense and dust, punctuated by the occasional oxygen molecule that must have gotten lost on its way somewhere else.

“I think I may have an asthma attack,” Jerome said.

“You have asthma?” I said.

He nodded and pulled an inhaler from his pocket. This revelation left me reeling for a moment. How had I not known my former boyfriend had asthma? Further proof that I was the worst girlfriend in the world. I wanted to reach out now and hold his hand, because the thought of him not breathing right made me panic. Jerome stuck the inhaler in his mouth and took a puff, then breathed slowly for a moment. I relaxed as he took in another breath.

“Stuff like this does it,” Jerome said in a low voice, jerking his head up at the offending scents. “Why the hell are we here? Who's Jane Quaint?”

Freddie was at the counter. The counter was a hatch opened up in the back of a bookshelf. This was covered in tarot cards and crystals hanging from colored ribbons. There was a girl behind it in a black woolen hat covered in tiny reflective gold disks, like jazzed-up snake scales. My granny Deveaux had a shirt covered in something similar, but the effect was different. This girl's hat said, “I am reading a magic book.” Granny Deveaux's shirt said, “I am going to the casino for dinner tonight.”

“Oh, hello, Cressida,” Freddie said, in a chipper manner that was already starting to wear on me. “Is Clover about?”

“He's in the back on his tea break.”

“We'll just go and see him,” Freddie said.

The girl didn't respond except to give Thorpe a dirty look for being alive and in a suit.

We all oozed down the widest of the tiny aisles. The books were a mix of new and used and extremely used, the spines flaked and bent and riddled with tiny white lines. These were not the kind of titles my cousin favored. Hers were things like
Heaven Is for Pets
and
Angels Among Us.
These titles were long and contained words I didn't know, and even the ones I did know, I don't think I really knew. The back wall was all bookcases and one maroon velvet curtain. Freddie pushed this aside and revealed a door, which she knocked on. A gruff voice said to come in.

“You stay right here,” Thorpe said to Jerome.

“I'll read a grimoire,” Jerome said, before taking a long hit on his inhaler.

I hadn't picked badly with Jerome. I really hadn't. I had to smile at him when he said that—and I hadn't even known it was still possible for me to smile. In fact, once I did it, the guilt came down. I couldn't go around
smiling,
not now.

The three of us went into the room. There was a single cabinet and a teakettle and a counter-high fridge. The table was a folding TV tray, and the single chair in the room was inappropriately large—a beat-up but luxurious-looking red velvet reading chair that sagged from use. Clover himself was probably sixty or so. He was bald save for a hint of white bristle around his ears. He had a white beard that had been tapered to be thin and long, the end braided and sealed with a silver bead. He wore a black T-shirt with a brown vest over it and several necklaces—the most notable of which was a big animal tooth. In front of him was a clear glass teapot full of leaves and some kind of colorful flower bud things and a lot of stuff that looked like broken twigs, all of it floating sadly around the pot. Garbage tea. The whole room smelled like it. It reminded me of when our septic system backed up after a flood and we had to move into a Holiday Inn for two days.

“Who's this?” Clover said as I appeared behind Freddie and Thorpe appeared behind me.

“Friends,” Freddie said.

“Friends?” Clover said as we packed in tighter and Thorpe shut the door most of the way. We leaned awkwardly against the walls.

“I know this is weird,” Freddie said. “But it's really quite important. Something has happened.”

Clover, like the girl in the spangly hat, disliked Thorpe on sight.

“I don't talk to—”

“Really
quite
important,” Freddie said again. “I know how you feel about . . . I wouldn't be here if . . . A girl is missing. We need your help. You know that story you said you had about Jane Quaint?”

This seemed to displease him even more, and he shook his head.

“You need to leave,” he said. “I'm not talking about that.”

“Our friend is missing,” I said. “She was with Jane Quaint at her house, and now they're both gone. Jane took her. She said something about taking her to the country. We're trying to find her, and we don't have a lot of time. She's been missing for two days.”

He ran his tongue along his teeth.

“Is this about that missing student, from the news?”

“Yes,” I said. “Her name is Charlotte.”

“You said there's a story,” Freddie prompted. “Please, Clover. She was in that house. She's with Jane. We really need to find her.”

“Is this about Sid and Sadie?” I asked. “And what happened in 1973?”

Clover tugged on the big tooth.

“Not with him here,” Clover said, pointing at Thorpe.

“He stays,” Thorpe replied. “And you talk, or
he
comes and visits your shop all the time.”

Now Clover was very unhappy.

“Clover,” Freddie said, reaching over and taking his hand, “I wouldn't do this to you, I promise, if it wasn't important. You do good work. You help people. This is helping.”

“That was a long time ago,” Clover finally said. “I don't like talking about it, but I suppose with a girl missing . . .”

He picked up the teapot and poured the disgusting liquid through a strainer and into a mug. After a moment of considering this terrible drink he'd made, he spoke.

“What you need to understand is that things were
different
then,” he said. “The late sixties and early seventies—the whole atmosphere was different. Everyone knows about the drugs and the free love and all that, but there was this air that anything was possible, that society was about to turn, that a new age was coming. For us, in the world of magic, it was a very exciting time. We were really making progress. England was on the verge of coming back to its true magic roots. We were trying to show people how to use magic to bring peace and good health, how to be aware of the world around them and bring balance. But there's always someone in every age of magic, there's always someone who goes into the dark. Someone who focuses on the sex and power and death magic. That was Sid and Sadie. They were the worst kind—Aleister Crowley types, power trippers. They came around to the bookstore sometimes—but never looking for books. They always claimed they had more books and better ones than we could ever carry. They used to laugh at us, say we were lightweights. What they were really looking for was kids to bring into their group. This was their hunting ground.”

“Hunting?” I said.

“You're too young to remember any of this—you weren't alive—but back then, there were all kinds of gurus and cults. You had the Manson family murdering people in California because those kids thought Manson was god. There was Jim Jones making his own church, taking his followers to Guyana, and then convincing them all to commit suicide with him. Well, in London, there was Sid and Sadie. But you'll never know what they got up to, because they didn't want it known. They kept their business secret and behind closed doors. There was a whole group of kids—freaks, but nice enough. All these kids worshipped Sid and Sadie. They did whatever Sid and Sadie told them to do. There were ten of them, and I knew all in one way or another. Domino Dexie—no idea what his real name was, but he used to help us do stock sometimes. Nice lad. There was Aileen Emerson. She worked at a macrobiotic restaurant in Soho. Quiet lass. Ruth Clarkson—she used to read tarot in the street. Very good at it too. Michael Rogers. I didn't know him, but lots of other people did. Prudence Malley—she was an art student who came in the shop a lot. Mick Dunstan—he was cock of the walk. Looked a bit like Mick Jagger and had the same name, so he basically lived on that. You could do that then. I think he lived in a squat up in Muswell Hill. Badge—he named himself after a song, no last name. Musician type. Always had a guitar. Johnny Philips was a straight—had a job in a chemist. George Battersby—bit of an early goth type. And Dinah Dewberry, little Dinah Dewberry . . .”

He sipped his tea sadly for a moment.

“I liked Dinah. She had red hair, and she rode an old military bicycle she'd pulled out of a skip and painted blue with little yellow stars. We went out once, but I think we were both too shy. It might have gone somewhere eventually, but then Sid and Sadie came along . . . anyway, there were ten of them. Sid and Sadie gathered them up over the course of a year or two. How Sid and Sadie picked their group, I never knew. And once they went off with Sid and Sadie, that was that. They'd never tell you what they were up to, but they all had an
attitude.
Like they knew something you didn't. Jane—Jane Quaint—she was the head of the pack. Sid and Sadie came in one day and found her reading on the floor. She left with them, and that was that. Next thing any of us heard, she was living in their house with them. She was their right hand. She rode around in their car, bought things with their money, basically took care of business. In the end, Jane was doing the recruiting and no one saw Sid and Sadie at all. This went on for a while. Like you said, it was the end of 1973. On New Year's that year, a lot of us in the community met for a party. We got to talking and realized that none of us had seen any of Sid and Sadie's kids in over a week.”