The Witch Watch (35 page)

Simon’s face fell, “I see. I suppose there’s no way to avoid having them talk about Gilbert.”

“He will certainly ask about what happened. As the ferryman, what he learns will spread quickly. Consider: He knows we were traveling with a man in a black cloak. She knows that an abomination came to her house, wearing a black cloak. She was already suspicious of my story. I doubt the truth will elude them for long.” Alice sighed in frustration, “We should have left days ago. He could have visited the house, or sent messengers to check on the Hiltmans, and then there would have been trouble for us.”

They made their way to Jersey City, and then across the harbor to New York. The city was busy and crowded, and Alice felt more at home among the taller buildings and noisy streets.

There they found that the sinking of Callisto was still the subject on everyone’s lips. Numbers varied, but it sounded as though perhaps two dozen men had been lost in the sinking, nearly all of whom were members of the crew. A ship was set to leave that day, but the sinking of Callisto had created an overflow of passengers, and they couldn’t bargain their way on board. Steerage space was available, but none of them thought it would be wise for Gilbert to live in such close quarters with other people.

They secured a room at the hotel closest to the harbor. They kept to themselves as much as they could, and Alice maintained the fiction that she was caring for an aged grandfather. During the day Alice and Simon explored the city, and in the evening they came home and puzzled over the sorcery books. On one of these expeditions, Alice took Simon shopping for hats, to replace the one lost when the ship sank. To her disappointment, he insisted on replacing it with another black bowler. She was taken with many of the American hats, but Simon wouldn’t even try them on.

Their stay lasted a week. October ended and November began with a dusting of snow.

As she returned to the hotel, she was greeted by a young voice saying, “I’ll tell you a secret for a nickel.”

Alice turned to see a boy of perhaps ten years. His nose and cheeks were red from the cold. He didn’t have a coat, but Alice thought she could remember seeing him before, and she was pretty sure he’d been wearing a coat at the time. She looked him over. His smile was a bit too broad for one supposedly so destitute. She considered it likely that he would simply run off if she handed him a coin.

“I’m afraid I can only pay in quid,” she said at last.

“England?” said the boy. “Some places around here will sell me food for that money, but they charge extra.”

The mention of food had been a cunning play. He looked well-fed enough, but she was willing to humor him. “You’re not sure if you want my money, but I’m not sure I want your secret. In fact, I’m not sure you have one at all.”

The boy had to think this over. Finally he said, “It’s an important secret. Someone was looking for you.”

This caught her attention, and too late she realized her interest had probably shown on her face, “Very well. I’ll pay you the pence and you tell me the secret.”

The boy folded his arms, “Pence? I think it’s worth a shilling.”

“A shilling is worth a good deal more than a nickel,” she shot back. In truth, she was glad to see he was clever, since it increased the odds of him having useful news. Only a foolish boy would make a habit of defrauding strangers. A smart boy would realize that business like that would catch up with you.

“Not around here. Not by much,” he said firmly. She could see he was standing his ground. His price was a shilling.

She gave him the coin. “Let’s hear it,” she said.

“A fellow came up from Richmond county. Was asking around about a man, a lady, and a big man in a black cloak. Sounds like you. Sounds like your old man.”

“What did he look like?”

The boy held out his hand for another shilling. Alice gave him six pence instead. The boy looked down at the coins, did the math, and answered, “He was an older gentleman. Husky. Had two young fellows with him that might have been his sons.”

Alice thought to ask him more about their clothes and accents, to see if she could work out where they were from and what class they were. Before she could speak, the boy determined that his opportunities for profit had been expended, and ran off.

Alice returned to the room and informed Gilbert and Simon that they were being looked for by someone new. “He came from Richmond county, which is where the lifeboats landed. He might be after us concerning the events on Callisto, or he might be curious about Gilbert. Perhaps he has news from the ferryman. Perhaps he means us harm, or perhaps he means us well, but in either case we would do well to avoid him. I suggest we move to someplace more discrete. There are lodgings on the docks. We should move there today.”

“We’re more likely to stand out on the docks!” Simon complained.

“We’re less likely to be
looked for
on the docks,” she countered.

They rented a room in a drafty wooden building that had been built so poorly they could see daylight between the boards. Their room had a small coal furnace that lost too much heat and retained too much smoke. Their neighbors were sailors, drunks, or some combination of the two. The area around the house always smelled like urine and vomit.

On their third day on the docks, a freight ship arrived. Alice tried to obtain passage, but they sent her away when she explained she was traveling with a boy and an old man. Finally a passenger ship arrived, the Artemis. It was of the same line as Callisto, but older in design. The three of them secured a first-class room and enjoyed an uneventful voyage back to Liverpool.

The trio stood in front of Grayhouse. The front door was hanging open. Several of the first-floor windows were smashed. Bits of refuse littered the porch.

It was late afternoon. They had just arrived from the train station.
 
Alice and Simon were tired.
 
Alice had described the house to Simon on the voyage home, and invited him to stay until Ethereal Affairs returned to more conventional duty. They were all looking forward to a warm house that didn’t roll beneath their feet, and now they had come home to find the house in disarray.
 

Gilbert tore a notice from the front door and read from it, “Be it here known, the most Holy Church, instrument of the almighty and refuge of the blameless, with regard to the exigencies of acting as a vanguard against all forms of witchcraft on behalf of HER ROYAL HIGHNESS QUEEN VICTORIA, has hereby deemed this premises to be of a dangerous and vulgar nature.” Gilbert sighed and read silently for a moment. “It is a writ of seizure, giving the church the authority to invade the premises and take whatever they deem to be magical contraband. Apparently we did something to anger the queen?”

Alice stomped up the steps, boiling with anger. “I’m sure the wording was designed to leave the reader with the impression that this is done with the blessing of the throne, but I have seen these writs before - usually on the door of a house where the church has thwarted our investigation by burning the evidence and executing the suspects. The church issues these writs themselves,
to
themselves. While they claim to be acting on behalf of the Queen, their actions are more
tolerated
than appreciated.”

“Still,” said Gilbert, “You’ve always had ‘contraband’ here, but they didn’t give themselves a Writ of Breaking Into Your House until the recent troubles.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “This is more politics than piety. Let’s see what damage has been done.”
 
She walked over the sparkling pieces of glass that littered the porch and proceeded inside.
 
Gilbert and Simon followed.

“Weapons!” she cried when she saw that the sitting room had been stripped almost bare. “Why would they take the weapons? And why are the furnishings so tossed about?
 
Look! Someone slashed the sofa!
 
What religious text demands this sort of needless vandalism?” Her hands were clenched into fists and her face was red with fury.

Gilbert looked around the room, “The furniture has been overturned in a search for valuables. If you look at the front door, you’ll see it was forced open and no longer shuts properly.
 
I suspect the church forced their way in.
 
The door was left hanging open, an invitation to robbers and vandals.”

“Oh! You are right,” Alice growled. “Who knows what foul sorts have been here, or what they’ve taken. I suspect most of our valuables...” she trailed off, her eyes going suddenly wide with fear. “Oh no!” she cried as she dashed upstairs.

Simon stood just inside the doorway, having never been properly invited in or asked to sit. He took his bowler from his head, holding it gently under one arm. He busied himself with cleaning his spectacles on his shirt. Gilbert headed for the back door, intending to see if it was still secure.
 
They both stopped when they heard a shriek from upstairs. Worried the Alice was in danger, they stormed up after her.

They burst into the library. The room was barren.
 
Not a single book was left on a shelf. No shred of paper remained that had any writing on it. The ink and the pens were taken.
 
Not a fragment of chalk remained. The bookshelves had been pulled away from the walls.
 
While the church hadn’t found any secret doors, they hadn’t bothered to put the shelves back where they found them. But none of this concerned Alice.

They found her sitting at her workbench, weeping. It was bare.

“My tools,” she said after a minute of silent tears. “All of my tools. My watch-works. My electrical supplies. My copper parts. Everything.”

Simon and Gilbert looked at one another.
 
Gilbert shrugged.

Alice turned to them and sniffed, “My father gave me these things. Some of them were rare and expensive, some of them were less so, but all of them were gifts from him. It was all I had left.”

They were silent.
 
Alice looked behind the scattered shelves and under the tables, hoping to see some glint of metal, some small item that might have been overlooked or dropped.
 
She shoved the tables and shelves as she searched.
 
Gilbert followed along behind her, checking where she had already looked.
 
He suspected she was likely to have trouble seeing clearly through her angry tears. Finally she returned to her stool and sat down in a huff, defeated.

“Alice?” Simon asked meekly after a few minutes had passed. He looked very nervous. His hand was inside of his jacket.

Her shoulders fell, “I’m sorry to make such a scene. I would like to have given you a better welcome.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that...” he drew out an object from his coat and placed it in front of her on the workbench. It was a fine pocketwatch. On the back was engraved the name ‘Donnovan White’.

Alice took it up in trembling hands and examined it closely. “How?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Simon cleared his throat. “I’ve had it for some time. Years. I realized it belonged to you during our trip to America, but I was too embarrassed to say anything. It was a gift.”

Alice looked up from the watch and eyed him suspiciously.

He continued, “It was a gift from my old master. About three years ago, he gave it to me when I ‘graduated’ from the academy.”

Alice went red again. Her eyes flashed. She let out a scream of anger and frustration.
 
Then she stormed out of the room, leaving the watch behind.

Simon sat down on the floor beside the cold fireplace, dumbfounded. “I’d hoped that she would be glad to have an item of her father’s.”

Gilbert shook his head. “You didn’t just give her an item of her father’s.
 
You gave her proof that her father is dead.”

Alice turned down the narrow street; carefully following the directions she’d been given.
 
She counted five doors, turned left into a narrow alley, and found the black iron staircase.
 
She was now behind a tight line of weary houses.

The sun was setting. The smell of a dozen meals floated from the nearby homes. People lived close in this part of the city, and they kept careful track of who belonged. She could feel the eyes on her back as she fumbled through the twisting streets.

Earlier she had visited King Charles Street, hoping to meet with Lord Moxley.
 
As she entered, she saw the place was filled with young and unfamiliar faces. She headed for Moxley’s office, but was headed off before she could reach it.
 
The man pretended to know her and flirted with her.
 
He took her hand as if to lead her away from the office.
 
Alice, already greatly distressed, had nearly lashed out at the unwelcome gesture, but she felt a slip of paper pressed into her palm.
 
The man shooed her away playfully, giving no sign that he’d given her anything at all.
 
Alice thought this subterfuge was absurd.
 
Couldn’t he have simply handed her a message? Certainly most people who worked here would have a passing familiarity with her face. Then again, these new men did not, and this show was most likely for their benefit. She departed, and examined the note. It contained only directions, which were signed simply ‘M’.
 
The journey had taken her to this poor and unfamiliar area of the city.

Alice found the door marked with yellow flowers, as the directions had promised. The buds were quite sad and withered by now, and were more brown than yellow, but this was the address.
 
She knocked, and a man of thirty answered the door. He was a pale and slender dandy, with red lips and thin eyebrows. His head was topped with long dark locks. He regarded her with bemusement. For a moment Alice thought he was going to slam the door in her face without a word, but instead he waved her in.

The apartment was small, even smaller than she might have guessed from the outside. It was little more than a bed, a table, and a stove.
 
A man sat at the table, illuminated by the square of fading red sunlight that reached between the London rooftops and entered the small window. His face was drawn, and bags were under his eyes. His head was covered in short grey hair. Alice scarcely recognized her old friend.

“You are sure you’ll be all right with her?” the younger man at the door asked suspiciously.

“Even safer than I am with you,” Lord Moxley replied. “Do not underestimate the woman. She is cunning, but trustworthy.”

The pale man rolled his eyes, and departed.

“I hope you will forgive dear Byron,” said Moxley. “He’s been out of sorts lately.
 
Also, he’s never been particularly friendly towards the fairer sex. But he’s a valuable ally in these troubled times.”

“Your hair is white,” Alice blurted out. “Of course it’s white. I don’t know why I thought...”

Moxley blinked in rare surprise. “I am flattered that you mistook my wig for my own hair. You are gullible, but very kind.”

“I don’t know that I mistook it, I just... I never thought about it until I saw you without it.” She was shocked at how old he suddenly looked.

There were only two chairs at the small table.
 
Moxley waved her into the one he was not using.
 
She entered the house only reluctantly. It seemed a strange and unwelcome place.

Moxley ran one of his soft hands over his head. “Well, my ceaseless vanity has worked to my advantage. I am able to wear my proper appearance as a disguise. I thought to grow a beard, but Byron wouldn’t hear of it.”
 
Moxley stood and walked over towards the stove to add fuel, “Curse that I’ve been forced into hiding in winter. Still, one cannot reschedule disaster.”

“Disaster?” Alice asked.
 
“I originally sought you for advice, but now I see you are in some sort of trouble yourself. What has happened?”

Moxley did not answer right away. Instead, he stood over the stove and warmed himself for a while before returning to his seat at the table.
 
He refilled his wineglass and held up the bottle to offer some to Alice.

“Thank you, no,” she replied.

Moxley shrugged and returned to his seat. He began with a deep breath, “About five days after you left for America, I became aware that there was a great number of new faces at King Charles Street.
 
Faces come and go as ministries hire and fire their lower staff, but I had never before seen so many at once. Worse, they seemed to spread themselves throughout the place, poking their noses in where they weren’t wanted and listening in on business that did not belong to them.
 
They were young men.
 
Fit men.
 
This alone was alarming enough.
 
Only the highest offices have the financial means to hire in such numbers, but more troubling still was their attitude.
 
They did not respond to threats or demands from the old names.
 
These men had no respect for the order of things, and were beholden to someone higher. Or at least, someone who they thought would
eventually
be higher.

“And the young men were not wrong. There was power at work. Some ministries were closed. Some were suspended. Our ministry was merely the first of many to find itself without support or funding. Others have followed. A few men complained, and were relieved of their positions entirely, without explanation.”