What Abigail Did Tha Summer, Ben Aaronovitch [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt] 📗

‘In the nursery,’ says Lizzie. ‘Upstairs.’

‘Why don’t we go visit?’ I say, and head back towards the attic stairs.

‘We have a parakeet in the drawing room,’ says Mary.

‘Yes, yes!’ cries Lizzie. ‘Come and see.’

Mary grabs my left hand and pulls me towards the main staircase. When I resist, Lizzie grabs my right hand. They pull me way too hard for a pair of small kids and I almost topple forward. I dig in my heels, but now the girls have both got their hands around my wrists and are pulling with their suddenly teenaged weight. Natali and her blonde friend are both bigger than me in real life, and I can actually feel the carpet rucking up under my heels. But you don’t grow up small, mouthy and mixed race in North London without picking up a few tricks. Like knowing when to stop pulling, turn into your oppo and stamp on their foot. Do it fast enough and you can get your licks in two, three times before they register that their foot ain’t working any more.

Natali and her blonde friend, now in their proper street clothes, let go and start shrieking. Natali gives me that weird look of betrayal bullies get when you have the temerity to give them a smack.

‘You bitch,’ she says.

‘It’s for your own good,’ I say, and make a dash for the attic stairs.

34

Our Lady of Shadows

The stairs to the attic are narrow and dimly lit. There’s no window to let in daylight and no lamps to provide light. There was once a cord dangling from the ceiling that’s now been tied off with a safety cap. This was probably where the electric light was, but this fades even as I look at it. Down the stairs comes a shadow shaped like a woman in a full-length skirt and puff sleeves. Behind the shadow is Nerd Boy in his latest role as Victorian patriarch. I retreat down the stairs and as I do, whiskers sprout from Nerd Boy’s cheeks until he looks like an extra from Planet of the Apes: The Musical.

The woman shadow stops and turns back to the serious-looking Victorian gent that Nerd Boy has become. She speaks in low serious tones so that the girls, giggling at the bottom of the stairs, can’t hear her. But I can.

‘Mr Brown, I’m afraid I can do little to alleviate your boy’s condition,’ she says. ‘I fear in this instance I can be no more use to you than a mundane doctor.’

‘Is nothing to be done?’ asks Mr Brown, his voice tight.

‘We are hampered by our lack of knowledge,’ she says. ‘It’s difficult to treat that which you do not fully understand. That is why our work at the Royal is so important.’

‘Work I am pleased to patronise,’ says Mr Brown. ‘And will continue to do so in earnest. Only could you not at least continue the treatment? It seems to buoy his spirits, if nothing else.’

The shadow lady sighs and puts an insubstantial hand on Mr Brown’s shoulder.

‘As you wish, John,’ she says. ‘But please, do not get your hopes up. The best you can do is to love him as strongly as you can, and to show him affection so that no matter what happens, he knows his family is with him.’

Mr Brown draws himself up.

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘He shall want for nothing that is in our gift to give.’

‘And now,’ says the Shadow Lady with fake cheer, ‘I think I hear a trio of naughty mice hiding on the landing.’

She sweeps down the steps and I’m forced to book it down the stairs ahead of her. Out on to the hallway, where Natali and the blonde girl are bouncing up and down like a pair of excited five-year-olds again.

‘Magic, magic!’ they cry. ‘Aunty Isabella, do magic.’

‘Magic? Magic?’ says the Shadow Lady. ‘You must know, children, that there is no such thing.’ Then she looks at me – or rather, the shadowy oval that is her head turns in my direction. ‘Isn’t that so, little spirit?’

‘Please, oh, please,’ say the girls, while I shiver and press myself against the wall.

The Shadow Lady turns her shadow head back to the girls, who are now much shorter again and back in their pretty Victorian frocks.

‘Very well,’ says the Shadow Lady, and extends her hand in a very familiar gesture. I’ve seen Peter and Nightingale do this hundreds of times when they’re conjuring a magic light or levitating something.

The Shadow Lady is doing magic.

Only I don’t see anything – no light, no sparkle, no nothing.

The girls do and so does Mr Brown – judging by their wide eyes and the oohs and aahs.

And while they’re distracted I make a dash for the attic.

35

The Wooden Hill

I try creeping first but I’m only up the first couple of steps when I hear the Shadow Lady call behind me.

‘Little spirit, little spirit, where dost thou wander?’

Elder wrangling for fun and profit – approach number one – pretend you can’t hear them. I keep going and she calls again.

‘Little spirit?’ A sing-song voice like she’s telling a story. ‘Are you a mischievous spirit?’

Part of me is thinking, ignore and get up the fricking stairs, but another part is thinking, who is this shadow lady who can see me? She’s not being played by one of the teens, and however real the story gets, she stays a shadow.

A river goddess once told me that she could tell practitioners from ordinary people because learning how to use magic is like wrapping the power around you like a blanket. Maybe if you do that all your life, then your ghost will do the same thing – holding the power in so it isn’t wasted on keeping up appearances.

So is the Shadow Lady the ghost of a practitioner? I thought they were all men, all the portraits in the Folly are men – total trouser fest. Or is it like Miss Redmayne says about science and art and literature –