by Annie Dalton
Having checked that her spirit FX equipment was in working order, Charlotte carefully dragged the heavy curtains across the window, plunging the parlour into artificial twilight. A few minutes later Ivy showed a middle-aged couple into the parlour. I noticed that Charlotte greeted them in a hushed tone quite unlike her normal voice. “Mr and Mrs Bennet, please do take a seat. Miss Temple will be with you shortly.”
“Hope she doesn’t cough,” Brice said under his breath. “A coughing medium’s assistant wouldn’t be nearly so ethereal.”
I’d expected Minerva Temple to be got up like a fortune teller with tinkling beads, but when she came in she was dressed extremely tastefully in a plain black gown and a pretty lace cap trimmed with ribbons. Her voice was low and thrilling. She’d have made an excellent stage hypnotist, which I suppose she kind of was in a way.
Minerva quickly set about lulling her victims into a receptive state, reassuring the couple that their daughter was now happy in the fields of Eternal Summer. Mrs Bennet gasped but her husband just fiddled with his collar, looking extremely uncomfortable.
Everyone held hands around the table and Minerva went into a trance. At least she did some bizarre writhing and heavy breathing, which apparently meant the spirits were trying to get through.
Minerva had obviously coached Charlotte to produce ‘psychic phenomena’ on cue. So when her employer cried dramatically, “The veil between the worlds is growing thin!” Georgie’s sister pulled a secret handle, releasing a blast of cold air from the cellar, to give the impression that spirits were wafting in from the next world.
Of course, typical Melanie - when I suggested gatecrashing these people’s seance, I hadn’t actually thought it through. I just wanted to tell my mates I’d been to a bona fide Victorian seance. But I began to feel terribly sorry for those grieving parents. The woman was clearly desperate for reassurance that her daughter still survived, even if it was on the wrong side of the ‘veil’, and I think the husband only came because of his wife.
The worst moment was when this like, glowing green gloop started oozing out of Minerva. It flowed out of her mouth and nose, even her ears, and collected in a puddle on the table.
The husband instantly reached out to touch it.
“Don’t!” Charlotte said at once in a warning voice. “Ectoplasm is harmful to the living. The spirits send it only to reassure you of their existence.”
“It’s actually cheesecloth and luminous paint,” Brice told us in a stage whisper. “She’ll make it disappear again in a sec. That way no-one can examine it too closely.”
I was still queasy from the ectoplasm when I realised we were not alone. I’m serious - some real ghosts had turned up to Minerva’s seance!! They were kind of sepia-coloured and flickery, like figures in old movies. A few of the livelier spirits hovered over the table. The rest just hung around in the background looking depressed.
I gave them a little wave. “Oh, hiya!” Then, “How come they’re here?” I hissed to Brice.
“Who did you expect to come to a seance?” he muttered. “Living people?”
It’s not just embarrassing watching someone conduct a phony seance with disapproving real-life spirits looking on, it’s totally excruciating. Also Mr Bennet was looking increasingly fidgety. Eventually he couldn’t contain himself, and cut right across Minerva’s gushy description of their daughter’s sunny personality. “You could be describing any young girl!” he objected.
Minerva’s otherworldly expression made it clear she was above such petty remarks, but after a while she began to jerk around in her chair going, “The spirits are saying there’s a doubter in our midst.”
Under cover of darkness, Charlotte activated another device, and the table started to jump around as though the offended spirits were having a tantrum. At this the real live spirits looked more depressed than ever.
Brice hooted with laughter. “Oh rock’n’roll! This woman is outrageous.”
I thought I saw Minerva’s eyelids quiver then, but next minute she was going on about someone with the initial A, so I decided I’d imagined it.
I think everyone was relieved when that seance was over, including the spirits. Charlotte hurried back to her brother and they talked for a while. Then Georgie said he had to go.
“You will remember to come tomorrow?” Charlotte said anxiously.
Georgie’s face suddenly went all pinched. “You needn’t keep on. I said I would, didn’t I?”
It was the first time he’d sounded like a whingey little kid, and I wondered what had upset him.
Outside, veils of yellowish-green fog swirled through the dusk, reminding me unpleasantly of Minerva Temple’s ectoplasm.
Lola sighed. “I felt so sorry for that Mrs Bennet.”
“I kept thinking of my mum. I hate to think what a medium would say about me,” I said gloomily.
Lollie squeezed my hand. “She’d say, ‘I’ve got this cute hip hop chick here in a vintage top and she wants you to know she’s totally, totally fine’!”
I felt a rush of affection for my lovely friend.
I wanted to tell her how I was kicking myself for insisting on coming to a time that was mainly notorious for a pervy killer. But most of all I wanted to say how crazy it felt to be missing her like this, when she was actually right here beside me.
Unfortunately, Brice was there too, mooching along with his hands in his pockets, so I swallowed down my feelings and my words went unsaid.
Chapter Five
I could hear the rattle of late-night sewing machines coming from an upstairs sweatshop just off Brick Lane. It was eight o’clock in the evening, but for these Londoners, the working day still wasn’t over.
Georgie had run his final errand of the day, rushing two hot kidney pies (euw!) to a reasonably famous Victorian comedian called Dan Leno. Mr Leno was doing a gig at one of the music halls in Curtain Road. We actually caught the end of his act.
Then we hitched a lift in a brewery wagon and now we were walking along in the gaslight, enjoying the local colour. The streets were crowded with Cockneys out to have a good time. For once, the atmosphere was cheerful and mellow. In one street people had set up shooting galleries and sideshows. There was a guy selling something advertised as ‘Wizard Oil’ and I heard a voice bawling, “Step right in and see Hercules, the world’s strongest man!”
Further down the street were booths advertising bizarre sights for people to marvel at, like ‘A Genuine Mermaid’, and ‘The Dog with Lion’s Claws’. I can’t say I was seriously tempted, until I saw the big queue forming outside the peepshow. I’d heard about these Victorian entertainments, where you paid your penny to see a magic, or maybe a v. saucy scene.
The party mood was infectious, so I decided to take a look.
To my annoyance Brice yanked me out of the queue. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Well, duh! Obviously I want to see the peepshow.”
“Trust me, you don’t,” he said firmly.
When Brice explained that people were queuing to see waxworks depicting the Ripper’s crimes, I felt sick to my stomach. “Little kids are in that queue, and Mums with babies,” I said in horror.
Just then Georgie broke into a run so we had to leave the peepshow behind and go hurtling after him. The bustle and noise faded behind us as we darted along the back streets of Whitechapel where street lights were few and far between. Lollie and I both agreed that Victorian gaslights were just a leetle bit too atmospheric. They made a creepy hissing sound, plus they cast v. disturbing shadows that tended to make even a harmless passer-by look like a leering assassin. But it was the areas of total darkness that gave me the chills.
Then I saw the poster in the doorway, read the part about Scotland Yard offering PS100 reward and quickly looked away before I could read any more. I knew, obviously, that the reward was for anyone who would lead them to the killer. I just didn’t need to see it in black and white, not now we were on the Ripper’s home territory.
In a little lane off Gower’s Walk, several heavily made-up girls hung about under a street lamp, shivering in their scanty clothes.
Respectable Victorian women hid their bodies totally from view. What with the corsets and petticoats underneath and the bustles on top, you almost forgot they had normal bodies.
The Gower’s Walk girls were a totally different species. One was literally spilling out of her blouse, and each time a potential punter came by, they’d all give him a naughty flash of silk stocking. “Take me ‘ome with you, mister,” one girl called. “I’ll show you a good time.”
Lola looked distressed. “She’s just a kid,” she said. “She can’t be more than fourteen.”
“It’s perfectly legal,” Brice told her. “Fourteen year old girls can marry in Victorian times.”
“It might be perfectly legal, but it’s also perfectly sick,” said Lola.
“Well, look ‘oo the cat brought in!” said a husky voice.
A girl with rouged cheeks and a pink feather boa was grinning unmistakably at Brice.
No way! I thought. NO way!
It had never once occurred to me that an Earth angel might hang out with, you know, tarts. This might be why I’d failed to register the cosmic tingles that usually lets me know when other Light Workers are in the area. Stranger still, this particular angel and Brice were obviously old acquaintances.
“Well, you look in better shape than what you did last time you was here, darlin’,” she said. “Ain’t you going ter introduce me to your pretty girlfriends!”
It was the first time I’d seen Brice blush. “This is Ella,” he told us awkwardly. “Ella, meet Mel and Lola.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she beamed. “I knew this one would come right in the end,” she told us in a stage whisper. ‘“E always ‘ad sumfin’ about ‘im, know what I mean?”
“So do you work um, in this lane every night?” Lola asked.
“Someone’s got to do it, darlin’. If nuffin’ else we ‘elp to keep the fear levels down.”
Ella explained that the Dark Powers were actively feeding the public’s obsession with the Ripper. With the help of the press, they’d turned a sick killer into a bogeyman, a demon almost.
“Sorry guys, we’ve got to go,” I gabbled. I’d just spotted Georgie’s coat-tails disappearing into the dark. Calling hasty goodbyes to Ella, we sped down the street, catching up with him outside a huge derelict building.
Georgie climbed on to a sill, stealthily prised up a sash window, squeezed himself through the gap, and landed softly on the other side. I was just about to jump down after him, when a boy stepped out of the darkness, brandishing a stout wooden cudgel.
“Oi! What’s your game? These are prime lodgings! If you want to come in, you gotta show me the colour of your tin.”
We climbed in after Georgie, wondering what was going on.
“I ain’t got any tin,” lied Georgie. “But I got this.” He delved inside his coat and brought out half a cigar, which someone had thrown down on the street. “Best Havana,” he said enticingly. “Same as they smokes in the ‘Ouse of Lords.”
The boy examined the cigar closely, then fished out some matches and coolly lit up. “Want a pull?” he offered. “It’s a good ‘un.”
“No thanks, I’m giving ‘em up.” I could see Georgie trying not to yawn.
His new landlord tossed him an indescribably filthy blanket. “You’re kipping in the Royal Suite tonight. I do ‘ope as the tinklin’ of the chandeliers won’t disturb one’s beauty sleep,” he added putting on a posh voice.
I was stunned. Not only had this enterprising street kid got the nerve to take over an abandoned building, he was actually renting out floor space to other waifs and strays. In every room exhausted children huddled under any covering they could find: a coat, a torn curtain, old newspaper. Georgie was lucky to get that blanket.
I pictured Jade, my little sister, in her twenty-first-century bedroom, with its glowstars and Barbies and stuffed toys. Then I imagined her in this stinking hellhole with cockroaches scurrying over her in the dark, and my throat ached. How could Victorian adults let this happen to little kids?
Georgie could hardly stand by this time, he was so tired, but he stumbled around until he found a patch of floor out of the draught. Then he wrapped himself in his blanket and was asleep in seconds.
“I’m going for a walk,” Brice said abruptly. Without any explanation he vanished into the night.
I was just going to say, “Ooh, was it something we said?” when we heard whimpering sounds. Lola and I looked at each other. Officially this was a field trip, not a mission, but you can’t ignore a frightened kid. So we went tiptoeing through room after horrible room until we found the little girl who was having a bad dream.
She had sores on her face and her hair was all matted. I don’t think anyone had washed or brushed it in her entire life. “Don’t ‘urt me!” she pleaded in her sleep. “Please don’t ‘urt me.”
Maybe it was her own personal bogeyman the little girl was dreaming about, but I doubted it. It was like Ella said; a human killer had become an evil demon. By daylight people’s fears were just about manageable. But in the hours of darkness, the spirit of the Ripper terrorised London, turning it into a city of nightmares.
It was like the pre-Brice days when Lola and I didn’t even need to speak. Without a word or a look, we simultaneously crouched on the bare boards and began to comfort the little girl with the gentlest angel vibes we knew. Very gradually her whimpers stopped.
Lola stroked her dirty hair. “Sweet dreams, little one,” she whispered. “Only sweet dreams from now on.”
We moved among the sleeping children, doing what we could. But I knew it wasn’t enough. Depression washed over me. Some of these kids were younger than Jade. They needed homes and parents and a good bath. They shouldn’t be living like this.
“This universe sucks,” I blurted suddenly. “No-one cares about anyone else, not really.”
I was shocked at myself actually, but Lola just looked surprised.
“So why are we here then?” she asked calmly.
“Because of our stupid pointless pathetic school project,” I told her savagely.
And because I screwed up, I added to myself.
Lola gave me one of her sweet smiles. “You don’t really believe this is pointless, Melanie. It isn’t an accident that we’re here in these times. You do know that, don’t you?”
I felt a tiny prickle of hope. Maybe I hadn’t screwed up. Maybe, just maybe, this could turn out OK?
Oh, get real Mel! I thought despairingly. This is the first time Lollie and I have been on our own since we got here. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if Brice was here. Brice always had to ruin everything.
It was hours w, I realised, since Brice took off on his mysterious ‘walk’. A shameful hope slithered into my mind. Suppose he never came back? Suppose he defected back to the PODS, and vanished from our lives forever?
Chapter Six
Outside the windows, the night sky was fading to the colour of grubby milk. Lola and I were taking a break, sharing a pack of angel trail mix. It was almost like old times. Just being in that rat-infested house with her, munching and scribbling notes for school, not even talking that much, made me ridiculously happy.
Then suddenly Brice was lounging in the doorway smiling his twisted smile. “How’s it going?” Despite the cold he was just wearing jeans and a Bruce Lee T-shirt.
“We’re good!” Lola beamed. “As you see, we’re stuffing our faces.” She rattled the packet. “Want some?”
He shook his head. “I’ll pass, thanks. It feels much better in here, by the way. You two did a great job with the light levels.”
“Yeah, thanks for helping. Not!” I scowled. “So where’ve you b
een?”
“Oh, you know, checking out the sights.”
“In the dark?” I said disbelievingly.
Lola noticed him shivering. “What happened to your hoodie?”
Brice shrugged. “Must have left it somewhere.”
All around us, kids were surfacing from sleep. The younger children still looked soft-eyed and dreamy. The older ones immediately snapped into survival mode, stowing their pathetic bedding out of sight, stuffing scraps of food into their mouths.
Georgie had been using his coat for a pillow, but when he tried to put it back on, his arm got stuck in the torn lining of his sleeve. He had to rip the lining out to free himself. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t totally awake that he looked so sad and bewildered. As I watched him struggling into his super-sized patchwork coat, I felt an unbearable pity well up. I tried to laugh it off.
“So what’s up with our little Master Sunshine today?” I asked the others.
“Do you need to ask?” said Brice. “The kid’s life stinks!”
“Presumably it stank yesterday, but he was as lively as anything,” I objected.
I watched Georgie drearily fastening his buttons, wondering if this was actually true. Maybe his cheeky Cockney routine was something he put on to survive, like his badly-fitting clothes.
We followed him back into the street and were instantly engulfed by billows of snot-green cloud. I’ve never seen fog like it. This must be what they mean by a Victorian pea-souper, I thought.
“It’s been like this for hours,” said Brice.
Lollie covered her nose. “It smells rank!”
Victorian London had a really distinctive pong: a mix of bad drains, terrible Victorian cooking and leaking gas, plus the suffocating stink caused by millions of Londoners using coal fires twenty-four seven. Unfortunately the dense fog was preventing all these toxic smells from escaping into the upper atmosphere.