The dark glass I poured into the river was almost clear now, sparkling sky blues and grand buildings reflected on its surface. Entire avenues were erected on the ice, running from one riverbank to the other, with booths and tents offering all manner of things, from liquor and bread to books and toys. Their brightly coloured flags waved lazily at fairgoers alongside a glut of Union Jacks and signs in screaming capitalisation. The variety of smells were only outnumbered by the people, at least two thousand on the ice itself.
Skaters twirled on the fringes of the fair, racing each other from one bridge to the other. There were women dancing, fiddlers playing, the tinkling of a piano, the hypnotic shuk shuk of ice skates, and the constant crackling of fire, of beasts being roasted and chestnuts popping. Even a balloon was set on the ice, its body slowly inflating as its hawkers promised a fine show when the lady balloonist would sail it clean over the Tower. She would only come out when the balloon was ready and her extravagant top hat was filled with coins.
Will bought us lamb that was roasted on the ice. He smiled and said to me, ‘I told you. Doesn’t it taste different?’ I didn’t have the heart to tell him it tasted like regular overcooked mutton. My thief dutifully agreed with her fiancé and told him how very wondrous it was. Lapland Lamb. I wondered if she’d been reading Frostiana.
At least five printing presses were available. Will waited in line to have Miss McKenna’s name printed on a sheet attesting to the fact that she had stood upon the Thames in its frozen state.
A ripple of ‘she’s here!’ went through the crowd. ‘She’ was evidently a royal she. A carriage with the black form of Queen Victoria was drawn from one riverbank to the other. Fairgoers flocked the procession, waving flags, shouting ‘God Save The Queen’, and vacating Will’s queue so he got his souvenir a little quicker.
The day grew dark, but life still danced upon the ice. Fireworks were set off near the balloon, which was still struggling to rise. The colours in the sky were reflected in the ice, a most magical sight. Grumbles about the forfeiting of coins for the lady balloonist and her non-existent tricks dissipated. The music stopped. Only the shrill squeal of fireworks filled the air, followed by the bang of bright lights and the soft awed rumble of woooooooh!.
Once the show was over, a mass exodus began across the ice. Some tents were packed down. Arguments about the extent to which the ice was thinning by the Tower rumbled through the vendors. We returned to Fenchurch and I went to bed, complaining of a tingling in my feet. Will and Miss McKenna beguiled Mr McKenna with tales from the fair, their frivolity loud enough for me to hear the hyperbole they added to the day’s events.
Again, I dreamed I was in the Reading Room with her. The fire was gone. In its place, the dome was flooded to the roof with water. We sat again on the Superintendent’s desk, our hair and clothes floating lazily in the water. She held the History in her hands.
‘Isn’t it cold?’
The ice remained firm for another day. I watched the revelry from the riverbank. The balloonist finally set sail, or attempted to. The wind was too unruly. She kept it attached to its moorings as she hung upside down, teetering on the edge in some ridiculous costume that left nothing to the imagination.
Will wasn’t content to watch. He spent the day skating. Miss McKenna was as skilled as he, and the two of them circled each other, gliding at speeds only stupid boys dared venture. I wished the lady would fall and break her neck, but rebuked my wickedness with the threat that the History would record my thoughts and present me as quite the monster. To make up for it, I picked up a few sparrows in the bushes. Two were long gone, but the last still fought. I held it against me. It started twitching again. A warmth filled my heart that could only be obtained from a good whisky or true happiness.
‘Archie!’
I let the sparrow go, looked up and saw the impeccably adorned paunch that was my old boss.
‘Richard,’ I said, and offered my smile and hand in greeting. The big man spurned my hand and embraced me.
‘Good fellow, I’ve been looking for you all morning. A Mr McSomething waved me towards the river. Could barely understand the poor chap. Glaswegian, your host?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I wanted to say so much more. How to approach my sacking and the accusations from Percy?
‘Quite the spectacle!’ Richard remarked. ‘Not quite the spectacle that was caused at the museum, but spectacle nonetheless.’
Ah. Ever skilful at bringing the discussion to where it needed to be was our Keeper of the Books.
‘Monstrous business, most disgraceful. I sacked Percy as soon as I got back. Never heard of such a thing.’
I tried to stop the relief from showing on my face.
‘I understand you’ve been horribly treated, but I hope you’ll come back. You can have Percy’s old job if you fancy it, or you can be rid of them and come back to hunting rare books for me. I do miss you, old boy, you’re a bloodhound with books.’
I was at a loss for words. Richard chuckled.
‘Speak, man!’
‘Thank you, Richard. I’d be happy to return as your assistant.’
‘Good!’ he said and shook my hand in both of his. Then, into my palm he slapped the keys to my residence, my old office, and, hallelujah, the keys to the stacks that housed the History. ‘Leave the Reading Room to the bookworms, ey! I might send you back there to train the new Superintendent, if that’s agreeable.’
‘Of course.’
‘Good man.’
‘Richard,’ I broached slowly. ‘May I return today?’
Richard laughed, a throaty roar that shook his considerable girth. ‘That’s why I want you back! Always working! Listen, go back to the residences, get settled in. Come back next week. Few days off for having to suffer this indignity. Full pay.’
I smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘Good man,’ Richard nodded. I bid him farewell and he seemed to be going, but then he turned back around, his jovial mood slipping into something more … careful. He tried to maintain the casual nature of our chat as he ventured into more serious territory.
‘One thing before I go,’ he said. ‘I don’t care if the rumours are true. As long as you display some discretion, my only concern is your ability to do your job. Plenty of folk more wicked than the likes of Archibald Barrie have contributed a great many things to our museum and indeed our empire. I only care what you have to contribute, you understand.’
‘Percy’s accusations are false, I have proof –’
‘I’m sure you do, but I don’t care for it,’ Richard said pointedly. He glanced again at the fair. ‘I hear your brother is to be married.’
‘Yes.’
‘That is very fortunate.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Shame you haven’t been so lucky.’
‘Shame indeed.’
He then turned back to me and smiled. ‘Discretion, man.’ Clap on the shoulder. I could only nod. ‘Good chap.’
He left. I sat for a moment, listening to the fair. Then I took off. Retrieved my briefcase and, ahoy, museum-bound! I didn’t bother to tell Will. He was too busy circling his future bride. I wished she’d fall and break a leg at least. Rebuked myself again. Perhaps there were far more wicked men than the likes of me, but wicked I could still be.
I searched the stacks for five hours. Pulled every Davis, Davies, Davison off the shelves. Checked the reader requests, found nothing to indicate that the attendants had been anywhere near the History. Jeffery asked if he could help find whatever I was looking for. Told him to bugger right off.
It was gone. I knew it was gone. But I kept searching, all day. Noticed numerous books mis-shelved. Didn’t bother putting them back in order.
Jeffery came again hours later. Found me checking behind the books on the lower levels, huddled in the dark with a dwindling lantern.
‘Closing time, Mr Barrie, sir,’ he offered. Swear I heard a squeak in his voice.
I got off the ground, and glared at the youth as
I smoothed my waistcoat. ‘The stacks are in quite a state.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Have we had any break-ins while I was away?’
‘What? No, sir! I’d tell you right away!’
‘Could Percy have taken anything before he left?’
‘No, sir, didn’t have a chance! And I would’ve told you, sir, I swear!’
I glowered at him. ‘Best be going home now then.’
Jeffery nodded like a parrot. ‘Yes, Mr Barrie, sir.’
I went back to the McKennas’, determined to figure out how my thief had done it. I didn’t even get a chance to go in the door. A figure slid out from the side of the house. The big cap was no disguise. I’d seen it before. My thief. She had the History. She saw me and ran.
I took chase, following her weaving form through the streets just as I’d done at the beginning of our tale. It was dark; even the street lamps seemed muted. Her cap flew off and her hair unravelled, like a long black streamer flying behind her. Again, I worked my mischief, made the water on the ground freeze. As she ran over those icy puddles, they shifted back to water. She countered my mischief with her own.
My thief opened the History as she ran. Then, she ripped out an entire page. The violence of it made us both tumble. A sharp pain shot down my spine. Memories of some fine empire in the Americas leached out of my mind. She recovered quickly and was back up and running. I scrambled up and chased after her. She ripped out another page; I stumbled but kept running. Tasted blood in my mouth, swallowed a wave of nausea. Flashes of something: a woman whose face was ornately tattooed, winking at me as she slipped from my mind. I pushed on despite the burning in my head.
My thief made her way to the Thames. The ice near the Tower Bridge was thinning considerably now. Most booths were packed away, their hawkers moved on. I was struck by a loud creak, like the sound of a door opening on rusty hinges, only magnified. It conjured many memories from the History – the creaking of a ship’s hull on a violent ocean, the deep timbre of a whale humming. The ice was groaning. A thaw was coming.
She ripped out another entry. The whale slipped away. I felt the memory go.
‘Please, stop,’ I begged her.
She was already on the ice. I made my way down, trying to push through the blur that the pain brought to my eyes. The Thames was melting; though still solid, puddles made grooves in the ice. There were few people still out. I stumbled a little against some wavering drunk fellow. He shoved me and I fell hard against the ice. I dragged my aching head up and saw her, running for the still-tethered balloon. One of the balloon’s minders, drinking nearby, ran towards her.
I tried so hard to get to my feet, but I stumbled like a newborn foal. She reached the balloon, artfully pulled on one of its moorings, and brought it close enough for her to clamber aboard. The ice groaned again, an ungodly sound. Those left on the ice fled, even the balloon’s minders. A kindly old man pulled me up and helped me ashore.
She cut one of the moorings. The others yanked free as the ice cracked. The balloon shot up and she floated free. I stumbled along the Thames as her balloon limped upwards. It was heading straight for the Tower Bridge but it wasn’t rising fast enough to get over it. It looked set to ram into the walkway between the two towers.
‘You won’t clear it!’ I cried out.
She ignored me. She was battling with the balloon, fiddling with its various contraptions. She threw off as many sandbags as she could. Each one hit the ice below, the last two shattering the thin ice by the bridge before being swallowed by the river.
I was close enough to see the look on her face as she realised the balloon was too low to clear it. The balloon’s ropes rammed against the walkway, throwing the basket against the south bank tower. She screamed as it hit the stone hard, shattering half the basket to pieces. As the basket swung around, showering its broken shards on the bridge below, she grabbed onto the balloon’s ropes that were now ensnared in the walkway. She tried to scramble up.
By the time I got to the Tower’s entrance, she was clinging onto the walkway itself. Remarkably, she still had the History. If she fell, it fell too. That would be the end of it, millennia of mischief gone, swamped in the Thames.
One of the bridge’s hydraulic engine workers was already making his way up the Tower. I shoved him aside and ran up the inner stairwell. I reached the top quickly. The walkway was completely enclosed. She was caught on its edge, unable to get inside. I smashed one of the windows and climbed halfway out. She crouched there on a sliver of an edge, curled up amongst the ropes and the torn remains of her stolen balloon. As our eyes met, the basket snapped completely off and tumbled down, dashing against the ice below. She stood slowly as I gestured towards her. I offered my hand.
‘Please,’ I begged.
Tears ran down her face. ‘What is it?’
I didn’t know what she could possibly mean.
‘The book,’ she cried. ‘Its pages are blank. It didn’t burn … I saw it, all those years ago. It wouldn’t burn. But now … it bleeds memories.’
‘That’s the book’s histories. It works by some magic to record our deeds.’
‘What deeds? What is it?’
She was frantic. She kept glancing between me and the ice below.
‘It’s a magical book, a special thing that gives you marvellous powers,’ I said, my voice pleading.
She shook her head. No, no, no, she muttered. The workers on the bridge were at my heels. I yelled at them to back off and then ventured out further onto the ledge.
‘It’s not working how it should,’ I tried to tell her.
‘I’ve been hunting it all this time. Why won’t it reveal itself to me?’
‘It will in time, I promise.’
‘All I see is suffering. Ghosts on fire, tormented forests, the shattered bones of stolen boys. I see you, young, being set on by dogs.’
‘That was before the History. Something’s wrong. It’s not showing you the triumphs. I froze the Thames. Did it show you? Or thawing sparrows, bringing them back to life. Think of the majesty in that.’
She nodded, convinced a little perhaps. ‘I saw the sparrow. I did the same … when you froze on the ice.’
‘You did, you saved me,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘But there’s madness in it.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But magic too.’
She wavered. ‘Is magic enough?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, and stretched my hand out to her.
She glanced down at the ice. I could see the horrible thoughts that swirled in her mind.
‘Please, don’t,’ I begged. ‘We can repair it, you and I. I don’t know how you came to hunt it. No one outside those who’ve owned the book were privy to any of it. It must’ve wanted you to find it. If you fall, if it falls, we’ll lose it. The mischief and its record will be destroyed. I beg you, take my hand.’
Her words were a whisper. They barely carried over the wind. ‘Maybe that’s why it came to me.’
She looked back at me. I saw how very weary she was.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘my great act of mischief is in its destruction.’
She let go. Held the History and fell. Our eyes locked and I saw it. The History revealed itself. Visions flashed over those blue eyes. She lived one hundred and ninety-nine lives in two seconds, saw what she had been hunting, the magic I promised.
In that moment, she was A. Mischief the Two-Hundredth.
Then she hit the ice hard, shattering it. The river swallowed her. A hundred sparks burst in my mind. My muscles seized in the grips of a fit. I tried to hold onto the memories, but they slipped away. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what they were.
I woke surrounded by the grubby faces of the bridge’s engine workers. One man was kneeling beside me.
‘You right, fella,’ he said softly.
Something was in my mouth. I spat it out. A man’s leather glove? The man beside me offered, ‘My wife fits like you. Saving your
teeth, sir.’
They helped me down, realising I could barely walk. There were no cabs about, so the gent who’d seen to it that I not gnash my teeth offered to walk me home. He gave kind assurances – ‘you’re doing alright, getting better now, feet comin’ back’ – as we made our way towards Fenchurch. He was an older man, shorter than me, but he battled on. When I slipped in a puddle and went down, he pulled me back up and said, ‘Horrible blight, isn’t it? You poor fella.’ I was reminded of Yingtai’s encouragements when she fed Hu in the forty-ninth history.
The ice of the Thames groaned at our backs. I thought of Balcha, retching along with the creaking of the ship’s bow … I realised then that I remembered. Just a few of them. But they were there. I smiled. The workman said, ‘Good lad, take strength.’
How to tell Will that his fiancée was dead?
I didn’t need to. She was there when I returned. She even helped me to bed. I was surely going mad. Perhaps the whole thing had been a delusion: the History, its magic, my thief, everything. Perhaps my entire life had been a fiction. I’d written my own story to escape in, a good book to banish the memories of being chased, my family home burnt down, my parents screaming inside, as the hounds hunted me and tore my flesh and youth from me.
Seeing my terror, she touched my face lightly. ‘I’m not her, Mr Barrie.’
A memory. Something new. Her. The forbidden page with the name smudged out. It was her, just a girl, and her sister. Lou and Chloe, caught in the siege of Paris. Balloons and a book that wouldn’t burn. She broke the rules. So the book broke her.
I settled into bed. Will sat by my side. The workman’s tale of my violent fit left him horrified. He stroked my hair until I fell asleep, said a thousand times he was sorry.
At night, I dreamed of my thief. Again, in the Reading Room. It was still flooded. Books floated around us. Sparrows darted through the water, chasing one another. She smiled at me and said, ‘Isn’t it cold?’ I agreed that it was. I said I was sorry this was how she died.
Postscript – Chloe McKenna, 1956
When Lou died, the whispers from the book called me.
The History of Mischief Page 24