The Sweet Far Thing

Page 221

“That’s wot we always cawled it. For the wharves and the docks. Spelled ‘quay’ but sounds like ‘key.’ ‘Down in the Key,’ we say.”
“Yes, thank you for the lesson, Fowlson,” Kartik mutters.
“Wot’s that mean?” Fowlson grumbles.
I interrupt. “Gentlemen, let’s keep our heads about us. There will be time enough to play c**k of the walk later. I hope.”
We travel the dark streets as they twist and turn. As Fowlson has warned, there are rough sorts moving in the shadows, and I don’t want to look too closely.
“Customs House ain’t too far,” Fowlson says.
“Brigid said that when Wilhelmina came to London, she was lost near the Customs House for a week. What if this was a place that was familiar to her? Where she felt safe, oddly enough?”
We turn another corner and another, until we come to a few dilapidated buildings that look out onto the old wharves. I hear the ships calling to each other; there’s a fine view of the boats.
“It’s here,” I say. “I recognize this from my visions. Come on, Wilhelmina,” I whisper. “Don’t fail me now.”
And suddenly I see her before me in her lavender dress.
“Do you see her?” I ask quietly.
“See ’oo?” Folwson asks, his knife in front of him.
“I don’t,” Kartik says. “But you do. We’ll follow you.”
Wilhelmina passes through the wall of a miserable tenement suitable only for tearing down.
“In here,” I say.
Fowlson draws back. “You barking?”
“I may be mad, indeed, Mr. Fowlson,” I answer. “But I won’t know until I go inside. You may follow me or not.”
Kartik kicks the rotting door, and I step first into the decaying, abandoned building. It’s dark and smells of mold and salt water. Rats scratch in the corners; the sound of their busy claws puts a shiver up my spine. Kartik is at my side, his knife at the ready.
“Bloody ’ell,” Fowlson mutters under his breath, but I feel his fear.
We climb a rotting staircase. A man more dead than alive lies unconscious at the top of it. He smells of spirits. The walls peel from the moisture and decay. Kartik takes careful steps down the dark corridor with me just behind. We pass an open door and I see several people lying about. One woman’s head rises for a moment before her chin comes to rest on her chest again. The stench of urine and waste wafts out of the room like an overpowering perfume. It assaults my nose, and has me choking till I am forced to breathe through my mouth. It is all I can do not to run screaming from this place.
“Please, Wilhelmina,” I whisper, and then I see her just ahead, glowing in the murk. She passes through the last door. I try the handle but it’s rusted shut. Kartik throws his shoulder against it but it won’t budge.
“Stand aside,” Fowlson says. He flicks open his knife and meddles with the lock until the door gives a bit. “’E said I was good wif a knife.”
“So you are, Mr. Fowlson. Thank you.” I push the door open; it screeches as if angry to be wakened. The room is dark. The only light comes from a small window with a view of the Thames and the ships—what I took to be a painting of boats in the illustration. There’s no doubt: This is the room from my visions.
“Wot is this place?” Fowlson says, coughing against the damp.
“We’re just about to find out,” I say. “Have you any matches?”
Fowlson pulls a small box from his waistcoat pocket and hands them over. I strike one, adding the smell of sulphur to the others in the room. The match flares, and in the sudden brightness, I spy the table and a lantern covered with cobwebs. A small nub of candle remains. I light it, raise the lantern, and the room is flooded with light.
“Blimey,” Fowlson gasps.
The walls. They’re covered in words. And in the center of one is a drawing of the Tree of All Souls, bodies dangling from its branches.
The marks are faded by time, but I read what I can. “‘I see into the darkness. She has become the tree. They are one and the same. Her noble power is corrupted.’”
“‘She has deceived us all,’” Kartik reads. “‘A monster.’”
“‘The most beloved of us all, beloved no more. My sister, gone,’” I read. I stare at the tree. “Eugenia,” I whisper.
Fowlson crowds behind me. “You tellin’ me Eugenia Spence is now…that?”
“‘The Key holds the truth.’ That’s what she said. And I’m ready for it now.” I put my hands to the walls and call out to Wilhelmina. “Show me.”