Chapter 8 #2
“Pretty pretty,” he crooned, fingers sliding into my hair, and I was revising my opinion on how much I liked this world.
Conan Doyle’s London had maybe a bit too much grist and grit for me, and now there was another set of grimy fingers insinuating themselves around my handbag, and I felt panic clawing at my throat.
“Get away from me,” I shouted, shoving back against all these hands.
Was I really about to get robbed and assaulted by fictional London underworlders?
Because they felt real enough, one of those hands working its way from my hair to my neck, and I hiked a knee against the nearest set of ribs with all the force in me, but that only made one of them fall back. “Get away from me—”
“Women are never entirely to be trusted,” an irritable voice remarked. “Forever haring off like frightened rabbits, all emotional impulse, entirely antagonistic to clear reason—” And I found myself plucked free by an irascible-looking Sherlock Holmes.
“Th-thank you,” I gasped, as the last of those grimy hands was dragged off my arm. “I didn’t mean—I thought I saw someone I—”
“Some trifling intrigue, to be sure, but I cannot break my other search for the sake of it.” Holmes applied some sort of efficient martial arts chop to the throat of the skinny man who was still attempting to latch on to my handbag; the man folded and nearly fell into the glowing brazier, and I found myself propelled briskly back toward the alley above.
And I nearly wished myself back in the opium den, because the Librarian was waiting with a face like a thunderclap.
I cringed before she said a single word.
“Is this your idea of helping?” she snapped, and then I didn’t just cringe, I shriveled.
“I’m sorry—”
“I thought I had made it clear to you that the dangers faced inside a book world are very much real dangers.”
“You did.” Sherlock Holmes was already whirling up the alley back toward the wharves, dusting off his hands; the Librarian set off after him at a ferocious clip but that didn’t stop the diatribe pouring down on my head.
“I do not have time to haul you out of dens of iniquity like some hapless damsel, Miss Watson. Hapless damsels are of singularly little use when one has a crisis to deal with.”
“I know.” I winced, following. Some sidekick I was.
What’s the first rule when you go into a fantasy land and get instructions from the wise old mentor?
Follow those instructions. And here I’d plunged off the path at the first opportunity and nearly gotten myself murdered in an opium den.
Well done, Watson. Really good show. “Are—are you going to revoke my Page status?” I managed to ask, heart knocking and thudding all over again.
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” the Librarian asked in return as we made our way back through the thronged wharf toward London Bridge.
“I wasn’t just . . . being rash. Running off to have an adventure like an idiot. I thought I saw my mother,” I whispered. “I would never have run like that if I hadn’t seen her.”
Had I seen her? I’d been so sure it was her: the set of her head, the color of her hair, her gaze bent on that book . . .
“Was it her?” I blurted out. “Is—is my mother here?”
“This is Sarah’s world,” the Librarian said in a slightly less acid tone. “Sarah is the only Patron here; that is the way it works.”
“I know, but—” I took a deep breath. “Can you just tell me if my mother is one of your Patrons? If she—if she escaped into a book when she left me?”
The Librarian stopped, looking at me from under the broad brim of that huge feather-laden hat. My heart thudded even harder. “No,” she said. “No, I couldn’t tell you that. The privacy of my Patrons is paramount, Miss Watson. I am not allowed to disclose their whereabouts to anyone.”
“But she’s my mother.” I fought back the stupid, stupid rise of tears in my throat.
Why was I on the verge of crying, here on a Victorian street corner in a pea-soup London fog with horse-drawn drays rattling past and Cockney voices flowing around me like a river?
Why had I even come to a fantasy world if I was just going to end up crying about my goddamn mother like the eight-year-old I’d long left behind?
“I’m sorry,” the Librarian said.
“No, I don’t think you are,” I replied, my voice unsteady. “But I understand why you’re not.”
There was nothing more to say as we made our way back to 221B Baker Street. Where one of our problems at least was solved, because Sarah was sitting at the top of the steps, hugging herself in the chilly fog, her face pinched and resolute.
“Excellent,” Sherlock Holmes greeted her. “I may return to the analysis of my acetones—” And he disappeared inside with a flick of his greatcoat, clearly already mentally back in his lab. Sarah didn’t look surprised at his brusqueness, just rose to her feet as the Librarian and I mounted the steps.
“I didn’t mean to lead you on a chase,” she said, her voice thin but determined. She looked scared but capable; I highly doubted she’d have needed to be rescued from an opium den. “I just—I had to be on my own a moment. I needed to think what I wanted to do.”
“And have you decided?” the Librarian asked, more gently than I’d ever heard her speak before.
“Yes.” Shoulders squaring. “I’ll go with you.”
I had one last glimpse of the Great Detective before we left Baker Street.
Sarah, carpetbag in hand, was in the front hall giving Mrs. Hudson a fast and fluent lie about needing to visit a sick cousin in Brighton when Holmes came stalking back through on his way to the kitchen, several bubbling glass vials in hand.
“I doubt the existence of this cousin in Brighton, Miss Hudson,” he remarked to Sarah in passing.
“Changes to the dilation of your pupils would indicate a fib.”
“Not now, Mr. Holmes,” Sarah said firmly, and the Librarian drew her Patron outside before we had to field any more investigative probing.
“There is a mystery here, dammit.” Holmes’s voice floated behind me as we all clattered down the seventeen front steps. “And at some point I would appreciate a clue . . .”
“He is going to be all questions when I get back,” Sarah said as we set off down Baker Street, the two of us falling in behind the Librarian. “I swear, half the reason he sleeps with me is trying to figure out where my accent really comes from.”
“You’re sleeping with Sherlock Holmes?” I nearly tripped over my blue moiré hem. “I thought he hated women.” And having to haul my ignorant, careless butt out of an opium den probably hadn’t done much to raise his opinion of my gender.
“He hates matrimony and domesticity,” Sarah corrected. “So do I. Had quite enough of that with Tyler”—a shadow passing across her face—“so frankly, being fuck buddies with the genius upstairs when he’s between cases is perfect all around.”
“How is he?” I couldn’t help asking. Because really, who hasn’t read Conan Doyle and wondered?
She grinned. “Anyone who pays that much attention to detail knows exactly what to do with his hands. And other things.” But her smile faded as she looked at me. “You got into some trouble trying to find me? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I winced all over again inside. “Entirely my own fault.”
“You shouldn’t beat yourself up. It takes time getting used to a book world.”
Her smile was so wry and encouraging, I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out, “I thought I saw my mother here. Stupid, right?” Kicking at a loose cobblestone, then cursing as the stone just hurt my toes through my worn pleather boot.
“I walk into the world of a book, just like every reader has wanted to do since the dawn of time, and all I can do is fantasize about finding my mother. How much of a bad Freudian cliché is that?”
“I don’t know.” Sarah sounded thoughtful, shifting her carpetbag from one hand to the other. “I think these book worlds are very good at showing us what we really want.”
I didn’t much like the sound of that. I’d always thought what I wanted was capital-letters ESCAPE, to fly high, fly fast, and find a door to something magical.
At least as far as dreams go, that was a fairly grand one.
Now that I’d actually found the magic door, was it really showing me that what I wanted was my mother?
That wasn’t even a bad Freudian cliché; that was pathetic abandoned-child bullshit.
“Well, who cares anyway?” I said with a shrug.
“My mother left me when I was eight, so screw her.”
“I certainly don’t miss mine,” Sarah said.
Her face took on a hard sheen, as memory moved over it almost visibly.
“Whenever I came home to her crying, showing her the latest bruises from Tyler, she’d get me ice packs and then tell me it was my responsibility to fix the marriage.
Nice, right? Black finger marks around your daughter’s neck, and all you can say is Have you thought about buying yourself some prettier underwear and learning to be a better cook? ”
“I’m sorry.” My own complaints seemed pretty pathetic by comparison; I started kicking myself all over again. “You—you don’t ever have to see her again. Or your husband,” I added awkwardly, trying to be comforting. “I promise. The Library, it gave you sanctuary.”
“Whatever the hell that’s worth.” Sarah quickened her pace to catch up with the Librarian. “Can I really come back here once the danger’s past? If Ty’s going to ruin this for me too—”
“He won’t. Not while I’ve got breath,” the Librarian said grimly.
“That, I promise.” She was about to say something else, when a rustling sound from above made us all pause and look upward.
My first thought was a bird, but this was no bird: it was a dark red card spiraling down out of the fog and landing on the damp cobblestones.
The lettering caught the dim light of the streetlamp overhead: Stephanie Scopelli/Sophie Dent; JE by CB; orig. checked out 2023.
“Another one?” I whispered, at the same time as the Librarian whispered something almost inaudible. Something that sounded like Just like last time . . .
“What happened last time?” I asked, watching as she picked up the card.
“What does this mean?” Sarah said at the same time, looking between us. “Is it Ty?”
“No.” The Librarian turned the card over, answering Sarah’s question rather than mine. “It means we have another Patron in danger.”