I closed the purse, holding it, refusing to let it go. They patted me, sympathetic, warm, understanding the damaged homeless child with no family, and her desire to cling to something that might actually be hers. I let them believe that.
I left the hospital in the small hours, dressed, with my black purse over my shoulder and my grip in my left hand. No one saw me go; if I had come out of the disaster in the Woodstock Road dead and damaged and reborn, I had somehow attained something close to invisibility at will. I left an envelope for the staff, with money and a line of thanks for their care of me. My writing was clumsy, sprawling, and the effort made me sweat, for I was right-handed and would have to learn a whole new mode of functionality.
Into the London night I went, a ghost on these streets, not for the last time, but for the first time. Outside, people moved past me, walking in and around and through their lives: dowdy matrons with carriers full of tinned goods, longhairs, couples and veterans and dogs and cats. They saw nothing of me, because I had so willed it, and muttered my spell. This I still had, whatever else was lost to me.
I made the long walk to Hyde Park, cutting up through Knightsbridge, listening to my body, sorting out what lived and what was dead. When I grew weary, I rested against ambassadorial buildings, within inches of uniformed sentries. They never saw me; they never heard me. I knew where I was going, and I knew, too, what I was going to have to do when I got there.
It took me longer than I'd anticipated to reach Speakers Corner. I had never made this walk before, and had no notion how far it was. But I came to the northeast corner of Hyde Park not long before sunrise. I was thirsty, and tired, but these things were nothing, nothing at all, and would be remedied soon. The words of an old American spiritual came into my mind: All my trials, lord, soon be over. I remembered Rupert playing the song for me, Joan Baez and her clear mournful bell of a voice, and something in my heart cracked a little. It was better, far better, to not think of Rupert.
Marble Arch, a dull handsome gleam in the predawn light, held my good eye a moment, distracting me from things better left alone. I saw the sign for the Tube station, the marquee of the movie theatre. A street cleaning vehicle, its enormous brushes churning, jetted water as it moved down Park Lane. There was no one here, no nanny with a pram, no early runners, no beggars, no one at all. There was only me.
I went to Speakers Corner, and sat, opening the black purse on the ground. Four glass bottles, one through four. One tiny key. I took the bottles out and opened each, in order, setting them down.
I closed my eyes, and spoke. "Papa? Ecoutez, papa."
I am here, petite.
"Tell me how to do this, papa." I was sitting in silence; no one could have heard, no one could have seen. I was Speaker, and my father listened. "Tell me how to go, how to leave this behind. Tell me how?"
That is why I came. Ask yourself first: are you certain, that this is what you want? To go? Because the key to peace, to freedom, is there to your hand. But this is not an easy river to cross, petite. So you must be sure.
The river of Jordan is muddy and cold, it chills the body, but not the soul....all my trials soon be over....
"I'm certain, papa. Where will it take me, this key? What does it open?"
A little house, Amadee. I thought I heard a laugh, a warm loving sound, moving down the dead skin and fire-damaged neurons like a hug. A door to a little house, where you may be lost, or found. Your own little place, yours alone, to move at will between walls of this world and many others.
I drew a breath. "Show me."
It was an easy spell. Each jar, in order, a casting, repeat three times. It answered my nagging terror, put paid to it - my power, far from dissipating like ash in the sorcerer's wind that was the needfire, had grown stronger as I healed. I mixed my powders, I casted, I watched. When I had finished, I took up my belongings.
"Papa?"
Watch the Corner, Amadee, my darling girl. Take the key in your hand. Have it ready. Your moment is coming. And trust yourself, always. Au revoir, petite.
The air began to move. I could see it, molecules of spectral light, of shadow and solidity, the air shook and shuddered and shaped. A portal, a gateway, a door.
I took my bags in hand and went through without a backwards glance.
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