Authors: Julia Watts
Frederica had agreed to meet her in Kensington Park. Their parents had been surprised at the sudden blossoming of a friendship between the two girls, but happy enough about it to give them permission to spend the day around London. Only Cal and Anthony knew the truth.
She strolled up the gravel path, past the Dutch Garden, and took a seat on one of the park benches that dotted the double rows of giant boxwoods leading to the Orangery. The smell of fresh-cut grass was sweet.
Her only company was a woman seated on the next bench, dressed in jeans and a light jacket, covered with pigeons. They perched on her head, bickered for favorite spots on her shoulders, arms and legs, and nibbled at breadcrumbs in her outstretched hands. Liv gave up trying not to seem rude and gaped openly. The pigeons must respect the woman—none of them had pooped on her, yet.
“You’d better practice being more alert—I completely sneaked up on you.” Frederica, wearing a flowing white blouse with her jeans and carrying long skirts and another blouse over her arm, slid onto the bench next to Liv. Her characteristic sneer was gone. If Liv hadn’t known better, she could have passed for human.
“Take this blouse. You can pull it over your tank top, right here before we leave. Put the skirts in your backpack and carry them for us. Mummy has no idea I’ve taken her things, so we need to be careful with them. You’re welcome, and I hope you remembered to bring your little box and your travel pass.”
Liv tried biting her tongue to keep herself from snapping back at Frederica. It worked. It hurt so much, she couldn’t even remember what she’d wanted to say. There was a pause as she checked her mouth for the taste of blood.
“Well, don’t you think we’d better get on with it?” asked Frederica, folding the skirts and looking down at the blouse.
“Sure.”
The girls walked along the sidewalks to the High Street Kensington tube station. Frederica seemed to drop her guard, and they enjoyed window-shopping, with Frederica pointing out the most fashionable shops.
“Why don’t you tell me how we’re getting to Greenwich?” Liv asked.
“Well, we have a choice. Take the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich, or get ourselves to Charing Cross Station to catch a train. Or we can go my favorite way.”
“None of it means anything to me. So what’s your favorite?”
Frederica almost smiled. “It’s taking the Docklands Light Railway. We can catch it at Tower Hill. I love getting out from under the ground, seeing where I’m going.”
“Sounds good.” Liv almost smiled back.
They stepped off the train at Greenwich, Frederica taking the lead. There had been several empty cars on the driverless train, and choosing one had given them the chance to pull their long skirts on over their jeans.
They made their way out of the station and onto the streets, which were becoming crowded with tourists. A few minutes of walking brought them to an intersection.
They paused in front of a shop, where a bowed window displayed a huge pie on a stand. The golden, flaky crust glistened in the sunlight that streamed through wavy old glass. The shop’s open door had invited a few flies, who performed an aerial insect ballet around the pie. Liv couldn’t blame them.
Frederica stopped with Liv and followed her gaze. “Didn’t know you fancied eel.”
“What? No, it can’t be. Tell me that’s something delicious, like apple or cherry.”
“Afraid not. But I like the age of the place. There’s a chance it may have been here for a very long time, and it looks like a good spot for us to use your box.”
“Are you sure we’re close enough to the Observatory? I don’t want to walk through the whole town in seventeen-seventytwo.”
Frederica laughed. “Stop worrying, will you? This is an adventure, and we’re doing a good deed at the same time.”
Liv could have argued the point that undoing a bad deed wasn’t quite the same as doing a good one, but she reached into her backpack for the box without protest. Then she pulled out the drawers while Frederica clutched her arm.
She knew they had traveled before they opened their eyes— she could smell it. She freed herself from Frederica’s grip and gaped at the stall across the street, where a Starbucks had been a moment ago.
Vendors were processing and selling fish in the space. A stout woman with raw, chapped hands and rolled-up, grimy sleeves was hacking off fish heads and dropping them into a rough wooden bucket. With a final thwack she beheaded her last victim, tossed the head into the bucket and slung the body onto a stained plank, fresh and ready for sale.
A graying, toothless man beside her grinned and reached deep into a barrel, drawing out a huge gray eel for a customer. The buyer nodded as the man hoisted the slimy, limp form with one hand and gestured broadly with the other.
The customer frowned and kept his eye on the scale, ignoring the fishmonger’s attempt at distraction and pointing at the weight. A few seconds of haggling over the price and the satisfied buyer walked away, his dinner in a string bag dripping spots of brine water onto the cobblestones.
“Give me a minute to get my bearings,” whispered Frederica. “It’s all a bit much to take in at once.”
Liv knew the feeling. “Take your time.”
Leaving Frederica to process her emotions, Liv turned and looked behind them, wondering if the shop with the eel pie would be there. Sure enough, the same modest brick building rose from a cobbled sidewalk, the sagging of age gone.
The glazing for the windows was in place, but it did nothing to keep flies from floating in the front door on the intoxicating aroma of baked eel flesh and lard pastry. On a glass stand in front of the middle window stood a ringer for the eel pie the girls had seen moments before in their own century.
As they threaded their way through the crowd and away from the market, Liv continued inhaling through her mouth, exhaling through her nose. It didn’t help. She could taste it that way: brackish water, raw fish, moldering vegetables and open pails of raw milk—one big nauseating mix with an undertone of horses and unwashed bodies.
She followed Frederica across the cobblestone square and onto a broad road, determined not to throw up or fall behind. The raw fish odor retreated, but there were horses everywhere, and a warm manure stench advanced to take its place. Liv marveled at Frederica, who didn’t seem to be the least bit affected.
“How can you stand it?”
Frederica turned and looked around. “Stand what?”
“The smell.”
She followed Liv’s gaze to a horse relieving itself in the middle of the street and shrugged. “Sinus problems.”
They were still blocks away from the Observatory and the hill leading up to it.
Liv suspected that Frederica was taking a scenic route. A few turns should have taken them to King William Walk and right to Greenwich Park, but they’d passed the Royal College and the graceful Queen’s House and seemed now to be backtracking.
She didn’t feel like fighting over the issue, so she just said, “If I sweat all over your mom’s blouse, it’ll be your fault, you know.”
Frederica seemed to get the point. “Oh, right. Sorry about the detour. I just couldn’t resist. And it is beautiful without all the asphalt and cars and noise, isn’t it?”
“It is,” agreed Liv.
They turned, almost companionably, into the park and began the long climb to the Observatory grounds.
“Now what do we do?” Liv spoke the words more to herself than to Frederica.
The courtyard of Flamsteed House, their destination and the home of Sir Nevil Maskelyne, was deserted.
“Simple,” answered Frederica. “Pick a door and knock on it.”
“I can figure out that much,” grumbled Liv. “This one has handrails at the steps. Maybe it’s more important.” She walked toward the door, trying to think of what to say. As they reached the first step, a brass doorknob, set squarely in the middle of the door, turned.
The door opened and a middle-aged lady in what might have been a Betsy Ross costume gave a cry of surprise. She frowned at them. “See now, it won’t do you any good to come asking for work around here. We don’t need a lot of staff—Sir Nevil lives alone, and he doesn’t entertain much.”
Before Liv could reply, the woman’s expression softened, and she continued, “If you’re hungry, just slip in and go down to the kitchen. Cook’ll give you a bite to eat.”
“Thank you!”
“Oh, it’s no trouble. Now go on, before anyone sees me acting soft!” She stood aside and pointed the way down a flight of stairs.
They walked as directed until they were out of the woman’s sight, then Frederica whispered, “We need to get back upstairs and start looking for Maskelyne. We’ll try the Transit Room and the Zenith Sector first, then go on from there if we have to.”
“Whatever you say. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I took the tour—remember?” Frederica opened a door, and the girls tiptoed into a large room with a wooden floor and whitewashed walls. The exposed rafters were whitewashed as well, and with sunshine pouring in the large windows, the effect was cheery. A handful of large, mysterious instruments that Liv assumed were for viewing or calculating dominated the space, but no one was there.
“Next stop, Zenith Sector.” Frederica said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a really long telescope,” she explained. “I can’t think how anyone would use it during daylight, but Maskelyne’s probably somewhere in the building, making rounds, checking equipment, which means we need to make the rounds ourselves.”
This time they were rewarded. The astronomer sat in an armless reclining chair, polishing the lens of what looked to Liv like a giant periscope. Notebooks lay scattered on the floor, along with a quill pen and inkpot. He was totally absorbed in his task.
“Ahem.” Liv cleared her throat, hoping not to startle him. Maskelyne sat up suddenly and hit his head on a wooden crosspiece bracing the telescope.
“Mrs. Perkins!” he shouted, holding his head with both hands and keeping his eyes shut. “Have I not made it perfectly clear that I am not to be disturbed when I am in this position? I have banged my head on this insufferable thing more times than I care to count, and—Oh. . .”
His eyes open only to a squint, he peered at the girls without recognition. Then, stabbing the air with a finger, he said, “You! You look familiar. Where have I seen you?”
“Kensington Palace, Sir Nevil, in the gardens,” answered Liv.
“I don’t remember any young girls at Kensington.”
Frederica explained, “You may have thought we were dressed like boys. We had a macaw—your people had dogs. Remember?”
Maskelyne scrambled from his seat, lunged forward, and grabbed Frederica by the arm, narrowly missing the inkpot with his foot. “Of course! Out with the both of you—I should have you arrested. Shoo! Shoo!” He let go of her and made fanning motions at them with both hands. They stood still.
“Away! You’re not gone—I ordered you out! How is it that you’re still here?”
Liv said, “Sir Nevil, we have to talk to you. We’ve come a very long way to see you—you have no idea how far.”
She looked over her shoulder to be sure that Maskelyne’s shouting hadn’t brought any servants running to his aid. “It’s about those things you said to Mr. Cumpston—sounding like you wanted him to get rid of your rival.”
The astronomer paled, recovering as he protested, “That was a private conversation, and if you intend to make any groundless accusations,remember that the word of two underage, trespassing eavesdroppers won’t be worth a half-penny.
“Now, I’m leaving the room and returning to my apartments. I suggest you find the way out before I have to call someone to help you find it.”
He turned on his heel and walked out. Liv and Frederica looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him.
They caught up with him as he stopped at a paneled door, taking a large key out of his pocket and inserting it in the lock. Liv tried clearing her throat one more time.
“Aaaah!” He whirled around and held his hand over his heart. “Must you continue to surprise me in this fashion?” He turned the key and opened the door, motioning them in. “Since you insist, I’ll give you a moment of my time.” He followed them into a sitting room, leaving the door open. “State your business, then off you go.”
“Just like we said, it’s about that Cumpston man and what he said he’d do to your enemy,” Liv began.
“Stop! Stop!” he demanded. “I heard him speak of nothing specific. And if by enemy, you mean John Harrison, my official position is that I hold him in the highest regard. No one can accuse me of any feelings of prejudice against him.”
At the mention of Harrison’s name, a squawk emanated from the next room. “Harrison! Blast Harrison! My life’s work! My life’s work!”
Frederica sucked in her breath. “You have a parrot in there! May we see it?”
Maskelyne nodded and stared at the floor. “Bah! I shouldn’t have spoken Harrison’s wretched name. I didn’t mean to get her started.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “It’s just Precious. There’s no use pretending. She’s only repeating what she’s heard me say a thousand times.”
He walked toward an open door, and motioned for them to follow. “Come, I’ll show you.”