The City of Secret Rivers Read online

  “I was being chased by monsters. The same monsters who are holding my mother hostage while we are shopping for rain gear.”

  Lady Roslyn handed one of the umbrellas to the man behind the counter. “She’ll take this one.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Don’t you have any money? I noticed you have a wallet in your pocket. It makes you look rather manlike, but in this particular circumstance, the utility of it nearly makes up for its unattractiveness.”

  “You noticed I have a wallet? That’s great. Have you noticed that I don’t have a mother?”

  I was trying to stay calm, but my jaw hurt from holding back tears. All I could think of was Mom in the clutches of those gross creatures. Maybe I wasn’t sounding as tough as I wanted to, because Lady Roslyn looked carefully at me for a moment, and when she spoke next, she sounded almost sympathetic. “I promise: I have a plan to address that. It requires an umbrella, and it will only work if the umbrella is yours – purchase, payment, and parcel. It may seem indirect, but it’s the fastest way to get that drop of water back. And getting that drop of water back is the only way I can think of to get your mother. Buy it, and while we’re on our way, I’ll explain as much as I can.”

  I bought it. Five pounds seemed like a pretty small price to pay for an explanation.

  We got our tickets, took the long elevator ride down, and found a quiet spot in the Tube carriage. When we were seated and Lady Roslyn had looked around and assured herself that nobody was in earshot, she took a deep breath and began.

  “You said you read a history book. Did it tell you why the Romans built London on this particular spot?”

  “It was the rivers. Rivers were really important for cities – they were like highways, but for boats.”

  “Lies! All lies!” Lady Roslyn yelled, so loudly that people at the other end of the carriage looked up at us. She dropped her voice. “The rivers weren’t important because you could sail on them. They were important because they were magic. Once they arrived at the Thames, they all mixed together and their powers got muddied and diluted. But if you accessed them before that point, and if you knew what you were doing, you could tap into that power for your own ends.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “It depends on what effect you wanted to achieve. You could draw river water and say certain words over it and transform it into a potion that would drive your enemies mad. You could drink it in combination with certain other substances and receive superhuman inspiration. You could wear certain clothes and go swimming at certain hours, and when you reached the riverbank, you could keep swimming, straight up into the air.

  “Over time, certain families became particularly proficient in these techniques. (And when I say ‘over time’, understand, I’m referring to centuries, not decades, or whatever passes for time in your country.) With each generation, a mother – or, more rarely, a father – would pass on the knowledge her family had acquired over hundreds or even thousands of years.

  “She would also pass on a code of ethics, because if one has access to an ancient, unstoppable power, it’s rather important that there be things one simply won’t do.”

  While she was talking, Lady Roslyn had taken a navy-blue ribbon out of her hair and was tying it around the handle of my umbrella. This seemed like an odd thing to do, but it wasn’t exactly the most urgent mystery at the moment, so I just let her keep talking. “Of course, not everybody was happy with this arrangement. Certain selfish individuals wanted the river magic for themselves – individuals who did not share the same family code of ethics. We thought – and yes, I said we, meaning myself and my ancestors, for I’m proud to say my family has been on the right side of this battle for millennia – we thought these selfish individuals were the biggest threat to the safety of the nation and the world.

  “We were, alas, quite wrong. Unbeknownst to us, a cult had sprung up in secret. They believed there was a way to unleash the rivers, so that every man, woman, and child who so much as touched a single drop could have access to the greatest magical force in history. It would be the equivalent of handing out nuclear bombs as though they were free newspapers. Civilization could not possibly survive. Yet this cult, for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, thought it would be a good thing.

  “And they began to recruit allies. Powerful allies. And eventually, their presence led to disaster. You have, perhaps, heard of the Great Fire of London?”

  “Sure,” I said, happy to have a chance to show Lady Roslyn how much I knew. “It was in 1666. There was a baker who left his oven on all night, and—”

  “Wrong,” she said. “It was indeed in 1666, and it burned for five days, and it destroyed the entire city. And at its height, with the heat of ten thousand burning roofs scorching the air and the light of ten thousand burning houses searing the eyes and the angry roar of a hundred thousand crackling timbers assaulting the ears, it was very much like Hell. And it’s true that a baker started it, but it wasn’t because he baked bread.”

  “Then what did he do?”

  “He mixed hot and cold water.”

  My stomach dropped. Suddenly, Mom wasn’t the only person I was worried about.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Ah, here we are,” Lady Roslyn said. “Time to change lines.”

  As we left the train, I got my voice back. “But—” I began, but Lady Roslyn pointed to the crowds around us and held a finger to her lips.

  When we were once more alone, at one end of a Circle line train, I tried again. “But if that’s all it takes to activate the magic, why isn’t the city always burning down? I’ve seen plenty of other buildings here where the water comes out of one tap.”

  “Those buildings aren’t above one of the secret rivers. Our building is, which is why I live there. Somebody has to be on guard against this sort of catastrophe. Although, even without my presence, there are supposed to be certain safeguards. The idea that a child such as yourself could replace the tap, let alone turn the handles afterwards – it’s preposterous. Very few people would believe it.”

  “Why could I do it?”

  Once again, she looked at me with genuine sympathy. “I think it best if I don’t answer that. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you seem to be rather a dangerous girl already. Ask me something else.”

  I didn’t even know where to begin. But if I was going to undo the mess I had created, I should probably know how to stop whatever weird, wet magic I had unleashed. “You said there were safeguards. Like, things that could hold the magic back?”

  She nodded. “Certain runes, for example… You do know what a rune is, don’t you?”

  “Umm,” I said impressively.

  “A rune is a shape with protective magical powers. Like this one.” She reached into the neck of her blouse and lifted up a gold pendant on a simple chain. It was a familiar shape:

  “That’s the zombie bunny rabbit I saw inside the tap!”

  For once, Lady Roslyn was speechless. It didn’t last long. “That is not a zombie bunny rabbit. It is the silhouette of the very first crude clay urn ever fashioned, as sketched on a cave wall at the very moment when humanity first gained some control over water. It is older than any alphabet, and its power helps us restrain the force of magical rivers.”

  I still thought it looked like a zombie bunny rabbit. While I was debating whether to say that out loud, Lady Roslyn kept going. “And you have seen it many places other than that faucet you vivisected. You have seen it hundreds of times over the course of your life, if not thousands.”

  OK, now she was just messing with me. “I think I’d remember a shape if I’d seen it a thousand times.”

  “Yes,” Lady Roslyn said. “I would think so, too. Well, here we are. Baker Street.”

  We stepped out onto the platform, and I headed for the exit. But Lady Roslyn just stood there, looking at me expectantly. “What?” I asked her.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Fine,” I said. “Be that way.”


  I turned back towards the exit, and then I stopped, because I had just realized something incredible.

  Every single wall of Baker Street station was covered with the zombie bunny – I mean, the urn rune. There were hundreds of them. Thousands of them – big versions on big tiles, and little versions on little tiles, and even big versions of the rune that when you got close enough turned out to be made up of dozens of little versions. I had been through this station a half dozen times since we had moved, and I had never noticed them.

  That didn’t make me quite as stupid as you might think, though. The runes on the wall were all upside down. And when they were upside down, they didn’t look like an urn, or even like a zombie bunny. They looked like this:

  “That’s Sherlock Holmes!” I gasped.

  “No,” Lady Roslyn said. “That’s a magical rune. I told you that my family has been involved in this fight for centuries. More than a hundred years ago, during the excavations for this station, an ancient society called the Inheritors of Order discovered that Baker Street was the most dangerous magical nexus in London. They realized that this area would eventually have to be covered in runes to prevent a tremendous catastrophe. But of course, they couldn’t simply announce that to the public. So they called upon my second cousin three times removed, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur used his literary skills to invent a character who looked exactly like an upside-down urn, and then he wrote a series of adventures about him so gripping that his fame spread around the world, all so that one day, the Inheritors of Order could cover Baker Street with magical protection. Oh, but don’t worry. If he were alive today, I’m sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wouldn’t mind you undoing his life’s work just because you wanted to wash your hands in tepid water. I’m sure he’d be overjoyed! ‘Hyacinth,’ he’d say. ‘Don’t you worry about civilization. You just cleanse your hands in a fashion slightly less likely to lead to dry skin.’”

  “I’m sorry I put civilization in danger. Can you just tell me what to do?”

  “First, we’re going to the lost property office.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve lost your umbrella.”

  She was right. I had been so busy worrying about saving my mom and the world that I hadn’t paid any attention to my umbrella. Now it was gone.

  CHAPTER 7

  The good news was, the London Underground Lost Property Office was right next to Baker Street station. The bad news was, there was a line.

  “The fate of the world is at stake,” I said as we stood there. “Is this really the best use of our time?”

  “That is precisely what this is. What does an umbrella do?”

  “Um – it keeps the rain off your head.”

  “That’s right. It controls water.”

  OK, this was starting to make a little more sense. “Are you saying it’s another incredibly powerful rune?”

  “A rune is something written, so no. But individual umbrellas do have a small amount of power. Every year, seven thousand umbrellas pass through the Lost Property Office. And my goodness, what a coincidence, the Lost Property Office just happens to be located above the single most powerful magical nexus. But of course it isn’t a coincidence; the Inheritors of Order planned it that way. Every umbrella that comes through here leaves recharged, thereby offering Londoners just a bit of extra protection from stray magical forces. And if that umbrella happens to be lost at exactly the right spot on the Circle line, it gains an extra power, which is going to prove very useful to us. But that power belongs to the owner of the umbrella; claiming somebody else’s will do you no good whatsoever, which is why you had to be the one to purchase it.”

  The line had moved faster than I thought it would. We were already at the Formica counter, where a clerk stood.

  “We have lost an umbrella,” Lady Roslyn told him.

  “You’re in the right place,” the clerk said. “We’ve got thousands of umbrellas.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Lady Roslyn replied. “Fortunately, with remarkable foresight, we tied a navy-blue ribbon around the base, precisely so we could identify it if the need arose.”

  The clerk vanished into the back for a moment and came back with my umbrella, complete with Lady Roslyn’s ribbon. “Here you go. Stay dry, now.”

  Staying dry didn’t seem too hard, since it wasn’t raining outside. In fact, I still wasn’t clear why I even needed an umbrella. “How am I supposed to use this to control water if it isn’t raining?”

  Instead of answering, Lady Roslyn led me out of the Lost Property Office and to a shopping arcade about a block away. There was a long walkway with shops on either side and a glass ceiling arching high above. The shops themselves had curved glass windows and lots of elaborate wood carvings. It would have been tremendously elegant if it hadn’t been covered with dust and in bad need of repainting. It didn’t help that every shop was selling the same plastic double-decker buses and Prince Harry posters.

  And yet, standing at the street entrance was some sort of caretaker wearing an immaculate Edwardian suit and top hat, like he expected a baroness to swoop up at any moment in a horse-drawn carriage, looking for fine leather gloves.

  There was an old wooden sign next to him. Lady Roslyn pointed to the fading words on it:

  FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF ALL OUR PATRONS, BAKER ARCADE ASK THAT YOU OBSERVE THE FOLLOWING BYLAWS:

  1. There shall be no whistling.

  2. There shall be no running.

  3. Under NO circumstances shall there be ANY opening of umbrellas WHATSOEVER.

  We walked down to the far end of the arcade, away from where the fancy caretaker stood guard. Lady Roslyn said, “The Tyburn, which is one of London’s magical underground rivers, starts under the building where you and I live. From there, it runs below Regent’s Park, then under Baker Street. It gets faster and more powerful as it goes. It also gets wider. Near this spot is the first place where it is large enough for humans to pass, and there is an entrance. But the entrance has certain magical safeguards. Non-mechanical locks, you might call them. To overcome them, we shall need to—”

  “Whistle, run, and open an umbrella?” I said.

  Lady Roslyn raised her eyebrows, and I didn’t know what made me more proud: that I had finally managed to interrupt Lady Roslyn instead of the other way around, or that she actually looked impressed by what I had said.

  “Precisely,” she said. “Why don’t you try doing one of those things?”

  I lifted up my umbrella – but before I could open it, the caretaker was somehow by my side. I would have sworn he was all the way down at the other end of the arcade, but now here he was, with his hand holding my wrist. “Terribly sorry, miss,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you not to contravene our clearly posted bylaws.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. I watched him walk away. This time, I made absolutely sure he was all the way down at the other side, and then I opened the umbrella—

  —Or, at least, I tried to, because he was somehow right back next to me, his hand closed firmly over the umbrella. I gave him an innocent smile. He squinted at me suspiciously, then headed away again.

  “Well tried,” Lady Roslyn said, “but we shan’t succeed as long as he’s here. Now, watch this.”

  Lady Roslyn opened her eyes so wide that I worried they’d come rolling out, and she pointed them at the caretaker’s back, like a pirate aiming a cannon at an enemy ship.

  There were tarnished mirrors along the wall, and I could see the caretaker’s reflection in them as he walked away. As her glare burned into the back of his head, he started looking a little nervous, and then a lot nervous, and then plain scared. I’ll give him credit – even when he got up to terror, he didn’t break the clearly posted bylaws against running. He just walked really, really fast. It was only when his feet hit the pavement outside that he broke into a run, screaming as he went.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “If one lives long enough, on
e learns a handful of tricks.”

  “Why didn’t you do it to the Saltpetre Men?”

  “It only works on things with brains. Now, then. It’s best if you whistle something with personal meaning. A favorite childhood tune, perhaps?”

  I opened my umbrella. This time, nobody stopped me. “There’s a lullaby my aunts used to sing to me.”

  “That will do nicely.” Lady Roslyn took my hand. “On the count of three, we’ll run. Start whistling. And don’t forget to close the umbrella just before we jump into the manhole, or it won’t fit through.”

  “Wait, what manhole? Why are we jumping into a manhole?”

  “How else do you think we’re getting into the sewer?”

  “You didn’t say anything about sewers.”

  She snorted. “I said ‘powerful rivers that flow under the city.’ Do you know anything else that meets that description?”

  “But—”

  “One! Two! Three! Whistle!” She started running.

  I didn’t really feel like I had all the information I needed before I jumped into an allegedly magical sewer. But given how tightly Lady Roslyn was holding my hand, I could either get pulled forwards onto my face or start running.

  And once I started running, there was no reason not to start whistling.

  I’m not going to claim this was the greatest whistling performance in the history of music, because it turns out that whistling while you run is kind of a challenge, even if you aren’t carrying an umbrella in one hand and being dragged by a freakishly strong old lady with the other. But even so, just whistling that lullaby was enough to bring back one of my earliest memories.

  We were at a family reunion Grandma had hosted, back when Mom and Dad were still happy together. I couldn’t have been more than two, and I was supposed to be upstairs in bed, but I could hear everybody laughing from downstairs. I snuck down, and Aunt Uta spotted me lurking just outside the living room. She scooped me up and carried me back upstairs, singing as she went. I was asleep before we even got to my bed.