Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1

“There’s something a bit…wrong with Jack, isn’t there?”

The speaker sounded puzzled, more than anything.  He probably didn’t deserve to be pulled back around a corner quite as roughly as he was, but the move was meant kindly.

“Here, now,” hissed his companion as he did the dragging.  “You don’t want to go around saying things like that.  That kind of talk will get you in trouble.”

“What was that for?” the first whined, rotating his sore shoulder and sizing the other up.  It was really too early for a brawl, but he did have his pride and if his friend tried that again he’d soon see who was going to wrench whose arm from their socket.

“I’m telling you,” his friend said.  “I know you don’t mean nothing by it, but if some of the lads heard you talking down Jack…well, they won’t be so understanding.”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” said the first.  “I like Jack.  But he is a bit odd, isn’t he?”

“Everyone likes Jack.  And that’s why you can’t go around saying things like that.  Not if you like your teeth inside your mouth.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all.  Just sharing the natural way of things.  You see lightning, you know thunder is to follow, right?  Well, you badmouth Jack, and a broken mouth is what you get.  Just the way of the world.”

The still puzzled first speaker leaned around the corner he’d been dragged behind.  Jack was still there, some few feet away, happily making warbling bird calls to the robin perched on the handlebar of his bike.  The speaker leaned back again to look at his friend.

“Him?” he asked, his voice incredulous, “He hides his brass knuckles well.”

“Oh, Jack can fight,” the second assured him.  “Just you threaten someone he’s taken under his wing, and you’ll see.  But he don’t fight for himself.  That’s what we’re for, see?  Everyone likes Jack.”

“Alright, then,” said the first, still rotating his shoulder.  And maybe it was too early to argue, or maybe it had occurred to the first that his companion was just a bit bigger than him, but for whatever reason he decided to keep his opinions to himself.

That there was something a bit wrong with Jack.  A bit…odd.

It wasn’t just that he was cheerful, though he was.  He delighted in sunny weather.  He loved the rain.  He never dragged in the morning, no matter how cold or wet or dark the dawn.  He was just as awake in the evening.  But some people were cheerful by nature, and they were no odder than those who grumbled through life, finding gloom and doom wherever they looked.

Jack was…more alive somehow.  His friends, mostly being made up of the uneducated poor, didn’t have the language to explain how Jack was different.  They just knew he was, and they felt protective of him for it.  Different was dangerous, in their world.  Different stood out, and standing out was asking for trouble.

“It’s like’s he’s Peter Pan,” was how Michael described him, a man who was not only educated, which didn’t guarantee anything like intelligence, but well read, which did.  If he had bothered, he might even have struck upon the right words to explain Jack.  He never bothered about defining him, though.  His character portraits tended more towards the literal than the linguistic.

“Sometimes, I think he never grew up,” he would also say of Jack.  He said it with a fond smile, usually while watching him play with his children.  Of course, Michael also played with his children, but he never forgot he was a grownup while doing it.  There was something about the way Jack threw himself whole heartedly into their games that was at once endearing and bewildering.

“It isn’t that,” Jane would say, if Michael happened to point out such oddities of Jack’s character around her.  Jane was quite certain that Jack was no child.  “He’s just one of those people who know how to enjoy life.”  And that was true.  But it wasn’t the whole truth.

If anyone had bothered to ask the children Jack played with, that Jack guided and protected and somehow enhanced their play, then that person might have gotten the best understanding of all.

No child would call Jack one of them.  Children are always very aware of the hierarchy involved in the matter of age, and Jack was most definitely in the status of ‘grownup’.  If asked, though, they might say ‘He remembers how to play.’  By which they would mean, ‘He remembers what it is to be a child’.

Most children, particularly the very small, look at the world and marvel.  Everything is new and big and exciting and maybe scary but also interesting and wonderful.  And then the child gets a little bigger and the world isn’t so new anymore, but there are still so many mysteries to unravel, and everything to learn about what it means to live in the world, which is what play is really for.  And then those children grow up, and they know how to live in the world, and nothing is new, and everything is a bit smaller than it used to be.  And grownups forget that the world was ever new.  And they don’t play, and they forget to look up at the stars or down at the flowers and the world becomes a sort of background to whatever routine they’ve found out.  They might remember their childhoods, but they forget what it is to be a child.

Jack grew up.  He wasn’t Peter Pan, after all.  He grew up in every way, having learned what it is to live in the world and all that entails, the good but also the horrible, the parts generally too horrible for children to grasp.  He grew up, but unlike almost every other adult, he never ever forgot.  And he still looked up and marveled at the stars, and he looked down and saw the flowers, and his heart thrilled at birdsong and when he played, he embraced the game as fully as the children he played with.

And if it were just that, then Jack would be different, but not noticeably so.  Jack didn’t just remember.  Jack shone.

Where Jack passed, where he played or looked around or marveled, others followed.  It was like the young leerie didn’t just light the lamps at night; he lit a sort of light inside people as well.  Wherever he went, he shared his joy in the world.

Most of the time, the light Jack shared made him friends.  If not a full on friendship, then at least friendliness from strangers.  Most of the time.

There was a certain percentage of the population, a very small portion, but dangerous, who did not care for light.

2

William Weatherall Wilkins sat in his office in the dark and stared at the withered remains of a balloon.

He knew it had only been a dream, of course.  A bizarre sort of nightmare where everyone could fly but him.  Of course no balloon had the power to lift up an entire person.  That was impossible, and impossible things did not happen.  He knew that.

No, the strange dream filled with flying people had not happened.  But what came before certainly had.  It was the reason he was sitting in this tiny cramped office instead of the nice comfortable one.  It was the Banks’s fault, of course.  With their ridiculous kite, with their ridiculous stunt with the clock.  With their ridiculous last minute find of something that should have remained lost.  And then he had that dream with the whole Banks family flying about in the sky, along with all of London it seemed.  His own lawyers had turned on him.  His own family.  All to save one little house that had been quite fairly repossessed.

It was hard to say what he felt now.  The dream suggested jealousy.  If he was more inclined to self-reflection, he might have even supposed the dream to be a warning to mend his dark ways.  He was not prone to that kind of self-assessment.  No, he didn’t feel jealous, and he didn’t feel repentant.  He felt…he felt…if he had the imagination for it, he would have said he felt like a predator who had its meal snatched from its jaws at the very last second by a yipping lapdog.  He didn’t have that sort of imagination.  All he knew was that he was humiliated and he was angry.

He had wanted that house.  He had wanted the house but he hadn’t particularly cared about its inhabitants.  They could be left on the streets or they could happily dance their way into a fairy castle for all he cared.  In some secret corner of his heart, perhaps he did want the Banks family to suffer a little bit.  They were everything he was not, after all, and what’s worse, they’d somehow infected his own family with their whimsical folly.  Money was important.  Honor was important.  Numbers were important.  Singing, and jokes, and illogical loans and more illogical extensions were not.

He had wanted the house.  Now, he wanted the Banks.  He wanted them at his feet, as leaden as his balloon.  He thirsted for their pain and their anguish and their utter ruin.  Illogical emotions that surely got in the way of profits, but still they burned and bubbled inside him.  He could have gleefully danced on every one of their graves, except the dead do not suffer.  And he burned, in the dark, in vain.  Because what was there that he could do to hurt them?

In point of fact, there was quite a lot he could do.  The more pertinent question was ‘What can I do to hurt the Banks that won’t get me in trouble?’. 

He was a logical man.  If any one of the Banks family came to harm, the police would start asking around.  Who had it out for the Banks family, they’d ask.  And any number of people would point them in the direction of the bank.  His own uncle would probably walk them to his door.

The real difficulty, he supposed, was that the Banks were respectable. They had shares in this very bank.  If Michael Banks had been a proper man, an ambitious man, he could well be the bank’s president at this very moment.

And, of course, hurting people is wrong.  At the very least, it is messy, and potentially dangerous.  He couldn’t do something so dastardly.  Not with his own hands.  And he didn’t have the right sort of connections to use someone else’s.  He wouldn’t even know where to begin to hire someone like that.

No, he never had any intention of actually acting on the dark daydreams that now filled his head, feeding the anger and the hate.  Not unless fortune favored him with an opportunity.  One that would leave his hands clean, but the Banks family in ruins.

And then there was a knock on his door.

Out of habit, Wilkins waited a moment, wondering why Miss Farthing wasn’t seeing to the visitor, before remembering that she wasn’t his anymore.  She stayed with the post of president.  Which was no longer him.

For a long moment, he considered simply sitting in the dark and ignoring the door.  The sun had set during his brooding over his withered balloon, and he had never bothered to turn on the lights.  He couldn’t say why.  The darkness just felt comfortable.  At any rate, there could be no light creeping under the door to alert anyone that he was inside.

The knock came a second time.

“Mr. Wilkins,” said a deep voice. “I ask that you invite me in.”

“Yes, fine, come in then,” he answered, seeing that it would be no use to pretend he wasn’t there.

The door opened.  Light spilled in from the hallway, leaving his visitor as a vague shadowy outline.  Belatedly, it occurred to Wilkins exactly how ridiculous he must look, sitting in the dark with a child’s broken toy lying on his desk.

“Sorry,” he said.  “My lamp just burned out.  I’ll just turn on the…”

“No need, Mr. Wilkins,” said the same deep voice.  “The darkness suits us.”

Wilkins blinked at the dark figure with some confusion.  It was most definitely a single entity.  Perhaps it meant ‘we’ as in ‘my business associates who sent me and I’.  Wilkins was very used to that sort of ‘we’.

The preference for darkness was a bit alarming.  The way his luck was running, this was an assassin sent to kill him.

“We assure you, Mr. Wilkins, that we mean you no harm,” said the deep voice.  “In fact, we come offering a…beneficial transaction.  Yes, let’s call it a transaction.  Of a sort.”

“Right,” answered Wilkins.  The figure stood between him and the door.  “I really must insist on a bit of light then, sir.  If you wish to set up a contract…”

“You wish harm to a family; a family by the surname of Banks.  We have…advice.”

He really, really should turn on the light.  He should shout for help in removing this odd gentleman from his office.  He should phone the police.

He sat back in his chair.  “I’m listening,” he said.

“You have thoughts of violence to this family, but fear…reprisals if you carried them out.”

“I have nothing but warm thoughts for the Banks family,” he denied quickly.  The figure in the doorway went on as though he hadn’t spoken.

“If you wish to hurt a man, you don’t go for his throat.  Death, after all, is painless.  By all reports, it is the opposite of pain for the one departed.”

“So I should go for his children?  Surely that’s a step too far?”

“You have been imagining their deaths a hundred ways in the last hour alone.”

That was…true.  But those were just idle daydreams.  And hearing it stated aloud so factually sent a shudder through him.  He could feel a prickle down the back of his neck.  He wasn’t sure whether it was from the sheer darkness his own thoughts had stooped to or the fact that this man somehow knew his thoughts.

“Still,” said the figure, “Whether it is the right way or wrong way to go about hurting someone, the same problems remain.  Hurt any of the Banks family, big or small, and the police will take action.  Fingers will be pointed in your direction.”

“Then what on Earth could you be trying to suggest I do?” Wilkins demanded.  His hand crept to the back of his neck and he forced it down again.

“There is a member of the Banks family who is not a Banks,” said the voice.  “Who is not quite so…respectable.  Who would not be so great a concern to the police, should violence come upon his person.”

“Who do you mean?” demanded Wilkins.  “Surely not their housekeeper!”

“This person is of particular interest to us, as well.  We would be…happy…to know he suffers.  We would see his light snuffed out.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea who you’re talking about,” Wilkins answered.  His hand crept up to his neck again.  Why shouldn’t he have some light, anyway?  He would prove this person before him wasn’t some bogeyman.  He was just a man, a man with questionable connections who was trying to drag him down into something nefarious, probably trying to make Wilkins do his dirty work.

“We said no light!” the voice boomed, before he could even make a move towards the lamp at his desk.  Then, in softer tones, the voice added, “Would it help you to know that this Banks who is not a Banks was the reason midnight held back for five minutes?”

It did help, actually.  Wilkins felt a sudden and acute fury sweep over him.  He knew that something had been done to the clock.  His watch was always accurate.  Still, he was a man of reason and numbers.  He stamped down on his anger to address the figure in his doorway.

“What’s it to you, hurting the Banks family?” he demanded.  “Who are you?”

“We are the opposite and equal reaction to a certain entity’s existence.”

“Speak plainly, sir!” Wilkins ordered, his reawakened anger overcoming his earlier unease over the strange figure’s intentions.

“You can call us…Mr. Void.”

“Null and Void,” hissed a voice from the vicinity of the self-identified Void’s neck.  Wilkins jumped up from his seat.

“There is another of you there!” he exclaimed.  There was a long moment of silence, during which neither voices spoke.  “Well,” said Wilkins when the silence had gone on long enough to take on a personality all its own.  “What exactly is it you are asking of me?”

“It is a matter of cause and effect,” the deep voice answered.  “We have an opposite; an opponent who thwarts us in our efforts.  Being who we are, we cannot harm her and she cannot harm us, not without both of us being affected.  She, however, has friends.  As we said, if you wish to hurt a person, do not go for the throat.  Go for the person’s loved ones.  It is her weakness, and one we thankfully do not share.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you are going on about.”

“You wish the Banks family to suffer.  We wish Mary Poppins to suffer.  The answer is the lamplighter.  His very profession is an antithesis to us.”

“Then why don’t you go after him and leave me out of it?” demanded Wilkins.  He tried to remember where he’d heard the name ‘Mary Poppins’ before.  It took him a moment.  She wasn’t a person of great importance.  “Wait…the nanny?  All this because you want to hurt some nanny?”

“We are her opposite in every way.  She guides people into the light.  Her wards are surrounded by her glow.  We cannot touch such light.”

“A deal,” hissed the second voice.  How a voice could hiss without speaking a single s, Wilkins wasn’t sure, but this voice definitely had a hiss to it.

“Speak plainly,” Wilkins said again.

“We take you to some…associates…of ours.  They do the messy, dangerous part and bring the lamplighter to a place of your choosing.  You have your chance to make him suffer…”

“Sssnuff out his light,” hissed the second voice.

“…hurt him…break him…kill him if you like or leave him broken if you prefer.  Then our associates will take him away for the Banks to cry over.”

It was exactly the sort of thing he’d just been imagining, but again, hearing it said out loud was enough to give him pause.

“If you have these associates, why do you need me at all?” he demanded.  “Why bring me into this?  Why not just send your associates after this lamplighter and be done?”

“We cannot act directly.  If we were to try, she would know!  She would stop us!”

Wilkins was tempted to shout ‘speak plainly’ again, but the entire conversation was starting to make him feel unsettled.  He wanted it over.

“What are the exact terms of our agreement,” he said instead.  “What do I get out of it, and what do you get out of it?”

“Revenge,” hissed the second voice.

“You can imagine why this must remain an oral contract between us,” said the first.  “But here it is, plainly spoken.  You agree to follow us and act as we direct for this single night.  We will not direct you to act in any way that would harm you…”

“with the exception of your soul,” the second voice murmured, so softly that Wilkins wasn’t entirely sure whether he actually heard those words or just imagined them.

“…and in return we promise you that you will have your chance at revenge against one of those who wronged you with no chance of reprisals by the law.”  The hiss of the second voice was this time too quiet to make out at all, but if Wilkins had strained his ears, he might have heard something along the lines of ‘we make no promises concerning the reprisals from certain magical entities.  Usual penalties for breaking our terms apply’.

Wilkins turned the words he did hear over in his head.  If the strange before him could be believed, he was being offered revenge, without repercussions, on a silver platter.  It sounded too good to be true.  It probably was too good to be true.  He should probably say no.  He should say no, and run to the police.

“I do as you bid for one night?” he asked.  “And I never see you again?”

“Not once, while you walk this Earth, will we cross paths again,” swore the shadowed figure.

“And does this lamplighter have a name?”

He couldn’t see the figure clearly enough to be sure, but he could swear it was now smiling.

Some miles away, in a darkened nursery, a small boy sat up very suddenly in his bed, with a shout loud enough to wake the entire household.

“Jack!”

Chapter Text

3.

These were the moments when Michael missed Kate the most.  The times when he felt just a bit inadequate and lacking.  At least Georgie had stopped crying hysterically now.  He clung to his father, still crying, but quietly.

“The wolf wants to eat Jack,” was all that Michael could get out of him that wasn’t sobs.

“It was only a dream,” Michael had tried to answer.  This sensible logic, however, had failed to dissipate the young boy’s terror.

“No, it was real,” he insisted, “The wolf wants to eat Jack!”  And no sensible talk of nightmares could calm him.  Nor did the rocking chair perform its usual soothing magic by putting the child back to sleep.  Michael held him and whispered soft assurances in his ear and rubbed his back and he rocked and he rocked and he rocked for half the night.

By the time Georgie allowed himself to slip back into gentler dreams, Michael was so exhausted that he quickly followed, and it was there in the rocking chair that the two were found, still fast asleep, the next morning.

Different sorts of children, from a less burdened household, might have reacted to finding their father and younger brother in such a position either by laughing out loud or by cooing at the sweet scene.  Annabel and John did neither.  Annabel gently covered the two with a blanket while John looked on solemnly before the two crept downstairs, careful not to wake them.

“Georgie had another nightmare,” Annabel observed quietly, once they were far enough away to be sure not to wake them.

There had been a time when the need to rock Georgie back to sleep had been a nightly occurrence.  On the nights when Michael wasn’t awakened to his screams, it turned out to be because his brother or sister had taken him into their bed without waking him.  Those every nights had slowly become every other nights, and then once a week nights.  At some point, months had gone by without anyone realizing (broken only by the nightmare the night of the broken bowl, but that turned out not to be a dream at all and so didn’t count).  The entire household had begun to hope that the nightmares were done with.  It seemed they were not.

“How long until we must wake them?” John asked.  Being sensible children, they of course knew that, as much as their father might need more sleep, he couldn’t sleep in too late without trouble.  He had a job to go to, after all.

“Half an hour longer,” Annabel answered, after consulting the clock.  “Any later and he will be too rushed and likely run out without his briefcase or coat or head.”

“You can’t run out without your head,” John pointed out.

“That’s just something people say,” Annabel explained, though she wasn’t really sure about that.  “Anyway, nothing’s impossible.”

In the end, Michael got thirty-five minutes, because the children couldn’t bear to disturb him any sooner.  Georgie was transferred back to his bed without stirring, and the quiet morning rush commenced in the house below.

As it turned out, Michael managed to remember his head, and his coat and even his briefcase, though the last only because Annabel held it out for him as he ran out the door.  He did forget his scarf, but among things one might forget, scarves rank very low in importance.  Annabel and John still held a brief council concerning whether or not it should be returned to him.

“It isn’t like before,” John pointed out.  “We don’t have Marry Poppins anymore.”  There was a brief sigh shared between them, a sort of longing for something lost.  But then, they were very used to missing lost ones, and this didn’t hold them up for long.  John finished making his point.  “Father wouldn’t like us to go across London all on our own.”

“He lets us out on our own all the time,” Annabel objected, even though she knew John was right.

“Across the park.  Not across all of London.  And it’s no good giving him his scarf if we upset him over it.”

“…I suppose we could ask Ellen to take us?”  This was turned over in their heads, until they remembered Georgie asleep upstairs.

“It’s no good,” said Annabel in the end, a fact John had already known but he allowed his sister to come to her own conclusion.  “We’d have to wake Georgie, and that wouldn’t please father, or we’d have to leave him to wake up in an empty house, and that would just be cruel.  It’s simply imp…” But here she stopped herself.  The word ‘impossible’ had become a bit of a non-word in the Banks household.  Anytime one of them would call a task ‘impossible!’ the others would reply ‘Is it?’, and then they would find a way.  If nothing was impossible, then there had to be a way that the scarf could be delivered without upsetting anyone.

They thought a while longer.

“What about Jack?” John suggested.  He’d taken a moment to think through all the adults they knew who could take them to the bank.  Father of course was out, and they’d already ruled out Ellen, and Aunt Jane could be anywhere but was most likely busy, and most other adults they had an acquaintance with were just that…acquaintances, and it would be very rude to intrude upon them with such an out of the way request.  But Jack…Jack was almost like family.  Also he had a bicycle and he always seemed to have a smile for them and, according to Annabel, he was going to be their uncle one day.  None of the grownups had confirmed this statement, but then, grownups could be a bit slow about important things.  So John thought his idea perfect, and didn’t appreciate that Annabel immediately began to shake her head at him.

“It’s too late for Jack,” was her answer.  “He’ll have been down our street ages ago to put out the lamps, and who knows where he is by now?”

“Is that what you think?” asked John, perhaps sounding a little crosser than the moment warranted.  But then, it had been a good idea, and it was not fair of his sister not to acknowledge that.  Even if she might have a point.  And, feeling in a contrary mood, John added, “And the lamps will still be lit, just you go and see, and we can wait for him to come by.”

“That’s ridiculous,” answered Annabel, and, each determined to prove the other wrong, they both went to the window to see.  And, to the surprise of both of them, it was John who was right.  After a moment of shocked silence, John was quick to claim his victory.

“There, you see!  We can wait for Jack and ask for a ride, and you know he will let us.”

And he ran to tell Ellen at once that they were going out with Jack to bring father his scarf and then to put on his out of doors clothes just as quickly as he could, because it would do no good after all of that to miss Jack going by.

In the end, both children sat on their front steps and watched down the street, father’s scarf held securely in Annabel’s lap.

But Jack didn’t come.  It got to be midmorning, and still the lights flickered faintly from the lamps and still no leerie came wheeling up their street with a cheerful whistle or song to put them out.

“Where is Jack?  Do you think something has happened to him?” They had both been thinking this for the last half hour, but it was Annabel who finally said it out loud.

“Well, maybe…look!” answered John, for even as he had begun to answer they saw at last the sight they’d been waiting for.  There was a leerie on a bicycle, and the streetlamps were being extinguished one by one, at last.  Only, as the leerie came closer, there was one problem.

“You’re not Jack,” said Annabel, once the young man was close enough.

“’Fraid not, miss,” answered the leerie as he hopped up his ladder to put out their light.

“But where is Jack?” demanded John, which wasn’t exactly manners but Annabel was too upset over their missing leerie by this point to correct him.  At any rate, the leerie didn’t seem to mind.

“That’s what I would like to know,” he said.  “We’ve all had a dev…that is, a bit of a job covering for him.”  He sounded a bit worried, rather than annoyed, like many would be at having to do another man’s job.

“You mean to say he didn’t show up for work this morning?” asked Annabel, with some surprise.  That wasn’t like Jack at all.  “Is he ill?”

“I don’t know anything,” answered the leerie.  “And if you want to do Jack a favor, you won’t go around mentioning how late the lights stayed lit this morning.  And I must run or the lights will still be lit by evening time.”  And the leerie started off on his bicycle again.

“Oh!” said John as they watched him go.  “We should have asked him for a ride!”

“John, we couldn’t!” answered Annabel.  As friendly and sympathetic as he had seemed, he wasn’t their leerie.  Besides, he was clearly very busy.

“Not for the scarf,” John explained quickly.  “To look for Jack!”

“They will already be looking for him,” Annabel pointed out.  After all, they were covering for him, and the leerie had looked a bit worried.  They wouldn’t let one of their own disappear without even looking for him.

“Well…they aren’t us!  What if he’s…he’s inside a bowl or…or at the bottom of a bath?  Will they find him there?”

“Will we find him there?” Annabel asked.  “Oh, come on.  There’s a more sensible way to go about it.”

“Sensible?” John scoffed.  To some extent, ‘sensible’ was just as bad as ‘impossible’.

“Yes, sensible.  There are times to be sensible, and this is one of them.  So come on.”

“To look for Jack?”  But Annabel was headed back into the house.  Reluctantly, if only to continue his own argument, John followed.

“To call Aunt Jane,” Annabel explained.  “She might know if Jack were sick.  And if she doesn’t know anything then…then she might like to know Jack is missing.”

“Jack is missing?!”  The voice of the person who cried this from the top of the stairs sounded distressed, and lost, and very young.

4.

When a grownup tends to suspect something horrible may have happened, it tends to come over them in stages.  First is usually denial that anything is wrong at all.  All those doubts and suspicions are just silly little worries with no basis in fact.  The worry might already be bubbling away in their gut, but they deny it any action, telling themselves over and over again all the ways the worry is groundless.  Then, when nothing comes along to disprove those fears, there is a sort of limbo while the person has no proof either way, but they are now actively seeking out such proof.  If the grownup is particularly imaginative, then there will be a sort of war going on inside their head, while worst case scenarios battle with innocent explanations for what has happened.  Is someone late because they have keeled over in an alley somewhere?  Or are they late because they lost track of the time and even now are on their way?  The final stage is knowing that something horrible has happened… or that all is fine.

Children tend to skip over the other stages and leap straight into imagining all the worst case scenarios.  It is up to the adults around them to suggest gentler alternatives, and then experience teaches the children that sometimes it is the one and sometimes it is the other.

“Jack is fine,” was Ellen’s approach, when confronted with two very worried children and one positively hysterical child.  And she felt this quite firmly, even if perhaps some doubts did niggle in the back of her mind.  She wasn’t even in the denial stage yet.  She was in the ‘calm down the children’ stage which is quite different.  It’s what grownups do when they think they know better.  That the children might be right had yet to cross her mind.  When the children still didn’t look convinced by her firm words, she added, “That boy knows how to take care of himself.”

“The wolf has gotten him and he’s going to eat him!” Georgie insisted.

“Nonsense!” answered Ellen.

“Do you mean that banker who wanted our house?” Annabel asked, taking her younger brother much more seriously.  The question made Georgie stop crying and actually think.

“I still can’t get Aunt Jane on the phone,” John announced, trying to sound factual rather than scared, but his voice wobbled a bit in the end.

“It was the wolf in my dream,” said Georgie.  “But Father says dreams aren’t real.”

“That’s right, you listen to your father, dear,” said Ellen.

“So it must mean that nasty old banker,” Georgie concluded.  “He’s stolen Jack.”

“Well then,” said John.  “We need to go to the bank after all.”

“Now, see here…” said Ellen.

“Excuse me,” said Annabel in her politest tone, “But as you have told us at least a hundred times, you are not our nanny.  Our nanny left us.  And Jack is family.  We are going to the bank, now.”

“Well, I never!” Ellen cried, not appreciating the polite tone in the least.  “Just wait until your father hears about all of this!”

“We are going to see Father now,” John said.  “So he’ll hear about this quite soon.  Get his scarf, Annabel.  If the wolf is watching for us, we can pretend that’s why we’ve come.”

“You’re family, too,” Georgie said to the housekeeper, even as he dried his tears.  “If it were you missing, we’d come for you too.  We have to save Uncle Jack.”  And he gave her a quick hug to show they still cared, even if they were leaving her.

And before Ellen quite knew how it had happened, all three children had set off out the door.

5.

The day was full of sunlight.  It was the sort of day that it was a delight be outdoors in (which made it a bit strange that the Admiral felt the need to shout down to any who passed a storm warning).

There are places in London, however, that the light does not reach.  And true cruelty is to confine a man with the soul of a leerie, a lighter of lights, in the dark.

The confined man didn’t act particularly down, though.  Alone, in the dark, he sung to himself.  Almost too softly to be heard even by the one doing the singing, a merry tune filled the dark.

‘So when life is getting scary, be your own illuminary, who can shine…oh, hello.”  The last was not sung at all, but said in response to a sound in the dark.  Most people, sitting in the darkness, and hearing squeaking and scratching upon the floor, would not respond with a genuine friendly greeting towards the unknown visitor.  This man was not most people.

“Lovely to meet you,” he said, in a tone that really meant it.  “I’d offer you a bite but I haven’t so much as a crumb about my person.”  And that had sounded truly regretful.  His visitor paused for a long moment, then scuttled closer.

“I’m sorry I can’t see you,” said the man in the dark.  “You see, I have this blindfold and these binds and I’ve lost my light and…well, but you don’t want to hear about my troubles, do you?  I’m afraid I can’t offer much in the way of refreshments, but how about a song to pass the time?”

The squeaking visitor offered no objections.

“Off we go then!  I think you’ll find this one right up your alley!

Oh, there once was a rat, now imagine that,
As polite as could be, knew how to say please
And thank you too, and how do you do
And God bless you when he heard you sneeze
And you would think it would be a treat
To meet a rat who could wipe his feet
But all anyone said to him was ‘eek’

The song went on for some time.  Two men sat in an adjoining room, covering their ears.  They, too, sat in darkness, but this was not a cruelty as they abhorred the light.  It was a bit of a side effect from their long association with the entity known as Mr. Void.

“Are you sure we can’t…you know…shut him up?” whined one to the other.

“Do you want the witch coming after us?” his companion demanded.  “You know we can’t touch him.  That’s what the banker is for.”

“Well…he’s not very good at it, is he?  A bit squeamish, if you ask me.  Going on about ‘psy-cho-logical torture, and letting him stew for a day.  He hardly did any roughing up at all, and after all the trouble we went to, to truss him up and blindfold him so he’d not know who had him, and all that without harming him, mind, and that’s a real trick the way he fought back.  And the fun part is watching ‘em scream after, and cry, and, and this one is singing.”

“He’s just…putting on a show, really,” said the other, though his tone was doubtful, as if he didn’t truly believe that himself.  Then, with more confidence, “He probably still thinks she’s coming for him.  He’ll change his tune when night comes, and the banker comes back and he’s still here.  And I don’t think that banker did so bad a job at roughing him up before, you know.  For a beginner.  He’ll have all day to build up his nerve and imagine all the sorts of things he’s going to do, just you see.”

“Well, and I suppose he’ll have to stop singing in the end,” the other agreed.  “No water will do that to anyone, in the end.”

There was a moment of quiet.  Even the song had finished.  Cautiously, the two guards uncovered their ears.  There were more skittering noises.  If the two listeners were hoping the rat would do a bit of harming for them, they were sorely disappointed.

“Why thank you,” they heard Jack’s voice.  “That’s very decent of you.  I was getting a mite parched.”

The two men looked at each other.

“What are the rules about harming rats that come in contact with the prisoner?” one asked the other.

In lieu of answering, his companion drew out his knife.

Chapter Text

6.

Mary Poppins sat in a chair and stared at a book.  A baby lay sleeping nearby in its cot.  Another bed lay empty nearby, the occupant currently away at school.  For the moment, Mary had the time to herself, and she had meant to make the most of it and enjoy it, perhaps taking a dive into one of her favorite books.

Instead, she found herself staring at the words.  She felt…unsettled.  As though she were meant to be somewhere else.

Experience had taught her to never ignore her instincts.  The trouble was, while she had a strong feeling she was needed elsewhere, that feeling gave no clue where ‘elsewhere’ might be.  It was a very large world out there, particularly if you were Mary Poppins, and knew of worlds within worlds within worlds.

“Oh well,” she said to herself.  “I suppose it will all sort itself out in the end.  I’m sure all is fine.”

For all her magic and her understanding, Mary Poppins was still an adult after all, and so she quieted her worries and looked at her book.  Though, to be fair, experience was on Mary’s side.  Generally, things did work out in the end.  Unfortunately, ‘generally’ is not the same as ‘always’.

7.

There was a veritable army out on the streets of London.

It wasn’t an obvious army.  There weren’t any soldiers in uniforms, or cannons, or flags.  Most of the city’s inhabitants probably didn’t notice they were there.  But then, they rarely noticed those sorts of people.  They were the sort of people that could travel invisibly all over London without notice, provided they stayed polite and remembered their place.

Usually, this army was known as the working class.  The lower class.  The poor.  Today, they were an army, albeit a sly one.  Bicycles traveled little known streets, methodically covering every alleyway, every broken fence, every byway and side street and cul-de-sac and lane.  And when two passed, there were whispered conversations.

“Have you seen Jack?”  This would either be followed, if the person asked had no idea of the circumstances, with an explanation that Jack was missing, or, if the person was already in the know, with commiserations that they still had found nothing.

It seemed impossible that a person could disappear so completely.  Not with so many looking, all who knew London better than anyone.  Yet hours had passed, hours since the first person had said, ‘Hey, Jack’s route is still all lit up’.  And they still didn’t know what had happened.

Ultimately, it wasn’t any of the leeries or sweeps or buskers who found the first clue, for all their searching.  It was Jane, who didn’t even yet know Jack was missing, who stumbled across his bike.

8.

“Here’s your scarf, father.”

Michael gave his very innocent appearing children a look of suspicion.  It was true that his children were thoughtful, and bringing a forgotten article was exactly the sort of thing they would do, but at the same time, he knew his children.  That was not their ‘taking care of father’ look.  Also, it was clear to a father’s eye that Georgie had been crying again, and that Annabel had been worrying about something and that John had been trying too hard to be the head of the house and was feeling the strain.

So, instead of saying something like, ‘Did you come all across London, alone, just to bring me my scarf when anyone can see it’s a bright warm day out that doesn’t even call for scarves,’ he smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Annabel.  Why don’t you three come into my office and have a biscuit, seeing as you’ve come all this way.”

If he hadn’t known something was wrong before, the ultra-polite way even Georgie responded to the offer of a biscuit would have told him.

The office was new.  It seemed Mr. Dawes Jr. had seen something in Michael, (though what Michael could scarcely imagine, as their latest meeting centered around his failure to faithfully pay back on a loan), and had promoted him.  It was hardly the lavish office Wilkins had possessed, but it did afford some privacy as he did his work, and that was a true blessing in that moment.

The moment the door closed, all three children started to talk at once.  Used to this, he made out more than most would.  Georgie was talking about his nightmare again, about the wolf eating Jack.  John was talking about lampposts lit in the daytime, for some reason.  Annabel was explaining that Jane never answered her phone, and she didn’t blame her for that, and that Ellen never really listened, and so they had to come alone.

So Michael understood more than most would, but he still didn’t have the foggiest idea what was going on.

“No, no,” he said, successfully quieting them.  “This is no good.  One at a time, please.  Annabel, why don’t you start with why you needed to see me, and then John can explain where lampposts come into it.”

“And the wolf,” Georgie pointed out.

“Yes, and then the wolf.  Go on, Annabel.”

“Well,” she said, “It’s all connected, you see.  First, you forgot your scarf, and we wanted to bring it to you, but we couldn’t work out how to do it without leaving Georgie alone or going out alone ourselves, and we didn’t think you’d like it.”

Michael valiantly refrained from pointing out that they had clearly done just that in the end, aside from the ‘leaving Georgie alone’ bit.

“And John thought we might ask Jack to take us,” Annabel continued, “And I said the lights will already be out and we’ll never find him.  Only, they weren’t.”

“What weren’t?” Michael asked, still not quite following.

“The lamps were lit,” John said, eager to get to his bit of the story.  It was the important part, anyway, not all that rubbish about the lost scarf.  “Jack hadn’t put them out yet.  So we waited for him.  And waited and waited.”

“And I take it that from that you concluded that some horrible fate has come to Jack,” Michael said, and they could hear in his tone that he was already getting ready to reassure them, and then send them home.

“Of course not,” John said quickly, which wasn’t exactly the truth, but close enough.  “But then a leerie did come, only it wasn’t Jack, and he said Jack was missing and no one knew where he was.”

“And that’s when Georgie came and he said a wolf had eaten him,” Annabel explained.

“And we know that the wolf is really that nasty, mean old banker,” Georgie said. “So we know where Jack is.  The banker stole him, and he means to eat him.”

“Or, well, hurt him, or something,” John added, trying to tell Georgie with a look that it was no good going on about wolves eating people to Father.

“And then we called Aunt Jane,” said Annabel quickly, sensing that they might be losing some of their credibility with all this talk of wolves.  Her father was a wonderful man, but he was still a grownup, and some things were a strain for him to believe.  “Or rather, we tried to call her.  She wasn’t there, of course.  We didn’t think she would be, but we thought it best to try her first.  And since we couldn’t get anyone, we knew we had to come see you at once.”

“So we brought you your scarf after all,” John said.  “And now we need you to help us find Jack.”

And all three children looked at him.  Not one of them had even mentioned the biscuits he’d offered them, either.  They really were serious.

Michael was of two minds about what to do with them.  The sensible, adult part of him said he should scold them for walking across London and leaving poor Ellen in a state (she had, in fact, phoned him as soon as the children had set off, so he had already known they were coming, just not why).  And he should assure them that Jack was fine.  And maybe do a few discreet enquiries to make sure.  Of course, all the bits about Wilkins, of all people, being responsible was nonsense to be ignored, but it was strange for Jack to neglect his duties as a leerie and something must have happened to him, though probably nothing worse than a cold or some slight injury.

The other part of him, the part that almost made him feel as though Kate were there at his side, whispering in his ear, said that his children were to be listened to, no matter how ridiculous their words sound, and the matter should be looked into at once, if only to quell the children’s worries.

A few days ago, when he was just a very junior teller, when he still thought there was no value in a beat up old kite, he would have listened to his sensible half.

Today, he locked his office door, gathered his children around him, and settled into a council of war.

9.

In a completely different wing of the bank, in a slightly larger office (though not, as the occupant could not stop noting, as large as his old one) Wilkins sat in the light.

His window was open to let in the sun, and his lamps were lit and turned up to their brightest.

The withered balloon still lay on his desk.

It wasn’t that he regretted the meeting of the evening before.  He just didn’t want a repeat of that visit.  He hadn’t cared for the company of the self-named Null and Void (and he never did see where Null was hiding about Void’s person), and the people they’d taken him to, who were to do the messy, dangerous bits, as they called it, weren’t much better.  At best, they might have been called thugs.  Wilkins was not in the habit of associating with such people who knew nothing of manners or proper hygiene or any of those things that made a British man, well, British.

But they had known their business about kidnapping.

“Take the lamplighter Jack,” he told them, “and put him someplace he won’t be found.  Someplace dark.”

Later, he wished he’d given slightly clearer instructions.  It was all well and good to make a prisoner suffer in the dark and the damp, but Wilkins had to endure the same environs to create said suffering.

“Which Jack,” one of the thugs had asked.  “Lots of lamplighters by that name.  Wouldn’t want to grab the wrong one.  Could get messy.”

Wilkins didn’t actually know Jack’s surname, but it turned out that wasn’t what they were asking.  The dark figure at his back had whispered to him what to say.

“Marry Poppins’s Jack.”

It surely couldn’t be enough for them.  It seemed, though, it was.  There was an instant look of understanding in both men’s faces.

“Tricky, taking that Jack,” said one.  “We’ll have to hide him well.  Half of London will be searching for him, the moment it’s marked he’s missing.”

“Which will be shortly after sunrise,” added the other.  “If not sooner.”  They didn’t sound too worried, though.  More pleased, if anything, as though they looked forward to the manhunt.  Or maybe they had a dislike for this Jack.  Wilkins didn’t know, or care.

It was a bit surreal when the evening activities actually ended with a stranger being forced to kneel before him in that dark dungeon the two thugs had taken them all to.  Trying to figure out if he’d ever seen Jack before was made harder by the fact that the young man had been blind folded.  Had he seen him around the Banks?  Possibly.  He wasn’t in the habit of paying attention to lamplighters.  And now he was supposed to hurt this stranger.  When it came down to it, none of his daydreams had centered around beating a stranger to get back at the Banks.

He still did it, of course.  He’d come that far, after all.  He told himself it was too late to back out anyway.  What if the thugs turned on him?  He also didn’t admit that, in his secret heart of hearts, he had enjoyed it.  Not the blood bit, of course, which was disgusting and unclean.  But the power.

He could tell that the thugs hadn’t been too impressed.  That they had expected more.  Probably, they were used to uncouth torturers that were all about bleeding their victims and wringing out screams. Uncivilized buffoons, the lot of them.

Jack thought he could stop time itself?  Well, now time was on Wilkin’s side.  He could beat the defiance right out of him, one night at a time.  Until he broke.  Or died.  Either way, Wilkins would prove which of them was the stronger, the better.  And he’d have the pleasure of watching the Banks’ despair, as day after day passed and their dear Jack still didn’t show up.  Well, assuming his dark associates had told the truth of course.  There was a chance Jack was nothing to them.  Still, if that proved to be the case, Wilkins now knew two men who are willing to hurt people for hire.  He’d soon see how the Banks cared, or didn’t care, for Jack.  And then either they’d suffer, or they’d suffer.

And when Jack was broken (or dead), he’d leave him for the Banks to cry over.  And he’d bet the police wouldn’t raise an eye.  Some poor little lamplighter got himself beat up?  Well, these things happen.  What’s there to investigate?  And if they do, after all, what is there to find?

So now Wilkins sat in the light, and he plotted about what he was going to do in the dark.

10.

“Will he never shut up!  What’s he singing about now?”

“I think it’s a lament for the damn rat.  At least he sounds sadder, now, right?”

“Singing is singing.  It’s not like he’s sobbing in agony, now is it?”

“…is it harming him if we stick the gag back in?  Why’d we take it off him anyway?”

“So we could better hear his cries of agony.”

“…right.  And how’d that work out for us, then?”

11.

Jane had a very nice, if hectic, morning, completely unaware that her life had been threatened no less than three times since Jack had left her at her door, the evening before.

The first time had been when two thugs had to work out a way to subdue a very able street fighter without doing him any harm.  Simply using the element of surprise to grab him hadn’t worked, and it was only by chance that they’d managed to keep one hand clamped over his mouth (gently, of course, but firmly) despite the rain of blows he’d managed to return against them, including to some very sensitive locations, and a vicious bite to the palm holding back his cries for help.

Whispering that it was him, or his sweetheart in the flat above them, that was coming with them had taken most of the fight out of him, at least long enough to get the gag and binds on.  Then the hardest parts had been moving him without a single soul seeing them, as well as figuring out what to do with the bike.

“Leave it in the alley,” said one.  “It’s not like we care if it’s found.”  They probably hadn’t needed to violently trash the bike and ladder first, but then, they were nursing some pretty impressive bruises courtesy of the bike’s owner.  Trashing his bike in front of him was the least they could do. (And, in fact, the most, if they didn’t want to catch a certain someone’s attention.)

The second time Jane was unknowingly threatened was on her way to the soup kitchen.  It was not located in the nicest part of London.  Most people in the neighborhood were poor, but honest folk on hard times who just needed a helping hand.  Some had turned to helping themselves to other people’s belongings.  One such was quite ready to cut a young woman’s throat to relieve her of her purse.

He never got near Jane.  Jane never even know he was there.  Jane had protections even she didn’t know about.  They had nothing to do with Jack, either, though that certainly upped her status among the leeries and the sweeps.  It had everything to do with her hard work with SPRUCE.  Jane could walk into the darkest, seediest parts of London and walk out again unscathed.  Or in this case, she could walk unmolested to where the soup kitchen had been set up.

The third time was probably an empty threat, considering who the speaker didn’t want to get the attention of, but the threatened didn’t know that.

“Stop your singing already, or maybe I’ll rethink paying your sweetheart a little visit!”

The singing stopped.  But they couldn’t stop thoughts, and inside his head, the melody played on.

Then Jane went home (having completely missed several urgent phone calls), and happened to see something sticking out of the alley by her flat’s building.  It looked almost like a bit of ladder.  She couldn’t say why she decided it needed a closer look.

What she found left her utterly stricken.

That was Jack’s bike.  Or rather, that was the mangled remains of Jack’s bike.  It had been practically ripped apart, no small feat his bike was made to be sturdy.  And there was blood.  From thug number two’s nose, as it so happened, but she had no way of knowing that.  The blood had been wiped into the remains of the seat and smeared over a handlebar and along the jagged edges of the remains of the ladder.  And how she could see that and instantly know it was Jack’s bike, and not some other unlucky soul’s, she couldn’t say, but Jane knew.

She would be told later that she had screamed.  She had no memory of doing so, and it was a bit embarrassing to think she had, but she supposed she must have, because, without having to send for anyone, she was soon surrounded by half a dozen people, and had a police officer trying to guide her inside while asking simple questions like ‘what is your name’ and ‘Do you know whose bicycle that was’ and ‘Would you like some tea’.

What she wanted was for Jack to appear and assure her that it wasn’t at all what it looked like and it was just a silly accident that would make her laugh and he was perfectly fine.  She had no need for denial, however.  She already had very clear proof that something horrible had occurred.

12.

“Ah, silence,” said a voice in the dark, “Music to my ears.”

“Crying would be better,” said the second.  There was the sound of something being waved about in the air and slapped against a wall.  If there had been any light to see by, or if one had the kind of vision these two men had, one would have seen that one of the men was swinging about a rat’s tail.

“All in good time.  Only a few more hours until the bank closes, and…” And, he almost said, Mr. Wilkins returns.  Only to remember at the last moment that the prisoner did have ears, and what good would a blindfold do if they told him their associate’s name.  Of course, the banker might kill him in the end anyway, but at the way the man had drawn away at the first sign of blood, that didn’t seem too likely. 

“And?” said his companion after the pause had gone on too long.

“And the banker returns,” he finished.  “Now, what shall we eat while we’re waiting and taunt our prisoner with?  I’m thinking rattail soup.”

Chapter Text

13.

The council of war was not going well.

Michael had sent out for food, under the reasonable assumption that it neared a mealtime and his children should eat.  None of them felt hungry.  Then the children wanted to do all sorts of exciting and dangerous stunts, like follow Wilkins wherever he went, or split up to search London themselves, or kidnap Wilkins and tie him up and see if he’ll talk then.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Michael reminded his children during one of their more worryingly bloodthirsty tirades.  He carefully didn’t say, ‘And we still don’t have proof that Wilkins is responsible’.  That hadn’t gone over very well the first time he’d said it.

The children knew it was him.  It was no good their father trying to bring reason into their belief.

The knock at the door had them all jumping, as though expecting armed thugs to have come calling.  Michael was more nervous that it would be one of his supervisors, wanting to know why he’d locked himself away all morning and what work exactly he’d been up to.

It turned out to be a very white faced Jane.

“Aunt Jane!” cried three different voices, and then three different versions of all that had happened poured over her at once, along with pleas to ‘make Father see reason, we know it’s Wilkins’.

“Quiet children,” Michael instructed, gently but firmly, “Can’t you see she’s distressed?  Come sit down, Jane.  Tell us what has happened.”

She didn’t sit down, too jittery to sit still, but she did allow herself to be pulled further into the already cramped office so that the door could be shut and locked once more.  Then she spoke, stumbling a bit at the unexpected appearance of her nieces and nephews.  This wasn’t at all the sort of news she had wanted to share with them, but then, they seemed to already know it!

“It’s…but how did you already know?  I found Jack’s bike, and the police said a broken bike isn’t much to go on and...What is everyone doing here?”

The story came out for the second time, this time slightly more straight-forward as Michael was the one to relate it in its entirety.  Then of course they wanted Jane’s story in full.

She told them about finding his bike abandoned in the alley.  She decided not to mention how it had been smashed to pieces, or that there had been blood.  The children were worked up enough as it was.

“And you think it is Wilkins?” she finished by asking.

“Well,” said Michael, about to correct her and explain that they didn’t know at all for sure, but this time the children’s voices overcame his with a definite, ‘Yes!’

“Then there’s only one thing to do,” said Jane.  She looked a little less pale, but she didn’t feel at all herself.  In some ways, she felt stronger.  “I must confront him at once and find out the truth of things.”

To this, both the children and Michael objected.  The first because they were sure the ‘wolf’ would go after her too, and Michael because Wilkins was still above him in the bank and because, well, perhaps he feared something similar to the children after all.

“Nonsense,” Jane answered.  “He can do nothing to me in this bank, and you will all be just around the corner.  If he goes to complain to his uncle, he’ll just look petty, making things up to make you look bad after all that business with the loan, so that’s alright.  Anyway, I expect he’ll just deny the whole thing.”

“Then what good is it to confront him?” Annabel asked, and the others showed confusion on their faces as well.

“Every good,” answered Jane.  “Because I’ll see his reaction, and no matter how he denies it, I’ll know.”

“He’s an awfully good actor,” Michael reminded her, some doubt in his tone.  “He had us all fooled for ages.”

“But we know him now,” said Jane, “So we won’t be fooled the same way twice.  And I’m sure I will see the truth in him.  One way or the other.”

In truth, Jane had no idea if the children’s wild accusations had any merit or not.  She was a wonderful aunt, but, like Michael, she was still an adult.  She just felt the need to do something, rather than wait for news or fret.  It was like a buzz beneath her skin that kept her from sitting still.  This was something to do.  And nothing the others said could dissuade her.  Though, as John whispered to Annabel, it was a better plan than to sit around and just talk, at least.

14.

Ellen stared at the made up table, and the lovely meal that was slowly congealing into a disgusting mess, and thought Michael could at least have had the courtesy of calling and telling her the children wouldn’t be dining at home that afternoon.

He would surely have told her if they’d never made it to the bank.  There was no use in worrying over trifles.  The household had enough drama as it was.

15.

“I know you have taken Jack.”

Whatever Wilkins had expected when he opened his door to find Jane Banks on the other side, it wasn’t that.  He hadn’t expected her to come to him at all.  He had expected to watch them all from a distance for signs of grief or worry.  And in his moment of surprise and panic, he did exactly what Jane had hoped for.

His expression gave everything away.  That wouldn’t be enough for the police, of course.  He was far from being caught.  But now she knew.  Wilkins had stolen Jack and destroyed his bike and for all she knew, had killed him and dumped him in the Thames.

Jane realized in that moment that she hadn’t actually expected to find out Wilkins was guilty.  The horrible truth of the matter struck her like a blow.  She felt a bit faint and a bit horrified and a bit like she wanted to punch back.

“I’ve no idea who you’re talking about,” Wilkins said, just as she knew he would.

“You’ve taken Jack,” she said again, absolutely sure this time, and not needing to watch for his reaction.  “I know you have.”  She wanted to ask if he had killed him, but she didn’t quite dare.  She was afraid to see the answer in his face.  In case it was yes.

Wilkins had gotten his equilibrium back, and now looked down his nose at her, his voice full of contempt.

“What would I care about some lamplighter?”

“Aha!  If you don’t know who Jack is, as you say, then how do you know he’s a lamplighter?”

For a moment, Wilkins looked stricken, like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  After that moment, however, the look cleared away.

“You’re right,” he said.  Not contritely or fearfully.  Just factually.

“I’m what?” Jane asked.  That wasn’t how this was supposed to go.  He took a step towards her and she, inadvertently, found herself taking a step back.

“You are right,” said Wilkins.  “I do have Jack.  Some business associates of mine took him off the street and we’ve locked him away.  And do you know what I did to him?  I beat him.  I hit him again and again and again, and then I took a bit of leather, and I lashed him until he bled.  And right now he’s alone, in utter darkness, without a drop of water, without a bite of food, without a single friend, without a smidgeon of light.  All alone, and in pain, in the dark.  I shouldn’t wonder if he weren’t half mad by now.”

“You…you…” Jane had gone very pale, feeling something hot and cold rush through her.  Horror and fear and…and a rage so incandescent it was a wonder she hadn’t ignited into flames.

“And now you wonder why I’m telling you this.  Simple, really.  Because I can.  And you can run to the police and tell them everything I just told you, and I’ll deny it all, and you’ll be the silly hysterical little woman gone mad over her missing sweetheart, some dirty street urchin whose only skill involves climbing a ladder and riding a bike.  And who is going to be believed?”

He stepped closer again, and this time she held her ground, holding herself rigid, ready to attack.  He made no move to touch her, though, just whispered softly, almost intimately, into her ear.

“And if you were believed, what would become of poor Jack?  No one knows where he is but me.  So you won’t go to the police and you won’t come after me.  And if you try to follow me, to get him back, I will kill him.  It’s as simple as that.  You can follow me to his corpse.  Or you can let me go, and I will go to him, and I will hurt him, and hurt him, until he’s utterly broken.  And then I’ll give him back.  And he’ll be broken, but he’ll be alive.”

And Wilkins walked past her, opened his door, and motioned to her politely.  “Good day.”  Without quite knowing how it happened, Jane found herself outside his office with the door closed in her face.

16.

When leeries gather, song and dance and jokes and fun often follow.  Not this afternoon.

“Night is coming on soon.  What are we going to do about the lamps?”

“We’ll have to split up Jack’s route.  We’ll make a rotation of it, who takes it tonight and who takes it in the morning.”

“…morning?  You don’t think…you don’t think maybe Jack will be back by then?”

“You saw the bike.  Even if he is back, do you really think he’ll be doing his rounds?”

There was silence all around for a moment.

“How long?”  The voice that broke the silence sounded timid, almost afraid of his own words.

“What do you mean?”

“How long do we keep up Jack’s rounds?”

There was a longer silence.  These were not men unaccustomed to tragedy.  They had lost friends before, to disease or accident or violence.  Orphans were not in short supply among them, either.  They knew intimately the shadows that they chased away with their lights.  But that just made them sing louder, play harder and fan the flames of hope brighter.  And Jack…Jack was a true beacon among them, and his absence somehow deepened the shadows and made the whole world seem a little…less.  To contemplate losing Jack…no, to having Jack stolen from them, was not a blow that would easily be recovered from.  So the answer to that question was easy, and at last, one of them gave it.

“’Til he comes back, of course.  We keep his lights lit ’til he comes back.”

The ‘even if he never comes back’ was left unsaid.  It felt too much like tempting fate.

17.

If Wilkins had to lie down, curled up in a corner while he hyperventilated after all that boldness, no one knew about it but him.

Anyway, it was better this way.  Brilliant.  A thousand times better than anything he could have hoped for.

The Banks knew he was hurting Jack, and they could do nothing about it.  Not a single thing.  They didn’t know where he kept him, after all, and as long as they didn’t know, they could do nothing.

Wilkins didn’t have to watch their pain from afar; he got front row seats.

This wasn’t a disaster.  He wasn’t out of control.  He was more in control than he’d ever been.  He had control over a person’s very life, and it was glorious and empowering and just on the edge of terrifying.  He pulled himself out of the corner and sat in the sunlight, under his lamp’s beam, and got on with his work with the sure knowledge that he was definitely the one in control and that he was utterly surrounded by light and perfectly safe.

The thing about surrounding yourself with very bright lights is, you tend to cast darker shadows, in the hidden corners where the light doesn’t quite reach.

If Wilkins felt that he was being watched, he attributed it to the active imagination he didn’t actually possess.  It was a silly worry, after all.

18.

“Mary Poppins, tell us a story, please!”

At least, that’s what the little boy who said those words meant.  He did not, in fact, speak English.  It was early evening, a little later than Big Ben claimed it was in London, and it was gray out. 

“Please, Mary Poppins,” said the little girl from her cot.  That was not in English either, but rather in the language of babies.  Her brother only heard a sort of cooing, but of course Mary Poppins understood perfectly.

“Very well,” answered their nanny in the same language (as the boy, not the baby).  She had been rather distracted all afternoon, and perhaps that’s why the story she chose was rather darker than the children were looking for.

“Once there was a little girl who had so many brothers and sisters that there was no room in any of the beds for her to sleep, nor even in the drawers, for that his where her baby brother and sister went, nor even a corner for her to curl up in.  The house was that full.  But there was one place that she could have all to herself, and that was the attic.”

Of course, the storytelling didn’t go quite so straightforward, for the children would keep interrupting with questions or comments, but a few stern looks from their nanny soon quieted them, and she continued on with her story.

“The attic was cold and dusty and dark, but it was all her own.  So every night, after she made sure each and every one of her siblings was securely tucked in bed, or in their drawer, or in their corner, she would kiss her mother and father goodnight and take a candle and climb the ladder and close herself up all alone with the dust and the dark.  She took to leaving her candle lit all night, just to have a bit of comfort from its light.

At first, sleeping alone in the attic was merely lonely, for she was used to having her family all around.  But after some time, something changed.  The shadows seemed to grow darker.  The cold grew colder.  No matter how often she dusted, or swept away the cobwebs, when she went up to bed, there would be the dust and the webs once again.

Finally, she went to her mother and father and told them that she did not want to sleep in the attic anymore.

“It’s cold and it’s dark and…and I have dreams.  Horrible dreams.  I dream that a monster lives in the dark and it is going to come for me and swallow me whole.”

“Nonsense,” said the girl’s parents.  “And anyway, there is no room anywhere else.”

But as it turned out, the little girl was perfectly right.  There was a monster living in the dark, and it did want to swallow her whole.  It was the sort of monster that is made of shadows, and shadows always want to swallow the light.

At this point, the little boy said he did not like this story.  His sister said it was just getting good, and the only reason a fight didn’t break out between them was because the brother had no inkling of the sister’s opinion.  Mary Poppins paid neither of them any mind, and went on relentlessly towards the story’s conclusion.

“Only, every night, the girl brought with her a candle.  The shadow monster could not abide the light, not even a tiny flame.  And the girl kept her little candle lit all the way until morning.  Some nights, it got quite low.  It would flicker and almost go out.  But just when it seemed that the light would go out completely, and that the monster would eat the girl at last, dawn would come and the monster would have to retreat.  An entire year went by in this way.

Then one night came when the girl went looking for a candle, and all she could find was a short little stubby one that would surely not last more than a single hour.  She looked the house all over and could find none better.  She went to her parents.

“There are no more candles to be had,” said her father.  “Candles are dear.  And you are using up one a night.  We can’t afford to go on like that.  Just use the light to get to your bed, and then blow it out!”

And the little girl tried to explain about the monster, for she knew in her heart that it was there.  But her parents were sensible sorts and they didn’t believe in monsters, only in saving candles.

That night, she spent an extra-long time tucking in each of her brothers and sisters.  She told them stories, and sang lullabies until it was well past all of their bedtimes.  Long after their mother and father had given their good night kisses.  But finally, when all slept around her, she had no choice but to go to bed herself.

She took the little candle and she lit it and she climbed up into the attic and she went to bed.  I think it was quite brave of her to do it, too.  But she did something different this night.  She sat in her bed and she looked out her window at the stars and she spoke a wish out loud.

“Nighttime lights!” she called, “Please shine upon me and save me from the dark.”

Of course, the stars and the moon are beacons of the night, and their light can burn away shadows.  Then she did the bravest thing she had ever done in her life.  Instead of waiting for her candle to burn away, she leaned over and blew it out.

The cry of dismay from the little boy caused another pause in the story.  He didn’t ask for her to stop again, though, and after another of her stern looks over the interruption, she did continue.

“The monster came for her at once, of course.  But the stars shone their hardest and brightest, and though it did not stop the monster, it made it pause.  And the little girl stood up on her bed, and she grabbed for the nearest weapon she could find, which happened to be an old broken umbrella, for the attic was full of broken and forgotten items.

“Stop!” she ordered.  “You shall not eat me!”

The shadow stopped, but only so that it could laugh out loud.

“You are just a silly little girl,” it said.  “You have no power to stop me!”

“But I do have power,” said the girl.  “Because I have dreamed about you every night for an entire year.  And in that year I’ve learned who you are.  You are just a bogey man, a shadow.  I am stronger than any shadow!”  And she whapped the monster on the nose with her umbrella.

“Ow!” cried the monster.  It looked at her with astonishment.  “You can’t hurt me!  You’re just a girl!”

“And you are a shadow,” said the girl.  “And shadows need light to be created, and the only light here is my candle, so I think you must be my shadow.  And I’ve only made you bigger, haven’t I, by leaving my candle burning.”

“I’ve had a year to grow in,” the shadow monster agreed.  “And now I shall eat you and extinguish your light forever!”

“I am quite well read, you know,” answered the girl, quite calmly, “And all the books say that monsters aren’t real.  Well, if monsters really are real, then it stands to reason so is the opposite.  And do you know what the opposite of a monster is?”

“What?” asked the monster, too confused by her defiance to ask anything else.

“Me,” said the girl, and she hit him again, first striking against his right ear, and then his left.

“That’s impossible!” howled the monster.  “You’re just a little girl, and I’m going to eat you up!”

And he leapt for her, jaws wide, determined to swallow her whole.  But at that moment, the moon rose, and the moon and the stars shone together so brilliantly, that in that moment it was as though the sun had risen.  And the monster swallowed the moonlight and the starlight and the dark shadow exploded into nothing at all.  For light will always defeat shadow.  And the girl went to sleep, under the light of the stars and the moon, and had the best sleep of her young life.

“That was a silly story,” said the little boy, who was pretending that he hadn’t been scared by it in the slightest.  “Anyway, all girls are scared crybabies.  I would have stabbed the monster in the heart!”

“That was a lovely story,” said his sister.  “But how stupid was that monster?  If he was the little girl’s shadow, and then he ate her, there’d be no one to cast a shadow.  He’d be eating himself right out of existence.”

“Well, you’ve had your story,” said Mary Poppins.  “Now do leave me in peace to my book.”  She was still determined to read it, though she’d been so distracted all afternoon that she hadn’t gotten through a single page.

She didn’t know why she’d dredged up that old story, of all the stories she knew.  She supposed she was just feeling disquiet, and so chose something dark.

Chapter Text

19.

Outside, the leeries were plying their trade against the oncoming night.

Inside Michael’s office, Michael and Jane were attempting to work out the logistics of sending three young children home when the three children desperately wanted to help save Jack.

Jane didn’t tell the children all of what Wilkins had told her, but her face had said quite enough.

The only completely safe solution was for them to take the children home themselves.  There was not a chance they were allowing them to go alone, and not just because they didn’t entirely trust them to go, and not to set out on their own after Jack.  Nor even was it that it was starting to grow dark out.  There was a mad man about who wanted to hurt the Banks family.  There was no way the most vulnerable of them were going out on their own.  But that meant taking the time to take them, and simply going home and leaving Wilkins to his dark purpose felt too much like abandoning Jack.

“Uncle Jack is family,” Georgie kept saying.  Where he’d gotten the idea to call Jack ‘uncle’ no one knew, but he would call him nothing else, now.

“We can help,” insisted John.

“You’ve already helped,” said Michael.  “We’d never have known it was Wilkins without you.  But now we need a way to follow him and he knows all of us too well.  If all five of us go there’s no way he’d miss us.

“What about the other leeries?” Annabel asked.  “They want to find Jack too; I know they do.  They can help us.”

“That’s…actually quite brilliant,” said Jane, as she worked the idea over in her head.  She didn’t dare try to follow Wilkins…but surely some of Jack’s friends could, some who Wilkins wouldn’t know or suspect.

“And now, I must insist you all go home,” said Michael to his children.  Three voices cried out in protest, but he silenced them with a stern look.  “You are brilliant and you are resourceful…but you are children.  You are my children.  I am going to go after Jack.  And I can’t be worrying the whole time about whether you are safe.  If you want to help Jack, more than you already have, then you will keep safe so that you are one less worry in this awful situation.”

The children could see he really meant it, too, and that all the arguing in the world wouldn’t change his mind.

“Now, I need you to promise.  Promise me you will stay at home and look after each other.  I won’t be able to give my full attention to Jack if you can’t promise.”

And none of the children liked it, but their father was so in earnest, so…fatherly that it was impossible to say anything other than, “I promise.”

It felt bitter on their tongues to say it.  It felt like a betrayal to Jack.

“There’s still the problem of getting them home,” Jane said.  She gave her brother a challenging look, daring him to suggest she stay safe at home with the children.  He made no such suggestion.

“Nothing simpler,” Michael answered.  “Our brilliant Annabel has already told us how.”

“I did?” asked Annabel.

“Oh, of course,” John said, catching on the quickest.  “You said the leeries could help, and of course they can take us home.  Any friend of Jack must be as safe as anything.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” asked Jane.  “Before the wolf leaves and we lose him.”

She still looked quite pale, and there was a feeling like electricity buzzing under her skin.  Wilkins’ words reverberated inside her, and the thought that at any moment the man was going to make good on his words filled her with a helpless, angry sort of fear.  The only thing that had stopped her from setting off on her own at once was the need to see the rest of her family safe, and the remembrance of Wilkins’ parting threat.  If she were somehow the cause of Jack’s death…no.

Together, they headed out the door.  It was just as well the children had brought Michael his scarf, for the weather had taken a definitely chilly turn.

20.

In a slightly larger office in a different wing of the bank, another man was gathering his belongings in preparation to leave.  He trembled slightly, in anticipation he told himself.  He had just a few pieces of paperwork to deliver, and then it would be time to leave.  It was annoying that there was no one to do the delivering for him, but at least he had the perfect person to take out his frustrations on.

He left his lamp burning behind him as he locked his door.

21.

“Starting to get dark,” a cruel voice commented.

“It’s always dark here,” answered another.

“Outside, I mean.  Can’t you feel it?  The banker will be returning soon.”

“The leerie has been awfully quiet this last hour or so.  Do you think it’s getting to him at last?”

“If it isn’t, it will be when the banker gets here.  Mark my words; he’ll have had all day to work up his nerve.”

“He’ll be bringing his lantern with him, the banker.  He’s still too…too human.”

“It’ll be worth it, the first time he gets him to scream.”

22.

 It was as though London itself were against the entire Banks family.

First, Michael’s boss stopped the whole lot of them just as they were about to spill out of the bank in search of a leerie.

“Surely you aren’t already leaving, Mr. Banks?” the man said, with an incredulous look at his pocket watch.  In their haste, no one had cared to look at the time, and there was half an hour yet before Michael normally clocked out.  And of course, not one of them had a good explanation.  Georgie did start to try to explain, but luckily his siblings had a better understanding of the situation and silenced him.

“Of course not,” Jane was forced to say in the end, before her brother could say anything noble, but stupid, to get himself fired.  “My brother was just seeing us all out.”  So then Michael had to go all the way back to his office alone, hoping the whole time he hadn’t looked suspicious enough that anyone would come to check on him and what work he’d done all afternoon.

Jane and the children stood outside the bank in a miserable mass, not knowing if Michael would actually stay the final half hour or sneak out some other way, and not wanting to miss him if he did manage such a feat.

“But the lamps are already all lit around here!” Annabel noted.  And of course none of them knew any leerie’s schedule except for when Jack came by Cherry Tree Lane, and that was no good for catching one of his friends.

So of course they didn’t dare to wait for Michael, and had to go looking on their own.

“I’ll come back for him once I see you off and we’ve told them what is what,” Jane decided.  Only there was no leerie to be found.  It was almost as though all of the leeries in London had gone about their work at double speed.  Which, in fact, was the case.

John insisted he saw one, and even thought he remembered him and that his name was Bill, but they all shouted ‘Bill’ and waved, and the man went on around the corner without turning his head.

Jane hadn’t realized how far they’d gone in their desperate search, or how long it had taken them, until they heard Big Ben strike the hour.

“I suppose we had better go back and meet your father,” Jane said.  Only, of course they’d managed to get themselves hopelessly lost down some side street.  And by the time they found their way back to the bank, another half hour had passed.

And Michael was not there.

So now Jane had three children to look after, a missing brother, and no way to follow Wilkins, assuming he could be followed and hadn’t already gone on his way, which was all too likely considering the hour.

And Jack was still alone in the dark.  And he was hurt.  And Wilkins was, any moment, going to hurt him worse.  Perhaps he already was.

A different sort of woman might have sat down on the steps to St. Paul’s, and burst into tears.

Jane was not that sort of woman.

23.

Jack was sitting in darkness.

He was slightly sheltered from the dark by two things.  One, he had a blindfold on.  As long as he had a blindfold on, he could pretend that that was why he couldn’t see, and not because it was dark.  And Jack was very good at pretending.

The second was the fact that he had his eyes closed.  It was comfortable to keep his eyes closed…as much as anything in his situation could be called comfortable.  He could be anywhere, lying with his eyes closed.  He could be safe in his bed.  He could be lying on a bed of grass in the park.  He could be on an adventure and be taking a quick nap on some sandy beach after spending the day digging for buried treasure.

He could be anywhere, except for where he really was.

The cold was harder to ignore than the dark, but then, men of his social class weren’t a stranger to the cold.  So if this cold seeped up from the stone and into his very bones and set his whole body trembling, well, he had felt colder.  And the cold was lucky, really.  It numbed the bruises that were dotted all over his body.

As far as beatings went, like the cold, Jack could honestly say he’d had worse.  Of course, pain was not the sort of thing anyone one got used to.  A stubbed toe could make a man swear just as violently as a broken leg.  Repeated experience didn’t dull the pain, it just taught caution.

Still, at least the general pain in his body, numbed by the cold, helped him to not notice that he hadn’t had a bite to eat since the night before, nor much more water than a drop offered from a very small cup.  As far as hunger went, he’d definitely had worse than a few missed meals.  That was uncomfortable, but bearable, and anyway, between the shivering and the lightheadedness he didn’t really feel hungry.  The thirst was worse.  It was hard to imagine a time he’d been thirstier.  Maybe there hadn’t been.  He wasn’t quite desperate enough to start licking the damp stones beneath him, but it was nice to have his aching body and his shivering to distract him.

So overall, Jack had had worse, and he’d been colder, and hungrier, and beaten harder, and he’d been in the dark before.  The difference was, before, he always moved through the pain and the cold and the hunger and the dark towards a definite destination.  If he was cold, he knew where he could go to warm up.  If he was under attack, he generally attacked back or got away and got to a safe place to nurse his wounds.  If it’d been a while without food, if it was truly getting desperate, he knew some friends who could help out.  If he was in the dark, he could strike a match, or, if worst came to worst, await the dawn.

He couldn’t get away to a safe place, and he couldn’t get someplace warm and the dawn had come and hadn’t reached him.  He was alone in the dark and the cold with the promise of more pain to come.

So maybe it had been worse before, but never all at the same time.  He’d never been held prisoner before.  He didn’t like it.

At least Jane was safe, for the moment.  He could bear anything, if those he cared about were safe.  And he had the heart of a leerie.  Leeries go into the dark, and they bring light.  He had light inside himself.

He didn’t dare sing, not after the threat to Jane, and anyway his throat was too dry now for a proper song.  But no one could control his thoughts.  He kept his eyes closed and he imagined his friends surrounding him, and they sang together and lifted their flames high, and in his heart he knew they would come for him.

He had had worse, and he would see the end of his suffering.  He just had to get through it first, to the other side.

24.

Michael stayed the full thirty minutes and not a second longer.

He forgot his briefcase, but the children would be happy to know that he remembered both his coat and his scarf.  Nor did he manage to leave his head behind.

This time there was no voice calling him back, and he practically ran out the door and quite startled a group of pigeons who had been walking by.

“Excuse me,” Michael said to the pigeons, not so much out of concern or even politeness but habit.  They forgave him anyway, once over the fright, and then followed after him in a hopeful sort of way in case he might be inclined to empty his pockets.  Pigeons are not considered particularly bright, but these pigeons were perfectly capable of recognizing the man who quite often had seeds about his person.

Michael didn’t notice, but was so intent on escaping the bank that he’d run half down the street, before the ‘why’ he had to escape the bank had caught up with him and he had to stop to actually look for Jane.

It had grown darker in that last half hour, and was now in that twilight time when there’s still plenty of light to see, but somehow one sees worse than if it were full dark.  The whole world is half in shadow and half in light, and all edges are slightly dulled and everything blends into each other.  So it took Michael a full five minutes to be absolutely certain his sister wasn’t there.

He supposed, sensibly, that she was still dealing with sending the children home, and that she’d be along at any moment.  He fully intended to wait for her.

What happened next was, all in all, extremely unlikely.  Later, what happened in that moment would make Michael wonder if they had all been wrong to suppose that everything was going wrong and all of London was against them.  Perhaps, in upsetting their plans, everything had actually gone right.

In that moment, Michael didn’t have time for such reflections.

He saw Wilkins leave the bank.

He shouldn’t have, because Wilkins used a little known side door that opened into an alley and had Michael been standing at any other place than exactly where he was, one of two things would have happened.  The first, and most likely, was that he’d have missed Wilkins leave.  The second, was that Wilkins would have seen Michael, for Wilkins had looked about furtively as soon as had stepped out.

In the twilight, Wilkins made the mistake of thinking he could see perfectly well that there was no one about.  Michael stood in shadowed light, in what should have been plain sight, except that the very same crowd of pigeons he had so startled before, chose that moment to surround him in hopeful flight.  Michael ducked.

Wilkins saw the pigeons, and he saw London as he expected to see it, and somehow, hunched over, arms protectively raised about his head and surrounded by birds, Michael did not form the profile of a person.

And his profile was all that really would have alerted Wilkins that a person stood there, because by the same impossible luck that had sent the birds, Michael was positioned next to a particularly bright lamp.

Generally, if one wants to hide, standing by light is not the way to do it.  But if one only has light for cover, find very bright light.  A person’s eye will turn away from that which dazzles it, and fail to see what the light might have revealed.

So Wilkins looked, and his eyes shied away from the light, and he noted the birds, and the street, and thought he’d seen perfectly clearly an empty alleyway with not a soul in sight.

Michael, on the other hand, saw Wilkins quite easily and unhindered, except by the whirlwind of birds that flew about him.  It was such a shock that he froze, hunched over position and all.  He couldn’t see how Wilkins could possibly have missed him standing there, but the man made no move to confront him.  He watched the banker turn his head furtively to check the other direction, and then make for a manhole.

And when Wilkins had disappeared down it, Michael knew that he had been missed somehow, and, more to the point, Wilkins was going to Jack now, and there was no one to follow him but Michael.

He had two choices in that moment.  He could follow the original plan, wait for Jane, and then…well, obviously go after Wilkins because he couldn’t imagine his sister agreeing to anything less.  And Wilkins would be long gone and the hunt would be hopeless.

Or…

Or.

Michael had never thought himself a particularly heroic or brave man, but to his own surprise, he didn’t even hesitate. 

He counted to ten.  Long enough to send a silent apology to Jane that he was going on without her.  Long enough, he hoped, for Wilkins to not notice someone coming down after him, but not so long that Wilkins would be lost.  And he climbed down into the dark.

25.

Half an hour after Michael and Wilkins’ descent, Jane and the children sat down on the steps to St. Paul's and discussed what was to happen next.

As the adult in the situation, Jane knew perfectly well what she should do.  What Michael would want her to do.  It was really the only thing to do, if she cared at all for her niece or nephews.  She should take them home and wait for Michael there.  There was nothing else to be done.  Michael was gone, Wilkins was surely already gone, and there was no one else about for the children to go with…and even if there were, what use was it for Jane to wander London aimlessly on her own?

“I wish Mary Poppins were here.”  This was something all of them had thought half a dozen times since the whole business began, but it was Georgie who finally said it out loud.  “She would know how to save Jack.”

They had all been thinking it, but no one had wanted to say it.  They weren’t sure why.  Perhaps because saying it out loud would be admitting that she wasn’t coming to save them.  Or perhaps it was a way of giving up and admitting that they couldn’t save Jack themselves.  And if they couldn’t save him, and she didn’t come…

So they didn’t say it out loud that they needed her.  Until Georgie did.  And once it was said, everyone couldn’t help but hope, even as they feared.

“She’s a magic person, isn’t she?” said John.  “Can’t we…summon her, somehow?  Like, say her name three times together, or something?”

“I don’t think she works like that,” Jane answered.  “She comes when she’s needed.”

“But she’s needed now!” cried Georgie, and then, “Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins!  We need you!”

And they all were quite certain that wasn’t going to work…but they couldn’t help but look around just in case.  There was no Mary Poppins, though.  Georgie didn’t look around.  He looked up.  He wished he had his kite, but he supposed if he saw her floating about he would just have to wave and shout for her to come down.

She wasn’t there either. 

All he saw were a few pigeons.

Chapter Text

26.

Pigeons are not generally known for their brains.  When it comes to food, however, they are birds of surprising craftiness.  They have been known to fake injuries, so as to illicit sympathy from humans.  They know friends from foe, and react to people accordingly.

Michael was a friend.  He often had crumbs or seeds to toss to them.  He talked to them.  Of course, only in the way most humans do, where they toss out a few friendly words that they don’t actually expect to be understood or appreciated…but they are.  If not the exact meaning, then the sentiment.  And pigeons are social birds.  They appreciate friendly company, particularly if that company offers food.  The pigeons knew Michael.  They liked Michael.

“That bird is acting funny,” said Georgie.

“It’s just going to join its friends, over there,” Annabel explained.  “Over there, around the corner.  I suppose they’ve found food.”  Except she wasn’t exactly right.  The pigeon in question flew in that direction, swung about, and fluttered back towards them.

“I think it wants us to follow it,” Georgie insisted, and he hopped up and did so at once.

“Georgie, come back,” Jane called, but when Georgie was intent upon something then nothing so insubstantial as words were about to dissuade him.  He likely didn’t even hear; too intent on the pigeons.

And perhaps the bird was smart enough to recognize Michael’s family.  And perhaps it thought they should come and look at something.  Or perhaps it just hoped the children had crumbs to throw, that it could get at without competing against an entire flock.

Whether it was on accident or by design, the pigeon succeeded in leading the entire family around the side of the bank into an alley.  It was full on dark by then, but there were lamps, and they could quite easily see the mass of pigeons gorging themselves on what had started off as a large pile of seeds.

After half an hour, most of the feast had already been consumed, but pigeons are ever optimistic creatures, and kept looking in the hopes of a second bounty.

“Georgie, don’t run off like that again!” Jane scolded.  Georgie barely noticed, still staring in confusion and disappointment that following the bird had only brought them to more birds.

“Look!” said John.  While the others had stared at the birds, he had noticed something else.  Drawn on the ground in pastel chalk was a picture of a wolf.  And there was an arrow, pointing to the open manhole.

Jane didn’t mean to take the children with her when she went after Michael…after Jack.  But John didn’t even stop to say the obvious like ‘that’s father’s drawing, and the wolf is Wilkins and they’ve gone into the sewers and he wants us to follow him’.  John just said ‘Look!’, and then disappeared down the manhole almost quicker than anyone could process.

Jane meant to tell the others to wait up top, but her thoughts were in a whirl at this new discovery and somehow all she said was ‘Wait a moment’.  So Annabel and Georgie could be forgiven when they interpreted that as ‘wait until I get down, and then follow’.  Which is what they did.

And Jane fully intended to remind the children that they promised to stay at home and keep each other safe.  And that might well have started an argument when the children might have come up with the loophole that they hadn’t promised when they would go home, just that they’d stay there once they got there.  And the children would have felt guilty because they knew what their father meant, and Jane would have gotten stubborn because she wasn’t going to be talked around, and likely they would have gotten nowhere in no time.

But going down into the sewer was like going into a new world.  It felt just as otherworldly and odd as the more magical experience of jumping into a painting or a bowl, but more dangerous and with the same sort of deep solemnity one felt in a cathedral.  Somehow it was impossible to break the silence, except in whisper, and it’s hard to be stern with a whisper.

So Jane said, “You are to stay together and stay safe,” and somehow forgot to say, “At home.”  And maybe the children remembered their promises or maybe, in that moment, they forgot them.  But when Annabel hopped up and down, silently jamming her finger towards a new drawing recently added to the sewer’s wall, all four followed the arrow and there was no talk of turning back or going home.

Jane was their aunt, and she loved them and she cared for them but she wasn’t their mother.  Mothers and fathers are for discipline.  Aunts are for all the rest.

27.

“I did tell you I have every second Thursday off.”

And somehow, the confused answers of ‘But it’s Wednesday’ and ‘for the afternoon; it’s the middle of the night’ were not at all sufficient.

“Middle of the evening, surely.  At any rate, I have asked a friend of mine to keep an eye on the house.  Do leave the nightlights burning until I get back.”

“And how soon will that be?”

“That depends entirely upon how late I am.”

And the door closed behind her, latching firmly against the chill of the night.

28.

The lamps all over the city blazed with light.

The lamplighters remained on the streets.  They had organized a bit since that morning.  No longer did everyone haphazardly go anywhere and everywhere.

They didn’t scatter and they each had their section of London to search.  A little thing like the setting of the sun wasn’t going to stop them.  They each carried their own light.

29.

This wasn’t like the children’s last foray into the sewers.  There was no song to keep up their spirits.  There were no lamps.  There was no Mary Poppins to guard them.  There was no Jack to lead the way.

If they hadn’t been so focused on following the arrows left behind, the children might well have been too scared to go on.  There is nothing like a task to mask fear.  So rather than fright, the children felt a bubbly sort of excitement, like they were playing a game.

They seemed to be beneath the street, and there was some light, pooling in through the gutters.  It also helped that Michael seemed to have chosen a white bit of chalk to draw with, which almost glowed in the dim light.

Jane knew it wasn’t a game and she wasn’t enjoying it as the children were, but her focus was on getting to Michael and, hopefully, to Jack.  She imagined all the things she wanted to do to Wilkins when she caught him.  Threatened to kill her Jack, did he?  Threatened to break him?  She would…she would…she would break him first!  Anger works just as well in overcoming fear.

Unfortunately, fear tends to catch up with one, in the end.

Its moment came when they came to a place where the sewer tunnel split off in three different directions.  And there was no drawing anywhere to show which way to go.

“What do we do?” whispered John.

“Why didn’t Father draw on the wall?” asked Annabel.  “Do you think he ran out of chalk?”

“It’s awfully dark down all those tunnels,” Georgie said, his whisper just a bit too loud.

Jane didn’t answer.  She looked again and again, sure they must have missed a drawing somewhere, but there was nothing to be found.  Not even a smudge of chalk.  What had happened to Michael?  Had he been caught?  Did Wilkins have Michael and Jack now?  Was he hurting them?  And what would happen to her…to the children…if they were caught as well?

“It’s no good wandering around the sewers without a guide,” Jane decided.  “We’ll have to go back to the last ladder and climb out.  We’ll mark the spot and then…and then we’ll go to the police.”

“But,” was the answer in three voices of dismay, and then three voices told her how horrible her plan was.

“No,” Jane said firmly, “There’s nothing else we can do.  We must…eeek!”

The last was muffled as she had thrown her hand over her mouth at the last second.  ‘Eek’ was not an uncommon reaction to seeing the creature she now saw scampering from one of the tunnels.  Jane liked to think she wasn’t the sort to utter it, though.  And to be fair, though she did cry out in surprise, she also instinctively leapt in front of the children.

“Oh,” she said, uncovering her mouth, “It’s a rat!”

“Jack taught us a song about a rat once,” Georgie said, trying to sound brave though he was trembling.  It was a big rat.  And its eyes seemed to glow red in the darkness.  “He changed his name to ‘Eek’.  So everywhere he goes, people call his name, and he has friends everywhere.  Perhaps…perhaps this is Eek.”

Georgie had almost convinced himself the rat wasn’t scary by that point, so it was a bit unkind that John was quick to say, “It can’t be.  The rat in the song had a tail.  This one has lost his.”

“Back,” Jane ordered, sweeping her arms backwards in an attempt to shepherd the children back the way they had come.  “We’ll get to the ladder.”  She tried to take a step backwards and stumbled when her toe met with some sort of loose pebble lying in a puddle.  The combination of wet slickness and the rolling pebble almost sent her tumbling but John and Annabel grabbed her sides to steady her.  This would soon turn out to be unfortunate.  Georgie was left alone in front of them, neither pushed back by his aunt nor by his fear.  His eyes were on the rat.

The rat squeaked at them, and stood up on its hind legs.  One of its front paws was held protectively to its chest, but the other waved in the air.

“Oh,” Said Georgie, who had at least half convinced himself the rat was really a friend, “He’s hurt his paw.  Poor rat.”

And the poor rat turned away from them to scamper in the other direction.  Then it paused, limped a bit towards them, then turned away again.  Just like the pigeon had done.  His Aunt Jane found her footing and reached for Georgie, to pull him back.

“Oh!” said Georgie.  “He wants to lead us to Father!”

“Georgie, no!” cried at least two voices, and three sets of hands reached out to grab him.  Too far away.  Too late.  The boy, forgetting all about his fear of the dark, or of rats, or of wolves, ran down the tunnel after the rat.  The rat scampered away from the boy.

There was nothing for the others to do but follow.

30.

Not quite an hour before, Michael stood in roughly the same location that Jane and the children had stood.

A piece of white chalk was in his hands.  He intended to draw the next sign…just as soon as he figured out which tunnel Wilkins and his escorts had gone down.  He had been following them quite easily up to then; they were loud, and even having to stay out of sight, he could easily keep after them without being heard or seen himself.  It wasn’t a very pleasant walk.  Quite aside from the darkness and the damp (and the smell), the conversation up ahead was not a pleasant one to eavesdrop on.

“What are you going to do first?” a gruff voice asked with far too much malice and glee.  “Beat him?  Break his bones?”

“Put out his eyes!” another voice suggested.  “Keep him in the dark forever!”

“Enough of that,” said Wilkins voice.  “Just tell me…how has he been?  Surely by now he’s softened up quite a bit.”

“Ah…yes.  Well.  He’s gotten…quieter.”

Wilkins, it seemed, was not satisfied with this answer.

“Was he pleading a lot in the beginning?  Moaning?”

Michael couldn’t quite hear the response from where he was.  He could almost have sworn one of the voices had mumbled ‘singing’, but he probably heard them wrong.  At any rate, there was a brief noise like a scuffle had broken out, and then the louder voice said, “He was fairly wailing, at the start.  Hurt our ears with it.”

“Good…good,” said Wilkins, except he didn’t sound like he thought it was good at all.  He sounded a bit ill.  “Did he…bleed a lot…after I left?”

“From that tiny scratch?” asked one of his escorts.  “Not hardly.  Are you…okay?  About the blood?”

“It’s unclean,” Wilkins explained.  “There are ways to hurt a person without it being so…so messy, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” one of the voices answered.  “There’s burning.  Though that does come with a bit of a smell.  Or drowning, if you don’t mind getting a bit wet.”

“I’m a bit old fashion, myself,” said the other voice.  “Give me a set of plyers and a hot poker and I’d make him squeal!”

“Anyway,” said Wilkins, “I don’t have to explain myself to you.  Just take me to him, and we’ll see about making him scream.”

Wilkins’ voice still sounded a bit like he felt ill, but, and this was what turned Michael’s stomach, it was also filled with anticipation.  Thankfully, the conversation had eased off.  But then he’d come to the split, and all the tunnels had a bit of an echo, and without voices he was just listening for footsteps.  They had been so loud only moments ago, but now all he could hear was his own heartbeat roaring in his ears.

And then…there was a sound.  At least, that was the best Michael could describe it.  It was the sort of low, deep sound that you feel in your bones rather than hear with your ears, like when a dog growls and you can see it vibrating with suppressed rage but can’t hear a thing.  It was the sort of sound that one isn’t sure one heard or only imagined.  It was impossible to tell where it came from, but it set the hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge.

In many ways he was lucky, though it didn’t look like luck at the time.  For one, he never had a chance to try and draw on the wall with his chalk.  If he had done so, the others would have seen.  They’d have known he’d left a trail.  And they’d have gone back to destroy it.

“Intruder,” hissed a voice.  It definitely hissed, and the speaker was so close he could feel the cold ghost of breath across the back of his neck.  He dropped his chalk.  Into a puddle, as it so happened, where it failed to reflect what light could be found and so was missed by all who might have divined its significance.  He spun around at the same time, splashing loudly in the puddle.

Behind him was…shadow.  It was the sort of shadow that played tricks on the eyes.  The sort where a person starts to imagine they see figures where there are none.  Michael almost thought he saw a person there, close enough to touch, but when he swung out his hand in a wild sort of panic, there was no one there.

Not true of who came upon him from behind.

“What have we here?” said a voice.

“I think you had better come with us,” said another.  “Easy like.  We have a knife.”

Michael turned once more and for the first time laid sight on the two unpleasant fellows he’d been listening to all that time.  They were large.  It was hard to make out much more in the dim light, except that one was bald and the other had straggly hair down to his shoulders.  That was the one holding the knife.  It glinted dimly in the dark.

For thugs threatening to slice him open, they were surprisingly gentle as they escorted him down the tunnel.

31.

Night had fallen over London.  The very early risers were already turning in.  Late risers were searching out some entertainment or a bite to eat before bed.  On the streets, a search continued, but the searchers thinned.  No one is indefatigable.  Someone would have to turn off the lamps come morning. It was early yet, of course, but some of the older, more practical among them insisted upon arranging shifts.  The search wasn’t given up, would never be given up, but tired people are people who miss things.

They were all tired.  They looked down.  Some even thought of the sewers, but the network is ancient and vast and they didn’t know where to begin.  All in all, they might have been better served that night if they had looked up.

32.

Michael had found Jack.  He wondered, through the growing lump in his throat, if that meant he should win a prize.

Jack wasn’t dead; and Michael was quite certain of that because corpses don’t shiver.  The form on the floor of the cell was bound foot and ankle, and blindfolded, and curled up on itself and only slightly lifted his head when they joined him in his cell.

He wasn’t obviously hurt, not gushing blood or the like, but Michael had never seen Jack sit so silently, or so still.  They’d taken his jacket, and the light in the room wasn’t the best but Michael didn’t think that was just shadows that darkened Jack’s bare arms.  Michael turned away to glare at Wilkins.  Wilkins was looking at Jack too.  It was hard to read his expression.  It was part satisfaction and part…something else.  Not guilt.  A sort of fascination and horror combined, perhaps.

“Hello, Jack,” said Wilkins, “Your friend Mr. Banks has come to see you.”

Jack did stir at that, sitting upright and tilting his head in their direction.  When Jack spoke at last, his voice was hoarse enough to make even Wilkins wince, but he sounded surprisingly upbeat regardless.

“’lo gents,” he said. “I’d offer you a spot of tea but I seem to have misplaced my tea set.”

“Don’t trouble yourself on my account,” Michael answered, not quite managing to sound relaxed.  Jack’s whole body tensed when he heard him, and it occurred to Michael that, blindfolded as he was, Jack had no way of knowing if Wilkins had been telling the truth about Michael being there.

“I trust there are no ladies present?” Jack asked, “Only, I hear it’s polite to stand.”  He didn’t quite manage to hide his anxiety that time, at least to Michael’s ears, and Michael was sure he knew what had Jack so concerned he’d give himself away, and it had nothing to do with the difficulty that standing currently gave him.  Michael was quick to reassure him.

“At home, with the children, and doubtless with half the leeries in London to look after them.” Jack sagged in relief.  Wilkins frowned.

“Ah yes, your dear sister Jane,” said Wilkins.  “Quite the conversation we had in my office.  I trust she shared it with you?”

“She shared enough,” Michael answered.

“What did I tell your sister would happen,” Wilkins asked, “If I was followed?”

“I…don’t know.”  He didn’t know, either.  He could tell that Wilkins had said something to upset her, but Jane hadn’t wanted to share it in front of the children.  Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to share it at all; she had been spitting mad and shaking like a leaf and whatever had caused that must have been bad.

Wilkins looked unimpressed.  Michael tried again, sensing that he was missing something horrible.

“She didn’t…she didn’t tell us.  Anyway, I wasn’t…”

“Wasn’t what? Following me?”

“I was following them, not you.”

It was the sort of logic Michael’s children tried on him all the time.  It mostly didn’t work.  Sometimes, if the children were clever enough to amuse him, he’d let them get away with it.  It probably was bad parenting, but it couldn’t be helped.  Wilkins did not seem inclined to let Michael get away with it.

“…Following them.  Do you really think I’m that stupid or are you just that desperate?”

“Worth a try.  What…what are you going to do to Jack?”

“Well…I am a man of my word.”

Chapter Text

33.

“Now, this is what I call simply rude.  Calling for a person and then running off before said person has a chance to get there.”

The woman who said these words must have been talking to herself.  After all, there was no one around to answer her but a flock of pigeons.

“Mary Poppins!” called the voice of one who was not a bird.  In fact, it was a young man peddling towards her on his bicycle.  When he was close enough to not have to shout anymore, he skidded to a stop.  Pigeons scattered in furious flight, only to settle again and pretend they hadn’t cared.  The biker didn’t notice; he had no eyes for anything except the lady standing on the steps.  “Thank goodness.  You must know what has become of Jack.”

The woman frowned.

“It seems we have both mislaid someone,” she said.  “You have lost our Jack and I have lost my Georgie.”  She somehow gave the impression that both losses were the man’s fault, or at least, not her own.

There was a soft sound coming from around their feet.  It sounded like the cooing of a dove.

“My pigeon may be a bit rusty,” said a voice from the vicinity of Mary Poppin’s waist, “But I believe that was a call to arms.”

34.

Some thirty minutes earlier, Jack screamed.

Wilkins stumbled away from him with an almost scared expression, just as though he weren’t the one to have caused it in the first place.

“Well then…let that be a taste of what is to come,” Wilkins stammered out.  “I must…go dine now.  But I’ll be back.  To finish it.”

He stared at the hunched, curled form of Jack, who was silent now, and then at the thugs, who had a mixture of cruel glee and disappointment on their faces as they held the other prisoner gently in place, then at Michael Banks.  Banks who glared accusingly, judging him.  But the man didn’t say a word.  Not to beg or plead, not to condemn, not even bargain.  He just glared silently.

“Well?” said Wilkins, unable to stand the look.  He had wanted to see Banks’ reaction, had wanted to see pain, and there was pain and fear in the look but also fury and it wasn’t at all what Wilkins had thought it would be.  There was no elation, no sense of power.  Somehow, Michael Banks still had the power.  “Do you have something to say?”

Banks still didn’t answer.

“Nothing at all?  You do understand what is happening?  You can’t be that stupid.  I’m going to kill your friend.  I already hurt him.  And you lost!  You tried to find us and we got you and you lost!  No one is coming for you.  There’s no proof anywhere.  I could kill you too, and no one could stop me.  And you have nothing to say?”

Michael Banks glared.  Somehow, that glare awakened a memory of a time long before.  It was the look of a father, having found fault with his child.  It was disappointment.

“You won’t speak, because you know there’s nothing to say!” Wilkins shouted.  “Nothing to stop me, nothing to save you, nothing to save him!  I promised to kill him if you followed, and here we are.  And you know you can’t stop me so you just pretend you’re so much better than me, as if this whole thing weren’t your fault in the first place!  You condemned him, you made me do it, so you can just stand there all quiet and beaten, and I’m going to take this stick, and I’m going to…”

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”

Wilkins paused.  He slowly lowered the stick and turned away from the one he had been about to strike to look at Michael Banks.  Banks had turned his hardened gaze away from Wilkins and now stared at the ground.

“What did you say?” Wilkins demanded.

“I said…” said Banks, still staring at the ground, “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  It’s…it’s a word to say when there’s nothing to say.”

“That’s nonsense!  Why are you people always speaking utter nonsense?!”

The scraggly haired one shifted nervously behind Banks.

“Hey,” the bald one said.  “You’re almost done with the lamplighter.  Why don’t you just finish him off.  Get him screaming again.”

“I love the sound of bones breaking,” the other added.

“I…” Wilkins said.  He looked at them, then down at Jack.  He backed away.  “I…need to go to dinner.  Let them…let them suffer a while longer.  Don’t let them escape.”

Just as John was discovering the first picture Michael had drawn, Wilkins was climbing out of a different manhole.  He barely missed getting run down by a bicycle as he stumbled into the world above once more.  The bicycler waved a hand in pardon and rode on in the general direction of St. Paul’s.

35.

“Jack?” whispered a voice in the dark.

There was a long and horrible silence, and then, “Hello, Michael.”

The voice was weak and hoarse but surprisingly cheerful for all that.

“How badly are you hurt?” Michael’s voice asked.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Jack responded, more quickly this time.  “I’ve had worse.”

“That doesn’t actually reassure me,” Michael answered.  Then, “I know your arm is broken.”

“Well, what about you?” Jack asked.  “Did he touch you?”

“I think Wilkins was scared to.  And the other two just held me in place.  Not even roughly, either.”

“Oh…I don’t think they can hurt us.”

There was a slightly longer pause, then, “What?”

“I heard them talking about it.  Through the wall.  I don’t suppose they left your arms free?  Or perhaps…some water?”

“Sorry.”  Then, “What do you mean, they talked about not hurting us?”

“I don’t know…Michael?”

“Yes?”

“You are really there, right?”

“…Yes.”

“Oh…good.  Well, bad, of course.  But good.”

Michael didn’t know how to answer that and so said nothing.  Anyway, the more he spoke, the more Jack spoke.  And it was almost painful to listen to the rasp in his voice.  It had to be hurting Jack.  Instead, he tried wriggling his body in the general direction Jack’s voice had come from, until he bumped into something.  That something tensed and he was close enough to hear the soft whimper of pain.

“Sorry,” Michael whispered, slightly aghast, “I just thought…”

“No,” Jack gasped out, interrupting him.  “It’s better…” and Michael felt someone in the dark curling towards him.  It was cold in the room, and it was nice to have a point of warmth to lean against.  Or more like a furnace of heat.  Michael frowned.

“You have a fever,” he said.

“Do I?” Jack asked.  “Well tha’s good.  ‘ll keep us both warm.”

There was a longer silence and then Michael’s voice came out in a low hiss, “Jack, is that you?”

“Course it’s me,” answered Jack.

One room over, two people kept half an ear on their prisoners.

“Told you he’d get him to scream in the end,” said one, with great satisfaction.  “And he’ll do worse when he comes back.”

“If he comes back,” the other grumbled.  “Looked a bit like a scared rabbit when he scarpered.  Dinner indeed.”

“Listen to the two of them.  No singing now!”

“Too quiet if you ask me.  What are they up to?”

“Trembling in the dark, I’d imagine.  Just trembling in the dark.”

36.

They had lost Georgie.  He had run, and they had run, and then darkness seemed to swallow them whole and they couldn’t see Georgie or even hear the slap of his feet against the ground.

Annabel grabbed John’s hand, and Jane grabbed Annabel, but though they called his name and swung their hands around, there was no Georgie to be found.  Perhaps there had been a turning they’d missed in the dark.

Jane felt, in that moment, like the worst aunt who had ever lived.

And then they heard the scream.

37.

A flash of fire shone through the air.  It danced.  And it was seen, far down the street, and another flame waved back.  And someone saw that flame and waved their own.

And the leeries came.  From all corners of London, they came.  Towards the end of their journey, they began to take on the form of an angry mob, torches and all.

“See here,” a policeman doing his rounds tried to say, but then he didn’t know what he wanted them to see.  It did look a bit like trouble was brewing, but whether it was illegal trouble was less clear.  So he did what any sensible police officer would do and he went to the nearest phone and reported it to his superiors.

There was a discussion of sending out a show of force, just in case.  Until the situation came to the attention of one officer who had been investigating a rather unpleasant disappearance (and whatever people thought, he did know how to do his job and investigate, even if he was overworked, and the missing person was only a lamplighter).

“You know what I think,” he said.  “I think they found something out.  And They’re going to act on it.”

“Well…shouldn’t we stop them?”

“Why?”

“Well…that’s our job.  It’s illegal…isn’t it?”

“Do you want to get in-between them and whoever hurt one of their own?”

“…You know, I don’t think anything illegal is happening per say.  Let’s just…keep an eye on things.”

And that was what they told the poor officer on the phone to do.

38.

Wilkins was in control.  He was.  So maybe actually hearing the bone snap…and that scream was…well, it was what he had been after, wasn’t it?

And the look on Michael Banks’ face was surely pain.  He had wanted this.  All of it.

I nice hot meal was what he needed, that was all.  He would sit and dine while his prisoners had nothing to eat, and nothing to do except anticipate his return.

He was in control.  It would all be over soon.

But once he was actually at the table, it turned out he didn’t particularly want his nice hot meal just then after all.  The very thought of swallowing it down turned his stomach.  He supposed it was all the unfinished business that was messing with his appetite.

“I’ll go back, and I’ll finish this, and then I’ll come back for pudding.”

He made sure he had his electric lamp in hand, and then made his way back from the light into the dark.

39.

The rat ran down the tunnel and Georgie ran after the rat and all the rest ran after Georgie.

What stopped Georgie in the end was the darkness.  It was no good chasing a rat one can’t see.  It had come on so gradually, that for a little bit after all the light went Georgie still swore he saw a sort of phantom rat leading him on.  By the time he realized he really couldn’t see the rat, or anything at all, it was too late.  He stumbled to a halt, his hands swinging about in front of him.

Terror seized him.  It was a child’s fear, utterly complete and encompassing.  It froze him in his tracks and sent his heart racing and filled him with ice and left every hair on his body sticking out.

Then someone bumped into him and he screamed.

40.

“Georgie?!” Jane called. She knew her nephew’s scream.  She moved to go towards him, her hand still clutching Annabel’s, and ran face first into a wall.

“I can’t see anything,” John said, trying very hard to sound grown up and not at all like he was terrified or about to cry.  “Does anyone have a light?”

“I have matches,” said Annabel, the same wobble in her voice that she tried to hide.  There was a long moment of anticipation, then a familiar scratching noise and then…

The light was piercing in the pure darkness.  They could see each other’s scared faces, and the scrape on Jane’s cheek where it had met the wall, and a very small space around them and then, beyond that, they saw shadow.  Somehow, with a bit of light, the darkness had grown darker.  And it seemed to move.

“Lossst are we?” hissed a voice that was not Jane or Annabel or John.  They could feel that something was in the dark with them.

“Who’s there?” demanded Jane, trying valiantly to get the children behind her so she could shield them.  Only there was no knowing where the voice had come from, and the children seemed just as determined to shield her.  In the end they only huddled together.

“We are shadow,” answered a deep voice, and it seemed to reverberate in their very bones.  “We are cold.  We are hunger.  We are Void!”

They couldn’t see it, but they could feel the shadows crushing in.  And then two things happened.  The first was Annabel’s match burning out, plunging them again in utter darkness.

The second was a noise in the dark that none of them expected to hear.

It sounded like the bell to a bicycle.

41.

Wilkins shivered as he walked through the tunnel.  He knew the way, of course, even without his escort.  He felt the path had been etched upon his soul.  Now that he was decided, he intended to march with sure step and return to the cell and end it.

Instead, his steps faltered and he moved more and more slowly the closer he got.  His footsteps echoed around him as he avoided the water down the middle.

He could still hear the sound of the bone snapping.  He hadn’t even meant to do that.  It’s just, he’d been hitting Jack, and the ridiculous, lowly little guttersnipe had refused to react.  And then Banks had made a noise that might have been a snarl or might have been a sob, but to Wilkins it seemed like he was laughing at him.  And something hot and cold had swept through his whole body and he’d…he could still hear the bone snapping.  The scream that had followed should be what he remembered, but somehow that snapping noise reverberated louder in his memory than anything that followed.

And all the raw power he’d felt, all that delicious euphoria had drained away, and it wasn’t fair.  He was in control.  He was the one with all the power.  He had earned that power.  So why was he the one who had run away with his tail between his legs?

His lamp was electric.  It was safe from being blown out by the sudden gust of wind that swept through the tunnel.  On the other hand, Wilkins had kept it on pretty much nonstop since the night before.  It flickered.  Wilkins faltered.  And the light went out.  And then he felt something in the dark.

Someone screamed.

Chapter Text

42.

Georgie’s scream echoed throughout the tunnels.  Wilkins fell over and sat down in a puddle.  Jane stumbled into a wall trying to reach Georgie.  Annabel ran into her aunt.  John found the wall with his foot.  Two large hulking men who were mostly human but tainted by shadow growled when they heard the scream and walked faster.

The person that had stumbled over Georgie nearly fell over, which would have been unfortunate, but steadied himself by grabbing Georgie’s shoulder.  Georgie opened his mouth to scream again.

“Georgie?” said a voice in the dark.  “Is that you?”

And Georgie swallowed his scream.  Instead of answering, Georgie grabbed his arms around the person, or, as it turned out, people, and burst into tears.

43.

Sometimes, very small things can mean all the difference between triumph and tragedy.

Some would argue, and certainly in the upcoming days many did, that Jane could have (should have) taken the children straight home because ultimately they weren’t needed in the attempt save Michael or Jack, and had been put in needless danger and seen horrors that no child should.

They were wrong, of course.  If Jane had simply taken the children home, then everything would have gone absolutely wrong, and this story would have a much darker and far more tragic ending than it does.  And sometimes, it’s good for children to see monsters, if only to learn that monsters can be defeated.

Jane and Annabel and John stood in the thin glow of Annabel’s second match, surrounded by darkness and something darker than even that and, even worse, they had lost their Georgie.

“You…you stay away!” Jane said, her voice shrill.

And, almost as if in answer, the sound of a bell came again.  And with it came the light.

It was like a vision; it didn’t feel quite real.  Bicycles, hundreds of them it seemed (though there were really, at most, fifty) swarmed down the tunnel.  And each bicycler held a lit torch, and the firelight danced over the tunnel walls and turned the night into sudden and blinding day.

The dark shadow fled.  They never saw it, but all three of them felt it go.

If they had never gone down into the tunnels, if they had gone home, a nanny who had come for a child might have gone after the child and been forced to leave the missing adults for the leeries to find.

If Georgie hadn’t screamed in the dark, the leeries would have had to split their forces and take their time when they came to the point where Michael’s path ran out and the sewer branched.  While the scream echoed horribly and gave no exact location, it did come from a single tunnel.

And if going down that tunnel hadn’t had them meet Jane, John, and Annabel alone; had Georgie been with them in the sewer, then no one would have had to say ‘We lost Georgie.  He ran off down the tunnel and we missed a turning or something and he isn’t here.’

And if they hadn’t had to say that, then the army of leeries wouldn’t have known to split up to search out a hidden byway instead of keeping to the straight path.

Even as it was, they might well be too late.

44.

They found Wilkins near the cell where Jack had been kept, only a little ways further on from Jane, John, and Annabel.

Wilkins was sitting in a puddle, clutching his burnt out lantern as though his very life depended on it.  When the leeries came he didn’t even try to run.  He just shielded his eyes and sat in his puddle and waited for the worst to happen.

“Hey, there’s no one in here,” a voice called as they tried one of the doors set incongruously in the sewer wall.  They opened the second door.  There was no cry this time.  The person looking inside went very, very quiet.

“What is it?” his friends asked, though they sounded a bit like they were afraid to find out.  The first person stepped aside and others moved to look in.

There was a longer moment of silence.  Then whispers.

They came for Wilkins, after that.

“What did you do to Jack?” an angry voice demanded.  He was bodily lifted from his puddle and shoved hard against the wall, hard enough to bruise.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” whimpered Wilkins, his eyes closed, as though not seeing the angry mob in front of him might make them go away.  “It was all those…those two barbarians.  They kidnapped me and Banks and the lamplighter and they’re the ones who broke his arm and it wasn’t me!”

There was a long moment of silence.  In the silence, there was the sound of footsteps.  They sounded like heels against stone.

“William,” said a woman’s voice, full of disapproval and disappointment.  “What have you done.”

William Weatherall Wilkins opened eyes and the nanny was in front of him.  All this trouble was over her.  Mr. Void had wanted to hurt her.  And looking at her now, he knew he should hate her.  All he felt was a great swell something painful and hot and unfamiliar.  It was something he hadn’t properly felt since he was a very small child.  Guilt.  Not embarrassment or humiliation but proper shame in his very being.

“There’s a whole torture chamber set up in there!” one of the dirty men who had invaded the tunnel told her.  Mary Poppins didn’t turn to look at him though, just kept her disappointed gaze firmly on Wilkins.

“They made me do it,” Wilkins said, unable to remain silent in the face of that look, and unwilling to accept the blame.

“Who?” asked Mary Poppins, and Wilkins looked around and for the first time wondered where his associates had gotten to and why they weren’t also being thrown up against walls.

“Where’s Jack?” demanded one of the dirty thugs that was present and was currently trying to force Wilkins’ imprint into the wall.

“What do you mean?” Wilkins asked.  “I left him…I mean…they kept him in there.”

“No one’s there,” the man answered.  Wilkins could see that he wasn’t believed, and he rather thought they were going to hurt him and it wasn’t fair.  He didn’t know where Jack was, and he wasn’t the one who chose Jack in the first place, and Mr. Void had promised there wouldn’t be reprisals and this seemed like the worst sort of reprisal that could have happened and Mary Poppins was still looking at him and she had no right to make him feel like a misbehaving child.  If any of this was anyone’s fault surly it was her own for making such enemies.

“I don’t know!” Wilkins shouted, “I don’t know anything, and if you don’t unhand me, I’ll have you all in prison!”

“You will, will you…” started one, and then, abruptly, Mary Poppins had turned her gaze away, dismissing him entirely.

“Never mind about him,” she said.  “He doesn’t know anything.”

That was true, but somehow her saying it made him sound…unimportant, and Wilkins bristled, almost wanting to contradict her and prove her wrong.

He didn’t want her to blame him, but she had no right to dismiss him!

She was already walking away, and something inside him felt ready to burst, and he couldn’t let her just walk away.  He didn’t know where the words he shouted came from, just that he meant them more than anything he’d ever said before in his life.

“You never came for me!”

Mary Poppins paused, turned, and gave him a mildly curious look.

“It’s not my fault!  You think you are so…so perfect, but you don’t save everyone.  You just come for…for the Banks children and never mind the children in other houses.  And people like me grow up in cold houses into cold men and we do horrible things and…and I was a child once, you know.  I know I was innocent once, and…you never came for me!”

If he had hoped to shame her, he could see that he had failed.

“You never invited me,” she answered simply, and then she turned and she left and he was bound and shoved in a cell and, for a long while at least, forgotten.

45.

No one thought to ask Wilkins why they had found him sitting in a puddle.  No one thought to ask him about the figures that had brushed past him in the dark.  They really should have, but no one knew to ask.

56.

Before the arrival of the leeries, before Annabel lit her first match, even before Georgie made friends with a rat (though after John had led them all into the sewers), two men lay in a dark cell alone.

“Jack, is that you?” hissed one voice in the dark.

“Course it’s me,” answered the other.

This discussion raised no alarm in the two listening in.  It was likely they assumed the two were seeking reassurance from each other, and not, say, that Michael had been startled when he felt something tugging at the binds to his wrists. 

The binds in question had been quite thorough (wrists behind his back and then ropes binding his arms to  his torso and his ankles bound as well) but not particularly tight, as the binders were both in a hurry and wary of hurting their prisoner by an incautiously tightened cord.  So even someone who was not in the best condition and who only had one good arm with fingers numbed from cold could make short work of them.  Jack’s arms had been left unbound completely, for how could they without hurting him when one arm was broken?  To make up for it they’d done up his legs from ankle to hips, but with similar caution to Michael’s knots and so Michael, once freed, could move even quicker with his two good hands to free his friend.

The thugs made nothing of the slight noises these actions elicited.  Trembling in the dark, certainly that was all it was.

And when they heard whimpering, it pleased them to think that their prisoner was suffering and they didn’t stop to wonder what the two prisoners might be doing to cause the whimpering, considering up to now Jack had done a rather good job at containing it.

Of course, it’s rather hard to make no noise at all when someone is attempting to bind one’s broken arm by feel in utter darkness when all that is on hand to bind it is said someone’s scarf.

So the first moment the two guards realized that something had gone rather wrong was when they heard the cell door open.  They knew Wilkins hadn’t come back because Wilkins would have brought his light and they’d have sensed that.  That just left the prisoners themselves, who were supposed to be too beaten and weary and tied up to realize that their door had no locking mechanism.  Not that it needed it, not with two very able guards who had all the advantages of night sight and being rather large and not in any sort of weakened condition as at least one of the prisoners was.  At least, that’s what they thought right up to the moment that they confronted the escapees.

“Here, where do you think you’re going?” demanded the bald one, and they really thought that’d be that and the prisoners would realize they were still prisoners and meekly go back into their cell.

“Home, I think,” answered Michael.  He was half holding Jack up, but Jack still managed to give them a cocky grin and a short wave with his good hand.

“You just go back in your cell, or I cut you with my knife,” threatened the one with straggly hair.

“Go ahead,” answered Michael.

The two thugs looked at each other.  That wasn’t how the script was supposed to go.

“I will do it,” warned the scraggly hair one.  This was a mistake, of course, because up to then Michael hadn’t really believed Jack’s words of ‘they can’t hurt us’, but nothing says ‘I won’t do it’ so strongly as having to repeat that you will.

“Then do get on with it,” said Michael, with quite a bit more confidence that their unspoken plan might actually work.  And he started to move, albeit quite slowly, away from the cell door.

“You want us to cut you?” the bald one asked, baffled by this turn of events.

“Not especially,” said Michael.  “But then…you can’t really, can you?”

Again the two thugs shared a look.  This was missed by Michael, who couldn’t see a thing in the dark.

“Enough of this,” said the bald one, and he bodily took hold of Michael while his partner reached for Jack.

At which point Jack’s knee had surprisingly good aim considering its owner only had the feel of a hand and a voice in the dark to go by, and said knee met a very unfortunate location on his attacker’s body.  And it turned out that Michael’s arm that wasn’t helping to hold up Jack was concealing a short rod that had been meant as a potential item of torture and so kept in the room with them.  And a metal rod can make up for a lot of disadvantages.  In fact, it did rather worse than Michael had been aiming for.  Being hindered as he was in his aim, both by the dark and by Jack’s weight throwing him off, what he had hoped to be a stunning blow actually swept up higher than he’d originally gone for, went one further than stunning and actually knocked the bald thug out cold.

Michael didn’t see what Jack managed to do to the second.  He thought it involved his knee again and the fact that the first blow had cause the thug to hunch over with his head at a convenient height.  He did notice that Jack’s limp was worse after, and that their two assailants were now silent and no longer menacing them.  Michael and Jack didn’t stick around to find out how badly they were hurt.

Not as badly as might have been hoped.  Still, by the time the two thugs recovered, both prisoners were well out of sight.

“…Now what?” asked one, clutching a bleeding nose.

“…How much do we still care whether the witch turns up?” asked the other, spitting out a tooth.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…she’s already going to be angry when she finds out about all this…and she will in the end…so does it matter?  I mean, if we do a bit of maiming?  She’ll be too late to stop us.”

“Boss wouldn’t like it.  He wants the banker.”

“The banker scarpered.  Anyway…boss isn’t here, is he.”

And it probably had something to do with this conversation, that when they found their banker lost in the dark, they brushed past him silently instead of offering aid.

57.

It’s very slow going when one is lost in a sewer with absolutely no light and one is half carrying a barely coherent man.  Far too slow, really, when one’s enemies were only knocked out long enough to give one a head start, but not to escape completely.

If Michael had been alone or, indeed, if Jack had been alone, they might not have managed to get as far as they did.  The dark was petrifying in its completeness.  There was no getting used to the total loss of vision.  Jack kept his blindfold on for that very reason, but Michael had no such crutch.

Michael did, however, have a man who desperately needed help.  Jack didn’t complain, never complained, but Michael could feel the unnatural heat radiating from his shivering body, hear the faint whimpers the leerie couldn’t quite contain, could feel Jack grow heavier and heavier with each step as more and more of his weight fell to Michael.  The need to get Jack away from there, to safety, was much stronger than the cold panic at being lost in utter darkness that might otherwise have paralyzed his feet.

And Jack, who might have felt too weak to attempt an escape on his own, would push himself beyond all endurance, would crawl, broken arm and all, if it meant getting his friend free of their prison and back to his family. 

They didn’t speak, and they didn’t stop, and Michael kept one hand against a wall to help them make their way.  The direction he chose wasn’t quite random; first it had simply been ‘away’, and then there had been a noise, a squeaking, like a rat.  Michael had moved away from it, sensibly, because who would go towards a sewer rat?  Which is how they more or less managed to find an otherwise quite well hidden side passage without even realizing they’d gone down it.

Michael felt better when he could no longer hear the rat moving around behind them.  Jack didn’t seem to care where they went, was likely too out of it to have even noticed their inauspicious company.  He just put one foot in front of the other, and felt a bit like he was at once too heavy and that he was about to float away.

58.

“Mary Poppins?”

“Yes, Annabel?”

“How did you know where to find us?”

“A little bird told me.”

“Well…how did you know to come?”

“I was invited.”

“And you are going to find Georgie, right?  And Father and Jack?  And they will be alright, won’t they?”

There was a long moment when Mary Poppins didn’t seem to hear her question.  She was looking critically at the leeries.  She seemed to want them to move in a very specific formation, and didn’t at all seem sure they were up to her standards.  When she did finally speak, it was only to ask a question of her own.

“Do you know why light is always stronger than shadows?”

“What?  I don’t know.  Doesn’t the light make the shadows?  What does this have to do with finding the others?  Are they lost in the dark?”

“One can only hope.”

Sometimes, getting Mary Poppins’s to answer one’s questions left one more confused than before they were answered.

59.

“Georgie?  What are you doing here?  Are you alone?”

“I was following Eek,” the boy explained.  The dark seemed less scary when Father and Uncle Jack were there, even if Uncle Jack’s voice sounded a bit strange.

Oddly, this explanation did not satisfy Georgie’s father.

“Who Is Eek?” was the natural follow-up.

“The rat with no tail.  John said it couldn’t be Eek, but I think it is and he was leading me to you, and look, I found you!”

“Did Eek get away after all?” Jack’s voice was strange and hoarse and quieter than normal, but it was still filled with the same delight it generally held.

“You know a rat named…” Michael started to say, then stopped himself.  “Georgie, you say you were with John…and…Annabel?”

“And Aunt Jane, of course.  We found your drawing that you left for a trail.”

“Oh, clever,” said Jack’s voice.  Whether he thought them clever for following or Michael clever for leaving the trail in the first place was unclear.  Michael frowned, though of course this was lost in the darkness.

“…Aunt Jane brought you down into the sewers after me?”

“No, John found the trail and we followed after him.  And then we met Eek and I wasn’t frightened and Aunt Jane said the trail was gone and we had to go back up and fetch a policeman but I knew Eek wanted us to follow him, just like the pigeon, and I followed him, only he got lost in the dark and everyone else did too.”

“…Well,” said Michael.  “Let’s just get ourselves unlost, shall we?”

“Why don’t you allow us to show you the way,” said a voice from the darkness.  That definitely was not Jack or Michael or Georgie or even Eek.  It was much too menacing a voice for them.

Chapter Text

60.

“You know how I told you Jack was an odd one?”

“And I told you to stuff it?”

“Yeah, well…I take it back.  She’s an odd one.”

“…You know that warning I gave about Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“That goes triple for her.”

“…Right.  Well, do you know why she wants us to go all the way up to the street, travel on a bit, then back down into the sewers, just to come back to where we started?”

“She told us, didn’t she?”

“She said we were catching a shadow.  That makes no sense.”

“We’re leeries.  Catching shadows is what we do.”

61.

“Ah,” said Michael, trying to maneuver his son behind him without letting go of Jack, who was not quite a dead weight against him by that point.  That ‘ah’ meant a lot.  It meant ‘oh, you got over being knocked out then’.  It meant ‘I am so tired and ready for this to be over’.  It meant ‘I mustn’t panic, my son is here, and Jack is half dead and I mustn’t panic.’

“Who’s there?” Georgie asked, his voice sounding small and scared and so very young.

“No need to worry, little one,” said a voice from the dark, and if Michael had been hoping it was only one of the thugs, the second voice confirmed his worst fear that the two were together.  What’s worse, the voice had come from the opposite direction.  Michael went from trying to shove Georgie backwards, to tugging him towards him and swinging sideways, and almost fell over in the process when Jack couldn’t quite follow the move, only just being saved because there was now a wall at their back to lean against.

“Yeah,” said the first menacing voice, and he was coming closer, “We don’t want to hurt you.  We just want to slice the leerie open a bit, see if he bleeds light.”

“And then we might take a turn with Mr. Banks here,” said the second.  “See how many times we can hit him ‘til he falls over dead.”

“You can’t hurt us,” Michael said, though he could sense that something had changed.  These men weren’t just menacing; they meant what they said with every fiber of their being.  They hungered for the pain of others.

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” and the speaker was right there.  “You belong to the witch, and if we, say, do this…”

There was a sudden, piercing pain across Michael’s shoulder, and he couldn’t quite swallow his cry.

“…then she will know.  And she’ll come for you.  We didn’t want that.”

“And Boss wanted the banker,” the other voice muttered.  “Had to let him have all the fun, ‘til he fell into the shadows like us.”

“And now,” the first one went on, ignoring his friend, “Now, we don’t care if she knows.  You know why?  She’s miles away right now.  By the time she comes for you, she’ll be too late, and you’ll be dead.”

“And we’ll be scarpered,” the second added.

And, though Michael couldn’t see it, the knife moved towards them again, this time meaning to do rather more damage to ensure he couldn’t get away or interfere while he slowly bled to death and they played with Jack.

62.

When Mary Poppins suddenly stopped, mid-sentence, everyone knew something was wrong.  Mary Poppins never did anything so inelegant as lose her train of thought.  Then, when she spoke again, it had nothing to do with what she had been saying.

“We must go.  This way.  Now.”

Jane wasn’t sure what to think at that sudden announcement.  All she knew was that for a moment, Mary Poppins had looked terrified.  Jane hadn’t thought that was possible before that moment.  Then, of course, it had passed, and the look that followed…Jane was very glad that look was not directed towards her.  It was anger.  The kind of deeply controlled anger that spoke of severe consequences.

“All of us, Mary?” asked one of the leeries, and she blinked at him.

“No, of course not.  Jane and John and Annabel will be sufficient, with the ones already in the tunnel.  Keep to your formation and don’t let the lights go out.”

“You want us to bring John and Annabel?” Jane asked.  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“It’s their father, isn’t it?  Come along.  Quickly now.”

63.

There was a shadow.  It was darker than the other shadows.  It sat on the edge of where the light shone brightest.  Growing.  Watching.  Waiting.  Anticipating.

It awaited a feast of sorrow and agony and pain.  It awaited the end of a light.

64.

A knife moved in the dark.

And then several things happened at once.

First, both thugs were aware that Georgie was there.  Of course they were.  And their ‘promise’ not to hurt him had nothing to do with reluctance to hurt a child.  No, they’d quite happily murder the child in front of the father.  But children are weak and inconsequential, and the child wasn’t the one that had knocked them out and the child wasn’t the one who wouldn’t stop singing.  And they knew perfectly well that they didn’t have to touch him to scar him deeply.  Just make him listen to his father scream.  Just make him have to attend another funeral.  Or two.

So they knew he was there, but they didn’t expect him to do anything more significant than cry, or scream, or try to run away in the dark.  They certainly didn’t expect an angry screech of ‘You leave Father and Uncle Jack alone!”  Or for a tiny fist to be swung with all its might at the man from behind even as he bore down his knife.

Georgie was not strong, and his clumsy attempt at hitting a grown man should have been utterly inconsequential, laughable even in its inutility.  Only, Georgie, being a child, was quite short.  Which meant a punch thrown from his level hit the man in front of him quite low.  In fact, it caught him exactly in the back of the knee.

Second was Jack.  He might have felt half in a dream and barely there, but he was with it well enough to know his friends were in danger.  He had felt Michael’s cry of pain, as close as the two were, and he had enough life experience to know that wasn’t going to be the end.  So as the knife moved in, as Georgie struck, Jack mustered what final reserve he had inside him and he swung his arm.  He had higher aim than Georgie, and more muscle, and even though he felt as weak as a newborn kitten in that moment, he still put everything he had into that move.

The result was that Michael, back against a wall, unable to see a thing, flinched at his son’s voice, then almost fell at the unexpected movement of the man he was holding up, and then felt something large slide past him, heard a rather loud ‘crack’ as something hard slammed into the wall, and then felt the emptiness in front of him where a person had stood.

At which point Georgie began to cry again, still shouting at the mean man, and Jack went utterly limp and dragged both of them to the ground.

The third thing to happen, not quite at the same time as the others, was the coming of the light.

The fourth was how the second thug, the one not currently lying crumpled in a heap and having barely avoided stabbing himself with his own knife, reacted.

66.

Ellen sat in an empty house next to a phone that never rang, and she pinched her lips together, and thought of all the sort of things she was going to say when Michael Banks and his children finally came home.  Really, if they weren’t even coming home for supper, they could have given her one short phone call to let her know.  She knew how Michael could be, head always in the clouds, but she had thought Annabel, at least, might have thought of her.

65.

Jane didn’t know what she expected to see when they finally found Jack and Michael, but it probably wasn’t what they found.

The side passage was surprisingly well hidden; even with the light directly on it, it still managed to look like nothing more than a sort of shadowed indention until one was halfway through it.  The leeries had only found it in the first place because they were looking for it and a slight draft there affected their torches.  Mary Poppins found it because secrets don’t stay secrets from Mary Poppins for very long.

She led the way at a pace that almost could have been a run, was, in fact, a bit of a jog for the children with their shorter legs, but Mary Poppins managed to still make her quick strides look dignified.  Jane couldn’t help but wonder if they shouldn’t forget dignity and go faster, perhaps borrow a bike, or at least run in earnest.  At the same time, she rather wanted to go slower.  She remembered that intense look of fear, and Jane was rather afraid herself to find out what it meant.  So the whole time they walked, she imagined in her head every worst case scenario possible.  There are times when having a good imagination is not a benefit.

What they found was not good, but not as horrific as she had imagined.  In most ways, it was better.  No one was dead. (At least, she didn’t think anyone was dead).  In one very important way, it was worse.

They found the leeries first.  There were four of them, and they stood in a sort of circle, their light dancing over the scene they’d stumbled upon.

At the center of the light were five people.  Michael was sitting against the wall, a hand thrown over his eyes.  Two people were on the ground; one hulk of a man lying crumpled to Michael’s right and on his left was a smaller man who was half on Michael and half on the ground, and the arm Michael wasn’t using to shield his eyes was protectively clinging to the still form and who else could it be but Jack?

The fourth person was a large bald man with dried blood on his face.  Like Michael, he had one arm over his eyes, his face squinched up as though in pain.  The fifth person was the reason none of the leeries had come closer or tried to help Michael or Jack.  One arm for the thug to cover his eyes, but not his hand, because the hand held a wicked looking knife.  And the other arm to hold a small boy like a protective shield.

Georgie was blinking his eyes rapidly too as he dangled from the arm.  He looked surprised, rather than frightened, though his face was obviously red from crying.  Possibly he hadn’t yet figured out the precarious situation he was in.  He was looking at the leeries.

“Gah,” growled the horrible man holding Georgie hostage, “Douse the lights, would ya?”

In any other situation Jane’s attention would be on her brother, and she’d note there was blood on his shirt and fret, and her attention would have been on Jack, and she’d note the way one arm was tied up in Michael’s scarf, and how still he lay and been utterly terrified.

In this situation, it was hard to notice anything beyond the immediate danger of her youngest nephew.  Certainly, Annabel and John reacted by calling his name and trying to run to him, only to be brought up short by Mary Poppins’s umbrella swung in front of them.

“Frederick,” Mary said sternly, and the man’s whole body tensed and Georgie made a sort of sound like ‘eep’ as the hold on him tightened.  “Put down that boy.”

“No,” answered the man.  “You won’t get me that easy.  You…you put out those lights and let me on my way and then I’ll let him go, so there!”

“It’s too late for that,” Mary Poppins answered, as stern as ever.  “You know it is.”

“You can’t make me,” he answered.  “You can’t touch me; just like he can’t touch yours.  And if anyone tries anything I’ll…I’ll…”

“You will let my nephew go!” Jane said.  This was probably ill advised.  When someone has gone to all the trouble to sneak around behind someone while they’re half blinded by the light and distracted by Mary Poppins, one really shouldn’t advertise this by speaking.  On the other hand, it was very satisfying.  As was catching the monster who’d dared threaten her family squarely across the back his head with her torch.

Unfortunately, he had a rather hard head.  He dropped the knife, and the boy, but spun around to face her with murderous intent, faster than she could react, and she was closer to him than the leeries were to them and things were about to go very, very badly.

Which is the exact moment when a sewer rat limped forward, unseen by all, and sunk its teeth into the man’s ankle.  This was enough of a distraction for Jane to whap him again with the torch and step backwards while the leeries moved in.

That his other leg was being kicked by a small foot probably didn’t help or hinder the situation, but the boy found some satisfaction in doing it.

After that, it was mostly a matter of some five minutes and four very capable leeries with a large supply of rope, and the two guards were very thoroughly turned into two prisoners.

66.

To Michael, it felt almost as though he were waking up from a nightmare.  He had been lost in the dark, and horrible things had happened, but the light had come.

It was blinding and sudden and he had thrown his arm (the one not still clinging to Jack) across his eyes instinctively.  This, of course, was not the best idea, because that arm was attached to his shoulder, and his shoulder had a shallow but long gash across it, and the resulting pain at the move left him reeling.

In some ways he was fortunate.  He heard the bald thug growling his threats, but still blinded as he was (this time by the light), and distracted by pain and everything that had led to that moment, he didn’t quite comprehend what was happening or the horrible danger his son and sister were in.

By the time he recovered enough to begin to pull his arm away and allow the light to beat sharply at his closed lids, the worst of everything was already over.

He was still trying to work out if he dared actually open his eyes when there were hands touching him, and voices calling his name, and Jack’s name, and his children and Jane were surrounding him.

“Father” “Father” “Michael” “Jack” “Uncle Jack” “Father” all came out in a loud and excited jumble that was as reassuring to a father’s ears as it was startling.

He still flinched away at the hands.  And when someone tried to pull Jack from him he held him closer.  All the while, he tried to wrench his eyes open, desperate to see that his family was safe, but the light was still too much and he had to close them again.

“Michael,” said a woman’s voice in a no nonsense tone.  “You have done enough.  Let us see to Jack now.”

And somehow this time when his eyes opened, blurred by tears, he was just able to make out the miraculous form of Mary Poppins.

“Oh,” Michael said.  “Of course.”  And he forced his arm to relax.  It was harder than he anticipated.  He almost grabbed him back again when two leeries came to gently bear Jack away.

“Is he dead?” asked John, while Georgie took advantage of his father’s freed arm to wriggle his way in next to him.

“Are you crying?” was what Annabel wanted to know.  “Is it because of the blood?”

“No, Jack isn’t dead,” Michael answered, and he knew he wasn’t, because, as still and heavily as he’d lain in his arms, Michael had still felt him shivering, had been able to hear rasping breaths, had felt the unnatural heat of his body.  No, he couldn’t be dead.  “And I’m crying because I’m so happy to see all of you.”

His eyes were finally adjusting, and he could see his children’s faces.  They were dirty, and contorted by too many jumbled emotions; fear, joy, relief, excitement, worry.  Jane was there too, he saw, looking quite pale and a little fierce and a little lost as she looked at her brother and the children, then at where the leeries had laid Jack down on a bundle of their coats and whispered to each other with worried frowns and the occasional glares in the direction of the two thugs.

And Mary Poppins…was holding a torch up and frowning into the shadows.

“I suppose we had best go home,” said Michael.  This was to his sister, and when she turned away from Jack to look at him, he added, “Jack can have the guest room, of course, and you must have my bed.”

“Nonsense,” said Jane, giving him a grateful smile when she came to understand what he was offering.  “I’ll sleep on the floor if it comes to it.  And you are going to need stitches, I’m sure, and Jack…”

“Are you sure he isn’t dead?” asked John, “He looks dead.  Why is he sleeping?”

“Did the wolf try to eat him?” Georgie asked from in his father’s arm.  “Did the mean man hurt him?  I tried to stop him.”

“You did wonderfully, Georgie,” Michael answered.  Then, it suddenly occurred to him that the others might not have some relevant details, and it was urgent that they know.  “Wilkins is coming back.  He ran off after he broke Jack’s arm, but I know he meant to come back and…”

“Don’t worry about him,” Jane said quickly.  “They caught him ages ago.  He’s tied up in that horrible cell.  It was you that was hard to find, hiding away in this side tunnel.”

“Oh, good,” said Michael.  And then, with a bit of a laugh that wasn’t quite hysterical, “I suppose we should have just stayed put in that cell.  You could have saved us faster.”

His sister gave a bit of a laugh in return, but it was Mary Poppins who unexpectedly answered him, all the while waving her torch around at the shadows.

“Perhaps,” she said, before glancing back at the bald thug.  “What would you have done, had you all been in those rooms and our leeries came cycling down the tunnel?”

“We’d ‘ve grabbed the prisoners and scarpered,” came the prompt response.

“And if there’d been no time?”

“Slit them two’s throats and thrown ‘em to the leeries, then scarpered in the confusion.”

“Stab our way out,” added the other, only slightly coherent but with a disturbing smile on his face, as though he were imagining the blood.  Most of the rest of them looked sickened, and two of the leeries cracked their knuckles.

From down the tunnel, they all distinctly heard the sound of a bell.

“Never mind them now,” said Mary Poppins.  “It’s time to catch a shadow.”

Chapter Text

67.

The leeries came.  They came from all directions.  They came from every tunnel, towards each other.  And where they went, they brought a wall of light.  It filled the tunnel from floor to ceiling, perfectly dividing the darkness behind them from the darkness before them.  Of course, the shadows returned as they passed.  That is how dark and light works.

But there was one shadow…one shadow that hid on the edge of light.  And that shadow, darker than black, like an empty hole, could not abide the light.  It could not simply disappear and then reappear as the light past.

Too late, it discovered the net closing in on it.  There was no way past the leeries, their wall of light too impenetrable.  And they were coming together from all directions, tightening the net, leaving the shadow domain smaller and smaller.

The leeries lit the tunnels as bright as day, and the shadow had nowhere left to run.

68.

The thugs were trembling.

“Afraid of the light, are you?” the children jeered at them, waving their own lights in their direction.

“Douse them,” groaned the more coherent of the two, “Douse them.”

“Oh, it isn’t the light they’re afraid of,” Mary Poppins said, with a knowing smile.  “It’s what the light creates.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Annabel, and then, when she didn’t answer, she repeated the question to her father and aunt.  “What did she mean?”

“I suppose she means they’re afraid of the shadows,” Jane answered, slightly distracted.  And then the leeries came and the room filled with light.

Not completely, of course.  For when light comes, there are shadows.  And Mary Poppins smiled, and she walked up to a sewer wall and she admired her shadow, swinging her umbrella as she went.

Her shadow swung its umbrella as well.  At least, it swung something.  It was contorted, as shadows often are, so it didn’t exactly look like Mary Poppins.  In fact, the umbrella almost looked like a cane.  And somehow, Mary Poppins’s dress looked like trousers instead.  And her hat, which was small and fashionable, looked a bit like a top hat.

And then, somehow, the shadow wasn’t her shadow at all, it was a man.  The man was almost impossible to make out properly, but they could all see him, not flat against the wall like a shadow but standing out like a normal person, except he was still all in shadow.  It was like he was managing to stand in the exact same position where Mary Poppins’s shadow was cast, leaving him in darkness when all around him was light.

“Mr. Void,” said Mary Poppins, tilting her head as though to greet him.

“Miss Poppins,” answered the man in a deep, angry voice.

“Null,” squawked a voice from the vicinity of Mary Poppins’s umbrella.

“Sss,” hissed a voice from the vicinity of the man’s cane, the speaker not even deigning to state the other’s name.

“I take it this is all your doing?” Mary demanded primly.

“Of course not,” answered Mr. Void.  “We would never touch one of yours.”

“Yes,” she said, with an impatient tone, “Just as I would never touch one of yours.  But this is your doing.  You used your…friends…to come after mine.”

“We have no friends.  That is your weakness.”

“Yes, my friends are my weakness.  And I’ll gladly take that weakness over yours.”

“We have no weakness!”

“Your not-friends hate you so much that they prefer to sit in utter darkness, where they know you can never find them, rather than keep your company.  When we came into the tunnel, you knew of course.  Were you able to warn them as they sat in the dark?

“Sss,” hissed the shadow figure.

“And now you are going to face the consequences.  For what you did to Jack, to the Banks.  And as for William…”

“Hardly even needed me, that one,” said Mr. Void.  “But he came to me, all the same.  You should have seen the glorious bloodbath he was imagining.  Murdering children in front of their parent.  And what he wanted to do to the sister…glorious.  The hate was already there.  I just needed to take away his fear.  And now he’s mine, and your lamplighter is dead, or as good as…”

“Not, actually,” murmured an unexpected voice.  Then, “’lo Mary, always nice to see you.  Ow.”

“Stay down, Jack,” Mary Poppins answered without turning away from Mr. Void, somehow sounding fond and exasperated at the same time.

“…mkay.”  And the half-awake Jack stopped trying to sit up and lay still again, though his eyes remained opened, albeit blinking quite a lot.

“Annabel,” said Mary Poppins, still without taking her eyes off of the shadow man.  “Why is light always stronger than shadows?”

Startled to be suddenly picked out to answer a question, the young girl nonetheless found the answer waiting on the tip of her tongue, much more readily than the last time Mary Poppins had put that question to her: “Light can exist without shadows.  Shadows can’t exist without light.”

“Very true,” said Mary Poppins.

“You can’t hurt me,” Mr. Void said, sounding just the slightest bit nervous.  “We balance each other.  You can’t have you without me.”

“I have no intention of hurting you,” answered Mary Poppins.  And she reached deep into the pocket of her dress, deeper than a pocket should go, and she pulled out light.

It was as though she held a star in her hand, or a small sun.  The light was dazzling.  It was too bright to look at, too bright to see with.  It was the exact opposite of darkness and just as impossible for the human eye to use.  All eyes slammed shut, arms thrown over faces.  So no one saw exactly what happened to the Mr. Void and Null.  There was no scream, not even a whimper.  But when Mary Poppins slid the light back into her pocket, and everyone could blink the afterglow from their eyes, the shadow man was gone.

There were still shadows.  Wherever there is light, there will be shadows.  But they seemed to be just the ordinary sort.  Mary Poppins’s shadow had her dress and her umbrella and her hat once more.  It wasn’t a monster.  It was just dark.

69.

Ellen was just beginning to suspect that something might have gone horrible wrong.  Being a sensible adult, she denied this possibility, thought up twenty different reasons that were perfectly mundane for the Banks family’s absence, and decided to be angry rather than worried.  Angry at those…those children making her worry over nothing.  Even Michael; that man might as well be a boy for all the sense he had.  All day long they left her alone, without a call, without any sort of message, without anything to do but make meals for nobody and sit and wait.

The anger was just on the edge of turning into real worry, when the phone did ring.

“What do you mean you’re with the doctor?  At this hour?  Who’s ill?  Is it Georgie?  Does he need me to bring Gillie?  Or do you mean…are you in hospital?  Oh, tell me it wasn’t one of those horrible automobile accidents you hear about!  I told those children not to go walking all alone!  I told them!  Going on about Jack, thinking the end of the world had come!  I…well of course I’m listening, get on with telling me about it.”

This was followed by a silence on Ellen’s part while she was told about it, or at least, the most important parts that could be conveyed briefly over the phone.  Namely that Jack was injured after all (how was glossed over) and Michael too, though not badly (he said, there were shouts of disagreement in the background), and the children were fine.  And so was Jane, who she didn’t even know she needed to worry about, and Mary Poppins, who was somehow there again.

“Well, where do you need me to go?” Ellen demanded once she had come to understand, if nothing else, that there were broken bones and stitches and fevers involved.  She was sure they must be in hospital.  Only the answer that came was ‘nowhere’ because they were coming to her, and they hoped she might make sure the guest bedroom was ready because Jack would be staying there, for some time likely, and there might be quite a few more guests and perhaps she could do something about supper?

“Supper!” she cried.  “Two missed meals and now you want a feast for a hundred!”  The answer that it was more like fifty did not soothe her, but the promise that they really were mostly fine did, and the promise that she’d get the full story soon.

“But, are you sure you shouldn’t be in hospital?  I thought you said there was a broken arm?”

They were sure.  It seemed Mary Poppins knew a doctor who was quite good at stiches and broken bones, and they really, really wanted to go home.

Ellen emptied out the pantry.  Then she went to see about the bedroom.

70.

Deep in the dark beneath the streets of London, there is a small hole in a sewer wall.  If one were small enough to squeeze through, one would find a cozy sort of house.  There was a larder to store food, and an out of the way corner for a toilet, and several bedrooms containing a lovely sort of nest, made soft and warm, where quite a large family could nestle together in a comfortable jumble.

Into this house crept a rat.

Unlike most houses, this was not unwelcome, particularly because this was his home.  Another rat greeted him, and then another, and then half a dozen children, and then several more.  These were his wife and children and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and father, of course, because rats like large families.

“Your tail!” was the first topic of conversation once greetings were done with.

“Lost in good cause,” was the answer, “In defense of one of Mary Poppins’s lights.”

“A story! A story!” the children cried excitedly.  “Tell us about Mary Poppins again.  Did you really help her?  Did you see her?”

“Why didn’t you tell us she was visiting,” some of his older relations grumbled.

The story was shared, and marveled over, and the poor tail was inspected and soothed, and the rat’s bravery commended.  The wife was proud, but couldn’t help but show her horror at her husband’s near escape with a sound scolding.  It finished with, “And what do you mean your name is now ‘Eek’?  What kind of name is that, for a rat?”

71.

Mary Poppins stood in the sewers.

The Banks family and Jack had left, along with most of the leeries to escort them.

“You are coming with us, aren’t you?” the children had asked.

“You’re welcome to stay at our house,” Michael had added.

“I will be along in time for supper,” Mary Poppins had answered, but made no promises about after.  Nor did she say what she intended to do in the meantime.

“The shadowman is dead…isn’t he?” Annabel had wanted to know as her aunt led her and the children away.  “The light killed him…didn’t it?”

“I do not go around killing people,” Mary Poppins had answered with a sniff.  “The idea!”  And that was all she would say on the matter.  Then the children were gone, and Jack was carried out (and it was worrying how little he’d protested being carried) and a leerie named Bill had helped Michael along (he insisted he was absolutely fine, then had almost fallen over when he tried to stand up.  It turned out that shallow cut had bled quite a lot).  Jane had looked like she wanted to help both men, but sensibly turned her attention to the children and keeping them in line and their spirits up.

And now it was Mary Poppins, and about ten strong, angry men, facing the three villains who thought it a good idea to hurt her friends.  Wilkins had been dragged out of his cell to join the other two.  The thugs just glared a lot, but Wilkins looked almost ready to faint as he looked back and forth between the furious faces.  He avoided looking at Mary Poppins completely.  The leeries made him afraid but she made him feel small, and inadequate, and ashamed.  It was Wilkins who finally broke the silence.

“What are you going to do to us?”

“What exactly did Mr. Void promise you, William?” demanded Mary Poppins.  Somehow, that voice didn’t just demand answers; it insisted they had better be good answers.  Or else.

“He said I could hurt the Banks,” Wilkins answered towards her feet.  “He told me hurting some lamplighter named Jack would do that.  And…and he promised no reprisals.  From the police.”

There was a short silence.  Wilkins didn’t dare lift his head to see what any of them thought of that.  He wondered what they were going to do to him.  Would they beat him, break his arm, lock him in the dark?

“You have a choice, William,” announced Mary Poppins.  “You can go to the police, you can admit to all you’ve done, and you can face the consequences.”

Wilkins shuddered.

“Or…” said Mary Poppins, and Wilkins glanced up, clinging to that ‘or’.  “Or…you can go home.”

The lamplighters protested, but she silenced them with just a look.  Wilkins was so surprised that he finally looked her in the eyes again.  She seemed to actually mean it.

“What do you mean?” he demanded.  “I suppose then they’ll come around and give me my comeuppance?”  The man to Mary Poppins’s left grinned and cracked his knuckles.

“I mean nothing of the kind,” answered Mary Poppins.  “I say exactly what I mean.  You can go to the police and face what you have done…or you can hide and fall into the shadows.  The choice is yours.”

“What do you mean, fall into the shadows?” Wilkins demanded.

“You see your two…companions.  That is the choice they made, a long time ago.  It’s not an easy path, and escaping that path, once started, is nearly impossible.  Actions have consequences, William.  You are an adult, and you knew you were doing wrong, but you have a way out.  Accept the consequences, and your contract is voided…or don’t, and you remain Mr. Void’s.”

“Hey,” said the bald thug, speaking for the first time, “But he’s gone.  You killed him.”

“Me?” demanded Mary Poppins severely, “Killed?  Preposterous.”

“Then…where is he?”

“Lost…for the moment.  Your choice, William.”  And to Wilkins shock, his binds were actually cut, and his electric lantern was returned, and when he flipped the switch it shone brighter than ever.

He left the sewers and crawled back above under a streetlight and the whole way waited for hands to grab him from behind and pull him back, but they never came.  And as he dusted himself off, a light shone back upon him.

“Hey,” said a voice, “What’s this then?  What are you up to?”  And there actually was a police officer standing there.  In fact, it was the same one who had been told to ‘keep an eye on things’.  And Wilkins had a choice to make.

He was not a brave man.

“Kidnapping, er, hurting someone and…and…I suppose attempted murder.”

He was not at all a brave man.  There was no way he was going back into the shadows alone.

72.

“Not badly injured!” was Ellen’s way of greeting the master of the house home again.  Michael supposed they must all look a fright.  His cut had been cleaned, of course, and stitched and bandaged, but Jane had been quick to tell him he was still as white as a sheet.  It didn’t help that he’d declined the offer of a borrowed shirt, and his own was rather bloody and torn.

Jack looked even worse in proper light.  The dark smudges covering his bare skin definitely weren’t shadows, nor dirt, and aside from a broken arm (made worse from all the jostling, though the doctor had commended the use of the scarf), it turned out he also had cracked ribs, was dangerously dehydrated, and the doctor had been very concerned about the location of some of the bruising.  Not to mention the climbing fever.

After that whispered conference between Michael, Jane, and the doctor (they were trying to not let the children hear; the leeries were keeping them distracted), Jane had to ask, “Shouldn’t he be in hospital?”

“Actually,” the doctor had answered, “I think he’d recover much more easily at home.  And there’s less risk of further infection.  Now, what he needs most is rest and quiet. Take him home.  Send for me if his fever rises, or he complains of sudden pain.  Otherwise, I’ll stop by to check on him in the morning.”

So now they were home, and even the uninjured ones looked a fright after their walk through the sewers and all they had seen there.  There were only five leeries with them by that point, the majority having run off to tell their friends what had happened, but five, along with Michael and Jane and Jack and the children still made quite a crowd.

Ellen never did get the full story, though all three of the children tried to tell it to her at once.  She told them everyone had better eat that supper she’d gone to all the effort of putting together.  Again

“Yes, do sit down,” agreed a prim voice.  “Baths after, and then it is high time you were all in bed.”

No one saw Mary Poppins arrive, but somehow she was there, just as they were moving to sit at the table.

73.

Wilkins left the sewer and the leeries watched him go and they cracked their knuckles and they frowned and the muttered to themselves.

“And what about them?” one of them finally asked, jerking his thumb towards the two thugs.

“Do we get a choice too?” demanded the bald one with a smirk.

“It’s a slippery slope,” Mary Poppins warned, not to the thugs, but to the leeries.  “Be careful how you go about it, or you’ll fall into the dark after them.”

“That’s okay,” said one of the leeries, “My chum explained it to me. Natural consequences, right?  You hurt Jack, and hurt is what you get.  Now…try to kill Jack, well, that’s one big natural consequence coming up.”

“Hey,” said the thug, for the first time starting to get worried.  “You ain’t going to let ‘em hurt us, are you?”

“Let them?” asked Mary Poppins, sounding surprised.  “Who am I to stand in their way?”

“You’re Good,” mumbled the other, the concussed one who was still a bit out of it, but with it enough to recognize they were in trouble.  “Good don’t go ‘round hurting people.”

 “Good?  Whoever told you I’m ‘Good’?  I’m practically perfect in every way.”  Then she leaned closer, as though to impart a secret.  “This is where ‘practically’ comes in.”

Sometimes, there were choices to be made.  And sometimes, the choices had already been made, a long time ago.

74.

Jack lay in a soft bed, covered by warm covers, with a soft, warm hand lying over his and a soft giraffe tucked in on his other side.  The room was dark, but not pitch black.  A streetlight shone in through the window, the moon was particularly bright, and a cracked door let in light from the hallway.  With all this light, he could clearly see Jane, slumped in her chair and fast asleep, one hand covering his and the other dangling at her side.  She looked beautiful in the moonlight.

He was still a little thirsty, but not desperately so, certainly not enough to wake Jane.  He was sore, too, and his body couldn’t quite seem to decide whether it was hot or cold but kept changing its mind.  So he couldn’t call himself comfortable, but he might call himself content.

Mary Poppins came in, stepping carefully over the young leerie curled up with a blanket on the floor, and Jack smiled for her.  She frowned sternly in response.

“You should be asleep,” she announced sharply, though low enough that no one woke up.  Then she pulled a bottle from her nightgown’s pocket, poured out a spoonful, and, without even a ‘drink this’, thrust it into Jack’s mouth.  It tasted sweet and sharp at the same time and he blinked at her.  There followed a long moment of words they didn’t say to each other.  In the end, it was Mary Poppins who broke the silence.

“You should have called for me, Jack,” Mary said, and she sounded almost sad now, and Jack blinked again, suddenly finding it quite hard to keep his eyes open.

“Couldn’t,” he murmured, finally allowing them to close.  “They wanted you.”  Then, so mumbled it was almost incoherent, “Didn’t know Michael’d get hurt.”

“That was not on you,” Mary Poppins answered.  Jack cracked an eye open to look at her.

“Not on you either,” he said.  And then his eyes closed again, and this time he was asleep, properly and deeply and without nightmares or dreams.

75.

“Where were you?  Late by two whole months!”

“Actually, I was right on time.  As always.”

“And there was a strange foreigner who prowled around our house the whole time!”

“Good of him.  Did you leave the nightlights on?”

“They wouldn’t turn off!  Not even when we unplugged them!”

Later, when a child asked in kinder tones where she had been, she gave slightly more of an answer, though it still left the child confused.

“I stayed until the lamps were lit again.  Though if you ask me, he could have used another month of resting.”

And that was all the answer they ever got.  Mary Poppins never explains.

The End.