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“Uncle Jove?”
He looked down at his nephew. He looked a lot better today, his eyes weren’t red like he had been crying all night nor was the deep blue which had enveloped him for the past few months so dark.
“Can we go to the park today?” he asked. “I want to go outside.” His brow was furrowed deeply as if he was worried that Jupiter might say no to such a simple request.
Jupiter looked over at Kedgeree, and when the old man nodded to confirm he had nothing pressing in the next few hours, he smiled at him, grabbing his hat and coat. “Of course we can, Jackie.” He leaned over to adjust his eyepatch and ruffled his hair for good measure.
Jack glared up at him, but he could see that he wasn’t really angry with him.
He kept an eye on his nephew as he played with the other children in the park. This one wasn’t the place he usually went, this one was further than the Hotel than most parks and playgrounds, this one was quite close to Gresham, although not quite Gresham proper, but he wanted Jack to see other parts of the city, he supposed.
When it started raining, and Jack ran over so they could go home together, he was grinning, his melancholy all but disappeared for the time being, “Can we come back soon?”
“I’ll bring you back tomorrow if the weather’s not terrible,” he eyed the darkening sky suspiciously as children squealed and ducked for cover or were rounded up by their respective adults. “Come on, Jackie. Time to go home.” He took him by the shoulder and guided him to the street, where he hailed a cab to take them back to the Deucalion.
They spent a lot of the summer at the park near Gresham, not every day, but something close to every other day at least, and although he never came over to talk to them, Jupiter started recognising some of the other regulars, both adults and children.
There were usually the same band of kids in hand-me-down clothes, about three or four, and they were always with the same group of adults, two older women, which made him suspect that they all lived together or had some kind of standing arrangement.
The oldest of the children was about a year older than Jack, the youngest somewhere around a year or two younger, maybe five or six?
As summer was winding down though, and Jack was preparing for boarding school, he brought one of his friends over with him, a little girl with long black hair and black eyes, who, when he looked further, was a little more than he would have ever expected. His breath caught slightly but he coughed to cover it up.
“Uncle Jupiter,” Jack said. “This is Morrigan Crow, from Gresham. Morrigan,” he turned to her, “This is Captain North from the League of Explorers.”
“You can call me Jupiter,” he shook her hand gently, leaning down a little, trying to keep his expression regular even as he saw the inexplicable gathering of bright golden-white sparks to her.
He could see all the previous owners of her clothes, the shirt on its fifth owner, the trousers on their third, each of them in fine quality, but grown out of by their owners, and given to the next smallest child.
“It’s a shame you can’t come to the park at Gresham,” she was saying to Jack a second later. “It’s so cool there.”
“Why can’t I?” he was looking at Jupiter for a second. Jupiter glanced at him, before looking back at Morrigan, trying to convince himself that this wasn’t what he was seeing, that he was imagining it.
“Well, you’re young enough,” she put a finger to her lips. “But you’re not from Gresham. So you can’t come in.”
“Who’s enforcing that?” he scowled.
“The park?” she wasn’t lying or obfuscating. “Duh.”
“Well-” Jack opened his mouth, but one of the adults with Morrigan’s group came over.
“Morrigan,” said the woman, looking a little worried and harried. Her hair had fallen out of her bun and there was dirt on her knees as if she had been looking for something on the ground. “There you are. Come on, we’ll be late for dinner.” She turned to Jupiter. “I’m very sorry, but we must go.”
“Of course,” he held out his hand, not missing how her eye caught his W pin. “Jupiter North.”
“Noreen Muir,” she shook it, and hustled Morrigan off to join the other children.
“Is she your friend, Jack?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged as they made their way out to the street. They had brought their brollies and it was a nice enough day to take the brolly rail, and Jack was just big enough now to start using it. “She’s nice.”
“I’m sure. Where’s that group from?”
“Oh they’re ah- the… whatsitcalled, the care home in Gresham. For children. Her mum died when she was small.” Children really did talk about the oddest things on the playground. Jupiter didn’t even want to try and work out how that had come up in conversation.
“Right,” he said, mentally recording his name. “That’s nice, Jack.”
“Is there really a playground in Gresham that won’t let anyone else in?”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Jupiter said. “But this is Nevermoor. It would hardly be the strangest thing going, would it? Compared to a Tricksy Lane… I would say it's possible, definitely.”
“Oh,” Jack said, tucking his hands into his pockets before pulling them out. “Can she come over to the Hotel sometime? I want to show it to her, and a couple of others.”
“If their guardians agree to it, I don’t see why not,” Jupiter said, hearing the whoosh of the brolly rail. “Ready?”
Jack hooked on easily, and soon they were zooming through the streets of Nevermoor, back towards the Hotel, where Jupiter made a resolution to revisit his declaration never to become a patron, and to look into Morrigan Crow.