All Clear

The hose snagged on something, jerking him back so hard he nearly stumbled. He hobbled back to see what it had caught on. A piece of stone coping. It must have fallen from the top of one of the buildings. He kicked it aside and began hauling the hose again toward Mullen and Dix, who had backed up even farther against the warehouse so that it seemed to loom over them.

It was looming over them. “That wall’s going!” Mike shouted, but even he couldn’t hear his voice over the roar of the flames and the wind. “Get out of there!”

He dropped the hose and waved his arms wildly, but they didn’t see him either. Their heads were down, and the top of the wall arched out above them like a breaking wave.

“Look out!” he shouted, and dived forward, half tackling, half shoving them into the middle of the street and out of the way.

The wall crashed down, spraying bricks and sparks. Mullen and Dix scrambled to their feet, slapping at their uniforms. The hose they’d been holding flailed and writhed like a huge snake, spraying icy water all over the three of them.

Mike made a lunge for it, but it was too strong for one person to hold. “You have to help me!” he shouted to Mullen and Dix, but they were just standing there next to the heap of bricks that had been the warehouse wall.

They shouted something at him. It sounded like “You saved our lives!”

Oh, no, Mike thought, wrestling with the writhing hose. Just like Hardy.

But it doesn’t matter he told himself. We won the war. Polly was there.

But that wasn’t what they were shouting after all—it was something about the bookstore.

“What?” he said, and turned around to see it, signboard and all, come crashing down on him.

“Yes, you may go to the ball, Cinderella,” her fairy godmother said, “but take care that you do not stay past midnight, or your coach will turn back into a pumpkin, and your gown once again into rags.”

—CINDERELLA

Blackfriars Tube Station—29 December 1940

EILEEN TRIED TO PUSH PAST ALF AND BINNIE, BUT THEY’D planted themselves immovably between her and the turnstile, and John Bartholomew was already going through it.

“We been lookin’ all over the station for you,” Binnie said.

They were both filthy, and Binnie was wearing the same too-small dress she’d worn the day Eileen went to borrow the map. “Ain’t you glad to see us?”

No, Eileen thought, looking desperately over to where John Bartholomew was elbowing his way toward the exit.

“What’re you doin’ ’ere?” Binnie asked.

“ ’Ow come you never sent my map back like you said?” Alf said.

I haven’t got time for this, Eileen thought frantically. He was nearly to the exit. “I can’t talk to you now,” she said, shoving the children aside and running after him.

An arm shot out to bar her way. “Where do you think you’re going, miss?” the station guard demanded.

“The man who just left—I must catch him.”

“Sorry, no one allowed out till the all clear.”

“But you let him out,” she said, straining against his arm.

“He’s one of St. Paul’s fire watch.”

“I know. I must catch him,” Eileen said, and made a dive to get past him.

The guard grabbed her around the waist. “No, you don’t, miss,” he said, and then more kindly, “It’s too dangerous out there.”

“Dangerous?” she said, nearly crying with rage. “Dangerous? You don’t understand. If I don’t get a message through to—”

“The fire watch is too busy for messages just now. So you be a good girl and go back down below, where it’s safe. Whatever you need to tell him can wait till morning.”

He turned her around and gave her a push back toward the turnstiles. And Alf and Binnie.

“We thought you’d be glad to see us,” Binnie said reproachfully. “Tim told us ’e seen a lady named Eileen, and I says, ‘Eileen what?’ and Tim says ’e don’t know, and I says, ‘Well, go ask ’er then—’ ”

Eileen grabbed Binnie by the shoulders. “Listen. I must get past the guard. Can you help me?”

“Course,” Alf said scornfully.

“Wait ’ere,” Binnie ordered her, and the two of them shot over to where the guard was standing.

Eileen couldn’t see what they were doing, but moments later the guard shouted, “Hey, you two! Come back here!” and took off after them.

Eileen didn’t wait to see where they went. She shot through the gate and up the steps.

And into a nightmare. There was smoke everywhere, and just up the hill a building spurted red-orange flames from its roof. Half a dozen firemen had their hoses trained on it, and more moved purposefully around the fire pumper and the ambulance standing in the middle of the street, hooking up hydrants, loading a stretcher into the back of the ambulance.

But there was no sign of Mr. Bartholomew. Those few minutes she’d been delayed had given him too much of a head start. At least she knew where he was going.

But there was no sign of the cathedral either, only smoke and more smoke, great billowing gray and pink and rose-colored clouds of it.