The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2021 Edition (The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, #13) by Rich Horton

Author:Rich Horton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2022-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

Fog and Pearls at the King’s Cross Junction

Aliya Whiteley

Ma was never the same after the war, even though my dad came back to us whole and, in the main, cheerful. Her rage sank into the walls of our little house, and I thought there was no escape from it until the day I got the letter on good cream paper from Mr Arnold Rodderick.

One time, in a rare moment of honesty between us, Ma told me she had taken against all those who made money at the expense of the troops, not just on the German side but on the English too. It seemed to me that she hated everybody, particularly me, but maybe she just couldn’t stop herself from being angry. Dad was a tonic after her worst outbursts. She’d say the world was ruined and I’d never be able to make anything good out of myself, and then he’d take me to one said and whisper: don’t you listen, Connie, you’ve got something special inside of you. We all do.

I’ve not seen Ma or Dad since I sneaked out and took the train to London, so many years ago, but my dad’s words have stuck with me and kept me good company. He wasn’t right, of course. Not all of us have something special inside. But a few, a very few, do.

● ● ●

I stood on the emptying platform and looked around at the blackened walls of the station. The ground was filthy, as were the small booths selling sweets and papers, and there was a warm summer wind sweeping right along the tracks and bringing a bad smell with it, probably from the building works left all around by the Blitz’s bombs.

The smell of the city, I thought, and felt unladylike and hot in my thinning fur coat with the worn lining. I should say Ma’s coat; I pinched it from the back of her wardrobe, hoping to look a little more like a lady. She had been saving it for best since before the war, and I knew that her best was behind her so it only seemed right to make it my own. But suddenly I saw myself as if from a distance, small and alone, and looking like a little girl dressed up for a party that wasn’t going to take place.

I took Mr Rodderick’s letter from the inside pocket and read it through once more, as if that would change the words written there, or uncover some secret meaning that I had not found on the hundred readings beforehand:

I shall meet you directly on the platform if you take the 5.32, which will arrive at 8.48 by the clock tower, and from there escort you to your new lodgings at the lighthouse. I have much need of an assistant and your recommendation came warmly from the good doctor.

He sounded like an older man: trustworthy, and correct and proper in his manners. Maybe he was late for a good reason. But I couldn’t hang

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