I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the freezing wet.
One of the aisle doors in the west face of the cathedral was ajar. A member of the cathedral Watch stood just inside, and looked at Jack and me incredulously as we entered and shrugged off our wet coats.
“There’s an air raid on,” he said. “Are you sure you want to come in? There’s a shelter on Ludgate Hill.”
“We’d like to stay for just a while,” Jack said, “if you don’t mind.”
He shrugged, and we were in.
This was the first time I’d ever been in St Paul’s. The first time, that is, since I’d gone down into the dark heart of the labyrinth where Catling had imprisoned my parents while London burned in 1666, but that had been a different cathedral entirely.
After that occasion, when Catling had first revealed the horrific extent of her hex, I’d not been back. I’d had no desire to visit, and neither of my parents had ever suggested it. I had, of course, been completely terrified of the cathedral, and I wasn’t feeling much more confident now.
We walked very slowly down the south aisle, Jack taking my hand as soon as we’d passed the sentinel by the door.
I was getting used to this holding of hands, getting used to being with Jack as a matter of course, getting used to being comfortable with him.
What I was not comfortable with was being inside this beautiful, terrible cathedral.
I shrank closer to Jack as we walked, wanting the comfort of his height and warmth and strength. To our left lay the nave, but we didn’t enter it, keeping instead to the aisle.
Everything was dim. A few lights shone, mostly in the aisles, but they were spaced far apart, and there were pools of darkness between them. Every time we walked into one of those pools of darkness I’d shrink even closer against Jack and hold my breath until we’d regained the light. From the tenseness of Jack’s body, I guessed he wasn’t feeling much better.
We couldn’t see anyone else, although we could sense that there were some fifteen or more men of the cathedral Watch either in the crypt or patrolling the cathedral’s upper spaces. Occasionally we heard a soft step in the far distance, but it was always too distant to trouble us.
We continued to walk down the south aisle, pausing occasionally to look around, until we reached Sir Christopher Wren’s great dome.
Here we halted, just where the dome met the south transept, and stared upwards.
The top of the dome was hidden in darkness, but we could feel it.
“So much has happened here, in dream and vision,” Jack said softly. “Here, in Cornelia’s stone hall.”
I had heard some of this from either my mother or Ecub over the years, but I am certain they had never told me the full extent of my mother’s and Jack’s meetings in here.
I wondered what had gone on; if they had made love under this dome.
“I have shouted words of hate and love to Noah here,” said Jack, his voice now so quiet I had to strain to hear it. “I have seen your father make love to her here.”
That was new to me, and I lifted my face and studied his.
“Your mother, whether as Cornelia or Caela or Noah, also saw visions of the little girl she thought was her daughter in here, running towards her, calling her name…and all that little girl ever was was a lie we now call Catling.”
I shivered, and he squeezed my hand.
“And to think,” he said, “that this was my creation. Mine and Genvissa’s.”
“Well,” I said, thinking I had to say something, “it is very big.”
He started to chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and he laughed the harder, pulling me back into the south transept where there was but one weak lamp glowing amid all the vast darkness.
He dampened his laughter and took my face in his hands. “That’s one of the things I like most about you, Grace,” he said. “Your terrible, terrible sense of flattery.”
I grinned. “That’s my Granny Ariadne coming out.”
His thumbs were stroking along the side of my face, and I have to admit they felt good. I decided to take my courage in hand and, standing on my toes, kissed him softly on the mouth.
“Very sweet. I have to admit, I didn’t predict this particular development.”
We sprang apart, although Jack snatched at my hand to stop me from darting off into the vast dark spaces of the cathedral.
Catling laughed. She was somewhere in the darkness, but neither Jack nor I could quite make out the direction of her voice.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “Come to pray?”
“Come to walk the cathedral,” I said, “to measure your worth.”
Catling drew in a theatrical breath of shocked surprise. “Ooooh! Such brave words from such a faint-hearted girl! Come on then, what do you here, eh?”
Footsteps sounded from the dome, shuffling closer and closer to us, but they kept to the dark spaces, and still we couldn’t see the hateful creature.
“Come to measure your worth,” said Jack in a voice flat with hatred, “and to measure our courage.”
“And do you have such measure?” she said. “Of both worth and courage?”
“The visit has firmed in my mind,” he said, “the conviction that I would do anything to save Grace.”
Catling laughed again, and I wondered if there was a hint of relief in the sound.
“Good. That’s good, Jack. You’ll do anything to save Grace. And you know there’s only one way to do that, don’t you, Jack?”
Silence. “Don’t you, Jack?”
“Aye,” he said, his voice still flat. “Aye. I know that.”
“Good,” Catling said, “then your visit was worth it. Stay a while, why don’t you, and enjoy the ambience.”
And then she was gone. Although we could not see, we knew it instantly.
Catling had left us alone.
An age seemed to pass while we stood there, silent, staring into the dark.
“Was that why we were supposed to come, I wonder?” I said eventually.
No, Jack said into my mind, she knew nothing about it. Be careful what you say, Grace.
I bit my lip. If the shadow is connected to Catling, I said, then perhaps she has delivered the message she wanted.
“She could have done that at any time,” said Jack, his own voice irritated now. “Look, Grace, let’s stay a while longer. At least the place is full of benches.”
He led me into the space under the dome, then into the nave. “Here,” he said, pulling me towards the vast acreage of benches and pews in the nave. “We can sit here.” And wait.
What if nothing happens? I said, sitting down next to him on a pew some three or four back from the dome. “What if—”
“Then we can just sit, Grace. Okay?”
We sat in silence for some time, both of us looking forward. I began to hope that nothing would happen, because even though we sat in St Paul’s under Catling’s eye, and even though Jack was in a tired and cross mood, I was enjoying this stillness and silence with him, feeling his warmth and his slow breathing next to me. Just enjoying being with him. Normally I hated it when someone became cross and irritable, but Jack’s mood didn’t bother me this time, or spoil my enjoyment of being with him.
After a while, Jack sighed, slid an arm about my shoulders, and pulled me close. “Go to sleep, if you want, Grace,” he whispered. I will keep watch.
But I didn’t sleep. I didn’t want to. I much preferred staying awake, feeling his warmth and closeness, feeling his chest rise and fall under my cheek.
We waited.
Hours passed. I don’t know how many, but long enough for both of us to grow chilled and stiff. I had fallen into a limbo somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, and I think he had, too. Even the commencement of bombing for that night did not make us stir. We were far too used to it.
Time passed.
GraceJack! GraceJack! Are you awake?
We were both startled.
Look up, GraceJack. Look up.
We looked up.
It was as if the entire roof structure and dome of the cathedral had vanished. We could see the night sky—the churning clouds of the weather and the successive rolling waves of rain, although they did not touch us.
And we could see something else, something so faint we had to strain our eyes.
We saw faint luminescent lines tracing through the sky.
“Jack?”
Shush. Use your mind voice, Grace.
Damn it! Jack, what are those…I wouldn’t say it. I knew he could see them as well as I.
I don’t know.
Watch, came the unknown whisper, and the clouds parted as if by a divine hand, and we could see far, far into the night; so far, that we could distinguish the bombers circling overhead.