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beatrice-otter · 2 years ago

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Fic: Five Times Abigail Met People From the Demi-Monde, and One Time She Didn't

Title: Five Times Abigail Met People From the Demi-Monde, and One Time She Didn't Author: Beatrice_Otter Fandom: Rivers of London Characters: Abigail Kamara, Nicky, Brent Wordcount: 9,157 words Rating: General audiences Written For: opalmatrix in Worldbuilding 2023 AN: This story takes place in spring of 2014, a bit under a year after "What Abigail Did That Summer" and a few months before "The Furthest Station." Abigail is 14, Nicky and Brent are about 8. The Golden Chip of Hanwell does indeed exist, but the Fisher family are fictional. Birdylion was a great help with canon details Lavender_threads went above and beyond the call of duty as a beta and helped me brainstorm things that really brought it all together. Thank you both. At AO3. At Dreamwidth. On Pillowfort. Abigail stared at Peter. "So, what you're saying is, you want me to babysit your girlfriend's baby sisters." It wasn't an offer she got often. She wasn't exactly the girl the mums round the estate thought of when they were trying to find someone to watch their kids. At least, not the ones who only knew her by reputation. And the ones who knew her family, who knew how much help she was with Paul, they didn't want to bother her. Or hire her on a night her mum might need her, which was just about any night. "Not babysitting," Peter protested. "Bev'll be around, and available if anything happens." "Then what does she need me for?" Abigail asked.

Peter sighed. "It's hard socializing goddesses, okay. They can glamour almost anyone they want outside their family. And if they're ever going to have friends—instead of minions—they need to know how to get along with ordinary people without putting the whammy on them."

"And they can't put the whammy on me," Abigail said. After the House by the Heath, there was very little that could influence her unless she let them. That had been a bit of a trial by fire, and more than a bit scarier than she'd been anticipating when she started that investigation, but she'd come out of it with an absolute knowledge of who she was and how to maintain that even when something powerful was trying to bend her to its will. She hadn't spent much time among the genius loci, but she couldn't imagine even Mama or Father Thames being more powerful at illusions than that stupid house was.

"And they can't put the whammy on you," Peter confirmed.

"But Bev doesn't trust that, which is why she'll be around," Abigail said.

"She doesn't know you as well as I do," Peter said. "But also, the girls have had a lot of authority figures telling them when and how they can use their powers and when and how they shouldn't, and it hasn't made much of a difference. If you're the babysitter, you're just another grownup telling them what to do. Bev wants to try a different approach."

"I'm fourteen," Abigail pointed out.

"To an eight year old, that's ancient," Peter said. "You're almost twice their age. But still young enough to be the cool older kid, hopefully. Bev thinks if they like you, and look up to you, they may think it's more important to behave in a manner you approve of."

Peter knew well the impact of Abigail's Determined Face, though she tried to use it on him sparingly. She'd found that it helped, sometimes, to save that up for when she really needed it. It had more impact when the target had had less time to build up immunity. Still, Abigail had a finely tuned meter for adult nonsense, and something about how he talked was lighting it up bigtime. "And?"

"And what?" Peter asked.

"And if that's all, you would have asked me last summer when you got back from Rushpool and found out what happened on the Heath," Abigail pointed out. "Why now?"

Peter sighed. "It's Nicole," he said. "The one who grew up with the fae. She's a bit of a bad influence, 'cos she has the glamour too, and all her life she's been taught that it's right and good to use it on mortals. And there's a limit to how much they can separate her from Brent and Nicky, given their lives revolve around Mama Thames' home, even though Fleet's the one who's fostering Nicole and all three of the girls spend lots of time with other Rivers so they're not all under the same roof at the same time."

"And right now, Nicole is the cool older kid," Abigail said. "You want me to replace her."

"It's worth a shot," Peter said.

"What's in it for me?" Abigail asked. She didn't mind kids, but she wasn't all gooey over them, either. The kind of thing Peter was talking about would take a serious amount of time, and she had other things she wanted to do more. There was a whole world of things to figure out in London.

"Money?" Peter said.

"Sure," Abigail said, "and what else?" Money was always nice, and a year ago it would have been enough. But now she'd been doing odd jobs for Simon's mum for eight months, and she had quite a bit of change socked away. She hadn't spent much of it—no need to be flashy and obvious—but the security of it was reassuring. She doubted Peter and Bev would be willing to match Simon's mum's rates, anyway.

"What do you want?" Peter asked.

Abigail considered this. The big thing she wanted was magic, which he'd already promised to teach her. Her Latin was at least as good as his, now, and while Peter might want to put things off as long as possible, Nightingale would do the gentlemanly thing and insist on fulfilling the promise as soon as she proved she'd fulfilled the spirit of the bargain. "I want introductions to more of the demi-monde," she said.

"What kind of introductions?" Peter asked.

"I've read the County Practitioner records, and a lot of the books in the Folly Library," Abigail said. "But the sort of nonsense a bunch of posh white men thought a hundred and fifty years ago doesn't tell me much about where to go to find people now. Honestly, it doesn't even tell me much about what things were like then. I want to meet people. I want to see what they're really like." There was a whole world out there that touched the world she'd grown up in, but wasn't quite the same, and Abigail wanted to know what it was like.

"I get veto on where we take you, and who you meet," Peter said.

"As long as you don't use it as an excuse to not take me to the cool places," Abigail said. "I get to veto any visit to something boring or something I already know about."

"Fair enough," Peter said.

One.

They needed to be strategic about things. If Abigail showed up and was introduced formally as A New Friend for the girls to hang out with, they'd know something was up.

So, instead, she was at Bev's place doing her homework in the garden when the girls walked out of the Thames in their fancy wetsuits and swim caps.

"Who're you?" one of the girls asked, wrinkling her nose up.

"Abigail," Abigail said absently, trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong. Bev had given her a hint and said to call for help if she needed it. Abigail would much rather have the satisfaction of figuring it out herself than having the answer handed to her, but the carbon cycle was proving a bit tricky. "Peter's my cousin. Bev's helping me with my science homework." She looked up. "You're Bev's sisters, yeah? I've seen you around. She said you'd be around today."

"I'm Brent," said the second girl. She was shorter than the one who'd spoken first. Her nose was broader and her cheekbones not quite as high as Nicky's, and her skin was a deep tawny brown. "This is Nicky."

"Neckinger," said the other girl with a scowl. She was a bit taller, with a sharper nose and cool brown skin. Bev had said she was currently flip-flopping on whether she'd rather be Neckinger or Nicky. Apparently it was a Neckinger day.

The air was filled with the smell of animals, and the feeling of sun on your face, and the distant hum of machinery and church bells. Underneath it was a low grinding and the chill of ice. The church bells and machines were probably Neckinger, but the animals could be either, and the ice was probably Brent, as her river dated back to before the last ice age. This was the seducere, the glamour, that all genius loci gave off to a greater or lesser degree. They weren't seriously trying anything; it was just sort of feeling her out, a test, to see how vulnerable she was. Abigail was good at tests, and even better at this sort since last summer's adventure, but that had put her off this sort of thing.

"Hey," Abigail said. "Bev's around somewhere." She turned back to her worksheet.

By the time she'd finished it and set it aside for Bev to check, Brent and Neckinger were out of their wetsuits and in jeans and t-shirts, and Maksim had brought out bottles of squash—Robinson's, no own-brand in the Thames family. Personally, Abigail thought that having Bev's devoted worshipper (and manager of her Conservation Trust) waiting on the girls wasn't likely to be much help convincing them that they shouldn't be putting the fix in any time they could.

"I want to watch Pirates of the Caribbean tonight," Neckinger said.

Brent rolled her eyes. "Again?"

"So that's your favorite movie, then?" Abigail asked.

"She likes the scenes when they're hanging pirates," Brent said.

"They used to do that, where I flow into the Thames," Neckinger said. "'S where my name comes from." She cracked open her bottle of apple-and-blackcurrant and took a sip.

"Really?" Abigail asked. "How's that?" She'd looked up their rivers of course, so she already knew the answer, but she liked seeing how people answered questions.

"It comes from 'Devil's Neckcloth,'" Neckinger said. She mimed placing a noose around her neck and made a face like she was being hanged.

"I see," Abigail said. Neckinger was a bit bloodthirsty, but no worse than some other nine-year-olds Abigail knew.

"I'd rather watch the Hunger Games," Brent said. She eyed Abigail over her bottle. "Are you staying?"

"Maybe," Abigail said. "Depends, don't it. I'm waiting on a call." She wasn't, really, or not about anything important, but the whole point was to seem cool and exciting.

"From whom, your boyfriend?" Brent asked. Neckinger went oooh.

"Nah," Abigail said. "I look into things for people sometimes."

"What kind of things?" Neckinger asked, perking up.

"Confidential things," Abigail said. "Besides my investigative skills, they also pay me for my discretion."

"No, really, what kinds of things do you investigate?" Brent asked. "You can tell us something, can't you?"

Abigail pretended to consider. "You know the house near Hampstead that was a genius loci that trapped kids in it to play pretend? That was one of mine."

"I haven't heard about it," Neckinger said.

So Abigail told the story, with suitable embellishments, and the girls were properly amazed at it. Abigail liked it better this way, as an adventure with a plucky girl hero saving the day, rather than what it had actually been, which was confusing and terrifying. But the fact that it made her feel better to tell the story that was reason not to. Abigail would rather have the hard truth than the comforting story. But she needed the Thames girls to be impressed.

"Tell us another one!" Brent said.

Abigail had other stories, but none were adventures on anywhere near that scale. And many of them were private, or confidential. "Nah," she said. "That one doesn't have a client, so it's fine to tell. But like I said, I get paid for discretion."

"You can tell us something, though," Neckinger said. "What about the case you're working on now?"

Abigail looked to either side, as if checking the bushes for eavesdroppers. There weren't any, she knew; the foxes had some sort of business of their own that was keeping them busy tonight, which they hadn't shared. She leaned closer to the girls. They leaned towards her. "Can you keep a secret?" Abigail said quietly.

Both girls nodded vigorously.

"So can I." Abigail gave them a smirk and leaned back again.

Brent pouted.

"You can tell us," Neckinger said, with the weight of her river behind her.

Abigail's expression didn't change.

"Tell us," Brent said, adding her own pressure.

And that was interesting; either she was trying harder, or she was more powerful. Abigail wondered if it was because her river was longer and had more water, or because it was open instead of underground, or maybe it was that the river they called Brent today had been carving out a place for itself for the last half a million years, and the Neckinger had only existed for a bare thousand or so. And maybe it was only that two orisha acting together multiplied their powers, instead of adding them.

But no matter which explanation was true, even together their pressure didn't add up to the overwhelming power of that stupid house's memories.

Abigail waited until it was clear both girls had noticed she was unmoved. "You know, that house by Hampstead Heath wanted me to be a nice obedient puppet, too."

Brent looked stricken at the analogy, but Neckinger was less moved.

Abigail stared them both down. They'd been told often enough that there were boundaries, and that forcing someone to do something they didn't want to do was well past them; they knew—or should know—that they'd been in the wrong.

"Sorry," Brent said, looking down. Neckinger muttered something that passed for an apology.

"Apology accepted," Abigail said. She gathered up her homework. "I'm going to go find Bev." Both as a matter of strategy and as a matter of pride, she wasn't going to hang out with people who did that to her. If they wanted stories so badly they'd try and force it, they wouldn't get any, at least not on this visit.

She'd definitely earned her pay this time.

Two.

"What do you know about the Quiet People, who live in tunnels below London?" Abigail asked Indigo. They were sitting in the bushes in the park across the street from the Kentish Town West Underground station. Since making friends with the foxes, Abigail had started hanging out in parks a lot more.

"Not much," Indigo said. "We observe and report, but they're better at blending in in the city than we are."

"Yeah, but you both live underground," Abigail pointed out, scratching Indigo in her favorite spot. "Your dens and their tunnels never cross?"

"They're a lot further down than we are," Indigo said, "and we don't use the trains like they do. Why do you want to know?"

"Peter's taking me to meet some of them," Abigail said. "The kids who come up to the surface for school and to get used to the light. And maybe they'll let me visit their tunnels, if they like me."

"That would be interesting intelligence," Indigo said.

"I'm sure it would be," Abigail said, but if she paid the foxes for intelligence, she certainly wasn't going to give them any for free. Not when it wasn't what the foxes called an operational matter. It was the principle of the thing. Though obviously they wouldn't be trading for food. "Maybe if you have interesting things for me, I might trade. Things I find interesting," she clarified, because they sometimes had very different ideas of what was important.

"I'll have to check with my superiors," Indigo said.

"Fair enough," Abigail said.

Indigo left, and Abigail took the Tube to meet Peter.

…

Peter'd warned her the Quiet People were, well, quiet, but she hadn't really thought they'd be this quiet. The whispers were honestly getting to her.

"Is it true that you all have sex before fifteen?" Molly Ryan said so quietly Molly almost couldn't make out her words despite the fact that Molly was right next to her. She was about Abigail's age, dressed in jeans and an embroidered white blouse with a high collar that could have passed on any BBC costume drama without question.

"No, of course not," Abigail said quietly back. "Where did you hear that?" They were sitting in a circle, with Peter and the teacher talking quietly in the corner. Her introduction had turned quickly into an interrogation as the other kids peppered her with questions about what life was really like on the surface.

Molly flushed as the other kids snickered. "John Digger said—"

"I think we all know why he'd say that," one of the other girls muttered scornfully. She was wearing modern clothes, except they didn't look quite right, and from her posture Abigail thought she might be wearing a corset under her T-shirt.

"Well, obviously, but at least he's been out on the surface by himself," Molly said. "He has friends up here! All I've done is ride the Tube."

"Couldn't you look it up on the internet?" Abigail asked. "I know you've got computers here." Wi-fi might not work in their tunnels, but it definitely worked in their classroom on the surface, and there were three computers set up in the corners. They were even oriented so that the person using them had their back to the wall, and nobody could see what you were doing with a casual glance, which Abigail approved of.

"The internet's full of lies, though," Molly whispered. "I wasn't sure I'd find a reliable site. I'm not that good at telling the difference, yet, and I certainly wasn't going to ask for help." She glanced over at Peter and the teacher, and shuddered.

"You could go to a library," Abigail said. "That's more likely to have reliable sources. You'd need a card to check books out, but even without one you can read any book in the library as long as you do it in the library."

"What's a library?" one of the boys asked. Abigail thought his name was Riley; he was dressed like he'd just stepped out of the 19th Century, with brown wool trousers held up by suspenders, and a collared shirt with a neckerchief.

That took a bit of explaining, and most of the kids seemed really excited by the idea of a place they could get books for free. Abigail was a bit taken aback, but then she realized that not only did they not have the internet down in their tunnels, they wouldn't have TV or radio. Books would be a form of entertainment they could bring home with them. So Abigail told them about the different genres of fiction, so they'd know what sort of things they might like to try when they got their library cards, and looked up which libraries were closest to which tube stations.

"So what do you think about the surface?" Abigail asked, when all the questions about libraries and books had been answered. It was the question she'd wanted to ask since she learned about the Quiet People.

The kids had a wide variety of expressions. "It's alright, I suppose," muttered Riley, wrinkling up his nose. "But everything's so ugly. And plain. You don't decorate anything."

Everyone nodded, which surprised Abigail. After all, they lived in a dark hole in the ground with pigs. Even if it was neat and tidy, how nice could their tunnels be?

"There's so much cool stuff, though," said one of the girls who was wearing jeans and a hoodie. Abigail hadn't caught her name.

"If you can afford it," someone whispered.

"It's so expensive, and doesn't even look good," the girl with the excellent posture said. "What even are they doing with all the money? Have you seen those condos for rich people? Big glass and steel boxes! I know they can afford to make things look nice, so why don't they? What's the point of building anything if it doesn't satisfy the soul as well as the body?"

A murmur of agreement went around the circle.

"I'm glad we can come up more easily, now," Molly said. "I'd like to meet more people. I like that I have the chance to learn more, and maybe have a job outside the tunnels. But mostly, I just want them to run lines down so we can get electricity and TV and the internet."

There was another round of nods and agreement.

Now Abigail was even more curious about their tunnels. Even granted that people tended to like things that were familiar, she'd expected them to all think the surface was cooler. It had more space, more stuff, and the sun.

That visit didn't end with an invitation to their tunnels, but they did ask her to come back the next time they had school and she didn't. Although, she wasn't sure whether that was because they genuinely liked her and wanted to know more about the surface, or because they liked sitting around talking instead of doing schoolwork.

…

"Make any friends?" Peter asked as they drove back to Russel Square.

"Maybe," Abigail said. The Quiet Kids were alright, but none of them really stood out to her. "Apparently nobody's ever told them about libraries, before."

"Really?" Peter said in surprise. "I'd have thought that would be the first place they'd have a field trip to."

"Do they have field trips?" Abigail asked. "And also, Miss Ten-Tons is a Quiet Person herself. Even if she's got regular textbooks to teach from, how would she know about things like libraries?"

"And Lady Ty aside, Zach's their big contact, and I doubt he's much for libraries," Peter said. "If I talked to Miss Ten-Tons about organizing a field trip, would you be interested in going along?"

"Maybe," Abigail said. "Depends on how busy I am. Who's Zach?"

"He's a … honestly, I'm not sure how he'd classify himself, but I know that calling him a 'goblin' is an insult," Peter said. "Does a lot of odd jobs around the demi-monde, knows everybody, compulsively moves all the time."

"Can I meet him?"

"No," Peter said firmly.

"Why not?" Abigail asked.

"Because your mum and dad would kill me if they found out I introduced you to a petty criminal like Zach," Peter said.

"You didn't say he was a criminal, and he must be at least sort of reliable if he's the main contact for the Quiet People School," Abigail said. Someone who knew everybody was likely to be an interesting and useful person to know.

Peter grumbled a bit, but was unmoved.

At least for now. She'd have to work on him a bit.

Three.

The second time Abigail came over to hang out with the Thames girls went better. This time, she'd been running errands with Peter on a Saturday and he'd wanted to see his girlfriend, who happened to be supervising Brent (but not Nicky) as they did … some River thing both Abigail was unclear about. So they met up for lunch in Hanwell, and Peter and Bev gave her and Brent money for lunch and let them wander off while Peter and Bev chatted.

"But don't bother Mrs. Canal," Bev told Brent and Nicky sternly. "I mean it."

"It was all in fun!" Brent protested. "Mrs. Canal wasn't even that bothered!"

"Bothered enough to talk to mum about it," Bev said. "I'm not getting a chewing out like the one Effra got, and if there's one thing you can be sure of—" she fixed Brent with a gimlet eye "—it's that water flows downhill. Got it?"

Brent muttered an agreement, and Abigail and Brent wandered off. "Who's Mrs. Canal?"

"Orisha of the Grand Union and Regents' Canals," Brent said. "Descended to her river about the same time Mum did, and I don't know the story there, but they have an aggro. Fleet and Ty are even worse about the whole thing, which I think is just jealousy. Mrs. Canal may be a man-made feature and only two centuries old, but she's all above-ground and she's got a lovely flow rate and she's longer than both of them put together. The fact that she's not even human just makes it worse."

"By 'not human' do you mean, like, fae or something?" Abigail asked.

"She's an orangutan who escaped from the London Zoo in the 60s," Brent said. "Now she lives in a terrace in St. Mark's Crescent and has a devotee named Melvin Starkey who lives with her and takes care of stuff."

"I didn't know an animal could be an orisha," Abigail said, trying not to sound too startled, trying not to think too hard about why a human and an orangutan might want to live together. Then she realized Melvin was probably only devoted to Mrs. Canal in the way that Maksim was devoted to Bev. And also, if a house could be a genius loci, why not an orangutan? "What other kinds of things can be orisha, do you know?"

Brent shrugged.

"Do you have any followers?" Abigail asked.

"Yeah, but not like that," Brent said. "And mum says me and Nicky can't try for any until we're at least twenty-one. Unless we're being threatened and need to defend ourselves … and she gets to decide afterwards if it was a genuine danger." She sighed at the injustice of it.

"Where are we getting lunch?" Abigail asked. It had been half-past one o'clock when she and Peter had found Bev and Brent. It wasn't that she was hungry, but it was an excuse not to comment on the idea of worshippers. Just because she found the idea mildly creepy didn't mean the worshippers did. Maksim really enjoyed his current life.

"Chippy just down the street," Brent said.

The Golden Chip of Hanwell (with a blue awning proclaiming it had been selling traditional fish and chips since the 1890s) was your typical hole-in-the-wall chip shop, taking up a storefront just wide enough for a door and a window, with cream and black tile on the walls and gray tile on the floor, and just enough space inside the front door for a few people to stand at the counter.

When they walked in, Abigail wondered if they'd stepped through a time warp or something. It wasn't just the décor. The girl behind the counter was white, and at her cry of welcome two more white people poured out of the back. This might be the last white-operated chip shop in London.

"Lady Brent!" The girl behind the counter curtseyed. Literally curtseyed, like something in a costume drama. "You honor us with your presence!"

Brent inclined her head regally, as if this were no more than her due. "This is my friend Abigail Kamara," she said. "Abigail, this is Charlotte and Dean and Chloe Fisher." She turned to the woman who'd come out from the back. "How're things along this stretch of the river, Charlotte?"

Charlotte began filling Brent in on all the gossip in the neighborhood, most of which was desperately boring to someone who didn't know any of the people involved or live in the area, but Brent listened gravely. They talked about development plans, and how the river was doing, and the rash of petty street crime that had started up. Abigail listened and didn't let the mundanity of the gossip or the grumbling of her stomach distract her from filing away everything she heard. You never could tell when some bit of knowledge might come in handy, and this was a shop that worshipped orisha—who knew what other oddities might be lurking.

At last their conversation wrapped up with Brent telling them there was something wrong with the water mains down the street, and to call the council to have them send someone to take a look at it.

Then Brent blessed the chippy. The Fishers knelt, the pipes gurgled in the walls, and Abigail hung back awkwardly, trying not to fidget. She didn't want to be rude, Miss Margot had done a fair bit on respecting peoples' faiths, but also, they were worshipping an eight-year-old girl Abigail knew for a fact had an underdeveloped code of ethics.

To make things even more awkward, the bell at the door rang as a white woman in a hoodie wandered in, yammering away on her mobile. She paused, eyes going wide as everyone turned to look at her. "Is … is the shop open? I'm sorry to bother you?"

Brent smiled. "That's fine, we're done."

Abigail could feel the warmth of the coming summer breezes fill the chip shop, and underneath it the grinding ice of glaciers past, and gritted her teeth. But the customer smiled happily at Brent.

"Your usual, L—Brent?" Dean said.

"Yes, thank you," Brent said. "And the same for Abigail." Abigail found that a little presumptuous, but on the other hand, it was a chip shop. It wasn't like it had a wide menu.

Dean nodded, and disappeared to grab their food while Chloe took the customer's order.

Dean reappeared shortly with two orders of fish and chips, light and crispy and perfectly fried, with enough hot sauce to be worth eating. Brent began happily chowing down. "So how did you come to know the Fishers?" Abigail asked as they walked out the door and began to wander through the streets.

"The Fishers have lived and died by my river since time out of mind," Brent said. "They've always worshipped me—even after the last Brent died, they stayed faithful. They used to sell eel pie, instead of fish and chips, you know. When Mum came here and found me in the river, they were waiting by the banks."

"How did they know there was a new spirit?" Abigail asked. It made her feel a little better about the whole worship thing. If it had lasted over generations, it couldn't have been compelled. It could only have been freely chosen.

Brent shrugged. "I dunno. They never said."

"Are they human?" Abigail wondered. "Do they have some sort of extra sense? Or do they just know how to read the water and the neighborhood?"

Brent shrugged again. "I dunno. Am I human?"

Abigail considered the question. "You're definitely a person," she said, because that was the easy bit.

"Duh," Brent said, rolling her eyes.

"How many people worship you like that?" Abigail asked.

"Only the Fishers stayed faithful while there was no spirit in the river," Brent said, "but a few other people have started making offerings."

"Anything good?"

Brent made a face. "Not really. Some bottles of beer, which Mum made me give to her. I wasn't going to drink it, I don't even like beer, it tastes gross. But I wanted to keep them as a trophy."

"Do the Fishers help coordinate river cleanup things like Maksim does?" Abigail took a bite of her fish. It was really very good.

"Nah, the chippy keeps them busy, they don't have time. If someone else organized an event, they'd show, but …" Brent shrugged. "Bev lends me Maksim, sometimes, and the rest of my sisters help out too when I need it. But my river's doing pretty good even where it's canalized, so they spend more time helping Nicky with things."

…

The Golden Chip of Hanwell had an active Facebook page and was mentioned in several articles about what a nice neighborhood Hanwell was. The Fishers, also, had all the sort of social media presences one would expect. Chloe was in Year 10 at Elthorn Park High School, and her Instagram had a lot of pictures of her out running the tow path by the river Brent.

Abigail messaged her and, on a nice day they didn't have school, she met the older girl at the Brent River Park Walk for a run.

"So you're Brent's friend, then?" Chloe asked as they stretched.

"Sort of," Abigail said. "My cousin Peter is dating her sister Beverly Brook."

"Your cousin is dating a goddess?" Chloe sounded shocked.

"Well, it's not like he worships her, or anything," Abigail pointed out. "And he's a practitioner with the Folly, so she can't glamour him, and he's got a bit of power of his own to balance things out."

"Yeah, but there's a difference between having a bit of power, and being a goddess," Chloe said. "Even when you're talking small-g-goddess, not, like, ultimate power of the universe or anything."

Abigail shrugged. "They seem happy together."

"I suppose," Chloe said dubiously, and started off jogging. Abigail had to stretch her legs a little to match her. "Mum's uncle married a nymph who lived near Warren Farm, and that wasn't happy even before her grove got cut down and she died. But that was partly because nymphs change with the seasons—in fall and winter she was alright, and even sometimes in summer, but in spring—she had the mind of a child, and that made things hard."

Abigail could imagine. "Did her body change too, or just her mind? And when you say 'child,' what age are we talking about?"

Chloe shrugged. "She died before my time, so I don't know. His second wife was a regular human woman, and they had two kids together and moved to Wokingham."

"Where's that?" Abigail asked.

"It's some dire hamlet off the M4 near Reading," Chloe said.

"Ugh," Abigail said.

"There is nothing to do there," Chloe said. "But she says, it's a great place to raise kids, and he says there aren't any memories, so they're happy."

"Aren't there a lot of trees out there?" Abigail said. "I'd think there would be more chance of nymphs there than there would be in London."

"I don't know," Chloe said. "If there are any, I've never met them."

"Peter met a nymph, once," Abigail said. "Her name was Sky, and her grove was at Skygarden. Her grove got cut down, and she died. Just before the terrorist attack."

"That's so sad," Chloe said. "And it's not like they're rivers, where a new spirit can be born as long as the river survives. When the trees are gone, the nymph is just … gone."

"Yeah," Abigail said. "And they couldn't charge the people who cut Sky's trees down with murder, because how would you explain to a jury that nymphs are real? So Nicky—that's the River Neckinger—killed them. They drowned on dry land, in the middle of a London street."

They ran in silence for a bit. "When Aunt Elma was killed, there was no chance of a murder trial, either," Chloe said. "Except there was no spirit in the Brent River then, and Mrs. Canal didn't take any notice. No chance for justice either way."

What did you say to that? There wasn't anything. Abigail had a lot of questions, but she always had them, and now wasn't the time. Better to bide her time and build a relationship, then you got the possibility of more later.

"Where do you run, mostly?" Chloe asked, after a bit.

"Hampstead Heath," Abigail said. "Sometimes Regent's Park or Hyde Park, if I'm down at the Folly and want to stretch my legs."

"So, are you going to be a wizard, then?" Chloe asked.

"Peter's promised to start training me as soon as my Latin is good enough, which it pretty much is," Abigail said. "And they're using me as an unpaid intern at the Folly, organizing and searching through old records and things."

"They should pay you," Chloe said. "The Isaacs have lots of money, don't they? I get paid for working in the family chip shop."

"It didn't start out with a formal job offer," Abigail said. "I was just hanging around, and they put me to work. A lot of it's interesting, or funny, even the stuff that's wrong. And eventually they're going to pay me with lessons."

"Still," Chloe said.

"I like figuring things out," Abigail said. "Which the Folly's records sometimes make harder than it should be. Those old white men in the 19th Century were pretty clueless sometimes."

Chloe laughed. "That fits with the stories granny used to tell about the Isaacs," she said. "None of it was good. Are we in those files?"

"Not that I've seen," Abigail said, "although there's still a lot to go through, most of it not even indexed. They do talk a bit about people who worship genius loci, and it's mostly along the lines of you all being gullible fools mesmerized by tricks and glamour."

Chloe laughed again. "I'd like to see anyone try to put one over on my dad," she said. "That would be funny, it would."

"Does the glamour affect you, then?" Abigail asked.

"I doubt it," Chloe said. "Unless it was something really powerful. I mean—" she stopped and took a big gulp of air, squinting.

Abigail could feel her, just a bit. It wasn't like a river, but there was something there, something solid. Like a great big stone rooted in the ground under their feet. Smaller and less powerful than a river, but there all the same. She wondered where it had come from, how long it had run in the family. "I felt that," she said. "So, could you influence someone?"

"Nah," Chloe said.

"Bev's got a worshipper, his name's Maksim," Abigail said. "He used a Russian mobster. Someone sent a whole squad of them after Bev, and they spent the rest of the day cleaning her place. He stuck around after it wore off. Now he takes care of her place and does stuff for her river."

"Like Melvin, with Mrs. Canal," Chloe said. "But that's not the only reason to pay your respects. You live by a river, it's always good to have that river on your side. Better than having it against you."

"True," Abigail said. "But I wonder where your immunity came from. Did your family always have it, or did you develop it as defense against orisha and things?"

"Orisha?" Chloe asked.

"Spirits, local gods, genius loci, that sort of thing," Abigail said. "Like rivers."

"No idea," Chloe said. "We've always been here, and we've always been this way, far as I know. But it's not like there's anybody but my gran and maybe Brent who would know."

They fell silent again, and Abigail focused on her breathing. She wasn't used to long, endurance runs; did a lot more sprinting, up and over the Heath. But Chloe wasn't going that fast, and she was determined to keep up.

"It was nice to have company," Chloe said as they came to the end of their planned route. "And nice to have someone I could talk to about things. Do you know anybody else around our age who's special?" Chloe asked. "Other than the rivers, of course."

"There's the Quiet People," Abigail said. "They live in tunnels under the center of London, have done for over a century. They can move earth."

"Like on that Avatar cartoon?" Chloe asked.

"Dunno," Abigail said. "Never seen it. Anyway, they've got a whole big community there, and they've started up a school above-ground so they can choose to live outside of the tunnels if they want. There's a whole lot of kids and teens. They're a bit odd, like something out of a history show on the BBC, and they don't like bright lights, and they don't like loud noises. But if you're interested, I could introduce you. And if you're willing, they may be having a field trip to a library, soon, and could use some people to help keep things on track."

Four.

Bev was having a river cleanup day, and Abigail had been volunteered to help out. So had Brent, Neckinger, and all of Fleet's foster kids, including Nicole. Their job was to walk the banks of the river, pick up trash, and keep a lookout for various plant and animal species Bev wanted a count on. Abigail was entrusted both with the roll of extra bin bags and the clipboard to list things they spotted. Both went in her backpack until called for.

Once Bev had given them their marching orders, they fanned out, with Brent and Neckinger (who was Nicky, today) closest to the river and Abigail and Nicole further up the bank. On the other bank were Fleet and the rest of her kids.

"If I'm going to be picking up trash, I'd rather be doing it in my own watershed," Brent said.

Nicky shrugged as she grabbed half a Styrofoam container and stuffed it in her bin bag. "I'd rather pick it up now than after it's been in the river forever," she said.

"Maybe Bev will organize a day for everyone to go do this in Hanwell," Abigail said.

"And what about my river?" Nicky asked. "Nobody's going to come do a cleanup of my river."

"Talk to Fleet," Abigail said. "She knows how to handle things when you're underground."

"What you need is better clean water standards," Brent said. "Not a trash pickup."

Nicole, Abigail noted, was not actually picking up any trash. "You missed that one," Abigail said as Nicole walked past a plastic bag caught on a twig.

Nicole shot her a withering glance. "I'm not a servant," she said.

"None of us are," Abigail pointed out. She grasped a piece of paper with her pincer, and put it in her bag. "You think you're too good to get your hands dirty?"

"Obviously," Nicole said.

"Don't have to get your hands dirty, that's the whole point of the pincers," Abigail said.

"Still not a servant."

"And neither are we," Abigail said. "If you're not going to help, then go back to Bev and tell her so. Or Fleet."

Nicole heaved a loud sigh and rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious," Abigail said. "If you're not going to help, we don't need you here. You'll just get in the way of the people who aren't lazy and pretentious. Or are you too scared of her to stand up to her?"

"I'm not scared," Nicole said. "Not of you, uggz girl, nosy parker, wizard's toady. And not of a river, either." (Though she didn't insult any of the rivers, Abigail noticed.)

Abigail gave her the look her mum used on doctors or nurses or social workers or whoever when they weren't listening or talked down to her because they lived in a council flat.

Nicole held out for a bit, but then she made a face and muttered "fine," under her breath. She stomped over to the bag she'd walked past, yanked it off the twig, and stuck it in the bin bag. "Happy now?" she said snottily.

"Sure," Abigail said, though she was disappointed that Nicole had stuck with them instead of leaving when she was challenged.

"I didn't have to do anything like this back home," Nicole said. "We had servants at home to wait on us."

"What was it like?" Abigail asked. "Where you grew up."

"It was big, and wild, and free," Nicole said. "Nobody ever made me do anything, and we'd ride wherever the Queen wanted and play games with the trees." She sighed. "And I had all the pretty clothes and things I wanted, and servants to dance rushing to meet my every whim. It was lovely. Not like here." She whacked a tree with her pincer. "Where the trees are dead and I'm forced to work like a slave."

"Pretty sure the actual slaves in the world get treated a lot worse than you do," Abigail said. This was the girl Brent and Nicky were looking up to? She was so whiny. "All you're being asked to do is pitch in and help with the same work everyone else is doing."

"It's demeaning, the way the goddesses here work," Nicole said.

"So, like, how did people become servants where you're from?" Abigail was pretty sure she already knew. "Was that a job choice or was it an aptitude thing?" If Abigail found herself in a foreign land, no family, no friends, but there was another English person around, she'd want to meet them. And from what Peter had said, Molly was probably closest to the kind of fae Nicole had grown up with, while Thistle was very different. But Nicole had never come to the Folly to meet Molly.

"Of course not," Nicole said with a sniff. "Some fae are simply born inferior, and their place in the Queen's domain is to serve their betters. Fleet tells me that it's different among humans, that no human is naturally subservient." The look she gave Abigail said she plainly doubted that.

There were all sorts of things wrong with that statement, and Abigail could give her chapter and verse on why people liked to label others as inferior—Miss Redmayne was really thorough about power dynamics and who benefitted from them and how. But Abigail thought some other subject might be more useful. "So, what was your place in the Queen's domain? She was your mum, wasn't she? Were you a princess?"

"The Queen rules alone, and the Queen is immortal," Nicole said. "She has no need of an heir. I was a beloved favorite."

"Beloved favorite, but she traded you away for the other Nicole easily enough," Abigail said. She'd heard the whole story from Peter, when he'd got back. "Was she going to change the two of you back, eventually? Or was the plan always that you were going to live in the human world?"

Nicole didn't answer. Which was answer enough.

"Seems to me the Queen's way is pretty rotten, if it led her to raise a girl for twelve years and then trade her in for a new model," Abigail said.

Nicky broke the silence. "There's a Snake’s head fritillary," she said, pointing to a small purple and white flower.

Abigail got out the clipboard and noted it. "Thank you, Nicky," she said.

Five.

Bev hadn't showed up yet when the bee lady arrived at her house. Abigail didn't mind, because it was a nice day—the usual spring drizzle had let up—and Sugar had been keeping her company while Abigail sat in Bev's garden and enjoyed the rare sun.

The bee lady—Melissa Oswald, granddaughter of Hugh Oswald, rusticated practitioner—drove a mud-splattered car obviously chosen more for its reliability than its style, and Sugar ducked into the bushes when it pulled into Bev's driveway.

Melissa was short and thick, with short hair bleached and dyed a variety of fading colors, wearing tight jeans and a low-cut black shirt. She got out of her car and frowned at where Sugar had disappeared. "You know foxes can have worms and other parasites, right?" she said. "And some of them can be passed on to humans."

"They're pretty clean animals," Abigail said. "And I wash my hands after petting them." If she thought they might have parasites, she'd never have allowed them in the apartment where Paul might catch it.

"Still," Melissa said. She walked over to where Abigail was sitting on the ground and studied her. "You're not a river."

"Nah," Abigail said. "I'm Peter's cousin, Abigail Kamara."

"Bev said you're curious about all sorts of things, and that you were helping her with Brent and Nicky," Melissa said.

"Sometimes," Abigail said. "Bev's not here yet, and Maksim isn't either." Bev was supposed to introduce them, and help guide the conversation to the questions Abigail wanted to ask.

"Bev called me a couple of minutes ago, said she was running late," Melissa said. "And that you'd be here, and you'd probably have questions for me. About me." She sat down cross-legged beside Abigail on the grass and leaned back on her hands.

"I'd offer you something to drink," Abigail said, "but I don't have a key, and Maksim's not here." Though really, as much time as she was spending here these days, she ought to have one. Between Bev's school and her river patrols and the other stuff she had to do as a river goddess, her schedule was pretty erratic. Maksim was usually around, but even he disappeared sometimes.

"It's fine," Melissa said. "How's Peter?"

Abigail shrugged. "Same as always, except now he's buckling down to study for his detective exam, so he's even more boring than usual."

Melissa laughed. "Tell him hello for me, when you see him."

"I will."

Melissa lay back on the grass and closed her eyes, breathing deeply.

Abigail studied her. Bev had invited her here to meet Melissa because Melissa was special. Something to do with bees, though neither Bev nor Peter had been very clear on what exactly that meant. Abigail closed her eyes, breathed slowly and evenly, and waited to see what she felt.

It took a few seconds to notice. It was quiet, and subtle, but there was a drone like the sound of a busy motorway in the distance, low and constant, but with a subtle ebb and flow that felt organic. It wasn't quite like the way the rivers felt, and it wasn't anything like when Peter or Nightingale were casting a spell.

"What brings you to London?" Abigail asked. "Bev didn't say."

Melissa shrugged. "Just for a visit. Bev's a friend, and it's nice to be around someone who's a little like me. We're going out to a pub later, meet up with some others."

"Like you," Abigail said slowly. "So, are you a genius loci for bees?" Abigail asked.

Melissa snorted. "No. But I'm not exactly normal, am I?"

"What are you, then?" Abigail asked.

"Hell if I know," Melissa said. "I'm myself. That's enough."

"Yeah," Abigail said.

"But it is nice to have friends who understand what that's like. There are plenty of odd people in the countryside … but very few of them are odd in the way that I am."

"Not many who have magic, you mean," Abigail said. "Or are magic, or do magic."

"I thought it was all stories my granddad told, when I was your age," Melissa said. "When I was visiting him, I'd lie awake in my room and listen to the bees hum outside my window, and wish I were magic. It would be an adventure, I thought, and it would give me a reason for why I didn't have an easy time making friends. Then I realized I was magic, at least a little bit, and it wasn't romantic and it didn't lead me to any grand adventures or anything. It was just one more thing making me different to all my classmates."

"Why didn't you come to London, then?" Abigail asked. "You can find anything in London."

"Still have to know what you're looking for, don't you?" Melissa said. "It's not like my sort of people put adverts in the phone book, and it's not like my granddad would've known where to look. Also, as a general rule, I tend to prefer places where the bees are happy and thriving, so it's not like I was going to move here or spend enough time to find them on my own. I grew up in Birmingham, and that was too big for me. London would be worse. So now Bev and I trade visits."

Abigail couldn't imagine not wanting to live in London, but she supposed that if everybody lived here, there wouldn't be anyone to grow their food, and also, things in London would be even more crowded than they were.

Bev walked up out of the river, waterproof bag over her shoulder with all her school things. She sometimes commuted to Queen Mary University that way, depending on how much she had to carry with her, because it could be quicker depending on traffic and also it allowed her to combine her commute with a quick patrol. (She always complained that it would be much easier if she could swim down Regent's Canal to the Thames, but apparently Mrs. Canal would consider it trespassing and there would be trouble.)

"Sorry, had to deal with some knobs throwing garbage in Mum's river in Putney," she said, stripping off the oversized swim cap that covered her dreads as water streamed off her. "Let me just get changed."

"No hurry," Melissa said. "It's a beautiful evening, and you have a lovely garden."

Bev said thanks, and went inside.

There was, Abigail noticed, a bee sitting on Melissa's nose.

"So, if you're not the Spirit of the Bees," Abigail said, "how do you commune with them?"

"I just do," Melissa said. "I trust them, and they trust me, and we work together to see that the hives are safe and have everything they need to thrive. And the honeybees give me honey in return."

There had to be more to it than that, because the bee on her nose was a London bee, and how would it know Melissa to trust her? Could it feel her, in some way?

"Bees are smarter than you think, but they don't care about a lot of things humans care about, and the reverse is also true," Melissa said.

The same could definitely be said for foxes, which made Abigail wonder if the bees Melissa worked with were as different from other bees as the talking foxes were from regular foxes. "What do they care about?"

"The hive," Melissa said. "A single bee on its own is dead. No future. No place to live, no way to store what it collects, no way of creating the next generation. It's only when they come together and form a hive, and each bee plays its part, that there's any meaning to life."

"So, are you here in London trying to find a hive to be part of?" Abigail asked, trying to find the common thread of Melissa's conversation.

Melissa laughed. "I'm not a bee, I'm a human," she said.

"A community then," Abigail said. "Bees aren't the only creatures that do better in groups." Foxes could live alone, but talking foxes rarely chose to; the same was true of humans and all the others she'd met in the demi-monde.

"Yes," Melissa said. "Even here, nobody's exactly like me, but at least they know what it's like to be different in this way. And besides, I doubt any two humans in the world are exactly alike. People aren't like bees, that way."

And One Time She Didn’t.

Abigail had half expected Sugar to come out of the bushes once Bev and Melissa had left, but she hadn't, so Abigail had walked down to the bus stop at the end of Bev's street for the hour-and-twenty-minute trip home.

By the time she got off the Northern Line at Kentish Town station, twilight had set in and it was almost dark. She'd texted her parents, so they knew where she was and weren't worrying, but she was hurrying anyway because the temperature was dropping and she was getting cold.

As she turned into the estate past the playground, she saw a low, red form streak across the green to a nearby bush.

"Hey," Abigail said. "It's just me. Tell Sugar goodnight for me?"

But there was no answer. And as the fox darted to the next bush, she realized why: it wasn't a talking fox, it was too small. Just an ordinary London fox.

She hoped nobody had been around to see her mistake, and went home.

#fanfiction #fanfic #rivers of london #five things

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