3.
These were the moments when Michael missed Kate the most. The times when he felt just a bit inadequate and lacking. At least Georgie had stopped crying hysterically now. He clung to his father, still crying, but quietly.
"The wolf wants to eat Jack," was all that Michael could get out of him that wasn't sobs.
"It was only a dream," Michael had tried to answer. This sensible logic, however, had failed to dissipate the young boy's terror.
"No, it was real," he insisted, "The wolf wants to eat Jack!" And no sensible talk of nightmares could calm him. Nor did the rocking chair perform its usual soothing magic by putting the child back to sleep. Michael held him and whispered soft assurances in his ear and rubbed his back and he rocked and he rocked and he rocked for half the night.
By the time Georgie allowed himself to slip back into gentler dreams, Michael was so exhausted that he quickly followed, and it was there in the rocking chair that the two were found, still fast asleep, the next morning.
Different sorts of children, from a less burdened household, might have reacted to finding their father and younger brother in such a position either by laughing out loud or by cooing at the sweet scene. Annabel and John did neither. Annabel gently covered the two with a blanket while John looked on solemnly before the two crept downstairs, careful not to wake them.
"Georgie had another nightmare," Annabel observed quietly, once they were far enough away to be sure not to wake them.
There had been a time when the need to rock Georgie back to sleep had been a nightly occurrence. On the nights when Michael wasn't awakened to his screams, it turned out to be because his brother or sister had taken him into their bed without waking him. Those every nights had slowly become every other nights, and then once a week nights. At some point, months had gone by without anyone realizing (broken only by the nightmare the night of the broken bowl, but that turned out not to be a dream at all and so didn't count). The entire household had begun to hope that the nightmares were done with. It seemed they were not.
"How long until we must wake them?" John asked. Being sensible children, they of course knew that, as much as their father might need more sleep, he couldn't sleep in too late without trouble. He had a job to go to, after all.
"Half an hour longer," Annabel answered, after consulting the clock. "Any later and he will be too rushed and likely run out without his briefcase or coat or head."
"You can't run out without your head," John pointed out.
"That's just something people say," Annabel explained, though she wasn't really sure about that. "Anyway, nothing's impossible."
In the end, Michael got thirty-five minutes, because the children couldn't bear to disturb him any sooner. Georgie was transferred back to his bed without stirring, and the quiet morning rush commenced in the house below.
As it turned out, Michael managed to remember his head, and his coat and even his briefcase, though the last only because Annabel held it out for him as he ran out the door. He did forget his scarf, but among things one might forget, scarves rank very low in importance. Annabel and John still held a brief council concerning whether or not it should be returned to him.
"It isn't like before," John pointed out. "We don't have Marry Poppins anymore." There was a brief sigh shared between them, a sort of longing for something lost. But then, they were very used to missing lost ones, and this didn't hold them up for long. John finished making his point. "Father wouldn't like us to go across London all on our own."
"He lets us out on our own all the time," Annabel objected, even though she knew John was right.
"Across the park. Not across all of London. And it's no good giving him his scarf if we upset him over it."
"…I suppose we could ask Ellen to take us?" This was turned over in their heads, until they remembered Georgie asleep upstairs.
"It's no good," said Annabel in the end, a fact John had already known but he allowed his sister to come to her own conclusion. "We'd have to wake Georgie, and that wouldn't please father, or we'd have to leave him to wake up in an empty house, and that would just be cruel. It's simply imp…" But here she stopped herself. The word 'impossible' had become a bit of a non-word in the Banks household. Anytime one of them would call a task 'impossible!' the others would reply 'Is it?', and then they would find a way. If nothing was impossible, then there had to be a way that the scarf could be delivered without upsetting anyone.
They thought a while longer.
"What about Jack?" John suggested. He'd taken a moment to think through all the adults they knew who could take them to the bank. Father of course was out, and they'd already ruled out Ellen, and Aunt Jane could be anywhere but was most likely busy, and most other adults they had an acquaintance with were just that…acquaintances, and it would be very rude to intrude upon them with such an out of the way request. But Jack…Jack was almost like family. Also he had a bicycle and he always seemed to have a smile for them and, according to Annabel, he was going to be their uncle one day. None of the grownups had confirmed this statement, but then, grownups could be a bit slow about important things. So John thought his idea perfect, and didn't appreciate that Annabel immediately began to shake her head at him.
"It's too late for Jack," was her answer. "He'll have been down our street ages ago to put out the lamps, and who knows where he is by now?"
"Is that what you think?" asked John, perhaps sounding a little crosser than the moment warranted. But then, it had been a good idea, and it was not fair of his sister not to acknowledge that. Even if she might have a point. And, feeling in a contrary mood, John added, "And the lamps will still be lit, just you go and see, and we can wait for him to come by."
"That's ridiculous," answered Annabel, and, each determined to prove the other wrong, they both went to the window to see. And, to the surprise of both of them, it was John who was right. After a moment of shocked silence, John was quick to claim his victory.
"There, you see! We can wait for Jack and ask for a ride, and you know he will let us."
And he ran to tell Ellen at once that they were going out with Jack to bring father his scarf and then to put on his out of doors clothes just as quickly as he could, because it would do no good after all of that to miss Jack going by.
In the end, both children sat on their front steps and watched down the street, father's scarf held securely in Annabel's lap.
But Jack didn't come. It got to be midmorning, and still the lights flickered faintly from the lamps and still no leerie came wheeling up their street with a cheerful whistle or song to put them out.
"Where is Jack? Do you think something has happened to him?" They had both been thinking this for the last half hour, but it was Annabel who finally said it out loud.
"Well, maybe…look!" answered John, for even as he had begun to answer they saw at last the sight they'd been waiting for. There was a leerie on a bicycle, and the streetlamps were being extinguished one by one, at last. Only, as the leerie came closer, there was one problem.
"You're not Jack," said Annabel, once the young man was close enough.
"'Fraid not, miss," answered the leerie as he hopped up his ladder to put out their light.
"But where is Jack?" demanded John, which wasn't exactly manners but Annabel was too upset over their missing leerie by this point to correct him. At any rate, the leerie didn't seem to mind.
"That's what I would like to know," he said. "We've all had a dev…that is, a bit of a job covering for him." He sounded a bit worried, rather than annoyed, like many would be at having to do another man's job.
"You mean to say he didn't show up for work this morning?" asked Annabel, with some surprise. That wasn't like Jack at all. "Is he ill?"
"I don't know anything," answered the leerie. "And if you want to do Jack a favor, you won't go around mentioning how late the lights stayed lit this morning. And I must run or the lights will still be lit by evening time." And the leerie started off on his bicycle again.
"Oh!" said John as they watched him go. "We should have asked him for a ride!"
"John, we couldn't!" answered Annabel. As friendly and sympathetic as he had seemed, he wasn't their leerie. Besides, he was clearly very busy.
"Not for the scarf," John explained quickly. "To look for Jack!"
"They will already be looking for him," Annabel pointed out. After all, they were covering for him, and the leerie had looked a bit worried. They wouldn't let one of their own disappear without even looking for him.
"Well…they aren't us! What if he's…he's inside a bowl or…or at the bottom of a bath? Will they find him there?"
"Will we find him there?" Annabel asked. "Oh, come on. There's a more sensible way to go about it."
"Sensible?" John scoffed. To some extent, 'sensible' was just as bad as 'impossible'.
"Yes, sensible. There are times to be sensible, and this is one of them. So come on."
"To look for Jack?" But Annabel was headed back into the house. Reluctantly, if only to continue his own argument, John followed.
"To call Aunt Jane," Annabel explained. "She might know if Jack were sick. And if she doesn't know anything then…then she might like to know Jack is missing."
"Jack is missing?!" The voice of the person who cried this from the top of the stairs sounded distressed, and lost, and very young.
4.
When a grownup tends to suspect something horrible may have happened, it tends to come over them in stages. First is usually denial that anything is wrong at all. All those doubts and suspicions are just silly little worries with no basis in fact. The worry might already be bubbling away in their gut, but they deny it any action, telling themselves over and over again all the ways the worry is groundless. Then, when nothing comes along to disprove those fears, there is a sort of limbo while the person has no proof either way, but they are now actively seeking out such proof. If the grownup is particularly imaginative, then there will be a sort of war going on inside their head, while worst case scenarios battle with innocent explanations for what has happened. Is someone late because they have keeled over in an alley somewhere? Or are they late because they lost track of the time and even now are on their way? The final stage is knowing that something horrible has happened… or that all is fine.
Children tend to skip over the other stages and leap straight into imagining all the worst case scenarios. It is up to the adults around them to suggest gentler alternatives, and then experience teaches the children that sometimes it is the one and sometimes it is the other.
"Jack is fine," was Ellen's approach, when confronted with two very worried children and one positively hysterical child. And she felt this quite firmly, even if perhaps some doubts did niggle in the back of her mind. She wasn't even in the denial stage yet. She was in the 'calm down the children' stage which is quite different. It's what grownups do when they think they know better. That the children might be right had yet to cross her mind. When the children still didn't look convinced by her firm words, she added, "That boy knows how to take care of himself."
"The wolf has gotten him and he's going to eat him!" Georgie insisted.
"Nonsense!" answered Ellen.
"Do you mean that banker who wanted our house?" Annabel asked, taking her younger brother much more seriously. The question made Georgie stop crying and actually think.
"I still can't get Aunt Jane on the phone," John announced, trying to sound factual rather than scared, but his voice wobbled a bit in the end.
"It was the wolf in my dream," said Georgie. "But Father says dreams aren't real."
"That's right, you listen to your father, dear," said Ellen.
"So it must mean that nasty old banker," Georgie concluded. "He's stolen Jack."
"Well then," said John. "We need to go to the bank after all."
"Now, see here…" said Ellen.
"Excuse me," said Annabel in her politest tone, "But as you have told us at least a hundred times, you are not our nanny. Our nanny left us. And Jack is family. We are going to the bank, now."
"Well, I never!" Ellen cried, not appreciating the polite tone in the least. "Just wait until your father hears about all of this!"
"We are going to see Father now," John said. "So he'll hear about this quite soon. Get his scarf, Annabel. If the wolf is watching for us, we can pretend that's why we've come."
"You're family, too," Georgie said to the housekeeper, even as he dried his tears. "If it were you missing, we'd come for you too. We have to save Uncle Jack." And he gave her a quick hug to show they still cared, even if they were leaving her.
And before Ellen quite knew how it had happened, all three children had set off out the door.
5.
The day was full of sunlight. It was the sort of day that it was a delight be outdoors in (which made it a bit strange that the Admiral felt the need to shout down to any who passed a storm warning).
There are places in London, however, that the light does not reach. And true cruelty is to confine a man with the soul of a leerie, a lighter of lights, in the dark.
The confined man didn't act particularly down, though. Alone, in the dark, he sung to himself. Almost too softly to be heard even by the one doing the singing, a merry tune filled the dark.
'So when life is getting scary, be your own illuminary, who can shine…oh, hello." The last was not sung at all, but said in response to a sound in the dark. Most people, sitting in the darkness, and hearing squeaking and scratching upon the floor, would not respond with a genuine friendly greeting towards the unknown visitor. This man was not most people.
"Lovely to meet you," he said, in a tone that really meant it. "I'd offer you a bite but I haven't so much as a crumb about my person." And that had sounded truly regretful. His visitor paused for a long moment, then scuttled closer.
"I'm sorry I can't see you," said the man in the dark. "You see, I have this blindfold and these binds and I've lost my light and…well, but you don't want to hear about my troubles, do you? I'm afraid I can't offer much in the way of refreshments, but how about a song to pass the time?"
The squeaking visitor offered no objections.
"Off we go then! I think you'll find this one right up your alley!
Oh, there once was a rat, now imagine that,
As polite as could be, knew how to say please
And thank you too, and how do you do
And God bless you when he heard you sneeze
And you would think it would be a treat
To meet a rat who could wipe his feet
But all anyone said to him was 'eek'
The song went on for some time. Two men sat in an adjoining room, covering their ears. They, too, sat in darkness, but this was not a cruelty as they abhorred the light. It was a bit of a side effect from their long association with the entity known as Mr. Void.
"Are you sure we can't…you know…shut him up?" whined one to the other.
"Do you want the witch coming after us?" his companion demanded. "You know we can't touch him. That's what the banker is for."
"Well…he's not very good at it, is he? A bit squeamish, if you ask me. Going on about 'psy-cho-logical torture, and letting him stew for a day. He hardly did any roughing up at all, and after all the trouble we went to, to truss him up and blindfold him so he'd not know who had him, and all that without harming him, mind, and that's a real trick the way he fought back. And the fun part is watching 'em scream after, and cry, and, and this one is singing."
"He's just…putting on a show, really," said the other, though his tone was doubtful, as if he didn't truly believe that himself. Then, with more confidence, "He probably still thinks she's coming for him. He'll change his tune when night comes, and the banker comes back and he's still here. And I don't think that banker did so bad a job at roughing him up before, you know. For a beginner. He'll have all day to build up his nerve and imagine all the sorts of things he's going to do, just you see."
"Well, and I suppose he'll have to stop singing in the end," the other agreed. "No water will do that to anyone, in the end."
There was a moment of quiet. Even the song had finished. Cautiously, the two guards uncovered their ears. There were more skittering noises. If the two listeners were hoping the rat would do a bit of harming for them, they were sorely disappointed.
"Why thank you," they heard Jack's voice. "That's very decent of you. I was getting a mite parched."
The two men looked at each other.
"What are the rules about harming rats that come in contact with the prisoner?" one asked the other.
In lieu of answering, his companion drew out his knife.