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."