Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(41)

At a cooking stand, a man in a filthy apron carved hunks of bloody flesh from a swinging carcass. He threaded strips onto metal skewers, barely letting the flames lick, before sliding them off into the gloved hands of waiting customers.

“No way,” I said. “I am not touching that. I’m going to see what else they have.”

I edged away, grateful for some space in which to process all this. A heavenly whiff of cinnamon drifted across my path. I followed it to a booth manned by a stout kerchiefed woman who slid a wooden paddle into a round clay oven, then dumped a load of lumpy pastries on the counter.

“Apple tarts here! Get them while they’re hot.”

In moments, I had one of the steaming pastries in hand. It was sticky with honey, and as I took a huge bite, the dough flaked on my lips. Bitter, scalding juice ran down my chin. I gasped and glanced around for the napkin dispenser.

That’s when it really hit me.

No napkins.

No napkins, ’cause there’s no paper. There’s parchment, scrubbed and scraped animal hide. But even that’s for scribes, priests, and the very rich. No newspapers. No Post-it notes. No magazines or notebooks.

Oh God. No toilet paper.

I had a sudden, horrifying realization of what it meant to be “on the rag.” Bits of pastry flew from my lips as a hysterical bark of laughter popped out. My gaze lit on a tiny girl who crouched nearby, staring at me through a tangle of filthy blond curls. Raw sores pocked her thin mouth. She shivered in tattered, stained clothes.

Her crusty eyes were fixed on the food in my hand.

“Here.” I forced down the bite in my mouth and held the rest out to her. “You can have it.”

She hesitated, her wild eyes roving all around before she snatched the pastry and bolted. Without a word, she crammed half of the steaming thing in her mouth. Shivers danced across my skin as I saw a gang of rough little boys skim through the crowd after her as she raced away. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

“Phoebe?” My voice sounded screechy.

I turned and scanned the crowd for my friends. People with dirty hair, pitted faces, and brown teeth blurred around me as I tracked back the way I thought I’d come. The jumbled market looked the same in all directions. I began to shove through the crush of reeking strangers, stumbling over my long skirts.

“Collum.” Terror rose in me, hot and fast. “Phoebe!”

I froze, immobile. My friends were gone.





Chapter 19


LOST. ALONE. AND WALLED IN BY A MASS OF PEOPLE WHO were long dead, I nearly lost it. What I wanted to do was shut down, curl into a tiny ball, and start rocking back and forth in the mud.

Get ahold of yourself, Walton. You’re okay. They probably went to the house. That’s it, just keep walking. You’ll be fine.

Gritting my teeth, I moved out to the street. A quick glance at the smoggy sky didn’t help. I thought my path had taken me east of the market, but I couldn’t be sure.

The houses in this area loomed larger than those near Westminster. The streets were wider, cleaner. Here and there, solid-looking three-story buildings had been constructed of new stone, instead of straw-infused mud and wood. A squeak of ropes came from overhead, and I looked up to see a servant hauling in laundry from lines strung across the road, between upper floors.

“Hello,” I shouted. “Please? Can you help—”

A crack ricocheted through the empty street as the shutter slammed.

“. . . me.” I whispered to the empty air.

Loneliness crashed over me, and suddenly all I wanted was to go home. Not some rented hovel in this godforsaken place. Not my aunt’s spook-house of a manor. Home home.

Really? The voice inside me sneered. And what would you do there, huh? Stay with Mother Bea? Bow down and just take all her abuse until your dad and Stella come home? Then what? Could you face it? Waking up every morning of every day for the rest of your life knowing you could’ve saved your mom if you hadn’t been such a coward?

I knew there was only one answer to that question.

Straightening, I inhaled, filling my lungs with smoke-tinged air. My eyes closed instinctively as every map of medieval London I’d ever seen began to reel out from the files in my mind. My fingertips twitched as I discarded one after the other until the one Collum had been studying appeared. I blinked, the map now layered across my vision like a translucent film.

Mabray House. I pivoted to the left. That way. Steadier, I marched off down the muddy street. Then I heard the scream.





“I assume,” Lucinda had said over cups of strong, sugared tea. “That you’ve heard of the Grandfather Paradox? The theory which posits that a man traveling through time cannot affect major events of the past, even if he tries to do so?”

She took a sip of the steaming liquid. “Ah. Good. Well, as you now know from Jonathan’s journals, there are limits to that theory. But allow me to reiterate anyway. If a man wished to go back in time to kill his own grandfather, it would not be possible. Nature would find a way to prevent such a deed, since if he killed his ancestor, the man would not exist to travel back in the first place. Do you see? Now, when it comes to the native people, we are very careful what we do . . . And even more cautious with what we do not do. By the tenets of the Grandfather Paradox, if you are foolish enough to interfere with the course of events, it means you were destined to do so. Do you take my meaning?”