Rook(136)

And when Madame returned to the flat, Sophia thought, that would be just about the right time to take René back to Bellamy House. It was practically a village now, like it had been when she was a girl, only with both Parisian and Commonwealth to be heard on the lane. No ports in sight. And she would be arranging Tom and Jennifer’s Banns in the autumn. The glass factory was doing well enough to pay the marriage fee, which the Bonnards would immediately give back so Tom could prove for his inheritance. The thought made her smile as she tucked the flowers into her hair. She was thinking of taking René to Finland after that, where he could be himself for a while.

“Did you hear what Napoléon was saying to me?” René was saying, buttoning his jacket. “That the premier plans to build a lattice tower, all of metal, right in the center of the Lower City? It will be taller than the cliffs.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Whatever for?”

“I do not know. But Sanchia should watch Napoléon closely, I think …”

Sophia frowned as she finished arranging her hair. It was from Napoléon’s residence that they had stolen the last three tubes of Bellamy fire, part of what Cartier had put in place for panicking the mob and never lit, there being quite enough panic as it was. The tubes had been left behind in the melee, and Sophia had often wondered how they had fallen into the commandant’s hands. Mr. Halflife was no longer a member of Parliament, but she’d not forgotten his talk of war. The barrels in the sanctuary had been rolled into the sea, Tom’s recipes and her father’s research locked in the secret compartment of her desk in Bellamy House. But it would not be long, Sophia thought, before he, or Sanchia, or someone, discovered what her father had. The tubes they had stolen from Napoléon’s safe had been opened, their contents examined.

There was a light knock and Benoit stuck his head in the door. “Is your lovers’ tiff over? Because the singers are almost done.” He checked the small clock strapped to his wrist. Everyone in the city was allowed to have clocks now, but the sight never failed to give Sophia a start. And they still worked terribly.

René said, “Tell émile we have it, and that he can leave tonight for Canterbury.”

“Very good.” But instead of going, Benoit came inside, took out a handkerchief, and wiped a smudge of dirt from Sophia’s cheek. “You might have taken care of that,” he chided René, winking once before he left.

René turned to her. “Do you need taking care of, my love?”

Sophia looked up in alarm. “Oh, no,” she said. “The singers are nearly done …” But he already had his arms around her, and she was already done protesting.

“Let’s go back to the party,” René whispered into her neck, “and behave so badly that everyone will go home early.”

“René,” she said. He pulled back just far enough to see her, but she didn’t speak right away. He was beautiful, even in the gaudy jacket, which also brought out the fire of his eyes. Nothing was certain, she knew that, and the world ever circled. But she couldn’t help but wonder what she would risk to keep her future exactly the same as her present.

She tilted up her chin, and knew the answer even before he kissed her. It was everything.





Polar shift really is an interesting way to end the world. The idea of what could happen if the magnetic poles of the earth reversed, as they have at least twice in geological history, is a chilling thought. Not only because of the wholesale death that would follow, but because it’s a completely natural process. Humans can do nothing to cause it, nothing to stop it. But since writing about uninhabited wastelands is not particularly appealing, I decided to play with the idea of wandering magnetic poles, a slight shift rather than a complete reversal. Instead of destroying our magnetosphere, this would turn it into something like Swiss cheese, exposing large swaths of humanity to deadly solar radiation while sparing others, and at the same time wiping clean the digital and electronic world on which we have become so dependent. Could a shift of the poles really happen? Maybe. Or at least, no one yet has proven that it can’t.

But even more interesting to me than the science of such an event is the sociology. As an amateur anthropologist and card-carrying Anglophile, I have long been fascinated by the massive cultural upheaval that the archaeological record shows took place in post-Roman Britain. Literacy, law, clean water, and heated floors gave way to the disease and anarchy of the so-called Dark Ages. This is an oversimplification of a complicated process, but the central question is: How could so much knowledge be forgotten so quickly? And would the survivors of a polar shift forget the former world? I think they would. We always have before. And if so, what would we make of the thirty-five thousand pieces of space junk that could theoretically rain from our skies for hundreds of years? How soon could we learn to survive without technology? How would we go about reforging our world? The same way we did in the Dark Ages, I concluded. And, being humans, probably by making most of the same mistakes we did the first time around.

Thinking of how far a society can regress naturally brings another personally fascinating time to my mind: the French Revolution. I find the writings of Robespierre, with their logical, well-reasoned justifications for the beheading of thousands, positively Hitler-esque. Not to mention the revolution’s attempt to replace all religions with the disturbing Goddess of Reason, a cult more interested in persecution, “wild and licentious” festivals, and defacing churches and synagogues than any brand of spirituality. Robespierre guillotined the leaders of this cult and replaced it with his own Cult of the Supreme Being, with himself as high priest. He held a grand, public mass for the worship of this new cult, setting fire to effigies representing the enemies of France. Six weeks later, Robespierre had been arrested and guillotined himself.