Possessions: North London, 1895

Emily--he always called her Emily, in his head, least ways.  If nothing else, they could both agree that she could never be 'Mother', but any other kind of formal title seemed equally ludicrous for someone so fundamentally weak, so frivolous and petty as to be already beneath his growing contempt.  Emily, then, was nestled in a rocking chair when he and Tabitha were ushered in by one of the housemaids.  She wore something shapeless and rosy-pink with frantic profusions of lace at her wrists and throat and was wrapped in the old quilt from Tabitha's linen cupboard, another crescendo of pink and rose and lace.  He looked sideways at Tabitha, herself an echo of her Mother--and here the title suited admirably--in her pink frock and frizzy halo of golden urls, her plump lips open in surprise and her gray-green eyes blinking rapidly.  She clasped her hands together under her pudgy little chin in a confused ecstasy of excitement.

"Oh Mamma!  Is this the new little baby for us?"  Emily looked up, her gaze warming at the sound of her child's voice.

"Yes, Darling.  A new little girl for you to play with and care for.  Would you like to see her?"

It was only then that he realized that the quilt was not for Emily, but was tucked around something in her arms.  The Baby.

Tabitha tripped lightly to her Mother's chair and peered over her arms into the swaddled thing that lay therein.

"Oh!  Mamma!"  There was a pause between the two words that made him look up quickly, "She's so--"   had he imagined it, or was there a flash of--what?  Panic?  In her cherubic face?  "--delicate!  She's lovely!  Just like a little doll!"  She looked up at her Mother, who smiled back in pleasure.  Tabitha flushed and smiled back, her eyes focused on nothing in particular.  Perhaps he was mistaken, but he was nearly certain that Tabitha had just told her first lie.

Emily raised her head, but did not turn.  "Would you like to see her--Lucifer?"  Her voice wasn't quite as harsh as usual.  More weary than resentful as she muttered through his name.  He stepped over to the other side of the chair, aware of Tabitha's wide-open eyes on his face, searching his expression for some kind of reaction, a clue as to what she should be doing next.  It really was a pity, he thought fleetingly, Tabitha wasn't as bad as the rest.  She had definite potential, but she also had that weakness, that blight she had contracted from her Mother that she would never escape.  He could see a kind of fear in her face that he couldn't understand, and knew that she needed him to tell her how to proceed, just as she needed him to hold her hand when they went for walks and guide her through all the situations that her natural beauty and grace couldn't confront for her.  Her gave her a little crooked grin and her face relaxed just a bit as she stepped back from the chair.

Careful not to touch Emily in the slightest way, he tilted his head over her elbow and peered down, right into the face of the new little human.

It was nothing of the slightest importance.  The baby might very well have been disturbed by the activity around her.  She might have been hungry.  She might have felt the breath nearer to her new skin.  Regardless, she chose that instant to open her eyes--already just a bit too large for her face.  They flitted about, unseeing, oblivious to the Mother's soft sigh and Tabitha's smothered gasp, before locking on the face above her.

He heard something snap.  Unable to look up for fear that Emily would whisk the little thing away to a place of safety or that Tabitha would cry, he couldn't understand how it was that no one moved, no one reacted at all, when his own ears were ringing with the echo of it and his breath was caught in his throat with fright.  Even the baby didn't react.  She stared up at him without blinking.  The room rang faintly, each surface vibrating softly with the still-tangible force that no one else had even noticed.  

After a time, his surprise over this universal deafness would wear off.  It would take years longer, however, before he would become accustomed to the shock of the sound in his own ears.

He was aware that Tabitha had said something, but his head hadn't yet cleared enough to make out what it was.  He didn't look up.  He didn't think he could bear to look at Tabitha just now, but he wasn't sure why.

"Alice," Emily's voice cut through, crashing against his already shaken nerves.

"It's lovely," Tabitha sighed.

"It was your father's mother's name," she said, as if by way of an apology.

"What do you think, Lucifer?"  Tabitha's voice carried a hint of hysteria, the same voice she used to ask if he was still awake after the lights had been put out.

"Yes, what do you--not so close!"  Emily tilted herself away from him, shielding the Baby from those eyes, and instantly felt ridiculous and humiliated for having done so.  Try as she would, though, she couldn't help feeling that The Child--she abhorred his name, one of Nathaniel's perverse jokes that she could never accept--would somehow contaminate her child.  Children, now.  He didn't move as she flinched back, keeping those horrid dark eyes fixed on little Alice--another of Nathaniel's abominable choices of names, but at least this one was merely mundane.  She sighed and tried again.

"What do you think of Tabitha's new little sister?"  She thought the point was subtle enough, but he suddenly looked directly at her, turning those eyes on her for the first time in as long as she could recall.  They were cold and composed and, in his eight-year-old face, were fierce enough to make her instinctively cling a little tighter to the seems of the quilt beneath her fingers.

"She's mine."  He said it in a chill whisper.  Emily opened her lips, but no reply came.

"Of course!"  chirped Tabitha, sensing something terrible, like a thunderstorm, suddenly in the air.  "Of course she's your sister, as well, Lucy!  She's our little baby sister--Alice."

"Of course."  Emily managed a small smile, which gave her the strength to meet his eyes.  But he had already turned his attention back to the Baby.  

"Take Tabitha downstairs and play 'til supper.  I need to rest."  

The Boy calmly walked over to Tabitha and took her hand--Emily shuddered at how eagerly her girl reached for this little stranger--and guided her from the room.  As he exited, he turned his head, fixing his eyes once again on the Mother with a look so fierce, so forceful, that Emily was left in no doubt what his bizarre statement had truly meant.

The Beginning: North London, Present Day

So, having decided that a stationary life of reasonable prosperity and routine was far too simple, I had recently left a job that afforded me not only mental stimulation and friendly interchange (as well as a few interesting little problems that may or may not have involved the Boston and Cambridge Police Departments), but also enough money to pay rent, sleep and buy books and take a stab at doing the job I had always wanted---becoming a professional student.  With my house and cats in good hands for the next year, I had managed to get accepted to a highly-accredited institution and took my leave of the western Atlantic shores. 

I had intended to rent some rooms from a family but, upon arrival, I learned that they had decided to move to the country "in order to raise the children in a proper environment".  I was willing to overlook their abandoning me in an apparently improper environment when I learned that I had full run of the house for the same rent--at least, until the property sold.  "Which could be weeks, dear, or it could be months, in this economy.  Heaven's knows we're stuck with it until we can shift it, so we'd be ever so happy to know that you're here, keeping the drunks away from the stoop."  And with these heart-warming wishes, I was left to my own devices.

A week after my arrival, I made the grand journey from Stoke Newington to school for the first time, and was directed to the History Department, which was on the top floor of the building.  "It's just been added on,"  said the woman at the information desk, batting her overly made-up lashes, "They've not got a lift up to there, yet, so take that lift up to the seventh floor, and then you'll have to walk up the last flight."  She neglected to mention that of the four elevators in the lobby, only on was working, and fitfully at that, so it was almost fifteen minutes before I arrived at the door to the History Department (luckily, in my first-day jitters, I'd arrived half an hour early).  

I sat down at one of the state-of-the-art portable plywood and cork desks and tried to appear invisible. There was an older man sitting a row away from me who was glowering at me over his shoulder, so I was fairly sure my plan wasn't working. Trying now for an air of intellectual indifference, I reached into my bag and pulled out my date planner, flipping to the date and trying to think of something worth writing. He man sighed and turned back to his book, while I rooted around for a pen. As I began doodling around the page of my next birthday, a small girl with curly dark hair and needlessly pointy-toed boots clattered into the room, the charms on her bag jingling in syncopation to her footfalls. The man gave her a similarly withering glare, and I couldn't help but smile, both at his mow comic anger and in relief that it was no longer directed at me. As he turned back, his eyes didn't even pick me out from the cork dividers around me. I had achieved invisibility. I turned the pages on my date book, looking for a day with enough significance to warrant a note. Alighting on my father's birthday, I bent over the page, only to find that there was no longer any ink flowing into the pen. Gritting my teeth in irritation, I gave the pen an overly-demonstrative shake that sent droplets of ink splattering across the page and the desk and the pen cap flying back over my head, where it hit the wall and skittered across the floor. Instinctively, I ducked from the gaze of the man, whose head was already turning back in my direction, trying at the same time to see where the damned cap had stopped.
"I think you dropped this." I turned, and found my eyes were on level with a hand, in which was resting my errant pen cap. I reached out, briefly noting that the hand was attached to an arm, which connected it to a torso, all of which was encased in a green sweater.
"Thanks," I mumbled, and looked at the head that was poking out of the top of the sweater. It had a mess of sunshine-brown hair that fell over a pale forehead, and deep brown eyes that were crinkled in a smile.
"Are you here for the imperialism and war seminar?" It was a nice face, with a disarmingly bright smile. As he straightened up, I realized he was fairly tall, almost lanky, wearing some kind of gray tweedy pants. He had a brown leather satchel that I immediately coveted and as he sat down at the desk beside me, I realized I had not yet answered.
"Umm, yeah. You?" I kept it short in order to keep from tripping over my own words.
"I am indeed. Are you in the history department?" He asked, as if to imply he wasn't. Which I could believe. Honestly, he was too good-looking to be an historian.
"I am as of today. Aren't you?" He shook his head, renewing the smile. I grinned back, more out of self-satisfaction than anything else.
"English Department, actually. This class is--well, useful for my dissertation."
"I see."
"I'm Ned, by the way."
"Nice to meet you. Is Ned short for Edward?" He ducked his head and grinned up at me through his lashes.
"Not quite. It's, uh...it's Damien, actually."
"Really? I like that."
"Most people think it's the strangest name they've ever heard."
"Oh, I don't know about that."
"Wait, are you here for the War and Imperialism course?" It was the small dark-haired girl, who was jingling and clacking back towards us. She had a thin voice and I could tell she was an up-talker, despite her question. Her face wrinkled up into a smile, but it wasn't wholly genuine, and therefore made me distinctly nervous.
"Apparently we are." He turned to smile at her as two more people, a man with graying hair and a girl about my age.
"Are you lot here for the War and Imperialism course?" the new girl asked. She was wide-eyed and slender with brown hair and wearing an enormous woolen hat despite the late September heat. She slumped into the chair on my other side and her book bag thumped to the floor. The older man let out an audible huff, rose to his feet and stomped out, letting the door slam behind him.
"Looks like we're already making friends here," the man with gray hair smiled with a slight air of smugness. As he spoke, the door to one of the offices opened and Professor Bryson, the course convener, in a green tweed suit and deafeningly loud green paisley shirt, ushered us inside. Once we had performed the awkward dance of assembling ourselves in the chairs that were crammed into what turned out to be Professor Bryson's office, we began to introduce ourselves. The wide-eyed girl was named Lydia, the man with the gray hair was named Sam, and he had just retired from a career in stock management. The up-talker was named Caroline, and then came Ned's turn. As each person mentioned their name, Professor Bryson ticked off their name on his list.
"Hi," said Ned, to no one in particular, "I'm Ned. I did my undergraduate work at Queen's College in Belfast, and I'm actually studying in the English department, working on the history of literature." Caroline had leaned forward while he spoke, her eyebrows traveling ever further skywards and her smile spreading eagerly across her face.
"Great, thanks, Ned." Said Prof. Bryson, adjusting his glasses and turning to me, "And you are..."
"Hi," I said, trying to find a place to look. "I'm Kip."
"Kim?" Bryson's forehead wrinkled and he squinted at the list in his lap.
"No--Kip. With a 'p'. My full name is Kipling." Why, after 25 years, I really still felt the need to blush over my name was utterly beyond me, but I felt my ears starting to burn.
"Ah yes..." Bryson made a tick on his list, and looked at me with mingled interest and..pity? I looked sideways and saw Ned's eyebrows arching. I made a stab at speech, figuring I had remarkably little to lose.
"I'm studying the First World War, actually. I've been working in archives back home in Boston for a few years and decided to come back to school."
"Well, thank you, Kipling."  Bryson smiled at me as if he had just performed some elaborate ritual in a foreign language and turned back to the group, launching into an explanation of the course.  

The meeting was mercifully brief, and after some brief chat over books and essays, we all began plodding down the endless flights of stairs down to the lobby.  I had started walking with Lydia and Caroline, but soon ended up trailing behind, as they began planning to go out to a club later that night.  

I heard an echo of footsteps behind me and leaned into the railing in the expectation of being passed.

"So, Kipling, eh?"  It was Ned, his satchel over his shoulder and an amused grin slung across his face.

"I told you you're name wasn't that strange."  I said, finding it impossible not to smile back.

"I guess not.  Where did, that is, how--"

"My dad has a killer sense of humor."

"Hmmm...there's a story there, I think."  We reached the lobby and crossed in front to hold the door to the street open for me.  "You free after class on Thursday?"

"Umm--yeah.  I don't see why not."

"Good.  Until then."  And with a final flashing grin, he waved and headed off to the tube station.  

I was still blushing when I got on the bus twenty minutes later.

Ashes to Ashes: North London, 1890

"Oh, honestly, Nathaniel! You can't be serious!"
Why not, my dear? The little fellow clearly needs a home."
"Children aren't like stray dogs, Nathaniel. You can't just take him in and let him eat table scraps. Think about what everyone will say when it all comes out!"
"Emily, the boy's parents are dead. Any life he may have had is gone, is burned. If not us, it's an orphanage, then most likely a workhouse and a short brutal little life that would mean nothing. With us, he has a chance. We can afford it, my dear. Even...even if there are more to come...We can certainly afford to keep him and raise him for some profession. You can't really want to send him away, can you?"
She stared at the small figure in the thin blanket for several silent moments.
"He's not my son."
"No, he isn't. But he was someone's son. He was Claridge's son, and out of respect for him, I think the least we can do is to make sure his only son is provided for."
"Oh, but Nathaniel, look at him."
"What about him?"
"Well, he's odd, isn't he? I didn't think baby's eyes were supposed to be so dark! Aren't all babies supposed to have blue eyes when they are that young?"
"Well now, you can't really blame him if his eyes are the way they are? I admit, they are a trifle strange, but I would already guess he's seen enough with them to turn them that dark. I don't know how he managed to survive that fire. In any case, it's nothing to signify." These last words were spoken more to the infant in his arms, who blinked up at him with those odd black eyes.
"Well, if you really feel that strongly about it..." She bit her lip in obvious disapproval.
"I do. The lad was clearly preserved for some sort of greatness. The least we can do is give him a chance to claim his destiny."

Introductions

I've been told that before we get started, it would be wise to introduce myself to you. 

 

I would rather read than eat.  

I have been forced to do so on more than one occasion when a spree left me with hardly enough for rent, let alone food money for the week.

I live near the beach in Beverly, because rose bushes and people fare better with sea breezes.  And I love the Cabot Street Cinema more than I probably should.

I have two cats, named Quentin and Flora, who I found in a shelter, batting at each other through the mesh of their separate pens and knew that we were destined to be together.

I also have a seagull named Dmetri, who crashed landed on my front lawn about a year ago with a mangled wing.  Once the MSPCA gave him a clean bill of health and tagged him as a Weather Bird (Bird DM3, hence the name), he found his way back, and now winters on my roof.  

I am a trained archivist and 'preservation specialist', which means, when all is boiled down and refined, that I preserve and repair books.  Which, considering that I like books far more than people, is a perfect job.  I trained with a blind bookmaker in Boston who taught me to detect mold and cheap bindings through smell and water damage and paper quality through touch.  It's just as effective, but does get you some pretty odd looks at antiques markets.  Which is second only to the looks I get when I tell people my name.

I should explain that, while it's on my mind.  I can't expect you to believe the rest of this if you spend half the time believing I've made up some kind of ridiculous pseudonym (which, if I wanted one, would be obscenely conventional).  My great uncle, Danny, lived near Rudyard and family in Devon until around the First World War.  He was devastated by the news of John Kipling's death and wrote home to my great-grandfather "How sad it is that the Kipling name will so soon now die away."  Fast forward some sixty eight years, with the birth of a new Philby, who, medical expertise, family convictions and some good old Irish superstition said should have been male.  When the next Patrick Thomas Philby turned out instead to be female, there ensued two days of panic, while the clan searched for a name for this unforeseen circumstance.  Then Mad Uncle Pat (not to be confused with Old Uncle Pat or Uncle Pat from Dundalk) remembered Danny's letter.  And in a fit of humor until then and as yet unparalleled, my father decided that, indeed, the Kipling name should live on.

And so it was, and so it is.  And now, on to what will be...which, I promise, will be far more interesting...