and some change, then turned away. “ Tickets , please.”
Ouch. Miriam examined the tickets in her hand. Is nothing simple? she wondered. Even buying streetcar tickets was a minor ordeal of anticipation and surprise. Brill did very well, she began to realize. Maybe too well. Hmm. That would explain why Angbard is letting me run…
The tram trundled downhill at not much better than walking pace, the driver occasionally ringing an electric bell, then stopping next to a raised platform. The houses were much closer together here, in terraces that shared side walls for warmth, built out of cheap red brick stained black from smoke. There was an evil smell of half-burned coal in the air, and chimneys belched from every roofline. She hadn’t noticed it in the nob hill neighborhood of Blackstones, but the whole town smelled of combustion, as if there’d been a house fire a block away. The air was almost acrid, a nasty sour taste undercutting the cold and coating her throat when she tried to breathe. Even the cloud above was yellowish. The tram turned into a main road, rattled around a broad circle with a snow-covered statue of a man on a horse in the middle, then turned along an alarmingly skeletal box-section bridge that jutted out over the river. Miriam, watching the waterfront through the gray-painted girders, felt a most unsettling wave of claustrophobia—as if she was being taken into police custody for a crime she hadn’t committed. She forced herself to shrug it off. Everything will be alright, she told herself.
The town center was almost empty compared to its state the last time she’d visited. It smelled strongly of smoke—chimneys on every side bespoke residents in the upstairs flats—but the shop windows were dark, their doors locked. A distant church bell clattered numbly. Scrawny pigeons hopped around near the gutter, exploring a pile of horse dung. The conductor tapped Miriam on the shoulder, and she started. “You’ll be wanting the next stop,” he explained.
“Thank you,” she replied with a wan smile. She stood up, waiting on the open platform as the stop swung into view, then pulled the string threaded through brass eyeholes that she’d seen the other passengers use. A bell dinged behind in the driver’s partition and he threw on the brakes. Miriam hopped off the platform, shook her coat out, hiked her bag up onto her shoulder, and stepped back from the tram as it moved off with a loud whirr and a gurgle of slush. Then she took stock of her surroundings.
Everything looked different in the chilly gloom of a Sunday morning. The shop fronts, comparatively busy last time she’d been here, looked like vacant eyes, and the peddlars hawking roast chestnuts and hand-warmers had disappeared. Do they have Sunday trading laws here? she wondered vaguely. That could be a nuisance—
Burgeson’s shop was closed, too, a wooden shutter padlocked into place across the front window. But Miriam spotted something she hadn’t noticed before, a solid wooden door next to the shop with a row of bell-pull handles set in a tarnished plaque beside it. She peered at them. E. Burgeson, esq. “Aha,” she muttered, and pulled the handle.
Nothing happened. Miriam waited on the doorstep, her toes freezing and feeling increasingly damp, and cursed her stupidity. She put her hand on the knob and yanked again, and this time heard a distant tinkling reward. Then the door scraped inward on a bare-walled corridor. “Yes?”
“Mr. Burgeson?” she smiled hopefully at him. “I’m back.”
“Oh.” He was dressed as he had been in the shop, except for a pair of outrageous purple slippers worn over bare feet. “You again.” A faint quirk tugged at the side of his upper lip. “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to open the shop.”
“If it’s convenient.”
He sniffed. “It isn’t. And this is rather irregular—although something tells me you don’t put much stock by regularity. Still, if you’d care to grace my
Ouch. Miriam examined the tickets in her hand. Is nothing simple? she wondered. Even buying streetcar tickets was a minor ordeal of anticipation and surprise. Brill did very well, she began to realize. Maybe too well. Hmm. That would explain why Angbard is letting me run…
The tram trundled downhill at not much better than walking pace, the driver occasionally ringing an electric bell, then stopping next to a raised platform. The houses were much closer together here, in terraces that shared side walls for warmth, built out of cheap red brick stained black from smoke. There was an evil smell of half-burned coal in the air, and chimneys belched from every roofline. She hadn’t noticed it in the nob hill neighborhood of Blackstones, but the whole town smelled of combustion, as if there’d been a house fire a block away. The air was almost acrid, a nasty sour taste undercutting the cold and coating her throat when she tried to breathe. Even the cloud above was yellowish. The tram turned into a main road, rattled around a broad circle with a snow-covered statue of a man on a horse in the middle, then turned along an alarmingly skeletal box-section bridge that jutted out over the river. Miriam, watching the waterfront through the gray-painted girders, felt a most unsettling wave of claustrophobia—as if she was being taken into police custody for a crime she hadn’t committed. She forced herself to shrug it off. Everything will be alright, she told herself.
The town center was almost empty compared to its state the last time she’d visited. It smelled strongly of smoke—chimneys on every side bespoke residents in the upstairs flats—but the shop windows were dark, their doors locked. A distant church bell clattered numbly. Scrawny pigeons hopped around near the gutter, exploring a pile of horse dung. The conductor tapped Miriam on the shoulder, and she started. “You’ll be wanting the next stop,” he explained.
“Thank you,” she replied with a wan smile. She stood up, waiting on the open platform as the stop swung into view, then pulled the string threaded through brass eyeholes that she’d seen the other passengers use. A bell dinged behind in the driver’s partition and he threw on the brakes. Miriam hopped off the platform, shook her coat out, hiked her bag up onto her shoulder, and stepped back from the tram as it moved off with a loud whirr and a gurgle of slush. Then she took stock of her surroundings.
Everything looked different in the chilly gloom of a Sunday morning. The shop fronts, comparatively busy last time she’d been here, looked like vacant eyes, and the peddlars hawking roast chestnuts and hand-warmers had disappeared. Do they have Sunday trading laws here? she wondered vaguely. That could be a nuisance—
Burgeson’s shop was closed, too, a wooden shutter padlocked into place across the front window. But Miriam spotted something she hadn’t noticed before, a solid wooden door next to the shop with a row of bell-pull handles set in a tarnished plaque beside it. She peered at them. E. Burgeson, esq. “Aha,” she muttered, and pulled the handle.
Nothing happened. Miriam waited on the doorstep, her toes freezing and feeling increasingly damp, and cursed her stupidity. She put her hand on the knob and yanked again, and this time heard a distant tinkling reward. Then the door scraped inward on a bare-walled corridor. “Yes?”
“Mr. Burgeson?” she smiled hopefully at him. “I’m back.”
“Oh.” He was dressed as he had been in the shop, except for a pair of outrageous purple slippers worn over bare feet. “You again.” A faint quirk tugged at the side of his upper lip. “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to open the shop.”
“If it’s convenient.”
He sniffed. “It isn’t. And this is rather irregular—although something tells me you don’t put much stock by regularity. Still, if you’d care to grace my
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