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Fantasy Stories

The Blitz Experience

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

Tenesha McGuire towers over her great-grandmother Littleton. Tenesha’s great-grandmother, whom she has called Grand since childhood, used to be the tall one. In fact, Tenesha can’t quite believe that the short but sturdy woman before her is Grand. They haven’t seen each other since Tenesha graduated from high school—and that is six years now—but still, no one should change quite that much.

They stand awkwardly in the living room of Grand’s house. The living room, at least, hasn’t changed. It’s narrow, with a small fireplace and furniture littered with handmade quilts and pillows. The end tables are the same—square spindly things that her great-grandfather had made as a young man—covered with a sheet of glass so that no one can ruin the surface.

This living room was always a place of excitement for Tenesha. Here, she first imagined World War II—practically seeing how suffering Londoners survived. She heard tales of kings from Henry the Eighth to the Edward the Eighth, who married an American divorcee and stepped down. History came alive here, and Tenesha still loves this living room—small as it now seems—for giving her that gift.

The living room smells of tea, old socks, and some kind of ointment, just like it always has. The only difference now is a flat-screen television in place of the old console model that once stood in front of the picture window.

“Come along,” Grand says. Her voice is the same. Strong and veddy veddy British—not quite the posh, clipped tones of the queen, but reflecting a strong upper-class education. “Let’s have some tea.”

She meant the mid-afternoon meal that the British insist upon. Tenesha has never understood how the British have managed to keep their figures while eating four meals per day, one of them mostly made up of baked goods and sweets. Americans have gone to fat, all except a diligent few like her, and they don’t have as many scheduled meal times.

Even though she lived in London from the ages of six to eight, England seems foreign to her. She isn’t sure why. She also spent summers here until she graduated from high school. But each June when she arrived, she had to reacclimatize herself to all the little differences.

At least this time, she doesn’t have to deal with Grand’s neighbors. They always tut-tut when they see her, as if they can’t believe she and Grand are related. Tenesha looks like a lighter version of her father. She has his brown eyes and curly brown hair, but her skin isn’t conventionally white or black. Grand’s neighbors would often ask Tenesha if she was Greek or Italian. She would answer that she was American, which irritated Grand.

You must never forget who your people are, Grand would say. You come from good British stock.

And good American stock. Her father was born in Chicago, and still lived there, loving its blunt sameness. He rarely came to England with the family, preferring to stay in Chicago.

Grand has papery white skin, so pale that her veins show bluely through it. Her eyes are, even now, a vivid blue, and she has the Kewpie doll lips so in vogue when she was a girl.

Tenesha and Grand look nothing alike, but Grand has always insisted that the only person in the family who takes after her is Tenesha.

No one—not even Tenesha—can see the connection. But it still pleases her whenever Grand says it.

Grand hasn’t said it this visit. Not that they have much time. Tenesha is on a strict schedule. For the first time, she’s acting as a chaperon. She agreed to help her best friend, Kara Edwards, with a class of high school students on their senior class trip.

Tenesha hadn’t thought it would be so much work. This is the first afternoon Tenesha has to herself. Grand knew she was coming and also knew they wouldn’t have a lot of time together, and Grand says she’s all right with that.

Tenesha isn’t. Money is tight. She expected that. She majored in history, and as her advisor said, no one majors in history and expects to be suitably employed upon graduation—even if they graduated magna cum laude, like she did.

Tenesha did manage to find work as a researcher for a well-known historian, on the very campus that she had just graduated from. But the job barely covers her bills—which includes the minimum payments on the $100,000 in student loans. That kind of money would make Grand gasp.

“Life is all the education I ever needed,” Grand used to say. Then her eyes would twinkle. “But the world was different back then.”

Tenesha slips into the kitchen, with its dowdy cabinets and dull white appliances. Grand is pouring hot water from a kettle that she has used all of Tenesha’s life. The teapot Grand is pouring the water into, however, looks new.

Grand’s hands, gnarled with age and arthritis, don’t shake. Her back is straight—something rare in a ninety-year-old woman. She sets the pot in the middle of the table, then sets biscuits and teacakes on plates nearby. She places a matching plate in front of Tenesha’s seat, the one that’s been hers all her life, and sits across from her, in front of the window overlooking Grand’s backyard.

This is what Tenesha wishes she could show the students. Not the changing of the guard or the Tate Modern. This small house, with its two gardens—the welcoming flower garden out front and the nourishing vegetable garden in the back. The heirloom tea set that Grand hauls out every afternoon, whether she has guests or not, a tea set that, Grand says, miraculously survived the Blitz.

Tenesha has heard the Blitz stories—hiding in shelters, the blackouts, and the god-awful rationing. When Tenesha was young and a plane flew over, Grand always grabbed her arm and looked up, as if she were prepared to drag them both to safety.

“It can’t be fun,” Grand is saying, “shepherding children over hill and dale.”

“High school students, Grand,” Tenesha says. “Teenagers.”

“Oh, dear,” Grand says as she pours. She goes through the entire ritual, offering milk and sugars, then shoves the plate of biscuits forward. Tenesha takes two of her favorites, with a chocolate layer in the center. “You must be having some fun on this trip.”

“I am,” Tenesha says. “I’m seeing things I probably should have seen when I was a kid.”

Grand’s lips purse and Tenesha realizes that Grand took that last comment as a criticism.

“I’m doing all the touristy things,” Tenesha says to cover over the awkwardness. “You know, Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and all that.”

Grand’s smile returns. She clearly remembers Tenesha asking to go to the Tower of London every year, and Grand’s response: No family member of mine is going to the Tower ever again.

“You know,” she says to Grand now, “Maybe you should come with us tomorrow. We’re heading to that war museum in Lambeth. The kids have studied World War II from the British point of view, and they’re actually looking forward to it. They would love to hear from someone who lived through it.”

Grand takes a cookie and sets it on her plate. The movement seems deliberate, polite, as if she’s using it as cover to give her time to think.

“There are volunteers who do that,” she says finally.

“Yes, but they’re not my Grand,” Tenesha says. “The kids’ll see them as some kind of lecturer. You’ll be the real thing, someone who can remember it all.”

Grand taps a biscuit against the plate, a habit that Tenesha has forgotten, but now, as she sees it, seems old as time. Grand is knocking the crumbs aside.

“No one remembers it all,” Grand says.

“You know what I mean, Grand,” Tenesha says. “You’ll tell them things they can’t get from a textbook.”

“I haven’t ever visited the Museum,” Grand says.

Tenesha is about to say, Well then, maybe you should, when Grand continues.

“I lived through that. Musty relics simply can’t tell the tale, not well enough for me, anyway.”

“But the museum isn’t for you,” Tenesha says. “It’s for me and those kids, so we understand what you went through.”

Grand raises her head. Her eyes seem brighter than usual. “You can’t know. Not unless you go through something like that yourself. And I fervently wish each and every day that no one I love will ever experience anything approaching those years. Although one can’t control history, now can one?”

“No,” Tenesha says. Her face heats. “I’m sorry, Grand. I didn’t realize—”

“How could you, child?” Grand says. “It’s my past, not yours. You’re building a new past, all your own. Speaking of which, I have something for you.”

She puts both hands on the table and leverages herself upward. That movement is new, and is the only sign besides the loss of height and the wispy hair that Grand has begun her tenth decade on this Earth.

Tenesha stands up, but Grand waves a hand at her.

“Sit, sit. I won’t be but a moment.”

So Tenesha sits back down. She takes a bite of her own biscuit. Biscuits here are sweet—cookies, in American terminology, although no one in the States makes cookies like this. Even the chocolate tastes different. Richer, sweeter, darker. She’s missed these, just like she’s missed Grand.

Grand comes back, her right hand clenched into a fist. She opens it and shakes it ever so slightly, and a tiny gold cross on a matching gold chain hangs between her index and middle fingers.

“I’ve been saving it for you,” Grand says.

Tenesha isn’t sure how to respond. She’s never been religious. No one in the family is. Not even Grand. In fact, Grand only goes to church once a year, on Battle of Britain Sunday.

The cross shines with its own internal light. It has cuts along the center that look like small leaves. They glow redly in the sunlight filtering in from the window.

“It’s lovely,” Tenesha says, cupping the cross in her own hand. And it is. It’s also heavier than she expected, as if it’s made of real gold.

“We chose it when you were very little. Do you remember?”

Tenesha felt a glimmer of a memory. Adults everywhere, peering down at her. Crosses hanging from necklace trees. She pointed to one, but Grand grabbed her hand before she could touch it.

“I think so,” Tenesha says.

“I’m sure you do,” Grand says. “I remember getting mine.”

She pulls a larger, ornate cross from inside her blouse. This cross looks ancient. It’s slightly warped, and reminds Tenesha of nothing more than the Crown Jewels she saw the day before.

“I’ve never seen you wear that,” Tenesha says.

“I never take it off. But I don’t display it either, unless I need to.”

“Why would you need to?” Tenesha asks.

“I hope you never find out, child.” Grand goes behind Tenesha and attaches the thin chain of the small cross around Tenesha’s neck.

Tenesha clasps the cross in her right hand. The metal is warm against her skin. “If we picked this out so long ago, why are you giving it to me now?”

“Because you’ll need it,” Grand says.

“For what?” Tenesha asks.

“Those awkward little life lessons,” Grand says with her puckish grin. “The kind from which the most powerful memories are made.”

****

Rupert Lowe has always been ambivalent about his job at the museum. He has never seen himself as a museum sort of bloke. And he’s not that fond of the museum itself. Not the displays, but the actual building.

It’s old and large, made of stone, and once served as a hospital for the insane. While it looks very different than it had in its hospital days, it still makes Rupert think of an institution.

He tries not to think of this as he goes to work every day, but he has more difficulty controlling his thoughts on Sundays.

That’s partly due to his Sunday assignments. Rupert was hired as an-all-around employee, filling in the gaps, helping where needed. Usually that means taking coats or carrying displays, moving tables, or helping young children find the loo.

That’s his job.

Except on Sundays. On Sundays, he begins the day at the Reception and Enquiries Desk and must respond with professional courtesy as people ask him all manner of silly and repetitive questions. Public interaction is not a personal strength, as his bosses well know, and so they try to use him in other capacities, but in these days of uncertainty, a man simply can’t say that he isn’t suited to the task at hand.

Rupert got his job because his uncle Clyde believed that Rupert needed some toughening up. Uncle Clyde had served in the many military actions that followed the Second World War, including the Iraq mistake that bloody bastard Blair had blundered into.

Uncle Clyde believed in King and Country. He never voted for Blair or the mealy mouthed Gordon Brown, but he didn’t like Rupert’s opinion on them either. They’re our leaders, lad, Clyde would say. Best you listen up and follow orders.

Rupert was never very good at following orders, but he does attempt it here, even on the Reception and Enquiries desk. He doesn’t smile at the families coming in but he doesn’t tell them they’re daft, either, when they bring their five year olds and ask if it’s all right to take them into the Holocaust Exhibition on the second floor.

Instead, he politely informs the families that neither the Holocaust Exhibition nor the Crimes Against Humanity Exhibition are designed for children, and he simply can’t allow anyone under the ages of sixteen to view those exhibits.

By afternoon, he’s exhausted by his stint at Reception and Enquiries (truthfully, by the politeness required of him), and he still has six hours of work to go. No standing allowed on Sundays. He actually patrols, making certain that the children are touching only the things they’re allowed to touch.

At least, that’s how his boss described Sunday afternoon duty. Rupert has found that children generally aren’t the problem. It’s their parents who want a piece of this and a bit of that. The museum is quite friendly—most of the exhibits allow touching or sitting or leaning, but a few are clearly marked with a Do Not Touch sign, and those are always in trouble from a handful of people who believe signs do not apply to them.

Those people seem to come on Sunday. Sunday’s crowd is truly what does him in. Parents with children looking for an educational way to keep the little buggers entertained; ancient blokes who did their time in the service, come to complain that the exhibits don’t accurately represent what happened; and the usual gaggle of tourists, all trying to squeeze the maximum viewing in the minimum amount of time.

This afternoon, a flock of American students have joined the usual suspects. Generally, he likes Americans. They’re open and forthright and blunt in ways he could never be.

But he likes them on weekdays, when the museum isn’t so crowded. On Sundays, the Americans just add to the noise. And their lack of education shows. At Reception and Enquiries, they ask ridiculous questions such as why the Revolutionary War doesn’t have a display.

Our subject, Rupert always says primly, quoting the museum’s mission, is conflicts involving Britain or the Commonwealth since 1914—and some wag always asks what the Commonwealth is. It took him nearly a year to realize that more than half of the Americans actually don’t know.

Now, he sees to his disgust that the Americans are queued up at the Blitz Experience. The Blitz Experience is his favorite place in the entire museum, partly because it was a revelation to him when he went through it.

It’s a reconstruction of an air raid shelter and a bombed-out neighborhood in 1940, complete with sound effects and smells. The little room even shakes as the “bombs” fall from above.

His family has talked of the Blitz for years—Uncle Clyde claims that suffering through it as a tot inspired him to become the man that he is—and Rupert has always tried to imagine the difficulties and the heroism. So when he, as part of his training, was allowed in the Experience, he had the shock of his young life. Not the discomfort of the scratchy walls or the faint whistle as bombs fell outside. The room’s shaking disturbed him and so did the faint smell of smoke, but it was designed to disturb him.

He planned for that, and sat at attention as he imagined his grandparents—his grandmother, pregnant with his mother, and his Uncle Clyde in short pants, his hands clasping his chubby knees, all enduring.

But they probably hadn’t endured. That’s what so surprised Rupert. The Experience showed it all—the good and the bad—the way that the stress made the people in the shelter snap at each other and snipe, bitterly complaining about their lot.

He hadn’t ever imagined that, and later, when the lights come up, and recorded voices spoke of helping the injured and fighting blazes, it wasn’t enough to overcome his shock.

For some reason he had thought it hadn’t been that divisive, that everyone had come together, and clearly they hadn’t—not willingly at least, and not every single night.

He’d stepped out of that experience a changed man. He thought of that every Sunday afternoon, when he spent the last ninety minutes of his day guiding patrons into and out of the Blitz Experience.

This afternoon’s influx of Americans doesn’t really please him. Two groups of Americans went through the Experience earlier, when he wasn’t monitoring the rope, and he was glad of it. Since he started monitoring the Experience this afternoon, he’d watched the remaining Americans filter their way here. Now they stand at the end of the queue. Four boys and three girls, along with three adults, two men and a younger woman.

These people will be the last he can put through before closing time.

He grabs another metal sign and carries it to the end of the queue. As he walks, he counts aloud. He wants them to realize he has a quota. He also wants to remind the Americans to read the plaques on the wall before they enter the Experience. That way, at least, he will have fewer questions when they emerge.

Only as he walks around the rope, with its Do Not Pass, sign, he realizes he doesn’t need to remind the Americans to read the plaques.

Some are already doing so. The rest are listening attentively to an attractive young woman with dark hair and snappy black eyes. She wears a gold cross around her neck that catches the light.

“The London Blitz,” she’s saying, “began in the Docklands on September 7, 1940 and continued, unabated, well into 1941 . . .”

He likes the word “unabated.” It suggests an excellent education. He can’t stop to listen. He’s counting his way down, and no one is even paying attention. Not even the pair of gentlemen standing just behind the young woman.

Rupert made a mistake earlier. The two men aren’t Americans. He recognizes the older of the two. He’s brought family and friends telling them about the war with an air of authority only experience can give.

Even he is listening to the young woman, remarking to his friend as Rupert passes, “She’s quite the thing, for an American.”

Isn’t she though? Rupert thinks.

His mood lifts. He’s nearly done, and the day no longer seems as dismal as it had in the morning. He’s made it through and seen a pretty girl as well. A pretty, educated girl. A pretty, educated American girl, something he finds unusual and attractive at the same time.

Maybe he’ll speak with her when she emerges from the Blitz Experience. Maybe he’ll get Alfie to cover the door so that Rupert can escort her to another part of the museum, get to know her a bit, see if she’s staying in London longer than the usual two weeks.

Then he stumbles slightly, feeling silly. Even if she is, what interest would she have in him? He’s just a day worker with big dreams, none of which he’s pursued yet.

By the time he makes his way back to the rope, he’s decided not to seek out Alfie. If the girl wants to chat, she will. But most likely, she’ll be like the other visitors to the museum, who see him only as a roadblock in their haste to see every part of the building before they’re asked to leave a few minutes before six.

****

“Blitz,” Tenesha says, “is short for blitzkrieg, a German word meaning lightning war.”

Denver, Hitch, Fox and Gianni are watching the girls while they listen to Tenesha. She has a hunch they’ve come just to be near the girls. Neither Bailey nor Ali or Jada have boyfriends at the moment. They’re not looking at the boys at all.

“The Germans,” Tenesha says, “used the blitzkrieg style of attack to great effect in World War II. When it came time to turn their attention to England, the Germans decided to send aircraft in great numbers and have them bomb selected targets.”

“Britain,” says the man behind her. “They turned their attention to Britain.”

Tenesha turns toward him. He’s as old as Grand, with a weathered face and tired eyes. He stands with a much younger man, who has the look of someone who is being dragged through an experience he’d rather not have.

“I beg your pardon,” the older man says with delightful courtliness. “I’m a stickler for accuracy about this war.”

She doesn’t mind. The students should know about the Blitz before they go into the so-called Experience. She has no idea what they have and haven’t studied. They seem more informed than most kids their age, but they have big gaps. She doesn’t want this to be one of them.

“They listen to me all the time,” she says with only a slight bit of exaggeration. “If you would like to tell them about the Blitz, go ahead.”

His eyes light up. He glances at his companion who shrugs. Then the older man steps forward as if he’s been asked to give a speech. “I suspect, since your young lady here is so knowledgeable, that you’ve been to the area we call Docklands. But let me tell you what it was like on that September night. . . .”

She listens long enough to realize the man is an excellent storyteller. He takes them from the bombing raids and the British response known here as the Battle of Britain, and into the night raids that followed. His hands move as he talks. Even his companion leans forward, suddenly interested.

Then she looks at the exhibit hall beyond. The museum is much more than she can see in one day. She wishes she had come here earlier. On this trip, she’s discovering a new London, tourist London, and she’s beginning to understand why her American friends like coming here. It’s not gas fireplaces and narrow living rooms, cold shops and mediocre food.

There’s life here that goes back so far she can barely imagine it. The Ancient Romans built walls and roads here. People have lived and died in this place the Romans called Londinium for centuries.

“. . . they call it the Second Great Fire of London,” the man is saying.

She turns.

“There was a first?” Denver asks before she can stop him. He’s a big kid who’s very smart but also very awkward. She doesn’t want her students asking stupid, ignorant questions. Even though they aren’t her students, and she can’t expect them to know everything.

“In 1666,” the man says with good humor at the question, as if he doesn’t mind at all, “most of London burned. That’s why we have laws now that require buildings within the city limits to be made of stone . . .”

He handles the questions well. Her students have gathered around him. They’re lost in the story, like she used to be as a child, when Grand told her about London’s past.

The young man who divided them into groups has returned to his place in front of the ropes. His gaze meets hers, as if asking if she’s ready to go inside.

She smiles at him and shrugs, inclining her head at the old man, who has now riveted the group with his story of the destruction of the Square Mile shortly after Christmas 1940. The Square Mile is where London actually began. In 1940, buildings that survived the Great Fire of 1666 still stood, as did several famous churches, untouched by flame of three centuries before.

Of course, in the center—then as now—is St. Paul’s Cathedral, beautifully redesigned after 1666 by one of the world’s greatest architects, Christopher Wren. Wren’s Cathedral, considered one of the most beautiful in the world, was the tallest building in London in 1940.

The old man’s story holds the kids in awe as he teases them with the idea that the St. Paul’s they saw only days before might be another rebuild after fires of December 1940.

Of course, it isn’t. There’s a famous newspaper photograph that Grand has framed in her home of St. Paul’s poking out of wisps of billowing smoke, under the headline: War’s greatest Picture: St. Paul’s Stands Unharmed in the Midst of the Burning City.

Her hand creeps to the cross Grand gave her. It still feels warmer than it should. When she sees Grand again—and with luck, that will be before she leaves London on Friday—she’ll ask what the cross is made of, why it always feels warm.

The old man has moved onto the attacks after the new year, and how Hitler missed his opportunity to destroy Britain by focusing instead on Operation Barbarossa, his disastrous invasion of Russia.

“He was an excellent tactician,” the old man says, “but an impatient one. If he had followed his strategy all the way to the end, we probably wouldn’t be standing here today.”

“Or we’d be speaking German,” says his companion.

“And heil Hitlering each other,” says Denver, clearly trying to curry favor.

“Some of us would never have done that, lad,” the old man says. “No matter who won the war.”

****

The pretty American looked at him as if she could see through him, and then he blushed. Rupert hates blushing, but he can’t control it. He feels like one of those ridiculous blokes whose every emotion shows on his face.

Rupert wants to close his eyes in shame, but he doesn’t. He can hear the last echo of the voices from inside the Experience, and he knows this round is about to end. He moves to the exit door, waiting to guide the newly educated to the next part of the museum.

They emerge like they always do, heads down, silent. This group has no American school students. It’s a normal Sunday mix of Londoners bringing family and European tourists, who clutch their belongings as if someone is going to steal them. An elderly couple holds each other up.

He waits until the last of this bunch leave, then he closes the exit door. He turns.

The Americans are watching him with expressions of eager expectation on their young faces. Normally Americans are shifting from foot to foot. Generally, by the time they discover the Blitz Experience on the lower ground level, they’ve seen the rest of the museum. They’re here to be entertained or because some completist feels they must experience this too.

Rupert moves the rope aside, then opens the door. A bit of light falls on the faux stone benches. By this time of day, the Experience smells faintly of nervous sweat. Some people—even those who never lived through the Blitz—do find this intense. More than one bloke of his own age clapped him on the back on the way out and said, This is bloody scary, Mate. Not at all what I expected.

Rupert likes the look of disappointment on the faces of the Americans as they file in. The Experience looks so innocuous.

The pretty American waits until her students are inside and then she follows. She nods at Rupert as she passes him, and his skin heats again. It’s as if the Great Fire of London has started inside of him. He pretends it isn’t happening and nods back, feeling like an utter fool.

The elderly gent’s companion steps inside, but the elderly gent stops at the door.

“There’s room,” Rupert says.

The elderly gent shakes his head. No one inside seems to notice that he hasn’t gone in. His companion is shuffling after the Americans, looking for a spot on the bench.

“Are you sure, sir?” Rupert asks.

“Quite sure,” the elderly gent says. He reaches for the door, but Rupert grabs it first. As it swings shut, the elderly gent’s companion looks up, startled, as the door closes in his face.

****

For a moment, the room is in complete darkness. The utter blackness is breathtaking. Someone on Tenesha’s right takes her hand. She doesn’t pull away. She finds comfort in the warmth. She gropes a moment in the darkness with her left hand, finding bench, and then someone else’s hand. She touches it tentatively. That person grabs tightly.

She has no idea who she’s sitting beside. At the moment, she doesn’t care.

In the distance, she hears church bells—and she remembers what the old man said: London used church bells to signal the start or end of an invasion. That entire fall, winter, and spring, the bells didn’t call the faithful to services. The bells warned of grave danger.

She supposes the bells now are to indicate an invasion. She expects a siren to follow, but wonders at the accuracy of it all. Could the people in the shelters actually hear a bell?

Then there’s a scratchy sound, like a voice over a public address system. She thinks she hears someone take a breath, and then it stops. Lights come up ever so slightly, and she gasps.

How did they do this?

She’s in a basement with twenty people she doesn’t recognize. Her students sit around her, as does the companion of the old man. But the old man himself isn’t here. The companion looks shocked. He’s glancing about as if unable to believe he’s alone.

The kids are simply going along with the ride, but the hair has risen on the back of her neck. Something has changed. It takes her a moment to realize what that something is.

This basement smells of cigarettes and sweet pipe smoke. Overlaying that is the smell of mold and damp. The bench she’s sitting on isn’t stone after all, but some kind of rusted metal.

Rusted metal slats. When she groped with her left hand, she could swear she felt a solid bench beneath her.

When she stepped inside the Blitz Experience, she got the sense of a narrow space with a low ceiling, not something this big and wide. The museum building is huge, but could it accommodate something of this size?

She isn’t certain.

The people—actors?—inside the basement are staring at her.

“This is not a public shelter,” says a man near the door. The door is a gray metal with a handmade sign on the interior which reads Shelter.

He’s speaking to the elderly man’s companion. She looks at the man. He looks as baffled as she does.

She hasn’t given him much notice until now. He’s slender, with black eyes and an angular face. He has a dimple in the middle of his chin. He’s wearing a shirt over a t-shirt that advertising the name of some British sports team. He wears tennis shoes—what the British call trainers—on his feet.

The other man, the one who spoke, is staring at the companion in distaste. The man who spoke is wearing an old fashioned suit with pleated trousers, a vest, and a matching coat. His white shirt has a starched collar that looks so stiff Tenesha wonders if it’s hurting the skin on his neck.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the man continues, “but this shelter is for no more than fifty persons.”

“There’s only thirty-five of us down here,” Denver says. “We could squeeze in fifteen more if we had to.”

Everyone looks at the boy in shock, including Tenesha. He’s been outspoken throughout this trip, but she didn’t expect him to willingly participate in any role-playing.

“You’re American?” a middle-aged woman asks. She sits on the room’s only chair, her sturdy legs crossed at the ankles. Tenesha can see a black line running up the back of her calves and thinks it odd, until she remembers Grand saying that women painted the black line on their legs to make it look like they were wearing stockings.

“Yeah,” Denver says. “We’re American high school students. We’re here to learn something.”

“Denver,” Tenesha says. “Don’t.”

He looks at her, frowning. Then he looks back at the others in the basement—the ones who were here first. Can’t he feel it? The strange tension, the almost palpable sense of fear?

The entire building shakes. Dust falls from the ceiling on the head of a bald man sitting across from Ali and Jada. The girls giggle as he brushes off his skull.

“Stop,” Tenesha says to them.

“You’re in charge, Miss?” the man who first spoke asks.

“Of this group, yes,” she says. She almost adds, all except for the man at the end, but she doesn’t.

“You cannot stay here. We simply cannot allow it. Should something happen—”

He stops himself, then looks down.

“It’s all right, Mr. Pintner,” another woman says. She’s younger, prettier, than the woman on the chair. She’s wearing a brown dress with sensible shoes, but the arms of a bright red sweater are tied around her neck, giving her a jaunty air. “We all know what might happen.”

“No, we don’t,” Denver says, then he looks at Tenesha.

“Denver,” she says. “That’s enough.”

He flops backwards, but the gesture lacks conviction. He does feel the oddness. Maybe that’s why he’s speaking up.

She glances at the rest of her little troop, all wide-eyed and a bit scared now. If this is a re-enactment, designed to make everyone uncomfortable, it’s working.

Mr. Pintner, the man who seems to be in charge, says, “If something happens to the shelter, and they need to identify . . . us . . . somehow, they won’t know how to go about it. They’ll think you work here.”

“They’ll sort it out,” the companion says. He sounds calm enough, but his entire body is rigid. He’s clearly frightened.

“There are public shelters right next door,” Mr. Pintner says. “Perhaps no one explained this to you at your hotel, but just follow the signs. The warehouses—”

The building shakes again, silencing him. More dust falls. The bald man wipes off his head, then moves aside. No one glances at the ceiling except the companion.

“Is that safe?” the companion asks.

Now they all look up. There’s a jagged crack, running from one wall to the other.

“That wasn’t there before,” the middle-aged woman says. She sounds a bit breathless. “Do you think we’ve been hit?”

“If we have, the Watch will come and find us,” Mr. Pintner says.

“Not if it’s an incendiary,” the bald man says.

“What’s an incendiary?” Denver asks, then bites his lower lip.

Everyone looks at him. Then the middle-aged woman turns to Tenesha.

“It’s terribly inappropriate for you to be sightseeing in London. I don’t know who brought you to the city or why, but when this is over, you should return to America post-haste. And to bring children with you. . . .”

She shakes her head.

One of the men pats her hand. “Now, now, Felicia. They’re here. The decision’s been made, hasn’t it. There’s no sense in recrimination.”

“Someone will come if we’re in trouble,” the younger woman says. “That’s what the Watch is for.”

“Besides,” the bald man says, “if it is an incendiary, we’ll know within five minutes.”

Everyone looks up again, as if that crack in the ceiling has changed somehow.

“What’s an incendiary?” Denver whispers.

“A bomb that starts fires, I think,” Fox whispers back. He’s slender and dark, and usually tries to fade in a crowd. It’s a sign of his own discomfort that he’s speaking up.

“Christ, and we’re trapped in a hole?” Gianni asks, a little too loudly. He’s square-shouldered and tall, the only athlete in the group.

“Young man,” the middle-aged woman—Felicia—says. “It may be customary in your country to use foul language in times of crisis, but it’s not here.”

Tenesha hadn’t even noticed Gianni’s slip, not until Felicia spoke up, but now she needs to do something about it. She’s about to ask him to stay silent, when he bows his head.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just surprised we’re here, is all.”

“As are we all,” she says. “I’m not even sure how you got in. Isn’t Mr. Ludgate monitoring the door?”

She asks this last of Mr. Pintner.

“He’s on fire watch,” Mr. Pintner says. “If he had to deal with an emergency, he would have stepped away.”

“Letting these Americans in,” Felicia says.

“I’m not an American,” the companion says. “My name is Edmund Hennel. My people have been in London since William the Conqueror. I most certainly do belong, and I resent the implication that I do not.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hennel,” Felicia says. “But you don’t work here. This is a private shelter.”

“You’d send us out there?” he asks. “With bombs falling everywhere? Simply because we don’t work in your facility?”

“I’ve explained it to you,” Mr. Pintner says.

“Yes, you have,” Hennel says. “And it doesn’t suffice, now does it? You’d send us out to die just because we might die in here and muck up the record-keeping?”

The bald man clears his throat. “When you put it that way, it does sound a trifle unreasonable.”

“Yes, considering your man let us in,” Hennel says.

Tenesha leans forward in surprise. Hennel seems completely sure of himself. Does he really think that awkward museum employee works with these people?

Then she realizes that Hennel must be bluffing. Someone is bluffing, since this can’t be real.

Her eyes hurt from the dim light. She feels the beginnings of a headache. Bailey, the girl on her right looks pale.

“Ms. McGuire,” she says softly, “I smell smoke.”

Tenesha sniffs, realizes that smoke is what’s bothering her eyes, not the light. But all the smoke, from the cigarettes to the pipe that an older man, barely visible in the far corner of the basement, holds in his right hand.

“People are smoking,” Tenesha says.

“You’d think a place like this would be designated non-smoking,” Ali says.

“No, no,” says Bailey. “Wood smoke. Like something’s burning.”

“I smell it too,” says Felicia with a touch of panic in her voice.

“It’s your imagination,” Mr. Pintner says. “We’ve been talking of incendiaries, after all.”

“No,” says a thin young man sitting near a pile of boxes. “I smell it as well.”

“We have to get out,” Felicia says, the panic no longer a touch. “We’ll die in here.”

“If there’s smoke, we’ll die out there,” Mr. Pintner says. “Trust the Watch. They’ll get us if there’s danger.”

“And if they can’t get to us?” Hennel asks.

“Then we’ll burn alive,” Denver says, with just enough tremor in his voice for Tenesha to realize he’s not play-acting. He’s frightened.

“Do something,” Hennel says, and it takes Tenesha a minute to realize he’s talking to her.

“Me?” Tenesha asks. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You’re the one with the cross.”

Everyone looks at her. She puts her hand on the tiny gold cross. It’s hot, but then everything is hot, including her.

“My Grand gave that to me yesterday,” she says, feeling confused. “It’s hers, not mine.”

“Should we be praying?” Ali asks. “Is that what you mean?”

“No,” Hennel says. He’s still staring at Tenesha. “You know what I mean.”

She shakes her head. She doesn’t know and she’s about to say so when someone pounds on the door.

Bailey emits a tiny shriek. Felicia crosses her arms. “We can’t take anyone else in here. We can’t fit anyone. We already have too many, and most don’t belong.”

Mr. Pintner ignores her. He pulls the door open. An older man—Tenesha can’t even begin to guess his age—stands outside. He’s wearing some kind of uniform with a big black belt and boots, and he has the most ridiculous tin hat on his head that she’s ever seen.

The smell of smoke has grown stronger now, as if it wafted