The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [122]
At the door, I again hesitated, and climbed the stairs with all my senses tuned for a figure at the top. The vestibule was deserted, but for the table of pamphlets, and I eased the door open a crack to see within.
The service was nearly over, and nearly empty: Last week's 120 attendees were three times that of tonight's. I did not think that due to the rain.
Millicent Dunworthy was reading again, in her white robe between two black candles. Her text described a sin-soaked yet peculiarly free city in the East where the author had come into his knowledge of the interrelatedness of Light and Dark and the Truth That Lies Between Them, but I thought she was paying little attention to the meaning of the words. She read fast, the words tumbling out with no attempt at meaning, and she stopped occasionally as if her throat had closed. She was bent over the book, not looking up, her hands gripping hard.
She was frightened, or angry. Or both.
When the chapter ended, her eyes came up for the first time, a quick hot glance at a large figure in the back, hunched in a pale overcoat. I looked more closely, noticed the empty chairs all around him, and let the door ease shut: Lestrade had sent a presence. And the Children knew who he was.
The hallway leading to the meeting room also continued in the other direction. I loosened the furthest light-bulb, and sat on some steps, waiting for the service to end. Before long, the doors opened and people made immediately for the stairs: no chatter, and no tea and biscuits. After a pause, the plainclothes policeman came out, followed a few minutes later by the brother and sister of the Inner Circle.
When the hallway was empty, I walked down to the meeting room and found Millicent Dunworthy, packing the pamphlets into their boxes with sharp motions. She looked up, startled, when I came near.
“I'm sorry, I missed the service,” I told her.
“There was no service. There may never be,” she said, and slapped some cards on top of the pamphlets.
“I heard. About Yolanda, I mean. I know it must be very disturbing.”
“That's the least of it. No,” she said, “I don't mean that, it's terrible, of course, but the police have been all over, asking questions, insinuating—”
She broke off, and picked up the box to carry it to the storage cabinet. I followed with the folding table. When we had the doors shut and the padlocks on, she turned to me.
“What do you want?”
“I'd like to talk about the Children,” I said.
“You and everyone else!”
“I'm not with the police. Or the newspapers. I'm just a friend.”
“Not of mine.”
“I could be. Look,” I said reasonably. “I noticed a café next door but one. We could have a bowl of soup, or a coffee, maybe?”
She hesitated, but just then the heavens contributed their opinion, and a growl of thunder accompanied by a thrust of drops against the window warned her how wet she would be if she walked home now. She agreed, grudgingly, and we scurried through the rain to the café. I moved with my arm across my face, holding my hat against the wind, but the police watcher appeared to have waited only to be certain that Brothers did not appear, then gone home.
Millicent—we soon graduated to the intimacy of first names—unblushingly ordered cocoa; I did so as well, although I had not downed a cup of the cloying liquid since my undergraduate days, and frankly I would have preferred strong drink for both of us. And when I pressed upon her the necessity for keeping her energy up, she added a request for a slice of sponge cake, “although I shouldn't.”
“Make that two,” I told the waitress, joining Millicent in her naughtiness. When the tired woman had taken herself away to fetch our drinks, I said, “Oh, I haven't had a slice of Victoria Sponge in yonks.”
“It has rather passed out of popularity, hasn't it?”
I pounced, before she could redirect the