The Name of the Star - Maureen Johnson [102]
“I have to go with you,” I said.
It’s not that I am extremely brave—I think I just forgot myself for a minute. Maybe that’s what bravery is. You forget you’re in trouble when you see someone else in danger. Or maybe there is a limit to how afraid you can get, and I’d hit it. Whatever the case, I meant what I said.
“Not a chance,” Stephen said quickly. “We’re hiding you somewhere along the way.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I said. “Neither do I. He wants me. He’s going to come after me. And if you fail, he’s going to get me eventually.”
“She’s right,” Callum said.
“She’s never done this before,” Stephen said.
“You’ve barely done this before,” I countered. “Look, Callum just said this sounds like an ambush. You can’t just sneak in and hope you’ll corner him. You need something to keep him busy.”
“She’s right,” Callum said again. “I hate this entire conversation, but she’s right.”
“She’s also unarmed,” Stephen countered. “The other terminus is with Boo. She’s going to need it if he decides to go into Wexford instead. We can’t leave her helpless.”
“Let me put this another way,” I said. “I’m coming. I’m not asking permission. I can’t live like this. I can’t live not knowing how this ends.”
As soon as I said those words, I knew I had hit on the reason for my sudden burst of pure courage. I couldn’t go on this way—with this sight, knowing that some ghost could come after me. I was either going to stop this, or I was going to die trying.
Stephen put his head in his hands for a moment, then beat a terse rhythm on the steering wheel. Then he turned on the sirens again and hit the gas.
WHITE’S ROW, EAST LONDON NOVEMBER 9 2:45 A.M.
IN 1888, MILLER’S COURT WAS A DARK OFFSHOOT OF Dorset Street, known as “the worst street in London.” Room thirteen, at 26 Dorset Street, had its own entrance on Miller’s Court. Room thirteen wasn’t even a real room—it was just an old back parlor cut off by a thin partition, twelve feet square, with a broken window. Inside, there was a bed, a table, and a fireplace. It was here that, on the morning of November 9, 1888, the body of Mary Kelly was discovered. She was found by her landlord, who came by at ten forty-five to collect the rent. It was the only time the Ripper struck indoors and the only time the crime scene was photographed. The hideous images of Mary Kelly in room thirteen entered the annals of history.
Dorset Street was so irredeemable that in the 1920s, the buildings were all demolished to make room for the new fruit market being opened in Spitalfields. On the exact spot where room thirteen once stood, there was now a warehouse where trucks could deliver goods for the market. And at two A.M. on this November 9, over five thousand people had gathered there. They filled the narrow passage between the warehouse and the multistory car park and spilled out onto the streets around. Most of those people had come for an all-night vigil to honor all the Ripper’s victims, both from 1888 and the present.
But there were other people there as well. There were dozens of news reporters babbling on to rolling cameras in dozens of different languages. There were dozens of police officers, uniformed and plainclothed, wandering the crowd. There were souvenir carts selling WELCOME BACK, JACK and I SURVIVED NOVEMBER 9TH AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS BLOODY T-SHIRT (complete with fake bloodstain) shirts. There were food and drink vendors selling hot chestnuts, sodas, tea, sausage rolls, and ice cream. In many ways, it looked like a carnival.
No one noticed who started passing out the flyers. They just started circulating through the crowd and were passed on automatically. They contained six words only—no call to action, no instructions. Just a strange, simple message.
Several minutes later, to bring the point home, a flood of flyers drifted from the sky. The drizzle dampened them and made them heavy and sticky, so some adhered to the walls as they came down. The crowd looked up at the multistory car park behind them. The flyers were still falling, but there was no one throwing them. They came