draw in a second.”
He looked down at himself and saw that his shoulder patch was growing, down his biceps to the elbow. Half of his smooth, pale chest had appeared: the shadow of a collarbone, a pink nipple, and his belly button, which was a neatly sewn inny. He grabbed the general’s coat and pulled it on.
I looked at Pip, and half of his face was visible, too, spreading across his cheek from his ear. “Aw, all the pockets I could’ve picked,” he whispered. “Another hour and I’d be rich!” He pulled on the spare overalls and rolled up the cuffs on the arms and legs.
By the time we filed off the bus near Regent’s Park and the apothecary’s shop, we were fully visible and fully clothed. The Chinese rag seller seemed to have spawned three non-Chinese teenage children, in strange costumes, all riding for free. The little dog barked wildly at us, vindicated, and the old lady and the bus driver watched us go in disbelief.
We surveyed the door to the apothecary’s shop from across the street. Jin Lo looked around to all the neighbourhood windows that might have a view of the front door. No one seemed to be watching the building, but still I was afraid to go inside. The Germans could come back, or Danby and the British officers.
The door to the shop was unlocked, the latch forced by the Germans, and my heart pounded as Jin Lo pushed it open. We all slipped inside and stood in the dark chaos, listening. Things were overturned and broken, as the intruders had left them. Jin Lo’s soft braid spilled over her shoulder like a snake when she took off her hard hat, and she brushed it away. I imagined she would brush away a real snake with the same disinterested calm.
The shop seemed to be empty, so Benjamin ran upstairs to his flat to get some clothes to replace the general’s overcoat. He brought me a pair of his trousers, a shirt, and a jumper, and I went behind a ransacked shelf to change out of the pale blue raincoat. I liked having trousers on again, even if they were loose and I had to belt them tightly. I had never felt quite right in the pleated skirt.
Jin Lo finished her inspection of the shop. “So—you hear voices,” she said.
“Right,” Benjamin said.
“And you see German with scar.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t see them take apothecary away.”
“No, we were in the cellar.”
“We go down now to see,” she said.
We went back to the office, and Benjamin opened the iron grate that led to the cellar. We all climbed down. We showed Jin Lo and Pip where we’d been hiding against the wall. Jin Lo looked up at the grate.
“So,” she said. “You hear them say, ‘Ha! I got you now, apothecary!’”
Benjamin and I looked at each other.
“No,” I said. “We heard an explosion.”
“What kind? Small? Big?”
“Medium.”
“You see explosion?”
Benjamin thought about it. “No. Also there was a police car’s bell! That’s what made them leave. But the police never came.”
“Sit here,” she said. “Wait.”
She ran up the ladder, and we heard her light footsteps in the shop, and the clinking of jars. Then she climbed back down, with one arm on the ladder, carrying an armful of things in the other, including a mortar and pestle.
She sat cross-legged in front of us and tapped some herbs from three different jars into a stone mortar. With the wooden pestle, she ground the herbs together, then poured clear oil over them and ground up the mixture some more. She dipped her finger in the oil and applied it to my left temple. When I started to draw back, she said, “No! Stay.” Then she dipped her finger again and put a smear of oil on my right temple and on each of my wrists.
“It smells strong,” I said.
She turned to Benjamin and applied the oil the same way: to the sides of his forehead and the insides of his wrists.
“Now,” she said. “You remember more.”
“Can I have some?” Pip asked. “I need to remember things, too!”
“What things?”
“Racing tips! Poker tells!”
She shook her head. “Very dangerous, remember too much,” she said.
She took one of my hands and one of Benjamin’s so that the insides of our wrists pressed against hers. Her arms were wiry and strong.
“You hold, too,” she commanded, nodding at our loose hands.
Benjamin took my wrist, and I took his. It was soft and warm, and I could feel his pulse beating