bomb is ever used, as the unimaginably destructive force that it is, we will try to be ready.”
“Wait—wait,” my father said. “I’m sorry to keep backtracking. But I’m trying to follow you. How did you get to Nova Zembla?”
“We took a boat until we reached Russian waters and were stopped by a Soviet patrol,” the apothecary said. “Then we flew.”
“In a plane?”
“As birds.”
I cringed a little. I knew my parents weren’t going to believe that.
“As birds?”
“Yes.”
My father turned to me, expecting me to tell him the actual truth.
“It’s spectacular,” I said. “You’d love it. I was a robin.”
My father blinked.
The apothecary said, “And now Benjamin and I are going away.”
I whirled on him. “Wait—what?”
“It isn’t safe for us here,” he said. “We have a train in . . .” He checked his watch. “Four minutes.”
“But you can’t just leave!”
“Listen, Janie,” Benjamin said. He sat forward in his chair and caught my hands, turning me to face him. “We have to go. If you thought about it, you’d know. None of us is safe. The thing you drank, that champagne, will take a little time, but it’s going to make you forget everything that happened in the last three weeks.”
“Forget?”
“You better be bloody joking,” Pip said.
“You’ve drugged us?” my father said.
“Davis,” my mother said. “Please.”
“You’ll still be able to get through your days,” the apothecary said. “But everything about the last few weeks will be erased. My shop, Benjamin, the trip to Nova Zembla—all of that will be gone.”
“He drugged us, Marjorie!” my father said. He stalked away from the table in a fury, the way he did when he needed to cool off, and my mother went after him, to calm him down.
I said, “Benjamin, you can’t do this! Those memories are mine! I saved your life! More than once!”
“I did too!” Pip said.
“I know,” Benjamin said. “But there’s no other way. It would be best if you gave me your diary now.”
I shook my head. “No. I promise not to show it to anyone.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“But I need to remember you!”
“Please, Janie.”
His eyes were pleading, and I took the little book from my pocket and handed it over.
He looked at its red cover. “I hope it says that you fancy me,” he said. “And that wasn’t just the Smell of Truth talking.”
I was too furious to answer—it was so obvious how I felt about him, and we had been through so much since the Smell of Truth. I felt my eyes fill with tears. “Where will you go? How do you know you’ll be safe?”
“Whole cities could be wiped out if there’s a war,” he said. “We have a responsibility to protect them.”
“So let me go with you!”
“You have to stay here with your parents.” He took both my hands and looked down at them. “Listen, Janie, do you remember that night on the bow of Anniken?”
“Yes,” I said. Tears were running down my face now, and I let them.
“I don’t think any potion could erase that,” he said. “Not for me. I hope you’ll remember that part.”
A loose strand of hair had fallen across my face, and Benjamin tucked it behind my ear. He smiled. “American hair,” he said.
Then he leaned forward, and I could feel the warmth of his breath and smell his clean, soapy skin. I wondered where he had slept and bathed, but then his lips touched mine and I felt a steady current of electricity running through my whole body. I knew I would never forget that feeling, as long as I lived.
Then a vaguely familiar, silkily snide voice above us said, “Hello, Jane.”
We both looked up, and it was Detective Montclair, the wispy-haired policeman who had arrested us at school. He was standing on the other side of the low iron railing that ran around the refreshment counter’s tables. His partner O’Nan stood beside him.
The apothecary stood to greet them, extending a glass across the railing. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Will you join us for some champagne? I’ll open another bottle.”
I remembered how Detective Montclair had reminded me of a cobra, swaying slightly, waiting to strike. “You’re under arrest for treason, Mr Burrows,” he said. “I’d advise you to come quietly. Mr and Mrs Scott, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me, too.”
“Why?” my father said. “What for?”
“Colluding with traitors?” the detective said. “Falsely reporting your daughter missing? Criminal mischief? The question is whether to send you back to the United States to face questions about your Communist friends, or