The Devil on Kazoo

12: Kristonovich

"I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves"

"White Room" by Cream

Syl took her canvas off of the easel and held it arms' length, not to admire it, but to let the weight of it settle against her countenance.

She did not smile when she looked at it.

Instead, the cold grip of the person she used to be crept into her heart. And Syl, for once, allowed it.

She draped an emerald cloth over the still-damp painting before putting on a tan coat she'd bought with her first paycheck after coming aboard Wolgemoth & Sons.

Smiley had told her it made her look like a widow from the 1940s, which was to say that it made her look much older and very much un-Crumb-like.

That was what Syl needed today.

She silently pulled back the curtain of her painting room and into the corridor between their bedrooms and the ladder to the top deck.

She held her breath, listening.

Kathy was mumbling in her sleep and Smiley was snoring like a bird with laryngitis. Bash was the one Syl had to make sure of, however.

His light was off, which either meant he was still asleep or had turned off his light before heading upstairs.

She opened the curtain half an inch to see that Bash was curled up with the covers tucked beneath his chin.

Syl almost laughed to herself, but the feeling evaporated as quickly as it came.

"Mne zhal," she whispered, then stole up the stairs. She left a note in the kitchen that read:

Went to Helen Street to buy croissants. Maybe it'll ease the blow for everyone.

As one might guess, Syl was not going to Helen Street. Nor was she buying croissants.

She took the dinghy across the water and made her way down Canary Wharf. The early morning mist had settled over the grey cobblestone, shrouding the streetlamps in a blurry orange glow.

Syl felt like a specter floating through those "ancient empty streets" Bob Dylan sang about.

Five blocks down, Syl came to an old chapel just as the sun was beginning to turn the sky purple.

The church had been bombed during the Blitz and hadn't completely been rebuilt since. Part of the white brick was crumbled on top of the cornerstone and the wooden doors hung off its hinges. Wild vines sprawled along the grass in the graveyard, covering most of the leaning headstones.

The bell, however, kept ringing faithfully on the hour. Syl suspected this was the reason the chapel hadn't been torn down yet. To the Londoners, it was a symbol of their longevity and endurance through the war years.

If only they knew what treachery occurred above the bones of saints.

Syl gripped her painting tighter and went inside.

The smell alone sent a terrified tremor through Syl's body. She was frozen in the doorway for a long moment, her eyes closed to still the dizziness in her head.

She had sworn never to set foot in this place again. She never even dared to think she ever would.

It's different now, she told herself. I'm different now.