For the golem, there is no happy ending.
“Please just stay here.” She climbed through the window and into the cold.
It was freezing outside—the sort of cold that makes your temples throb and your lungs sting. Even though it was Sunday and the factories were closed, the fog was thick as gruel. Only the most desperate were outside on a day like this. Unlike Charlie, Nan needed to eat. And unlike Charlie, she needed privacy.
Why had she been so short with him?
She gripped her brush and pushed her chin into her chest. She wished she had taken the time to grab a turban or busby from the Dress-Up Room—better foolish than frostbit. The streets were mostly bare. Those who were out of doors moved quickly, as though they might freeze into statues if they stopped. Nan tried to imagine what that would look like. Then she imagined pushing the statues over.
Nan tried to sing for work, like she usually did, but the words caught in her throat. She spotted a housemaid on the corner of Bury and Hart. From the marks in the snow, Nan could tell the girl had been pacing in that spot for some time—a good sign that she was on the job.
“Looking for a sweep?” Nan said through chattering teeth.
The housemaid turned toward Nan. She had red hair and a pinched, mousey face. Her cheeks were filthy with freckles. “Oh! Tell me I’m seeing things.”
“You’re seeing a sweep,” Nan said. She breathed into her fist. “Do you need your chimneys cleaned or not?” She was cold and in no mood.
“Tell me truly: Were you the girl who swept the Lofting house up on Dover Street? And the apartments over in Cavendish Square?”
Nan inched back. She did not like the idea that people were talking about her. “Who’s asking?”
This seemed answer enough for the housemaid. “Oh, thank the good Lord up in Heaven and all His angels!” She clasped her hands together. “I’ve been across half o’ London looking for you. Last week my master was having Missus Lofting over for tea, and she started going on about this sweet little girl who did her chimbleys. Well, my master heard that and insisted I find the same girl to do his chimbleys, on the double. And Betsy, my master said to me, if you don’t find her, I’ll turn you out on your ear!”
That sounded about right from what Nan knew of masters.
“Three hours I’ve been out here, frozen up to my shins.” The housemaid put her hands to her heart. “I’d just about given up hope when you came straight up to me, plain as you please. Like an angel fallen from the sky.”
Nan eyed the girl. Something about her story didn’t make sense. Nan had spoken to thousands of maids in her life, and every one of them had talked to her as if she were nothing. And here was this “Betsy,” with her smiles and clasped hands and her angels in Heaven. “I charge two shillings,” Nan said, naming double what she normally did.
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” the maid said. “And you can believe that the cook will be finding a cake or two with your name on it before you’re done.”
That was all Nan needed to hear. She followed after Betsy, who was already deep in another rapturous retelling of her ordeal. Nan wondered if the maid might harbor a secret passion for the stage.
They walked south and were soon heading through the twisting, maze-like alleyways of the rookery in St. Giles. This was a neighborhood where even the most seasoned traveler could get lost. Most of the folks in this area were poor, and even the few middle-class homes were not nearly as splendid as the other mansions in the West End. Nan was surprised to think that Mrs. Lofting would have tea in such a place.
“Here we are,” Betsy said, unlocking a door of a modest home with no lights in the windows. “The master will be pleased as punch to hear you’ve come. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pays you an extra penny just for the trouble.”
Nan kicked the slush from her feet and followed the girl, who led her to a drawing room on the ground floor. A fire crackled in the hearth. Nan stepped through the doorway and peered into the otherwise unlit room. The windows were shuttered, and the furniture was all under tarpaulins. It did not look like a lived-in house, nor one that wanted its chimneys swept.
Nan inched backward. “What did you say your master’s name was again?”
“She didn’t,” said a voice in the corner.
Nan started as a man stepped out from behind a privacy screen.
He had shiny boots and an impeccably clean coat.
“It’s Crudd,” the man said. “Wilkie Crudd.”
TRAPPED
Nan stared at the man before her. He looked just as he always had. The same immaculate dress. The same expression of icy calculation. “Crudd?” she whispered, inching back.
“It has been a while.” He removed his top hat and put it over his heart. “I’m touched you remember me.”
Nan turned to run, but the housemaid grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and shoved her back into a chair. “Easy now,” she said. “You just got here.”
“You . . . tricked me!” Nan said.
The housemaid gave a sneer. “Don’t you start playing the lamb.” She turned to Crudd. “You shoulda seen her out there, Wilkie. Her eyes got big as saucers when I mentioned extra pay.” She gave a sort of braying laugh. “Greedy little snipe—she’d have believed anything I told her.”
“Thank you, Betsy,” Crudd said. He drew a half crown from his waistcoat and pressed it into the girl’s open hand. His fingers lingered on her palm for a moment too long. “You are a true marvel.”
Betsy gave Crudd a sort of lewd wink and then walked to the hall doors. “The house staff’s all in the country with the missus. You got the place to yourself.” She drew the doors apart and stepped into the hall.
“No!” Nan leaped to her feet and ran after her. “Wait—!”
Whap!
The door slid shut—nearly taking Nan’s fingers off. She heard a clack as the lock turned into place. She strained against one pull and then the other, but it was no use.
She was trapped.
Crudd had seated himself in one of the covered chairs beside the crackling hearth. He studied her with the unhurried satisfaction of a cat who has cornered a mouse. “You’re looking very well. Considering you’re supposed to be dead.”
Nan looked past him toward the window. Perhaps she could unlatch the shutters and break through the glass before he grabbed her? “How long have you known?” she said, inching along the wall.
“I never didn’t know.” Crudd examined his fingernails in the firelight. “Nan Sparrow, felled by the Devil’s Nudge?” He shook his head. “Maybe another climber, but not you. When the brickmasons failed to discover your remains, I knew for certain: You had escaped the burning flue and left me to handle the mess.” He leaned forward, and Nan saw a flicker of cold anger in his eyes. “And what a mess it was.”
She took another half step toward the window. “I’m sorry.”
Crudd either did not hear or did not care for her apology. “The Board of Works fined me ten pounds for trade malpractice and endangerment. Ten pounds! I could keep a dozen climbers for that sum.” He shook his head. “But the fine was nothing compared to how news of your death sullied my reputation. Servants talk. I can’t very well call myself ‘the Clean Sweep’ if I’m leaving dead children in people’s chimneys, can I?”
“That’s why you needed me back?” Nan had to keep him distracted. “To clear your name?” She took another half step backward. Her hand touched the rail along the wall.
“I knew if I was patient, you would make yourself known. All I needed was a way to draw you into the open.” Crudd ran his finger along the brim of the hat perched on his knee—the Sweep’s hat.
“The hat,” Nan said. She dropped her hand from the wall. “You had Roger wear it on purpose. You knew I would see it.”
“And see it you did,” Crudd said. “You can’t imagine my delight when he reported that you’d assaulted him with a snowball on Great Ormond Street. An early Christmas present.”
Nan closed h
er eyes. Toby had been right. How could she have been so reckless?
“That hat doesn’t belong to you,” she said through grit teeth.
“Not anymore.” He stood, and with a flick of his wrist tossed it into the fire. A cloud of sparks floated up from the coals as flames took the silk.
“No!”
Crudd stepped aside, laughing as Nan flew past him and fell to her knees before the hearth. She plunged her hand into the flames and grabbed the hat. She beat it against the floor to put out the fire. But it was too late. The crown was already warped and split. One side of the brim had burned away completely. Her hand throbbed where she had burned herself, the skin raw and blistered.
“Why?” A bitter sob escaped her throat. “You didn’t need to burn it . . .”
“After five long years, at last she cries.” He was standing over her, smiling. “I had begun to think you didn’t have the capacity.”
“You . . . monster.” Every muscle tensed with defeat and rage. Her gaze fell upon an iron poker propped against the mantel. She wondered if she could smash his skull in with it.
Crudd must have noticed, for he gently took the poker and set it out of reach. “Easy, child,” he said. “I’ve use for you yet.”
Crudd clasped both hands behind his back—so little was his fear of her. “Your first step will be reporting your deception to the Board of Works so that I might have my ten pounds restored to my coffers.” He paced the length of the room. “And then you will return to Tower Hamlets and sweep for me as you have done these many years.”
“I don’t understand. All this work . . . just to take back one climber?”
Crudd wheeled around. “It’s the principle of the thing. News travels—never faster than along the gutters. All across London, climbers whisper of the girl who escaped her master. If Nan Sparrow could manage it, then why not them?” He shuddered at the thought. “No, I need you back so that I might make an example of you.”
Nan pulled herself to her feet, wiping her cheeks. “And if I refuse?” The pain in her hand was overwhelming.
“Then I must make a different example.” He shook his head and stepped toward her. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.” He sounded disappointed in her.
“Come to what?”
Crudd tilted his head. “The Board of Works does not need your testimony to remit my ten pounds. They only need to see that you escaped that particular chimney.” He took another step toward her. “They only need to find your body . . . somewhere else.”
Nan’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t . . .” But she knew he would. She’d seen him buy and break a dozen climbers over the years without so much as a sniff.
“Watch me,” he said.
Nan leaped past him—scrambling to the window. “Help!” She pounded at the shutters. “Help, someone—!”
“Silence!” Crudd grabbed her wrist and pulled her from the window. “For a ghost, you make entirely too much noise.” He dragged her across the floor toward the fire burning in the hearth.
“NO!” Nan screamed, twisting to get free. “Let GO!”
He held her by the back of the neck and forced her to her knees. Nan could feel the flames—blistering hot against her skin. “Would you care to change your answer?” He pushed her face closer.
“Charlie!” Nan screamed into the flames. “Charlie, help!”
She did not know why she had called his name. She knew he was half a city away.
But the words had barely escaped her lips when she felt a flash of heat as something very large hurtled down the length of the flue and crashed into the hearth in a burst of sparks and smoke and hot brick.
Nan and Crudd were both thrown backward across the floor. White smoke filled the room.
Hacking, gasping, Nan pulled herself to her knees. Through the haze, she saw a figure step from the charred ruins of the fireplace—hulking and huge.
The figure was crackling red like an ember. Smoke billowed off its gigantic shoulders. It stepped closer, and its two black eyes narrowed into deadly slits.
Nan stared up at the smoldering creature above her.
“Charlie?” she whispered.
THE PROTECTOR
If Nan was shocked to see Charlie standing above her, that must have been nothing compared to what Crudd felt. The man scuttled backward, his mouth wide, eyes wider. “Wh-wh-what . . . ?” He was unable to form the sentence.
Nan drew herself up, clutching her burning hand to her chest. “This is Charlie,” she said. “And he is very angry.”
Charlie had not moved from the front of the hearth, but somehow he seemed even bigger than he had a moment before. The smoke spilling off his shoulders had choked the small room. The rug beneath his feet had caught fire and was burning beneath him.
“M-m-monster!” Crudd clambered to his feet and snatched the iron poker, which had been knocked across the room. “S-s-stay back!” he shrieked. “I’m warning you!” He swiped the poker through the air.
Charlie stepped toward Crudd. “Leave . . . her . . . alone.”
“Charlie.” Nan rushed to him. “I’m safe.” She tried to grab his arm, but he was too hot to touch. “Let’s go.”
Charlie did not seem to hear her. “Leave . . . her . . . alone.” He took another step.
“We need to go!” Nan cried. “Now!” She was sure that the maid Betsy had heard the chimney crash. Who knew how many other people had heard it, too?
Crudd gave a feral cry and lunged at Charlie, swinging the poker at his head. It connected with a dull crunch. Bits of sooty rubble fell to the floor.
Charlie grabbed the end of the poker and ripped it from Crudd’s hands. He flung it to the floor and then seized the man’s head in one hand, as one might take an apple.
Crudd screamed at the scorching touch. The room filled with the acrid smell of burning hair, burning flesh. Charlie hoisted the man up and hurled him through the air. “Leave . . . her . . . ALONE!”
Crudd’s body smashed clear through the shuttered windows and into the frozen street.
“Charlie!” Nan ran to the window. Debris covered the street outside. The defenestrated man was sprawled on the snow. His clothes were charred and shredded.
“Oh, Charlie,” Nan whispered, stepping back. “What did you do?”
Crudd moaned in agony. “I am not done with you, Nan Sparrow!” he snarled, drawing himself to his knees. Nan saw blood streaming from his lowered face, staining the snow. “I will make you pay!”
He fixed his eyes on hers, and Nan gasped at the sight of him.
Wilkie Crudd was now a man disfigured. His golden hair had been burned along the side of his head where Charlie had grabbed him. His nose was swollen purple and streaming blood. Three of his front teeth were missing.
“N-N-Nan?” Charlie was behind her, but he was not looking out the window. He was staring at his open hands, a look of pain and confusion on his face. “I was following you. I was afraid you might get cold. What . . . what happened?” He looked as though he had just woken from a trance.
Outside, Crudd staggered to his feet. “Monster!” he howled into the cold air. “Monster!”
Shouts echoed from houses up and down the way. A few people emerged from their front doors and raced to the scene.
Charlie stepped back from the window, shaking his head. “Nan?” he whispered. “Did I do something . . . bad?”
Nan picked up the Sweep’s charred hat. “You saved me.”
Someone spotted Charlie in the window and screamed. More cries of “Monster!” and “Police!” rang out. Somewhere in the distance, a whistle sounded.
Nan took Charlie’s hand in her own. It was hot but no longer burning. It was the hand of her Charlie.
Charlie looked at her. “Wh-wh-what do we do?”
“We run.”
They traveled by rooftop. The journey home was tense, and it wasn’t until they were safely inside the captain’s parlor that Nan felt she could breathe. The pain in her hand had subsided, and she
was relieved to see that the burns were not nearly as severe as she had thought.
The sky outside had turned dark. Charlie usually slept in the Nothing Room hearth. But tonight he asked to stay in Nan’s room.
Nan sang the Sweep’s song to him and then told him a story about the Sweep. It was a good, long tale that she made up, about how the Sweep had once been hired to clean out the inside of a volcano, and how that was where the Sweep had learned the language of smoke. “And that’s why every sweep ever since knows when it’s safe to climb a flue.”
“Nan?” Charlie whispered. He was twining his crumbly fingers. “Did . . . did I do bad things to that man?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He looked up at her. His face was etched with pain. “Why did I do those things?”
Nan took a long breath. “I think you did those things because you are a golem . . . and you were made to protect me.” And then she told him everything she had learned about golems from Miss Bloom.
Almost everything.
When she finished, Charlie just stared into the darkness. “So when I hurt that man,” he said slowly, “I was doing protecting?”
“Crudd was going to kill me, and you stopped him.” Nan worked her hand along the brim of the Sweep’s hat. It was burned beyond repair. “That’s what golems are for. Their job is to protect people. Or sometimes just one person.”
Nan thought she could almost see him smile. “Just one person—like Nan?”
She leaned close. “And did you ever.”
“Did I ever,” Charlie said.
She shook her head, remembering the sight of Crudd’s battered face. However handsome he may have once been, he would never be so again. “I don’t think there’ll be too many more weddings in the Clean Sweep’s future.” She said it in a way to let him know she was proud. “I think it’s fitting. Folks ought to look the way on the outside that they are on the inside.”
“Nan?” Charlie said. “Do I look on the outside the way I am on the inside?”