Serpent in the Heather Page 2

  Spill. Eliciting from others a spoken admission of a closely held secret, opinion, fear, memory, or longing. The person who spills may evince regret or shame at having shared a hidden thought, but will have no sensation of having been acted upon. An often-unwelcome meta-ability that can be disruptive of social relationships.

  “Disruptive of social relationships.” Spot on.

  Kim noted the slim heft of the book. “How many Talents do we know about?”

  “Nineteen so far. The Germans have discovered a few more. As we add to our list of known abilities, I’ll have Drummond update it.”

  She perked up. “But might we be on to a potential new Talent?”

  “Actually, no.” He held up a hand. “We always have our feelers out for German breakthroughs, of course. As we did for cold cell.” The German exploitation of temperature extrusion that had nearly spelled disaster for England in May. “But until we have something exciting for you to do, you can memorize this book. Whatever your next assignment, the more you know about Talents, the better. You’ll come here to read it. It doesn’t leave my office.”

  Bringing a secret document home to Wrenfell was fraught with difficulties, not the least of which was her father’s troubling ideology and his unreliable, arch-conservative friends. It was a dismal trend, that the upper classes in Britain leaned toward fascism. The political split between her and Julian was hard to ignore, even though they avoided the topic.

  “Why didn’t we have a catalogue before?”

  “We did.” He tapped at his temple. “Over a year ago, our former director assigned me to head up a team to create a catalogue, but I made sure the group never got anywhere. It would have gone straight to the Germans. They already know more about Talents than we do, but still, I couldn’t bear to write it all down for them. I made sure the committee never made it past goals and objectives.”

  Kim smiled to think of all the ways Owen—and she—had hoodwinked Fitzroy Blum. “He got shipped out somewhere. Where was it?”

  “Fitz is now an undersecretary at the Colonial Office,” Owen said with barely concealed joy. “A posting in Southern Rhodesia, so I heard. Not enough evidence to charge him, but at least we never have to lay eyes on him again.” He withdrew his watch from his waistcoat pocket and opened it. A waistcoat. She would have to get used to the new Owen.

  “Well. I’ll leave you with the book. Take your time.” He ducked a bow. “I like the hair, by the way.”

  Kim clutched the book as he shut the door behind him. Their relationship was now one of controller and agent, more businesslike than it had been before, when the case worker and the research subject had been nearly equals, operating by the seat of their pants and outside of government. Now Owen, like her, was recruited into the Secret Intelligence Service, a reward for having performed in exemplary fashion during the recent invasion crisis.

  Strange, that intelligence work had so quickly seduced her. She imagined her future assignments with relish; found an odd satisfaction in living a parallel life that few knew about; and craved to know the secrets of SIS. What operations were under way right now? How widely was she known for her part in the Nazi Storm Way operation? Even: who was Owen’s controller, and where did they meet? After the first taste of state secrets, you inevitably wished to know more. It could easily become a bit of an obsession, at least for one with a habit of fixation on things. Not that she did.

  But while it was delicious to be a part of the intelligence service, with its high purpose and profound aura of mystery, they really must give her something to do. She was a 6 for the spill. It practically cried out for espionage, if they would just trust her to do her part.

  Opening the Bloom Book to page one, she savored a list of the types of Talents. It was very satisfying. She did so love lists.

  THE BLOOM BOOK

  INTRODUCTION

  The exact date of the introduction of meta-abilities into the Western world cannot be determined with certainty. Case studies point to 1915 or 1916. The onset of meta-abilities (Talents, as they are popularly called) is at or shortly after puberty. Some individuals destined to manifest Talents who were past puberty in those first years experienced late onset of their abilities. Although data on Talents is incomplete, the proportion of meta-abilities in the population is estimated at a ratio of 1:1115.

  Even after twenty years, this profound change in human capability is still considered theoretical by some in the general public, although not among the scientific community. Detractors align the phenomenon of meta-abilities with old associations, considered valid for their time, of hysteria or charlatanism.

  When the phenomenon was first empirically described in 1917, it was believed that a cultural-physiological shift had occurred, one that either brought the abilities to the conscious knowledge of those so imbued, or actually seated the meta-abilities within certain individuals. Whether the capabilities had been formerly suppressed, or are uniquely new, the freshly enabled meta-abilities seem to have bloomed in the population like a sudden flourishing of biological organisms. The analogy might be weed or flower, but the name has taken hold. The dawn of meta-abilities, as well as its current reign, is known as the bloom.

  Causation has never been scientifically established. It does not appear to run in families, nor to be the result of personal trauma, religious experience, personality, gender, or geography, except that it is a strong phenomenon in Europe, the Middle East, the United States and the Soviet Union. Other areas of the world, less impacted by the Great War, have not been carefully studied; incidences of Talents are less obvious in cultures which have a history of tolerance of psycho-active abilities, and have considered them natural variations in human behavior. Bloom occurrences in non-Western cultures is an area of study ripe for further investigation.

  Without proof, it is merely speculation to say that the bloom was triggered by the Great War. Psychologists have a theory that the losses and shared societal suffering created a critical mass of circumstances that, at an unspecified tipping point, erased barriers to abilities that had lain dormant in mankind.

  The fact that Talents appear robustly in a proportion of the population, yet not universally, introduces fascinating questions of causation and susceptibility that are just beginning to receive attention.

  Highly classified work continues in Britain, focusing especially on case studies, classification, and recruitment of individual practitioners in capacities useful to law enforcement and national security.

  —Owen Charles Cherwell, Ph.D., Historical Archives and Records Centre (HARC), Monkton Hall, June 1936

  3

  ALBEMARLE STREET, LONDON

  SATURDAY, JULY 25. Dawn seeped into Julian Tavistock’s bedroom through the half-drawn drapes. He sat up carefully, so as not to disturb Olivia. Swinging his feet to the floor, he savored its coolness after the hot press of the night, when it had been seventy-five degrees even at midnight.

  He quickly dressed in shabby trousers and shirt with an overcoat that would allow him to blend in where he was going. Opening the false bottom of his valise, he placed the forged passport the Office had made up for the Polish asset. He glanced at the photo: dark wavy dark hair was pulled back from her youthful face, a few strands escaping. A tentative smile amid strong features conveyed a moment’s vulnerability caught by the camera. A heart-shaped face made her appear almost doll-like; but she was not a child. Twenty-three years old, and a highly-ranked darkening Talent. Tilda Mazur.

  “Will it be dangerous?” Olivia was awake after all and rose up on one elbow to watch him pack.

  “There and back,” he said, speaking softly as though there was still a chance she might sleep in. “Three or four days at the most. No danger.”

  “Liar.” She smiled at him, letting the sheet fall from her breasts. “If you’re undercover in those clothes, it’s dangerous.”

  He would have liked to crawl back in bed with her. “What will you do today?”

  “I told my father I’d see the n
ew exhibit at Greenwich. Some naval thing.” Her father, the retired admiral. Whom Julian had not met, as he had not met Olivia’s mother or sister, and as Olivia had not met his own daughter. Their relationship, all very discreet. It was no trouble; they were used to secrets. It might even be that the clandestine nature of their meetings accounted for the sharply sweet nights—and afternoons—they’d spent together in the last two months.

  He snapped the valise shut and tied a red kerchief around the handles. “You could take me with you to Greenwich,” he said, as though he would toss over his assignment and have an outing with her.

  “But you’ll be in Berlin.” She made up a city. They couldn’t discuss the work of the Secret Intelligence Service, though they both worked for it.

  Cracow, he thought. I’ll be in Cracow. I’ll be Allan Howard, and Tilda Mazur will be Macia Antonik. “Yes, Berlin,” he said, so now she knew it wouldn’t be.

  He leaned over to kiss her goodbye, a quick peck that seemed both too little and too much. This affair couldn’t last. It was beastly difficult to keep it secret, though discreet is what their boss had demanded. And Olivia would walk the plank for the chief, the man everyone called E. He knew that she loved the service; they both did, but it would be a damn sight easier if at least one of them could live without it.

  Slipping from the flat, Julian took the stairs to the street in search of a taxi. He’d been on his own since Kim’s mother left, so long ago it seemed like someone else’s life. Since then, there had been a few women, but nothing stuck. The service didn’t mix well with a private life, so it was for the best that he not get too close to anyone. That included his daughter. In her eyes he was a hanger-on in upper-class drawing rooms, attracted to the fascist outlook on the world; a damning view for a woman to have of her father. Most days he was able to believe that the cost to him was small compared to what surely must be coming. That dark wave, gathering at the edges, soon to roll across Europe.

  Hitler’s rearmament was an open secret. Although a flagrant challenge to the Versailles Treaty, the rearmament was approved by the German populace, providing as it did virtually full employment. Soon the Nazis would be ready for total war. England’s own rearmament was underfunded and undermanned, with some at Westminster turning a blind eye in the hopes that Germany would form a bulwark against the USSR. His Majesty’s Government could not conceive of another war, could not fund it, and could not survive an election if it did.

  Julian slid into a taxi, thoughts already on the extraction of Tilda Mazur. She had requested asylum, and England was anxious to provide it, even if it meant going behind the backs of their Polish allies. It was delicate. The Poles would find out eventually, alerted by their own spies in London, but by then it would be too late. She was a formidable military Talent, testing out as an 8 for darkening, near the top of the factor-10 scale. While HMG would not have interfered had she strengthened Polish defenses, Tilda believed herself in danger, and they could not allow her capture by a potentially belligerent power.

  As the cab pulled away from the curb, he looked to the upper-floor window where Olivia had parted the curtains. He thought of her hair tumbling down from her updo, pins scattered on the floor.

  “Victoria Station,” he told the driver.

  4

  COOMSBY, EAST YORKSHIRE

  MONDAY, JULY 27. Martin Lister stood in the hallway outside the parlor where his mother was getting an earful from the headmaster. Martin hadn’t planned on being in a jam over the Adders; hadn’t planned on getting caught, actually. It was secret. Who had blabbed? He bet it was Teddy Richardson, that wanker. Now there’d be hell to pay. His da would be steamed about this. He was always steamed up at him for one thing or another. He could hear the lecture coming: We pay good money for you to be at that school. You think it’s easy these days? Where’s your gratitude?

  The door to the parlor opened. Headmaster Cairncross heaved his bulk through, slapping his derby hat on his head. “Your mother will speak to you now, Martin. I can’t think what you were about, but you’ll have to put this right, you know.” He fixed Martin with a fleshy stare. “Until you do, I cannot promise you a place in the next term.”

  Just as Cairncross made his way to his car, Martin’s father drove up, home early from the shop. Another notch against Martin, that his da had to leave the store early. The two men talked outside, as his mother nervously joined him in the hall.

  Once inside, his da paused and glared at him. “Kicked out of school, then. I can’t say as I’m surprised.”

  “Headmaster said I could put it right—”

  “And for a secret organization?”

  “It’s not—”

  “Don’t talk back to me, boy.”

  It’s not an organization. It’s a club.

  “You’ve been meeting with two other boys and you’re muckin’ around with made-up powers. Is that it?” Not really wanting an answer, he looked at Martin’s mother in frustration. “Magically seeing the past. I thought he was over that.”

  She crumpled into the chair next to the parson’s table, as though the air had gone out of her. “I told you he was still onto that. I told you.”

  His da snorted and rounded on Martin. “So, who are these Antlers, and what did you think you were doing with ’em?”

  “Adders,” Martin said. “The clubs are the Adders.”

  “Clubs? Do you mean to say there’s more than one?” He slammed his copy of the Daily Telegraph down on the parson’s table. “The whole school is infested with this nonsense?”

  “There’s Adders in lots of schools, all around.” Martin had heard there were, not that they were organized or anything. His schoolmates heard rumors; they’d all heard about how the Adders idea was catching on. “The kids want to test out what they can do, but we never did anything that was trouble.”

  “But it’s trouble, isn’t it, if you’re meetin’ behind the backs of your own parents and the school authorities. Don’t you call that trouble?”

  Martin knew that anything he said could earn him a cuffing, so he stayed silent, though he’d like to have it out with his da, give him what-for. Problem was his da was a big man and Martin was small, even if he was fifteen.

  “Well?” his da demanded.

  “It wasn’t behind your back. We just didn’t tell anybody.”

  His mum chimed in. “Who can you talk to if it isn’t your own parents?”

  The last people I would talk to.

  His da threw his tweed jacket on the coat rack. “I don’t want cheek from you, boy. Here you are, tossed out of school and you don’t bother to be sorry. And all on account of this special sight you think you’ve got. You think I was born in a barn? That I don’t know poppycock when I hear it? Talents!” He shook his head.

  His mum said, tiny as a bird chirp, “Some people talk as though they’re real. Even Maud says so.”

  His da looked like she’d just told him to bugger himself. He swung his gaze back to Martin, his voice a harsh whisper. “It’s your imagination. It’s all imagination. If you want to puff yourself up, try studyin’. It’s what I did, and I have the chemist’s, where I’d put you to work tomorrow if I trusted you with the till.” He glared from Martin to his wife and back again before storming away.

  Martin regarded his mother. “You never think I can do anything.”

  Rising from the chair, she shook her head, but whether she meant, No that’s not what I think, or, No, you can’t do anything, he didn’t know. She followed her husband down the hall.

  Try thinking for yourself, Mum. Just try it once.

  But at least she’d tried to speak up, saying how Maud knew the truth, that Talents weren’t just dreamed up. Even the newspapers, and on the wireless, folks knew that some people could do special things. Important things.

  Martin sat down in a chair and rested his head against the wall, shutting his eyes. He could feel things in the hallway here. If he let himself concentrate in a place, he could sometimes feel things tha
t had happened there. He’d looked up all the things about his site view Talent. Someday, maybe he’d be important because of it.

  When he sat up at last, his glance fell on the newspaper. A teenage boy, murdered. It happened outside Portsmouth. He read the article, hoping they’d say how he was murdered. Maybe stabbed; wasn’t that how people usually got murdered? But the paper didn’t say.

  When he put the newspaper back on the table, he noted the snake inked onto his wrist. He pulled down his shirt cuff. No end of trouble if his da saw that.

  5

  CRACOW, POLAND

  TUESDAY, JULY 28. Julian was back in the square, looking for a woman in a green felt hat. He had waited for her yesterday, too, sipping strong black coffee at a cafe in the cobblestoned square, pretending to read a travel brochure.

  Tilda Mazur was to pass in front of the Remuh Synagogue and stoop to adjust her shoe. But again today, there was no woman in green, and the women who were there, if they covered their hair, wore babushkas. Nor did any of them need to adjust a shoe while passing the wrought-iron gate of the synagogue. After thirty minutes of observation at the cafe, he had tucked away his brochure and left.

  So again today he waited, this time at the planned second meeting time near dusk. The center of the Jewish quarter was beginning to pack up for the day. Stalls dismantled, carts loaded with beets, potatoes, and corn. An old man in a yarmulke, the knotted fringe swaying from his white prayer shawl, pushed his flower cart toward home; a peppering of ravenous doves fell on the little park; a woman in a red blouse met her handsome lover; a beggar approached them, but the couple could not care, with eyes only for each other.

  Watching the doves battle for crumbs in the grass, Julian had an unsettling hunch that Tilda was not going to show. It might be cold feet—the momentous step of abandoning one’s home. Or it might be something worse.

  Despite the long evening shadows that darkened the square, it was too hot to go to his hotel room. Tilda’s third and last chance, tomorrow.