I know not what will fit thee, but the Devil.

“THE ANABAPTISTS”

Then wonder not at them so black in skin

But at your selves so foul, so black by sin.

“THE BLACKAMORES”

The liver doth contain unwholesome blood,

And Melancholick, which is never good.

Of this disease if you the Symptomes heed,

The fundamental veins break forth and bleed.

“THE HEMERRHOIDES”

ROWLAND WATKYNS, FLAMMA SINE FUMO (SMOKE WITHOUT FLAME, 1662)

THOMAS

How do you start a revolution?

You baptise a corpse.

That’s what we will say when they ask us, years down the road. Oh, they will tell us that we did it for the wrong reasons. Charlie because he is ashamed of his privilege, and Livia because she wants to impress her mother. And I because I love them more than I fear myself. And because I could not stomach the thought of returning to school.

Does anyone ever do anything for reasons better than these?

We wait for the Smoke by the banks of the Thames. We are not alone. Crowds have gathered, are staring downriver at the storm front moving in. Others are fleeing the city. They are walking so fast they will be deep in the home counties before nightfall. A steady stream of vagrants, trampling on good folks’ lawns. Harbingers of change.

We did not see very much before we left the sewers. No explosions; no fireworks. Something moved in the pools behind us, a shadow spreading in the water. That’s all. Out on the street all was quiet; a prisoner singing in the gaol adjoining the tobacco factory, a forlorn tenor, straining against the limits of his range. Charlie asked Livia whether she wanted to go to Grendel’s and find out how her mother was, but she only shook her head. Livia wants her mother’s love; is worried sick about her leg. But she is angry with her, too. So we kept to the streets.

Dawn came slowly, us walking around, trying to stay warm. Without meaning to, we drew to our church just as the sun came up. The gates remained barred, the windows broken, but the cross on top caught the weak light. Brass. It is a miracle nobody has bothered to steal it.

As dawn turned into morning, we started to get restless.

“Maybe,” Charlie said, “maybe it did not work.” An odd note to his voice as though he did not know how to feel.

“Maybe.”

By ten o’clock we could see the river start to boil.

It happened very quickly, deep under the surface, a darkness spreading, like a school of black herring hurtling upriver, forswearing the salt of the sea. The speed of a dark thought. On the surface, hovering an inch or two above the water, Smoke formed, shaping a second river, following its bend.