“And where did all of this milk come from? Where are the cows?”
Pam studied the mysteriously cold shelves stuffed with bottles of creamy white liquid. “I honestly don’t know,” said Pam. “No one’s ever asked me that.” They walked back to the corridor with the sugar. Jane had reached El Dorado, the city of gold, the land of milk and honey, and it was named Sainsbury’s.
“Pam, you are a genius,” Jane said. “You must have abolished starvation with your indoor market.” At least four children had starved to death in Bath the month prior; Jane knew this because her papa had christened each of them before they died. “Enough food now exists to feed everyone,” she declared.
“People still starve,” Pam said.
Jane turned to her with surprise. “How is that possible?”
“Not around here,” Pam said, shaking her head. “I’ve heard children starve to death in Yemen, though, poor darlings.”
“How is that possible?” Jane repeated. She picked up a sugar bag.
Pam shrugged. “People are still people.”
Jane sighed. “You are wise, Pam. How much is this sugar?”
“Fifty p for the bag,” Pam replied.
“Do I have enough?” Jane asked. She offered her handful of remaining banknotes and coins. Pam nodded. Jane had felt happy to forgo buying a book, but it equaled the utmost of follies to walk past sugar in such abundance and not buy some. “I shall take one bag, Pam.” She offered Pam her money. Pam offered her another curious look.
“Pay at the front, miss. At the checkout.” Pam showed Jane how to purchase the sugar. There were more silver boxes and ringing sounds and mayhem and confusion, but finally, together, they completed the transaction. Pam packed the sugar in a shiny reticule that also read Sainsbury’s and Jane exited the building.
She returned to the road that stretched beside St. Paul’s Cathedral and took one last detour to walk inside the grand church and look around; she could not help herself. The monstrous dome loomed over her head, and glorious dusty light streamed downward into the church in shards of yellow. The giant naves of the structure stretched out like the lungs of a whale. Twenty-first-century people wandered about in pairs and trios, whispering and pointing at statues and paintings, dwarfed by the monumental stone walls. Each of them in turn stopped and looked upward, turning their head to stare at the giant dome and the circular opening it offered overhead, a window to the heavens. Jane had done the same once, on the date of her twelfth birthday, when she travelled with her father to London. She had felt compelled to peer aloft, on instinct, as they did, and she repeated the act now, looking upward, smiling at the warm sun on her face, and sending a prayer of thanks up there for having made it across London alive.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jane exited the church and walked the three blocks east down Cheapside as she had before. Her thoughts turned to what Mrs. Sinclair had told her: she would be gone now, but there would always be someone like her in that house. Questions filled Jane’s mind. Why was she sent here? Had Mrs. Sinclair simply made a mistake? Sorceresses likely erred as much as the next profession, especially the ones who lived in Cheapside. But above these, one question stood for which she required an answer: How could she reverse what she had done and return home?
As Jane arrived at Milk Street, her heart raced. The ale house on the corner was still called the Duck and Waffle. A smooth black lane replaced the cobblestones, but the public house was the same brownstone building as in 1803. She continued down the street. The same military church and warehouses sat there, cleaner than before, but they remained. Apart from the refurbished road, the frame portrayed a scene almost identical to the one she had left.
She quickened her pace, her heart skipping with excitement. She turned the corner and stepped onto Russia Row.
The sagging Tudor building was gone.
Jane shook her head in disbelief. She confirmed the address on the paper, with its strange numbers and letters that Sofia had added. She stood in the correct place, but the house had departed. In its place stood a block building of glass and mortar, five stories tall. The ground floor of the building appeared to be a restaurant; a blue sign out front read Pizza Express. Jane stepped back in shock. She felt sure the house would remain; all the other houses in the street did. Some mistake must have occurred.
Jane walked inside the restaurant.
“For one?” a woman said to Jane.
“I beg your pardon,” said Jane. “Is this the address of 8 Russia Row?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “Just you for lunch?”
“What happened to the house that was here?”
“I’ve only worked here two months. I know nothing,” the woman replied. “What do you want to order?”
Jane looked at the woman and tried not to cry. She had salivated with hunger before in the indoor market but had now lost her appetite.
“I’ll give you a minute.” The woman walked away.
Jane sat down at a table. She could not understand it. She had crossed twenty-first-century London and not been killed once. She had earned the right to arrive at this house and find it intact after navigating her way through underground trains, maniacal farm gates, and crazed drivers of horseless steel beasts. Jane felt nauseated with worry as the waitress returned. What could she do now?
“I am sorry. I still do not know my order,” Jane said.
“I’ve just come to tell you this is a new building. My manager told me.”
Jane sat up. “Thank you. And what happened to the house that stood on this plot before?”
“It fell down. Last year.”
“That cannot be,” said Jane. “That house was always supposed to be here.”
“It was
