The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud Read Free Book Online Page B

distressed her, though she hardly knew the reason why.
     
     
    Kitty's mother worked as a receptionist at Palmer's Quill Bureau, a longestablished firm hidden among the many bookbinders and parchment makers of South London. The Bureau provided special quill pens for the magicians to use in their conjurations. Quills were messy, slow, and difficult to write with, and fewer magicians than ever bothered to use them. The staff of Palmer's used ballpoints instead.
    The job allowed Kitty's mother glimpses of the magicians themselves, since occasionally one would visit the Bureau to inspect a new consignment of pens. She found their proximity thrilling.
    "She was so glamorous," she would say. "Her clothes were the finest red-gold taffeta—I'm sure they came from Byzantium itself! And she was so imperious, too! When she snapped her fingers, everyone jumped like crickets to do her bidding."
    "Sounds rather rude to me," Kitty said.
    "You're so very young, love," her mother said. "No, she was a great woman."
    One day, when Kitty was ten years old, she came home from school to find her mother sitting tearfully in the kitchen.
    "Mum! What's the matter?"
    "It's nothing. Well, what am I saying?—I am hurt a little. Kitty, I am afraid... I am afraid that I have been made redundant. Oh dear, what are we going to tell your father?"
    Kitty sat her mother down, made her a pot of tea, and brought her a biscuit. Over much snuffling, sipping, and sighing, the truth came out. Old Mr. Palmer had retired. His firm had been acquired by a trio of magicians, who disliked having ordinary commoners on their staff; they had brought in new personnel and sacked half the original employees, including Kitty's mother.
    "But they can't do that," Kitty had protested.
    "Of course they can. It's their right. They protect the country, make us the greatest nation in the world; they have many privileges"—her mother dabbed at her eyes and took another slurp of tea—"but even so, it is a little hurtful, after so many years...."
    Hurtful or not, that was the last day that Kitty's mother worked at Palmer's. A few weeks later, her friend Mrs. Hyrnek, who had also been dismissed, got her a job as a cleaner in a printing works, and life resumed its structured course.
    But Kitty didn't forget.
     
    Kitty's parents were avid readers of The Times, which brought daily news of the army's latest victories. For years, it seemed, the wars had been going well; the Empire's territories expanded by the season, and the world's wealth was flowing back into the capital. But this success came at a price, and the paper continually advised all readers to be on the lookout for spies and saboteurs from enemy states, who might be living in ordinary neighborhoods, while all the time quietly working on wicked plots to destabilize the nation.
    "You keep your eyes open, Kitty," her mother advised. "No one takes heed of a girl like you. You never know, you might see something."
    "Especially around here," her father added, sourly. "In Balham."
    The area where Kitty lived was famous for its Czech community, which was long established. The high street had several little borscht cafes, marked by their thick net curtains and colorful flowerpots on the sills. Tanned old gentlemen with drooping white mustaches played chess and skittles in the streets outside the bars, and many of the local firms were owned by the grandchildren of the émigrés who had come to England back in Gladstone's time.
    Flourishing though the area was (it contained several important printing firms, including the noted Hyrnek and Sons), its strong European identity drew the constant attention of the Night Police. As she grew older, Kitty became used to witnessing daytime raids, with patrols of gray-uniformed officers breaking down doors and throwing belongings into the street. Sometimes young men were taken away in vans; on other occasions the families were left intact, to piece together the wreckage of their homes. Kitty always