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It was a cold December night. The kind of cold that sinks teeth into you; the kind of cold that creeps deep into your body with each new breath in and sends out clouds of frosty white with every warm exhale.
The full moon peered down upon frozen London from behind thick white clouds, and here and there stars could be seen shining cold and indifferent in patches of coal-black sky. White flurries of snow spun through the air. Icy wind swept through the streets and narrow alleyways with grasping fingers, plucking at scarves and hats, raking freezing nails over unprotected noses and cheeks.
It was the week before Christmas, and all the homes in the well-to-do parts of the city were full of music and the bright clink of glasses, the murmur of dinner conversation and good cheer. The open streets rang with activity, too; pavement and roads alike were clogged with people coming and going about their business. The luckiest ones clip-clopped by in horse-drawn carriages with swinging lanterns, horses snorting and tossing their fine heads, sending out foggy plumes of their own, but there were plenty of people bustling through the slushy streets on foot as well. Finely outfitted lords strolled by with elegantly garbed ladies in ermine and velvet on their arms; well-dressed children walked with their laughing families and clutched brightly wrapped packages; shoppers and well-wishers and bell-ringers called out seasons greetings to each other. Lamp-lighters hurried to and fro with their long poles. Every one of them heavily bundled up and protected from the cold.
Through all this a young girl trudged.
At eight years old she was small for her age, with skinny limbs and fair curling hair yanked hither and thither by the sharp wind. Her knee-length brown dress had once been nice, but was now two winters too small and worn thin and threadbare from countless washes. Her last pair of shoes had finally given out a month before, so she had tied bundles of rags to her small feet to stave off the freeze of the streets. It wasn’t working very well. She tried to avoid the slushy puddles as best she could, but there was no avoiding the fresh-fallen snow on the cobbles, nor the hidden patches of slick black ice lurking beneath. She had already fallen twice.
Clutched tight in her numb hands was a small tray full of matches. They were all damp from falling down, but once they dried they would work well enough, and she was not worried. They could still sell.
Her mother had a wasting disease that left her weak and thin as a stick, with pinched face and pale lips. She could not get out of bed anymore, so once she had fallen asleep the girl had taken her tray and quietly crept out of their small drafty house, onto the streets despite the stern warning that it was too cold.
If she could only make a bit more money, she reasoned, she could finally pay a doctor to come see Mother and make her better. And then she could get work at the factory once more, and they would have proper food again, and...everything would be right.
Certain of that as the girl was, she was also quite old enough to have no delusions about a visit from Father Christmas clearing things up. Rich children could afford to believe in fairies and magical creatures that appeared and gave you everything your heart desired, but others had to be more practical. So she trudged stubbornly along with her matches, though the wind was cruel and her unshod feet ached.
Great gusts of wind buffeted her to and fro, throwing handfuls of snow and sleet into her unprotected face. She tried to keep to the side-alleys and shadows, but in this nice part of town such places were few and far between. With her eyes half-shut against the weather she narrowly avoided being run over by a carriage horse. The driver shouted at her and flicked his long whip, catching her on the ankle, and she glared at him as she hurried past.
The streets were all alight with bright decorations and sprigs of green holly for Christmas, and she tried very hard to ignore the savory smell of roast goose wafting through the air.
She finally arrived, wet and shivering, at her usual selling location: a recessed doorway, a shadowy nook little more than a piece of wall that stuck out further from the rest, where two buildings leaned tiredly together. There were many like it along this busy street, but this particular shadowy nook was next to a baker’s shop.
The bakery was, to her hungry eyes, a wondrous and magical place. No matter the time of day or night it was always aglow and wafting out the delicious smell of baking bread. The huge display window was always full of the most glorious things to eat: cakes and loaves stuffed with nuts, rows and rows of shiny fresh-baked buns topped with currants and cheese and all sorts of marvelous things. Just looking at them made her empty stomach pinch with hunger.
The brick wall behind her was warm from the heat of the ovens, the little indent providing some shelter so the howling wind’s claws could not catch at her quite as cruelly. It was a good place where she could stand unnoticed in the shadows until she wanted to be seen, which was best in a world where urchins were viewed as a nuisance. And that bakery warmth ensured that she would at least not be standing in snow. She was allowed to stand here as long as she didn’t cause trouble or try to come inside, or until a policeman came looming with his heavy boots and club and told her to ‘move along.’
She cast another longing glance behind her at the buns in the window. If she sold enough matches maybe she could buy one, and eat part of it on her way home. Surely, surely someone would want to buy something today.
She shifted her frozen hands on the tray and stamped her feet. She couldn’t feel them anymore, which felt better than before. Now if she could only stop shivering!
It was no good dwelling on it. To distract herself, she fell back to one of her usual games- watching the people walk by and trying to guess who they were and where they were going. She would make up stories about them in her head: the especially large, florid woman with the feathered hat was a grand duchess on her way to a party; that skinny old man with the long white beard and monacle was no doubt a very important banker. The severe-faced young woman was probably a governess...
Not one of them spared her more than a glance as they passed, try as she might to get their attention.
As the crowds thinned, one gentleman in particular caught her eye. He stood next to the lamppost a few yards down the street, outside the bookshop...and he was standing still, not hurrying along to get out of the snow like everyone else. A fixed point in all the activity. People streamed past, laughing and talking, but he did not move or speak. He did not stamp his feet, or blow on his hands, or shift from side to side.
She dared the wind again and peeked curiously out at him from her little nook.
The man was thin and angular, elegantly dressed, older and taller than her father had been. He wore no heavy overcoat or scarf, but stood straight and tall in the yellow pool of lamp light, a careless tilt to his head. At casual ease despite the bitter cold. He was garbed head to toe in unrelieved black, save for the blood-red silk cravats that tumbled from the high neck of his fine black velvet morning coat. A silver pin winked at his throat and held the layered cravats in place. His black top hat was untouched by even a speck of snow, as was his coat, and gloved hands clutched a lacquered black walking-stick topped in polished silver. Most peculiar of all, he wore wire-rimmed dark glasses even though it was nighttime.
Perhaps he was blind, she thought. That could explain it. Maybe that was why he carried the stick. Although he seemed to be looking in the window of the bookshop, waiting for something.
She was distracted from her game by a wafting smell of bread. An overpowering wave of dizziness struck as her empty stomach made itself known again, a pang of visceral raw misery that she quickly stuffed back down.
The black-clad man’s head abruptly turned, snapped directly towards her hiding place as if she had called out, although she hadn’t made a sound. It was sudden enough to make her flinch. Was he looking at someone passing by? But no, there could be no mistake- he was looking right at her. The round lenses of his glasses caught the reflected light from the bakery window behind her and did not shift. Not a bit. He just stood there stock-still in the swirling white snow, unmoving as a statue save for the black coat tails flapping in the wind, and stared at her.
His dark eyebrows drew together above his glasses with a nearly audible click.
She was used to grown-ups frowning at her. She quickly lowered her gaze to the ground, stepped back a little, and waited for him to forget her.
A shadow blocked the lamplight. Black leather boots stepped into the snowy slush directly in front of her own feet, only inches away, and stayed there. Timidly, she looked partway up.
It was the all-in-black man, she could tell from his clothes. Now that he was so close she could see that his silver walking-stick topper was shaped like a serpent’s head, inlaid with yellow gems for eyes. She stared, fascinated. The gems glittered like flames in the light of the bakery window, bright and almost alive.
Perhaps he had changed his mind and wanted to buy some matches after all. She finally raised her head all the way, and looked up at his face.
She gasped, and shrank back against the stones of the building.
The man towered over her. His face was as harsh and angular as the rest of him, with sharp cheekbones and a nose that thrust forth like a knife, but that was not what held her attention. He had removed his glasses, and he had yellow eyes, just like his walking stick, yellow with slitted pupils just like the cats that lived behind the tannery by her home. She had never seen a person with eyes like that before. He was just standing there staring down at her, dark eyebrows bristled up in a fierce expression that was not quite a scowl.
“Are you here alone?” he demanded.
She was too nervous to speak, so only clutched her tray and nodded, wide-eyed.
The almost-scowl deepened. Harsh as it was, it felt somehow different than the ones she was used to seeing. It didn’t feel like he was scowling at her. It was the kind of frown that her mother wore when working out a particularly stubborn piece of knitting.
“Do you live there?” he asked, jabbing his walking stick at the bakery behind her. “Why are you standing outside in this?” ‘This’ he said with a slight hiss on the end, and seemed to indicate the weather, the busy street, the entire London winter scene with equal and marked disdain.
She shook her head, and found her voice. “No, sir. I’m just selling here. Baker doesn’t let the likes of me in.”
“Doesn’t he,” the man said silkily, with that same sibilant emphasis. He turned his yellow gaze slowly upwards to look through the window, and his lips drew back to bare white teeth in a silent snarl. Those teeth gleamed in the bakery light. They seemed rather sharper than they ought to be.
She leaned back again, wary of his anger now. He glanced back down at her, and blinked. Something flickered across his face. His expression softened, and he stabbed a gloved finger at her feet. “Wait there.”
He shoved his dark glasses back onto his face, abruptly turned on his heel and vanished back into the white flurries. He returned only a minute later, towing another, shorter gentleman.
This man was as different as different could be from his companion. Rounded in all the places that the dark man was sharp, cheerful and smiling with rosy cheeks. He was dressed at least as fine as the man in black, but in opposites. He wore an ivory coat with embroidered white cuffs that covered his hands to the knuckles, and a tall velvet hat of the same colour. Beneath that hat was a shock of pure white hair, even though he was not so old. His jewelry and cravats gleamed bright golden, and he was as untouched by the snow as his friend. To her great relief, his merry eyes were a normal shape and shade of light blue, wreathed in laugh lines. He reminded her, somehow, of Father Christmas. She felt immediately better, and tentatively returned his easy smile.
“Hello, my dear. Has my friend here been terrorizing you? What are you doing out here all alone in the cold?” His teeth were very white and even. He removed his hat and crouched down to look her in the eyes, and for the first time all evening the relentless wind seemed to falter in that corner of the street. A hush fell. White flakes of snow drifted soft and silent down, no longer swirling madly.
Frowning a little now, the man gently took her match tray and set it aside on the ground, and set his velvet hat carefully upon it. He took her numb hands between his own. His fingers were plump and very soft. “Good heavens, Crowley, she’s frozen solid,” he said reprovingly over his shoulder to his companion. “Why didn’t you do something?”
“Can’t,” the yellow-eyed man muttered through grit teeth. He stood facing the street with chin raised, occasionally casting a furtive look around. “This time of year…eyes everywhere. Can’t even-” He bit the words off and turned sharply away.
The golden man sighed. It was a very sad sound.
“Would...would you care to buy some matches, sirs?” she asked hesitantly. She couldn’t imagine why they were speaking to her otherwise.
“We would. But first, a moment.” The white-haired man glanced briefly about them, and his large hands tightened around hers.
Her fingers and toes prickled, and she inhaled as feeling abruptly returned in a hot stinging rush. Not just her hands, either- she suddenly felt warm all over. It reminded her of the time she had been allowed to go into the factory and stand before the great black iron furnace, taller than she was and many times as wide. The roaring fire had sent billows of heat washing over her entire body, and it had been the most wonderful thing in all the world.
She looked down at herself and gasped. Her thin raggedy dress with its too-short skirt had vanished. She now wore a wine-red velvet winter coat that hung down to her knees. It was trimmed all over with white ermine at the hems and wrists and collar, with shiny round ivory buttons marching down the front. She touched the fur in awe. It was soft as a cloud, and warm, and far grander than anything she had ever worn before. It looked just like the coats that the rich children wore as they stepped out all in a line on their way to church each week, decked out in their Sunday finery. A new weight across her shoulders turned out to be a heavy cape of the same material.
She realized she could no longer feel the stones of the street, and bent to peer down at her feet, mouth falling open in wonder. Her sodden rags had been replaced with elegant black boots that laced up her calves, the very exact boots she had dreamily admired in a cobbler window last week as she stood there with bare feet aching from cold. They were adorned with dozens of tiny black buttons and topped in matching white fur, and peeked out from under peacock blue skirts edged with lace petticoats.
She looked back up into the golden man’s face, speechless.
“Now that’s much better, isn’t it?” he asked with a gentle smile, and reached up to settle the cape’s fur-lined hood over her head.
Behind him the dark man was pacing back and forth, swinging his cane around in agitation and muttering furiously to himself. Passersby were giving him a wide berth. She could make out bits and pieces of what he was saying. “...hundreds of people … despicable bloody lot of them...”
“Hush, dear boy, you’re going to frighten her.”
“I’m not scared,” she said stoutly. It was true. Odd and scowly as he looked, if he was friends with the golden man he couldn’t be so very bad. “Is he angry?” she asked uncertainly.
“Quite often.” The golden man smiled kindly. “But not at you. It is…a particularly difficult time of year for him. Pay it no mind.”
“...useless human gits,” the yellow-eyed man finished, and lapsed again into scowling stillness. He glared at a couple of well-dressed gentlemen hurrying by, and they suddenly slipped on a hidden patch of ice and went sprawling into a snowbank with matching yelps of surprise.
She giggled.
The dark man glanced over at her then, and the hard line of his mouth twitched. “A bit much, don’t you think, angel?” he said gruffly, addressing his friend. He didn’t look or sound upset though, not really. Perhaps he was the kind of grown-up that snapped without teeth.
“No, I don’t think so,” the golden man replied firmly.
“Are you an angel, sir?” she asked in a hushed whisper, slightly doubtfully. She knew that angels were real where fairies were not, of course, but she’d always thought that they would look more like the paintings in church, with bright wings and halos and great booming voices like the pastor in his pulpit. This ordinary looking man was something rather underwhelming.
“I am. But you mustn’t tell anyone.”
She nodded solemnly, wide-eyed. She was very good at keeping secrets. “And...him too?” she asked even more doubtfully, looking at the yellow-eyed man, who had begun pacing and muttering darkly again. He didn’t seem much like one, but Mother did always say not to put much stock in seeming, that angels and saints could appear in any form at all, so it was always best to be polite just in case you met one in disguise.
The two men exchanged glances, one irritated, one amused.
“Of a sort,” he replied calmly. “Now, tell me, my dear. What are you doing out here all by yourself?”
At his renewed prodding she told him all about It, and about how she was out here to make some money so she could buy food and medicine, just until Mother was well of course.
“Of course. Here.” He took a match from her tray, and held it up briefly before putting it in his pocket. “I’ll keep one, and trade you for this.” He handed her a gold velvet pouch the size of her two fists together, though he had held nothing a moment before. It was very heavy, and clinked as he settled it into her new coat pocket.
“That should sort things out quite nicely.”
“Thank you,” she said faintly. She supposed she ought to bow, or something, but she was afraid she might fall over if she did.
“You are quite welcome.” He brushed some snow off her shoulder, which had begun to pile up even in the short time they had spent standing there- and she noticed with a start that they didn’t have any snow on them, at all, not even a flake. If she looked closely and squinted her eyes, with the street lamps a glowing nimbus behind them, the snow appeared to simply fall around both of them. As if it did not even know they were there.
“And now, for the other matter.” On his outstretched hand there was suddenly a tiny crimson bakery box, tied in a white satin ribbon. He raised his eyebrows, pulled the ribbon away with a slight flourish and opened it slowly, carefully, like the final reveal of a magic trick. Inside was a single glossy petit four, the kind of thing she had only seen in the finest confectionary windows. It glowed slightly in the light from the bakery behind her. He closed the box again, and tied it up. He smiled and offered it to her, balanced on his palm.
“Give this to your mother, and it will help her get better.”
“Truly, sir?” She took the box and clutched it to her chest, carefully so as not to crush it. Her feet were dry and warm, and the fur coat was soft against her skin.
“Truly.” His eyes twinkled merrily. “It is the best kind of medicine, I promise.” Behind him, the yellow-eyed man tapped his black cane on the cobblestones. “Now I am afraid I must go, but you must promise me that you will go home straight away and not linger about in the cold.”
She nodded, speechless again, and the man stood. He retrieved his hat and tipped it to her with another smile, then turned and rejoined his friend. He put a hand on his black-coated shoulder, and seemed to speak quietly to him for a moment. The yellow-eyed man nodded.
She watched them both carefully, wondering if they would vanish in a blaze of light, or leap into the sky and fly away into the stars, or any number of things told in the stories by the pastor, but no. They simply walked away down the blustery street like ordinary people, dark and light side by side, with shoulders just barely touching.
Perhaps real angels didn’t do any of those things after all, she mused. She had never much liked the pastor anyway.
The wind had picked up again, though it took her a moment to notice now, as it only ruffled the fur of her coat instead of slicing right through her.
After another moment she remembered the purse he had placed in her pocket. When she undid the clasp and peeked curiously inside, she gasped- it was crammed full of gold sovereigns, not a copper penny among them. More money than she had ever seen- ever dreamed there could be. She hastily snapped it shut before anyone else could catch a glimpse. Now that would be asking for trouble.
She suddenly became aware of a commotion behind her, and glanced back. A moment later the bakery door burst open, and the baker and his assistant stumbled out, coughing and choking on the clouds of black smoke pouring from the shop.
That meant it really was time to go. He would be in a foul mood after an accident like that. She stuffed the purse and little red box both into the lefthand pocket of the coat, then quickly ducked back into the shadows, leaving the street to its chaos.
As she walked she no longer drew irate glances. Her feet were invincible in their new boots; she grinned at the way it felt to practically float along the street rather than feel every single cobblestone and puddle.
The stars still shone cold in the black sky; the snow fell unabated. Icy wind blew just as fiercely as it had while coming here. But it could no longer catch her. There was a furnace in her chest, radiating warmth.
Just wait until I tell Mother about the angels, she thought. Probably no one would believe her, but that didn’t matter. She would know. Some things didn’t have to be believed to be true.
Right before she reached the long stretch of empty street that bordered her neighborhood, she noticed another slight weight in her coat, bumping against her leg as she walked. Too light to be the coin purse, and on the wrong side. A quick examination of the righthand pocket revealed one of the currant-topped buns she had admired in the bakery window. It was still hot, steaming in the cold air. She squealed in glee and immediately stuffed half of it into her mouth in one enormous bite. It burnt her tongue and the roof of her mouth, but she didn’t care. It tasted every bit as good as she had imagined.
As she chewed she realized that the weight was still there. She stopped, frowning, and reached down to the very bottom of the fur-lined pocket, and drew out...a silver cane topper, wrought in the shape of a serpent, inlaid with yellow gems. It lay in her palm, heavy and warm and real, glinting gold in the light of the street lamps.
She looked at it for a long moment, then grinned, and clutched it tight in her hand as she hurried down the snowy dark streets towards home.