This was my original ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
yuletide assignment, but it was sort of intimidating to me because ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sixthlight is one of the more prolific and beloved authors in the fandom, and her work has given me such joy over the years I wanted to return some, so I felt a bit more internal pressure for it to be good than normal. (I mean, I always want it to be good, but you know what I mean. When you sort the RoL fic on AO3 by hits, sixthlight wrote 9 out of 20 on the first page.) Anyway, my original idea was to write the vaguely alluded-to adventure of Mamusu and Elsie back in Freetown, but I suck at writing adventure. So this is what happened instead, and I really enjoy it.
I started by re-reading all of the books closely for any details about Peter's family that I could find, and updating the Follypedia. I did have some qualms about doing so, because if someone read my story and then went to Follypedia someone might make the connection between "the person who just updated Mamusu and Abigail's pages" and "the person who just wrote a story about them" and wonder if they were the same. (Also, I find it extremely annoying that Mamusu's page is titled "Rose Grant" and not "Mamusu 'Rose' Grant." I corrected the page header, but the link is still "Rose Grant" even though we are explicitly told that's the name White people use (and by implication probably not her real name).
Title: Right from the Source
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Abigail Kamara, Mamusu "Rose" Grant, Elsie Winstanley, Alfred Kamara
Written For: sixthlight in Yuletide 2017
Word Count: 3993
Betaed By: Burning_Nightingale
Summary: Abigail thinks she knows what the world is like. Then Aunt Mamusu shows up with the news of Cousin Peter's new job.
On AO3.
Author's Note: I have only read the comics that have been published as graphic novels, so this fic takes no notice of any details about Abigail revealed in "Cry Fox."
Abigail was supposed to be doing her homework.
She was not. It was Friday, and she had plenty of time (and it was all simple stuff, anyway), and so she was watching vids on Youtube with the sound down low and trying to figure out how the vidders made them so sick, and snapchatting with friends about what they were going to do that weekend. Mum wasn't home from work yet, and Dad was still sleeping, so there was no one to tell her to get her homework out of the way before doing fun stuff. She kept an ear out for Dad—she'd heard a few noises from her parents' bedroom, he'd probably be up soon—and was ready to minimize Youtube for her English homework the second she heard him opening the door.
It was a bit of a surprise, then, to be interrupted from a knock at the front door. Her friends would snapchat if they wanted to ask her to come hang out, and her brother wouldn't need to knock (and his friends would snapchat him, too) and Mum and Dad's friends were either at work like Mum or sleeping off a night shift like Dad. She got up to see who it was.
A quick check through the peephole showed Aunt Mamusu. Abigail made a face. She had a lot of respect for her Aunt Mamusu, one of the most determined women Abigail had ever met. One day, she wanted to be able to order people around like Aunt Mamusu could and have them obey, not because they had to, but because of sheer force of personality. It would cut down on all the bullshit she had to wade through, Abigail was sure. On the other hand …
Aunt Mamusu knocked again, and Abigail hastily unlocked the door and opened it. If Dad were woken before he was ready, he'd be grumpy for the rest of the day. Even if it was his half-sister. Especially if it was his half-sister.
"Hello, Aunt Mamusu," Abigail said. "Dad's still asleep and Mum's not home yet."
"He should be up soon," Aunt Mamusu said. "I'll wait. I have news of Peter."
Abigail shrugged and let her in. A few years ago she'd thought her cousin Peter, fifteen years older than her, was one of the coolest people on the estate. But that was before she'd realized he was a copper—how cool could he be? She was curious, though, what he'd done that Aunt Mamusu wanted to share it directly instead of over the phone. On the other hand, it was probably only something boring like getting married or something like that. She glanced at her laptop, and wondered if she could use homework as an excuse not to talk until Dad got up. Her stuff was all over the coffee table, so she started neatening it up while Aunt Mamusu took one of the two armchairs.
"You have grown so much since the last time I saw you, Abigail," Aunt Mamusu said, and Abigail groaned. She knew where this was going.
"Happens to all of us, Aunt Mamusu."
"You're turning into such a beautiful young woman," Aunt Mamusu went on. "It's such a shame about your hair—"
"I like it the way it is." Abigail said shortly. She plopped herself down on the couch and grabbed the family laptop firmly. "And I have homework."
"I'm glad to see you're so dedicated to your studies," Aunt Mamusu said. "But aren't you worried no boy will want you with your hair like that?"
"If a boy is stupid enough that he doesn't want me because he doesn't like my hair, then I don't want him," Abigail said through clenched teeth. All of that lovely determination and authority, and what did Aunt Mamusu use it for? Mostly, trying to get Abigail to straighten her hair. Aaaargh. "I have an essay due Monday." It was true, she did. Half of it was done already, in class, while everybody else was faffing about or asking the teacher to explain things again, so it wouldn't take her long to finish it, but Aunt Mamusu didn't need to know that.
"Mamusu? What are you doing here?"
Abigail looked up to see her Dad standing in the bedroom doorway in his bathroom, rubbing his eyes. "Sorry for waking you, Dad."
"I was awake," Dad said, yawning, as he shambled over and sat on the chair opposite Aunt Mamusu. Obviously not fully awake and alert, even now.
Aunt Mamusu started talking in Krio. Abigail didn't really speak it (her Fula was much better), but if she tried she could generally figure out roughly what was being said. It wasn't that different from English. She was debating whether to try, or to put her headphones on and go back to Youtube when Dad sat bolt upright, all sleepiness gone from his posture, and bit out some sharp questions.
Okay, that was too interesting not to listen to. Abigail listened for a bit and got more confused. "So, Peter is a witch?" Like, did they mean he'd converted to paganism? One of the kids at school had a mum who was a pagan, and always objected about witch costumes and decorations at Halloween.
"No!" Aunt Mamusu turned to her and scowled. "How dare you—Peter is a good boy! My son is not a witch! He is a witch-finder! He has joined the police department that handles evil witches and spirits. It is a very respectable job. Important."
Abigail stared blankly at her and couldn't think of anything to say besides 'have you been into Uncle Richard's stash' which would get her into so much trouble. "But witches and stuff don't exist."
"Of course they do," her Dad said. "Who else can put curses on people?"
Abigail sighed. Well, at least he hadn't said something like that where her white friends could hear. "Dad, curses don't exist," she said patiently.
Dad turned to Aunt Mamusu who was shaking her head.
"I blame these English schools," she said. "Even the English are not fools enough to ignore witches entirely, but they teach children that they don't exist. Maybe it discourages some from learning curses, but then what happens if they come up against a witch and don't know what to do—don't even recognize what's going on?"
Dad agreed, and they lapsed back into Krio, and from what Abigail could tell they spent the next half-hour complaining about kids these days, English schools, and how proud Aunt Mamusu was that Peter was finally really making something of himself.
As a witchfinder for the filth.
It was probably the longest conversation they'd had in years, or at least the longest Abigail had seen.
It was bizarre.
After supper Mum asked her about her homework, as usual.
"I need to find somebody who uses English in their career to interview," Abigail said. "Like, writing or editing or teaching or something. Ms. Jacobs is really big on practical application. And it can't be anyone at school or the librarian at the local public library."
"Well, if being a secretary counts, there's lots round here you could ask," Mum said.
"You should have asked while your Aunt Mamusu was here," Dad said. "I think she's got a friend who's a librarian at the British Library."
"How'd they meet?" Abigail asked. Aunt Mamusu knew a lot of people, but usually it was pretty obvious how—they were family, or they lived on the estate, or they were cleaners, too.
"Oh, it was back when your aunt was working at the library in Freetown," Dad said casually.
Aunt Mamusu had been a librarian? Abigail shook her head. It was hard to imagine her as anything but a cleaning lady. Well, she wouldn't have been the first African immigrant to come to the fabled shores of damp old England only to find that she couldn't actually get the job she was qualified for. Anyhow, a librarian at the British Library sounded a lot more interesting than a secretary or whoever, and Abigail hadn't been looking forward to emailing newspapers to see if she could find a reporter who would take pity on a black kid from Kentish Town.
"Why was Rose over?" Mum asked, curious.
"News about Peter," Dad said. "Apparently the police have a special division of witch-finders, and he's joined it. She's very proud—it's an important job."
"Witch-finders?" Mum asked.
"Yeah, you know," Dad said. "Track down evil witches and stop them cursing people, that sort of thing."
Mum glanced at Abigail and shared a conspiratorial eye-roll at Dad's superstition.
Aunt Mamusu did indeed know a librarian at the British Library, but instead of passing along their contact information, she arranged the meeting herself—and invited herself along to it.
"I can get there myself, you know," Abigail said as they stood on the Underground platform waiting for the next train to arrive.
"I haven't seen Elsie in years," Aunt Mamusu said. "I want to catch up with her."
Abigail made a face. That was what she was afraid of. There was nothing more boring than sitting and listening to adults catch up on old gossip.
Aunt Mamusu spent the tube ride interrogating her about what her grades were like, the way adults did with kids they were trying to connect with. Not a single comment about her hair; maybe she was saving that for the trip home, get the awkward in AFTER meeting with her friend she hadn't seen in years.
They got off at Euston Station and walked the ten minutes or so to the library. It was the sort of touristy place that Abigail, being a native Londoner, had never been to. Big, impressive, with a nice shiny lobby and desk where Aunt Mamusu gave their names and the bored white guy told them to wait while he called Aunt Mamusu's friend.
Aunt Mamusu's friend didn't take long to show up. "Ah, Mamusu, lovely to see you!" came a voice from behind Abigail.
She turned, to find … not what she was expecting.
Abigail'd had vague ideas about another Sierra Leonean, one who'd made it good and didn't live in a council flat. But Aunt Mamusu's friend was not only English, but the prototypical English Upper Class Academic Woman that Abigail had only seen on the beeb and until now had thought more proverbial than real. Neat gray hair, cardigan, tweed skirt, sensible shoes, posh accent … she could've stepped right out of an Agatha Christie, if it weren't for the tablet in her hand. She had the kind of effortless self-confidence that you only got when nobody'd ever challenged your right to do anything you wanted. When you were the standard other people got squashed and twisted to conform to, rather than the one being squashed and twisted.
She advanced upon them, hand out, and gave Aunt Mamusu a firm, hearty handshake before turning to Abigail. "And you must be Abigail," she said. "I'm Elsie Winstanley, and I manage the specialist collections here. Lovely to meet you. Shall we start with a tour, and answer questions after?"
There followed two hours of exploring the massive building—including the reading rooms (boring), the stacks themselves (mildly interesting), the little train that carried books to where they were needed (very interesting), an exhibit featuring the scroll that Jack Kerouac typed On The Road on (deeply weird and pretentious), the Magna Carta (more awesome in person than Abigail had expected), and a wide variety of other things.
"I'm giving you a bit more than the standard tour, you know," Ms. Winstanley, unlocking a door so they could peek in at one of the more special of the specialist collections the Library held. "On account of you being Mamusu's niece. If you've half the mind and wits your aunt has, we'd love to have you here. We can always take people with both good training and good wits. You know, Mamusu, there's no time limit on that offer—"
"I know," Aunt Mamusu said abruptly.
Abigail turned round to see a pained look on Aunt Mamusu's face, before she smoothed it over into her usual set expression.
"Abigail's very smart," Aunt Mamusu said. "Gets good grades in school. Though I'm told she's more interested in the sciences than in literature."
Abigail made a face. What she was most interested in was AV stuff, youtube vids and the like, but nobody cared about that. Science was okay, but it wasn't like she wanted to be a doctor or an engineer or anything like that.
"Well, do keep us in mind," Ms. Winstanley said, before continuing the tour, which was, now that Abigail was paying attention, chock-full of subtle little recruitment pitches. It was a very thorough tour, and as they went along Abigail had plenty of time to ask the questions she was supposed to.
They ended up in Ms. Winstanley's office, which oddly enough did not have stacks of books everywhere, as Abigail had been imagining. Instead, there was a small desk with a laptop and other devices, two bookshelves filled with books, a table workspace with a few really old books on it, and an electric kettle on a tiny endtable next to the desk.
"I am the manager of special collections," Ms. Winstanley said, noting her look of surprise. "As in, mostly either older or rarer or stranger than the majority of our collection, which means one has to be more careful with them. One can't simply leave them lying about where someone might spill something on them, of course. Would you like some tea?"
Abigail was sent out to the staff room down the hall for an extra chair, and when she returned, Aunt Mamusu was telling Ms. Winstanley all about how Uncle Richard was playing professionally again, and was 'healthier' (which was code for shooting up less, which Abigail was skeptical of—Aunt Mamusu always tried to put the best face on him being a junkie), and that the dentist said if they could scrape up the cash, he could rebuild Uncle Richard's teeth to let him play the trumpet again.
None of which Abigail really cared about. Uncle Richard was just the weird white guy who occasionally showed up to family events and hovered awkwardly, the guy Mum and Dad shook their head over whenever he or Aunt Mamusu came up in conversation. But when she pulled out her phone, Aunt Mamusu glared at her until she put it back. Abigail sighed and focused on her tea and biscuits, which were good but not good enough to occupy her attention. It had been, she realized, a mistake to ask her questions during the tour. Now there was nothing to keep the two women from gossiping about boring things.
"And how is Peter?" Ms. Winstanley asked.
"Peter is very good!" Aunt Mamusu said, brightening. "He joined the Metropolitan Police, you know, which is better than the odd jobs he'd been doing since he left school, and when he finished his probation he was chosen for the witch-finders! He's been training there for almost a year, now."
Abigail closed her eyes, mortified. She'd thought Aunt Mamusu was smarter than that! No posh white woman was going to take that statement with anything but the most mortifying condescension for 'superstitious Africans' she could muster.
"A witchfinder, here in London?" Ms. Winstanley sounded surprised but not, Abigail realized, amused. "That would be with the Folly, yes?"
"That is what Peter calls it, yes," Aunt Mamusu said. "He has another name for official business—very bureaucratic and official and meaningless. If I were going to name a department as important as witchfinding, I would give it a better name."
"Mm, yes," Ms. Winstanley said, sipping her tea. "How odd. I thought the Folly closed up in, what, the nineteen-fifties? Sixties? Something like that. They haven't published anything since the thirties, at least. I shall have to ask around, see what's happened since."
"Published?" Abigail couldn't help herself.
"Oh yes," Ms. Winstanley said. "The British Library, by law, gets one copy of every book published or distributed in Britain. Including the secret ones. The secret ones get kept in special collections instead of the main stacks, of course. The Folly used to be quite a large institution, in its prime, and it printed a prodigious number of books, everything from textbooks to monographs to translations of foreign works on magic. And we have copies of every one of them. Not available to the general public, of course, nor listed in the main catalogs."
"Have you read any of them?" Abigail asked, still a bit skeptical of the whole thing.
"Oh, yes," Ms. Winstanley said.
"Could I read them?" Abigail persisted. Ms. Winstanley could just be playing along, making a joke or something. She didn't seem like it, but that would be more plausible than witches and things in everyday London.
"Afraid not," the older woman replied complacently. "I'm not even supposed to admit we have them to anyone without the proper clearances. Perhaps your cousin will lend you one, if you ask. Though the ones that actually teach magic itself are in Latin, so you would have to learn that."
Abigail fell silent, wondering how to break the subject without sounding like a total idiot. What would she say? 'Oi, cousin Peter, your mum says you're a witchfinder, want to show me your secret books? Or some magic, maybe, to prove she's not mental?' And what if Aunt Mamusu was mental, then Abigail would sound so stupid.
"Abigail here doesn't believe in witches," said Aunt Mamusu. "Or orisa, or curses, or any sort of magic."
Ms. Winstanley turned to eye her up and down, brow raised. "Oh? I would have thought that hearing you tell the story of that night in eighty-one would have been enough to convince her—first-hand narrative, not mere hearsay, and all that."
"She's trying too hard to be English, I think," Aunt Mamusu said. "You know what most white people think about what they call 'superstition.'"
"I am English," Abigail said. "I don't need to try to fit in. If I did, I'd still be letting you straighten my hair."
"Well, your Aunt and I both have first-hand knowledge of the dangers of magic in the hands of unethical people," Ms. Winstanley said. "Almost got killed by one. Close-run thing, if the idiot hadn't let Mamusu out of his sight for long enough to bash him over the head from behind with a chair, we'd both have been done for. As it was, we had to leg it to get away from his friends."
"Wish I'd had a knife, could have stopped him doing anything like that again permanently," Aunt Mamusu muttered.
Abigail listened, shocked. "You mean—you mean that story you used to tell when I was a kid was true? I thought it was just to get me to stay still while you put relaxer through my hair."
"Yes," Aunt Mamusu said, matter-of-factly. "Although when you were little I did soften it a bit."
Abigail sipped her tea, mind blown. "Oh," she said.
"We both found it better to leave Freetown after it was over," Ms. Winstanley said, munching on a biscuit. "The witches were in custody, but they might have had friends—and the police were having to call in witchfinders from the rural areas to keep them contained because there weren't any in Freetown, but the local tribes didn't want to send them. Too strong a memory of what the Colonial administration had done to witchfinders who practiced openly in the city—they'd had an English wizard stationed there before the war, wanted everything run through him instead."
"I heard President Stevens started his own bureau of witchfinders," Aunt Mamusu said. "But I was here in London already, by the time that happened." She and Ms. Winstanley discussed the politics of witchfinding in Sierra Leone and what it might mean for current events in that country while Abigail scrambled to remember the old story she hadn't heard in years.
Something about a small group of revolutionaries who wanted to stage a coup, and using the library as an inconspicuous meeting place? Or hiding something in it? And Aunt Mamusu and a friend—who must have been Elsie Winstanley—stumbling over some booby-trap or other by complete accident, and then being chased across the city by people trying to silence them? If she'd known it were true she'd have paid better attention!
But they didn't have much time before they had to leave so that Aunt Mamusu could get ready for work, and Abigail didn't get a chance to ask any of the burning questions she now had.
While they were waiting for the Underground, Aunt Mamusu turned to her and said something in Krio.
"My Fula is much better than my Krio, Aunt," Abigail said.
Aunt Mamusu grimaced. She'd been raised in Freetown by her Krio mother, Grandfather's first wife, while Abigail's Dad had been raised out in the village, by his mum, Grandfather's second wife, with grandfather staying with whichever family his sales route happened to have him closest to. Aunt Mamusu was more Krio than Fula in a lot of ways, but Dad was pure Fula. "So, you thought I was just a superstitious old woman," she said in badly-accented Fula. "Your father, too. But you were quick to believe Elsie."
"Sorry, auntie," Abigail said as meekly as she could, trying to come up with a reason other than 'it sounded better coming from someone who could be an expert for the BBC.'
"But you believe now?" Aunt Mamusu said. "And if you ever see a witch or spirit or anything like that you will go straight to Peter, in case it's dangerous?"
"Sure," said Abigail. Well, once she'd confirmed it was really something weird or dangerous, anyway. Once she needed help dealing with it. She wouldn't want to bother the police with anything trivial, now, would she?
Aunt Mamusu, knowing her niece well, started to press her for a more detailed promise, but thankfully the train arrived just then, and in the rush to get on and find a seat, Abigail managed to dodge.
"So what did Ms. Winstanley mean about the offer," she said, once they were settled in, to head any further discussion of promises off at the pass. "The one she said was still open?" She used English, now that they weren't talking about magic, to avoid the dirty looks that speaking Fula would have gotten them.
Aunt Mamusu's face set. "When we parted in Freetown, Elsie said that once I finished my degree she would get me a job in any library she worked at. But of course I had to get a job to support myself and the family, and then there was Peter, and there simply wasn't time to go to school on top of all that. And now, whatever Elsie says, I am much too old to go back to school."
If it weren't for marrying Richard Grant, she probably could have done it, Abigail thought, but she was smart enough not to say it. Or if he hadn't been a deadbeat, had supported the family or taken care of Peter or something, she could have found the time.
It was sad. But it wasn't like there was anything Abigail could do about it, and talking wouldn't help. Her thoughts turned back to the idea that magic really existed, and so did ghosts and curses.
Cousin Peter probably wouldn't want to spend time explaining his job to his nosy cousin. When he'd brought that band over the first time, to rehearse with his Dad, he hadn't even seemed to recognize her.
Abigail would have to keep her eyes peeled. Then, once she had proof of something, she could call him in. And then she'd get the full story, right from the source.
Canon note: While canon-reviewing and researching Sierra Leone, I found that the details of Mamusu's backstory as given by canon don't really ... add up. When Peter first meets Mama Thames, she identifies his mother as a Fula, which is a Sierra Leonean ethnic group. Except the Fula are 99% Muslim, according to multiple sources, and Mamusu is Christian. Also, when she's speaking to Peter in a non-English language, she uses Krio. According to various sources, most Sierra Leoneans do speak Krio as a lingua franca, but the only people for whom it is their native language are the Krio people. (Who are, by the way, pretty much all Christian.) Then there's the fact that Mamusu seems to have grown up or spent significant time in Freetown, and went away to school, whereas her half-brother Alfred is identified as having been a poor subsistence farmer in a backwater village before becoming a refugee. So my headcanon is that Mamusu's dad was a Fula guy who travelled a lot on business and so his wives didn't all live in the same town. Mamusu's mum was a Krio woman who lived in Freetown and had some money of her own (maybe owned a business), while Alfred's mum was a Fula woman who lived in a small village and did subsistence farming, and that's where all the discrepancies come from. So while Mamusu speaks Fula, her native tongue is Krio, and while Alfred speaks Krio, his native tongue is Fula, and so Peter knows Krio while Abigail knows Fula. And then, after figuring all that out, I realized that there wasn't much place for it in the story.
yuletide assignment, but it was sort of intimidating to me because sixthlight is one of the more prolific and beloved authors in the fandom, and her work has given me such joy over the years I wanted to return some, so I felt a bit more internal pressure for it to be good than normal. (I mean, I always want it to be good, but you know what I mean. When you sort the RoL fic on AO3 by hits, sixthlight wrote 9 out of 20 on the first page.) Anyway, my original idea was to write the vaguely alluded-to adventure of Mamusu and Elsie back in Freetown, but I suck at writing adventure. So this is what happened instead, and I really enjoy it.I started by re-reading all of the books closely for any details about Peter's family that I could find, and updating the Follypedia. I did have some qualms about doing so, because if someone read my story and then went to Follypedia someone might make the connection between "the person who just updated Mamusu and Abigail's pages" and "the person who just wrote a story about them" and wonder if they were the same. (Also, I find it extremely annoying that Mamusu's page is titled "Rose Grant" and not "Mamusu 'Rose' Grant." I corrected the page header, but the link is still "Rose Grant" even though we are explicitly told that's the name White people use (and by implication probably not her real name).
Title: Right from the Source
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Abigail Kamara, Mamusu "Rose" Grant, Elsie Winstanley, Alfred Kamara
Written For: sixthlight in Yuletide 2017
Word Count: 3993
Betaed By: Burning_Nightingale
Summary: Abigail thinks she knows what the world is like. Then Aunt Mamusu shows up with the news of Cousin Peter's new job.
On AO3.
Author's Note: I have only read the comics that have been published as graphic novels, so this fic takes no notice of any details about Abigail revealed in "Cry Fox."
Abigail was supposed to be doing her homework.
She was not. It was Friday, and she had plenty of time (and it was all simple stuff, anyway), and so she was watching vids on Youtube with the sound down low and trying to figure out how the vidders made them so sick, and snapchatting with friends about what they were going to do that weekend. Mum wasn't home from work yet, and Dad was still sleeping, so there was no one to tell her to get her homework out of the way before doing fun stuff. She kept an ear out for Dad—she'd heard a few noises from her parents' bedroom, he'd probably be up soon—and was ready to minimize Youtube for her English homework the second she heard him opening the door.
It was a bit of a surprise, then, to be interrupted from a knock at the front door. Her friends would snapchat if they wanted to ask her to come hang out, and her brother wouldn't need to knock (and his friends would snapchat him, too) and Mum and Dad's friends were either at work like Mum or sleeping off a night shift like Dad. She got up to see who it was.
A quick check through the peephole showed Aunt Mamusu. Abigail made a face. She had a lot of respect for her Aunt Mamusu, one of the most determined women Abigail had ever met. One day, she wanted to be able to order people around like Aunt Mamusu could and have them obey, not because they had to, but because of sheer force of personality. It would cut down on all the bullshit she had to wade through, Abigail was sure. On the other hand …
Aunt Mamusu knocked again, and Abigail hastily unlocked the door and opened it. If Dad were woken before he was ready, he'd be grumpy for the rest of the day. Even if it was his half-sister. Especially if it was his half-sister.
"Hello, Aunt Mamusu," Abigail said. "Dad's still asleep and Mum's not home yet."
"He should be up soon," Aunt Mamusu said. "I'll wait. I have news of Peter."
Abigail shrugged and let her in. A few years ago she'd thought her cousin Peter, fifteen years older than her, was one of the coolest people on the estate. But that was before she'd realized he was a copper—how cool could he be? She was curious, though, what he'd done that Aunt Mamusu wanted to share it directly instead of over the phone. On the other hand, it was probably only something boring like getting married or something like that. She glanced at her laptop, and wondered if she could use homework as an excuse not to talk until Dad got up. Her stuff was all over the coffee table, so she started neatening it up while Aunt Mamusu took one of the two armchairs.
"You have grown so much since the last time I saw you, Abigail," Aunt Mamusu said, and Abigail groaned. She knew where this was going.
"Happens to all of us, Aunt Mamusu."
"You're turning into such a beautiful young woman," Aunt Mamusu went on. "It's such a shame about your hair—"
"I like it the way it is." Abigail said shortly. She plopped herself down on the couch and grabbed the family laptop firmly. "And I have homework."
"I'm glad to see you're so dedicated to your studies," Aunt Mamusu said. "But aren't you worried no boy will want you with your hair like that?"
"If a boy is stupid enough that he doesn't want me because he doesn't like my hair, then I don't want him," Abigail said through clenched teeth. All of that lovely determination and authority, and what did Aunt Mamusu use it for? Mostly, trying to get Abigail to straighten her hair. Aaaargh. "I have an essay due Monday." It was true, she did. Half of it was done already, in class, while everybody else was faffing about or asking the teacher to explain things again, so it wouldn't take her long to finish it, but Aunt Mamusu didn't need to know that.
"Mamusu? What are you doing here?"
Abigail looked up to see her Dad standing in the bedroom doorway in his bathroom, rubbing his eyes. "Sorry for waking you, Dad."
"I was awake," Dad said, yawning, as he shambled over and sat on the chair opposite Aunt Mamusu. Obviously not fully awake and alert, even now.
Aunt Mamusu started talking in Krio. Abigail didn't really speak it (her Fula was much better), but if she tried she could generally figure out roughly what was being said. It wasn't that different from English. She was debating whether to try, or to put her headphones on and go back to Youtube when Dad sat bolt upright, all sleepiness gone from his posture, and bit out some sharp questions.
Okay, that was too interesting not to listen to. Abigail listened for a bit and got more confused. "So, Peter is a witch?" Like, did they mean he'd converted to paganism? One of the kids at school had a mum who was a pagan, and always objected about witch costumes and decorations at Halloween.
"No!" Aunt Mamusu turned to her and scowled. "How dare you—Peter is a good boy! My son is not a witch! He is a witch-finder! He has joined the police department that handles evil witches and spirits. It is a very respectable job. Important."
Abigail stared blankly at her and couldn't think of anything to say besides 'have you been into Uncle Richard's stash' which would get her into so much trouble. "But witches and stuff don't exist."
"Of course they do," her Dad said. "Who else can put curses on people?"
Abigail sighed. Well, at least he hadn't said something like that where her white friends could hear. "Dad, curses don't exist," she said patiently.
Dad turned to Aunt Mamusu who was shaking her head.
"I blame these English schools," she said. "Even the English are not fools enough to ignore witches entirely, but they teach children that they don't exist. Maybe it discourages some from learning curses, but then what happens if they come up against a witch and don't know what to do—don't even recognize what's going on?"
Dad agreed, and they lapsed back into Krio, and from what Abigail could tell they spent the next half-hour complaining about kids these days, English schools, and how proud Aunt Mamusu was that Peter was finally really making something of himself.
As a witchfinder for the filth.
It was probably the longest conversation they'd had in years, or at least the longest Abigail had seen.
It was bizarre.
After supper Mum asked her about her homework, as usual.
"I need to find somebody who uses English in their career to interview," Abigail said. "Like, writing or editing or teaching or something. Ms. Jacobs is really big on practical application. And it can't be anyone at school or the librarian at the local public library."
"Well, if being a secretary counts, there's lots round here you could ask," Mum said.
"You should have asked while your Aunt Mamusu was here," Dad said. "I think she's got a friend who's a librarian at the British Library."
"How'd they meet?" Abigail asked. Aunt Mamusu knew a lot of people, but usually it was pretty obvious how—they were family, or they lived on the estate, or they were cleaners, too.
"Oh, it was back when your aunt was working at the library in Freetown," Dad said casually.
Aunt Mamusu had been a librarian? Abigail shook her head. It was hard to imagine her as anything but a cleaning lady. Well, she wouldn't have been the first African immigrant to come to the fabled shores of damp old England only to find that she couldn't actually get the job she was qualified for. Anyhow, a librarian at the British Library sounded a lot more interesting than a secretary or whoever, and Abigail hadn't been looking forward to emailing newspapers to see if she could find a reporter who would take pity on a black kid from Kentish Town.
"Why was Rose over?" Mum asked, curious.
"News about Peter," Dad said. "Apparently the police have a special division of witch-finders, and he's joined it. She's very proud—it's an important job."
"Witch-finders?" Mum asked.
"Yeah, you know," Dad said. "Track down evil witches and stop them cursing people, that sort of thing."
Mum glanced at Abigail and shared a conspiratorial eye-roll at Dad's superstition.
Aunt Mamusu did indeed know a librarian at the British Library, but instead of passing along their contact information, she arranged the meeting herself—and invited herself along to it.
"I can get there myself, you know," Abigail said as they stood on the Underground platform waiting for the next train to arrive.
"I haven't seen Elsie in years," Aunt Mamusu said. "I want to catch up with her."
Abigail made a face. That was what she was afraid of. There was nothing more boring than sitting and listening to adults catch up on old gossip.
Aunt Mamusu spent the tube ride interrogating her about what her grades were like, the way adults did with kids they were trying to connect with. Not a single comment about her hair; maybe she was saving that for the trip home, get the awkward in AFTER meeting with her friend she hadn't seen in years.
They got off at Euston Station and walked the ten minutes or so to the library. It was the sort of touristy place that Abigail, being a native Londoner, had never been to. Big, impressive, with a nice shiny lobby and desk where Aunt Mamusu gave their names and the bored white guy told them to wait while he called Aunt Mamusu's friend.
Aunt Mamusu's friend didn't take long to show up. "Ah, Mamusu, lovely to see you!" came a voice from behind Abigail.
She turned, to find … not what she was expecting.
Abigail'd had vague ideas about another Sierra Leonean, one who'd made it good and didn't live in a council flat. But Aunt Mamusu's friend was not only English, but the prototypical English Upper Class Academic Woman that Abigail had only seen on the beeb and until now had thought more proverbial than real. Neat gray hair, cardigan, tweed skirt, sensible shoes, posh accent … she could've stepped right out of an Agatha Christie, if it weren't for the tablet in her hand. She had the kind of effortless self-confidence that you only got when nobody'd ever challenged your right to do anything you wanted. When you were the standard other people got squashed and twisted to conform to, rather than the one being squashed and twisted.
She advanced upon them, hand out, and gave Aunt Mamusu a firm, hearty handshake before turning to Abigail. "And you must be Abigail," she said. "I'm Elsie Winstanley, and I manage the specialist collections here. Lovely to meet you. Shall we start with a tour, and answer questions after?"
There followed two hours of exploring the massive building—including the reading rooms (boring), the stacks themselves (mildly interesting), the little train that carried books to where they were needed (very interesting), an exhibit featuring the scroll that Jack Kerouac typed On The Road on (deeply weird and pretentious), the Magna Carta (more awesome in person than Abigail had expected), and a wide variety of other things.
"I'm giving you a bit more than the standard tour, you know," Ms. Winstanley, unlocking a door so they could peek in at one of the more special of the specialist collections the Library held. "On account of you being Mamusu's niece. If you've half the mind and wits your aunt has, we'd love to have you here. We can always take people with both good training and good wits. You know, Mamusu, there's no time limit on that offer—"
"I know," Aunt Mamusu said abruptly.
Abigail turned round to see a pained look on Aunt Mamusu's face, before she smoothed it over into her usual set expression.
"Abigail's very smart," Aunt Mamusu said. "Gets good grades in school. Though I'm told she's more interested in the sciences than in literature."
Abigail made a face. What she was most interested in was AV stuff, youtube vids and the like, but nobody cared about that. Science was okay, but it wasn't like she wanted to be a doctor or an engineer or anything like that.
"Well, do keep us in mind," Ms. Winstanley said, before continuing the tour, which was, now that Abigail was paying attention, chock-full of subtle little recruitment pitches. It was a very thorough tour, and as they went along Abigail had plenty of time to ask the questions she was supposed to.
They ended up in Ms. Winstanley's office, which oddly enough did not have stacks of books everywhere, as Abigail had been imagining. Instead, there was a small desk with a laptop and other devices, two bookshelves filled with books, a table workspace with a few really old books on it, and an electric kettle on a tiny endtable next to the desk.
"I am the manager of special collections," Ms. Winstanley said, noting her look of surprise. "As in, mostly either older or rarer or stranger than the majority of our collection, which means one has to be more careful with them. One can't simply leave them lying about where someone might spill something on them, of course. Would you like some tea?"
Abigail was sent out to the staff room down the hall for an extra chair, and when she returned, Aunt Mamusu was telling Ms. Winstanley all about how Uncle Richard was playing professionally again, and was 'healthier' (which was code for shooting up less, which Abigail was skeptical of—Aunt Mamusu always tried to put the best face on him being a junkie), and that the dentist said if they could scrape up the cash, he could rebuild Uncle Richard's teeth to let him play the trumpet again.
None of which Abigail really cared about. Uncle Richard was just the weird white guy who occasionally showed up to family events and hovered awkwardly, the guy Mum and Dad shook their head over whenever he or Aunt Mamusu came up in conversation. But when she pulled out her phone, Aunt Mamusu glared at her until she put it back. Abigail sighed and focused on her tea and biscuits, which were good but not good enough to occupy her attention. It had been, she realized, a mistake to ask her questions during the tour. Now there was nothing to keep the two women from gossiping about boring things.
"And how is Peter?" Ms. Winstanley asked.
"Peter is very good!" Aunt Mamusu said, brightening. "He joined the Metropolitan Police, you know, which is better than the odd jobs he'd been doing since he left school, and when he finished his probation he was chosen for the witch-finders! He's been training there for almost a year, now."
Abigail closed her eyes, mortified. She'd thought Aunt Mamusu was smarter than that! No posh white woman was going to take that statement with anything but the most mortifying condescension for 'superstitious Africans' she could muster.
"A witchfinder, here in London?" Ms. Winstanley sounded surprised but not, Abigail realized, amused. "That would be with the Folly, yes?"
"That is what Peter calls it, yes," Aunt Mamusu said. "He has another name for official business—very bureaucratic and official and meaningless. If I were going to name a department as important as witchfinding, I would give it a better name."
"Mm, yes," Ms. Winstanley said, sipping her tea. "How odd. I thought the Folly closed up in, what, the nineteen-fifties? Sixties? Something like that. They haven't published anything since the thirties, at least. I shall have to ask around, see what's happened since."
"Published?" Abigail couldn't help herself.
"Oh yes," Ms. Winstanley said. "The British Library, by law, gets one copy of every book published or distributed in Britain. Including the secret ones. The secret ones get kept in special collections instead of the main stacks, of course. The Folly used to be quite a large institution, in its prime, and it printed a prodigious number of books, everything from textbooks to monographs to translations of foreign works on magic. And we have copies of every one of them. Not available to the general public, of course, nor listed in the main catalogs."
"Have you read any of them?" Abigail asked, still a bit skeptical of the whole thing.
"Oh, yes," Ms. Winstanley said.
"Could I read them?" Abigail persisted. Ms. Winstanley could just be playing along, making a joke or something. She didn't seem like it, but that would be more plausible than witches and things in everyday London.
"Afraid not," the older woman replied complacently. "I'm not even supposed to admit we have them to anyone without the proper clearances. Perhaps your cousin will lend you one, if you ask. Though the ones that actually teach magic itself are in Latin, so you would have to learn that."
Abigail fell silent, wondering how to break the subject without sounding like a total idiot. What would she say? 'Oi, cousin Peter, your mum says you're a witchfinder, want to show me your secret books? Or some magic, maybe, to prove she's not mental?' And what if Aunt Mamusu was mental, then Abigail would sound so stupid.
"Abigail here doesn't believe in witches," said Aunt Mamusu. "Or orisa, or curses, or any sort of magic."
Ms. Winstanley turned to eye her up and down, brow raised. "Oh? I would have thought that hearing you tell the story of that night in eighty-one would have been enough to convince her—first-hand narrative, not mere hearsay, and all that."
"She's trying too hard to be English, I think," Aunt Mamusu said. "You know what most white people think about what they call 'superstition.'"
"I am English," Abigail said. "I don't need to try to fit in. If I did, I'd still be letting you straighten my hair."
"Well, your Aunt and I both have first-hand knowledge of the dangers of magic in the hands of unethical people," Ms. Winstanley said. "Almost got killed by one. Close-run thing, if the idiot hadn't let Mamusu out of his sight for long enough to bash him over the head from behind with a chair, we'd both have been done for. As it was, we had to leg it to get away from his friends."
"Wish I'd had a knife, could have stopped him doing anything like that again permanently," Aunt Mamusu muttered.
Abigail listened, shocked. "You mean—you mean that story you used to tell when I was a kid was true? I thought it was just to get me to stay still while you put relaxer through my hair."
"Yes," Aunt Mamusu said, matter-of-factly. "Although when you were little I did soften it a bit."
Abigail sipped her tea, mind blown. "Oh," she said.
"We both found it better to leave Freetown after it was over," Ms. Winstanley said, munching on a biscuit. "The witches were in custody, but they might have had friends—and the police were having to call in witchfinders from the rural areas to keep them contained because there weren't any in Freetown, but the local tribes didn't want to send them. Too strong a memory of what the Colonial administration had done to witchfinders who practiced openly in the city—they'd had an English wizard stationed there before the war, wanted everything run through him instead."
"I heard President Stevens started his own bureau of witchfinders," Aunt Mamusu said. "But I was here in London already, by the time that happened." She and Ms. Winstanley discussed the politics of witchfinding in Sierra Leone and what it might mean for current events in that country while Abigail scrambled to remember the old story she hadn't heard in years.
Something about a small group of revolutionaries who wanted to stage a coup, and using the library as an inconspicuous meeting place? Or hiding something in it? And Aunt Mamusu and a friend—who must have been Elsie Winstanley—stumbling over some booby-trap or other by complete accident, and then being chased across the city by people trying to silence them? If she'd known it were true she'd have paid better attention!
But they didn't have much time before they had to leave so that Aunt Mamusu could get ready for work, and Abigail didn't get a chance to ask any of the burning questions she now had.
While they were waiting for the Underground, Aunt Mamusu turned to her and said something in Krio.
"My Fula is much better than my Krio, Aunt," Abigail said.
Aunt Mamusu grimaced. She'd been raised in Freetown by her Krio mother, Grandfather's first wife, while Abigail's Dad had been raised out in the village, by his mum, Grandfather's second wife, with grandfather staying with whichever family his sales route happened to have him closest to. Aunt Mamusu was more Krio than Fula in a lot of ways, but Dad was pure Fula. "So, you thought I was just a superstitious old woman," she said in badly-accented Fula. "Your father, too. But you were quick to believe Elsie."
"Sorry, auntie," Abigail said as meekly as she could, trying to come up with a reason other than 'it sounded better coming from someone who could be an expert for the BBC.'
"But you believe now?" Aunt Mamusu said. "And if you ever see a witch or spirit or anything like that you will go straight to Peter, in case it's dangerous?"
"Sure," said Abigail. Well, once she'd confirmed it was really something weird or dangerous, anyway. Once she needed help dealing with it. She wouldn't want to bother the police with anything trivial, now, would she?
Aunt Mamusu, knowing her niece well, started to press her for a more detailed promise, but thankfully the train arrived just then, and in the rush to get on and find a seat, Abigail managed to dodge.
"So what did Ms. Winstanley mean about the offer," she said, once they were settled in, to head any further discussion of promises off at the pass. "The one she said was still open?" She used English, now that they weren't talking about magic, to avoid the dirty looks that speaking Fula would have gotten them.
Aunt Mamusu's face set. "When we parted in Freetown, Elsie said that once I finished my degree she would get me a job in any library she worked at. But of course I had to get a job to support myself and the family, and then there was Peter, and there simply wasn't time to go to school on top of all that. And now, whatever Elsie says, I am much too old to go back to school."
If it weren't for marrying Richard Grant, she probably could have done it, Abigail thought, but she was smart enough not to say it. Or if he hadn't been a deadbeat, had supported the family or taken care of Peter or something, she could have found the time.
It was sad. But it wasn't like there was anything Abigail could do about it, and talking wouldn't help. Her thoughts turned back to the idea that magic really existed, and so did ghosts and curses.
Cousin Peter probably wouldn't want to spend time explaining his job to his nosy cousin. When he'd brought that band over the first time, to rehearse with his Dad, he hadn't even seemed to recognize her.
Abigail would have to keep her eyes peeled. Then, once she had proof of something, she could call him in. And then she'd get the full story, right from the source.
Canon note: While canon-reviewing and researching Sierra Leone, I found that the details of Mamusu's backstory as given by canon don't really ... add up. When Peter first meets Mama Thames, she identifies his mother as a Fula, which is a Sierra Leonean ethnic group. Except the Fula are 99% Muslim, according to multiple sources, and Mamusu is Christian. Also, when she's speaking to Peter in a non-English language, she uses Krio. According to various sources, most Sierra Leoneans do speak Krio as a lingua franca, but the only people for whom it is their native language are the Krio people. (Who are, by the way, pretty much all Christian.) Then there's the fact that Mamusu seems to have grown up or spent significant time in Freetown, and went away to school, whereas her half-brother Alfred is identified as having been a poor subsistence farmer in a backwater village before becoming a refugee. So my headcanon is that Mamusu's dad was a Fula guy who travelled a lot on business and so his wives didn't all live in the same town. Mamusu's mum was a Krio woman who lived in Freetown and had some money of her own (maybe owned a business), while Alfred's mum was a Fula woman who lived in a small village and did subsistence farming, and that's where all the discrepancies come from. So while Mamusu speaks Fula, her native tongue is Krio, and while Alfred speaks Krio, his native tongue is Fula, and so Peter knows Krio while Abigail knows Fula. And then, after figuring all that out, I realized that there wasn't much place for it in the story.
