The River of No Return

the hole beneath it. She replaced the stone, fitted the key into the lock of a smaller door opposite the kitchens, and pushed it open on creaking hinges into a black hole from which cool, clean-smelling air wafted. She ducked her head to enter. “The catacombs,” she said, motioning for Nick to follow. “Please close the door behind you and lock it.” She handed him the key.
    She held the light as he turned the key in the lock. “Don’t lose that,” she said. “We’ll need it to get back.”
    Nick tucked the key into his pocket to make friends with the acorn and followed her. “Where are we going?”
    “Under Soho Square,” she said. “You’ll see.” She turned and shone her light on what looked like pantry shelves. “My pickling,” she said of the rows of jars. Then she set off, and quickly enough the shelves of pickles petered out. The white beam picked out rough, arched stone walls and a flagstone floor.
    “Who built this?”
    “Romans. Extended at various points across the Middle Ages. It is perfectly safe. Look here.” Alva lifted her bean up high, and Nick saw that a stone shelf running all along the corridor up near the ceiling was lined with carefully stacked bones, each topped with a skull that grinned down at them. “We took these catacombs over in 1320, but we didn’t feel that we could remove the bodies, so the silent majority are tucked away everywhere.”
    “Creepy.”
    “Some of them are Ofan, actually. People who wanted to stay here. Personally, I want a glass coffin like Sleeping Beauty.”
    “That’s even creepier.”
    “Different strokes for different folks!” Alva lowered her flashlight and trotted on.
    After a few yards, wooden built-in bookshelves began appearing along the lower walls, crammed with leather-bound books and rolled-up scrolls, most of them looking much the worse for wear. “Skulls and books,” Nick said. “Nice.”
    “Clear eyes, full hearts.”
    “You’re sick.”
    “Probably.” Alva stopped and shone the flashlight on another door. It was massive and perfectly round. It looked as if it were a cross-section of a single, enormous tree, and indeed, now Nick could see the hundreds of diminishing rings. In the very center was a big, black door knocker, its black patina rubbed to shiny brass where generations of hands had grasped it.
    Alva banged the knocker against the wood three times, but nothing happened.
    “Damn it.” She banged it again, more loudly. Nothing.
    “Peter is supposed to be on duty,” she said. “But I’m sure she’s off somewhere, bumming cigarettes or boring someone with her latest obsession.”
    “Peter is a woman?”
    “Hopefully someday,” Alva said. “She’s fifteen, going on nine.” She lifted the knocker a third time and set up a continuous banging for at least thirty seconds.
    Finally they heard the sound of a heavy piece of wood being lifted away from the door on the other side, and a series of muffled curses, then the door began to swing inward silently.
    An older, South Asian woman in jeans and a ratty Aran sweater stood there, one fist firmly planted on a hip, the other lifting a hurricane lamp.
    “Hello, Archana,” Alva said. “Sorry to trouble you. It’s just me.”
    Archana turned without a word and marched away, her light disappearing as she turned left.
    “She’s mad at Peter, not at us,” Alva said blithely. “Will you help me get this thing closed again?”
    Nick lifted the heavy wooden board and slotted it into place. “Not very advanced technology,” he said, remembering the gleaming metal door of Bertrand Penture’s inner sanctum. “The Guild has a much fancier system for keeping out intruders.”
    “Yes, well, they like to feel important. Now then. Follow me.”
    The corridor now ran at a slant, deeper under the earth, and it was fully lined with shelves to about chest level, and then with glass-fronted cabinets, topped with the ubiquitous bones. The shelves and cabinets bulged with books and papers, interspersed with musical instruments, rusty clockworks, toys, piles of empty picture frames, dusty bottles, swords, a kettle, and here and there a misplaced femur. A corridor branched off to the left, which Alva ignored, then quickly another went to the right. Alva flicked a switch and, down the length of the corridor, eight or ten dim electric lightbulbs flickered to life.
    “Electricity? How is that possible?”
    “Generator,” Alva said, switching off her flashlight. “It’s