Page 28 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
Henry didn’t answer immediately, dropping her eyes to her mug. The light from the living room splashed over the right side of her face, leaving the other half in shadows. Magda saw her as two women: the bright half and the shadowed half.
“The first lie,” Henrietta said, her expression becoming serious, “is everything you’ve been told about the Society.”
Magda didn’t understand. “Explain what you mean.”
“You know that story Frank tells you when you first join? The origin of the Society. ‘It was a time of war and turmoil’... all that stuff.”
Magda nodded, remembering listening to Frank tell her the story as they had walked together in Regent’s Park shortly after her mother’s funeral. It was a story about Frank’s grandfather and his three friends, men who had fought in the Second World War and then formed a society to hunt for and keep safe magical items.
Magda nodded. “Of course I remember.”
“It’s all false,” Henrietta said. “Or a mixture of lies and truth, so much so it’s probably impossible to tell.” Henrietta waved a hand, gesturing to the world beyond the kitchen. “It’s like London. It was built as one thing and then bits of it have been rebuilt and changed and you have to look closely, and know what to look for, to see what it was originally. What it started as.”
“Like what?” Magda pressed, hungry for details. “What specifically are you talking about?” She sipped her latte and felt a bolt of wakefulness shoot through her mind, like a person running screaming through a sleeping dormitory.
“Well,” Henry said. “How do you know the things you know about the Society? How do you know where it came from and what it’s for?”
Magda considered the question. “From Frank.”
“Right,” Henrietta agreed. “Andonlyfrom Frank. He tells us all the story about how the Society came to be and how it collected magical items over the years, and we just accept it. I have a bit of an interest in history. I love reading about ancient Rome and ancient Egypt and all that. And you know what historians rely on? Independent verification from different sources. You don’t believe something to be true unless it has objective, independent confirmation. But we just accept what Frank tells us as the truth, without any verification.”
Magda waited.
“You’re not saying very much,” Henrietta observed.
“Neither are you, Henry,” Magda countered. “I’m waiting for the details.”
Henry smirked, the corner of her mouth twitching up. “Don’t suppose you have any biscotti or anything, do you?”
“Will it help you get to the point?”
“It certainly won’t hurt.”
Magda crossed to the tall cupboard on the opposite wall and pulled out a box of shortbread. “Better than biscotti. Now, you were saying?”
“It’s not true, Magda,” Henry continued, as she extracted a biscuit from the packet and held it daintily between finger and thumb “Frank’s story. Well... it’s probably true in some respects. I am sure therewasa group of men, and I am sure they gathered artefacts. But this idea that they were on some noble crusade thinking about humanity, it’s bullshit.” She took a bite of the biscuit and chewed for a moment, eyes slipping off to the side, to gaze out at the dark garden. Magda sipped her coffee and waited until Henry had finished chewing. “Middle-class Englishmen in the 1950s and 1960s didn’t care much about anyone else. How do you think they took possession of the items they gathered, Magda? Theydidn’t ask nicely. They didn’t pay for them. They stole them. Or they attacked the people who owned them.”
Magda kept her expression blank, revealing none of the dismay she felt as Henry stomped all over the tale she had loved, Frank’s story of four principled men trying to do the right thing. It was a story that had helped her understand what the Society really was. It wasn’t just secrets and magic—it was about trying to make the world better and safer.
“They went around the world, to Europe, to Asia, and they stole artefacts,” Henrietta continued. “They were like colonials, stealing valuables because they didn’t think the natives knew how to look after them. And even that was just an excuse, really. The truth was, they didn’t care—they just wanted the artefacts for themselves. It’s disgusting, Magda. It’s that superiority complex the British have. Other people can’t be trusted with these dangerous things, so we’ll take them and lock them away because only we know best.”
“How do you know whatyou’resaying is true?” Magda asked, feeling she had to push back, feeling she had to defend the story. “Where’s your independent verification? Why should I believe you rather than Frank?”
Henrietta held out her hand, like she was showing Magda her nails. “See that,” she said, tapping her third finger with her thumb. There was a single, simple ring of dull grey metal on that finger. “I inherited it from my father. It’s a magical item. Frank knows nothing about it. It lets the wearer become intangible. I can walk through walls and through locked doors. I can walk into a bank vault, pick up whatever I want, and walk out. I can even walk into lovely houses in St.John’s Wood and wait for old friends if I want to. But only because I know they wouldn’t mind.”
She smiled and Magda grunted an acknowledgement.
“I call it my ghost ring,” Henrietta continued, “but I’m not the first person to have used it. It was how my family got rich. It was how the Society obtained some of the artefacts way back when. I know this because my father wrote me a letter that I read after his death.”
Magda stared at the ring, thinking about her necklace, passed down to her from her mother, and about the letter she had received too, telling her secrets. Of course, why would her mother be the only previous member of the Society to keep things to herself?
“They were thieves, Magda,” Henrietta insisted. “Daddy admitted as much in his letter. I don’t think he even felt any guilt about it. He thought they’d been doing the right thing. Stealing for the greater good. For Queen and country and all that nonsense.”
Magda hated that what Henry was saying made sense, that it had the feel of something true. She swigged another mouthful of coffee, trying to think of a counterpoint, just like when she was back at university picking apart legal arguments.
What’s the weak point in the case?
“Even if I accept that,” Magda said finally, “it doesn’t mean what we’re doing now is wrong. We haven’t stolen anything in the whole time I’ve been a member.”
