The sound of sirens filled the air and fire engines arrived along with police to control the scene. Tenants and onlookers were pushed further back, urged to move away but Magda couldn't leave. She watched as fire hoses began to soak the flames, their powerful jets raining down on her studio. Whatever hadn't been lost in the fire would be destroyed by its opposite element. Perhaps there was a lesson in that.
O slipped an arm round Magda's waist, leaning her head on her lover's shoulder.
"There's nothing we can do here," she said. "Why don't you come back to my place? Have a drink. We'll come back when it's all under control."
But Magda couldn't tear her eyes from the flames.
"I need to stay," she said, her voice quiet. She turned and looked into O's eyes. She was so lucky to have this woman in her life, but there were times when she needed to be alone. "But maybe you can go get some supplies. Hot chocolate would be good. Maybe something stronger to go with it."
O leaned up and kissed her full on the mouth.
"Of course, I won't be long."
O turned and navigated through the crowd away from the scene. Magda walked to the edge of the perimeter and sat down on a step, exhaling deeply as she looked into the flames again, holding out her hands to the fire so she could see the full length of her own tattoos, silhouetted against the orange-red of the flames. The marks on her skin were both the end and the beginning, she thought, remembering the past. Had it all been worth it?
She had left Ireland twenty-two years ago now – strange that it had been so long. It seemed like a different life.
Back then, her name had been Ciara, for her dark hair and for the saint who saved a village from fire back in the seventh century. Raised in a strict Catholic home and sent to a convent school, her world had been shuttered and controlled by rules. Any question deemed wrong for a girl to ask had resulted in punishment, and she had spent a lot of time recovering from the birch in the struggle to be silent.
Boys were forbidden and exciting, although she had sensed more of an attraction to girls even back then. The nights she had escaped the convent and spent drinking with the local boys had turned into something more, and when she discovered she was pregnant, her world turned. She was called deviant and possessed by the Devil for following the path of sin. Magda remembered how confused she had been back then, how angry that fumbling and pain had resulted in something that turned her into a pariah. Even now, she could still recall the hate in the Reverend Mother's eyes as she had been cast out.
They had sent her to a house for unwed mothers to await the arrival of the child, but Magda knew she couldn't stay. She had felt an overwhelming sense that she would die there if she remained. The eyes of the other girls were hollow and haunted, rumors of a pit out the back where hundreds of babies and young mothers were buried, taken back to God.
That night she had run from the place, escaping over the fields and heading cross country, eventually reaching the coast. There she had used her body to bargain for a ferry crossing, the pregnancy not yet far gone enough to put the man off. She didn't care for the sexual act, but she certainly understood what it was worth.
Once on English soil, she had found an abortion clinic. When they asked for her name, she found herself saying Magda. The harsh syllables were more European than Irish and yet Mary Magdalene had always been the saint she had loved the most. The sinner who Jesus had loved, the woman whom he chose to reveal himself to first in the garden after his resurrection.
Magda looked down at her tattoos. The ink reclaimed her body, but it had taken many years to get to the point where she accepted all of herself. Sex was the only trade she had when she arrived in London, and she had become the very sinner that the nuns claimed she was. But the sex was mechanical, and never meant anything except cash to live on. It was work, and easy enough. There had been some bastards but most were lonely men who needed to be touched, and she had understood their need for love and acceptance.
Perhaps she had always loved women, but she hadn't even known it was allowed until London, the city that welcomed all. She had found her tribe here, the sex workers, the junkies, the pagans, those who society had labeled deviant but really just didn't conform. A cast of antiheroes against the backdrop of the greatest city on earth.
The Magdalene had been her first tattoo, embodying both sinner and saint in her many incarnations. She was also separate from the Mother figure, the Mary who Magda could only pity. The Mother had no identity apart from her relationship to the Son and Magda couldn't ever see herself living like that. But the Magdalene – now there was a woman worth admiring.
The flames were dying down now, finally under control by the fire service. Above her, Magda heard the cawing of the ravens. The birds wheeled high in the sky but Magda could still feel her connection to them. Sometimes it was as if she saw with their eyes. Her other full-sleeve tattoo was for them, her totem birds, and for the Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of battle who roamed on the wings of ravens, choosing those who would die and those who would live again.
On the day the tattoos had been finished, Magda finally felt her own transformation had completed. She tied herself to her Irish-Catholic roots in one way, but her own truth was bound up in the strong female goddess. On that day, she had walked away from sex work – but not from sex workers. This borough was her home now, and her work as an urban shaman was to bring that sense of the otherworld to the physical. But was she too attached to what she had created here, and was this a way to leave it all behind again? Was it time to turn her back on London and seek peace somewhere new?
There was a deep booming sound as thunder rolled across the night sky and it began to rain. Magda turned her face to the sky, letting the drops wash her tears away as she sent up a prayer to the goddess of the dark, she of the moon, the Maiden and the Crone.
"Help me," Magda whispered.
Ash ran in rivulets around her feet now, remnants of her art mingling with the structure of the building. It would soon flow into the Thames, the droplets becoming one with the great river that kept the city alive. Magda smiled. Her own ashes would be scattered there one day. It was a reminder that all would perish but this city would stand, whatever came.
As the rain began to hammer down, Magda huddled back into the doorway. Some of the crowd dispersed while others put up colored umbrellas, their faces in shadow. O returned, juggling an umbrella and a bulging paper bag. She crouched on the step next to Magda, sheltering them both from the downpour.
"Here," O said, pulling out two steaming cups of hot chocolate. "Sugar makes everything better." She dug back in the bag and pulled out a large chocolate brownie. "Overdosing on it must seriously help." Magda gave a half smile as they broke the cake in two and shared the pieces, watching as the firefighters finished dowsing the flames and the rain dampened any last embers. The sweet taste in her mouth made Magda focus on that moment, how grateful she was to be alive, to have O by her side.
"Thank you," she said, turning to kiss O's cheek. Her words contained a promise for a future, whatever that would look like.
"We'll take it a day at a time," O said. "You'll create new work soon enough, and you can stay with me until we find you a new studio. The insurance will cover it, although I know the money won't replace your art." She paused, gazing into the ruins that lay before them. "What do you think they'll do with this site? Rebuild the studios?"