Dead Letters Teaser #6

Cancer Dancer, Pat Cadigan

The thing about London is, it has no grid. Streets wind and wander; you can start out thinking you’re going one place and end up somewhere completely different, with no idea how to get back. It’s part of London’s charm and it can drive visitors crazy, particularly those from the US. After twenty years, I was used to it. I still got lost, I just didn’t stress about it.

I thought for sure I’d get lost looking for the Eternity Club. It was in a nookish cranny called a close (as in close by, not close the door), the kind of place you could walk past dozens of times and never notice. But I went right to it, as if I’d been there a thousand times before. The outside of the building was painted dark brown, with equally dark windows too high up for me to try peeking through. No street number, no doorbell, not even so much as a discreet “Members Only” sign.