the supernatural story in the natural world. For Charles Williams, London is an image of the City of God, the Holy City, the community of the saints.

When the city is first mentioned, the term indicates the ancient borough of London, site of St. Paul’s Cathedral, as distinguished from Holborn, where Simon’s headquarters are. Through Lester’s developing spiritual perception, however, the spiritual reality of the eternal city is revealed. Its identity is hinted to mortal eyes on the fateful afternoon when Lady Wallingford and Betty call to look at Jonathan’s portrait of Simon. Lady Wallingford is equally antagonized by another painting that Jonathan and Richard consider the best that Jonathan has done, a painting of a part of London after a raid, a scene of desolation bathed in living light.

Three domiciles in London are key: the top-floor apartment of artist Jonathan Drayton, near St. Paul’s Cathedral; the house of the magician, Simon the Clerk, in Holborn; and the house of Lady Wallingford, Simon’s mistress and acolyte, in Highgate. The characters, including the newly dead spirits of Lester and Evelyn, move among these places. Williams builds a sense of reality by mentioning locations in the exact but familiar way of a longtime resident; characters describe Simon’s residence as between Holborn and Red Lion Square, and behind Holborn, close to Great James Street. Williams also mentions streets that characters traverse to get from one place to another, again giving a sense of textured reality: Blackfriars, Victoria Street, Millbank, Euston Road.

However, the city that Lester wanders is really the eternal city; she sees it as London because that is where she was when she was killed, and that is what she expects. The sky goes through quick cycles of night and day, but no sun appears and the moon gives no light. Lester’s City is also silent and devoid of people, until she finds Evelyn. Moreover, at times her perception of London is broken by, or fades into, other times and places. She thinks of an incident from her past, concerning a date with a man and the taxi-ride home, and she sees a taxi race past her. Later Lester thinks of her school days with Evelyn and Betty, and she finds herself actually in the schoolyard. One scene hints that the City is open to all times and places, including prehistory, depending on the person involved and how he or she encounters it.

When Lester and Evelyn visit real places in London, they can be seen by people living in those places now, as Lester is seen by her husband Richard near Westminster Bridge, and Evelyn is seen and called by Simon outside his house in Holborn. Betty is magically sent into the future by a week, reading the newspapers at King’s Cross Station to report back.

*Underground

*Underground. Also known as the “Tube,” London’s great subway system also exists both materially and spiritually. After Lester and Evelyn are placed in a magically constructed body, they borrow money to use a pay phone at the Charing Cross Underground station. Within this city, however, the Tube is a kind of Hell—the lair of newly dead spirits who will not accept death and redemption, and so fail to go into true eternity.

*England

*England. No physical action is set outside London, but readers learn that Lady Wallingford owns property up north in Yorkshire. Flashbacks show that when Betty and her mother go there, Betty is treated as a servant; Betty remembers with dread the train porter calling off stations closer and closer to York. Betty’s father, Sir Bartholomew, owns property in Hampshire. The distance between York and Hampshire may be symbolic of the lack of communication—or much of anything in common—between husband and wife.

Lester briefly recalls a honeymoon with Richard in the Berkshire Woods, and later, when Simon leads Richard and others into a magical trance, Richard imagines he is once more surrounded by those woods. Again, magic or any supernatural experience overcomes boundaries of time and space, and a character’s mind calls forth the setting.