The Crooked Sixpence (18 page)

‘Now, isn't this interesting,' the wolf purred. It curled thick, leathery lips around each word. ‘I wonder what you're both doing back in your ancestral home . . .'

A prickle ran between Ivy's shoulder blades.
It can talk. The wolf can talk.

‘Have you hidden it
here
? I wonder.' The wolf's voice was expressive but hoarse, like a Shakespearean actor with a sore throat.

Ivy forced her shaking hands into fists. ‘L-leave us alone,' she stammered.

Seb lunged in front of her. ‘Shoo! Get out of here! Go on – go!'

The wolf raised a tufty eyebrow. ‘
Shoo?
' It threw back its head and opened its considerable jaws, laughing. Ivy couldn't help but notice the rows of razor-sharp teeth.

‘Ivy—' Seb stumbled on the carpet.

She looked frantically around the hall. There was no way out. The wolf was standing between them and the front door. Their only option was to run up the stairs and hope it wasn't fast enough to catch them.

It swished its long tail. ‘I'll ask you once more, little children.' It lowered its head and its voice deepened. ‘Where have you hidden it?'

Ivy cried out. She couldn't help it. The creature was monstrous; whatever she'd been expecting to find here, it wasn't this.

The wolf's ears pricked up like great hairy antennae. ‘Oh dear, are you crying because the big bad wolf asked you a question? How does the story go . . . ?' it asked, chuckling. ‘The big bad wolf will blow your house down if—?' It shook its head. ‘No, no, that's not the one. How about: the big bad wolf will eat your grandma if—? Nope, that's not it. Ah, yes, I know. What about: the big bad wolf will skin you alive if you don't tell him where you've hidden his mistress's property?' It bared more teeth. ‘Now, that's much more accurate.'

Ivy gulped in terror. She wanted to move – she knew she should move – but she just couldn't. If she turned and ran, the wolf would catch her – it was twice her size, with rippling muscles and long claws; of
course
it would. She remembered measuring the paw-prints in Granma Sylvie's kitchen against her hand and decided that she was definitely facing their owner.

Something clattered on the gallery. The wolf looked up as a dark figure shot across the landing.

Valian.

Ivy recognized his nimble figure, but his face was unusually puffy and red and the sleeves of his leather jacket had been pushed up to the elbow. He launched himself off the stairs and landed in a crouch. In his hand he was swinging what appeared to be a large brown elastic band.

‘
Ivy, Seb!
' he yelled. ‘
The door!
'

Ivy hesitated. How could they get to it? There was no way—

Valian released the elastic band. It shot towards the wolf like a dart, snapping into different shapes as it did so. First it made a circle, and a pair of brass cymbals appeared in the centre; then it formed a long curved shape, and a trombone appeared. Instruments continued popping out of it – drums, trumpets, violins. They crashed into the wolf in a screeching, squawking, tooting riot, and then started playing
on
its body. The cymbals clashed around its head; the drumsticks beat its back. The wolf thrashed to and fro, and Ivy wondered whether she and Seb might manage to run past before it got free.

Seb was obviously thinking the same thing. ‘Ivy – go!'

He pushed her, and suddenly she was running as hard as she could. Valian and Seb reached the front door first and opened it so she could go straight through.

They sprinted down the hill towards the gate without looking back. Ivy's wellies slapped down on the path, resonating out into the night.

Valian threw open the iron gates, and they hurtled through – only to meet a brick wall on the other side. Rebounding off it, Seb turned and shut the gates with an almighty clang. For an instant Ivy thought she glimpsed a wet black nose fading through the gates like a ghost, but perhaps it was just a shadow.

The gate-posts vibrated before sinking back into the bricks, and within seconds the pale-green fountain had re-formed.

Ivy eyed Valian as the three of them leaned over, panting. She remembered that he'd been out of breath even before the wolf showed up.

She straightened and looked around. The fountain was back in place, the basin full of dry leaves, as if there had never been any water in it. The alleyway appeared to be in a different part of Lundinor. There was no one around.

She tried to gather her thoughts.

Granma Sylvie's father, Octavius, was Blackclaw, a member of the Dirge . . .

She didn't know what implications that had for getting her parents back.

A giant talking wolf was there during the break-in at Granma Sylvie's . . .

Which meant that it probably worked for the Dirge. Ivy wondered if it had been following them.

Valian was up to something at the mansion . . .

She couldn't figure him out. One minute he was saving them, the next he was abandoning them. And he kept disappearing. It was like that was the only thing he knew how to do.

In her mind's eye she saw the thin black hands of the uncommon alarm clock ticking away. All she knew for certain was that she didn't have much time to work it all out.

The Cabbage Moon Inn was quieter than it had been at breakfast. The dining room smelled of lemon washingup liquid and tea. A few members of staff were mopping the floor, or wiping down tables.

Still weary, Ivy slumped into a chair in the far corner. As Seb and Valian took a seat opposite, the innkeeper, Mr Littlefair, came over.

‘What can I get the three of you, then?' he asked in a jolly voice. ‘You look like you're thirsty.'

Ivy considered ordering Hundred Punch, but instead opted for water. Seb ordered a Coke and Valian chose something called a Bugtop.

After the man had moved on to the next table, Ivy folded her arms and leaned forward. ‘Can we have some privacy, please?' she asked Valian.

‘Yeah,' Seb agreed. ‘Go be someone else's bad smell.'

To Ivy's surprise, Valian seemed more than happy to leave them. Once he was out of earshot, she leaned closer to Seb. ‘I don't trust him. He was up to something in the mansion – I just know it.'

Seb's eyes followed Valian across the room. ‘Why did Ethel choose
him
to look out for us? We don't know anything about him. Where's his home and family? He doesn't seem to have any friends; that says a lot.'

Ivy nodded in agreement – though she doubted they could give Valian the slip in Lundinor. She turned her thoughts back to the mansion. ‘What we learned about Octavius Wrench . . .' she whispered, not daring to voice the terrible truth. ‘Apart from being horrifically awful, does that help us with Mum and Dad at all?'

Seb frowned. ‘Maybe Granma stole something from him . . . And now he wants it back.'

Ivy shook her head. ‘He can't want it back. There's no way he'd still be alive today – Twelfth Night 1969 was over forty years ago.' She thought for a moment. ‘Do you still have that newspaper?'

Seb stuffed a hand into his pocket. ‘Yeah . . .' He sounded surprised to find that the paper had actually made it back with him.

Ivy spread it out on the table. Seb shuffled round so that they could read it together:

Whoever wins the election for quartermaster, the task ahead is a formidable one. In the last six months 97% of assaults on uncommoners in undermarts were made by members of the dead community. Notably, selkies account for over half of these, closely followed by creeps and ghouls. In every case, the crooked sixpence of the Fallen Guild was found at the scene. Many people are questioning the nature of the partnership between the dead and the Fallen Guild, speculating that the Fallen Guild have been offering more than grade for the services of members of the dead community. Whatever is truly behind their allegiance, it can only be fuelling rumours of a dead uprising. So far only three members of the dead community have been prosecuted. Underguards claim that not enough witnesses are coming forward to give evidence.

Octavius Wrench's manifesto outlines stricter penalties to deal with the races of the dead. He said today: ‘Evil-doers will be rooted out by any means necessary. Members of the dead who continue to disobey our laws will be expunged.'

The current Quartermaster standing for re-election, Mr Punch, responded, saying: ‘Yes, there is evil at work within Lundinor, but the way to overcome this is not by perpetuating fear, but by strengthening our communities and working together to make the undermart a safer place. Our ancient traditions are built on communication and trust, and if we each hold fast to these, we will prevail.'

Polls suggest that Wrench has a narrow lead over Mr Punch going into tomorrow morning, but everything could change on the day.

Ivy swallowed. ‘Did you read that bit at the end?'

‘Hang on, I'm not as fast as you.' Seb was still focused on the foot of the page.

Mr Littlefair set two pairs of spectacles down on the table, which instantly transformed into pint glasses. He filled them with water and Coke respectively before moving on. Seb looked up. ‘Thanks.' He grabbed his drink and took a long slurp. ‘I don't get it. Octavius Wrench was standing for election to fight the Dirge, but
he
was one of them. And what's all that stuff about the races of the dead?'

Ivy remembered the portrait of Octavius in his study. She wondered how she and Seb would even begin to tell Granma Sylvie that her father was responsible for the kidnapping of children and the deaths of innocent people. It would break her heart. Even Ivy felt ashamed, and Octavius didn't exactly feel like part of her family. ‘Maybe he was on a power trip.' She recalled how Ethel had described the Dirge: secretive, calculating and ruthless. They had fooled everyone. It seemed likely that they'd infiltrated as much of Lundinor as they could.

‘Do you think this all has something to do with why Granma ran away on Twelfth Night?' Seb asked. ‘She might have found out about Octavius being in the Dirge and been too frightened to stay.'

Ivy picked up her glass. ‘That doesn't sound like Granma Sylvie.' The Granma Sylvie she knew would never have run away from anything. She was always telling Ivy to face her problems head on. ‘There must be something else we're missing.'

As she took a sip of water, Ivy cast her eyes thoughtfully around the dining room. She spotted Violet Eyelet sitting in a booth opposite, eating a piece of cake topped with glowing orange cream. As she looked on a group of tall men and women swept in, heading for a table in the centre. The ladies wore long taffeta gowns, while the men were in trousers or floor-length tunics. They glided over the floor as if they were on wheels.

‘Seb . . .' Ivy whispered, unsettled by this. ‘Look at them. Is it just me or is there something not quite . . . ?'

She didn't need to finish her sentence. Before taking their seats, they all removed their various overcoats, capes and hats. As one of the women's long skirts lifted, Ivy realized that there was nothing between her and the floor.

Nothing.
As in absolutely nothing. Just air.

Ivy couldn't take her eyes off them. She watched one man with curly black hair lay his cavalier's hat down on the chair opposite. Instead of reaching
over
the table, however, his hand went straight
through
it.

She grabbed Seb's arm. ‘Did you see that?'

Seb was transfixed. ‘Yeah. Whatever uncommon thing he's using, we need to get us one. We could pretty much walk through walls with that.'

On the other side of the room, Violet Eyelet caught their eyes. She looked at the floating uncommoners and then came shuffling across the dining room, cake plate in hand.

‘Try and take some deep breaths,' she told them. ‘It's always a shock the first time you realize they're dead.' She sat down next to Seb, her huge skirt billowing up like a marshmallow.

‘Dead?' Seb batted the skirt out of his face. ‘
What?!
'

Ivy looked back at the group: the innkeeper had already taken their orders and now they were chatting as they waited for their drinks.

‘What do you mean
dead
?' she asked.

Violet smiled nervously as she put down her plate. ‘Well, the thing is, Lundinor isn't just home to
living
traders; it opens its gates to dead ones too. When an uncommon object is formed, only
part
of a soul gets trapped inside; the rest turns into one of the dead. There are hundreds of different races.' She lowered her thick spectacles to study the floating figures. ‘I think those might be ghouls. You can always tell because ghouls can't be earthed – they wear long clothes to
cover the gap
.'

Ivy went rigid in her seat. No one else in the dining room seemed the least bit concerned about the ghouls; indeed, they looked quite friendly.

They can't be dead
, she thought.
They're walking around.

‘Oh, I know it seems rather creepy,' Violet went on. ‘Believe me, when I first found out about the dead, I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting things to jump out of shadows. But it isn't like that; at least, not any more. The dead and the living mix together happily now. When I was a little girl, it was exciting finding out about the dead – about all the new races being discovered, and what they could do. A new list was published every year in
Farrow's Guide for the Travelling Tradesman
.'

Seb, who was looking rather pale, swallowed and raised his empty glass. ‘Excuse me?' he said, looking up. Ivy turned round and saw Mr Littlefair.

‘Can I get some of that Hundred stuff please?' Seb asked. ‘The one that makes you feel good?' He ran a shaky hand through his hair and stared at Ivy. ‘I never thought I'd ever say this and mean it, but
I see dead people
. I need sugar to help me deal with that.'