Bones and Ashes (11 page)

The woman sniffed again. She watched them, trying to decide what to tell them. “I’ll tell you what I know, but only because he was unkind to me. Treated me like a thief he did. He hurt me. Look.” She stuck out a thin arm from under her shawl and pushed back the dirty sleeve. Her arm was mottled black and blue with bruising.

“I’m sorry,” Aren said.

“The man who came here was dressed in old clothes, but he couldn’t fool me. I know a gentleman when I see one. I don’t remember much else about him, except his hair.”

“What about his hair,” Raiden asked.

“It was red. Not red like orange, really red, like blood. I ain’t never seen hair that shade of red before.”

“What did he want?” Aren asked.

“Just to see the room. He looked around for a while and then he left. I couldn’t see anything was gone. I’ll show you the room if you like.”

“That would be very kind,” Aren said.

They followed her carefully up the narrow wooden stairs. There was no railing to hold onto and Raiden didn’t want to touch the filthy walls if she could help it.  

“Do you know what Mr Matherson did for a living?” Aren asked.

“I didn’t ask questions.”

“He lived here for more than a year and he never once mentioned what he did?”

“What did I care so long as he paid his rent on time and never caused any trouble. I never had any problems from him. He kept to himself. Though a few months ago he began acting strangely, coming and going at all hours of the night. He started using runes to lock his door and then he just left. He said to keep his room for him. I only heard after he died that he’d moved into a fancy house.”

“You don’t know where the money came from?” Aren asked.

“He must have been running some scam, but if he was he never told me about it. I could have helped him if he had.”

They followed her up yet another set of winding stairs. “What was Matherson like?” Raiden asked. 

“He was quiet. He paid his rent on time. Never brought any girls back. Sometimes I heard him talking in his room, though I never saw him take anyone up there. Once I thought I heard someone talking back, a woman, but when he came out of his room there was no one else in there.” She would’ve had to have been listening at the door to hear that. “Once, I saw him with an imp. He had been keeping it in his room.”

“An imp? Are you sure?” Raiden asked. “What colour was it?”

“Grey I think. I don’t know where he got it from, but I won’t have those creatures in my house. Dirty, horrible things they are. Only good for thieving and spying.”

The landlady stopped outside a room. She produced a large chain of keys and unlocked the door. “There’s nothing to see. The room’s empty.” Raiden glanced at Aren. “I didn’t take anything. He took all his things when he left. I don’t know why he kept the room. The gentleman that come wouldn’t believe me. He said I had taken something. He threatened to hurt me if I didn’t tell him.”

“I’m very sorry,” Aren said.

“I’ll be in the parlour if you need me.”

They waited until she had disappeared down the stairs before Aren opened the door.

“She was right when she said there was nothing here,” Aren said.

There were only a few pieces of furniture in the room; a bed, a table, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. The walls were stained brown and the floorboards were bare. An empty cage lay on its side on the floor. It must have been where he had kept the imp. 

“At least we know where Matherson got his money from now?” Aren said.

“What do you mean?” Raiden asked.

“If Matherson was keeping imps then he was up to something illegal. Thieves like to use them. Imps are immune to magic. They can break into anything, although they’re difficult to train. The only way to make them behave is to torture them.”

She thought of Deg and how he had trembled and cowered away from her when she had picked him up.

Together they searched the room. Raiden pulled out each drawer and checked under the bed. There were no loose floorboards, nowhere to hide anything. She went over to the table below the window. Flecks of powder caught her eye. She ran her finger along the windowsill. It came away with dust that glittered. She rubbed it between her fingers. “A fairy has been here,” she said, holding up her finger to show Aren the residue.

“What does that mean?”

She wiped the residue on her dress. “I don’t know.”

Aren lifted the mattress off the bed to check underneath. Raiden opened the wardrobe, but it was empty.

“If there was something here, the man who came could have taken it already,” Raiden said.

Aren shook his head. “If there was anything of value here, the landlady would have taken it. But I don’t think Matherson would have left anything here. He must have known she couldn’t be trusted.”

He put his arm down the back of the wardrobe. “There’s something here.” He stretched, trying to reach. He rolled out an oval shape wrapped in black cloth. “It’s just a mirror,” he said as he unwrapped the fabric.

Raiden took the mirror from him and laid it on the bed. “It’s not just a mirror.” She traced the tiny markings that had been etched into the tarnished frame. “It’s a magic mirror.”

“How did Matherson afford a magic mirror? And why would he leave something so valuable behind?”

“Yesterday, when we were at the ghost’s house, I saw something in the mirror,” Raiden said.

“Your reflection?”

She frowned at him. “No, it was as if there was someone in the mirror, someone watching me. When I was back at school, I saw it again.”

She held the mirror on her lap and stared into it, but her reflection didn’t change. She sighed and laid the mirror on the bed. She went over to the window. She leaned against the table and stared out. The strange carriage was still there with the little man hunched in the driver’s seat and the zombie horses. 

“There’s nothing here,” Aren said. She had to agree with him. “I’m sorry, Raiden.”

The table wobbled under her weight. She looked down. In the middle of the table was a shadow. She looked at the window, but there was nothing there to cast a shadow.

“We should go,” Aren said. “We could talk to the landlady again.”

Raiden moved her hand above the table, trying to see if there was something invisible casting the shadow.

“Raiden?” Aren called, his hand on the door. 

“There’s a shadow here, but there’s nothing that could be casting a shadow.”  

He came over. He crouched down and moved his hand across the table as Raiden had done. “Pass me the mirror.”

Raiden fetched it. He took it from her and balanced it on the table. In the reflection, a small black box was in the centre of the table. She reached out her hand to where the box should be. In the mirror her hand touched the box, but she couldn’t feel anything.

“Is it inside the mirror?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. The sunlight’s touching it or else there wouldn’t be a shadow. It’s there on the table, we just can’t see it.”

“So how do we get to it?”

“I’m not sure.”

Had Matherson kept this room to hide the box? She thought of all the mirrors she had seen at his house. 

There had to be a way to get to the box. Xan always said magic had to make sense. It had to be something to do with the light. There was a shadow so the light must be hitting the box.

“Xan would know how to get to it,” Raiden said.

Aren set the mirror down. “It would take too long to fetch him from the museum and then we would have to explain to him what we were doing here.”

They both stared at the space where the box should have been.

“We can’t stay here much longer,” Aren said. “The landlady will start getting suspicious. She thinks the room’s empty. There’s no reason for us to be taking this long. We might have to leave and come back for it later.”

“There has to be a way to get to it.” She wasn’t leaving without that box. Aren didn’t disagree with her. He crouched back down beside the table.

“The light’s hitting it,” he said, thinking out loud, “or else there would be no shadow. And it’s there. We can see it in the mirror.” The light was the key. “Light allows us to see things, but here it’s stopping us from seeing it.”

“What if there was no light hitting it?” Raiden said, turning to face him. “What if it’s invisible when it should be visible and visible when we can’t see it?”

She pulled the heavy drapes closed, plunging the room into darkness. She felt her way across the table. Her hand met an object. She could feel the smooth edges of the box. “I can feel it,” she said. “It’s only visible when you can’t see it.” 

“I don’t know if you should open it,” Aren said. “We don’t know what’s inside. It could be dangerous.”

Raiden found the catch. She lifted the lid up and stepped back. Nothing happened. She opened the curtains and light flooded in. The box was still invisible, but the contents were now visible. She lifted out a tarnished chain. Attached to the end was a tear shaped amulet with a faceted dull blue gem. 

“Let me see,” Aren said, taking the amulet out of her hand. He held it up to the light. “It looks like glass and paste.”

A creaking sound came from outside the room. Raiden froze. Aren gestured to the door and cupped his hand to her ear. He was telling her the landlady was listening at the door. Raiden nodded to show she understood.

“We should go,” Aren said loudly. “There’s nothing here.”

Raiden closed the lid of the box, making it invisible again.

Aren offered her the amulet. “I can’t take something from a client’s room.”

Raiden took the amulet from him and slipped it into her reticule, pulling the strings tight.  

Aren opened the door. The landlady stood outside, half bent where she had been listening. She straightened and adjusted her shawl. “You’re finished then,” she said.

“Yes,” Aren said.

The woman’s greedy eyes fixed on the mirror. She darted into the room and snatched it up and clutched it to her chest. “The mirror’s mine. Matherson still owes me rent.”

“It might not be safe,” Raiden said, remembering the phantom hands locked around her throat. “You should let us take it away.”

The woman backed away, holding tightly to the mirror. “It’s mine. I want you to leave.”

Raiden took a step toward her, ready to try and pry the mirror out of her grasp. Aren put his hand on her shoulder. “Of course,” he said. “We’ll leave. Come, Raiden.” He drew her out of the room and led the way down the stairs. “We’ll show ourselves out,” he called up the stairs.

Aren used his handkerchief to open the front door. Tobin waited across the street with the carriage. He swivelled his huge body round to face them as they came out. Somehow, he knew where they were even though he had no head.

“What do we do now?” she asked once they were inside the carriage.

“I’m not sure. It seems to have been a waste of time, although we do have a cheap amulet to show for it.”

“And the landlady has a magic mirror that’s worth more than her house.”

Aren laughed. “It’s probably worth more than every house on that street combined.” His face sobered. “I’m going to have Matherson’s body exhumed later today to get a piece of bone from one of his fingers.”

“And then you will make him cross over?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Raiden.”

She smiled sadly. “You’re just doing your job.”

“Perhaps with a link I can get some control over him.”

The carriage pulled up to his office. He climbed out. She stopped him shutting the door. “Thank you for helping me,” she said.

He put his hand over hers and squeezed her fingers. “I’ll let you know once I’ve laid Matherson’s ghost to rest.” 

He shut the door and the carriage moved forward to join the traffic. They had barely gone half way down the road when a crush of carriages up ahead forced her carriage to a stop. A cavalcade of horses was coming down the street. At the centre of the procession was an ornate open top golden carriage pulled by four ghost horses. In the carriage sat a skeleton wearing a cream Elizabethan dress encrusted with jewels and pearls and embroidered with golden thread. It wore a bright orange wig with tight tiny curls on its skull.

Queen Elizabeth had once been known as the Virgin Queen, now she was the Skeleton Queen. She had been raised from the dead by royalists after Charles I had been executed. They hadn’t been able to get to Charles’s remains to summon him back. Two round spots of rouge had been painted onto her skull under her eye sockets and she wore heavy gemmed rings on each of her finger bones. The ghosts of her courtiers rode around her, resplendent in their velvets and satins.

A crowd had gathered to watch the procession as it passed. The ghosts in the crowd bowed or curtsied. There were a number of humans still living who bowed as well. Royalists wanted the monarchy re-established, even if meant a dead queen on the throne. The dead wanted that as well; they had few rights under parliament. For over two hundred years, she had been trying to claim the throne.

It was rare the queen would make such a public appearance. It did not bode well. The dead queen was getting bold.