The Crooked Sixpence (19 page)

Ivy smiled weakly, knowing exactly how he felt.
I can handle this
, she told herself. She'd got over uncommon objects; she could deal with dead people . . . walking around. She looked at the newspaper article and picked out the phrase
members of the dead
. ‘Were the dead ever involved with the Dirge?' she asked Violet.

‘The D—?' Violet clamped her lips together. ‘You mean, the Fallen Guild?' she whispered.

‘Yes,' Ivy said, forgetting that no one used their true name. ‘Did the dead ever have anything to do with them?'

Violet's spectacles dropped further down her nose as she bent her head. ‘Yes, of course. Many of the races of the dead worked for the Fallen Guild when they were at their most powerful. It was just one dead attack after another back then. On Twelfth Night 1969, it was the dead that fought on the side of the Fallen Guild – but no one talks about that any more. It was a long time ago. The dead have been law-abiding citizens for decades; they've tried to put the mistakes of the past behind them.'

Ivy remembered what Ethel had said about the Dirge raising an army of sorts. She must have meant an army of the dead. She pictured a troop of zombies staggering towards her, and shuddered. It was easy to see why everyone was so eager to believe that the Dirge had gone.

Ivy heard something fizzing, and turned to find Valian standing beside her, a tankard of frothy black liquid in his hand. It smelled like aniseed. ‘Thought you might like some company.' He squashed into the booth beside them.

Seb grabbed his pint glass right after the innkeeper had filled it with Hundred Punch, and started slugging it down, glowering at Valian as he did so.

‘The thing to know about the races of the dead is that they're just like the races of the living – some are good, some are bad,' Valian explained.

Great
, Ivy thought.
He's been listening, then.

‘Mostly they're hired to do illegal stuff, 'cos they don't mind breaking the rules and it's difficult to impose GUT law on creatures that can move faster than light, or disappear, or fly.'

Ivy thought back to the talking wolf in the Wrench Mansion. She had thought she'd seen it poke its nose
through
the iron gates. ‘That wolf,' she said to Valian. ‘Was it dead?'

‘Yes.'

‘A dead wolf?' Violet mused. ‘Ooh, it must have been a grim-wolf. They're meant to be very shy.'

Ivy was fairly certain ‘shy' wasn't the right word to describe it.

‘The question isn't what the wolf is,' Valian said. ‘It's
whose
it is. It must have been working for somebody.'

‘For the Dirge,' Ivy said coldly. ‘It was there, at Granma's house yesterday.'

‘Members of the Fallen Guild were at Sylvie's house?' Violet exclaimed. ‘No, there must be some mistake. They disbanded decades ago. It's not possible.' She shook her head, her glasses wobbling.

Seb ignored her and leaned forward. ‘The wolf said that it had a mistress,' he remembered. ‘So one of the members of the Dirge must be a woman.'

‘
Wolfsbane
,' Ivy remembered. ‘That was the door it came out of in the Hexroom. And it asked us where we'd hidden
it
– whatever it is the Dirge want from Granma Sylvie.'

Violet muttered to herself while pushing cake crumbs around her plate. ‘The Fallen Guild . . . all those years . . .'

Ivy watched the crumbs curiously. They reminded her of something. ‘The dust on the Hexroom floor . . .' she said. ‘It had only been disturbed in two places. One was outside the Wolfsbane door, but the other was in front of the wooden door belonging to Ragwort. I think they're the only doors that have been opened.'

Seb placed his glass down on the table. ‘Wolfsbane and Ragwort.'

Ivy shivered. ‘Do you think
they
took Mum and Dad? Do you think they're both still in Lundinor?' She looked around the room.

‘You've already seen one of them,' Seb reminded her. ‘That man with the creepy hands in Bletchy Scrubb hospital.'

The man in grey.
Ivy didn't think Seb had been listening when she told him she suspected he was a member of the Dirge. ‘If Wolfsbane is a woman, then the man in grey must be Ragwort,' she said.

‘Exactly. And right now they could be anyone. We can't trust men or women, dead or not, or people wearing gloves. That's, like, everyone in Lundinor.'

Ivy glanced warily at Valian and Violet. They couldn't trust
anyone
.

In the dusty case of the uncommon alarm clock I see Mum's face appear out of the darkness. Her eyes are squeezed shut in pain, her lips black. Her wispy brown hair begins to whiten and her face lengthens into that of another . . . Dad. His glasses are smashed, his blue eyes wide with fear. There is blood streaked across his cheeks. For unbearable moments I watch him – until finally his mouth rips open in a scream, tears falling freely to his chin. The spindly hands of the uncommon alarm clock begin to whirl, blurring his face. They whir around, getting faster and faster. The air rushes out of my lungs. Panic begins to fill me like rising water. I can't . . . move . . .

This is it. I haven't been able to save them . . . My parents are going to die.

The alarm clock rings—

‘Ivy? Ivy!'

Seb's voice pierced Ivy's mind. The alarm clock dissolved into darkness. She struggled for air.

‘Ivy, wake up!'

Groggily she opened her eyes and heaved herself upright. The bedroom light was on. Seb was standing in front of her, already dressed. She rubbed her eyes. ‘What time is it?'

Seb shook his head. ‘It's early,' he said. ‘Are you OK? It sounded like you were having a nightmare.'

Ivy glanced at the uncommon alarm clock on the chair by her bunk. ‘I'm fine – it's just . . . we don't have much time. There's only one day left.'

Seb reached for the clock. In the quiet of the bedroom they could hear it ticking. ‘Every step we take, it's like I can feel it getting closer,' he murmured. ‘I keep wanting to shout at someone, you know? I want to ask
why
this is happening to us. What did we do to deserve it?'

Ivy felt angry too, but she had tried to push the feeling away. Her mum had told her once that anger could burn you up if you weren't careful.

Seb put down the alarm clock. ‘We have no time to lose. I'm gonna go and ask some questions. Someone must know something about Granma that'll give us a clue. I'll meet you back in the dining room in an hour.' He paused. ‘You know how Dad always says,
We just need a bit of luck
? Well, that's what I feel like right now.' He sighed as he opened the door. ‘Do you think he's OK – I mean, wherever they've got him?'

Ivy shook her head. It was bad enough that her mum and dad weren't there. The idea of them locked away somewhere in the Dirge's control made her go cold inside. ‘Hey,' she said. ‘Keep an eye on Valian.'

Seb's mouth drew into a line. ‘I'll try and lose him the first chance I get.'

After the door shut behind him, Ivy sat up in bed, thinking. Seb was right. There was no way they'd solve this without a bit of luck. Luck was the only reason they'd found the Wrench Mansion in the first place, and even after their visit yesterday, they still knew very little about what was going on; they were no closer to rescuing their parents.

Ivy threw back her duvet and got up. As her feet touched the floor, her skin prickled. She had the distinct – and very strange– feeling that something was watching her. She looked around, but there was nothing but old furniture and shadows. The uncommon wallpaper had rearranged itself into an ornate lamp, which was standing proudly on the floor. Ivy sighed. She hadn't woken up properly.

Before heading downstairs she put Scratch in her pocket. It would be nice not to be totally alone; for some reason talking to Scratch yesterday had made her feel better. Maybe it was because he was one of the few uncommon objects in which she could see all that was good about Lundinor. She stuffed Thaddeus Kandinsky's copy of
Lundinor: Farrow's Guide for the Travelling Tradesman
in her pocket too. After Violet had mentioned it yesterday, Ivy thought she'd have another go at reading it.

She entered the dining room expecting Valian to be waiting for her, but he was nowhere to be seen. Mr Littlefair told her that he had followed Seb outside earlier.

Ivy gazed around the room. A couple of traders were gobbling down the last of their breakfast, while two waitresses were busy clearing up after the main rush. A half-empty dish of what looked like custard was making strange whistling noises in the corner.

Ivy went back to the door. There was no point waiting around. She would see what she could learn on her own and meet Seb in an hour.

Out on the Gauntlet she reached into her pocket and pressed the lever on Scratch's side. ‘Any advice where to go?' she asked. The street was already filling up with uncommoners. Traders were rolling back awnings, sweeping tables clean and unloading their wares.

‘Trying the other quarters?' he suggested.

Ivy dodged a small, portly man carrying a bundle of hay on his shoulders. ‘The other quarters?'

‘Undermarts always be quarters divided into,' Scratch said. ‘Why that's four quartermasters in charging. Lundinor quarters namings: the Great Cavern – beings of the biggest – the East End, the West End, and then of the Dead End.'

Remembering the ghouls in the dining room, Ivy gulped. ‘The Dead End?'

‘Yes, yes,' Scratch said. ‘Tradings for the dead there happens.'

‘Right.' Ivy ran a hand through her curls.
Best to avoid that one then.
‘What about the other two?'

Scratch jingled. ‘Expensive beings the West End. All sellers furniture, of boutiques fashion and cafés. Opposite beings the East End.'

Ivy stopped at a crossroads and felt a sudden chill. She looked over her shoulder, sensing someone following her, but she could see no one. She shook her head before continuing. That nightmare she'd experienced was just making her paranoid.

She wondered where the Granma Sylvie from that old photo would have gone when she was in Lundinor. The Wrenches seemed quite posh – their house was huge. But Ivy had the feeling that Granma Sylvie wasn't like them. She'd been best friends with Ethel, after all. ‘Which way to the East End?'

Scratch nudged her hand. ‘Leftings.'

As Ivy walked, she saw that the drains at the side of the road were glossy with moisture. It looked silver, like snail slime. She wondered if it rained in Lundinor. Maybe there was something uncommon that could do that . . . It was odd to have drains underground otherwise.

She passed a young man in a cloth cap, galoshes and kipper tie, who was selling uncommon tea-strainers – the kind Ivy's mum used. The man held the strainer in front of him and gave it a gentle tap. With a scraping sound, the object stretched to the size of a washing basket. Now, every hole was filled with a rolled sheet of canvas.

‘Uncommon tea-strainers!' the man called. ‘Great for storage – hold all your important documents in your pocket.' He slotted a roll of paper into an empty hole. The tea-strainer promptly returned to its former size with a clean
snikt
. ‘Only two grade! Best you'll find in Lundinor!'

The man's stall was full of strange trading memorabilia – chalkboards, scales, old gloves, tin signs. Hanging from a pole at the top was a print of a poem entitled ‘Grading'.

1 and 2 are easy to view,

3 and 4 take a bit more,

5 is a search,

6 is a quest,

Finding 7 demands your best.

8 is every true scout's dream,

While 9 has only thrice been seen.

But the find that beguiles all trading men is that rarest of rare – the Great Grade 10.

Ivy watched as a smartly dressed man bartered for a tea-strainer. No money changed hands; only objects. The stallholder handed over one of his tea-strainers, while the man tendered a spoon and two feathers in return. Afterwards they shook hands.

She puzzled over it as she continued. Uncommon objects must be exchanged, she figured, not bought. They were graded one to ten and then swapped. A bit like comics or trading cards.

As she turned a corner, she got a whiff of something nasty – sewage or overflowing rubbish bins – but it was gone in a moment, as if carried away on a breeze. At the end of the road a crowd had formed. Beyond them, some uncommoners in long white robes were singing.

Ivy moved in closer to listen.

‘
. . . let yourselves be light, from now on our troubles will be out of sight . . .
'

The choir was performing
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
, a song Ivy had heard on the radio at home. Each voice seemed to soar, lifting Ivy up with it. The tune reminded her of Christmas Day: her mum laughing while cooking lunch and her dad cracking jokes as she and Seb helped him set the table.

All at once Ivy noticed that there was something odd about the singers. Their skin appeared to be glowing, and when she checked the ground beneath them, their white robes faded into thin air.

Scratch tinkled in Ivy's pocket. ‘Spectres beautiful,' he said to her. ‘Favourite they Scratch are.'

So that's what they are
, she thought.
A race of the dead.
She had to admit that spectres didn't look scary at all. She wondered if she'd got the wrong impression of the dead. Maybe what Valian said was true. The dead were just like the living. Most were good, but there were also a few bad apples.

She got
Farrow's Guide
out of her pocket and looked around: she was heading down a dimly lit street bordered on one side by a shallow trench of stagnant water. It smelled foul, like rotten vegetables, so Ivy assumed it was some kind of sewer. She held a sleeve over her nose as she continued.