The Crooked Sixpence (28 page)

Ivy inspected him curiously. She recognized his name. He was the man who had beaten Octavius Wrench to the position of Quartermaster of the Great Cavern in that election on Twelfth Night 1969.

Except . . .

He didn't look old enough. This Mr Punch was fresh-faced, young and lean, with broad shoulders and a straight ginger beard. Beneath the hat, a pair of brilliant aquamarine eyes sparkled with intelligence. That colour gave Ivy an odd feeling of déjà-vu . . .

Mr Punch held a conch shell to his lips. ‘My thanks to all of you for gathering here so quickly. I'm afraid I have worrying news.' His voice was so deep and sonorous, it sent vibrations through Ivy's chest. ‘Yesterday, as most of you know, a trader was attacked by a wraithmoth – a creature of the dead we have not seen for many years. A few hours ago I received reports of shadows gathering outside the Great Gates.' Mr Punch coughed and turned to address another section of the crowd. As he did so, his face seemed to change – his beard grew curly, his skin darker, and his hat disappeared. ‘Our investigations revealed evidence that selkies and wraithmoths had been in the arrivals chambers, sabotaging the air filters.'

The crowd started to mutter. Ivy frowned.
Ragwort
– the man in grey – was the one controlling the selkies and wraithmoths. He was behind this. She wondered what his motives were.

‘Our engineers are doing their utmost to restore the uncommon technology,' Mr Punch continued, ‘but until they succeed, I'm afraid I have to insist that all living uncommoners remain in Lundinor. The air outside the Great Gates is toxic, and until the filters can be repaired it is too dangerous for you to go out.'

Ivy shuddered.
Ragwort wants everyone trapped inside . . .

‘As you know, GUT law prevents bag travel to the common world from inside the Great Gates, so we will all have to remain here until the situation can be resolved.' Mr Punch shifted round again, and this time his whole face appeared to change – the shape of his nose, lips and forehead. Ivy rubbed her eyes. She must still be suffering from the effects of being in the ghoul hole. Maybe it gave you hallucinations.

He cleared his throat. ‘I am confident that the underguard will find these saboteurs very soon. They have informed me that they will be responding to featherlight twenty-four hours a day. If you do see anything suspicious, I want you to report it immediately. Mr Merribus has generously offered free featherlights for the next few days.' Ivy spotted Merribus nodding.

‘It is an uncertain time in the streets,' Mr Punch went on – one minute he was the ringmaster; the next, an older man in a grey flannel suit. ‘I want you all to be extra vigilant and look out for each other. We have faced threats before, and we have overcome them. We are stronger when we work together and trust in each other. I would ask you all to remember that.' His words hung in the air for a moment, before he nodded and turned away.

As Ivy watched him disappear back into the crowd, she couldn't help wondering what he was really thinking. If he really
was
the Guardian of Lundinor, surely he suspected that the Dirge were at work again. Had he looked into Ivy and Seb's arrest after the wraithmoth attack yesterday? And what did he plan to do about it, if anything?

The crowd began shuffling away, discussing Mr Punch's news. Ivy craned her neck, trying to find a safe route out. Suddenly she spied a puff of fluffy white hair beneath a bobbing bonnet.

Violet.

‘Violet, over h—!' Ivy stopped, remembering not to attract attention. She squeezed through the crowd.

Violet Eyelet turned as Ivy reached her. She was wearing two pairs of spectacles – one broken, the other fogged up. She looked more awake than she had after the wraithmoth attack, but her face was badly scratched.

‘
Ivy?
' she whispered. ‘I thought you'd been arrested.'

‘I was,' Ivy said. ‘Look, I need to ask you something.'

Violet glanced around warily. ‘Best not talk here; the underguard will be looking for you.'

She led Ivy out of the crowd, behind a row of empty kiosks. ‘I'm very sorry about yesterday,' she said. ‘We all are. We shouldn't have let Smokehart take the pair of you like that; it was monstrous of us.' She pushed her broken spectacles further up her nose. ‘I was just so shaken up by that—' She couldn't say
wraithmoth
.

‘Don't worry about that now,' Ivy told her. ‘I need to ask you about Twelfth Night 1969. It's important.'

Violet squinted. ‘All right, but I doubt it'll help. I told the underguard everything before.'

Ivy hoped that there was something they'd missed. She'd been to the mansion now; she knew all about the fountain entrance and the layout inside. Maybe that would help her. ‘Can you tell me what happened when you went into the Wrench Mansion?
Exactly
what you saw?'

Violet removed her glasses and frowned. ‘Sylvie took me up the hill and into the house. Octavius wasn't there because he was waiting for the election results at the Market Cross, so – for the first time ever – I gave my scouted objects to Helena Wrench, his wife. Helena was a sweet lady. I remember she offered me a drink of Nelson's Tipple when I got there – fancy stuff; the kind they drink in the West End. I'd never tried it before.' She smiled. ‘Nor have I since.'

Ivy tried to picture it: Helena Wrench – with those sad blue eyes – greeting Violet. The image of Helena's face was one of the first memories to return to Granma Sylvie. Ivy wondered if there was more significance to it than she had previously thought.

Violet's voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Helena led me into this huge dining room – candelabras along the table, chandeliers suspended from the ceiling, creepy oil paintings hanging on the walls; but she still made me feel at ease – unlike Octavius. He always looked down his nose at me. He absolutely hated me using an old sack as my collection bag; thought it was unsightly. Helena was fine with it. She . . .' Violet paused and blinked. ‘Helena . . . That night she had a funny turn, I remember. I gave her my sack of objects and she let go of it right away, as if I'd handed her a hot potato. I thought I'd done something wrong because she asked me to leave immediately; virtually pushed me through the door. I didn't even have time to pick up my sack.' She frowned, struggling for the details. ‘Sylvie didn't know what had come over her mother. After she'd shown me out the gates, she went back inside to see if her mother was OK. That was the last time I saw her.'

Ivy had gone very still. She stared into the middle distance as realization gripped her.
A hot potato . . .
She knew exactly what that felt like.

‘Did anyone else see you?' she asked urgently. ‘Was there anyone else in the mansion?'

Violet frowned. ‘One of Sylvie's brothers was there, I think; he was setting the table. Blond hair, portly.'

Ivy's mind raced back to the family portrait in the Wrench Mansion. She had to steady herself against Violet's arm as the truth became clear . . .

Him
. It had been him all along.

The lights were on behind the dirty windows of Hoff & Winkle's Hobsmatch Emporium when Ivy finally got there. She'd had to risk asking several street bells along the way to make sure she was heading in the right direction. She scurried round the back, slipped up the stairs and stood outside the door to Valian's room. There was no sound coming from within.

Ivy closed her eyes. If Seb wasn't there, she mustn't get upset – there wasn't time. Anyway, it didn't mean he wasn't alive; it just meant he hadn't made it back. She had to go on and save their mum and dad without him, no matter what.

She opened her eyes and knocked lightly.

Nothing at first.

Silence.

Then . . .

‘Ivy?'

It was Valian.

Ivy's heart pounded. The door opened inwards, and behind Valian's scrawny figure she glimpsed the outline of another person.

‘Seb?' she whispered, daring to hope – though she had seen enough in the last two days to know that shadows could trick you.

‘
Ivy?
' Seb's voice sounded hoarse. He got up from the bed and stepped into the light. His face was covered in angry red scratches and his hair had dried in matted dreads. As Ivy ran towards him, she heard Scratch shouting excitedly from the bed. She gave her brother a thankful hug.

‘You're alive!' he sobbed. ‘We didn't know what'd happened.'

Ivy allowed herself a few long breaths of relief.
He's OK . . .
She felt Seb wince as she squeezed harder, so she let go. ‘Are you all right?' She turned to Valian. ‘What about you?'

Valian's eyes were serious. ‘We barely got away with our lives. We held them off as long as we could. I thought it was all over.'

‘Me too,' Seb added. ‘But then the underguard alarm sounded in the mansion, and the dead just . . . disappeared. It was like they were spooked.' He smiled glumly. ‘Oh, the irony.'

Ivy thought back to what Smokehart had told her about searching the mansion. They must have used the alarm then.

‘You should be proud of your brother,' Valian said. ‘He was awesome with those drumsticks. It was like he'd been using them all his life. I wouldn't have survived without him.'

Seb slapped Valian on the shoulder. ‘Neither of us would have survived without the other. We did OK back there – we were a team.'

Ivy smiled. It was nice to know that she and Seb had someone on their side.

‘Ivy,' Seb said, ‘we don't have much time left. Mum and Dad—'

‘Smokehart has them at the underguard station,' Ivy told him. ‘I found them after I went through that door in the whispering hall.' She reached for the uncommon alarm clock, which was lying next to Scratch on Valian's bed. The ticking spread through her body and her heart began to quicken. The black hands were hovering dangerously close to midnight; they only had half an hour left.

‘I think I know how to save them,' Ivy announced, her mind racing. ‘Come on – I'll explain on the way.'

They hurried through the back streets of Lundinor. The Market Cross was still busy, but further out the roads were empty: no doubt people had retreated indoors after Mr Punch's announcement. The streets were murky; mist rolled around their feet and there was a strange, musty smell in the air.

‘
Selena Grimes!
' Valian exclaimed, after hearing what had happened to Ivy in the whispering hall. ‘It's common knowledge that she's a ghoul, but
Wolfsbane
?' He rubbed his chin. ‘I should've seen it earlier. She was Quartermaster when Rosie went missing. She's fooled everyone.' His face flushed. ‘No one will believe us, though. Lady Grimes a member of the Dirge? Trust me, you need evidence before going to the underguard with that bombshell.'

Ivy knew that he was speaking from experience. ‘At least
we
know who she really is.'

Seb slipped his drumsticks out of his sleeves. ‘So, they were competing to see who could find the Great Uncommon Good first . . . How did you find out who the man in grey – Ragwort – was?'

‘Violet said something about Helena Wrench that reminded me of myself; of how I reacted once when I touched something uncommon. Scratch told me that whispering runs in the family, so it made sense that our great-grandmother, Helena, was a whisperer, just like me.' Ivy turned a corner, leading Seb and Valian out onto a wide street. ‘That night, Twelfth Night 1969, Violet brought something incredible to Helena; something so powerful that when Helena touched it, she dropped it. It must have frightened her. Violet wouldn't have had a clue what it was, of course – she was only interested in buttons.'

Seb stopped in his tracks as he realized. ‘One of the Great Uncommon Good – that's what she'd found?'

Valian looked dazed. ‘You're kidding.'

Ivy shook her head gravely. ‘Helena knew how powerful it was and what it could do in the wrong hands; in the hands of her husband, for example. She must have known or suspected that he was a member of the Dirge.'

Seb set off again. ‘She must have been scared of him,' he pointed out. ‘If she was a whisperer, she probably had to keep it secret because the Dirge ran those whispering halls.'

‘Exactly,' Ivy agreed. ‘Helena knew she couldn't let him find the object. Maybe she tried to destroy it; I don't know. But it didn't work. She had no option but to send the object away; to hide it where no one would find it.'

Seb's eyes grew wide. ‘She gave it to Granma,' he realized. ‘She gave it to her that very night and told her to disappear.' He slowed down as he worked it out. ‘That's why Granma left! That's why she put on that bracelet; she
had
to hide herself away, she
had
to forget.'

That's right.
Ivy's throat tightened. It was a bittersweet feeling – of sadness, but also of immense pride. Granma Sylvie had done the bravest, most selfless thing Ivy could imagine. She had voluntarily given up the memory of her whole life in order to keep the location of the Great Uncommon Good a secret.

‘And there was only one person who saw all this,' Ivy said as they slowed down to enter a small courtyard; ‘one person who was there when Violet dropped off the object and when Helena gave it to Sylvie and told her to leave.' She turned to Seb. ‘You remember that portrait in the Wrench Mansion? The one that showed the whole family? There was only one member – other than Sylvie – with blond hair.' Ivy recalled a chubby face with small dark eyes and pale hair: the second-youngest of the family, Cartimore.

‘So Cartimore Wrench saw the Great Uncommon Good object,' Valian summarized, ‘and he's been searching for it all this time. He must have told Selena Grimes about it years ago, when he first joined the Dirge.'