Swift (21 page)

‘What about Cicely?’ Ivy asked. ‘You said you had a spell that would help us find her.’

‘Yes,’ said Marigold, taking Ivy’s other hand. ‘A faery spell for searching, stronger than the one Betony tried back in the Delve. Close your eyes, and I’ll show you.’

The searching charm Marigold taught Ivy was meant to locate any faeries within fifty miles’ distance, or so she said. Since Cicely was half-faery, it ought to be able to find her – and it would show her where to find them, as well. Ivy concentrated as her mother told her, linking her power with Marigold’s as they searched for the telltale flare of her sister’s magic. But though she pushed her magical strength to the limit, she felt not even a single answering spark.

‘It’s not working,’ she said at last, letting go and knuckling her eyes in frustration. Was her magic too weak? Was her sister too far away?

Or had the worst happened, and Cicely was already dead?

Marigold touched her cheek tenderly. ‘You’re tired,’ she said, ‘and so am I. Don’t lose hope. We’ll try again tomorrow.’ She rose and began putting away the dishes.

Ivy didn’t want to wait. She wanted to keep searching for Cicely, even if it took all night. But Marigold’s magic was clearly more powerful than hers, and if they couldn’t locate Cicely together, what hope did Ivy have of finding her alone?

She slumped in her chair, picking at the too-soft wood with a fingernail, and looked around. Her mother’s flat was a good deal smaller than the cavern she had left behind, and painfully bare of decoration. The furnishings looked flimsy, all wood and cloth without a trace of stone or metal to be seen, and the white walls and gauzy blue curtains gave the place a washed-out, ghostly feeling. Even her mother no longer wore the rosy topaz pendant and earrings that Ivy’s father had given her at their wedding, only a thin twist of hemp with a few glass beads and shells strung upon it. How could she be happy living in such meagre surroundings, all alone?

‘What if we could get rid of the poison in the mine?’ Ivy asked. ‘Would you come back then?’

‘It’s not as easy as that,’ said Marigold, her eyes on the dishtowel she was folding. ‘Betony never thought I was good enough to marry her brother. And she hated me even more for having children, since she and Gossan never could. When I told her about the poison in the Delve—’ She put a hand to her throat as though the words choked her, and for a long moment she was silent. Then she said, ‘I can’t go back, even if I wanted to. I have a life here. And I can’t leave Serita.’

Ivy frowned. ‘Who is Serita?’

‘She started the Rising Star Academy with Trix, five years ago. When I came to Truro for the first time, weak and sick and not knowing where to turn, she was kind to me. She invited me to one of her performances, and when I watched her dance…’ Her eyes grew faraway. ‘I’d never seen anything so wonderful, or so free.’

‘But there was plenty of dancing in the Delve,’ Ivy said.

‘Not like this,’ said Marigold, with a shake of her head. ‘In the Delve it was always the same steps, the same dances, over and over. Never anything new.’ She pulled out her chair and sat down across from Ivy again, her gaze eager and intent. ‘Don’t you understand, Ivy? There’s a price we pay for our magic, faeries and piskeys alike. We can do many things that humans can’t, but they have something we lack – creativity. That’s why we need them, even more than they need us.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Ivy said, a little resentfully. ‘Most of the women in the Delve have never seen a human, but they still create all kinds of things.’

‘Perhaps,’ Marigold said, ‘but the methods they use to make them haven’t changed since the day they went underground. Now and then you might see a piskey-woman with a new clothing pattern or a new recipe, if her husband or son brought it back from the surface. But that doesn’t happen often – you know how men are.’ Her tone became scornful. ‘As long as their beds are warm and their bellies full, they hardly notice what we women do.’

There was some truth to that, Ivy had to admit: she’d been annoyed by Mica’s selfishness too many times to think otherwise. But she also couldn’t forget how shattered Flint had been by his wife’s disappearance, the emptiness she’d left inside him that no amount of good food, or even the love of his children, could fill.

And Marigold hadn’t even asked how he was doing.

‘But when magical folk and humans work together,’ Ivy’s mother continued more brightly, ‘everyone benefits. We gain new ideas and skills from our human friends, and at the same time, our presence makes their creativity stronger. And the more time a faery spends with a human, the greater their shared creativity becomes. That was what happened with me and Serita.’ She gave a reminiscent smile. ‘Once I got up the courage to try the new dances she showed me, it wasn’t long before I could do them as well as she could.’

‘Did she know you were a…a faery?’ asked Ivy. It was still hard to get used to the idea that her mother had no piskey blood in her at all.

‘No,’ said Marigold. ‘And when I was captured by the Empress, I thought Serita would never forgive me. I’d left without even saying goodbye. But when I returned to Truro she welcomed me, even though I couldn’t tell her where I’d been. Then she told me she was ill, and that she wouldn’t be able to teach for several months. She asked if I would take her place at the school until she was better again.’

Which explained why Marigold had sent Richard to deliver her message, instead of coming herself. She’d made a promise to Serita, and like a true faery she was determined to keep it. But the revelation brought no comfort to Ivy. She could understand her mother not wanting to come back to the Delve as long as the poison remained. She could even understand her being afraid of Betony. But she’d made it sound as though Serita was more important to her than her own husband and children.

‘Yet I never forgot about you,’ said Marigold softly, no doubt reading Ivy’s thoughts in her face. ‘I missed you every day. And I’m so glad you came to me. I feared you’d choose to stay in the Delve, and I couldn’t have borne it if—’

She plucked a white cloth from the box on the table and dabbed at her eyes. Then she went on in a firmer tone, ‘But you’re safe now, and that’s all that matters. Once we find Cicely, we’ll send a message to your father and brother, and tell them what’s happened. Then everything will be all right.’

Ivy slept fitfully that night, and woke with the first rays of dawn. It wasn’t that she’d been uncomfortable on the sofa – Marigold had offered her the bed and she’d declined it, knowing she’d feel more secure with a wall at her back. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Cicely.

When her mother emerged from her tiny bedroom, Ivy got up at once. ‘Could we cast that searching spell again now?’ she asked.

‘Yes, of course,’ said her mother, taking both Ivy’s hands in her own.

They stood together with eyes closed and heads bent, their shared magic rippling out across the city and into the countryside beyond. Marigold had been right in urging her to rest, thought Ivy; her mind felt clearer, her power stronger than before. Hope rose inside her, and she concentrated with all her might. Surely they’d find Cicely now.

But though they sent out one call after another, there was no answer – not even the tiniest flash of light. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Marigold heavily at last, letting go of Ivy’s hands. ‘It’s no good.’

‘But we can’t give up,’ said Ivy. ‘We have to keep trying!’

‘We can cast the spell again tonight,’ her mother said. ‘But I don’t know what else to do. I fear…’ She turned away, then looked back sharply. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Out,’ said Ivy hoarsely. ‘I need to—’ Then her eyes started to burn, and she couldn’t speak any more. She hurtled out of the flat and down the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

Ivy returned to the flat late that evening, weak with exhaustion and misery. She’d flown across Cornwall from one end to the other, stopping every few miles to cast the searching spell. But only once did she sense the glow of another faery’s magic, and as soon as she did it vanished, as though whoever it was didn’t want to be found. It might have been Richard, but it certainly wasn’t Cicely.

When Marigold opened the door, she didn’t ask Ivy what had happened. She threw her arms around her, and Ivy closed her eyes and stood motionless until she could breathe again. Then she came inside and ate the dinner her mother had saved for her.

Yet later that night, when the flat was dark and quiet, Ivy’s grief welled up again. She wept into her pillow until she had no tears left and then fell into exhausted sleep, her dreams haunted by the truth she could no longer deny.

Her sister was dead, and it was her fault. Her mother was a faery, who’d left the Delve by her own choice and had no intention of ever returning. Ivy had destroyed her family and betrayed her people, all for nothing.

And now she could never go home.

Over the next few days Ivy gradually became accustomed to life in Truro, though she still felt restless and discontented. Marigold bought her new clothes and a proper bed and introduced Ivy to her human friends – including the ailing Serita and Trix, the academy’s drama teacher. But she didn’t offer to cast the searching spell again, and Ivy didn’t ask her to.

Ivy had been in the city for nearly a week, and had lost hope of ever seeing anyone from her past life again, when she made a discovery that changed everything. She was walking the streets around the cathedral one afternoon when she felt an itch at the back of her mind – a nagging sensation as though she had forgotten something important, or as though some soundless voice were calling her name.

It was impossible to ignore that feeling, even if she’d wanted to. Ivy followed it along the pavement, step by step, until she found herself in front of a shop that sold books and art supplies – and her gaze fell to the grinning piskey sitting in the window.

Not again
, she thought in disgust, and tried to walk away. But the tug inside her was too strong, and before she could stop herself she’d reversed direction, put her hand on the latch, and pushed the creaking door open. A bell jangled, and the shopkeeper sang out, ‘Be with you in a moment!’

‘It’s all right,’ Ivy called back to him – she’d learned a few things from shopping with her mother. ‘I’m only looking.’

‘Right then,’ came the reply, and Ivy was left alone with a line of bookcases stretching away on both sides, and the window display in front of her. The piskey sat with its back to her, just within reach.

Ivy’s hands were tingling now, blood rushing to the surface of her skin. She didn’t want to touch the figure, and yet she felt as though she needed to – as though it were some missing part of her own body, and without it she’d never be whole again. She fought the compulsion one last time, shutting her eyes and backing away. But her head and her heart throbbed in unified protest, and the piskey’s call was too urgent to ignore. With a last nervous glance over her shoulder, she bent and lifted the piskey statue from its place.

It was as ugly as all the others she had seen, a little man in a pointed cap and short jacket. But this one didn’t stick to her hands, and it felt oddly heavy compared to the one she’d held before. She turned it over, wondering what made it different – and nearly dropped the statue in shock.

For an instant, so quick she might have missed it if she’d blinked, its eyes had glowed silver.

Ivy gripped the piskey convulsively.
What are you?
she thought, and at the same instant a voice echoed in her mind:
Help…me.

But not just any voice. A voice she had heard before.

It was Richard.

‘How much for this?’ Ivy asked, brandishing the statue at the startled owner. Whether Richard was trapped inside the pottery figure or whether he’d only been using it as a vessel to speak to her, Ivy didn’t know. But either way, she wasn’t leaving the shop without it.

‘It’s not for sale,’ the man said, looking baffled. ‘It’s just for show—’

‘I’ll pay you twice what it’s worth,’ said Ivy, reaching into her bag. ‘Where did you get it? And when?’

‘A couple of days ago, in the Pannier Market,’ he said. ‘But look, if you want it that badly, I won’t cheat you. Nine pounds’ll do it. Want it boxed up?’

Ivy cradled the statue against her side. ‘No, that’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll carry it with me.’

‘…And that’s when I heard Richard’s voice,’ Ivy explained to her mother as they sat at the kitchen table with the clay piskey between them. ‘But I’ve been trying for hours to get it – him – to talk again, and nothing seems to work.’

Marigold rubbed her forehead, as though the news pained her. She’d just returned to the flat after teaching her last class and she looked tired and dishevelled, her hair wind-blown and her clothes spattered dark with rain. ‘Ivy, are you sure? It might simply have been an echo. A shadow, a memory, of some piskey or faery who died calling for help a long time ago.’

‘It was Richard,’ Ivy insisted. ‘I know it was. We have to help him.’

Reluctantly Marigold took the statue in her hands. But after a moment she set it down again. ‘I can’t feel anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how he could be in there, Ivy.’

Ivy looked into the clay figure’s dull brown eyes. It definitely felt heavier than the other statues she had handled, and the base was solid, not hollow. Did she dare to smash it, and see if Richard was trapped inside? But what if he was part of the statue now, and she ended up killing him?