Swift (22 page)

‘I don’t like this,’ said Marigold. ‘We should get rid of it.’ She reached for the figure, but Ivy pulled it away.

‘I owe Richard my life,’ she said. ‘I can’t give up on him like that.’

Her mother’s lips thinned, and she gave the statue a resentful look. But she must have known it was fruitless to argue with Ivy, because after a moment she sighed and sat back.

‘Molly rang the school today,’ she said, unwinding the knot of her hair and running her fingers through it. ‘She’s going to audition for Trix tomorrow.’

And just like that, Ivy’s mother was changing the subject. Did she really not believe that Richard was in danger? Was she so wrapped up in her own concerns that she didn’t care? Or was there something else going on that Ivy didn’t know about – something her mother didn’t want to tell her?

Either way, the message was clear enough. If Ivy wanted to help Richard, she’d have to do it on her own.

Ivy remained sitting by the window long after her mother had gone to bed, waiting for the clouds to part and the moon to rise so she could try some spells on the piskey statue by moonlight. But the sky remained closed, and the rain refused to stop falling. At last, discouraged, Ivy set the clay figure on the tea-table and lay down on the sofa beside it.

‘I’m sorry, Richard,’ she mumbled, her fingers tracing the statue’s homely features – so unlike the sharp, fine-boned face she remembered. ‘I wish I knew what to do.’

The statue didn’t answer, or give any sign that it heard. But there was something forlorn about it despite its comic grin, and it felt wrong to leave it sitting there all alone. What if Marigold got up and took it away in the night? Ivy picked it up and tucked it in beside her – and immediately felt better, as though that was what she should have done all along.

‘Good night,’ she whispered, and closed her eyes.

Ivy hadn’t dreamed in a long time, at least not that she could remember. But that night her mind was full of images, each more vivid and strange than the next. She flew over the rooftops of a great city she’d never seen before, where buildings of glass and steel rose like armoured giants against the sky. She held a pebble that turned into a knife, its silver blade sharp enough to kill. She looked into the faces of people she’d never seen before – an older human with blunt grey hair and a wry expression, a cheerful-looking man who winked at her before disappearing behind a curtain, and a faery with blonde curls and a sweetly vicious smile. One moment she was in the midst of a group of skinny boys all fighting like wild animals; the next she was sprinting across a darkened lawn with smoke billowing all around her and light exploding on every side. But none of the dreams seemed to connect to each other, or make any sense.

Then everything went black, and for a dreadful moment Ivy could see nothing at all. She might have thought herself dead, if not for the searing pain around her ankle. But when the darkness greyed into an eerie twilight and a girl with tousled black hair dropped to the ground before her, Ivy realised with a shock that she was looking at herself.

These weren’t dreams; they were memories.
Richard’s
memories.

Where are you?
she cried out to him silently.
Who did this to you? How can I set you free?

At first the answer came only in images, as disjointed as the ones that had come before. A wounded swift spiralling towards the ground. Molly looking startled, then furious. Marigold rising from a crouch, eyes narrowed and one hand blazing with magical light. But just as Ivy began to despair that she would ever make sense of it all, she heard Richard’s voice:

Don’t trust…
The words were weak and fragmented.
Mother…

Ivy’s heart gave a hard thump. Did he mean that the way it sounded?

Trapped me…Keeve is…Cicely…

Cicely! Was he saying she and Keeve were still alive? Could they be trapped inside the piskey statues too?

Find them…
Richard whispered, and then even more faintly,
Molly…your blood…save…

She was losing him, and she couldn’t bear it. Not when she understood so little of what he’d been trying to say.
I want to save you!
Ivy shouted.
And Cicely too, but you have to tell me how! Richard!

There was no answer. Then a shadow loomed up behind her, and Ivy knew something terrible was about to happen. She tried to run, but her feet were locked in place, and suddenly she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe—

With a strangled cry, Ivy bolted awake. She was lying on the sofa with the blankets tangled around her legs, and around the edges of the nearby window the first light of dawn was glowing. Next to her the piskey statue beamed its foolish grin, its gaze as vacant as ever.

Yet it hadn’t been just a nightmare; she was certain of that. Richard had spoken to her. Ivy stared across the room, sickness burning her throat. She had to remember everything he’d said to her, before—

‘Ivy?’ Marigold appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, clutching a robe about her. ‘Are you all right?’

Her expression was anxious, and in that moment she looked exactly like the woman who had tucked Ivy into bed when she was ten years old. And yet Ivy couldn’t forget how she’d appeared in Richard’s memory, with remorseless eyes and power crackling around her fingertips.

Don’t trust…Mother…

Ivy pushed the piskey statue under the covers. ‘I had a bad dream,’ she said. ‘But it’s over now.’

The Pannier Market was a busy place, full of shops and booths selling every kind of merchandise. Ivy made her way past lighted cabinets full of fresh meats and cheeses, shelves of china and antique silver, and a gorgeous display of cut flowers, until she found the stall she was looking for.

‘Well, good morning,’ said the grey-haired vendor, folding his newspaper and getting up to greet her. ‘Thought I might see you again. Looking for these?’ He gestured to the clay piskeys lined up at one side of the table, next to a set of porcelain faeries holding flowers in their outstretched palms. ‘Only got six at the moment, but I’ll be getting more soon. Collect the lot!’

Ivy shifted the weight of the bag on her shoulder, conscious of Richard’s weight inside. ‘Where do they come from?’ she asked.

The man scratched his ear. ‘Well, now…d’you know, I can’t quite remember. Can’t be far, though, or I couldn’t sell them as local. St Austell, maybe?’ He squinted as though trying to bring back the memory, then shook his head. ‘Sorry. Mind’s not what it used to be. It’s all a bit—’ He waved his hand vaguely.

An unpleasant suspicion was creeping into Ivy’s mind, though she didn’t want to believe it, not yet. ‘Then tell me everything you know, please,’ she said, pushing a little magic into the request. She couldn’t afford to waste time on half-truths and evasions, not when there were lives at stake. ‘Who brought them to you the first time? And when?’

‘It was about a fortnight ago, I know that much. But…’ The merchant frowned, his expression troubled. ‘Can’t recall what she looked like, or even how old she was. Isn’t that odd.’

She.
Ivy clutched her bag tighter, dreading what was to come.

‘Anyway, she gave me one of these piskeys, said she made them herself. Told me to keep it in my stall for the weekend, and see if it didn’t bring me good luck.’ His face softened. ‘And didn’t it! Got a head full of ideas all of a sudden, and knew just how to show off my merchandise. Never sold so much in two days in all my life. I was sorry to see that little fellow go, I can tell you, but she said she’d bring me more when they were ready…and she did.’ He picked up one of the piskeys and contemplated it. ‘Can’t say these ones seem as lucky, though. Not sure why.’

Ivy knew the answer – she could see from where she stood that the statue was hollow, with no living piskey or faery inside it. And it wasn’t hard to guess that the
little fellow
he was talking about, the one who’d brought him such good fortune, had been Keeve.

So the piskey-maker was a woman – a woman who knew that Cornish clay had strange powers, and that contact with magical folk enhanced human creativity. She despised piskeys enough to make a mockery of them, and sell them in the market as slaves. And as if that weren’t proof enough, she’d erased the man’s memories so he wouldn’t be able to identify her…

The same way she’d erased Ivy’s memory, the night before she ran away.

What if Marigold no longer cared about the piskeys of the Delve, not even her own husband and son? What if she’d come to hate them for having destroyed her home, killed her father, and taken her mother underground to die? What if she’d decided that a slow death by poison wasn’t good enough, and come up with a more fitting revenge – a scheme to capture any piskeys who ventured outside the mine, and trap them inside clay statues for the rest of their lives? Keeve could have been her first victim, and then – if only by accident – Cicely. And then Richard had found out the truth and confronted her, and she’d had to get rid of him too…

Ivy had missed her mother so much, these past five years. She’d been willing to take any risk, brave any danger, to see her again. But she was no longer the woman Ivy remembered. She might still care about Ivy –
you are more faery than any of them
, she’d said. But anyone else with piskey blood would find her a ruthless and implacable enemy.

And now she had a plan to destroy the Delve.

A plan that Ivy had to stop.

For the rest of the morning Ivy wandered the streets of Truro, brain working feverishly as she tried to decide what to do next. But with every road she crossed and every corner she turned, she found herself more at a loss than before.

Her first thought was to confront Marigold, and demand that she release the piskeys she had taken prisoner. But even though Ivy’s magic was growing stronger by the day, she was still no match for Marigold’s faery powers. If she acted hastily, she might end up as a statue herself.

Then she thought of flying to the Delve, and warning Betony of the danger. But how could she prove to her aunt that that her suspicion was true, let alone tell her what to do about it? She hadn’t found Cicely or Keeve yet, and she had no proof that Marigold was behind their disappearances. All she had was a foolish-looking statue, and the person trapped inside it wasn’t even a piskey.

Obviously she had to find out more about the spell her mother was using, and whether there was any way to break it. Maybe then she’d be able to figure out a way to stop Marigold before any more piskeys disappeared…

‘Ivy!’

Startled, she turned as Molly bounded up to her, a shopping bag in each hand. ‘You look so… I mean, you look great!’ the human girl exclaimed. ‘Are you having a good time with your mum?’

She looked so delighted to see Ivy, so full of health and life and innocence, that Ivy couldn’t bear to discourage her. ‘I’m glad to see you, too,’ she said. That much, at least, was true. ‘Are you here by yourself?’

‘Oh, no,’ Molly said. ‘My mum’s in there, trying on clothes.’ She pointed to a shop up the road. ‘But she’s coming to my audition this afternoon, and—’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m really nervous.’

Ivy had forgotten about Molly’s audition; she’d been too wrapped up in her own worries. But she’d seen Molly in Richard’s dream-message, and heard him say her name. What if the human girl was more important than Ivy had guessed?

‘I tried about twenty different speeches,’ Molly went on fretfully, ‘and my mum helped me pick the best one, but I don’t know.’ She toed the cobbles. ‘I wish Richard was here.’

He was, if only Molly had known it. But if Ivy showed her the statue and told her what had happened, she’d probably be too upset to audition at all.

Yet theatre was Richard’s passion, as dance had become Marigold’s. Surely he’d want to help Molly do her best, even if he couldn’t see it. ‘Would it help if we – if I came with you?’ Ivy asked.

‘
Would
you?’ The doleful expression vanished, and Molly’s eyes shone again. ‘That would be brilliant. I think it would help a lot.’

The only problem was that Marigold would be working in the adjoining office, but Ivy had to face her mother sometime. ‘What about your mum, though?’ Ivy asked. ‘Do you think she’ll mind me being there?’

Molly waved this aside. ‘Oh, I’ve told her all about you. I mean, not
everything
, obviously – but when I showed her the pamphlets from Rising Star, I told her that I had a friend whose mum was a teacher at the school. I was afraid she’d never let me go, but that really seemed to make her feel better about the whole thing. She’s looking forward to meeting you.’ She swung one of her shopping bags over to the other hand, and hooked her arm into Ivy’s. ‘Why don’t you join us for lunch?’

Until now Ivy had been too busy worrying to even think of food. But now, as she looked into Molly’s eager face, she began to feel better – and hungry.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I will.’

Mrs Menadue looked dauntingly perfect in a sleek grey dress and sandals, her hair unruffled by the summer breeze. She smelled of the same musky perfume as before, which made Ivy’s nose wrinkle. But she spoke graciously enough when Molly introduced them – and she even insisted on paying for Ivy’s lunch, though she seemed preoccupied and let the two girls do most of the talking.