Swift (24 page)

‘No,’ said Gillian. ‘But she’s gone now. And I don’t think she’s coming back.’

Ivy sat alone in the kitchen of Marigold’s flat, staring dully at the table. Even now that she knew her mother was evil, she found it hard to believe that Marigold would abandon her. Why bother to send Richard to find Ivy and bring her to Truro, only to leave her behind?

But when she’d looked in the refrigerator and found nothing but a small bag of apples and a half-empty container of yoghurt, it was hard to conclude anything else. Perhaps her mother had just forgotten to buy more food – but more likely she’d known she’d be leaving soon, and hadn’t thought shopping worth the trouble.

The worst of it was, even now that Ivy was sure of her mother’s guilt, she still had no way to prove it. Marigold wasn’t foolish enough to make herself conspicuous, and Ivy didn’t even know what kind of spell she was using to turn the piskeys into statues. Perhaps her mother had invented some sort of trap using the magic-soaked Cornish earth she’d spoken of before, but even so her traps couldn’t be easy to spot or Keeve and Cicely wouldn’t have fallen into them. And she couldn’t have set them in any of the obvious places either, or a lot more piskeys would have vanished by now…

Which left Ivy in the same quandary as before. She could turn herself into a swift and fly to the Delve this very minute, but what use would that be if nobody believed her when she got there?

The other problem was that Ivy had no idea where her mother had gone after she’d fled from Gillian, let alone what she was doing. She could cast a searching spell to locate her, but that would also alert Marigold that Ivy was coming her way – and in that case she might as well stay here, for all the good it would do.

Ivy dropped her face against the crook of her arm and let out a shuddering breath. She was still lying there, fighting tears of rage at her own powerlessness, when the telephone let out a trill.

It couldn’t possibly be for her. But she couldn’t ignore it, either. Ivy got up, picked up the receiver awkwardly in both hands, and said, ‘Hello?’

‘Ivy?’ said the voice on the other end. ‘It’s Gillian Menadue.’

The last time Ivy had seen Gillian, she’d still been badly upset by her fight with Marigold. In fact Molly had urged her to see a doctor, but she’d said that all she wanted was to go home. And as the two of them got into their car and drove away, Ivy had felt a miserable certainty that neither one of them would want to see her again.

Apparently, she’d been wrong. ‘Oh,’ said Ivy blankly. ‘Hello.’

‘Has your mother returned?’ Mrs Menadue asked. She sounded calm now, more like her usual self. ‘Is anyone looking after you?’

‘No,’ Ivy said.

‘I was afraid of that.’ Gillian sighed. ‘Well, Molly and I have been discussing it, and we don’t like to think of you being left there all alone. Would you like to come and stay with us, at least for tonight? Molly’s room is a bit small for two, but we can make up a bed for you in the study.’

Ivy was quiet, considering the offer. It seemed unlikely that Marigold meant to return to the flat at this point. And Ivy couldn’t forget that Richard had mentioned Molly in his dream-message. Maybe it was time to tell the human girl what had happened to him, and see if she knew anything that might help. If the two of them could free Richard, maybe he’d be able to help Ivy stop her mother…

‘Yes, please,’ Ivy said, picking up Richard’s statue and stuffing it back into her bag. ‘I’d be glad to come.’

When Ivy got off the bus, Molly was waiting for her. ‘I can’t believe my mum invited you over,’ she said as the two of them walked down the hill in the evening cool, midges swarming about the hedge beside them. ‘It’s like she’s a different person all of a sudden.’ She broke into a smile, then sobered and added, ‘I’m sorry about your mum, though. I hope she’s not… I mean, maybe it was just a misunderstanding.’

Soon the Menadues’ cottage rose up before them, looking snug and welcoming with its softly lighted windows and open door. ‘I need to finish up in the barn,’ Molly said. ‘Why don’t you go in? My mum’s got some supper for you, if you’re hungry.’

Ivy would have preferred to stay with Molly, but her stomach betrayed her with a loud rumble. ‘All right,’ she said, and crossed the yard to the front step of the house, where Mrs Menadue was waiting. Her perfume hung heavy in the air as she led Ivy to the kitchen and sat her down with a bowl of soup and some crusty bread.

‘This must be hard for you,’ she said, taking the chair across from Ivy. ‘I’m sorry.’

Ivy had disliked Gillian Menadue at first, but now she felt ashamed of herself for judging the woman so harshly. ‘I’m sorry for what my mum did to you,’ she replied.

Gillian gave a faint smile. ‘It could have been worse,’ she said. ‘It was my mistake to think that I could reason with her, and convince her to let go of the past.’ She poured herself a cup of tea and sipped it. ‘I should have realised how impossible that would be, after she’d spent so long trapped in the Delve.’

Ivy nearly inhaled her soup. ‘You know about the Delve?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Gillian. ‘Not that your mother ever told me exactly where it was. Only that she had been living in an old mine somewhere between here and Redruth.’ Her gaze became faraway. ‘She was so weak and ill when I found her, and so unhappy. When I recognised her as a faery and offered to help her, she seemed so grateful. I thought we’d be friends forever.’

‘Did she say anything to you about her plan?’ Ivy asked. ‘I know you don’t remember much, but—’

‘I do remember some things,’ Molly’s mother said. ‘Especially when I think back to a conversation we had in the beginning, when she discovered the truth about her past. Something about how if she wanted to avenge her family and rescue the women of the Delve, she’d have to get rid of all the men. Once the hunters and foragers were gone, the others would have no choice but to come out onto the surface.’

Ivy’s heart was galloping now. ‘Did she say how she planned to do it?’ she asked, but Gillian shook her head.

So Marigold probably hadn’t figured out the details until recently. Maybe she’d got the idea of turning the piskeys into clay statues while she was a slave of the Empress, but she’d had to wait until she was free to carry out her revenge…

The pieces were coming together in Ivy’s mind now, and she could imagine how her mother had done it. It must have taken some time for Marigold to find the magical earth she needed, and longer to figure out how to use it. But as soon as her spell was ready, she’d sneaked back to the Delve and set a couple of traps on the hillside to test it out. And then she’d sent Richard to fetch Ivy, not wanting her half-faery daughter to get caught up in her revenge.

Catching Keeve would have pleased Marigold, but it must have been a nasty shock when Cicely fell into her trap. So why hadn’t she released Ivy’s sister right away? Perhaps she didn’t know how to undo the spell, or – more likely – she’d been afraid to release Cicely in case she interfered. So she’d hidden her somewhere safe, while she used the clay-bound Keeve to win over the vendor in the Pannier Market. Then she gave the man some empty statues to keep him busy and make a little money for herself, until she had more of the real piskeys to sell.

It was hard to imagine how Richard had ended up as a statue, though. Perhaps he’d flown back to the Delve to investigate Cicely’s disappearance, and caught Marigold setting another trap. He’d confronted her, and she’d cast the spell on him to keep him from talking…

Gillian touched her hand, calling her back to the present. ‘Ivy,’ said Molly’s mother seriously, ‘I know all this must be very upsetting to you. But your mother must have wanted to protect you, or she wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of bringing you out of the Delve. You may see her again if you’re patient, but you mustn’t chase after her. You’ll only get hurt if you try to interfere.’

She was right, and Ivy knew it. Yet she couldn’t shake her conviction that time was running out for the piskeys of the Delve, and that if she didn’t act soon it would be too late to save any of them. Marigold knew the Delve’s entrances and exits as well as any piskey; in a matter of minutes she could lay her traps in front of every one. If she could find a way to lure all the males out onto the surface at once…

It was only a theory, but even the possibility was more than Ivy could bear. How could she sit idle while so many piskeys she knew and loved – her brother and Mattock, Hew and Gem and Feldspar, and even the Jack himself – were turned into statues and sold off as good-luck charms? Even Flint…her father might be safe for a few days in the depths of the mine, but once all the other men were gone and the women were crying out for food, surely he’d have to come out too.

‘I know it could be dangerous,’ she said to Gillian. ‘But I have to do something. I just don’t know what.’

Mrs Menadue sighed. She got up and put her teacup away, while Ivy stared at her soup as though she might find the answer floating in its surface. But the scattered vegetables and bits of meat refused to give her any ideas, and it seemed that Molly’s mother didn’t have any either.

Or did she? There must be a reason Ivy’s mother had wiped Gillian’s memory and then disappeared, instead of staying to carry out her plans at a more leisurely pace. Perhaps something had happened during their conversation that forced Marigold’s hand, and convinced her she had to carry out her attack on the Delve right away…

And if Ivy could figure out what her mother was afraid of, perhaps she’d know how to stop her.

‘Do you remember anything else she said to you today?’ she asked Mrs Menadue. ‘Or what you said to her, when you were alone?’

Gillian looked exasperated. ‘Enough,’ she said, taking the bowl from Ivy. ‘Time you went to bed – the study’s the first door on the right. We can discuss it in the morning.’

And that was so maddeningly
human
, and so like a mother as well. As though Ivy were the one being unreasonable, and if she went to sleep like a good girl the problem would go away.

‘But I need you to tell me now,’ insisted Ivy. She didn’t want to have to use magic to make the woman talk, especially since her mother had meddled with Gillian’s mind already. But she’d never forgive herself if she got to the Delve too late. She reached out with her mind, and
pushed—

Mrs Menadue gave her a stern look. ‘Not in this house, you won’t,’ she said. ‘And if you try using your magic on me again, I’ll throw you out.’

Richard had told her the house was protected, but Ivy hadn’t realised the charm would work that way. Shame hunched her shoulders, and she left the table without another word.

The study was dark and quiet, and the bed Mrs Menadue had made up for Ivy was as comfortable as the one at her mother’s flat, if not more so. She’d said a subdued good night to Molly under Gillian’s watching eye, then discreetly slipped Richard’s statue out of her bag and laid it beside her, in case he found the strength to send her another dream-message. But that had been more than an hour ago – and no matter how hard Ivy tried to quiet her restless thoughts, she couldn’t sleep.

If this were the Delve, she would have gone for a walk. But the air outside the cottage was fresh, and Ivy feared it was more likely to wake her up than make her sleepy. Besides, her mind was the problem, not her body.

Perhaps she should try reading. There weren’t many books in the Delve, except a few dry accounts in the Joan’s library; stories were the droll-teller’s business, not something to be put down on paper. But Ivy knew her letters well enough, and it wouldn’t hurt to try.

There was no need to turn on a lamp, not when she carried her own light with her. Glowing softly, Ivy slid out of bed and crept to the low bookcase that stood against the wall. But to her disappointment, most of the volumes seemed to be about fixing mechanical things like cars and motorcycles – subjects that would probably have fascinated Mica or even Cicely, but held little appeal for Ivy.

She had worked her way to the bottom shelf without finding anything of interest when she spotted something called a
Road Atlas.
Wondering what that might be, she pulled it out and found it was a book of maps, not only of Cornwall but the rest of England as well. Now
that
was worth looking at. But as she turned the pages, a square of folded paper slid out. Another map?

Carefully Ivy opened the page and smoothed it out. It showed far more detail than any other map she’d seen – even individual farmsteads were marked and named, along with a great many places starting with ‘Wheal’ that Ivy recognised as the locations of old tin and copper mines. In fact she knew that the Delve had been called Wheal Felicity, back when humans still worked there. Could it be on the map too?

It took a little searching, but eventually she found Wheal Felicity in the top left corner, with the neighbouring wood a little to the east. But someone had pencilled an X next to it, for some reason… No, two X’s, one to the north-west and another between the Delve and the wood. And now that Ivy looked more closely, she could see cross-marks beside a number of the other old mines in the vicinity as well. As though the map’s owner had been visiting one location after another, and marking off their progress as they went…

Not that your mother ever told me exactly where it was
, Gillian had said.
Only that she had been living in an old mine somewhere between here and Redruth.

Ivy sat back on her heels a moment, staring at the map. Chills rippled up her body as she realised what a dreadful mistake she’d made, and how much danger she was in. Then with shaking hands she folded the map and tucked it back into its hiding place. Hurriedly she dressed in her old skin waistcoat and breeches, pushed Richard’s statue back into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Then she slipped out into the corridor, turning herself invisible as she went.