The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden (9 page)

Deadnettle stared off into the distance, the fires of London burning around the edges of the park, chimney smoke twisting up toward the stars. Thomas waited.

“She had a plan, a plan to save us. It was her duty as queen, she said, and certainly there was no one else who could even attempt it. It had not been done in many hundreds of years, for it was dangerous and there had been no need. We lived such a peaceful existence for so long, far from the ways of humans or anything that might seek to harm us. We could move between the worlds as we wished, but as the trains and machines and metals came, we came through the doorways less and less, knowing it
made us ill to do so. But none of this answered your question, did it? She cast a spell, a risk at any time, but she was already weak, and she had just had a child. It was enormous magic, an incredible danger, and she knew precisely what it would do to her. Nevertheless, she did it anyway.”

“A child,” said Thomas. “But there are two of us. I found his body. I had a brother, too.”

“Not . . . exactly,” said Deadnettle. “There
became
two of you. But the boy I left in that grave for you to find was not your brother, Thomas. His name was Thistle. You know this. I watched you read the note, and that small act alone gave me more hope than I thought I would ever muster again. Thistle is the reason you are, as I said, not magic. You are what we call a changeling, and at any other time”—he loosed his hands and spread them wide, careful, Thomas noticed, not to bring them near the bench—“you would be useless. A curiosity to be gawked at and discarded. A necessary tool in creating a very powerful faery, but a tool that has no function after the deed has been done.”

Thomas wished he had thought to spend some of the faery's silver on a cool lemonade, his mouth went that dry. “The fortune-teller said I was broken.”

“Very neatly split in two,” agreed Deadnettle calmly. “There is a reason you are a faery but you have no magic. Thistle had it all, concentrated inside of him, and you are
simply what's left. Ordinary, unremarkable. We each have those parts inside us, whether we wish to confess to them or not. Please,” he said, placing long, inhuman fingers on Thomas's knee, “do not misunderstand. As I said, I fervently hope I am wrong about this. I would very much like to discover that the power of your royal line is within you, the last of Wintercress's blood. You see, Thistle died trying to reopen a gateway to our home, one that only a faery of the royal line may open. Do you see that tree, just there, which was once two trees that have grown together? Do you see the gap between? You are our only remaining chance.”

Great iron bells began to toll across the city, ringing out over the park. Deadnettle's eyes widened in pain, and Thomas didn't care a jot. Whether faery or human or something in between, something curious and useless, the blood in his veins turned at once to stinging ice and hot, bubbling anger.

“Toss me away like rubbish until you decide as you need me? Was that her decision, or yours? It killed him, chances are it'd kill me, too, wouldn't it?” he asked, jumping to his feet and starting to walk as the faery clutched his head. Several yards away, Thomas stopped to look over his shoulder. “Thanks much for the silver.”

CHAPTER NINE

A Dream

W
ake up, Thomas, and hear
me. Wake up, please! Help us. You must help us. I know you can hear me if you will let me inside your head. You are the only one who can. I have left you everything you need.

CHAPTER TEN

A Change of Heart

T
HOMAS SLEPT THAT NIGHT IN
the softest bed he'd ever felt, or touched, or even seen. Like sleeping on the fluffiest of summer's day clouds, wrapped in covers baked with as much warmth as the sun. He'd never rested so well, deep and dreamless.

They'd looked at him a bit funny downstairs, but there was nothing the slightest bit odd about the pound he passed the man in his silly uniform, who did not keep his job by asking too many questions, even of a young boy in tattered clothing who sauntered in and asked for the poshest room in the place.

He saw no reason not to spend that old faery's coin on whatever he liked. Figured he and the other one,
Wintercress, owed him a good night's sleep in exchange for his first night upon this earth, spent cold and lonely atop a grave.

Serve them both right if he decided to live like the prince he apparently was, on their silver.

He got it, and breakfast, too, when he awoke to bright daylight. Eggs and buns and kippers, all on a tray with a pot of tea and a dainty silver sugar pot. If Silas were here . . . But Thomas left it where it was, and its dainty spoon, too.

His dreams had been very odd, which he supposed was only to be expected. Again and again, he had reached for the doorknob of his room, only to find it locked because he wasn't opening it the proper way. And every time he opened it wrong, a great, terrible pain coursed through him.

How dare that Deadnettle think he'd a right to ask Thomas for help, after what the faeries had done? He knew he hadn't gotten the whole story, neither, but perhaps if he'd not run off, Deadnettle would've told him the rest of it. Then again, maybe he wouldn't. Those bells had seemed to pain him enormously, so much that he'd not said a word or tried to chase as Thomas ran off.

Angry as he was, it was sad nonetheless, if it were true. That being here caused the faeries such pain, and they would never be allowed to leave. The bells
had
seemed to
cause him real agony. Sad, but Thomas shrugged in the fancy mirror, framed and everything, that hung on the papered wall. Nothing he could do about it, even if he liked to. He wasn't magic in the least, and trying to send them home had killed Thomas's . . . had killed Thistle—yes, that was its name—who was supposed to be such a powerful faery.

Thomas dressed in clothes that felt much grubbier than they had the day before, after he'd slept a night in such a clean bed. Downstairs, he skirted ladies in powder and petticoated gowns and a small dog that yapped at his heels for one of the strawberry tarts on a tray by the door. He gave one to the mongrel—the blasted thing near took his finger off in its haste—and kept one for himself, nibbling the scalloped edges as he stepped out into the sunshine.

It was . . . strange. If a soul'd asked him a scant week before what Thomas would do if given as much time to spend at leisure and as much coin as he needed to make that leisure enjoyable, Thomas would've had a list.

He stood on the corner, away from the carriages pulled up outside the hotel, and pondered.

He didn't believe it, any of it. And if he did, that didn't mean he had to help. Every last one of the faeries could go eat an onion. But . . . he wanted to see.

Mordecai, Deadnettle had called the man who kept
them captive. It wasn't so common a name as all that, and there must be even fewer of 'em who ran places where people could go have a nice chat with a ghost.

Turning back into the hotel, Thomas walked up to the desk. The dog came to nip at his ankles more, growling and snarling now. Beasts had never liked him much, but bully for them. He didn't like 'em either, so there. “'Scuse me,” he said to a different man from the one who'd given him a key the night before. “I'm looking for a man named Mordecai. Famous, I heard, for . . . what's it, that spiritualism business. Somewhere over in Shoreditch. D'you know where?”

The chap behind the desk eyed Thomas curiously before his eyes flitted to a spot just over Thomas's shoulder. A bejeweled hand in a silk glove touched Thomas's arm. “Did you say Mordecai, young man? Darling fellow, just darling. Helped me speak to my daughter and my dear mother. Nellie, do stop barking. He's over Shoreditch way, as you say.” She told him the streets, that he'd know the place soon as he saw it. “Have you lost someone, you poor dear? Speaking to them will help, I assure you.”

Thomas blinked. “M-my mother,” he said. It was true enough. “My brother, too.” Which was not, really.

“Oh, you poor, poor thing. Tell Mordecai the Lady Huntington sent you. He'll see you, sure enough.”

“Thank you,” said Thomas, touching his forehead so she knew if he'd been wearing a cap, he would've doffed it. Lucy would be very pleased with his manners, if she had seen. All those lessons had not gone to waste.

Shoreditch wasn't terribly far, and for the moment the rain held off, though in London that didn't mean a thing. He could be drowned as a fish in an hour.

Just wanted to see, he told himself, setting his steps in the right direction. Not that he expected to see Deadnettle again, or wanted to.

Except that he had so many questions.

None of which were worth asking, of course. He'd just get more tales strange and tall as crooked houses and another reminder that he'd not been needed once the spell'd been cast. So they'd put 'im in a grave for Silas and Lucy to find, and sometime after, visited with a bag full of the same silver that nestled within Thomas's satchel.

It was all simply too much to believe. Too much to want to believe, just as Deadnettle had warned him. But the bit about them tossing him away and Silas and Lucy taking him in, that must be true. They had been the ones to tell Thomas that, not Deadnettle the bizarre, frail faery.

This city was filled to busting with more people than ants in an anthill, and Thomas'd never felt quite so alone. Not one of the folks who trotted and skipped around him
as he walked, and certainly not one of the strange creatures Deadnettle claimed.

It took some searching when he reached Shoreditch, but it was not so large an area, and the streets were not as crowded here as they had been around the hotel. Between a boarding house and a large home now rotting with abandon, he found it. Once, twice, he read the small, elegant plaque beside the door, which gave very little away, and yet was clearly intended to advertise feats of wonder.

But Deadnettle had not called its proprietor a spiritualist; he'd called the man a sorcerer and a devil. Thomas raised his hand to knock and left it hanging there, right in midair, where anyone passing might look and think him simple.

There was a chance, a small but real chance, that everything Deadnettle had told him was the honest truth. And if it was, the gent behind that door was no gent in the least. No one Thomas wanted to look in the eye and ask about faeries.

He stepped back. Down the end was a corner, a likely looking alley where he might think for a moment. It was quiet, shielded from the sun at this hour. It'd seemed only clever to come here, but now he was at as much of a loss over what to do as he'd been after he'd been told his coins wouldn't pay to get him past Croydon by the man with the wobbly elbows.

To think Thomas had nearly left London. Small wonder Deadnettle had gently guided Thomas, sowing clues, dropping notes from the sky.

For Thomas was sure that was exactly what Deadnettle had done. How else would the slip of paper have landed so perfectly in Thomas's hand?

The red bricks were rough through the thin muslin on Thomas's back. Marching inside and demanding to see the faeries felt a dangerous, stupid idea. Returning to the soft bed, or to Silas and Lucy, sounded no better. He might never see Deadnettle again, or any of the others, whose names and faces Thomas did not know. They might leave him alone and resign themselves to the prison against which he leaned, thinking.

The quietest footsteps neared and turned the corner. Several books tumbled to the ground, thumping heavily but for one, which splashed as it landed in a puddle more mud than water.

The girl was young and very pretty. Thomas had never seen a girl with her hair down before; the ones he knew kept it in ribbons or plaits high off their faces. This one looked slightly wild, shock painted thickly upon her eyes and mouth.

Thomas thought he must look quite shocked too. “Look like you've seen a ghost,” Thomas said, because it
was the thing
to
say when faced with such terrified surprise. “Mary, ain't it?”

“I—I thought you were—” The girl swallowed. “Just for a moment, but you're not. Hello, Thomas. My name isn't Mary. It's Marigold.”

•   •   •

So she was one of them.

“Why do you look . . . ? You're different,” said Thomas when she'd led him to a hidden corner of a nearby square.
More like me,
he thought.
Not like Deadnettle.

“When we are first born, we are called hatchlings,” said Marigold. “After five years, we become fledglings. By fifteen, we begin to change. No one knows why, but when we are young, we look as you do. Wintercress used to say it's because faeries and humans were once the same, or so Deadnettle says. I don't know that I believe it, but I suppose it hardly matters. He said you ran away.”

“'E told you?” asked Thomas, surprised, though he wasn't certain why. All the faeries might know about him. Only if that were the case, why the mystery and mucking about, and why had they met alone in the dark of night? It reeked of secrets and of truths that were worse, more terrible, than lies.

“Thistle was my friend,” she answered, plucking at a broken buckle on her shoe. “I was there when he tried to
open the doorway home again. I helped Deadnettle bury him and watched you find him.”

He
had
heard something in the graveyard that night. Not just the whispering wind or the ghosts, always watching.

“And then you shared an ice with me,” he said.

Her smile was very pretty, and very sad. “We needed to make sure you got to the fortune-teller, but I wanted to meet you anyway! Even if I couldn't tell you who I was. Thistle was my
best
friend.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. “I'm sorry.”

“He knew what might happen. He wouldn't say so to Deadnettle, but he knew. He was a very clever, strong faery. He was ever making me laugh and gasp with the things he could do, silly tricks and terrific ones. He liked knowing he was going to be the one to save us, not because it made him more special or anything, he was too kind for that, but he saw it as his duty as a prince—as Wintercress's son. It was important, he said, that he do the right thing for his people.”

“I don't understand why it didn't work, if he was so wonderful.” It was stupid and selfish, but he suddenly hated Thistle—all the special, magic parts of Thomas himself.

Marigold narrowed her eyes. “The enchantment that
keeps us here is more powerful than anything we've ever seen before. Especially me. I was born here; I never saw anything back home. Just heard the stories. My mother used to tell me, before she left us.”

Thomas guessed what she meant, and a rush of sympathy overtook him. He knew what it was like, not knowing where he came from, and it'd been confusing enough just these past few days. Marigold looked to be close to his own age and had never known anything else.

“Is it so very terrible here for you?”

She nodded. “It makes us ill and tired. Eventually too tired to wake again. The iron and the bells . . . ,” she said, and shuddered. “We can sneak out, if we must, but few of us do. Really only me and Deadnettle, sometimes a few of the other fledglings because they can walk around among humans, like I can. I try to bear it by visiting the places I like and reading your human books. But we always come back. It's horrid here, but safe. The cage is the most awful part.”

The cage. Thomas was afraid to ask, but ask he did, then wished he hadn't. At her words, he could picture it, the cage under a vast table, the faeries used to summon the spirits while the sorcerer pretended it was his magic all along.

He had seen the effect in the theater, if not the cause.

Like Charley said, just because a thing was strange, that didn't mean it wasn't real.

Just because a thing was awful, horrible, that didn't mean it wasn't real, neither.

“He doesn't have that kind of magic,” said Marigold, “but we do. We are gateways ourselves; that's what faeries have always been. Because we can slip between realms so easily—usually—we may walk the line between the living and the dead, neither one nor the other. Some awful human will sit at the table and ask to speak to her kindliest aunt, and I have to find her and let her speak with my mouth, think with my mind so Mordecai can grow richer and richer. It's the most horrible thing.”

Thomas's breakfast churned uncomfortably in his stomach. Sickening, indeed. But it wasn't the only thing that was. “She—Wintercress—she didn't want me,” he said, refusing to look at Marigold as he did.