The Uncommoners #2 Page 13

  Ivy climbed the dusty steps toward the front door.

  “Careful,” Filigree warned, batting a branch away from her hand.

  She felt her left glove catch on something as she withdrew it. A small hole had appeared in the thumb.

  Filigree winced. “Ah, sorry; the tree grows at such a rate.”

  As he bounded off, Ivy poked her thumb, assessing the hole. Seb yanked on the handle of the tree house door and a cloud of dust puffed out. “This place can’t have had any visitors for years.”

  “I’m guessing access was difficult,” Valian said drily. “I don’t know why Filigree doesn’t cut things back. It’s almost like he doesn’t want customers.”

  The entrance hall was covered in vines and weeds. A solitary stool tottered in one corner and a cracked ladder hung down in the center, leading to the upper floors.

  “We’d better split up to save time.” Valian jumped for a rung on the ladder and pulled himself up. “I’ll search upstairs. Let me know if you find anything down here.”

  Seb walked over to a rectangular hole in the wall, which had clearly once been a doorway. “Here goes,” he said, ducking under what was left of the rotting frame.

  Ivy followed him through. The room beyond was decorated with sun-bleached maps and vintage posters, and the air smelled musty and dank. A balding velvet couch rested against one wall and a moth-eaten Chinese rug covered the floor. Ivy examined one of the sideboards, which displayed a selection of objects labeled with price tags. “François’s collection,” she said, wiping the dust off a box containing a spun-glass paperweight.

  “Any sign of the smoking hourglass?” Seb stood on tiptoe, looking into the rafters. “Or anything to do with mixology or the Rasavatum?”

  Ivy spotted a checkered wooden board set with marble chess pieces. Or at least, she thought they were chess pieces. She read the label: ORIGINAL 1604 GRIVENS SET—7.4 GRADE.

  “Know what that reminds me of?” Seb said, appearing at her shoulder. “Toenails.” He reached for a tarnished silver photo frame by her elbow. “Rare Victorian photo frame, circa 1879,” he read out loud from the tag. “Frames an image by a minute either side—5.6 grade.”

  Ivy frowned. “What do you think that means?”

  “Dunno. Maybe it changes the way a photo appears somehow.”

  Ivy thought of the postcard of Granma Sylvie and Selena. She’d hidden it under her mattress before leaving the Cabbage Moon that morning. “Do you think the frame could tell us who Jack-in-the-Green burned off that postcard?”

  “It’s worth a try,” Seb said with a shrug. “Do you have enough grade to trade for it?”

  Ivy shook her head. She’d spent 1.8 getting them tickets for the museum.

  Seb turned out the pockets of his jeans, but all he found were a few feathers and his phone, which he swiftly clutched to his chest. “Er…no.”

  “The only other uncommon thing I have to trade is Scratch,” Ivy said. “And there’s no way that’s happening.”

  “We’ll have to ask Valian,” Seb decided, his mouth curling in disappointment. He tucked the frame under his arm. “Keep looking for Rasavatum clues.”

  Ivy studied the faded posters on the walls. One promoted the opening of the West End of Lundinor: MARVEL AT THE WEST END, LUNDINOR’S GRAND NEW SPACE FOR TRADERS! The watercolor painting in the center depicted children playing with hoops and sticks, running on a green lawn beside a row of striped pavilions. “Seb, how much do you remember of that nursery rhyme?”

  “A little bit,” he said. “It starts: The ’vatum men come a-hunting to town.”

  “Yeah…” Ivy’s mum had once told her that nursery rhymes sometimes had hidden meanings. “It doesn’t say what they were hunting for, though, does it?”

  Scratch vibrated within her satchel. “Repeating rhyme to Ivys can nursery!” he announced proudly as she scooped him out. “Memory excellent Scratch.”

  Ivy hugged him. Of course. He’d been in her bag when they’d first heard the rhyme. She hurriedly got out a pen and paper. “OK, Scratch, go slowly.”

  Once he had finished, Ivy read the rhyme back carefully, trying to identify something they might have missed, but the poem only echoed the story Ethel had already told them.

  There was a creak above her head, and more dust fell down onto the sideboard. Ivy was about to brush it off her piece of paper when she noticed that only some of the words were now visible. “Wait…What if we’re reading it wrong? What if only certain lines are important?”

  Seb scanned the page a few times, reading the poem through in his head. “The only pattern that makes sense is if you take the first line from the first verse and the second line from the second verse and so on….”

  Ivy tried it, reading aloud: “The ’vatum men come a-hunting to town…for five wonders of light…more powerful than e’er before…and lock the secret door, the door, and lock the secret door.” Her skin prickled. “Seb, it works!”

  “Yeah, but what does it mean?”

  Ivy’s voice went hollow. “Oh no. The Rasavatum were searching for five wonders more powerful than ever before….That can only be one thing—the Great Uncommon Good!”

  Seb’s eyes widened. “If the Rasavatum were hunting for the Great Uncommon Good even before the Dirge, that might be why the Dirge recruited them.”

  “And it would explain why a formula from the smoking-hourglass notebook would help Jack-in-the-Green find the Jar of Shadows,” Ivy added. “It must have belonged to a member of the Rasavatum who was searching for it.”

  A tremor ran along the floorboards and Valian appeared in the doorway. “There’s nothing useful up there,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Have you had any luck?”

  “Ivy found a secret message in that nursery rhyme,” Seb explained. “Also, we’re buying this.” He held up the silver photo frame. “Except that neither of us has enough grade to trade Filigree for it, so”—he grinned—“we’ll owe you….”

  The second she poked her head out of the Great Uncommon Bag, Ivy spied Judy’s roller skates. “Judy!” Her mind raced to find an explanation as she crawled out onto the floor of their room in the Cabbage Moon. “Er…this isn’t what it looks like….”

  Judy stared at the sack by Ivy’s feet. She was wearing an apron over her waistcoat-tutu combo, and in one hand held a rustling brown feather duster. As Ivy clambered to her feet, the duster gave a noisy squawk, which seemed to bring Judy out of her stupor.

  “Ivy? What’s going on? How are you bag-traveling in here?” She opened her mouth to say more, but was cut off by a loud scratch and thump over Ivy’s shoulder. Valian and Seb appeared through the opening of the Great Uncommon Bag in quick succession.

  “I knew no one would see us leaving that overgrown tree,” Valian said, dusting off his knees as he got up. Seb threw a hand over his mouth and staggered to the open window, mumbling something about fresh air.

  The feather duster squawked again, attracting both boys’ attention.

  “What’s going on?” Judy demanded, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re breaking GUT law by using that thing. You’ll get Mr. Littlefair into trouble.”

  The duster screeched loudly. “Breaking the law, breaking the law.”

  Judy frowned. “I don’t understand—uncommon bags don’t work inside undermarts. Is there something special about this one?”

  “Special about this one,” the duster wailed. “Special about this one.”

  Seb hastily slid the window closed. “Can you ask that thing to be quiet?”

  Judy stuffed it in among the mesh of her tutu without taking her eyes off them. “Look, if you’re in some kind of trouble, just tell me. I might be able to help.”

  Ivy knew they weren’t meant to be trusting anyone, but she couldn’t think of an explanation that Judy would believe—apart from the truth. P
lus, it would be good to have someone else to talk to about what was really going on. “Maybe we should tell her,” she suggested nervously.

  Seb smiled at Judy. “OK by me.”

  Valian narrowed his eyes, his expression switching from anger to mild annoyance. Eventually his shoulders slumped. “Fine,” he told Judy. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  Judy hid the feather duster in the wardrobe to keep it quiet, and as the bearskin rug lay snoring in the corner of the room, Ivy, Seb and Valian recounted everything that had happened last winter.

  She rolled anxiously back and forth on her roller skates. “Ivy’s a whisperer….You own one of the Great Uncommon Good….Valian fought wraithmoths in the Wrench basement….You played Grivens with Jack-in-the-Green!” She shook her head. “What’s next?”

  “Well, we’re hoping to use this,” Ivy said, slipping the silver photo frame from her satchel.

  Seb lifted her mattress and pulled out the postcard. “We think that whoever’s missing from the photo can tell us more about Selena’s past and her connection with our granma.”

  “Let’s have a look at them both,” Judy said.

  Seb passed her the postcard, Ivy the photo frame. Judy teased the back of the frame away and tucked the postcard facedown inside so that the photo would appear on the front.

  Ivy watched her curiously. “Have you used one before?”

  “No,” Judy admitted, “but whenever I have to use something uncommon that I’m not sure about, I just act as if it was a common version and hope for the best.”

  At first nothing happened. Ivy drew closer to Judy and studied the image. Granma Sylvie and Selena Grimes were standing on a cobbled road with a redbrick wall behind them.

  “Uh, guys?” Seb asked. “Are you seeing that?”

  Ivy looked up and realized that something had happened to their room. She could still see the walls and floor, but the duck-egg-blue wardrobe and bedside chair were slightly faded. If she turned her head, the wooden floor appeared to be made of cobblestones, and the walls flickered between sunflower wallpaper and red bricks. Ivy squinted. It was a bit like looking at a hologram. From one angle she saw their room, but from another she saw the eerie setting of the photo. “Are we inside the photo somehow?”

  Valian tilted his head. “I don’t think so. It’s more like the photo’s being projected around us.”

  Ivy heard muffled footsteps, and a girl with golden hair came running through the bedroom wall and across the cobbles. The four of them shuffled back to the edges of the room, but Ivy was too slow and the girl ran straight through her—as if she was made of nothing but air.

  “Is that Granma?” Seb asked.

  The young girl was Granma Sylvie. Ivy could tell by the shape of her face and her amber eyes. She was wearing the same Hobsmatch as in the photo—a frilly white petticoat, a denim shirt and silver go-go boots. Ivy waved a hand in front of her, but the young Sylvie remained oblivious.

  “It’s like some sort of recording,” she decided. “Remember: it frames the picture by one minute either side. I think right now we’re seeing the minute before the photo was taken.”

  Young Sylvie cupped her hands around her mouth. “Come on, Lena!” she called in the direction she’d just come from. “We’ve got to be quick—the door only appears for a few minutes; that’s why it’s a secret sweetshop!”

  A second girl came racing into the room. The young Selena Grimes had freckles over her pale nose, and her dark braid swung behind her shoulders as she ran. Ivy shivered; it was disconcerting to see her with so much life in her cheeks. “Sylvie, hang on!” Selena panted. “I promised we’d wait for Amos.”

  “Amos Stirling?” Young Sylvie put her hands on her hips. “He likes you.”

  “What do you mean?” Selena asked, smoothing down her dress. She was wearing a gray pinafore over a silver blouse, with long Victorian leather riding boots laced up to the knee.

  Sylvie giggled. “You know what I mean. He’s always asking questions about you, following you around. He likes you.”

  Selena blushed. “Well, he’s never said anything to me.” She flashed her bare fingers while adjusting her black satin gloves. Her hands were not yet riddled with maggots. Ivy couldn’t believe this was the person who would grow up to join the Dirge and become Wolfsbane.

  “Selena’s still touching the ground; she hasn’t become a ghoul yet,” Seb commented.

  “What do you think came first,” Valian said, “Selena dying or her joining the Dirge?”

  Ivy did the math. “They must have both happened sometime between when this photo was taken and when the Dirge were last seen on Twelfth Night 1969.”

  A tall boy with a mop of jet-black hair came hurrying into the room. He was wearing a white shirt, navy breeches and polished black brogues. “Lena—sorry I got held up.” He was well-spoken and looked a few years older than Sylvie and Selena.

  Seb pointed at the boy’s shoes. “They’re identical to the shoe in the photo!”

  Amos was clutching a leather-bound book to his chest.

  “What’s that?” Sylvie asked, tilting her head. “Don’t tell me you brought homework?”

  Amos reddened. “No, it’s just my journal. I take it everywhere. You never know when you’ll need to write down a new mixology formula.”

  “You’re a mixologist?” Sylvie’s face brightened. “That’s so interesting! I know what you mean about the journal—it’s the same with this….” She pulled a snow globe out of her pocket. “I want to be a photographer, so it’s important to carry it on me at all times.” She grinned. “Hey, let’s get a picture now! I can take before and after shots.” She set the snow globe on top of a fence post by the brick wall, then huddled between Amos and Selena.

  “Say ‘Uncommon Cheese,’ ” she called.

  “UNCOMMON CHEESE!”

  The snow globe vibrated, and a puff of tiny snowflakes shot out of it. Sylvie stepped forward, removed the globe from the post and peered inside. “Looks great,” she declared, showing the other two.

  As Amos put his journal in his other hand, Ivy gasped. Embossed onto the dark leather cover were the familiar lines of the smoking hourglass.

  The notebook! It was the same one.

  Judy flinched, allowing the frame to slip from her fingers. As she fumbled to catch it, Amos, Sylvie and Selena swiftly disappeared and the room returned to normal.

  Ivy retrieved the notebook from her satchel urgently. “That’s why the initials AS are written on every page,” she said, running her fingers across the cover. “They stand for Amos Stirling. This isn’t just a notebook; it’s his journal.”

  “He said he was into mixology,” Seb commented. “Do you think he was a member of the Rasavatum? That might explain why the smoking hourglass is on the front.”

  “But it still doesn’t tell us why Selena would want to remove him from the postcard,” Valian pointed out. “Or help us understand how we might use the journal to find the Jar of Shadows.”

  Ivy opened the journal and flicked through the blank pages. She could sense a soul trapped within it somewhere, but the pages didn’t feel warm and tingly. “We need to find out what happened to Amos. On the postcard he mentioned that he’d been forced into hiding. Did he ever come out? Did he see Granma Sylvie again?”

  Judy opened the wardrobe door and retrieved the feather duster, which began squawking. “I’ve got an idea that might help,” she said. “We just can’t do it while my mum’s around. She takes a lunch break at two p.m. Meet me at the featherlight mailhouse then.”

  Granma Sylvie slid onto the bench opposite Ivy, Seb and Valian, placing a bowl of soup on the table. All around, the dining room throbbed with activity—families chatting at tables, people serving drinks and collecting plates. The air smelled like a better version of Ivy’s school canteen—gravy and roast meat withou
t the stark after-smell of disinfectant.

  “I hoped I’d catch you three in here,” she said, smiling. “I checked your room before I left this morning, but you were both still asleep. And I used that pepper pot yesterday afternoon. You were buying ice cream, I think.”

  The tourist information bureau. That had been lucky; if Granma Sylvie had looked in on them at any other time of the day, the scene would have been far more incriminating.

  “What are you doing here?” Seb asked, looking up from his chicken sandwich. “I thought you’d still be at the mansion.”

  “I’ve only come back briefly,” Granma Sylvie explained. “Ethel made the underguard agree to give us a lunch break. We began cataloging the first floor this morning; then it’s the study and the library, and finally the third-floor bedrooms.” She examined Ivy’s jacket and red neck scarf. “Hobsmatch?”

  Ivy brushed down her dungarees, smiling. “You like it?”

  “It suits you.”

  Granma Sylvie’s outfit was similar to the one she’d been wearing yesterday—a stiff pencil skirt and crisp blouse.

  Ivy hesitated before saying, “I have to ask you something; it’s about the postcard again.”

  Granma Sylvie straightened. “Fire away.”

  “Is the name Amos Stirling familiar?”

  “Amos Stirling…” She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve never heard it before.”

  Ivy looked at the others, her shoulders slumping. If only Granma Sylvie could remember.

  Outside, Ivy peeled off her jacket and stuffed it into her satchel.

  “It’s heating up,” Valian said, pulling a newspaper out from under his arm.

  “Tell me about it.” Seb’s mandarin coat was tied around his waist.

  “Not the temperature,” Valian groaned. “The Grivens contest.” He showed them the newspaper: the contest was the top story, splashed across the front page. “Famous players have been arriving from all over the world where the game is still played legally. Late last night four people drank from the contest master’s cup and two again this morning. Add those to the other four who’ve already entered, and we have ten contestants so far.”