The Uncommoners #2 Page 3

  Scratch trilled. “If the black door smokings, know hourglass not,” he told her sadly. “But Lundinor to be goings and there are of investigations. Askings you can at the Timbermeal.”

  Seb raised his hands. “All right, Yoda. Slow down. What’s the Timbermeal?”

  Ivy patted Scratch sympathetically. Like all other uncommon bells, he could speak, but the damage to his surface caused him to talk in a strange order—“back to fronted,” he called it.

  “Always what is with a Yoda?” Scratch asked, frustrated.

  Seb smirked and shook his head. “Scratch, when we get back from Lundinor I’ll tell you all about Yoda—promise.”

  Granma Sylvie put a finger to her lips. “You know, Ethel mentioned this Timbermeal. It’s some sort of traditional celebration at the opening of spring Trade. All uncommoners have to attend at one time during the day.”

  All uncommoners…

  Ivy thought of Selena Grimes. If everyone was going to be at the Timbermeal, it could provide an opportunity to spy on her; she might lead them to the Jar of Shadows or the black door. Whispering thank you to Scratch, she stashed him back in her satchel and fastened it tight. “Have you talked to Ethel about what this new memory could mean?”

  Granma Sylvie sighed as she stuffed the hourglass drawing into her jacket pocket. “Not yet. We’re still getting to know each other; I don’t want to worry her.”

  Ivy didn’t press it any further. She guessed it must be a tricky situation for them both: Ethel’s best friend had returned after more than forty years, only to have no memory of their friendship.

  Granma Sylvie came to a halt by a trellis covered in sweet peas. Ivy peered around it and saw a small orange potting shed. The shed itself looked ordinary, but the long line of people waiting outside didn’t. A muscular man in frilly breeches and samurai armor stood in front of a scrawny boy in a cravat and Hawaiian shorts. Behind them were a couple of women in gold-edged pink saris, narrow-cut trousers and espadrilles. Ivy counted one firefighter’s uniform, four pom-pom hats, two pairs of intricately embroidered lederhosen and at least three clown outfits on display.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner,” Seb said drily. “There’s only one kind of people who dress like that.”

  “Uncommoners,” Ivy breathed.

  The door to the potting shed swung open and, as the three of them watched, a blond lady in a yellow beret, chef’s jacket and tennis skirt strutted in, and shut the door behind her. There was a series of loud noises—a rattle, some shouting and what sounded like a small explosion—and then the door reopened and the next person in line went in.

  Granma Sylvie, Ivy and Seb looked at one another nervously as they shuffled to the end of the line. The other traders, who were chatting quietly among themselves, took no notice.

  “I guess I’d better put these on now,” Granma Sylvie said, withdrawing a pair of long lace gloves from her handbag as they reached the front of the line. “Like all uncommoners, you must wear your uncommon gloves inside the Great Gates of Lundinor,” she recited in a tight voice. “Officer Smokehart sent me six featherlights this week explaining the rules of GUT law. He thinks I’m either a criminal or an idiot!”

  Ivy grimaced. If any single member of the underguard had it in for their family, it was Smokehart. After a moment’s thought she took out the short white dress gloves folded inside her satchel.

  As she pulled them on, she admired the neat pin-tuck creases ironed into the knuckles. She wasn’t quite sure how to be an uncommoner just yet, but at least the gloves made her feel more like one on the outside. Seb hadn’t yet “taken the glove,” as it was called. He was old enough, but he still needed the permission of a quartermaster. On their last visit she had seen children in Lundinor without gloves; at least Seb wasn’t the only one.

  “If you wear those gloves the whole time we’re in Lundinor, won’t your whispering abilities drive you crazy?” he asked.

  Ivy flexed her gloved fingers and felt a familiar prickly heat spread through her skin. She had the same reaction when she touched any uncommon object. She was a whisperer—a person with the rare gift to sense the very thing that made uncommon objects special: the sliver of human soul trapped inside them. “I thought so too at first,” she told him, “but the warm sensation will fade in a minute or so. I’ve tested the gloves before.”

  She raised one glove to her ear and listened for the sounds coming from inside. The voices of trapped souls were too indistinct for her to hear what they were actually saying, but she could normally sense their presence.

  “You all right?” Seb asked, watching her.

  Ivy pursed her lips. Her capabilities had been changing recently….“Can you hold these for a sec?” She took off her gloves and handed them over, then closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the noises around her—the drone of insects whizzing through the gardens, the twitter of birds in the bordering trees, the rumble of distant traffic…

  But at the very edge of her hearing she could discern something else: a shrill voice, like a marble rattling around in a jar. Ivy focused on it carefully. It was coming from the fragment of soul trapped inside the gloves.

  She opened her eyes. “That settles it,” she decided, taking the gloves back. “There’s definitely something new going on with my whispering. Normally I have to be touching an uncommon object to hear the noises inside it, but recently I’ve been able to hear them without having any contact at all.”

  Seb’s brow furrowed. “Could it be getting stronger?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there’s someone in Lundinor I can ask.” It would be risky. Whispering was a dangerous gift, especially now that the Dirge had returned: in the past they had kidnapped people like her and made them sort through mountains of rubbish, searching for uncommon objects.

  The potting shed door sprang open with a crash. Granma Sylvie flinched. “We’re next.”

  A man in polished boots and a black uniform was standing to attention inside. He wore a purple visor, and there were silver braid epaulettes on his shoulders; on the lapels of his dark jacket were embroidered the letters SB.

  Special Branch. These were members of the underguard whose job it was to prevent commoners from discovering the existence of the uncommon world.

  The underguard took one look at Ivy and sniffed. “Gloved traders must shake my hand.”

  Ivy blinked. She hadn’t expected to have to use her gloves so soon. Seb twiddled his bare thumbs while she and Granma Sylvie obliged. The underguard had such a firm grip, Ivy considered whether he might be a race of the dead. Some looked so much like the living.

  “Very well,” he announced. “You may take a sack each.”

  A sack? Ivy cast her eyes around the shed. In the corner lay a pile of plastic garden-waste sacks, and at least ten green hoses were looped over hooks on the wall. As she headed toward the pile, something stopped her in her tracks. Pinned to the back of the shed door was a poster:

  WANTED

  —JACK-IN-THE-GREEN—

  Uncommon assassin (dead: a gobble) guilty of murder on six continents.

  Master of disguise. Extremely dangerous.

  Reward for information as to his whereabouts: objects to the value of 1,000 grade

  An artist’s drawing showed a tall creature with a hard green body, huge yellow eyes and razor-sharp clawed hands.

  Selena’s henchman. Not all the details in the drawing were accurate—but it was definitely the same person. Ivy had never heard of a gobble before. She went cold.

  Seb tripped as he caught sight of the drawing. “Ah—who is…? I mean, what’s that doing there?”

  “Just a precaution.” The underguard sounded like he’d had to explain the poster more than once already that morning. “There have been several recent sightings of Jack-in-the-Green in other undermarts. We’re on high alert to preve
nt him from entering Lundinor. That’s why it’s important you attend the Timbermeal as soon as you arrive. We need to register you there too.”

  Jack-in-the-Green…That explained the restrictions, then.

  Granma Sylvie held a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry—high alert?” She stepped closer to the poster, reading it in more detail.

  Ivy tried to think quickly. They couldn’t give Granma Sylvie the chance to reconsider—she and Seb had to go to Lundinor to find the Jar of Shadows.

  “I don’t have all day,” the underguard said, nodding toward the pile. “Sack. Now.”

  Ivy hastily bent down and picked up a sack. She half expected it to be uncommon, but when it grazed her arm, her skin remained cool.

  The underguard went over to one of the hoses and began to pull it loose. The shed trembled as a rattling sound filled the air. Ivy soon understood why: there weren’t several hoses hanging up; there was just one very, very long hose.

  As the underguard tugged it down, the rubber uncoiled like a huge snake dragging its belly around every hook on the walls.

  “Stand back,” the man warned, pulling down his visor. He pointed the end of the hose toward the wooden floor and bent his knees, bracing himself. With a tiny click, he twisted the nozzle at the end—

  The hose shot through the shed floor like a bullet, splintering the wood with a startlingly loud crack and burying itself deep in the earth. Ivy steadied herself against the wall as more and more of the hose disappeared underground. After a few moments the Special Branch underguard got out a penknife and leaped onto the remaining coil, wrestling with it till he was able to slice through it. The severed end flew out of his hand, stretched to the size of a toy hula hoop and lay down on the floor, forming the entrance to a dark hole.

  “Off you go, then,” the underguard said, pushing up his visor and wiping his brow. “Put the sack down first before you get inside.”

  Granma Sylvie stared first at the hole and then back at the WANTED poster. Seb looked confused.

  “Come on, keep it moving,” the underguard groaned, putting away his penknife. “For security reasons, the hose will disappear once the three of you are down.”

  Ivy studied the dark circle in the floor. It looked a bit like the entrance to a waterslide.

  I wonder…

  She ventured forward, swinging her satchel around to her back. “I’ll go first,” she said. If Seb wasn’t going to volunteer, then it was up to her.

  “Ivy, be careful,” Granma Sylvie warned, stumbling forward. “I’m not sure if…”

  Ivy laid her sack on the edge of the dark hole and tucked her legs inside. “I’ll be fine,” she said in as confident a voice as she could muster. “I’ll see you at the other end.”

  It’s just a slide, she told herself. I used to love slides when I was little.

  She looked over her shoulder and gave Seb and Granma Sylvie a wobbly smile before pushing off with her hands. She slipped forward, the sack gliding easily over the rubber, and then plunged into darkness.

  “Whooooooa!” The hose spiraled left and right, throwing Ivy’s body from side to side. She fumbled for the edge of the sack, desperately trying to keep her balance. The air hummed as she slid faster and faster.

  The wind forced tears from her eyes as a smile broke across her face. She hadn’t felt this exhilarated since the time she’d used an uncommon belt to fly up an old elevator shaft.

  Soon, there was a glow of light ahead of her, and a rumble of voices grew louder—until the rubber walls fell away and Ivy found herself gliding down a polished wooden slide that spiraled around a white tower. Below her, she recognized the main arrivals chamber in Lundinor, with its toppling stacks of luggage and busy unloading areas. She got a warm feeling inside as she spied the details from her last visit: the ceiling dripping with glittering stalactites, the traders buzzing with a thousand different conversations as they arrived from all over the world.

  She slowed as she reached the bottom of the slide, where another underguard from Special Branch was waiting to collect her sack. She hit the ground with a dull thud, her bottom taking most of the impact, then struggled to her feet.

  “Hurry up,” the man said. “The next one’ll be along soon.”

  Ivy staggered forward, trying to get her bearings. Those last few turns had left her feeling dizzy. She turned to study the slide. The white tower she had descended was shaped like an upside-down ice cream cone and painted with red stripes like a lighthouse. Ivy thought she’d seen something like it at the end of Brighton Pier—an old-fashioned fairground ride called a helter skelter.

  Odd. She could swear it hadn’t been in the arrivals chamber before.

  She scanned the crowd. Traders greeted one another while smoothing lapels, fluffing out skirts and adjusting hats, making sure their Hobsmatch was looking its best. Dark patches of underguard uniform were dotted around like blackspot on a rosebush. Ivy assumed they were checking for Jack-in-the-Green.

  In the distance, she recognized the Great Gates that marked the entrance to Lundinor. Their hinges were mounted into two stone figures who represented the founding traders of Lundinor—Lady Citron, a woman with a wide-skirted dress patterned with lemons, and Sir Clement, a stately gentleman wearing a garland of oranges around his neck.

  Ivy squinted at the statue of Sir Clement. Before, she had been able to see his face clearly, but now a series of tiny dark cracks ran over it. She looked at his hand, which rested on a cane covered with…

  Hang on.

  Ivy rubbed her eyes, worried she was seeing things.

  They’re not cracks.

  The statue was now covered by a climbing plant. Thick, glossy green leaves sprouted off the branches as they looped their way around Sir Clement’s body.

  Ivy didn’t understand how it was possible. She’d never seen any plants in Lundinor before; it was underground—there was no sunlight for anything to grow. Her eyes followed the plant as it coiled down Sir Clement’s cane and crawled over his feet and along the stone floor into the tunnel between the Great Gates.

  Oh my…

  A dazzlingly green lawn spread across the tunnel floor, and the walls and ceiling were almost obscured by branches that were heavy with purple blossoms. Ivy’s jaw dropped. The last time she had seen the tunnel it had been dusty and bare.

  Spring had come to Lundinor.

  Ivy clutched her satchel to her chest as she squeezed through the crowd. The heat was stifling, and the roar of conversation made it hard to hear Seb and Granma Sylvie behind her.

  “ ’Scuse me, ladies and gents, coming through!” called a voice.

  Ivy turned. A man wearing a bicycle helmet, flowery board shorts and a red kimono was maneuvering his way toward her, holding one arm above his head. “Can’t let go of these or chaos will break loose.”

  When Ivy looked up, she saw a cluster of transparent balloons bobbing from the ribbons in his hand. Inside each one was a swirling rainbow-colored gas. She spotted a price tag hanging from one of the necks: 2.2 grade. They couldn’t be that powerful, then. The scale for uncommon objects went up to ten, and Ivy knew there were only five objects with that value: the Great Uncommon Good. She tingled to think that she had used one of them—the Great Uncommon Bag.

  Granma Sylvie gave the balloon trader a wary look and leaned closer to Ivy’s ear. “Was it this busy last time?”

  “No, but Seb and I weren’t here on the first day of Trade before.” Ivy shuffled forward. Even for someone as small as her, it was difficult to move.

  “This might be rush hour in the Great Cavern,” Seb suggested from behind. “We should head for the Market Cross; there’s always loads of space there.”

  Ivy lifted an eyebrow. Sometimes her brother actually had good ideas. The Market Cross was the meeting point of the four main roads through Lundinor, each one leading to a parti
cular quarter of the undermart. On her last visit, Ivy had seen the East End and the Great Cavern; the West End and the Dead End she had yet to explore, though she knew that each quarter was very different.

  She stepped up onto a crate beside the road and peered out at the river of people trudging down the Gauntlet, the main road through the Great Cavern. It was busy, as usual, with traders frantically unpacking goods and setting up shop, ready for the start of Trade at midday…but it looked nothing like the Lundinor that Ivy remembered.

  Smart gray-brick houses and shadowy cobbled streets had been replaced by lush green fields scattered with crocuses, tents and wooden stalls. The Gauntlet—now a muddy, tree-lined avenue—was flanked by thatched-cottage shops with picket fences and antique vans selling fast food. Everywhere Ivy turned she saw bobbing lanterns and colored flags waving to get her attention. It was like they’d walked into a massive underground festival. The air even smelled of a combination of fried onions and freshly cut grass.

  “I don’t understand how they’ve made it so sunny when we’re miles underground,” Granma Sylvie said as Ivy stepped down.

  “Beach towels,” Seb said, pointing above his head. “See?”

  During their last visit the cave ceiling had been veiled in shadow. Now a canopy of neon-colored towels were suspended between the jagged brown stalactites, glittering like scales on the belly of a fish. Each one radiated light.

  As they plodded on, Ivy eyed the various objects cradled in people’s arms or poking from the tops of their carts and bags. The Jar of Shadows could easily be among them.

  She spied with interest several handwritten signs hanging in shop windows:

  Entry by Appointment Only

  THIS SHOP IS GUARDED AT NIGHT