Fliss read the tiny words under the stamp. ‘Leechpond Latchdown?’
‘Doesn’t sound pleasant.’ Betty eyed the emblem in distaste. Not eels, after all, but leeches. She leafed through the other envelopes. On others the postmark was clearer.
‘Lostmoors . . .’ Betty read. It sounded familiar. ‘Wait here.’ She left the kitchen and crept back to the bedroom. Charlie was breathing deeply, huddled under the covers like a dormouse. Betty pawed through her maps before settling on the one she wanted. She brought it into the kitchen, unrolling it on the table. The waxy paper was crinkled from time and wear, but the inky lettering and tiny hand-drawn details were as beautiful as ever. She quickly located Lostmoors on the map, slightly off centre. It was surrounded by valleys, mountains, and not much else. A lump rose in her throat. Just how far away was he?
Her finger travelled down the paper to four craggy marks at the bottom: Crowstone and its three Sorrow Isles within the Misty Marshes. A crescent of deadly rocks known as the Devil’s Teeth curved round Lament. And there, inked on the island of Repent, was Crowstone Tower, the oldest part of the prison.
‘Granny was protecting us,’ Betty said, understanding. ‘She couldn’t risk us leaving Crowstone to try and visit Father. It was easier to hide the letters and pretend he was still here, but . . .’ She trailed off as a thought pricked her like a thistle.
Fliss frowned. ‘She could have told me . . . I knew none of us could leave. Why would he be transferred in the first place?’
‘Maybe it was simpler if none of us knew,’ Betty replied, speaking in a rush now the thistly thought had taken root. ‘There’s probably lots of reasons why prisoners get moved about, but why would Granny still have been visiting if he’s not there? Unless she’s been pretending—’
Fliss shook her head. ‘She was there.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I do the washing,’ Fliss answered. ‘And Granny usually forgets to empty her pockets. Wait here.’ She vanished, leaving Betty alone in the darkened kitchen to creep back to her room. Moments later she returned with a scrap of paper bearing the Crowstone emblem. ‘See? A visiting slip from last week.’
‘Why did you keep this?’ Betty asked. ‘Surely you didn’t already suspect . . . oh.’ Turning the paper, she found a soppy love poem in Fliss’s looped handwriting, embellished with doodled hearts and flowers. ‘Ugh!’
‘Don’t read that!’ Fliss growled. She snatched the paper back, blushing. ‘The point is, this is proof Granny has been visiting the prison recently.’
Betty felt another ripple of unease. ‘But if it’s not Father she’s been seeing, then who is it?’
Chapter Seven
The Prison on the Marshes
THE MORNING DAWNED TO A thick fog sweeping in off the marshes. It sprawled over the streets and seeped into the Poacher’s Pocket in damp, salty draughts.
Betty woke with even frizzier hair than usual. She shivered into freezing clothes and wriggled into a pair of Fliss’s hand-me-down boots, which were a smidge too big. Stamping into the kitchen to try and warm herself, she found Fliss at the stove.
‘Morning,’ Fliss said.
‘Morning.’ Betty suppressed a yawn, gritty-eyed. She watched as her older sister ladled porridge into a chipped bowl for Charlie, who was waiting impatiently. The scene was so reassuringly familiar that Betty fleetingly wondered if she had dreamed the events of the previous evening, and there was no curse or magical family heirlooms . . . but then she saw that Fliss’s smile was tight, and heard the tapping of Charlie’s spoon on her dish which was more of a nervous tremble than a merry jingle. Betty’s stomach lurched. No, everything that had happened last night was real, all right. A curse . . . and three magical objects. Stones dropping out of tower walls. She replayed the powers of each item in her head, then thought about the curse again. Though Granny hadn’t said as much, she couldn’t help wonder if the magical objects and the curse were connected.
‘Granny’s still in bed,’ said Fliss, distractedly. ‘She reckons she’s got a stinker of a headache.’
‘More like a skinful of whiskey,’ Betty muttered. The fumes wafting from her sleeping grandmother as she’d crept back into her room to replace the tin had made Betty’s eyes water. Her eyes watered a little now, too, to think of how hard it must have been for poor Granny to be responsible for them all, while keeping such a terrible secret.
Fliss gave the pot another stir. The smell of singed porridge floated past Betty’s nose. ‘Want some?’
Betty eyed the grey gloop. ‘Er . . .’
‘I’ll have it if Betty don’t want it,’ Charlie interrupted, scraping out her bowl.
Charlie was always hungry, and would eat practically anything. She had been the same ever since she was a baby; so much so that Granny always said she must have worms. Father, who always had to exaggerate, said they were eels, not worms.
‘You have it.’ Betty ignored the rumbling in her tummy. This was easier than usual now her thoughts were occupied by the curse – especially since she’d made up her mind to break it.
Fliss gave Betty a meaningful glance. ‘Granny said she’s not visiting Father today.’
Betty’s ears pricked up at once. ‘Oh, isn’t she?’
Granny had missed a couple of visits recently, with flimsy excuses. However, last night’s discovery made this all the less surprising, seeing as their father hadn’t been there for months. The only other thing connecting the Widdershins to the prison were the stones falling from Crowstone Tower. Could Granny’s recent visits be linked to the curse, and not their father? Perhaps they could find out – if they dared.
Fliss glanced at Charlie, who was still shovelling down her lumpy breakfast.
‘What about church?’ Betty asked.
Fliss made a face. ‘Doubt it.’
Granny only went to church to stay on the right side of her customers. Given what a sinful place Crowstone was, everyone on the outside of the prison was keen to prove how law-abiding and repenting they were. Betty didn’t enjoy going either. It was bottom-numbingly cold and Granny often dozed off and embarrassed them by snoring.
Fliss, on the other hand, was always looking for ways to be a nicer person. At times her attention wandered, however, only to be caught by whichever lad was the latest to take her fancy. Charlie was simply there for the warm bread rolls handed out to the poorer folk at the end, and would loiter around looking mournful until she was taken pity on.
‘I wonder if that means we don’t have to go to Sunday school, then?’ Fliss mused. ‘Seeing as Granny’s not going to the prison today.’ She scraped some porridge into a bowl for herself, grimacing as she forced a mouthful down.
‘But I want to go,’ Charlie piped up, licking her bowl. ‘We’re finishing the blankets for the orphans this week!’
‘You can still go, Charlie dear,’ Fliss soothed. ‘We know you enjoy it.’
‘You know,’ Betty said with a sidelong glance at Fliss, ‘now you’re sixteen, we wouldn’t need Granny to come to the prison with us to see Father. If he still wanted to see us, I mean.’
‘You’re right,’ Fliss replied. She lowered her voice and looked thoughtful. ‘But surely being alone is only making him more gloomy. Perhaps what he needs is a nice . . . surprise.’
She caught Betty’s eye, and the two sisters shared a look – the kind of look that used to pass between them often, but hadn’t in a long time. It was a secret look, and it was one Betty had missed. And they both knew, without any words, exactly what they were going to do.
They left after church a couple of hours later, moving briskly through the cobbled streets, ducking their faces from view whenever someone came the opposite way. Delicious smells of roasting meat wafted through cracked windows. Betty’s stomach rumbled, but as they neared the marshes, briny air dampened her hunger.
‘I’m not sure about this, Betty. What if Charlie lets slip to Granny?’ Fliss’s voice was low and nervous. Damp air blew their hair
round their faces: Fliss’s like a long, silk scarf and Betty’s like a mass of dry wool. They drew their shawls more tightly around their shoulders, shivering.
‘Charlie will be too busy yapping about what she did at Sunday school to care about us,’ said Betty. ‘Anyway, it won’t matter if she does.’ She thought of their father’s hidden letters. ‘By the time Granny hears about it, we’ll have found out who she was visiting and why. We can play dumb, and say we wanted to surprise Father. We’re not doing anything wrong, exactly.’
The prison came into view in the distance. Further away to the left were the other Sorrow Isles and beyond, a smear of grey on the horizon.
‘The next town along from Marshfoot is Merry-on-the-Marsh,’ Fliss said softly. ‘Do you suppose we’ll ever see what they’ve got to be merry about?’
‘We will if I can help it,’ Betty answered, more bravely than she felt. Yesterday, crossing Crowstone’s boundaries had simply been an adventure. Today she knew it was something that would kill them. Yet, Betty couldn’t deny an undercurrent of excitement. For so long she had wished for something to happen, and now it was . . . or at least, it could. Whatever Granny said, there had to be a way to change things.
They arrived at the ferry point shortly before the boat docked at the platform, the only passengers aside from a wizened old woman. They paid their fares and clambered on. The early morning mists had cleared, and patches of blue sky were peeking through thick cloud. In the distance, a tiny ship bobbed on glittering water, reminding Betty of the day she had spent with the mapmaker’s daughter. Where was Roma now? How much more of the world had she seen, while Betty had been stagnating here?
‘Do you remember those stories Father used to tell?’ Betty asked. ‘The ones he heard from the merchants and sailors, about beaches with golden sand as fine as sugar, and water so clear you could see to the bottom?’
Fliss nodded, her mouth twisting as she looked over the soupy water stretching away from them. ‘I used to love those stories. But they just became harder and harder to imagine.’
Betty gazed toward Repent as a troubling thought occurred to her.
‘What if Granny’s just been coming here to appeal? To get Father moved back?’ Suddenly, doubts were pressing in on her. Already she had known the chances of a link to the curse were slim, but they had no other leads.
Fliss frowned. ‘I don’t think so. The visiting slips have a prisoner number on them.’
‘A prisoner number? But we’ll need that!’
Fliss grinned, patting her bag. ‘Good thing I brought it, then.’
Betty sagged against the side of the boat with relief. ‘I’m surprised Charlie didn’t insist on coming with us,’ she murmured, once they’d pushed off from land. Her warm breath misted the air, which was even cooler out on the water.
‘Why would she?’ Fliss said, through chattering teeth. ‘Better to stay in the warm than freeze her cockles off for someone she barely remembers outside of the prison walls.’
There was a bitterness to Fliss’s tone that Betty rarely heard. She felt it, too, but less sharply since the discovery of their father’s letters. The letters meant he still thought of them. He still cared.
‘You’ve never forgiven Father for leaving us, have you?’
Fliss huffed out a long breath. ‘I’ve tried. I’m still trying. But it’s hard. He should be here, with us, not in there . . . especially after losing Mother. I know he was trying to look after us in his own stupid way but . . .’ she trailed off, looking over Betty’s shoulder. Betty became aware that the ferryman was listening with interest. Fliss didn’t need to say more, anyway. They both remembered how it had all happened.
After their mother had died, Barney Widdershins had drank and gambled, spiralling out of control. By the time any of them knew how much money he had frittered away, the Poacher’s Pocket was deep in debt. Yet still, Father insisted he had a solution: selling smuggled goods. Only he’d boasted to the wrong people and was rewarded with a five-year prison sentence.
‘It’s Charlie I feel most angry for,’ Fliss said, ashen-faced. She had never been good at travelling over water. ‘She didn’t really have a chance to miss Mother, but she could have known what it was to have a father. Even a fool like ours.’
Privately, Betty disagreed. Charlie seemed happy enough, not missing what she’d never had. It was Betty and Fliss who remembered and felt the loss strongest. And Betty thought, a little enviously, that as the first-born daughter, Fliss had been their father’s favourite. A daddy’s girl.
Fliss gave a little moan as the boat lurched.
‘If yer gonna throw up, do it over the side,’ the ferryman said without an ounce of pity.
‘Keep your eyes on the prison,’ Betty told her. ‘Granny always says it helps to look at something in the distance.’
Granny. It was the first time either of them had made this journey without her, or with the knowledge of the curse that ran through their veins. It was a grim thought that the ferry was plunging towards the edges of Crowstone – where their world ended.
The prison looked worse by day. When Betty had seen the lit windows and flickering will-o’-the-wisps on the water the previous night she could almost have imagined that it was a fairy-tale castle in the distance.
In daylight, there was no pretending. The stone building was squat and grey, hulking over the land like it was consuming it. The rows of tiny windows were like mean, empty eyes and, as the ferry drew closer, the bars on them came into view. Only one part didn’t fit: the high stone tower. It didn’t look as though it belonged, or was part of a prison at all.
Betty gazed up at it, shielding her eyes from the brightening sky.
Every time the curse is triggered, a stone falls from the tower wall . . .
Without warning, the vision of falling from a great height flashed through her mind again. Her breathing quickened. What was that? A memory bobbed to the surface: a story of a girl who had fallen to her death from the Tower. She tore her gaze away as the ferry docked. Betty stepped off and held out her hand to steady Fliss. She wobbled past the ferryman on to dry land, past the queue of people waiting to board.
‘I feel a bit better now,’ Fliss muttered, colour returning to her cheeks. ‘Looks like I’ll hold on to my porridge, after all.’
They headed up the path to the prison, crunching over pebbles and cockleshells. Up ahead, just outside the prison walls, was a seafood stall.
‘Urgh . . .’ Fliss moaned, as the fishy smell wafted round them. Impatient, Betty urged her on, doing her best to block her sister’s view of the jellied eels and winkles. Then they were past the stall, with the huge prison doors ahead.
Betty stiffened, aware that the sentry was watching them – Fliss in particular – with interest. Betty rolled her eyes: Fliss could hardly go anywhere without being gawked at, even when she was green from seasickness. There was no question she was pretty. Her silky hair and dark eyes had always drawn admiring glances, but it was more than that. Her goodness and willingness to see the best in things was something people seemed to sense. Today this was the last thing they needed; drawing unwanted attention when they were trying to find things out.
‘Names?’ the sentry asked, smoothing his uniform like a bird preening its feathers.
‘Widdershins,’ said Betty, in the same clipped tone Granny used when she wanted to hurry things – or people – up.
‘Visiting?’
‘Our father,’ Fliss replied, before Betty could interrupt.
Betty could have kicked her. What if the sentry knew that Barney Widdershins was no longer in this prison? She held her breath, hoping that there were more prisoners than the warders could keep track of – or that admiring Fliss was enough of a distraction.
‘Brrr!’ said Fliss. She blew into her hands and gave the sentry a beseeching look and, like his boots had been buttered, he slid back and ushered them through.
They stepped into a vaulted stone walkway. The dark, shadowy shapes of r
ats scurried along ahead of them, squeaking and causing Fliss to squeak even louder.
Below a rusted sign saying ‘VISITORS’, was another door. Through this lay a large room with wooden benches and a line of sombre people waiting to sign the visitors’ book.
‘Oh, no,’ Fliss muttered. ‘Look over there!’
Betty searched the queue, smiling tightly at a couple of Poacher’s Pocket regulars farther on who were looking their way. It was inevitable that in a place as small as Crowstone, they’d see someone they knew.
‘What if they tell Granny they saw us?’ Fliss asked, pulling her shawl up further.
‘I doubt they would,’ said Betty. ‘Everyone knows how cross she gets if they dare to mention Father being in prison. Anyway, if they did, Granny would have more explaining to do than us about who she’s been visiting all this time.’
As they queued, the girls’ pockets and bags were searched for contraband and their scalps inspected for fleas with a long-fingered comb.
‘The indignity of it,’ Fliss blustered, rearranging her hair.
Moments later they reached the front of the queue, and the visitors’ book lay open before them. Fliss lifted the pen, dipping it into the inkwell on the counter. Under visitor name she simply wrote ‘Widdershins’, followed by the date, time and visitor number.
‘Five-one-three,’ Betty read, trying to recall what Father’s number had been.
‘Four-four-nine,’ Fliss said softly, not looking up. ‘In case you were wondering.’
Under prisoner name she scrawled an unreadable squiggle, then tore off the slip. They squeezed their bottoms into a small space on one of the hard benches, and waited. Minutes later the word ‘Widdershins!’ was barked.
They stood up, glancing at each other nervously.
It was time to find out who prisoner 513 was.
Chapter Eight
Prisoner 513
A Pinch of Magic Page 6