Ivy: Daughter of Alice

by J. A. Armitage

  The street lamp ignited with a hiss, casting a glow over the lamplighter’s face as I walked past. In this part of the city, the lamps looked like phoenixes who rose every night in the fire, only to be extinguished again at dawn. I stared up at the majestic bird wrought in glass, the flame dancing inside it. The lamplighter stepped down from his ladder, tipped his hat to me, then swung his ladder over his shoulder to move along to the next lamp on the street.

  I waited for him to move along, then swung open the wrought iron gate, and took the steps to the door two at a time. The lamplighter didn’t look back as he lit the next lamp on the street. I raised the knocker, in the shape of a top hat, and let it land on the door with a sound that pierced the fading light.

  Since two raps were customary in the city, the signal was a single knock. Inside there was a pause before the door opened.

  Raven answered the door, pulling it open only enough to show his face. He raised an eyebrow with a smirk. The door wasn’t opened wide enough to admit me, and I raised my eyebrow back at him playfully, then rolled my eyes.

  “You really need me to say the password?”

  “Security is of utmost importance. How am I to know whether you are sympathetic to our cause or an agent of the city trying to worm your way into our secret gathering?” The smirk on his face increased. I struggled to keep a straight face.

  “A toast to the Mad Hatter, sir,” I said.

  Raven chuckled as he swung the door wide. “The Mad Hatter?”

  “Well, it was you who came up with this mad plan to begin with,” I replied, stepping inside the entry. Raven closed the door behind me.

  “The princess and her companion have already arrived. They appear to have sourced every map of the city and have laid them all over my dining room table.”

  I paused in the entry hall and removed my hat and coat. Raven took them both from me and hung them in the hall closet. “How many are we expecting tonight?”

  Raven shrugged. “Not many. I invited Dr. Lapin as he’ll be able to spread the word to many of his patients very easily. His niece—you remember Miss Lapin?—will be along when she closes up the shop.”

  “Well, let’s hope we have some more with us tomorrow when the real action starts. Otherwise, it might be somewhat of a letdown,” I said. As Raven closed the hall closet, I made to move with him through to where Gaia and Genie were in the dining room. Raven took my arm to stop me.

  I looked up at him as he pulled me closer. “Before we greet the others,” he whispered before brushing his lips against mine. “I want you to myself—just for a moment.”

  I rested my hands on the front of his pinstriped vest and raised up on my toes to return his kiss. Our kiss deepened, and Raven wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer until we were pressed against each other, breathing hard.

  I let my hand slip up to brush over his shoulder and up his neck to curl in the softness of his hair.

  “Ivy,” Raven pulled away from me just enough to breathe my name. “I have done nothing but think about you—about kissing you—all day.” He pulled back a little further to look deeply into my eyes. “I have counted the seconds until you would rejoin me.”

  “Me too,” I whispered, pulling at his neck until he bent down to kiss me again.

  “It really is quite inconvenient,” he continued. “I ought to have been thinking about a great many other things, and you quite distracted me.”

  “Would you rather I leave?” I said as I drew a breath.

  In answer, Raven tugged me closer to him and kissed me on the soft skin under my ear.

  The rap at the door echoed through the hallway. We both pulled apart, looking up at each other with wide eyes. We waited for a second knock, but it didn’t come.

  Raven pulled away, motioning for me to wait. He went over to the door and opened it just enough to see who was standing on the doorstep.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “A toast to the white rabbit, sir,” chorused a number of deep voices. It was a clever password, as it called out the person who had invited them to come. These men had been sent here by Wit.

  Raven looked back at me, both eyebrows raised as he opened the door. I saw a group of about six men, dressed in worn suits and scruffy flat caps. Raven ushered them inside before closing the door behind them. One of the men brandished a baton, bringing it down on his palm with a slapping sound. I noticed the others were all carrying batons with them. I took a big step back.

  “We’re ready,” the man said, and the others nodded enthusiastically.

  Raven looked at me. “What did Dr. Lapin tell you, exactly?” he asked.

  “That it’s time to change the city. That other like-minded people were planning something. We’re tired of living like rats, taking whatever scraps we can get. We want to fight.”

  Raven edged around the group so that he was standing in front of me. He held out his hands. “We have no plan to fight,” he said.

  The men looked at each other. The leader let his baton fall to his side. “But Dr. Lapin said…” He frowned as though he was trying to remember Wit’s exact words. “He said we had to stand up for ourselves. We’re ready.”

  Raven nodded. “We are going to stand up for ourselves,” he said. “Though there will be no violence.”

  The men looked at each other. The leader gave a grudging nod, and they agreed to leave their batons with their coats and hats at the door.

  Raven escorted us all to the dining room where Gaia and Genie were standing, hand in hand, as they pored over the maps. Gaia’s phoenix, with its exquisite plumage, was perched on Gaia’s shoulder, as though reading the maps too. Next to her, Genie stared at Gaia with an incredulous look on his face, as though he couldn’t believe she was standing next to him. As we entered the room, Gaia looked up at him and caught Genie staring at her with a smile on his face. Her serious expression softened, and her eyes lit up as she matched his smile with one of her own.

  Then she noticed us, and her attention shifted, her expression back to serious again.

  “You’re here!” Gaia stepped around the table and came over to take my hands and kiss me on the cheek. “And you have brought…others?”

  “Dr. Lapin sent these men to join our cause,” Raven replied.

  Gaia smiled at them as they shuffled inside the room to come to stand with their backs to the wall, staring around with wide eyes, looking uncomfortable. Gaia turned back to her maps on the dining table, dragging me across the room with her.

  “For the most effect,” she said without preamble, “we will need to have a presence in every precinct of the city. There are so many. How many do you think will come?”

  I eyed the six men standing around the wall. “It’s hard to say,” I replied.

  Another single knock echoed from the hallway, and Raven hurried back to the door.

  “How many will we need?” I asked her.

  “More than this,” Gaia replied, eyeing the six men. She straightened and addressed them. “Do you men have wives or girlfriends? Will they be joining you tomorrow?”

  The men exchanged looks. Finally, the man who seemed to be their leader responded. “The vampire said there would be no bloodshed,” he replied.

  Gaia nodded her head. “On the contrary, I’m hoping it will be fun.”

  The men stared at her, confused, then exchanged looks again. Before anyone could say anything else, the door opened, and more people shuffled into the room. More than twenty more people entered, both men and women—all thin, some scarred by pox, some missing a hand or a finger, one with an eye-patch, all dressed in little more than rags. I raised myself onto my tiptoes to see Raven, but the people kept coming in.

  Finally, Raven appeared, with Wit by his side. The large dining room was half-full of people, who stood silently, looking wide-eyed about as though waiting for something to happen.

  Raven and Dr. Lapin pushed their way over to where Gaia, Genie, and I stood at the table.

  “This is more t
han I expected,” Raven muttered.

  “They are eager to improve their circumstances,” Dr. Lapin replied. “They’ve nothing left to lose.”

  “We don’t plan for violence,” I said in a low voice so that only they could hear. “I hope you have explained that.”

  “Peaceful protest,” Dr. Lapin replied. “Even better. I hope that I will not need to patch up too many of them after the night is over.” He turned to Raven. “Are the vampires with us?”

  Raven gave a small nod. “I can’t speak for all of them, but a great many will stand with those who have been kind enough to donate blood in their time of thirst.”

  “Do you think it will be enough?” I asked Gaia.

  She looked down at her maps. “There is an area in each district, at least. We need people in each one…” She was about to say something else when the knocker sounded again.

  I looked at Raven. “More?”

  He looked at the table spread with platters of sandwiches, scones, and pastries. Many of those who had just arrived were eyeing the food hungrily. Raven shrugged his shoulders. “I believed we’d over-catered. I might have been wrong.”

  I stood with Raven at the door as everyone filed out of the door, collecting their threadbare coats and hats as they left. Gaia stood with us, clasping the hand of each person who came by and thanking them.

  “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” she said, making eye contact with each one.

  I followed her lead, nodding to them as they passed me. “Do you remember your places for tomorrow?” I asked. The people nodded their heads and murmured their thanks. Many had stuffed their pockets with food to take back to hungry families—I couldn’t begrudge them. In fact, we’d made sure all the food went home with someone. There should be no leftovers when people were starving. I knew that many of them had eaten more this evening than they would have had for days.

  The meeting had become far larger than we’d planned, with more than one hundred people arriving at Raven’s house to pledge their support for the plans.

  Gaia, Genie, Raven, and I had quickly split up to speak to each of the small groups, in turn, assigning them to a different district of the city and giving them detailed instructions for the next day.

  When the last of the guests had left, Genie was helping Gaia with her coat. As they were about to step out of the door together, Gaia turned to me to draw me into a hug.

  “I think this is going to work,” she said, and there was a twinkle in her eye.

  I took a deep breath, an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

  “You will speak to your mother, won’t you?” she asked. “We will need her support if we’re going to be successful. Don’t surprise her with it.”

  I nodded. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek again. I squeezed her hands in return.

  “I shall see you tomorrow,” I said, then Gaia and Genie were out of the door.

  Raven took out my coat and hat from the hall closet. “It’s late. I shall walk you home,” he said, tucking my arm into the crook of his elbow.

  I leaned close to him as we walked down his front steps. “Do you think it’s going to work?”

  “It will all hinge on whether the president will lend us her support,” Raven said. “If not…”

  “I know. I will speak with her tomorrow,” I murmured. As we stepped onto the street, I noticed the ticking of the Pinnacle Clock.

  “Is that clock louder than usual?” I asked him. Raven frowned, tilting his head to the side as though he could hear something I couldn’t.

  In front of us, I saw Gaia’s gown flutter as she and Genie rounded the corner. In the other direction, other smaller groups of people were also hurrying home in the dark. From this distance, I wasn’t sure whether they were the same people who had come to our meeting at Raven’s house, or if they were just people who were walking home from dinner or other amusements.

  The wrought-iron gate squeaked as it swung open, and Raven covered my hand as it rested in the crook of his elbow, with his own.

  “We should hurry,” he said, looking one direction down the street, then the other.

  Someone screamed. Raven and I started running. Around a corner, a figure lay on the ground—one of those who’d been at Raven’s house only a quarter-hour earlier. In the distance, the echoed footsteps of a marching Heart disappeared into the darkness.

  7

  1st September

  I paced a track in the carpet of my room next to my four-poster bed. I hadn’t drawn the curtains on my window, and outside, above the tiled rooftops, the sky was spread with pinks and purples. A sense of excitement boiled inside of me. Tonight was the night—either we would succeed or we wouldn’t.

  There was a gentle rap at the door before I heard the deep tones of Mr. Hopewell, Alice’s butler, announcing that Mr. Cappello and his companions had arrived.

  Companions?

  I spun in a half-circle and took one last look in the mirror. I’d curled waves in my platinum blonde hair and dabbed my lips with gloss for the occasion, but now looking at myself in the mirror, I wondered whether it was too much. I smoothed a hand over the lines of my fitted vest and pulled nervously at the cuffs off my billowing shirt.

  Then I shook my head. You look great, I told my reflection sternly. Tonight is not about you. It’s about the people in the tunnels. Do it for them.

  “Miss Rowntree?” Mr. Hopewell knocked again. “Are you there?”

  “Yes, coming,” I replied, then took a deep breath. I turned to the door and wrenched it open. Mr. Hopewell drew back, a look of surprise on his face. Then, he fixed his features back into his usual pleasant expression. He motioned for me to follow him, and I heard my skirts swish as I stepped into the hallway to follow him.

  Mr. Hopewell's posture was erect and proper, as always, but I didn’t miss the slight raising of his eyebrows when I’d opened the door. My heart galloped in my chest as I followed, beating so loud that I was sure Mr. Hopewell could hear it from where he walked in front of me. I only hoped Raven would appreciate my efforts in preparation for this evening, too.

  My shoes clicked on the tiles, and I gripped the railing as I took a first step down the curving staircase that led down to the entry hall.

  Raven looked up at me as I came down the stairs. He was holding a top hat in his hands and struck a dashing figure in a purple tailcoat trimmed with silver. His eyes widened a fraction, then a look of joy spread across his face. A smile touched one edge of his lips, slowly pulling the rest of his mouth to follow. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt my own expression mirror his until I was grinning so hard my face hurt.

  Mr. Hopewell cleared his throat. I was standing halfway down the stairs, gripping the banister. I almost tripped over my feet as I stumbled down the rest of the steps.

  As I made my way down, I noticed a number of others in the hall. Gaia and Genie stood, arm in arm, but Wit was also there. I raised an eyebrow as I saw Chesh among those waiting in the hall.

  Raven stepped forward, taking my hand as I took the last two steps. His eyes didn’t leave my face as he brought my knuckles his lips, brushing the back of my hand with a soft kiss.

  “Miss Rowntree, you look…”—Raven shook his head slightly, as though lost for words for a moment.—“so beautiful this evening.”

  “As do you, Mr. Cappello,” I replied, then caught myself. “H-h-handsome, I mean.” I felt a red flush creep up my neck and searched around for something else to say. “Do you expect the others will come?” I added in a low voice.

  Raven leaned closer. “I hope so. I really hope there will be a good turnout. Did you speak to your mother about the event?”

  I nodded. “She promised to speak to the captain of the city guard this morning.”

  “And she did,” Alice said as she came up behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Mother?” I looked at her, noticing that she was dressed in one of her best dresses—with layers of blue lace and ribbons, fastened with gold but
tons. Her hair was tied into a bun, and teardrop pearls hung from her ears. “Are you going out this evening too?” I couldn’t disguise the surprise in my voice.

  She raised an eyebrow. “I hear someone has organized a Big Night Out,” she replied. “I didn’t want to be left at home. Besides,” she added, as Wit walked up to her and turned a deep shade of red. “Dr. Lapin asked me to accompany him to dinner.”

  “You know Dr. Lapin?” Then I remembered Wit had spoken of my mother, as though he’d met her a long time ago.

  Alice looked sideways at Wit, giving him a knowing smile. He turned an even brighter shade of red. “Dr. Lapin and I are old friends.”

  “Chesh, darling!” Pearl’s voice rang out as she came to stand at the top of the stairway. We all looked up at her, dressed in a beautiful peach-colored gown, with her hair tumbling over one shoulder in ringlet curls. She beamed down at Chesh. When I looked across at him, he looked sideways at me before returning his attention to Pearl. He took her arm, giving her a quick peck on the cheek, before guiding her over to where I was standing with Raven and Alice. I turned my face away, tightening my hold on Raven’s arm, as I tried to pretend I wasn’t upset by the glow on Pearl’s face, or the sight of their arms entwined.

  “Where will you be dining this evening?” Chesh asked, looking pointedly at me.

  “I believe we were assigned to The Menagerie,” Raven replied.

  Chesh’s eyes lit up. “How fortunate,” he said. “We will be dining in the same place. Perhaps we should—”

  “And you, Mother? Dr. Lapin?” I asked, cutting Chesh off, both hoping to hide my discomfort at the idea of dining in the same restaurant as Chesh and Pearl this evening, as well as any suggestion that the four of us might dine together. The last thing I wanted was to be watched on my first outing in public with Raven.

  “We’ll be eating at Fire and Brimstone,” Dr. Lapin replied. “I believe it is a new establishment on Third Avenue.”

  Alice gave him a smile. “How lovely. It’s been a long time since I’ve stepped out in the city just for fun.” She turned to me and kissed me on the cheek. “Have a lovely evening. If there is any sign of a disturbance, make sure you alert the city guard—they have been given strict instructions to keep the peace and to ensure that nobody is prevented from entering licensed establishments on the grounds of their appearance.”