‘NID!’ Impy shouted and whirred upwards after him, but the rush of air at the window caught at her wings and pushed her back into the carriage. Charlie stared out at the walls of the tunnel, horrified, as the train rattled onwards. Impy tried to get out a second time and was buffeted back inside and Edie managed to snap the window shut.
‘It’s too dangerous,’ Edie said, trying to keep her voice down as passengers in the train carriage were looking at them.
‘Did you lose something out of the window?’ a young woman asked.
‘No. It’s just an insect,’ said Charlie firmly.
‘Shall I squash it for you?’ another passenger said, rolling up his newspaper.
‘NO!’ said Edie too loudly. ‘It’s fine. Thanks.’
Edie gently closed her fist round Impy to stop her battering against the window.
‘Please, Impy. I don’t want to lose you too.’
‘But I can’t lose Nid!’ cried Impy from inside Edie’s fist and she pummelled at the creases of her fingers.
A teenage girl stared at Edie suspiciously and whispered loudly to her friend, ‘She’s weird.’
As the train drew into Regent’s Park, Edie stood up and moved to the doorway. ‘We’ll find him,’ she whispered into her fist. ‘We just have to get to Wilde Street as quickly as we can.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Wilde Street to Baker Street
A
light rain was beginning to fall as they ran across the main road and into the streets around Marylebone. It was now quite late and people were spilling out of restaurants and bars.
‘There it is!’
Charlie pointed up at the street sign – Wilde Street W1 – and they turned into a quiet residential street. There was hardly anybody about.
The old station entrance was about halfway down, at the bottom of a mansion block. The deep-red tiles matched the photograph in Dad’s book, as did the two half-moon windows with blackened glass that sat over the old entranceway. The words Wilde Street were still there, black writing on a white sign that was faded and chipped.
They ran over to the front of the building. All the windows at ground level were boarded up and at the left side there was a heavy wooden door that was locked and barred. Just to one side of it was a broken ventilation grille no bigger than a five-pound note.
‘Any ideas?’ said Charlie, wiping the grille with his sleeve and peering through it. ‘We can’t fit through this.’
Impy took off into the air. ‘I can!’ she called back, and without waiting for an answer she took a tiny, keyring-sized torch out of her bag and squeezed through the grille and disappeared.
‘Impy!’ Edie called after her. ‘You can’t go down there alone.’
Edie and Charlie pressed their faces to the broken grille and watched as Impy’s light bobbed about in the dark. Speckle withdrew deep into Edie’s pocket, unable to watch the last of his siblings vanish.
Charlie switched on his own torch and shone it inside. They could see the shadowy walls of an old ticket hall with its tiles and hatch. Impy’s light fluttered onwards.
‘Do you think Nid’s OK?’ Edie asked Charlie. Despite what she had said to Impy, she could still hear the screeching of the train’s wheels as he tumbled out of sight.
‘Yes,’ said Charlie firmly. ‘He’ll have jumped out of the way doing a triple somersault or a crazy spinning cartwheel. I’m sure of it.’
He reangled his torch and the beam picked up a solid line of brickwork filling the far end of the ticket hall. ‘Look, Edie. That’s where the stairs would have been.’
As he spoke Impy’s light bobbed its way back towards them and she slipped back through the grille.
‘There’s no way down,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s all closed off. What do we do now?’
Edie patted Impy gently with the tip of a finger to try to soothe her. She had to think of something else fast. Deep beneath her feet a train rumbled through Wilde Street like distant thunder and she thought of the tunnels and passageways zigzagging this way and that. There must be another way in.
Then she remembered the magpin.
*
‘Down here!’
Edie had led them back up to the Lost Property Office past Baker Street Station. Impy had urged them all to run and Charlie was leaning against the wall to catch his breath. They were standing at the top of a narrow cobbled alleyway at the side of the building.
‘What’s down here?’ Charlie gasped.
‘I think there might be a passageway that will take us underground,’ said Edie, keeping a careful watch for Shadwell.
She led the way through the alleyway and into the yard behind the Lost Property Office. The metal fire-escape staircase zigzagged up one side of the building and Edie glanced up at Vera’s window. There was no sign of Shadwell on the sill, but the light was on. As they stood there it suddenly clicked off. She pulled Charlie back into the shadows, and they hid under the fire-escape stairs, waiting for several minutes.
‘She might come down the stairs,’ whispered Edie, but after a while, when nobody came, Edie gestured for Charlie to follow her and they crept over to the drain that the magpin had disappeared down. As they crouched down on the cobbles, they heard an echoey click-clack of footsteps. The sound was reverberating deep inside the drain. In fact, it wasn’t a drain at all but a vent that led straight down into a tunnel.
A beam of light bobbed about the walls and a figure carrying a large bag passed beneath them, heading away from the Lost Property Office. Through the grating Edie saw the familiar streak of blue hair. Hopping along behind came Shadwell. He paused for a moment and shook out his wings.
Edie quickly drew back from the vent, sweeping Impy and Charlie back with her. She waited until the footsteps had died away and when she looked again Shadwell had gone.
‘I knew it. There’s a secret tunnel leading out of the Lost Property Office,’ Edie said.
‘But going where?’
‘It could be to Wilde Street.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t know for certain . . . but it would make sense.’
Charlie, for the first time, looked doubtful.
‘Come on,’ said Edie, pulling Charlie up the fire-escape stairs. ‘We’ve got to go after her. It will lead us to the magpins and the missing flits. I’m sure of it.’
She pulled on the fire door, hoping it might still be on the latch, but it was firmly closed. Pressing her face against the glass in the door she could see the bar handle inside. Charlie felt along the bottom where there was a gap and pulled a roll of string from one of his many trouser pockets.
‘Where’s Speckle?’ he said and Edie lifted him out of her pocket.
‘Can you take this end of the string and crawl under the door with it?’
Speckle nodded and gave a small salute.
‘Then loop it over the bar handle inside and bring it back to me?’
Within seconds Speckle had done what Charlie had asked and reappeared under the door with the other end of the string.
‘Come on, Edie,’ said Charlie, and they took hold of both ends of the string and tugged hard. With a clank the handle inside was dragged downwards by the string and the fire door opened as if by a magical invocation.
‘Brilliant!’ said Edie and Speckle beamed.
The Lost Property Office was virtually in darkness, lit only by the dim glow from the safety lamps in the stairwells. They closed the fire door and walked over to the door to Vera’s office. The light from her window cast a silvery glow across her desk as Edie quickly checked in her drawers for the eyeglass and Bead, but there was nothing there. As she turned to go, she noticed a birthday card propped upright.
Happy Birthday, Vera was scrawled across the inside, but it didn’t say who it was from.
‘No one mentioned it was her birthday,’ said Edie. She thought back to Vera’s comments about her strict father and lack of friends.
‘Let’s go-o,’ urged Impy.
They went down the two flights of stairs to the main reception floor below. Edie switched on one of the side lights.
‘Wow,’ said Charlie, as he looked at the ranks of umbrellas and raincoats, and his hand rested on a forgotten Jedi fancy-dress robe that was folded on the desk ready for labelling. He was about to pick it up when he spotted the blue postal chute leading down to the sorting area in the basement.
‘A helter-skelter!’ he said, climbing up onto it.
‘Charlie . . .!’ hissed Edie, but she couldn’t help laughing as he shot down the chute with Speckle on his shoulder. She knew it might be her only chance to try it too so she also scrambled onto the chute and shot down into the gloom after him with Impy, and they all ended up in a heap on the sorting table.
The outside door upstairs clattered and banged, and Charlie and Edie slid off the table and ducked down underneath it.
‘Was that the wind?’ Charlie whispered.
A tentacle of fear wrapped itself round Edie’s neck. Vera Creech and Shadwell were down in the secret tunnel surely? Maybe this was the magpins again or someone had seen them go up the fire escape and called the police. A key rattled in the lock and Edie heard the inner door swing open. Sweat prickled across her forehead.
They heard a voice muttering and the overhead strip lights burst into life. Footsteps came down the stairs.
‘EDIE?’ said a voice that was both urgent and angry.
Edie and Charlie crawled out from under the sorting table. It was Benedict.
Edie was speechless. Part of her was relieved it was Benedict and not anyone else, but how had he . . .?
‘What are you doing?’ Benedict said. He was wearing a bobble hat and the ribbon of keys to the Lost Property Office hung round his neck. Edie had never seen him looking so cross.
‘How did you know we were here?’ she asked.
‘Bilbo started barking and fussing halfway through my film, so I went up to check on you both. Those pillows didn’t fool me, Edie! Luckily I found that book out in the corridor – your dad’s book about “abandoned stations” left open at Wilde Street. I went there and saw you in the distance running this way and then a light went on in here. What are you up to?’ He stared at them both, wide-eyed.
They stood in silence with Edie’s mouth opening and shutting like a fish.
‘There’s a secret tunnel,’ said Edie finally. ‘And we think it leads to Wilde Street ghost station and Vera –’
‘What is it about Vera?’ snapped Benedict. ‘It’s just all wild fantasy, Edie. What would your mum and dad think? And yours, Charlie! I’m supposed to be looking after you. We’re going straight home now and you can explain everything when we get there!’ Benedict turned to go, but Impy had flown over to him and was trying to lift the keys from round his neck. To Benedict they appeared to be lifting of their own free will.
‘Uuuugh!’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’ He fell backwards, sprawling on the floor and clutching at his keys.
‘Impy!’ Edie whispered. ‘Don’t scare him!’
Charlie fetched a chair and a glass of water.
‘It’s not a wild story, Benedict. You have to believe us,’ he said, helping Benedict up onto the chair.
‘Vera was here earlier and she’s been taking things from the Lost Property Office, I’m sure of it,’ said Edie. ‘She has some kind of control over the birds . . . the ones that are doing all the thieving. They live in Wilde Street ghost station.’
She told Benedict as much as she could without involving the flits – he was nineteen after all. Benedict sat very upright in the chair, clutching his keys in one hand and the glass of water in the other.
‘You said yourself that the fire-escape door being on the latch the other day seemed odd.’
‘Yes, but if you are so sure about all this, where is the secret tunnel?’
‘I-I . . .’ Edie had to admit she didn’t know. ‘It’s here somewhere.’
‘Right. Edie Winter, you have three minutes to show me the secret tunnel,’ said Benedict. ‘Otherwise I’m taking you home!’ He began to count. ‘One, two, three, four –’
‘Come on,’ said Edie, pulling Charlie and the flits after her. They ran into the first of the big storerooms, feeling along the walls and skirting boards for fake panels and checking behind the cupboards and shelves. In the second storeroom they moved huge baskets filled with hats and scarves to see if they had missed a secret doorway and Charlie knocked his hands along the plastering, testing if it was hollow.
‘One minute forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven,’ called Benedict in the distance.
‘Are you sure it’s here?’ said Charlie as they paused to catch their breath.
‘Yes,’ said Edie, although now she wasn’t sure at all.
They ran up and down the corridor, testing the floor to see if it was hollow and looking inside the broom cupboard where the cleaning things were kept.
‘Two minutes!’ cried Benedict.
‘What’s in here?’ said Charlie, pointing towards the last of the storerooms.
‘It’s the Storeroom at the End,’ said Edie, ‘but I’ve already looked in there.’
‘Let’s try again.’
She opened the door and the light flickered on overhead. The rabbit alarm clock stared back at them mutely.
‘Come on,’ urged Edie just as Benedict cried, ‘Two minutes and thirty seconds!’
They looked through all the shelves and Charlie climbed up to see if the air vent in the ceiling might open.
It was Impy who pointed to the Persian carpet on the floor. ‘What’s under there?’
Edie knelt down and started rolling up the threadbare carpet. As she did so the edge of a large trapdoor appeared.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Baker Street to Wilde Street
‘I
can’t believe it,’ said Benedict. ‘You’d never have known.’
They all stood in a circle looking down into the shaft of a tunnel. A series of metal rungs formed a ladder to the corridor below.
‘We have to find Vera now,’ said Edie. ‘Please, Benedict. You have to let us go.’
‘No!’ said Benedict.
Edie turned away so Benedict and Charlie wouldn’t see her cheeks flare red and her hot tears of disappointment. The silence was broken only by a distant siren.
Then Benedict spoke again. ‘I meant, no, you are not going alone. I’m coming with you.’
Edie turned back and threw her arms round Benedict’s waist. It wasn’t ideal having a ‘grown-up’ going with them, but Edie had always felt that Benedict was somewhere in between. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered, and she swept away her tears with the sleeve of her coat.
One by one they clambered down the ladder and into a long passageway. The air smelt stale like an old cupboard that hadn’t been opened for years. Edie gave a head torch to Benedict and Charlie adjusted his and set off ahead of them, drawing a line along the wall with a piece of chalk so that they could find their way back.
They walked in silence and Edie felt water drip into her hair. Benedict brushed his face, leaving a sweep of sooty grime. The passage sloped downhill and the loud rumblings of Tube trains told them that they were getting closer to the tracks.
‘Charlie,’ Edie whispered. ‘Come back and look at this.’ She shone her torch onto the ground in front of her, picking out footsteps in the dust.
‘But why would she come down here?’ said Benedict.
They spoke in low voices so that the sound wouldn’t bounce and echo off the walls.
‘A ghost station is the perfect secret place as no one ever goes there. All those valuables that have gone missing from passengers – I think that’s where they’ll be hidden. And they’re holding prisoners too.’
‘Prisoners?’ said Benedict. ‘What sort of prisoners?’
Edie took a deep breath. ‘They’re called flits. Tiny people with wings. They live in a deserted station up at Highgate, but the magpins invaded their camp a
nd some of them ended up in that box I found.’
‘Edie, this is ridiculous. Vera is one thing, but tiny magic people?’ said Benedict.
‘You’re too old to understand,’ said Edie.
‘Too old? My mum still calls me Peter Pan!’
‘Stop, everyone,’ said Charlie suddenly.
The tunnel had flattened out, but they had reached a junction and it split into three.
‘Which way?’ he said.
Edie looked at the footsteps in the dust. ‘Take the one that goes straight ahead.’
After only a few metres, the rumble of trains sounded closer, as if they were running alongside them, and the beam of Edie’s torch picked out a large red arrow on the wall. Platforms This Way. Just beyond it was an old Tube map.
‘Must be getting on for a hundred years old,’ said Benedict.
The Tube lines were disordered and tangled and very different to the map that Edie knew. She ran her finger along the rust-coloured Bakerloo Line with Impy perched on her knuckle. There it was – Wilde Street Station – one stop to the east of Baker Street.
A short flight of steps took them down to the trains. They walked through to the northbound side and stood on the deserted platform.
Impy called into the darkness. ‘Nid? Nid, are you there?’
A familiar clicking of the tracks and push of warm air from the tunnel told them that a late-night train was coming. They drew back against the wall and switched off their torches.
The headlights of the Tube train swept into the station, and the lit windows of the carriages flickered over them like images on a film. In seconds the train was gone. The darkness was so dense that it almost felt thick enough to wear, and the stony smell reminded Edie of a graveyard.
Charlie flicked on his head torch again. ‘This is wicked!’ he said. He turned his head this way and that, picking out the old station signage and tattered 1920s posters and tiling in the beam. ‘What time is it?’
‘Ten to midnight,’ said Edie.
‘Ni-id?’ cried Impy again.
‘H-he’s probably hiding somewhere,’ said Edie. She didn’t dare shine her torch down onto the train tracks.
Edie and the Box of Flits Page 13