by Hal Duncan
– Infiltration to the highest echelons, alas, says Foxtrot, is what my... somewhat ardent confederate here’s driving at.
Them tykes don’t want to believe it, not in Dear Old Blighty, but their protests gets less huffy as the Scruffians fabbles their histories, gets uneasy at tales of Roma and Jews being preyed upon, gets muted in gobsmack and flabbergast... gets turned.
– Why that’s ghastly, sniffles Lily. Ghastly.
***
Peter looks even angstier than her, tortured even, like’s he might burst into tears, or burst out with summat. But...
– So, he says meek as a mouse, almost biting his words back... wherever did you hide this Stamp?
– Need to know, says Squirlet curtly.
Peter looks away sharpish, beaming red.
– MacGuffin then... ponders Foxtrot after a silence. A wild card...
– No love lost between her and Blackstone, says Squirlet.
– If she hates a Nazi, she can’t be all bad, says Flashjack.
– Who doesn’t hate Nazis? says Squirlet.
– Ooh! says Flashjack. I know this one! Collaborators!
Squirlet shakes her head. Sighs.
And Foxtrot strokes his ’tache for a while then, Flashjack dances the flames on his fingers, and Peter bites his bottom lip, until suddenly Lily pops from broody hunch to upright.
– Oh, she says. Oh! You were looking for a Faerie Bridge, weren’t you? To sneak the Stamp to safety?
Cause in all her babble of Blackstone’s schemes, she’d forgot to tell em of the map she saw, what had a bridge marked as maybe’s at Dun Scaith, on the island’s poky-down bit... and Blackstone was here about this Faerie Flag thing originally.
– A Faerie Flag, indeed? says Foxtrot.
• 4
The next morning, what’s the day before Midwinter now, after all that conflabbing deep into the night, it’s well past dawn by the time Lily toddles down yawning to the kitchen to find Foxtrot and Squirlet up and prattling of their plans for the day – since Lady Fay’s gone off already, to help organise the Solstice Ceilidh. And well, they mustn’t have a repeat of yesterday’s exploratory fiascoes, so perhaps it’s best to stay in the castle today. Perhaps they can all play Hide-and-Seek? The Brawling Bastables and the... Oddsorts Other Two together, eh? Once the slugabeds rise?
Cause yeah, as Peter and Janie and (eventually) Flashjack surfaces, and scarfs some scran, and they all adjourns to that nice drawing room for a bit of hush-hush and on-the-QT, it seems now even leery Squirlet’s ready to concede that Lily and Peter’s hearts is in the right place, and homeless orphans as they are, well, yes, maybe’s even Peter’s not a twerp after all. As the scouring of Dunstravaigin Castle for that flag gets plotted, why, they’s even made honorary cohorts enough for’s Janie to tap em on the shoulder, plop their purses in their hands.
– You pilferers! huffs Peter. Rotten pinchers! This is a rum do if ever!
Hands on hips, he stomps his foot, whipples his shoulder from the hand clapped on it, pouty at Flashjack’s scallywag unruffle.
– Easy-oasy, mate. She’s fresh-Fixed, needed the practise, eh?
– Well, if you should have something stolen, Peter grumps, you should jolly well deserve it.
Mind you, his fizzog do flick a bit sheepish soon’s he says that.
– Scruffs ain’t got fuck all but each other, shrugs Flashjack.
– And the Stamp, Jack, says Squirlet.
– Oh don’t be so uptight, Peter, says Lily. You look quite beastly.
So it’s Flashjack counting to an hundred – which should take a good while with all the restarts, Foxtrot reckons – and the rest of em’s off to nosey, with a plan to meet back here on the hour. And Lily looks very hard at the first room on her list, but all as seems notable is a mounted bull’s head with the motto Hold Fast, a framed letter from Sir Walter Scott thanking his hostess for her hospitality, and a collection of antique swords in glass cases. Which are terribly grand, especially the claymore, but guns are more Lily’s thing really.
• 5
– Winchesters, Smith and Wessons, and Colt .45s, she’s saying to Peter in the drawing room when the grandfather clock chimes. When she were very young, see, never knowing her mother, and being raised British as mutton pie, she got her type of Indian mixed up with that of cowboys. It were so long ago, she hardly ’members it now, but it made her so want to ride horses and shoot guns, and why couldn’t Tonto be The Lone Ranger? she’d wondered at that movie serial where’s the villain’s trying to figger which of five Texas Rangers is the masked hero.
– Anything? Foxtrot says as he paces into the room, interrupting her blether. With his monocle in his eye now for extra peeper power, and his hands clasped behind his back under the paisley dressing gown he’s popped on over his togs, he’s looking right Sherlock Holmesy.
Peter and Lily shakes their heads – no luck. Janie holds out her cupped palms with a dead mouse in em.
– Yes... well, says Foxtrot.
– Eighty-eleven, says Flashjack, eighty-twelve...
– You can stop counting now, old chap, says Foxy.
– Oh, thank fuck, says Flashjack.
– Well, I suppose we’ll just have to hope... ah, Squirlet.
And here’s Squirlet now, who’s had more of a score. A proper method has Squirlet, see, working in reverse from the last place anyone would look to the first. First place she’s looked is the place she’d hide it, which is the best possible hidey, natch – well, after wherever she’s stashed the Stamp. If yer knowed that Dunstravaigin Castle like the back of yer hand, yer’d still never guess it, and she won’t tell em where, so’s not to give away her secrets, but she’s had a wee shufty there, and did find summat, albeit not what they’s looking for.
It’s a silver chanter, scamps, as yer might poke in yer bagpipes or play as hornpipe. The Silver Chanter, story goes, of a MacGuffin who was so mopey over doing everyfink rubbish, the Faerie Queen took pity, give him a choice of blessings: to sail any ship; to win any battle; or to play the pipes. Chose the pipes, he did, and quite right too.
– Ooh, can I see? says Peter. I love the recorder.
And he gives it a little tootling what makes Flashjack jig. Literally. As in, Me legs have gone barmy!
– Hold on to that, says Foxtrot.
• 6
Well, it’s clear now that while’s Peter do seem to have put his heart into the search, (though he don’t seem terribly proud when’s Foxtrot commends him for it,) the others is so distractable and unproductive, Squirlet’s only gonna has to do their bleeding snooping all over again, innit, to make sure them amateurs hasn’t missed owt. Even Foxtrot spent his whole hour eliminating every single book in one library bookcase as lever for a secret passage. So, she’s all, Just... follow me and stay out of my way, and they’s off in a new game of Follow-My-Leader.
Through all the maze of Dunstravaigin Castle they skips in single file behind her, Flashjack cheerily continuing the song as he keeps edgy at the door of each room while’s the rest loiters like lummoxes, agawp at Squirlet’s meticulosity and imaginativity. Takes ages, but eventually they’s down to what’s she deems the amateur hour hideys, and blimey if her tappetytapping at the back of a wardrobe cleared of a thicket of fur coats don’t betray a false back Squirlet jimmies open to reveal... another fur coat.
– Ooh, can I see? says Lily, for its wintery silver is terribly frontiersman trapper.
Now the Silver Cloak of the Otter King ain’t no mundane mantle, as yer might guess from that grand nomenclature, scamps. So, just as Peter piping the Silver Chanter had an unforeseen effect in making Flashjack jig, so too did Lily donning that coat make for quite the gobsmacker. Cause no sooner’s it on than it’s wrappling round her, squeezing to her body – Whatever’s happening? – her limbs – Oh, help! – her noggin even. It’s swallering her up, scamps! Stretching and swaddling, and squooshing her shape now, legs and arms shrinking, body slinkying, whiskers plinking from perkying snoot, till’s
she’s stood there transformogrificated.
– I’m an otter, laments Lily. Oh, no. But I don’t want to be an otter.
– Yer the cutest thing ever! squees Flashjack. Ooh! Can we see yer crack a shell on yer chest with a stone? Can we? Can we? It’s so cute!
– Shut up! says a most miffed Lily. I’m not cute. Am not.
– You really are quite adorable, says Foxtrot.
– Shut up!
– Oh, look at your little paws, coos Peter.
– SHUT UP!
– Boys! says Squirlet. Then slaps Janie’s hand as it reaches down to pet ickle ottery Lily’s fuzzy bonce. Everyone, she says.
– Quite, quite, ahems Foxtrot. Priorities.
• 7
– Well, I think it’s a very poor show, you lot, sulks Lily some time later. I bet it won’t just wear off, it’s not barely noticeable, and I shan’t look on the bright side. If you all think being an otter’s not the end of the world, you try it.
– We did all give it our best shots, says Peter. There’s not even a hint of a seam.
– I’m still not sure you were really looking.
– We weren’t just tickling your tummy, honest. Cross my heart. We could try the wishsnuff again?
– A flying otter isn’t any less an otter.
See, the thing about yer magic, scamps, is it don’t foller its own rules, and it don’t always come with a price like yer groanhuffs’ fuddy-duddy correctitude make-believes it. If it follered rules and had fallouts for all its impacts, it’d just be bleeding science what we don’t know yet, innit! And no, magic is power. It’s what tromps all over rules, doing what it likes, and it’s just a matter of which magic’s most bullish as decides in a clash. And a tyke’s fancy ain’t much cop against some grand nomenclatured MacGuffin Relic. So Lily were fucked.
So, all’s she and Peter could do was keep poking and prodding and pulling, with much ouching and grouching on her part, while’s them scruffs struck on with their mission, the quest for the Faerie Flag what’d led em finally back to that drawing room, to the glass case as was labelled The Faerie Flag, yer hiding in plain sight being in Squirlet’s too blooming obvious ranking of sneaky hideys. Which yer might think her daft for delaying till now, but it weren’t like the ratty scrap of tattered linen in that case were yer actual Faerie Flag, of course.
No, but with Foxtrot puntied up by Flashjack to pick the lock, with the velvet cushioned backboard that raggedy sham were pinned to gently prised out and took to the grand piano to be laid on its lid, Peter and Lily stopped their fussy footerings to rubberneck, and come scurrying and bounding respectively, Lily scrambling a spiral up Flashjack to his shoulder to see. For there pinned to the back of the backboard were a banner of a cloth as shimmery as silk, in a rainbow of colours what swirled before their very eyes, dazzling.
The Faerie Flag were found.
• 8
By now it’s near enough teatime though, scamps, and no sooner have they snaffled their prize than there’s the purr of one black 1939 Bentley pulling up outside, and there’s a rush to the window alcoves of the drawing room – what’s each big enough for a sofa and a couple of armchairs themselves – and a press of noses to glass.
– It’s Lady Fay, says Lily, her wee otter whiskers twitching.
– Squirlet, says Foxtrot. Hide the –
But when they turns back to where Squirlet’s still stood at the grand piano, that flag’s already vanished, and fuck knows where she’s planked it.
There’s the dummy flag still to go back though, and as Flashjack whaps it in, Janie smacks his bonce and twirls a finger: other way up! They can hear Herself now, in the door and calling the cook, asking where they’s at. As they clicks the glass case closed, she’s creaking the stairs, footsteps closing even as Foxy unpicks the lock. Why, it’s seconds to spare, then Lady Fay breezes in with an Hello, hello! No misadventures today, I hope! to find four Bastables sat on one sofa, Peter miming Gone with the Wind, and – Squirlet’s hand darts – a cushion.
It’s easy enough fabbling Lady Fay that Lily’s come down with an awful cold from yesterday, took to her bed, poor thing, but it takes all Foxtrot’s skills at flimflam and bamboozling to finagle her from calling a doctor, sending supper up, or popping her head in the door at least – We’ll buck her up, laddie! Fortify her! Still, with all hands on deck for an impromptu running of his Three Prisoners Monte scam, as requires five wire coathangers, three pillows, two cans, some string, and a turnip, they even manages to scrape through her insistence on a bedtime goodnight.
With a little wait then for things to quiet down, it’s time for another War Meeting, all of em gathered in the girls’ room again since Squirlet’s smuggled up three Ordnance Survey maps from Lady Fay’s library so’s they can figger out where this Dun Scaith is. Flappled open by Flashjack, spread out on the rug and lined up by Janie, they cover half the floor. Lily scampers round and across the paper.
– There it is, she says, on the poky-down bit, just like I told you.
– Sleat, says Foxtrot. And not easy to get to.
But it’s there.
• 9
So, with the Stamp under threat from a Nazi agent as has abominable forces under his thrall, there’s talk of scarpering right this bleeding second, not least cause Flashjack snorted most of Squirlet’s... pixie dust keeping edgy all last night and don’t fancy another long watch. But even with the wishsnuff, no, reckons Foxtrot, it’s too risky at night and as the crow flies. They’ll wait for first light, take the safest course: follow the road through Struan and Sligachan, round to Broadford and halfways down to Armadale before cutting across. Fifty miles, he figgers with a bit of string.
– If we’re to set out so very early, says Peter, perhaps we should pack everything we need tonight?
– Good thinking, dear chap, says Foxtrot. Flashjack, raid the kitchen, rustle us up some sandwiches and a thermos of tea, won’t you?
– Jam and Marmite or cheese and marmalade?
– Bit of everything?
– Right-ho. I’ll make some coffee for meself as well, shall I?
– Sorry, old chap. I did warn you to pace the coke.
– Where’s the fun in that?
– Squirlet, Janie, if you can find a rucksack for the Stamp and the flag...?
– On it, says Squirlet.
– Peter? Come with me.
– I’ll stick with my coat and scarf, thanks, says Peter. I can jolly well do without being turned into some beast. Sorry, Lily.
Provisions plonked on a dresser, Flashjack rummages the furs dumped on the floor by Foxtrot and Peter – Oooh! – pulls out an ankle-length coat as looks like wolf fur, only reddish. Looks glum when he slings it on and ain’t transformogrificated. The black coat Janie fishes out is... fuck knows what, but Squirlet snaffles herself a squirrel fur hat, natch, whiles Foxtrot drapes a foxfur stole on his noggin like a cowl.
– Spiffing, says he.
Lily harrumphs.
So with all in order, they settles down, Flashjack in a chair with the rucksack under it, coffee in hand, Peter and Foxtrot top to toe in Lily’s bed, Squirlet and Janie each in their own, and Lily curled up in the rest of the furs, some ottery instinct making that feel rightest. Snug too, it is, so she’s almost asleep when’s she hears Peter rustling out of bed, whispering to Flashjack how’s he’s forgot summat.
The sound’s so faint when it starts, she nearly don’t notice it, the mournful pipe melody, so soft and soothing... the scallywag stretching... yawning...
• 10
What it were as woke her, scamps, we won’t never know. It’s a mighty power, the magic of the Silver Chanter. If it weren’t, why, Flashjack might have a scallywag’s skill in sleeping through a bleeding riot once he’s out, and a scofflaw will go back to sleep on principle, but yer Foxtrot and Squirlet is a scamp and scrag with centuries of springing out of bed, shivs ready for the waiftakers, at a clink of a link of chain in the streets outside. And they didn’t stir.
So what sprung Lily from that Silver Chanter’s spell is anyone’s guess.
It weren’t the sudden silence when that tune cut off, not coming to an end gentle as its start, but stopping dead, like as the player just couldn’t play no more, just couldn’t, it had to be enough. Weren’t the squeak of the door or the creak of tippytoe footsteps on floorboards as Peter crept back into the room. Weren’t the shuffly rustle of clothes as he got dressed, nor of the rucksack being slid from beneath the chair. Weren’t the clop of boots knocked together as Peter picked em up. Weren’t the squeak of the door as he left.
It weren’t the sound of Peter crying through all of this. Weren’t the deep breathy sniffs of stifled sobs, the sounds he made when the spasms lurched in him, waves of wailing trying to break loose, and he’d to clamp down to not bawl out aloud, only getting what air he could into his lungs between them wracking shudders. Weren’t the soggy snuffles, when wiping his runny nose, like his eyes, with the back of his hand weren’t enough, and he’d to snort it clear, quiet as he could. No, Lily slept sound through all that, as they all did.
But wake she did, at summat, and saw the scallywag slumped in the chair; and there weren’t a nightlight on or nuffink, cause Flashjack had his thumb for candle if need be and the others’d kip better in darkness, but the moon was out and her otter eyes was keen, so she saw that the rucksack weren’t beneath the chair no more, and Peter weren’t in bed. And she did hear summat then, and darted after it, out into the hallway and along it, bounding, downstairs, downstairs, to the front door and a glimpse: Peter hurtling off into the night.
Part Four
• 1
Oh, the moon might have been out that night, and brilliant white in the clearest sky, scamps, and all the stars might have been sparkling bright, the Milky Way itself twinkling so magnificent yer can’t hardly imagine, those of yer what’s never left London till today. And all that celestial resplenditude might have been shining down upon an island called Skye as was swathed in snow and gleaming back as if in competiton, but as bells tolled midnight all across the land, at the tick as marked it now the Solstice... it were a dark, dark night for Peter Dearest.