The Smoking Hourglass

by Jennifer Bell

  She thought of calling for Seb to pull her away, but she knew that he would only be able to save her – not Alexander or Crevitch.

  There was time to attempt one last thing: Ivy stretched out with her whispering towards Filigree’s bell piece. The murmured voice coming from inside the bell clanged around furiously, as if it was trying to escape. Ivy tried something new: she reduced her field of awareness to concentrate her senses inside the bell. Immediately the voice became clearer.

  Strike. Defeat. Destroy …

  She could hear words! She’d never been able to distinguish what the voices inside uncommon objects were actually saying before.

  Just then, Filigree leaped for the table and made a grab for his bell. A piercing scream was released from it – full of rage and pain. Ivy put her hands over her ears, the sounds reverberating through her mind. She felt a wave of heat as a wall of black-and-purple flames rose around the chalk circle. Blackfire.

  Filigree was laughing behind his mask, his small gloved hands stroking his wobbling belly. The dark flames seemed to lick off him, causing no damage whatsoever. Ivy could see that something was still wriggling under his jacket, struggling to be free.

  The snakes thrashed around and buried themselves in the cold sand. Heat singed Ivy’s clothes, but they were so wet from the previous round, they didn’t catch fire. She hid her face behind her shield, gasping for air. Smoke was seeping into her lungs, stinging the back of her throat.

  And the flames were getting stronger.

  ‘Seb!’ she cried. ‘Seb!’

  She heard a loud pop, and an unmistakable silhouette appeared behind the blackfire.

  ‘Seb!’ she wheezed.

  He was floundering on the other side of the flames, waving his arms and jumping up and down. Ivy wasn’t sure what was going on, but it looked as if he couldn’t get through.

  Cowering behind her shield, she realized that Filigree’s uncommon bell piece must have had something to do with it. Maybe this had been Filigree’s plan all along – to prevent Ivy’s spotter from saving her.

  She knew that if there was no way for her to be rescued, she only had one option left.

  I’ve got to stop that bell.

  Her body was weak; she needed oxygen. She summoned all her energy and reached out with her senses till she found the bell’s voice amid the roar of the flames. She’d never heard anything so angry, so intent on destruction.

  Strike them down. Defeat all. Destroy …

  As a last resort she decided to try and reason with it, though she’d never communicated with the trapped soul inside an object before. Gasping for air, she managed to project words at the bell, but it didn’t seem to understand her. Then she tried soothing thoughts, memories of soft music and still water, a clear blue sky, a peaceful ocean – all the things that made her feel calm.

  Strike. Defeat … Tired … Desperate …

  Slowly the voice grew tranquil. Ivy heard it mumbling in exhausted tones and sighing. She heaved cold air into her lungs as she peered out from behind her shield. The flames were subsiding.

  ‘WHAT IS THIS?!’ Filigree shouted. Ivy lowered her shield slightly and saw that he was hitting the Grivens bell, attempting to make the flames return.

  ‘No!’ Ivy yelled. She concentrated on the bell with all her might, trying to comfort the soul trapped within it. She could feel it growing angrier – but not at her and the other two competitors; at the person who was hitting it.

  All at once blackfire shot up behind Filigree. He cursed the bell and started to bat the flames away with his fire-retardant gloves. Alexander and Carson Crevitch shuffled to the edge of the chalk circle, not sure what was going on – but scarcely able to believe their luck. Ivy studied Filigree closely. His white mask had started to melt in the heat and a face was emerging beneath it …

  A very green face.

  Six spindly legs burst free of Filigree’s stomach, and the spiky, mantis-like body of Jack-in-the-Green sprang out of the torn overcoat. What was left of the furniture trader’s Japanese Noh mask dripped like milk over the assassin’s smooth green features.

  Ivy stumbled back. François Filigree had been Jack-in-the-Green all along! But why had he used a costume to disguise himself, rather than shapeshifting? A large blue vase appeared behind Jack-in-the-Green’s spindly legs – the same size and shape to have been smuggled in under Filigree’s clothes.

  Ivy recognized it immediately: the Jar of Shadows.

  She had to get hold of it somehow. Jack-had-Green growled and lunged at her with his barbed pincers, but a barricade of black-and-purple flames rose up between the two of them, stopping him just in time.

  Ivy knew she needed to act before he could open the jar. She extended her senses towards the Grivens bell. Its voice was confused and frantic, intent on destroying Jack-in-the-Green. Before she had time to do anything about it, the fire gave one last roar, drowning out all other sounds – and then Jack-in-the-Green was engulfed in flames …

  Immediately her surroundings changed. The smoky-purple desert vanished and the spitting of flames was silenced. Instead, raucous applause and angry shouts spread through the air. They were back in the stadium.

  People were pointing and jeering. An underguard troop ran onto the stadium floor towards Jack-in-the-Green, who was shouting angrily, his skin charred and smoking. The Jar of Shadows was still standing on the other side of the Grivens table, unharmed.

  Nix Wolf came forward and announced, ‘Our champion is …’ He hesitated.

  Ivy saw her face appear on a materializer and was surprised that she didn’t look worse. Her skin was sooty, her hair frazzled and singed, but she didn’t have a scratch on her. That ancient shield must have protected her better than she’d expected. The materializers then showed a wheezing Alexander and Carson Crevitch, who both had blistered cheeks.

  ‘Ivy Sparrow!’ Nix Wolf decided finally.

  Ivy started. She was the winner?

  The crowd roared with delight, whistling and stamping their feet. There were a few loud boos, but Ivy was too overwhelmed to be bothered by them.

  She’d won; she’d actually won.

  Her skin tingled with shock. She caught Alexander’s eye as he and Carson Crevitch were led away by medical staff. He smiled at her weakly, obviously relieved that it was all over. Nobody had approached the Jar of Shadows yet; in all the chaos, it seemed to have escaped everyone’s notice.

  Ivy stepped carefully out of the chalk circle, still feeling wobbly, and began edging her way round the table towards the jar. She’d forgotten that Seb was behind her until he hugged her tightly. ‘Well done,’ he said, his voice breaking.

  With what strength Ivy had left, she shook him off. ‘Seb – the jar.’ She swatted away a cloud of floating snow-globe cameras as they zoomed closer. ‘People will see it – we have to get it out of here.’ She looked to where Selena Grimes had been sitting. Her chair was empty.

  Seb stepped inside the chalk circle and ran over to the jar. He bent down and put his arms around it. ‘It’s too heavy!’

  ‘Don’t try and lift it,’ Ivy cried. ‘If you drop it, you’ll release what’s inside.’ As she searched for a solution, she heard another roar from the spectators. She turned and saw that they were rushing onto the floor. Sprinting at the front of the pack was Valian, carrying Seb’s rucksack over one shoulder, with Ivy’s satchel slung across the other.

  He surveyed the scene then, without a word of explanation, dragged Ivy back inside the chalk circle and spun the Grivens board.

  The stadium vanished. Ivy gasped as a canopy of dark leaves appeared above her head and the crumbling ochre ruins of some ancient temple rose from the earth around her. The light faded and the air was filled with a hundred bird calls and the smell of the jungle.

  Valian ran across the forest floor to where Seb was struggling with the jar. ‘We’ve only got minutes before someone in the stadium connects a snow globe to the Krigvelt and can see us again,’ he said, tugging the Sack of Stars
out of his jacket.

  ‘Where are we going to send it?’ Seb asked.

  ‘I know,’ Ivy said, hurrying over and whispering something into the lining. ‘I’ll explain when we get there.’

  As she lowered her head into the sack, the jungle disappeared behind her.

  ‘Come on, come on.’ Ivy stared at the dark opening of the Sack of Stars, willing Seb and the Jar of Shadows to emerge in one piece. ‘What’s taking him so long?’

  Valian fiddled with his gloves. ‘I don’t know.’

  Ivy’s pulse was racing, but her body felt numb and heavy, as if the Grivens contest had sapped all her energy. She took a great lungful of air, trying to stay calm.

  It was quiet in her dad’s office. The lights were off but moonlight crept in through the large bay window that looked out onto the street.

  There was a scratchy rustle and the Jar of Shadows rolled out of the Sack of Stars onto the soft carpet. Ivy watched curiously as it enlarged from bag size to normal size … It gave her an idea.

  Seb sighed. ‘That was the most nerve-racking bag journey of my life. We so didn’t think it through. The jar could have smashed at any point.’

  ‘But it didn’t,’ Valian said, giving him a hand up. Between the three of them they managed to right the jar.

  Seb produced a feather from his rucksack. ‘I’m gonna send a message to Judy – let her and the others know we’re OK.’

  ‘All right, but …’ Valian scanned the piles of books, cardboard boxes and dusty microscopes in the room. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘I thought of a way to protect the jar,’ Ivy said. ‘It might be crazy, but I was thinking we could hide it in the museum.’

  ‘Here?’ Valian exclaimed. ‘But – the Dirge could easily breach the security in this building. It wouldn’t be safe.’

  ‘But they’ll never know it’s here,’ Ivy argued. ‘There are hundreds of jars just like it in the museum’s collection – I’ve seen them.’ She turned to Seb. ‘Do you still have the tape measure that Granma Sylvie gave you?’

  Seb stuffed a hand in his rucksack and rummaged around. ‘I think so, yeah …’

  Ivy thought of the jar travelling in the Sack of Stars. ‘What if we shrink the jar so that it can’t be recognized?’

  Valian rubbed his chin. ‘Go on …’

  She went over to a large cardboard box that was sitting open on a desk. ‘Objects are added to the museum’s collection all the time,’ she explained. ‘One of the things our dad does is date and classify everything before it’s put on display.’ She peered inside. ‘All we need to do is stuff the small Jar of Shadows in some bubble wrap and put it in here. Dad will assume it’s been sent with all these other artefacts.’

  She turned and examined the porcelain jar properly for the first time, running her fingers around the top. It didn’t have a lid. It was like a money box – the only way to open it would be to smash it. ‘It’ll be taken care of in here,’ Ivy said. ‘They’ll think it’s priceless.’

  ‘Technically it is,’ Seb pointed out. ‘If Dad tries to date it, he’ll realize it’s thousands of years old. You know what – this is just crazy enough that it might actually work.’

  Valian looked from one of them to the other and nodded. ‘All right, let’s do it.’

  Ivy stood guard by the door while Seb and Valian resized the jar using the uncommon tape measure. It was quiet in the corridor that led through into the museum when Ivy heard a scraping sound growing louder. She tensed as a shadow appeared behind the glass and she stumbled back as the door opened …

  ‘I came as soon as I got your message,’ Judy said, skating inside. She stopped to catch her breath. ‘I hadn’t even left the Grivens stadium.’ She caught sight of Seb, wrapping the miniature Jar of Shadows in bubble wrap. ‘Are you all OK?’

  ‘Just about,’ Ivy told her, smiling. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  A line appeared on Valian’s forehead. ‘You came from the stadium? But then how did you travel here so quickly? You couldn’t have used a bag.’

  ‘Er – no, obviously not.’ Judy shook her head but didn’t volunteer an explanation.

  ‘You must have snuck in really quietly too,’ Ivy remarked. ‘There are security guards everywhere.’

  Judy shrugged. ‘I’m too fast on my skates, I guess. They didn’t seem to notice me.’

  Ivy had heard the loud thrum of Judy’s roller skates out in the corridor; the security guards would surely have detected the sound too. Something didn’t make sense.

  She ran through the different ways in which uncommoners got around and remembered being startled when Johnny Hands had arrived almost immediately after she’d called him using his business card.

  But Judy couldn’t be dead, surely …

  Ivy relaxed her senses and allowed her whispering to spread out to the walls of the room. She could hear the Jar of Shadows and several uncommon objects mumbling incoherently, but there was another voice present in the air, something energetic and warm.

  Ivy’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re one of the dead, aren’t you? I can sense it with my whispering.’

  Judy went very still. ‘What?’ She tucked a strand of shiny hair behind her ear, her eyes flicking to Seb.

  ‘That’s how you read Dead Man’s Code,’ Valian said softly. ‘All the dead know how to read it.’

  Seb coughed. ‘Sorry – dead?’ The expression on his face was disbelieving. ‘No, you … you can’t be.’

  Judy examined her tutu, her voice wobbling. ‘I was going to tell you, but I thought you wouldn’t trust me any more.’

  Ivy’s skin tingled with shock. She thought back to the times she’d been near Judy, trying to understand why she hadn’t sensed that she was dead. There were broken souls everywhere in Lundinor; perhaps Judy’s had got lost in the din.

  Judy sniffed, trying to keep her emotions in check. ‘Look – the reason I came here was to warn you. At the end of the contest Selena was nowhere to be seen; and if the Dirge have been hunting for the Jar of Shadows this long, she’s going to do everything she can to get it back.’

  ‘She can’t follow us here – she doesn’t know where we’ve escaped to,’ Valian pointed out.

  ‘That’s why I think she’ll do something to bring you to her,’ Judy said. ‘Like use someone you love as bait; someone she can trace easily.’

  ‘Granma Sylvie,’ Ivy said, tensing. ‘Has she been in contact?’

  Judy shook her head. ‘Ethel was trying to get a featherlight to her when I left the stadium. Your granma still has no idea that you were entered in the Grivens contest.’

  Seb stopped glaring at Judy to refocus. ‘She must still be at the mansion. We have to go and check on her.’

  Valian picked up the Sack of Stars. ‘There’s no time to waste.’

  As he pulled the bag over his head, Seb scowled at Judy. ‘You can stay put. We don’t want liars coming with us.’

  The lights were on in the hallway of the Wrench Mansion. The place held bad memories from Ivy’s last visit – of escaping from Selena’s grim-wolf and fighting a host of vile dead creatures in the basement. Her senses were still on edge after the Grivens contest, and the mansion was a dangerous place. She stuffed the Sack of Stars into her satchel and brought out her yo-yo.

  With the weapon clutched in her hand, she took a few steps forward over the thick carpet. ‘Granma?’ she called uncertainly. ‘It’s Ivy and Seb!’

  ‘And Valian,’ Seb added, slipping his drumsticks out of his inside pockets.

  The house was full of cobwebs and shadows. Portraits of hard-eyed faces covered the walls – Ivy’s distant relatives.

  She heard a rustle at the top of the grand staircase and began to climb. ‘Granma?’

  There was a clatter, and then a door on the landing swung open. Silvery light came flooding out. Ivy almost tripped on the stairs. Seb and Valian stopped behind her.

  ‘Ivy?’ Granma Sylvie’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. Her voice was shaky.

&nb
sp; The three of them hurried up the last few steps but approached Granma Sylvie with caution.

  As the light fell across her face, Ivy realized that something serious had happened. Granma Sylvie’s eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. ‘What time is it?’ she asked, rubbing her forehead. There was an unfamiliar edge to her voice.

  ‘Before midnight,’ Ivy answered. She wasn’t sure of the exact time; she only knew that the Grivens contest had started at eight. ‘Are you OK? Has something happened? You haven’t been in touch all day.’

  Granma Sylvie sighed before two words slipped out of her mouth, and everything changed.

  ‘I remember.’

  In contrast to the rest of the gloomy Wrench Mansion, Granma Sylvie’s teenage bedroom shone with the spirit of rebellion. Set into the roof beams – just like Ivy’s own attic room – it had wallpaper of a shimmering sky blue, and linen curtains soft as clouds hung at the windows. Floating in the middle of the ceiling, an uncommon milk jug spilled pale light across every possible surface, illuminating the toys, books and odd knick-knacks Granma Sylvie had collected during her childhood.

  Ivy could see the moon outside despite the rain pattering against the glass. A London skyline spread out below; the mansion was temporarily residing in her home city.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked. She could see that Granma Sylvie had been rummaging through her things for a while – books and soft toys lay strewn across the floor, the wardrobe doors were open, and there were clean patches in the dust on the shelves where things had been moved around. ‘Did it all come back to you at once?’

  Granma Sylvie took a seat on the bed. ‘It was all to do with this room. I was so scared of setting foot in here, I’d persuaded the underguard to explore the mansion bottom up; that way, I wouldn’t have to face my bedroom – and all the secrets it might contain – till the very end.’

  Ivy came to sit next to her, placing her satchel on the floor.

  ‘After the underguard left I eventually plucked up the courage to come in,’ Granma Sylvie told them. ‘I was surprised by how familiar everything was. Each time I picked up an object or opened a drawer, a memory returned. That’s why I’ve been here so long.’ She laid a hand on her bed, stroking the dusty fabric. ‘I used to sit here and read with my mother, and we’d plan our Hobsmatch together in that mirror on the dressing table.’