The Crooked Sixpence

by Jennifer Bell

  ‘You’re paranoid,’ Seb said, striding past her. ‘You know that, right? All the books you read have, like, twisted your mind or something.’

  Ivy marched after him. ‘I’m not making this up,’ she insisted. ‘There was a man in there with gross hands, and as we were leaving A and E, I heard a nurse say that Granma’s notes had gone missing. What if it was the man who took them?’

  Seb sighed. ‘Ivy, that guy – whoever he was – was obviously just a patient or something. Like, a burns victim. Maybe he was crazy like you. Whatever, anyway – I just want to get inside and eat.’

  Ivy yanked angrily on the strap of Granma Sylvie’s handbag as she swept past Seb towards the front door. If books had ‘twisted her mind’, then playing the drums had made her brother deaf to reason. He never listened to her. Ever.

  ‘Ivy . . .’ All of a sudden Seb’s voice sounded odd.

  ‘What?’ she snapped, turning back to him. He was holding a shaky finger out towards the house. Ivy followed it and almost tripped over. She didn’t understand how she could have missed it . . .

  The front door was ajar. The frame was splintered, and there were deep scratch marks around the lock.

  Seb lowered his finger to his side as if he wasn’t sure whether to stay or run. Finally he whispered, ‘Police.’ He got out his phone and tapped the screen. Ivy could see it from where she was standing. The words No Service flashed as he tried to make the call. Perfect.

  ‘What do we do?’ she asked.

  Seb tiptoed over the gravel towards the house and peered in through the front windows. ‘The curtains are drawn,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll have to go in and use the landline.’

  Ivy nodded. Right. Good idea. ‘What about me?’

  Seb looked back at the door. ‘We’ll go in together; you stay behind me.’

  As Ivy set foot over the threshold, her skin prickled. There was a slow scratching noise coming from inside, like thick wallpaper being ripped off a wall.

  Her eyes flitted into the shadows of the hallway. She just about recognized Granma Sylvie’s antique writing desk – the one with the curling legs and tea-stained top – toppled over on the floor. The drawers were all missing and a pile of thick cream writing paper had been strewn across the carpet.

  Seb removed a walking stick from an upturned umbrella stand and raised it above his head. As Ivy followed him, her mind raced. That scratching noise was definitely getting louder the further they went into the house. She wondered what could be making it. She waited as Seb paused to open the kitchen door.

  ‘Ready?’ He reached for the doorknob with a trembling hand.

  Ivy nodded. As the door opened and the air from the kitchen slipped out, she caught a strong whiff of damp dog. Strange. The kitchen never smelled of anything other than baking.

  The lights were already on, even though Ivy was certain she’d turned them off before they got into the ambulance. Her heart raced as she inched forward. To her left, the kitchen cupboards were minus their doors. Fragments of wood, exploded food cans and torn packets lay scattered across the worktops, and smashed crockery filled the sink. A dirty patch on the wall was the only evidence of where the fridge used to stand. It now lay belly-up on the kitchen tiles, its contents pooling out like vomit.

  Ivy took a few steps forward, crunching over spilled breakfast cereal and vegetables. Her gaze fell upon a set of muddy animal tracks trailing across the kitchen floor.

  Seb’s voice was faint. ‘Over there . . .’

  Ivy drew her eyes away from the prints and followed his hovering finger . . . Right across the opposite wall three words had appeared:

  WE CAN SEE

  Each of the letters was the size of a dinner plate and appeared to have been scratched into the pastel wallpaper, which now revealed the blood-red of the previous decor.

  The implement inflicting this damage, she saw, was a feather – large, glossy and black.

  As it continued to write, it hovered in the air like a wasp; then, after scoring two further words into the wall, it disappeared with an indignant puff. In its place, a tiny silver coin materialized, dropping to the floor with a ping.

  With a gasp, Ivy read the words in all their bloody glory:

  WE CAN SEE YOU NOW

  Chapter Three

  Seb paced up and down the kitchen floor, carving a path through the smashed glass and food tins with his trainers. He was holding what remained of Granma Sylvie’s only telephone. The receiver was broken and the cord had been ripped out of the base.

  Ivy steadied herself against the back of a chair. Her skin was prickling with shock. ‘You saw it flying too – right? What was it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Seb’s face was stony. He rubbed his hands down the back of his jeans. Ivy could see sweat forming on his brow. ‘What does We can see you now even mean?’ He gestured around the room. ‘And the break-in doesn’t make any sense. I’ve checked the other rooms downstairs but it doesn’t look like anything’s been stolen. Whoever was here, they’ve just trashed the place.’

  Ivy scanned the room again, picking out what remained of her granma’s unique furniture, old books and favourite photos. Her throat swelled. Most of what Granma Sylvie had collected over the years was irreplaceable. Ivy couldn’t understand what someone would gain from destroying it. It didn’t make sense.

  As Seb put the phone down on the kitchen table, she studied the animal tracks again. She splayed out her fingers. The prints were at least four times the size of her hand. Whatever animal had been here, it was much bigger than a domestic pet.

  ‘There’s no way to call the police from here now,’ Seb said. ‘We’ll have to cycle towards Bletchy Scrubb till we get mobile signal and then try Mum and Dad.’

  Ivy nodded in agreement as the wall behind her crackled. She rotated slowly till she was facing it again. ‘Are you seeing that?’ she asked.

  Seb swallowed.

  The We can see you now was disappearing shred by shred, as if the wallpaper was repairing itself like living skin.

  Seb dragged his hands down his face, pulling his cheeks as if trying to wake himself up. ‘Why is this getting worse?’

  Ivy clenched her fists. The only way to stop herself from freaking out was to try to understand what was going on. There must be some logic to it. She re-ran the last ten minutes from the beginning. Granma Sylvie’s front door . . . the scratching . . . the fridge . . . the animal tracks . . . the feather . . . the coin.

  The coin.

  Ivy searched the kitchen tiles and spotted it in a puddle of tomato soup.

  ‘Careful,’ Seb warned as she bent to retrieve it.

  Ivy’s fingers floated above the coin for a moment before she picked it up and wiped it off. It was about the size of a one pence piece, except silver and bent slightly in the middle, so that it hugged the curve of her palm. After a split-second she discovered something else. The coin was warm; like it had been left out in the sun.

  ‘Anything?’ Seb asked, stepping closer.

  Ivy tossed the coin into her opposite hand to discover that the temperature wasn’t the only odd thing about it. It was as if the coin was tickling her, leaving behind a strange – but not unpleasant – tingle on her skin. Squinting, she held it up to the light. The metal was worn in places but she could still make out words written around the outside. ‘It says: Blackclaw, Ragwort, Wolfsbane and Dirge.’ She looked up. ‘What do you think they mean?’

  Seb jerked his head back. ‘How do I know? Maybe it’s one of Granma’s old antiques. She sold coins in her shop, didn’t she?’

  Ivy thought back to the little leaded windows of Granma Sylvie’s antique shop in Bletchy Scrubb – she’d run it with Granpa Ernest right up until his death. ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘But they weren’t like this.’

  Seb’s shoulders stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

  The coin was still warm, which was weird enough, but now Ivy felt another sensation, something she couldn’t quite identify. It was like the difference between holdi
ng a stuffed toy cat and a real cat. It was the feeling of holding . . . life.

  ‘I mean . . .’

  Something brushed at the edge of her hearing – a voice? She hesitated. No, she must be imagining it.

  ‘What I mean,’ she said again, ‘is that Granma’s coins didn’t exactly appear out of thin air. And this one did.’

  Just then a clatter sounded from somewhere at the front of the house.

  Seb’s head shot round. ‘What was that?’

  Before Ivy could answer, the noise came again, followed by the rumble of voices.

  They were not alone.

  Chapter Four

  Ivy’s skin turned to ice. ‘What if that’s them – the people who did this?’

  Seb hurried towards the back door. ‘Let’s not wait to find out.’ He leaped over the remains of a china vase and shot through the patio doors into the garden. Ivy pushed the silver coin into her coat pocket and scrambled after him.

  The rain sounded like a snare drum as it hit the flagstones. Ivy tried to keep her balance as she followed Seb round the corner and into the alley between the house and a neighbouring field. She wiped her eyes clumsily, completely forgetting that she had a hood.

  ‘Ivy, watch it!’ Seb called.

  She ground to a stop, arms flailing. Beside the toe of her wellington boot was a large brown hessian sack, the soil spilling out of it. Granma Sylvie’s potatoes. Ivy winced. She’d grown them in that sack for ever. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

  Carefully she hopped over it and inched towards Seb, who was crouching down next to the garage at the front of the house. The rain chimed off its corrugated-iron roof, masking the sound of her footsteps. She tucked herself behind a section of dense yew hedge and angled her head till she could see. Her jaw dropped.

  What the—?

  In Granma Sylvie’s drive stood a funeral coach, complete with four black horses. It was long and rectangular, with glass sides and a strip of ornate carving along the top. Every inch had been lacquered with ebony gloss which matched the head-feathers of the horses. Ivy had seen something like it only once before, on the way to school. Her mum had slowed to let it pass. That coach had been carrying a coffin. This one was empty.

  No . . . wait.

  Ivy squinted. It wasn’t empty. Inside she could see a boy. His image was made fuzzy by the rain, but he had dark hair and cinnamon-brown skin. He was sitting with his knees up and his hands clasped around them, his head bent so Ivy couldn’t see his face.

  ‘Seb!’ she hissed, but his gaze was fixed elsewhere: on Granma Sylvie’s doorstep. Ivy turned to see what was going on.

  Standing beneath the porch were two men in matching black uniforms: a balding, red-faced fellow with a huge belly and, beside him, a tall lean figure with slicked-back hair, chalky skin and dark glasses. Both men wore ankle-length cloaks, gloves with gleaming silver studs across the knuckles and hats shaped like a pirate’s tricorne.

  ‘Shall I use this now, sir?’ the red-faced man asked. ‘Try to flush out anyone who might still be here?’ In his hand was a large conch shell – one of the spiky, salt-encrusted ones you found on rocky beaches. When the other man didn’t reply, he said, ‘Officer Smokehart, sir?’

  The tall man turned towards him slowly, his chin raised. ‘Lower the shell,’ he said. His voice sent chills shooting down the back of Ivy’s neck. It sounded like a knife – vicious and cold. ‘If there’s anyone inside, we don’t want to give them time to escape. They might reveal something useful under questioning.’

  Ivy shivered. There was something about Officer Smokehart that wasn’t quite natural. Maybe it was the way he was standing: straight-backed and still, like a robot.

  ‘Just imagine, Constable,’ he breathed, steepling his thin fingers, ‘what answers might lie behind this door; what dark revelations we might find festering in the shadows. For over forty years we’ve lived without knowing the truth of what happened that night.’

  ‘Twelfth Night,’ the constable said, a little uncertainly, setting the conch down on the ground.

  Smokehart gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, of course Twelfth Night. It is the greatest unexplained mystery of the modern era. The entire Wrench family – a mother, father, daughter and three brothers – disappear on one fateful night. We don’t know why they vanished, or how. We don’t even know what role they played during the Great Battle . . . until now.’ His thin lips curled into a smile. ‘The quartermasters will have no choice but to promote me for this, mark my words.’

  The constable gulped and stood to attention. He looked at the broken lock. ‘Looks like we’re not the first ones here, though, sir.’

  Officer Smokehart peered down through his dark glasses. Ivy wondered why he was wearing them – it wasn’t as if it was sunny.

  ‘She has many enemies,’ he said, considering. ‘It’s possible that one of them has got to her before us. Arm yourself.’

  The constable nodded quickly, swept back his cloak and pulled out . . .

  Ivy squinted. Surely she was seeing this wrong. The rain was distorting her vision; it must be. White plastic. Long handle. Rounded head of bristles.

  No, it was a toilet brush. As Smokehart drew an identical one from the loop on his belt, Ivy noticed something else. The bristles were moving slightly. If she concentrated hard enough through the drumming of the rain, she could hear them crackling. And what was that jumping from the end . . . sparks?

  Ivy’s legs started to tremble.

  From his crouched position, Seb waved at her furiously, his nostrils flaring. He signalled towards the far gate, where their bikes were leaning against the fence.

  Ivy nodded down the road towards Bletchy Scrubb. That’s where they needed to go.

  ‘Don’t think we should spend long here, sir,’ the constable commented, pushing open the front door. ‘We’ve got that young tea-leaf in the carriage – needs to be taken back to Lundinor for processing.’

  Smokehart raised pencil-thin eyebrows above his dark glasses. ‘Not long? Constable, if this really is where Sylvie Wrench has been hiding for forty years, then we will stay as long as is necessary to uncover whatever evidence may be inside.’ Holding his toilet brush aloft, he marched over the threshold into the hallway beyond. The constable followed.

  The name Sylvie Wrench was ringing in Ivy’s ears as she saw Seb getting to his feet. Sylvie . . .

  She walked slowly, as if in a dream.

  Granma . . .

  ‘Ivy,’ Seb mouthed. ‘Bikes.’

  She snapped back to reality and followed Seb across the gravel to collect her bike. Her wet hands trembled as she tugged her hood back and fumbled with the strap of her helmet. Sylvie Wrench . . . Twelfth Night . . . Her head was spinning. She got onto her bike and put her foot on the pedal.

  And then a voice like thunder filled the air: ‘This is Officer Smokehart of the First Cohort of Lundinor Underguard! You are breaking GUT law. Remain where you are, by command of the Four Quartermasters of Lundinor!’

  Chapter Five

  Ivy shrieked, ‘Seb, go!’ She slung Granma Sylvie’s bag across her back before kicking away from the ground. Up ahead, Seb’s wheels squealed as he shot onto the tarmac and skidded round a corner.

  Ivy flashed a look over her shoulder, pedalling frantically. Officer Smokehart was in Granma Sylvie’s porch, holding the conch shell to his lips. The constable had already climbed aboard the black coach.

  Rising up off the saddle, Ivy pushed down on the pedals as hard as she could. What sounded like a hailstorm started up behind her, drawing closer.

  The horses . . . !

  The coach was on the road.

  ‘Stay close to me,’ Seb shouted. ‘This way!’ He turned off the road, darting through a small gap in the hedgerow and heading into a field. ‘They’re too big to come after us,’ he yelled. ‘They’ll have to go the long way round.’

  Ivy could see what he was planning. Ahead of them, the road curved round the edge of the field. Seb was cycling straight across the g
rass towards an open gate on the opposite side. If they were lucky, they’d get there before the coach.

  Ivy hurtled after him. Her bike squeaked and groaned over the bumpy ground. Glancing back, she could see the top of the coach above the hedgerow – it was gaining on them now. The constable was craning forward, flicking a whip through the air, while the horses’ head-feathers tossed around madly.

  ‘They’re catching up!’ Ivy warned. She didn’t know how much longer she and Seb could stay in front.

  ‘Go faster,’ he yelled at her, his cheeks bright red, his legs a blur. ‘We have to make it!’

  Ivy surged forward into the battering rain. Seb was only metres away from the gate.

  ‘Ivy!’ he shouted, crossing the road.

  She looked back at the coach, which was nearly upon them. She caught a glimpse of the dark-haired boy inside, pushing against the glass, steadying himself against the jolts.

  Smokehart’s voice filled the air again. ‘STOP WHERE YOU ARE!’

  Ivy faltered as she reached the road. The horses were metres away. She stared helplessly at Seb. His eyes were wide. She screamed his name, and then . . .

  The carriage was between them.

  A splintering, creaking noise split the air. The constable howled. Ivy was thrown head first off her bike; her helmet took the worst of the impact as she thudded into the hard earth beside the road. Granma Sylvie’s bag crunched painfully against her ribs and cold mud splashed onto her cheeks.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw a face: angled cheekbones, dark-chocolate eyes, skin like polished teak.

  It was the boy from the coach.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked. The rain had soaked his long, straggly hair and was running down onto his shoulders.

  ‘Uh . . .’ Ivy murmured. Her brain felt like it was made of marshmallow. She struggled with the strap of her helmet and eventually tugged it off. ‘What happened?’