‘And –’ I bite my lip. ‘How did they work out it was me? I know the Unseelie had their test – they elf-shot me or whatever – but how did the Seelie . . .?’
But Julian isn’t listening to me any more. His head is cocked, his eyes glazed over, like he’s listening to some faraway music. ‘I have to go,’ he says mechanically.
‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘Answer the question.’
But he isn’t listening. ‘I have to go,’ he says again, and he’s on his feet, moving towards the open window.
‘No,’ I say. I grab his arm, but he shakes me off. I jump on his back, but it’s like he doesn’t notice, not even when I pull his hair or slap his face.
It’s horrifying. There’s no life behind his eyes. There’s nothing there. It’s like he’s not in there.
I have to let him go before he carries me right out the window with him. I feel like I should tie him down the way he and Holly tied me down, but there’s no way I could manage to restrain him, not on my own. All I can do is watch as he goes and hope against hope that the sharktooth man isn’t still lurking around outside, looking for a new heart to add to his collection.
I have no idea how I would even begin to explain that to Phil.
I have to steel myself to open my curtains the next morning. The sharktooth man is not there. And neither is Julian’s dismembered body, thank God.
I check Facebook. Phil tagged him as being with her at her favourite breakfast cafe about half an hour ago. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
I write up everything I can think of from last night and DM it to Finn. I wonder how he feels about this. I’m not that emotionally attached to either Julian or Holly-Anne (yes, I am a terrible person, shut up), but I can’t imagine what this must feel like for Finn, knowing that his longtime ladyfriend is being . . . I don’t know, used, I guess, by the same people that are trying to whisk him away.
People that he is technically one of.
I spend a lot of time working out how to phrase BTW, you’re immortal. There is no internet advice column or etiquette guide that can help with that one.
A well of anger bubbles up in me. I did not consent to Them making my life look like this, Seelie or Unseelie.
Cardy. I can’t believe that this is the first day of the rest of my life without Cardy in it.
They are going to regret laying a finger on him. I am going to make them bleed.
‘Disey not home yet?’ I ask Shad as I pad out to the kitchen. There’s a black cat on the windowsill. I wonder if it’s George.
‘Nope,’ he replies, yawning hugely. ‘She sent me a text at about 4am – looks like she’ll be there well into the afternoon.’
Thank God for that. If she came home and the sharktooth man was waiting . . . I suppress a shudder. ‘Did you have a good night?’
‘Oh, you know, nothing unusual,’ he says, yawning again. ‘Helena came round for a bit on her break – by the way, since when are you allergic to cats?’
‘I’ve always been allergic to cats,’ I protest. ‘They make me sneeze, remember?’ I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping he believes me. There is no way I could ever pull a fast one like this on Disey.
‘Really? Wow, that one went completely over my head.’ He gets up and opens the fridge. ‘I’d offer you tea, Pearlie, but we’re out of milk and I’m about to go to bed.’
‘I’ll go and get some!’ I offer brightly.
Shad groans. ‘Pearlie, you know Disey doesn’t like you driving!’
I wonder what she would say if she knew that there was a cabal of evil fairies that wanted to kill me. She’d probably help Holly and Julian tie me down herself.
‘Shad, I’m fine,’ I insist. And I am not going to stay inside just because someone tells me to. They can’t control me. They won’t control me.
We have a face-off for a few seconds before he relents.
‘The only reason I am agreeing to this,’ he says, pointing his finger at me, ‘is because I’m really, really tired. I am not in my right mind. And I expect you to testify that when this inevitably comes up in front of a court of law.’
‘I will, I will!’ I say. ‘Thanks, Shad!’
I run quickly back to my room and throw on some clothes before grabbing Shad’s car keys. I’m about to make a break for it out the front door and hope that in the four metres or so between the verandah and the car I’m not tackled by the otherworldly hordes of the Unseelie when I remember what Julian told me last night.
I go back to the kitchen and put two slices of bread in the toaster. I shrug my jacket off and turn it inside out, then do the same for my socks. I root around in the cupboard. Vegemite. That’s salty.
I poke around in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and find some old iron supplement tablets. I’m not sure if the supplement iron and the metal iron are the same thing but I figure it can’t hurt to take them with me anyway. I slip them in my bag, slather my toast in Vegemite, and head out the door.
Take that, evil fairies.
My first stop is OverWrought, a place which does fancy-pants wrought iron in town. I feel nervous being out in public when there are about a billion things out here trying to kill me or whisk me away to live on a cloud or whatever, but I steel myself and tell myself that it’s all iron in here, so there is probably nowhere safer from fairies in the whole town.
‘Hi,’ I say to the dude behind the counter. ‘I have a bit of a strange request. I don’t suppose – you have any scraps lying round, do you?’
‘Scraps? How big?’
‘You see, I have this friend,’ I lie, ‘and she’s obsessed with wrought iron – like, the look and feel of it, you know? Anyway, it’s her birthday soon, so I thought I’d get her . . . sort of a pendant? Something she could wear on a necklace. Something a bit unusual, you know?’
Please have it, please have it, please have it, I chant in my head.
‘Let me just go out into the workshop and see what we have,’ he says.
I browse idly in the shop while he rattles around out the back. There are some beautiful things in here – candlesticks, fire grates and a coat rack so intricate and beautiful it almost makes me salivate. I wish I were richer, so I could afford it all. I’d challenge any fairy to come near me with this much iron around. I have a brief mental flash of myself brandishing the coat rack, surrounded by an army of sharktooth men and saying, ‘You can’t get me, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah’.
‘Here we are,’ the iron man says, emerging and rattling a handful of iron pieces down onto the counter. ‘Take your pick.’
The piece I choose is long and curved – it fits my hand perfectly when I close my fist around it – and it has a hole near the top through which I reckon I could thread a chain. ‘Thank you so much,’ I say gratefully. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Oh, nothing – it’s just scrap.’
‘No, I insist,’ I say firmly. I’m not going to take something which might well save my life for free.
He smiles. ‘How about a gold coin donation to the till, then?’
I smile back and hand him three two-dollar coins. ‘Thank you again – you’re a lifesaver,’ I say, and mean every single word.
‘Oh, darl?’ he says as I turn to leave.
‘Yes?’
‘Your jacket’s inside out.’
‘Thanks,’ I say vaguely, and leave. The iron bell above the door jingles. I wonder if I could get one of those.
I head down towards the bookshop. I doubt it’s going to have anything like what I’m looking for, but I figure it’s better to try than die not knowing. I spend about twenty minutes browsing before I give up. I try asking the shop assistant whether they have anything on fairytales, but the only thing she can pull up is the Grimm brothers and did I know my jacket was inside out, and I don’t think that’s really what I’m looking for.
I sigh. I’m going to have to write down a list of books from the fairy websites I’ve been frequenting and try and order them. B
ecause I have so much spare cash lying around to spend on fairy books.
I go into the Thai takeaway and pick up lunch for Disey – she’s way less likely to yell at me later for being out the house if I feed her delicious noodles now – then duck into the newsagency and buy some milk and a copy of the paper. It’s normally weekly but I guess missing kids and gruesome murders warrant special editions. Local Teen Missing: Jessup Killer Suspected is the headline, with a big picture of Cardy and a smaller one of Marie. I fold it in half and tuck it under my arm. I won’t think about this – I can’t think about this – until I get home and am ensconced in the bedroom with my iron pendant, several loaves of bread, some salt close to hand and every single article of my clothing on the wrong way.
The black cat crosses my path the second I leave the shop.
I freeze, panic coursing through my body. It crossed my path. What do I do?
Find a new path, some sensible part of my brain suggests.
I turn, but there’s another cat there as well. I turn the other way, but – oh God. I’m surrounded.
I pull out my phone and find the anti-black-cat charm I put in it. I turn around the required thirteen times and recite the charm.
Nothing. Thanks, internet. So much.
Okay. So they’ve crossed my path. I have no possible avenue of escape down a path they have not crossed. So I’m just going to have to live with that and wear the bad luck. Like my luck could get any worse anyway.
I walk determinedly forward towards the first cat and then stop abruptly. I try to move my foot, but it’s rooted to the ground. I try the other one. It won’t move either, not until I take a step back.
Crap. It’s not just that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck. These aren’t just any black cats. These are freaking magical Unseelie cats of death. If they cross your path, you literally cannot take that path.
I’m stuck. I have no avenue of escape. I’m going to have to stand here outside this newsagency until all the shops close and the sun goes down and the streets are deserted and then – oh God oh God oh God.
My mind suddenly goes on fast forward. I bolt back into the shop, down the back, vault over the post office counter at the back – ‘You can’t go back there!’ the assistant protests – and tear out through the back door.
But of course they’re not that stupid.
The back door of the newsagency swings shut behind me. I press myself against the wall. Thirteen black cats surround me in a semi-circle, and I swear they’re smiling. I’ve walked right into their trap.
I look desperately around. The alley is deserted. I dig into my pocket and pull out my iron pendant. ‘I’m not afraid to use this,’ I say, determined to keep my voice steady.
One of the cats hisses. They start advancing. I clutch my iron shard in front of me, but I know it’s not going to do any good. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
Their faces flash before my eyes – Disey – Shad – Phil – Cardy – Finn. I’m never going to see them again.
The black cats twine round my ankles. I shriek and try to kick them away, but there are too many to fight. They leap up my legs, digging their claws into my jeans, and swarm up my body. I scream and lash out with the iron pendant. One falls away, yowling, and the smell of singed fur fills the air. I lash out again but another cat digs its claws into my wrist and I drop the iron. One leaps onto my head and I scream again, but –
‘Hey!’
There is the sound of running footsteps and suddenly I’m drenched. The cats shriek and flee, seeming to almost melt away. I’m frozen, shaking.
‘Are you all right?’ Kel Greene asks, rushing towards me.
‘I – I –’ Do not cry, Linford, do not cry! ‘I hate cats!’
‘I can see why!’ he says. ‘They were all over you, you poor thing!’
‘Thank you,’ I say, clutching at his arm. ‘Thank you so much!’
‘Hey, it was nothing – just a well-timed bucket of water,’ he says. ‘I work in the fruit and veg shop, and when I heard you scream, well . . .’
You saved my life, I want to say. ‘But I thought you worked at the pool now,’ I say stupidly instead.
‘Can’t a man have two jobs?’ he says.
‘Yeah – yeah – sorry – didn’t mean to pry,’ I babble. I stoop to pick up my iron pendant. I have to get this thing round my neck ASAP. It’s no good to me if I drop it.
‘Do you want to get into some dry clothes?’ he offers. ‘I’m sure we’ve got a couple of old uniforms hanging around.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘but I probably should be getting home.’
‘But you’re soaked!’
‘I’ll be okay,’ I say firmly. It may not have worked great guns on the cats, but no one is getting this inside-out jacket off me without a fight. ‘Thanks again, Kel.’
‘When am I going to see you back at the pool again?’ he asks.
When I’m not being pursued by the dread denizens of the underworld. ‘Soon, I hope,’ I say.
‘You’re shivering,’ he says. ‘Come on, Pearl, you have to put some dry clothes on.’
‘I – think I have some in my car,’ I lie. ‘But do you mind if I go out through your shop? It’ll be a short cut.’
‘Sure,’ he says.
I look both ways as soon as I leave the fruit and veg shop, and then bolt back to the car as fast as my legs will carry me. I sit in the front seat panting and clutching my iron pendant for several long moments. I lean my head against the steering wheel, trying to get myself under control. Breathe, Linford, breathe, I tell myself, but I’m breathing so much I’m hyperventilating, and I hate this I hate this I HATE THIS.
I can’t call Finn. He’ll come charging in here like some knight ready for a joust and I don’t have the emotional energy to manage his death wish right now. (Ironic, for someone that can’t freaking die.) I just – I need to pull myself together.
I am so angry. I am SO ANGRY. How dare they do this to me? To Marie? To Cardy? How dare they?
I grit my teeth. These bitches are going down. Even if I have to take every single one of them down myself.
The Thai food I bought for Disey has miraculously survived my encounter with the nightmare cats of hell (maybe I do have superpowers after all). She’s out on assignment when I get to the Independent office, but Viv tells me she’ll be back soon, so I decide to wait. Maybe it’s petty and maybe it’s dangerously stupid, but the Seelie are not going to confine me to my house, damn it.
I sit at Disey’s desk and flick through the paper while I wait. I stare for a long time at Cardy’s smiling face on the cover. It’s a picture of him from the Indigenous youth organisation that he runs, and he’s helping these little kids with their homework, and I don’t know how I could have ever thought for a second that this boy was evil when it’s clear that he is good, good, good, all the way to the bone good.
Was. He was good.
Disey has a report on page three. Apparently, the last person to see Cardy was Jenny. They left together at 1.15am and then split to go to their separate houses. I think that means Finn and I had been gone for about twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. Jenny tried calling Cardy about an hour later but he didn’t pick up. Several witnesses from the club had been interviewed, but while some people remembered seeing them leave, no one remembered seeing Cardy afterwards.
I wonder if they interviewed Shad. I bet Disey would have been real pleased that he was hanging about in some teenage hotspot with Helena. A hotspot that was also a crime scene. That Helena didn’t lie to me about, like any sane person would.
The conclusion is obvious.
No, no, hang on, Pearl. You’re forgetting who else was there. Sharktooth man.
But who is sharktooth man, really – apart from totally freaky and incredibly scary? He looked pretty normal when he first asked me to dance, but that was obviously a mask, because I’ve seen his real face and it is not normal. Finn can make himself look like Cardy and make me look like Holly in a s
nap and he is pretty much a baby fairy and, by his own admission, not that good at using his magical Seelie powers. The sharktooth man is obviously some Unseelie contract killer or something: but who is to say that he isn’t also someone I know? Someone whose everyday face is a mask hiding their true, terrifying, frozen-hearted murdering self?
Who is to say that it isn’t Helena?
I think back. I remember seeing Shad over the sharktooth man’s shoulder when we were dancing, because that’s what helped me break free of – whatever it was he was doing to my mind. But I don’t remember seeing Helena.
OMG. Sharktooth man is Helena. Sharktooth man is totally Helena.
And she’s probably in this building right now. This building where MY SISTER WORKS.
I dig into my bag until I find the salt shaker I put in there this morning. I clutch it in my hand like pepper spray. I slip out of Disey’s office and tiptoe down to Helena’s at the end of the hall. I’m about to try and do my best subtle-peering-in-through-the-window act when strains of the conversation float out from inside.
‘. . . thanks for taking the time to meet with me today, Ms Thornton. You’ve been really helpful – and I know this is a busy time.’
‘Not at all,’ I hear Helena say warmly. ‘I’m always interested to hear from young people who want to go into this line of work.’
‘It’s going to be really useful information,’ Cam Davidson says.
Cam wants to be a journalist? Um, I think not. You cannot tell me that this is a career chat – at least, not a journalism career chat. Cam is on Team Unseelie and he and Helena are talking about his career as a supervillain.
Oh man, I only just got through the ‘you’re a wizard, Harry’ moment with Finn. How the hell am I supposed to tell him that his best friend has been an Unseelie spy this whole time?
‘I certainly hope so,’ Helena says. ‘Now, I should let you go – I’m sure you have friends you need to get back to – it’s such a sad time, we all need our friends around us.’
I hear a scrape as Cam pushes his chair back. ‘Thanks again, Ms Thornton.’
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