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Goodly and Grave in a Bad Case of Kidnap

Page 11

by Justine Windsor


  Lucy frowned. “But I thought you said you were one of the first children Lord Grave targeted and Amethyst rescued you?”

  “Yes, that’s right. But I thought I was a one-off, the only child she’d rescued. I had no idea what she was doing.”

  “So how did you find out?”

  “She came back late one night with one of the children. She thought I was asleep, but it was a clear night and I’d stayed up and sneaked out on to the tower roof. I’m very keen on astronomy, you see. So I saw she had a boy with her when she came back. And then she explained what she was doing. Since then I’ve helped her look after the children she rescues.”

  “I still don’t quite understand how Amethyst can leave here to do the rescuing? Doesn’t that mean she has to use magic? I thought she’d lost her magic when she fought with Lord Grave and the others?” Although Lucy remembered that Amethyst had mentioned she could use magic temporarily, she had never explained how this was possible.

  “Her special mental abilities, you mean?”

  “Can’t we just call it magic? It makes it less confusing?”

  “But it’s not accurate!”

  “Oh, never mind. Just tell me!”

  “Well, Mother says she hid some of her abilities here in the Tower a long time ago because she was worried Grave might get her. She can absorb enough of them to leave for a few hours and do what she needs to. But she can’t stay away for longer than that because all her abilities would weaken and she wouldn’t be able to come back.”

  “So the Tower sort of tops her magic up? Like refilling a jug?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I see. Bertie, when I saw Amethyst for the very first time, she didn’t seem like she was on a rescue mission. She was playing poker.”

  Bertie shrugged. “She gambles now and again. She says we need the money.”

  Lucy was silent for a while, weighing up what Bertie had told her. It all sort of made sense still. But what about the wails she’d heard last night and Kathleen’s odd behaviour? And what about the strange conversation she’d overheard between Havoc and Nevermore? A bad feeling began to grow inside Lucy, but she tried to ignore it for now and concentrated instead on rolling the snowman’s body. When it was finished, she and Bertie helped Violet attach the head.

  “It needs a face,” Violet declared when the snowman was complete.

  Bertie handed Violet three lumps of coal he’d brought for the snowman’s eyes and nose.

  “But he has to have a mouth too!” Violet pointed out.

  “We can find something for his mouth tonight and bring it to him tomorrow,” Bertie replied. “We need to get home now. It’ll be dark soon.”

  “You’re very quiet tonight, Lucy, are you still tired?” Amethyst said that evening when they were all sitting round the fire in her sitting room, drinking their bedtime hot chocolate.

  Lucy nodded, glad for a way to explain her worried silence.

  “Drink up your chocolate – that’ll help.”

  Lucy took a small sip. It was very soothing. She took another sip. It tasted rich and delicious. Her worries and suspicions began to fade. The cries she’d heard … well, she could have been half-asleep and imagined them. As for the conversation between Havoc and Nevermore, maybe she’d misheard what they’d said? Or misunderstood. It could all be perfectly innocent. When Havoc had said Amethyst spins a good yarn, he could have been talking about Amethyst’s wonderful bedtime stories. Lucy decided she really was worrying about nothing. Amethyst was a wonderful, brave person who could be completely trusted.

  She was about to take another mouthful of her hot chocolate when Bertie snatched it from her, gulping down the whole lot in one go. He handed the empty cup back to her, smiling cheekily. Lucy was about to tell him off, especially as he’d done the same thing the night before. But Amethyst got there first.

  “Bertie!” Amethyst shouted. “What are you doing? How dare you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Lucy said quickly, shocked at the way Amethyst had spoken to Bertie, whom she clearly adored.

  “Of course it does!” Amethyst’s eyes were glowing with rage.

  Bertie looked aghast. “I’m-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “He only took a tiny drop. I’d drunk most of it.”

  This seemed to calm Amethyst down.

  “Well, that’s good. Bertie, don’t let me catch you doing that again. It’s most ungallant. Now, off to bed, everyone, except for you, Kathleen. I have some more exciting news to share about your new family!”

  An hour after turning in, Lucy was still lying awake. Violet was sleeping soundly in the bed opposite. The Tower was peaceful. All Lucy could hear was the crackle and snap of the logs burning in the fireplace. Pulling the fur coverlet up under her chin she willed herself to stay awake and wait for Kathleen to return from her chat with Amethyst. But time dragged on and there was no sign of Kathleen. Lucy began to drift off …

  “No, noooo!”

  Lucy snapped fully awake and leaped out of bed, her heart racing. She definitely was not imagining that.

  Someone began crying.

  The crying grew louder, turned to wails.

  Lucy ran over to Violet’s bed, expecting the wailing to wake the little girl any second. But Violet was still fast asleep. Lucy shook her gently, then not so gently.

  Violet slept on.

  The wailing continued. A girl, Lucy was sure of it. Not a woman, a girl.

  Kathleen. It had to be.

  Even though the wails filled Lucy with fear, she knew she had to find out what was happening. So she pulled on her clothes, lit a candle, then crept out of the bedroom and began tiptoeing down the twisting stone staircase, following the sounds. The closer she got to the bottom, the better she could hear the terrible heart-wrenching sobs. They made her want to run back to the safety of her bed and forget about finding out more. But she made herself carry on. She stole down the remaining steps and along the corridor.

  A large black rat scurried across Lucy’s path, the only animal apart from Nevermore that Lucy had ever seen in the Tower. It stopped in front of her, raised itself on its hind legs and sniffed the air, whiskers twitching, head turning from side to side.

  But Lucy wasn’t afraid. It was just a rat and she’d once shared a room with a family of them. She shooed this one away and it scuttled off.

  She blew out her candle, fearful that she might be seen. Ahead of her, the door to one of the supposedly unused dungeons was open. The light spilling through the doorway was enough for her to see by.

  The sound of Amethyst’s voice joined the sound of sobbing.

  “So your parents used to pawn your clothes to pay for their gin?” she sneered.

  “I had to wear a sack for a dress and tie rags over my feet. It was terrible. Everyone stared and pointed and laughed.” Kathleen began to cry again.

  “There there, that’s right, let it all out, sweet child,” Amethyst said in a comforting way that suddenly sounded horribly false to Lucy’s ears.

  Lucy wiped her eyes, which were welling up in sympathy with Kathleen. The urge to run back to bed was stronger than ever now. But Kathleen had been so kind to her. And she’d looked after Violet too. Now it was time to repay that kindness. She had to find out what was happening and if she could do something to help her new friend.

  She inched towards the half-open dungeon door and peered round the edge.

  Kathleen was tied to a chair inside the dungeon. Amethyst was bent over her, holding a blue glass bottle to the girl’s face. It had a squat bulbous body with a long thin neck. At the top of the neck was a curved spout, which Amethyst was pressing underneath Kathleen’s eye.

  The bottle was catching Kathleen’s tears.

  “It’s deeply interesting how she doesn’t remember this has happened before,” said Havoc, who was lounging against the dungeon wall, arms folded, Nevermore on his shoulder as usual.

  “If she remembers anything she’ll think we spent an hou
r book learning and discussing how lovely her new family is and how they’re going to absolutely adore her,” Amethyst said in a horrible mocking way.

  “I do wish you’d let me have a try.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “My dear, anyone would think you didn’t want me to master the technique,” Havoc said. He sounded suspicious.

  “Havoc. What a ridiculous notion. Being enchanted for so long seems to have made you mistrustful. By all means, try it yourself.” Amethyst held the blue bottle up to the light of the candelabra that stood in a corner of the dungeon. “A quarter full. I suppose it won’t do any harm to let you fill it a little more tonight.” She handed the bottle to Havoc. “Do not overdo it. I’ve lost a couple that way. It’s a terrible waste.”

  Havoc took the bottle and Amethyst’s place. He bent over Kathleen.

  “Let me do the words!” cawed Nevermore.

  Amethyst shook her head. “Havoc, I don’t think—”

  But the taunts were already tumbling from Nevermore’s beak. “Ugly little guttersnipe. Shall I peck your nose away? Oh, perhaps not, it’s far too fat and snotty. Urgh.”

  Kathleen pressed herself against the back of her chair. Although she no longer sobbed, tears kept streaming down her face.

  “You think that little Bertie fancies you, don’t you? How could he? You’re far too revolting. He said as much to the new girl. She almost wet her drawers laughing at you. Everyone hates you really.”

  Kathleen’s tears fell faster and faster.

  Amethyst clapped her hands in delight, her eyes glistening in the candlelight. “Nevermore, you are a genius! I must plant that as a memory in her mind for next time. Now Havoc, the tears, quickly. These will be extra powerful, I think.”

  Havoc pressed the tear catcher to Kathleen’s eye once more. It filled up to around halfway before Kathleen’s sobs began to slow.

  “Now give it to me.” Amethyst stretched out her arm, clicked her fingers impatiently. Havoc fiddled with the chain that hung round the neck of the bottle. A silver stopper dangled from the end of it. He began pushing the stopper into the neck of the bottle.

  “No! You don’t stopper the bottle until—” Amethyst shouted.

  Too late.

  As Havoc clumsily jammed the stopper into the glass bottle, Kathleen … vanished. All that was left behind was the rope that had bound her to the chair and a puddle of her tears on the floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE TRUTH ABOUT BERTIE

  The floor seemed to tilt under Lucy. She grabbed the handle of the dungeon door to steady herself.

  “Ah,” said Havoc, staring at the puddle of tears.

  “Ah?” screamed Amethyst. “Ah? She was one of the best I’ve ever found. A full bottle of her tears would have been immensely powerful.”

  “Well, perhaps you should have explained the process properly.”

  “I thought I had,” Amethyst snapped.

  She snatched the bottle of Kathleen’s tears from Havoc, shook it, stared at it, then slipped it into a small bag tied at her waist. “I suppose it can go with the others. Every little helps.”

  “Do we have enough yet?”

  “No. We need more, I keep telling you that. Each bottle only provides a certain amount of power for a limited amount of time. And some bottles are more powerful than others.”

  “How long do we have to wait before the latest one’s ready? I want my revenge against Grave and the rest of them, Amethyst. Magicians Against the Abuse of Magic indeed. They were happy to abuse magic when they tried to destroy us. I can’t wait to do the same to them.”

  Amethyst sighed. “Patience. It’s proving difficult to plant new memories in her, even when she’s asleep. Very unusual. With most children it’s a matter of hours.”

  “What about the boy? Might give us something to be going on with.”

  “No. Never. No one touches Bertie. He’s my son.”

  “Well, I suppose in a manner of speaking. But surely—”

  Amethyst slammed Havoc against the stone wall, her hand round his neck. The whole dungeon shook as though there had been an explosion.

  “He’s my son. No one touches him. You’d better remember that,” she yelled.

  As Havoc gave a spluttered apology, Lucy took the opportunity to head for safety before she was seen and fled back to the girls’ room. The first thing she did when she got there was to check Violet was still there. Relief washed over her when she saw the little girl was safely sleeping, with Caruthers on her pillow as usual. Lucy sat on the edge of Violet’s bed, head in her hands, trying to think calmly and make sense of everything.

  Havoc had mentioned something about magicians against the abuse of magic.

  Magicians Against the Abuse of Magic.

  MAAM.

  Could it be that Ma’am wasn’t a person, but some sort of organisation? A good organisation that Lord Grave and the others were part of?

  What was it Prudence Beguildy had said the night of the dinner party?

  “… Ma’am should act now that we have Eddie Robinson …”

  Lucy had thought this meant Lord Grave and his minions had Eddie and a person called Ma’am was going to do something terrible to him. But could Prudence have really been saying that MAAM needed to act now that Eddie had been kidnapped?

  Then there was the handkerchief she’d found in Lady Sibyl’s coach. The boxes of belongings in the cabinet. Perhaps they had all been things found at the scenes of various kidnappings? Perhaps Lord Grave and MAAM had been collecting clues too, hoping to solve the mystery of the missing children, not taking the children themselves.

  And suddenly Lucy remembered that Eddie Robinson’s parents had given an interview to the Penny Dreadful, saying how much they missed him. Why would they have done that if they didn’t care about him?

  As Lucy was working all this out, Violet cried out in her sleep, as though she was having a bad dream. Lucy was about to comfort her, but the little girl settled down again, pulling Caruthers closer.

  Caruthers.

  Violet’s mother had embroidered Violet’s name on him so he wouldn’t get lost. Because she knew how much he meant to her daughter. That was the act of a kind, loving parent, not the horrible type Violet described. Why would she have lied?

  ‘It’s proving difficult to plant new memories …’ Amethyst had said just now. Did this mean she was making the children she kidnapped believe their parents were awful and uncaring, so that they wouldn’t want to go home? And then using the horrible false memories to make them cry and collect their tears. But why?

  What was it Amethyst had told her that very first day? Something about children being powerful in ways adults weren’t. That Lord Grave wanted to take that power. That he used terrible magic to drain children of it.

  She was right – all that was really happening. Except it wasn’t Lord Grave doing such dreadful deeds … it was Amethyst herself.

  Amethyst spins a good yarn.

  Lucy had been completely ensnared by those yarns and had got everything so, so wrong. She’d jumped to conclusions, making everything she heard and found fit with what she already believed was happening because she’d hated Lord Grave and wanted to believe the worst of him. She still didn’t know why he had taken her away from her parents, but she now suspected that he might have had a very good reason for doing it. Why hadn’t he told her those reasons? Probably because he knew how pig-headed, rude and downright stupid she could be!

  But at least now she’d learned the truth. It was time to make a plan to get herself and Violet out of here. Some fast thinking was in order. She looked over at Violet, who was still fast asleep. How could she wake her, tell her such a terrible tale? She was so young.

  And what about Bertie? Was he an innocent victim too? Or was he yet another person who had lied to her? Although she’d only known him for a few days, she’d hoped they would become friends. But if he knew the terrible things Amethyst and Havoc were doing, he was no friend.
He was her enemy. She had to take the chance to find out which he was. If she’d bothered to do that back at Grave Hall, bothered to tell Mrs Crawley or Vonk her fears, she probably wouldn’t have made such a mess of things.

  She opened the bedroom door and listened carefully.

  Silence.

  Amethyst and Havoc must have left the dungeon, Lucy thought. Hopefully they were safely asleep after their night’s sinister exertions. Even so, Lucy’s eyes and ears were on high alert as she made her way up to Bertie’s room. Before she knocked on the door, she took a moment to marshal her thoughts. Caution was needed. She couldn’t simply blurt everything out until she was certain how much Bertie already knew, if anything.

  Finally, she took a deep breath and knocked at the door. A few moments later, Bertie opened it. He was dressed in a long white nightshirt, his hair and eyebrows sticking up in a variety of directions. For a moment, his dishevelled state reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who.

  “Lucy?” He squinted at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “It’s practically the middle of the night!”

  “Shh! Please.”

  “Come in then.”

  Bertie’s bedroom was spectacularly untidy. He didn’t appear to understand the correct use of a wardrobe, as the huge wooden one that covered half a wall was standing with its doors open and nothing inside except for some books piled at the bottom. His clothes covered the floor.

  Bertie looked down at his bare feet. “I’m going to get dressed first. Can’t talk to you like this.” He picked up a tangled bundle of clothes and went through a door in the far side of the room.

  Lucy gazed around the chaotic room. There was a tall candelabra, taller than Lucy herself, standing next to a small desk. Hanging from it was the cord she had noticed Bertie wearing round his neck the day she arrived. A green velvet pouch dangled from it.

  Look inside, a voice in her head suddenly urged. She untangled the cord from the candelabra. Weighed the pouch in her palm. It was heavier than she expected. She untied the knot in the drawstring and fumbled the soft velvet open.

 

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