Skulk

by Rosie Best

  “Shall we?” said Marcus, and turned to lead us off the path and up into the enormous greenhouse.

  The heat and dampness hit me as soon as I stepped inside. I could almost feel my hair frizzing up around me, like one of those cartoons where fright literally curls people’s hair. The forest of palm trees seemed to stretch away from me, endlessly green and dripping with moisture. Brown strings of fern fronds wrapped around the massive trunks and the odd bright flash of red and yellow peeked out between huge rubbery leaves. It smelled of green and of earth, even to my dulled human sense of smell. I almost wished I could go fox right now, just to breathe it in for a second. Another thing to put on my if-I-survive to-do list.

  As we were pushing past the palm fronds my curiosity got the better of me and I leaned close to Mo. “Hey, er, looks like there’s four of you – and Helen makes five – isn’t there another one coming?”

  “Peter’s eighty-nine years old. He’s not well enough to come out to meetings. We visit him in the home sometimes. Susanne keeps him up to date.”

  “Oh.”

  Susanne led us up an ornate white-painted spiral staircase to the balcony that ran around the top of the building, and we gathered on eye-level with the giant pinkish seeds on one of the tall, deep-green palms.

  “So, Meg – what’s going on?” asked Aaron, folding his arms across his chest.

  I swallowed and glanced out of the windows, over the lake and the gardens and the wide gravel paths cutting through the trees.

  “It’s about the stones,” I began. Every time I’d told my story, it sort of amazed me that people believed it. Maybe I had a very honest face. I suppose right now the scratches and bruises were doing that job for me. Something had obviously gone very bad for me. Why not killer pigeons and fog that liquidises your brain?

  “Victoria wants the stones, and if she hasn’t got yours already, I’m certain she’ll come for it soon,” I said, after I’d given them the quickest version I could manage. “I think we need to work together to stop her. I have what must be the Cluster stone, but the Cluster are all dead. I just don’t know what we can do. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going up to the Shard myself.”

  Marcus and Susanne shook their heads and Mo muttered, “You can’t.”

  “I have to – I can’t do nothing, and I really don’t have any other options, unless you can help me.”

  “We may be able to,” said Susanne. She turned to the others. “I’d like to ask permission from the Rabble to share everything we know about the stones with the Skulk. Any objections?”

  Mo and Marcus both shook their heads at once. Aaron shuffled his feet and tapped his fingers on the white railing.

  “I dunno. I suppose there’s no harm in it, it’s not like we even have our stone anymore.”

  Susanne nodded. “All right. Here’s what I know – boys, please leap in if there’s anything you know that I don’t mention. I know that our stone is yellow, and that it governs over the element of sight.”

  “So Blackwell was right about that,” I said. “But what does it actually mean?”

  “It meant that anyone who possessed the stone could use it to alter other people’s perception,” Susanne said. “You could make things appear, or disappear. I think in theory you could use it to make yourself invisible, though I don’t know anyone who ever tried it.”

  “Wow,” I said. “So, if Victoria’s got it, maybe she’s using it to hide the fog from ordinary people?”

  “She could be,” said Susanne.

  “So, did you use your stone, when you still had it?” I asked, fascinated with the idea of altering the way people saw things. You could take visual art to a whole new level…

  “What would we use it for?” Marcus shrugged.

  “I… well…” Mo reached up to fiddle with a palm leaf that was dangling over the balcony railing. “I thought about it.”

  “Mo,” Susanne gasped. “You didn’t.”

  “I never actually did it,” Mo held up his hands. “I just thought about it. Come on, it would’ve been amazing. Imagine using it to make paintings move or set up sculptures that weren’t really there…” he turned to me. “Back me up, Thatch, you have to see where I’m coming from.”

  I grinned. “Yeah, I have to say, that sounds awesome. I mean, of course, you couldn’t actually do it. Cause we have to keep them safe.”

  “See? Meg’s an artist. She gets it.” Mo held out his hand and I met it in a fist bump, trying to keep my cool and not let the dangerous levels of fangirl glee that were building up inside me spill out all over this very sensible conversation.

  Marcus shook his head. “I know it seems tempting, but just think what the wrong person could do with the power to change how you saw the world.”

  “Deception and trickery,” said Aaron. “You’d be walking off cliffs thinking there was a bridge there.”

  “Or believing you were talking to your best friend – or your boyfriend – when it was really some stranger,” Marcus added.

  I shuddered. “OK. So, not at all awesome.”

  “And it’s out there right now, who knows where, being used for who knows what.” Aaron folded his arms. “And all because Helen couldn’t be bothered to stay on the Methadone.”

  Susanne gave him a sad look. “Please, Aaron. Blame the disease, remember?”

  Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know, Su. Why didn’t she come to us for help this time? I think she just wanted an excuse not to have to try anymore.”

  “No. I give her more credit than that,” Marcus rumbled, lowering his voice about two octaves. “She must have been desperate to think this was her only choice.”

  I shuffled my feet, feeling for the first time that I’d really intruded on something not meant for me – this was Rabble business. I’d never even met Helen, it didn’t feel right for me to stand and listen in while her surrogate family talked through her issues like this.

  “Where did you keep your stone, when you had it?” I asked, hoping it didn’t seem too much like an obvious change of subject.

  “Here,” said Mo.

  “Where?” I frowned.

  Mo crossed the walkway to my side and leaned over the railing, pointing down at the beds of dripping ferns. “In the dirt, down there.”

  “But…” I stared down at the winding paths around the beds below. Two old ladies hobbled slowly along one, while a group of school kids in matching maroon jumpers were being herded down another. “But this is a public place!” I looked up at Mo. “They must have hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, weren’t you afraid someone would find it?”

  “It was protected,” said Susanne. “Marcus, Peter and I are the only ones who saw it done who’re still in the Rabble.”

  “This was back in the… what, the late Nineties?” Marcus said.

  “Yes, it must be.” Susanne sighed. “We all gathered here in the middle of the night, in butterfly form. Peter brought the stone. He gathered us all around it – we all had to be touching the stone.”

  “As soon as I touched it,” Marcus said, “I felt something happen. It was like the surface of the stone became soft and I could reach inside and grab one of the points of the star.”

  But the points aren’t really things you could grab, they’re cracks in the gem…

  I stopped myself from saying it. We obviously weren’t in the realm of physical logic any more.

  “Peter and Lena talked us through it,” said Susanne. “They said we should just hold on and let the power of the stone flow through us, and we did, and the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and the stone looked different. Opaque.”

  “Lena stayed with us, remember?” Marcus added. “To show us that it’d worked. We stayed in butterfly form until the Palm House opened the next day, and watched the gardeners and tourists pass the stone by without even looking at it.”

  I tried to ignore a pang of jealousy. The Rabble seemed so… functional. Though I suppose that was before one of them vanished an
d took their stone with her.

  “So, do you think the Skulk could do the same thing, but it’d have a different effect?” I wondered aloud. “Blackwell told me it was ‘the hands’ – does that mean it’s about touch? Like, you can physically change things?” I thought of Mum and Dad, and felt my heart sink. Victoria already had the Skulk stone, I was sure of it.

  “I bet it’d be pretty similar, anyway. As long as you have every member of the group on board,” said Aaron. “The problem is that you can’t protect it against each other.”

  Because shifters are people, and people are bastards, I thought. My heart thudded, hit with a one-two punch of fondness and worry. Please be all right, Addie...

  “That sounds about right,” I said, thinking back to Blackwell’s lack of knowledge. If none of the Conspiracy had moved their stone for decades, there’d be no need for him to know their ritual.

  So I was going to have to make Don and James work together, trust each other enough not to break the spell. But probably only after I’d scaled the tallest building in Europe and stolen the Skulk stone back from an evil sorceress, so that was a relief.

  “Can we only protect our stone?” I wondered aloud. “If we’ve got the Cluster stone but I don’t know how to find the Cluster, is there anything we can do to keep it safe?”

  The Rabble all gave me apologetic looks. They had no more idea than I did.

  “Well, it’s got to be worth a try,” said Susanne, “Can you get the Skulk together?”

  “I’ve called a meeting for tonight. Whether they’ll all turn up... we’ll have to see.” I glanced out through the massive steamed-up windows, out over the perfectly organised lawns and flowerbeds, and wondered what Addie was doing right now. Had she found them all? Had she found them all alive?

  I shook myself. I had to act as if she had.

  “All right. We could all join you,” said Susanne. “As a gesture of goodwill. Then we can talk you through it.”

  “Good idea,” said Marcus.

  Aaron shook his head. “I don’t trust the Skulk. No offence to you, kid. I just don’t see this doing much good. And if they don’t even have their stone... I’m not going into any witch’s tower for the Skulk’s sake, I’m sorry.”

  “But you’ll come with us tonight,” Susanne said. She smiled at Aaron and Marcus, and her voice was like steel wrapped in sponge cake. “All you boys will, won’t you? For the Rabble?”

  Mo said, “Of course,” and Marcus shrugged and nodded.

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “For the Rabble,” he replied.

  Mo caught my eye behind Susanne’s back and smiled.

  It’d started to drizzle while we were inside the Palm House, and the shock of the chill as we stepped outside made me shudder. I pulled my hood up and balled my hands in my sleeves.

  “What are you going to do now?” Mo asked. “Before we meet up with the Skulk?”

  I hadn’t really thought that far. I was struck with a sudden, intense longing to go home – to run up to my room and kick off my shoes, put on some of my own clothes, log onto graffitilondon and boast that I’d met E3 and I knew what his signature meant.

  The knowledge that this was impossible, at least for a little while, ached dully in my chest.

  But if I couldn’t go home, what was I going to do until midnight?

  “I should try to reach Blackwell, tell him what I’ve found out. Maybe he’ll have figured out something more about what’s going on with the Conspiracy.”

  “We’ll go with you,” said Susanne.

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” I said, automatically, and instantly regretted it. The very last thing I wanted right then was to go running off to the Tower of London on my own. Not least because the Shard was right across the river, so close you could probably swim it if you didn’t mind catching a few horrible diseases and a touch of hypothermia.

  Luckily, Susanne took my polite refusal for what it was and clicked her tongue at me. “Don’t be silly, of course we’ll come.” She turned to Aaron and Marcus. “We’ll meet you later – where, Meg?”

  “Willesden Junction,” I said, trying to ignore the tiny stab of guilt. This wasn’t a betrayal – bringing the Rabble there could only help the Skulk. I was pretty sure of that.

  Even in the middle of a drizzly autumn day, Tower Hill was busy with tourists. We came out of the station into a sea of backpacks and bumbags and hastily-purchased Tower of London-branded umbrellas.

  The Shard loomed up just to our right, across the river; grey and monstrously big from such a close viewpoint. The top few floors were lost in the clouds. I wondered if Victoria was up there, staring down at us through the shifting grey mist.

  “There’s some good graffiti round here,” said Mo suddenly, breaking the silence that’d fallen between the three of us as we crossed the road towards the Tower.

  “Oh yeah, I saw a photo,” I said, happy to turn part of my brain away from Victoria for a second. “Didn’t that team from South Africa come over and leave one of their goblins behind Fenchurch Street?”

  “Yeah, last year. I wonder if it’s still there.”

  As one, we stopped and turned back to look up the hill towards the train station.

  And then, pretty much as one, realised what we were doing.

  Mo gave a jerky, bashful shrug. “Maybe we can go and look for it later. Some other time.”

  “Yeah. Not so much at this minute.” I sighed as we turned back towards the Tower. “Although you have no idea how much I’d rather run off and look for goblins right now.”

  There were two Warders out by the main entrance, dressed in their identical dark blue coats with red trim spelling out ER across their chests. Their wide-brimmed hats kept the soft rain off their faces. One was old and bearded, and one was slightly younger and wore glasses. Neither of them was Blackwell.

  I squared my shoulders and walked up to the ticket barrier.

  “Excuse me,” I said, leaning across and giving the closest Warder, the one with the glasses, a polite smile. “Can you help me? I’m looking for Arthur Blackwell. He’s a Yeoman Warder here.”

  “Blackwell?” The bearded Warder came over. “Can I ask why?”

  “He’s a friend of my dad’s,” I lied cheerfully. “They were stationed together in Scotland for a bit. I was just passing, I wondered if I could say hello, give him Dad’s love, you know.”

  “I’m afraid Yeoman Warder Blackwell is on leave today,” said the Warder, with a beardy smile.

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Um – would you mind letting him know I was here?”

  “Of course. What’s your name, dear?”

  “My name’s Meg…”

  I hesitated – probably not for more than a second, but in that second I thought:

  If I give them my real name, they could look me up and find out my dad’s never been anywhere near the army.

  If they look me up, they might find out my family is missing.

  They might find out about the school.

  I don’t even know how it’s being reported yet.

  They might not look me up, they might be totally trustworthy and just pass my name on to Blackwell and that’ll be it.

  But if one of the dodgy ravens guesses Blackwell’s been talking to another shifter…

  “Meg Grantham,” I added, giving the Warder a bright smile. “My dad’s name is Ned Grantham.”

  “Lovely,” said the Warder. “I’ll be sure to tell him all about it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and turned away.

  Mo and Susanne were standing a little way back, and I gave them a shrug as I walked up to them.

  “Apparently he’s not here.”

  “Do you want to go fox and sneak in?” Mo asked. “I could come with you.”

  I smiled at him, but then cast a wary glance back at the Tower. “I think let’s leave it for now. I’ll try again once we’ve met up with the others.”

  “All right. Let’s go home,” said Susanne. “If there’s nothing else we
can do until we’ve met the Skulk, then you should try to get a couple more hours’ sleep.”

  The very mention of sleep sent a huge yawn crawling up my throat. I tried to stifle it.

  “Actually, there’s something else I need to do. I want to see the news about my school. I want to see…”

  What did I want to see? Photos of the outside of my school, police tape, shocked interviews with parents and students, statements from the police?

  “I don’t know, I just want to see it.”

  “OK,” Susanne said, but she seemed doubtful.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said. “I’m not going to see pictures of it and faint or anything.” They’re not going to show pictures of what I saw last night on the news.

  “Let’s not do it here,” said Mo. He was looking up at the Shard. I followed his eyes and saw that the clouds were parting, as if the building was a sharp edge slicing through grey candyfloss. I nodded hard.

  We headed back underground and I resisted the urge to snatch Mo’s phone out of his hand and try to get onto the Tube Wi-Fi. Nothing would have changed by the time we got to Acton. I folded my hands in my lap and tried to be Zen.

  I think Mo could tell I wasn’t feeling very Zen. He’d pulled his phone and he was Googling Kensington School for Girls by the time we were halfway up the escalator. I was pathetically grateful. We stood outside the station, waiting for the page to load while Susanne went into the newsagent’s over the road to see what was in the printed papers.

  It wasn’t raining any more. The sun was starting to filter weakly through the clouds. I put down my hood and scooped out my hair, scraping it into a ponytail, twisting it, trying not to look over Mo’s shoulder, tangling my fingers in it, curling it over my shoulder, pulling it straight and letting it bounce back, wondering how the hell the internet was taking so long to load.

  I gave in and stepped closer to him so I could look at the screen of his phone. He was scrolling through search results, scanning them with a frown creasing his brow.

  KSG Sixth Form entry

  Kensington fee paying schools

  Jobs at Kensington secondary schools