Swift

by R. J. Anderson

  ‘About the fight, of course.’

  ‘What fight?’

  ‘Between Dad and Mum, the night before she disappeared.’ He glanced at the archway to their father’s bedchamber — the only separate room in the cavern. ‘They were in there with the door closed, so there’s no telling how it started. But once they got going you could hear nearly every word. Don’t you remember?’

  Her parents, fighting? It seemed impossible — Flint had always doted on Marigold, and neither of them were the quarrelling sort. Ivy was tempted to suggest it had just been a nightmare, but the look on Mica’s face forestalled her. She shook her head. ‘You’re going to have to remind me. What were they fighting about?’

  ‘She said she was leaving, and she wanted to take you and Cicely with her.’ His voice wavered on the last phrase, and he made a face at his tankard. ‘Dad was furious. He said he couldn’t stop her throwing away her life, but she wasn’t taking his children anywhere. Then she started to cry and I couldn’t make out what she was saying any more, and he didn’t say anything at all. And when she came out of the chamber she was still crying, but quietly, like she didn’t want any of us to know. So I pretended I was asleep.’

  Ivy’s stomach felt heavy, as though she had swallowed a stone. ‘I don’t remember any of that,’ she said.

  ‘Well, you should. Because you sat up and asked her what was the matter. And then she climbed into your alcove and shut the curtains, and the two of you were whispering in there for ages.’ He ran a finger around the rim of his cup. ‘So you knew she was going away, like I did. You just couldn’t bear to face the truth, so you…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, blocked it out somehow. Made yourself believe it was the spriggans who took her instead.’

  ‘I didn’t make myself do anything!’ Ivy knotted her fists in her lap, so furious she felt sick. ‘What makes you think your memory is any better than mine? Maybe it was you who couldn’t bear to think that our mother was taken by the spriggans, so you invented this story and talked yourself into believing it! You think she bled all over her shawl on purpose, then left it on a gorse-bush for Dad to find so she could…do what? Go dancing with the faeries?’

  Mica hunched his shoulders. ‘I don’t know why she wanted to leave,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know what happened to her either. Maybe the spriggans did get her in the end. But I’m not going to waste my life brooding over someone who-’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ warned Ivy. ‘If you want to tell yourself that Mum was selfish and uncaring and that we’re well rid of her, then I can’t stop you. But I remember what she was really like, and I will never believe that. Never.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mica muttered into his beer. ‘Either way she’s gone, and she isn’t coming back. Believe whatever makes you happy.’

  And all at once Ivy thought she understood. ‘Is that why you never said anything to me about it?’ she said more softly. ‘Because you thought I was happier not knowing?’

  ‘No,’ said Mica. ‘I never said anything because I knew you’d be like this.’ He drained his tankard, shoved it towards her, and marched off to bed.

  Ivy sat unmoving, staring into the foamy dregs. She felt numb and a little dizzy, as though she’d cut herself by accident and was just beginning to feel it. Could she really have forgotten something so enormous, so shattering? Even if she had, shouldn’t she be able to remember it now?

  Yet when she forced her mind back to that evening five years ago, she found only a blank fuzzy space — nothing to confirm or deny anything Mica had said. Could she really have been so weak, so desperate, as to erase her own memories? She’d never heard of anyone doing such a thing, but maybe…

  No. She wasn’t going to blame herself, or her mother, until she could be certain that Mica’s story was true. Which meant she’d have to wait until her father came home, and ask him.

  Or better yet, she could go find him herself, and settle the question at once. After all, what was the worst Flint could do to her? Even a blow or a curse would be better than the silence she lived with every day.

  Ivy pushed back her chair. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said. ‘Don’t wait up for me.’

  By the time Ivy left the cavern, it was so late that most piskeys were in bed, and the others were on their way there. But Flint had given up regular hours a long time ago, so there was no telling where he might be.

  Most likely he was working in the depths of the mine, but by now he’d tunnelled so far that Ivy hardly knew where to begin looking for him — a problem that became clear the instant she climbed down the ladder to the diggings. If the other knockers had been working, she could have asked one of them to point her in the right direction. But without being familiar with the labyrinth of tunnels that the piskey miners used, she could wander half the night before she heard the telltale crack and rumble of her father’s thunder-axe.

  She called his name as loudly as she dared, but there was no answer. If her father had been any less capable, Ivy might have been worried about him. But Flint was a true knocker, able to sense every strength and weakness of the surrounding granite, and he never caused a rockfall unless he meant to. He was safe enough, and he’d come home when he was ready. But who knew how much longer that would be?

  Frustrated, Ivy climbed up the ladder and shut the trap-door behind her. What was she going to do now? It was no use going home to bed in this state: she’d be tossing and turning for hours.

  At last she decided to take a walk around the Delve. Perhaps she’d bump into her father, or at least hear him working, along the way — and even if she didn’t, at least it should make her tired enough to steal a few minutes’ rest before he came in.

  Over the next hour Ivy made two long winding circuits of the tunnels, climbing every ramp and staircase she found. But by the time she’d finished she felt no closer to sleep than before.

  There was only one place she could think of that she hadn’t visited already. Ivy walked the length of the adjoining tunnel and braced her hands on the iron railing at the edge of the Great Shaft, gazing up at the faint glimmer of moonlight high above. Should she climb to the top? The effort would certainly tire her out, but ‘ Bind up my wounds,’ rasped a voice from the darkness.

  Ivy jumped back, clapping both hands over her mouth to stifle a cry. ‘Who’s there?’ she tried to ask, but her lips could barely form the words. The sound hadn’t come from the tunnel behind her — it was floating up from the depths of the shaft, from the old human workings where no piskey had reason to be.

  ‘ Soft! I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! ’

  Nobody in the Delve talked like that. Not even the oldest piskeys used such formal language, and the droll-teller himself had never spoken with such tortured passion. Ivy clutched the railing and leaned out over it, dreading what she might see. She’d never believed in ghosts, but…

  ‘ The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh… ’ Then the speaker faltered and began to moan, ‘Light! Light! ’ with increasing desperation, like a feverish child begging for water. It was the most pitiful thing Ivy had ever heard.

  Might it be a human, who had wandered in through one of the old adits and got lost in the depths of the mine? Ivy would have been relieved to think so, for in that case it would be easy to play will-o’-the-wisp and lead him up to the surface again. But in her heart she knew better. The words might be strange and garbled, but the voice was all too familiar.

  It was the spriggan.

  She’d never suspected that his cell was so close to the Great Shaft. All she’d heard was that he was being held somewhere far away from the piskeys’ living quarters, and that only the Joan and Jack were allowed to see him. But she’d also been told that the spriggan wasn’t talking…and he was definitely talking now.

  ‘ What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by: Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I… ’

  He’d calmed down now, at least enough t
o stop wailing for light and start talking to himself again. Richard? Was that his name? It sounded weirdly human. Ivy hadn’t thought of spriggans as having names before; to her they were all just spriggans, as snakes were snakes.

  But if he had a name, then he had a personality. If he could talk about feeling pain and guilt and fear, there was a chance that he might be willing to talk about other things, as well. Like what he’d done with Keeve…

  Or what had happened to Ivy’s mother.

  Did Ivy dare? Could she climb down into the dark recesses of the shaft, find the tunnel where the spriggan was being held prisoner, and walk right up to his door? If she offered him a glimpse of the light he craved, would he tell her what she wanted so badly to know?

  Mind, if anyone found out she had gone near the spriggan, Ivy would be in big trouble. But he could hardly hurt her while locked up in his cell. And if she didn’t take her chance with him now, she might spend the rest of her life wondering what would have happened if she had…

  ‘ I am I,’ the spriggan repeated, then muttered, ‘Whatever that means.’ And with that he let out a laugh — but it dissolved into coughing, and ended in a breath like a sob.

  Ivy inhaled slowly, summoning strength and courage. Then she swung her leg over the railing, and lowered herself into the darkness.

  She had never climbed this part of the Great Shaft before, much less backwards. Every new foothold had to be carefully tested, lest it crumble away and send her plummeting into the fathomless sump below. After several minutes of spidering her way down the rock, Ivy’s curls were plastered to her forehead with sweat. Yet she thought of her mother, and kept on.

  She swung her left leg sideways, toes groping for another ledge. But her foot dangled into empty air, and no matter how far she stretched she could find no place to stand. Had she reached the lower tunnel already? Digging her fingers into the rock, Ivy eased herself downwards, then arched her back, swung her hips, and let go.

  The adjoining tunnel was deeper than she’d anticipated, and for a heart-stopping instant Ivy feared she’d made her last mistake. But then her bare feet smacked stone, and she landed with only a slight stagger. Sighing relief, Ivy straightened up -

  And found herself face to face with the spriggan.

  At first she was too stunned to speak. Not only because she’d never expected his cell to open straight onto the Great Shaft, but because he was so utterly different from the monster she’d imagined. Pale as a dead thing, yes, and woefully thin — he could never have passed for a piskey. Nor was he pleasant to look at, not with one eye swollen half-shut and a split lip distorting his mouth into a sneer. But apart from that there was nothing gruesome about him, and he was young. Older than Ivy to be sure, more a man than a boy — but he couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than Mica.

  Yet he was still a spriggan, and that made him dangerous. Even crouched against the wall with one arm cradled to his chest, he had a menacing air about him, a lithe tension that could explode at any moment into violence. Ivy dimmed her glow and backed towards the shaft, though she knew it was too late: he’d heard her land, seen her skin shining in the darkness, and at any moment…

  ‘ Is there a murderer here? ’ he whispered, pushing himself to his feet. He lurched forward — but then came a rattling noise, and he jerked to a halt mid-step.

  So that was why the Joan hadn’t been worried about him escaping, even with an open shaft mere paces away. While he was still unconscious, Mica and Mattock had clapped an iron manacle around his ankle and chained him to the floor. He couldn’t go more than a stride in any direction, so Ivy was well out of reach — and if she remembered the legends right, the iron would keep him from using magic, too. Only those with knocker blood could endure the touch of iron.

  ‘You tell me,’ she said, bolder now. She could see him well enough with her night vision, but to him she’d be nothing more than a ghostly shape — a tantalising hint of the light he yearned for. ‘Are you a murderer?’

  The spriggan let out a shuddering breath. His head drooped, and he muttered, ‘ No. Yes. I am: Then fly… ’

  If only she could. ‘I’m not here to play riddle-games,’ said Ivy. Had he lost his wits? ‘Did you or did you not kill Keeve?’

  A long pause, while the spriggan watched her sidelong out of one grey eye. ‘ I am a villain,’ he said at last, then added quickly as Ivy tensed: ‘ Yet I lie. I am not. ’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense and tell me the truth, then!’

  The spriggan leaned against the wall, his distorted mouth closing tight. He did not reply.

  Had she been too harsh with him? Would he refuse to say any more? Ivy took a step forward — though not too close, since she had no desire to feel those fingers around her neck. Then she said gently, ‘You want light, don’t you?’

  His breath caught, just the briefest hitch, but it was as good as an answer. ‘I’ll give it to you,’ Ivy said, ‘if you answer some questions for me.’

  She waited, but the spriggan didn’t respond. Did he not believe her? Or was he too slurry-brained to understand?

  Ivy increased her glow a little, hoping to tempt him. ‘See?’ she said. ‘I’ll give you more, if you’ll tell me what you did with Keeve. And even more than that, if you can tell me what happened to my mother. She was beautiful, with light brown hair, and her wings…’

  What had Marigold’s wings been like? She couldn’t remember. Ivy cleared her throat and went on, ‘Anyway, she disappeared five years ago. Did you spriggans take her? Is she still alive?’

  The prisoner raised his head to hers, lips parting as though to speak. But then his chin dropped and he looked away.

  Ivy threw up her hands. ‘This is useless.’ The stench that hung around him was making her queasy, and she was tired of looking at those hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. The spriggan was either delirious or mad or both, and she wished that she had never come. ‘I give up. You can stay here and rot for all I care.’ Defiantly flaring brighter so he’d never forget what he’d missed, she turned and strode away.

  ‘ Ivy.’

  Startled, she looked back to find the spriggan stretching out his one good hand. ‘Don’t go,’ he said, and now his voice sounded ordinary, the formal cadences lost. ‘I didn’t know… I couldn’t be sure it was you, until now.’

  Was he trying to make her pity him? If so, it wasn’t going to work. And she wasn’t going to ask again how he knew her name, either — he’d probably just overheard it, back at the Lighting. Ivy tapped her foot. ‘Well?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Keeve.’ He rubbed his temple, as though concentrating were an effort. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘But you were there, the night he disappeared,’ Ivy said. ‘Who else could have taken him?’

  ‘I have no idea. But it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say that to the Joan, then?’ Ivy asked. ‘Did you think she wouldn’t believe you?’

  ‘I had to give her some reason to keep me alive,’ he said. ‘Until I could talk to you.’

  ‘Me?’ Ivy was startled. ‘Why?’

  The spriggan straightened, brushing the sweat-darkened hair from his brow. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘your mother sent me to find you. She’s alive, and safe. And if you let me go…I’ll take you to her.’ four

  Ivy stood still, wide green eyes fixed on the spriggan. For a moment there was no sound except the slow drip of water down the Great Shaft and the creature’s laboured breathing. Then she said in a strangled voice, ‘You’re lying.’ She didn’t even know if spriggans could lie, but what other explanation could there be?

  ‘I’m not lying.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ She spoke quickly, almost gabbling in her panic. She had to stop this before it got out of hand — before she was tempted to believe him. ‘You heard me say I was looking for my mother, and now you’re using that to try and trick me-’

  ‘Her name is Marigold.’

  His quiet certainty shook her, but Ivy wasn’t about to gi
ve in. There were any number of ways he could have learned her mother’s name — including under torture. ‘Why would she send you to me?’ she demanded. ‘If my mother was alive, if she wanted to see me so badly, she’d come and see me herself.’

  ‘I didn’t ask about her motives. Marigold asked me to deliver a message to you, and I agreed because I owed her a debt, nothing more. If you want an explanation, you’ll have to ask for one when you see her.’ His look turned sly. ‘Unless you don’t want to see her.’

  Ivy barely resisted the urge to hit him. ‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘Or would, if I believed a single word of what you’ve told me. Where did you see my mother, then — in the bottom of your stewpot?’

  ‘Actually, it was in Truro.’ He paused and added with a hint of condescension, ‘That’s a human city and not a recipe, in case you were wondering. I don’t eat piskeys, even irritating ones.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ivy said, folding her arms so he wouldn’t see her hands shake. ‘My mother would never live with humans, not when she could be here with us. And even if she couldn’t come back to the Delve for some reason, she’d never make a bargain with a — a filthy, lying spriggan.’

  She expected an angry retort, but the prisoner only pinched the bridge of his nose, as though she had given him a headache. Then he said with infinite weariness, ‘I don’t even know what a spriggan is.’

  Ivy’s legs wobbled. ‘What? But then…what are you?’

  ‘A faery. What else?’

  What else, indeed. Between the dirt and blood that smeared his body, the ragged clothes and unkempt hair, she would never have taken him for one of the so-called Fair Folk. Yet now that he mentioned it, he did look more like a faery than he ever had a spriggan…

  ‘Oh,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Marigold warned me to be careful about showing myself to anyone. She said your people had been living underground for a long time, and that they didn’t take kindly to strangers. But even so-’ He touched his injured arm and grimaced. ‘I wasn’t expecting quite this level of hostility.’