by Kim Newman
Knowles showed Light Fingers how to twist the key the wrong way in the lock to retract the blades. They ratcheted into the interstices of the brickwork.
Devlin admitted that Know-It-All’s boning-up was useful after all.
The retractable knives made the enterprise of venturing into secret passages seem less like a lark.
‘It’s safe now,’ said Knowles, with authority.
Gould volunteered to go first and disappeared into the dark hole. The others crammed around the wardrobe and tried to look down.
Gould called up that she was still alive.
Amy went next…
Gripping the pole lightly with her hands, elbows and knees she made herself light. She didn’t plunge like Gould, but floated down, past the folded blades, into a well of darkness.
The light from above dwindled.
The pole went down much further than the ground floor of the Swanage. Brick gave way to rock.
Eventually she landed, light on her feet, in Seven Dials.
Gould had found a switch. Dim lamps glowed in sconces. There were seven passages leading away. Seven paths to death in the dark, she supposed.
Knowles came down next. She shone her torch into each of the passages, demonstrating that two were dead ends.
Frecks gave out a yaroo! as if on a ride at a funfair. She arrived, and gushed about the sensuous joy of sliding down poles.
‘Better than spooning with Clovis,’ she exclaimed. ‘Much!’
Light Fingers, Paule and Marsh joined them in Seven Dials. Laurence came down last and needed a lot of coaxing. Even without the ring of daggers, she wasn’t keen on sliding. Eventually she gave in, but screamed all the way down… then had to be detached from the pole and cajoled into opening her eyes. She was surprised not to be dead.
Paule wandered off into the largest of the tunnels. Knowles kept the torch aimed at the errant Sixth. One of the things Know-it-all knew was not to lose sight of Daffy Dora. They didn’t have time to waste wandering through a labyrinth looking for her, even if Knowles had the maps and instructions off by heart.
Light Fingers looked to Amy for orders. That was happening a lot.
‘We follow Paule,’ said Amy, trying to sound sure of herself. ‘Knowles, good thinking with the torch. Gould, keep track of her. Frecks… take up the rear and holler if anything nasty comes after us. Everyone, watch your step… and listen to Knowles. Especially you, Stretch.’
‘I’m not opening an envelope unless Miss Memory says it’s safe so to do,’ said Devlin.
Knowles smiled slightly. ‘The way Paule’s gone is clear, just so long as you don’t walk too close by the knight at arms…’
A crash came from the passage.
They rushed there to find Dora Paule sat on the ground – rock with wooden planks laid over the more uneven stretches – with a disassembled suit of armour scattered around and a long-handled battleaxe in her hands. She’d caught it falling towards her head. It would have done more than parted her hair.
‘Before you get killed, perhaps you could tell us where we’re going,’ said Amy.
‘…to the seaside,’ said Paule.
‘The whole school is by the seaside,’ said Laurence. ‘Before I saw it, I reckoned there’d be sand and Punch and Judy and ice cream at the end of the pier and bathing machines. Then it turned out to be shingles and seaweed and sudden tides and breakers you can’t paddle in. Mouldy chiz, I thought.’
‘One sympathises, young Larry,’ said Frecks.
Marsh was appalled by Laurence’s idea of the seaside, but didn’t start an argument. Amy gathered the American girl had definite views about bank-holiday excursionists who went for a quick dip then drank beer and ate fish and chips on the pier before chucking their waste paper in the sea. She sometimes spat out ‘surface-dwellers’ the way Light Fingers said ‘Ordinaries’.
‘…to the underground seaside,’ said Paule.
‘She’s off again,’ said Gould. ‘Awa’ wi’ the faeries…’
‘No, hang on,’ said Knowles, shutting her eyes and pressing forefingers to her temples as if picturing pages turning to the one she wanted. ‘Daffy Dora’s on the money! At the end of this road there’s a cavern with tidal waters. A hidden harbour.’
‘Smugglers?’ asked Amy.
She had known smugglers would come into it eventually!
‘Pirates, more likely,’ said Knowles. ‘Or sea-raiders.’
‘There’s a difference?’ asked Amy.
‘Pirates prey on ships from ships, sea-raiders prey on coastal settlements from ships,’ put in Devlin, who was up on nautical matters. ‘Many believe Sir Wilfrid Teazle, Squire of Drearcliff in the 1750s, was the masked sea-raider Cap’n Belzybub, but no one has ever proved it. The Cap’n hated the Welsh. He plundered the Severn Estuary in his fast frigate the Johanna Pike, named for the Bristol lass who threw him over for a poet from Pontypool.’
‘Ouch,’ said Frecks. ‘Hellish heartbreak!’
‘Cap’n Belzybub ran through the parson of Llantwit Major in a cutlass duel,’ said Devlin, ‘and sank the Navy brig Glendower off the Mumbles. Sir Wilfrid made the Grange a retreat for retired sailors, supposedly out of the kindness of his heart – though no one ever noticed him doing anything else kindly. The magistrates thought he was Belzybub because the old salts knocking about the estate very much resembled a crew of ruthless sea-raiders. But Sir Wilfrid seemed to have nowhere to dock any vessel larger than a rowing boat. The mystery of the Home Harbour of the Jo Pike stands to this day.’
‘It might be solved now,’ said Knowles. ‘The big book shows a ship in the cavern.’
‘The Johanna Pike was said to have sunk with all hands in a storm. Neither Cap’n Belzybub nor Sir Wilfrid were heard tell of thereafter, so conclusions were drawn. The retired sailors disappeared too, though few thought to look for them.’
‘Should we go to the ship?’ Amy asked. ‘It sounds like a place a person might hide if they weren’t too fussy about getting their stockings wet.’
‘The underground seaside,’ repeated Paule. ‘There’s a Flute.’
‘Are we to expect jolly sea shanties?’ asked Frecks. ‘Ralph knows all the rude verses of “What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor?” and “Off to Philadelphia in the Morn-Eye-Ing”. Most of them have to do with bottoms.’
‘Paule doesn’t mean a musical flute,’ said Amy. ‘She’s talking about the hole at the middle of all those spirals the Black Skirts make. The holes they’re all drawn to. The entire pattern is called The Runnel and the Flute.’
Frecks and Gould – the ex-Black Skirts in the party – looked at each other and shivered. Amy didn’t point it out to the others. In this case, knowing more wasn’t helpful. She didn’t want everyone to be like Laurence faced with a pole and a drop into darkness.
Paule picked herself up and kept hold of the axe.
Frecks had her cricket bat. Amy took up the sword from the pile of armour. The blade was rusted to the scabbard, but it could fetch a nasty slosh. She still felt a need not to do too many permanent injuries. Most Black Skirts would wake up eventually and be sorry for being Soldier Ants, she believed.
They followed Knowles along the passage.
‘I can smell the sea,’ said Laurence.
The air down here had a damp, salt quality.
They were walking on sand. The tunnel expanded to be more like a natural cave. Torchlight flashed off shallow pools. Crustacean eyes blinked back on stalks. Seashells glistened.
‘Did you memorise a tide-table?’ Amy asked Knowles.
‘No. Why?’
‘Because when the tide comes in this tunnel fills up with water,’ said Amy.
There was an obvious tide-line on the rock wall.
‘Ah,’ said Knowles. ‘Could be tricky. There are steps ahead. Probably best if we hurry up them.’
Amy agreed.
They quick-marched the rest of the way, bunching up a bit. Only Marsh was casual about the prospect of a dip in the dr
ink. Amy suspected she’d be least likely to drown. Stretch admitted she couldn’t swim, but experimentally extended her neck like a sinewy eel to see if she could keep her head above water. Her crown brushed the passage ceiling. Her head bobbed from side to side.
‘Has anyone ever told you how unnerving that is?’ said Frecks.
‘Not really. It’s just my bones.’
‘Upstairs, in bright light and good company, having a four-foot neck is a party trick. Down here in the dark and damp, it’s flesh-creeping. I’m only telling you so you know.’
Hurt, Devlin pulled herself back in shape. Marsh’s pop eyes rolled sideways at Frecks. She wasn’t directly included, but knew she fell into the flesh-creeping category.
Amy worried they’d fall out with each other before they could take on the Black Skirts. It wasn’t even that Rayne was a master tactician. The Remove could divide themselves and become conquerable without any outside influence.
‘Frecks, in the Purple I have moth wings and antennae,’ she admitted. ‘You might find that “flesh-creeping” to behold. You’re wearing an enchanted hat which only works if your cause is Just and True. Remember Sir Percy and take care not to tick off the Lady of the Lake by letting a stray unjust or false thought sneak through. We’re all flukes here. We all make flesh creep.’
In the dark, Light Fingers took Amy’s hand and squeezed.
‘Swipe me but you’re right,’ said Frecks, rattling her chainmail. ‘Stretch, apols… you’re all right in my books, and always have been. I spoke out of turn and – as is tragically my wont – without thinking. Pals and quits?’
She stuck her hand out and Stretch extended her arm, kinking around Larry who was between them, to shake.
‘Quits and pals,’ said Devlin.
Amy trusted that was settled.
An iron door in the side of the tunnel opened with a wrench. A dazzling light was aimed into Amy’s eyes.
They were found out and caught!
‘Time to make a fight of it, Remove,’ she shouted.
Her invisible feelers extended. She rose a little off the ground and tensed for an attack.
‘What ho, girls,’ came a voice.
It was Lamarcroft, longbow and a quiver full of arrows slung over her shoulder.
She’d brought the rest of the Remove – Harper, Paquignet, Thorn, Frost, even Palgraive, who smiled and ambled along as usual.
‘Lungs led the way,’ said Harper, the one with the torch. ‘She was in a trance or something.’
‘No one showed up for our fair copies,’ said Thorn.
Light Fingers pouted – hacked off to have wasted the effort on forgery. She’d been fagged out ever since.
‘School is deserted,’ said Frost. ‘The Black Skirts have gone to ground. The air’s heavy and tangy, as if a storm was coming… or some other big event. We thought Lungs might be leading us to her last battle.’
‘I’ve trod these passages in dreams,’ said Lamarcroft, who didn’t seem in a trance to Amy. ‘There’s a ship here.’
‘Know-It-All said that too,’ said Devlin. ‘We think Cap’n Belzybub’s Hidden Harbour is just ahead.’
‘Cap’n Who’s-a-my-flip?’ asked Frost.
‘A former squire of Drearcliff who turned to piracy,’ explained Amy.
‘Sea-raiding,’ corrected Know-It-All and Devlin together.
‘You don’t need to know the difference,’ Amy said.
The pedants didn’t give her argument. Amy didn’t need a tide-table to know second high tide of the day was due around teatime, and the afternoon was nearly over. She heard water trickling in and the sand under her shoes was soggy.
She suggested they get a move on.
‘I say, it’s jolly good we’re all together again,’ said Shrimp. ‘When we were split, I felt weaker.’
Thorn’s eyes fluttered. Harper was next to her.
‘Cut the breathing in, Shrimp,’ said Amy. ‘We need everyone at their best.’
Harper let go somehow and Thorn shuddered to wakefulness. She made a puff of flame.
By the light of the fire, they saw the steps Knowles had expected. They led up to a dock, hacked out of stone. Iron posts were hammered in at regular intervals. Their torch-beams were too feeble to illuminate the whole cavern, but Amy had an impression of rocky roof a hundred feet above them. Thorn sent up puffs of fireball, which gave a better view. A body of black water rippled below the dock.
Dying flames from Thorn’s conjurings plummeted past rotten sails.
‘Here’s the Good Ship Jo Pike,’ said Stretch. ‘Though, all things considered, it might be classed as a Bad Ship.’
Amy didn’t know enough about ships to say how old the Johanna Pike was or what kind of a vessel it had been in its prime. Devlin had said it was a frigate from the 1750s. Two masts still stood, but the third had fallen like a tree and lay broken on the dock. The black snouts of cannons poked out of gunports.
‘Drearcliff has its own fighting ship!’ exclaimed Devlin. ‘I was impressed the school had a fives court! I claim right of salvage.’
‘You can only claim salvage if nobody alive’s aboard,’ said Marsh, darkly. ‘It’s why wreckers killed shipwreck survivors.’
Amy remembered Marsh’s fishy family were sailors. She was up on the law of the sea.
The hulk sat low in the water and listed, probably holed in the hull and resting on the bottom. Johanna Pike was written in flaky gilt on the side. A figurehead might once have represented a fickle Bristol lass. Seaweed had swarmed up over the bows and taken hold, turning her into a frond-frilled, bladder-benighted grotesque. No bard of Pontypool would be composing verses about her rosy cheeks these days.
‘The harbour entrance was over there,’ said Knowles, gesturing with her torch at a fall of rocks. ‘It collapsed hundreds of years ago. I doubt even a submarine could get in and out nowadays.’
‘I can’t see how a ship could have sailed from here, even with an opening,’ said Frecks.
‘They hauled down the masts and rowed,’ said Marsh. ‘Then put the masts up again, like a ship in a bottle.’
‘Very ingenious,’ said Frecks. ‘Hats off to Cap’n Belzybub.’
‘You don’t suppose there’s treasure down here?’ asked Frost. ‘Spoils of sea raids and such?’
‘The harbour and the ship are in the big book,’ said Knowles. ‘Headmistress knows about the cavern. She’ll probably have had any treasure away.’
Amy thought another mystery solved.
‘That explains how she came by funds to found Drearcliff. Welsh doubloons, if they made any.’
‘Belzybub mostly stole sheep, I understand,’ said Devlin. ‘But he must have had some treasure.’
‘Rustling’s a decent crime,’ said Light Fingers. ‘If the plods get close to feeling your collar, you can cook and eat the evidence.’
The ragged remains of human skeletons hung in iron cages from the masts, two still aloft and one spilled on the dock. A grinning skull with a three-cornered hat lay nearby.
‘Is this the two-faced Cap’n?’ Gould asked.
‘That’s not real,’ said Light Fingers. ‘The skeleton is plaster and the hat’s from the Drearcliff Playhouse. They were in The Flying Dutchman last year. I reckon the Viola Black Skirts have tarted up the cave to make it more picturesque. The original raiders wouldn’t have put the masts up inside the harbour. This has all the hallmarks of being a lair of villains. Real villains usually take trouble to live in places that look misleadingly innocent. Like a school.’
Devlin was disappointed, but strode towards the ship. A gangplank led from dock to deck. Amy wouldn’t have trusted anything wooden which had been down here in the wet for two hundred years, but supposed Stretch could bounce back.
‘I still claim salvage,’ said Devlin.
‘You can’t,’ said Gould, sniffing the air. ‘There’s somebody alive aboard. I smell them.’
‘Dr Swan,’ said Amy, excited.
‘No,’ said Gould. ‘N
ot Headmistress. Rayne!’
There was a fizzing and a sudden stink of sulphur… and a cannon discharged with a mighty roar and a flash of blinding flame.
Something black and round flew straight at them.
XII: The Last Battle of the Johanna Pike
‘POCKET,’ SHOUTED LIGHT Fingers.
Laurence – smack in the path of the onrushing cannonball! – swiftly pulled her hands apart as if drawing out a cat’s cradle. A purple gap opened in front of her midriff… a pinafore pocket!
The projectile disappeared into the rip.
With an audible plop, the cannonball was pocketed. Larry immediately pressed the seams closed. The missile hadn’t torn through her middle, but she was unsteady on her feet…
Speed into weight, Light Fingers had said.
‘Quick thinking, Light Fingers,’ said Amy.
She’d noticed Light Fingers gaining confidence with a newish Application. She could literally think quick… forming logic strings as deftly and speedily as she stitched a hem. She’d seen all in a rush that Laurence’s Ability had a uniquely useful Application when a cannonball was zooming at her.
Larry sat down with a bump, holding her tummy as if she’d eaten a bowl of green apples.
Long unmaintained, the cannon had rolled back as it went off and done damage inside the ship. Cries and complaints issued through the gunport. People were in there.
Girls.
Amy rose. She hung in the air, ten feet above the jetty. From this vantage, she could look down through decks of the Johanna Pike. The planking was badly warped by time and water, and much had fallen in. There was movement in the ship’s insides. A lot of movement. Churning and chewing and grinding.
Then… they swarmed out through the gunports and hatches, over the bows and across the gangplank.
At first, Amy wasn’t sure what they were.
They slithered on four limbs, but had the faces of girls. Some even still wore Drearcliff boaters. Black, naturally. Spines kinked alarmingly as if hinges had been fitted. They crab-walked on elbows and knees, chittering and keening as they came. Wave after wave of Black Ants.
It was hard to take in.
She recognised faces… Beauty Rose, Prompt Rintoul, Pest Merrilees, Damaris Gideon. Their crawling bodies were bent out of true, but they still wore their skins. Their eyes were black and their bodies aswarm with ants. But they were still girls she knew, some her friends. Surrendered completely to the Ant Queen, they were just a mass of bugs.