by J. R. Wallis
When Jones clapped his hands, the imps stopped what they were doing immediately.
‘In a line, now!’ he shouted and the creatures quickly made a row in front of him, arms behind their backs like naughty schoolchildren. Jones prodded the toe of a boot through the glass on the floor. He was far more surprised when he saw the tiny black dog lying motionless on the edge of the desk. When the boy picked up the creature by the scruff of its neck, it drooped like a dead flower.
‘It bit me,’ sniffed Ruby.
‘Course he did,’ snapped Jones. ‘He’ll have been hungry, cos he just hatched. And I wonder how that happened?’ he asked sarcastically. Jones studied the creature and saw the blood around its muzzle, matching the red tips on its ears.
‘Is it dead?’ asked Ruby as Jones felt for a pulse in its throat.
‘No. Scucca hounds are pretty tough, even pups. He’ll live.’ Jones picked out a tiny piece of dark red shell caught in the little dog’s coat. ‘Me and Maitland were going to study him and see if we could train him to hunt creatures. Scuccan have a nose for the supernatural, ’specially the undead and the like. It’s very rare to find a Scucca’s ægg,’ he said rather proudly. ‘You have to know where to look in a graveyard at just the right time. How much did he bite off you?’ Ruby held up her finger. ‘Hmm,’ said the boy.
‘Is it bad?’ asked Ruby, who couldn’t bear to look.
‘No. It’s not enough to make him grow much—’
‘I meant my finger.’
‘Oh,’ said Jones and then he grinned. ‘Well, he didn’t eat all of you, did he?’ he joked, hoping Ruby would see the funny side. But her face told him she didn’t. When one of the imps sputtered a laugh, Jones shot it a disapproving stare.
‘You three,’ he said, pointing to one end of the line. ‘Dustpan and brush from the cupboard in the hall. Next three, there’s an empty tin box in the bottom of the wardrobe in my bedroom. Bring it down. Final three, fetch another jar from the larder in the kitchen big enough for all of you.’ This last request was met with a chorus of disapproving groans. But when Jones clapped his hands all the imps scattered out of the door.
Ruby studied her finger. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
The imps swept the floor and placed the skull back on the desk. They gave Ruby back her shoes, with the laces threaded back, and one of them found her a new pair of socks. When they’d finished, Jones made them clamber one by one into the new jar, disappearing into a grey mist, and then he propped the lid loosely on top and traced a symbol on it with a finger. A flurry of white sparks rose up around the lid, which then proceeded to screw itself tight onto the jar, stopping with a loud click.
‘It ain’t proper magic, if that’s what you’re wondering,’ said Jones when he saw Ruby staring, her eyes as big as plates. ‘Anyone could lock those imps in if they knew what symbol to write. All I did was use the power over ’em that’s already there from Maitland’s magic. It’s the only reason the imps do what I say. There’s all sorts of charms and spells working round the house, carrying on even though Maitland’s gone. He made ’em that way in case anything happened to him on a hunt.’
‘So that’s what your Commencement’s about. Being able to do magic for yourself?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And that’s why Maitland gave you that key?’
Jones nodded slowly as he cursed the gun under his breath for mentioning it on the journey home. Rummaging in his pocket, he held up the silver key. It was simple looking. Small. Ruby decided she would have thought nothing of it if she’d found it in a drawer or lying on the floor.
‘If I use it the way it tells me to,’ said Jones, ‘I’ll get the gift of magic. But that’s the easy part. Then you got to learn how to use magic properly, and that takes years.’ He held the key close to Ruby’s ear and she heard the slightest whisper, a silvery voice, telling her it could unlock the secret of magic for whoever used it. And then Jones whisked it away before she could hear any more.
‘But it’s worth it, though, right?’ asked Ruby, her eyes bright. ‘So you can do things other people can’t?’
Jones shook his head.
‘Maitland always told me once you’ve got the gift of magic then you have to keep your distance from ordinary people otherwise they’ll want you to do things for them. Magic makes you different. And being different from everyone else ain’t much to talk about if you ask me.’ Jones studied the key in his hand. ‘I’m going to throw this key away so I can wear proper clothes. Have friends. Go to school. I know how the world is if you’re not a Badlander, bits of it anyway. There’s lots of wonders in it without needing to do magic.’
‘You mean you want to be an ordinary boy?’
Jones nodded. ‘I thought you could show me how? I’m a good learner. Maitland wouldn’t have kept me on as his apprentice otherwise.’ Jones puffed out his chest proudly, like a sparrow in the cold.
As Ruby stared at Jones with his tired eyes and his narrow, pinched face, she wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever fit into the ordinary world she knew. She wondered if he’d be so keen on it if he knew what it was really like being a kid, with adults telling you what to do all the time, and good friends hard to come by, as well as school getting in the way of doing far more interesting things. But she smiled and nodded. ‘Of course we can talk about it.’ Jones watched her eyes flitting towards the key in his hand and guessed what was secretly on her mind.
‘There’s never been a girl Badlander,’ he said. ‘That’s the code. The Ordnung we live by. You can’t Commence cos girls ain’t allowed the gift of magic.’
Ruby made a face. ‘This Ordnung sounds pretty stupid if you ask me. Girls are just as good as boys. That’s how it is in the modern world. Your rules are way behind the times.’
‘Yeah, I think so too, that’s why I want to change. One reason anyway,’ and Jones furrowed his brow. ‘Maitland told me something else about magic: it’s dangerous unless you learn to control it. There’s Badlanders who’ve gone mad because of it. Done terrible things.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘I reckon once it’s in there it rots your brain if you’re not careful. So this key’s going, as soon as I work out how to get rid of it properly,’ and Jones stuffed the key away in his trouser pocket.
He rubbed his eyes and did such a huge yawn he thought his jaw might split. ‘You gotta be tired too,’ he said, blinking at Ruby. ‘I’ll show you where you can sleep.’ He picked up the tin box the imps had brought from his bedroom, into which the tiny black dog had been safely placed, and left without another word.
Ruby took one more look around the study, imagining what it would be like to do magic. She smiled to herself at the very idea of such a thing. When she realized the skull on Maitland’s desk was staring at her, as if disapproving of everything she’d done and what she was thinking about now, her smile disappeared. ‘Girls are just as good as boys,’ she whispered before leaving and shutting the door behind her.
But, if she’d looked more closely at the skull, she might have realized something. That the stripe of blood she’d left on it from hitting the Scucca off her finger had vanished long ago into the bone and in its place now was a very fine fuzz of hair. Ruby might even have seen tiny blood vessels laced into the surface of the skull’s cheeks. And, if Ruby had stared long and hard enough into the eye sockets, she would have seen a very faint orange glow.
SIX
Ruby clicked the bedroom door shut and immediately felt a great wave of exhaustion pass through her. There was a single bed, neatly made with a red blanket, in the far corner and she was glad to see it. A wardrobe stood solemnly against one wall. She dumped her backpack down and stood listening to the silence.
As she drew the curtains, she looked out across the fields rolling away into the distance, silvered by the moon. She wondered what else might be out there right now in the Badlands that Jones had described, in the places ordinary people wouldn’t think to look. Perhaps there were Ogres moon-bathing in another garden, or Trolls just
as vicious walking silently into someone’s bedroom right at this moment, teeth bared.
After turning out the light and pulling up the covers to her chin, Ruby decided, even though she was tucked into yet another strange bed, things would be different this time. She wasn’t going to be told what to do any more by anyone. Not social workers nor foster parents. Not even Jones. And definitely not this stupid Ordnung she’d been hearing so much about. Here was a chance to do something different and exciting for the first time ever in her life and she was going to grab it. When she rolled over and closed her eyes, she imagined the small silver key immediately, and wondered about the secrets it might unlock, before sleep rolled into her, carrying her away to a foreign, dreamy land.
Jones worked his way around the house, checking all the windows and the doors were locked, just as Maitland had done every night. Everything belonged to the boy now. That was the Rule. But he was sure he didn’t want any of it. Magic was dangerous; he knew that because Maitland had told him, and he didn’t want anything to do with it. Ever since he’d been old enough to start hunting with his Master he’d been fascinated by the ordinary world he was being trained to protect, where children it seemed were free to just be themselves. The more he glimpsed this world, the more he wanted to be a part of it.
By the time he’d finished locking up, he was tired, but there was one more thing to do before he went to bed.
The small bush was growing in the huge back garden, hidden behind a mass of bracken and nettles. Jones had planted its single seed there on purpose in the early spring, to keep it out of sight of Maitland as it grew. He’d watered it every day or as near enough as he could. And he’d fed it each week with his own blood, a few drops squeezed from a toe, scared that Maitland might question any marks or redness on his fingers. The bush needed his blood to stay alive because the seed had been taken from his own body, cut from inside his belly button using a sharp knife, where one of Maitland’s books had told him it would be. A seed to grow a memory bush.
Jones stood in the moonlight and watered the bush as normal. But this time he tramped down all the nettles and bracken around it too to give it more space to grow, not scared any longer about Maitland discovering it. As the watering can ran dry, and he turned to go back to the cottage, he caught sight of a tiny fruit hidden among the thorny leaves of the bush. It was round and purplish, about the size of a blueberry.
Excited, Jones knelt down. Maitland’s book had told him that producing a berry was very rare, and Jones explored the rest of the bush carefully for any more. But he found nothing else except for a flower, which held the promise of another fruit later on.
When he reached to take the berry, the bush folded its little branches around itself, as if scared of losing the one tiny fruit it had grown.
‘I ain’t gonna hurt you,’ said Jones softly. ‘But I got to take this berry. Maitland’s gone, so I got to start finding out about who I am. I’ll keep looking after you, I promise. I won’t stop. But I got to try and remember where I came from before Maitland found me. Maybe I’ve got someone who’d like to see me.’ He pulled up his shirt to reveal the little red scar inside his belly button. ‘You’re a part of me, remember? I wouldn’t ever forget that.’
Slowly, the bush’s branches parted, allowing Jones to pluck the berry from its woody stem. He held it carefully in between his fingers, remembering exactly what Maitland’s book had told him to do, something he’d memorized in anticipation of a moment like this ever happening.
‘I want to remember the last time I saw my mother or father,’ he said firmly. ‘I want to see ’em to give me a chance of finding out about ’em.’ He placed the fruit in his mouth. The berry’s skin popped as he bit down, its flesh sweet and sharp like a cherry. He swallowed and waited, nervous about what he might see, wondering whether it might explain why he’d been left on the steps of the church where Maitland had found him.
Very quickly, Jones had the urge to close his eyes. He stared into the black inside him as a memory started playing out, crystal clear like a piece of film, and he was . . .
. . . staring up into the face of a woman with dark hair and green eyes. She was making little cooing noises as she rocked him gently. And then she turned and admired herself in the full-length mirror behind her and Jones could see she was holding a baby only a few months old, dressed in a blue Babygro. It was him! He was looking at himself! So the woman, this beautiful dark-haired, green-eyed woman, was his mother.
As she laid him down in his cot, Jones caught sight of two other people in the mirror, coming in through the doorway. The first was a man, blond and blue-eyed and handsome. The second was a plump, middle-aged woman. She was about fifty years old. Her brown hair was pulled back tight in a bun.
‘Angela wanted to see him before you put him down,’ said the man as he embraced the dark-haired woman around her waist and they both looked down, smiling at the baby Jones in his cot. There was a mobile of silver stars and a crescent moon spinning silently above him, but the plump woman’s face blocked them out as she bent down to look at Jones, a big smile on her kindly face. She had perfect white teeth and thick red lips and pure, unblemished skin. She sniffed the air like he was a pie that had just been baked.
‘Oh,’ she cooed. ‘What a cutie. He’s adorable. You must be so proud.’
‘Yes, we are,’ replied the man. ‘But let’s leave him to sleep now. We’re trying to stick to a routine so we can get some sleep too,’ he laughed. And then all three adults were leaving the room, a hand flicking off the light switch before the door was shut.
Jones gurgled and burbled, his legs kicking. But then he became still as, through the bars of his cot, he watched a man, wearing a baseball cap and a greatcoat, drifting out of the wall like a ghost. It was Maitland with the gun.
The baby Jones didn’t make a sound as Maitland leant down and picked him up. The man began whispering words. Up and down his voice went, until he stopped abruptly and plucked a single brown hair from the baby’s head. As soon as he laid it on the mattress in the centre of the cot, it started to sprout out of its root-end. A scalp materialized in a matter of moments with thousands more brown hairs growing out of it. But it didn’t stop there. Soon, a baby-sized head was lying in the cot. Blank at first, but then, very quickly, the details of Jones’s face appeared. The eyes. His mouth. His lips. Maitland held the real Jones close to him as the replica baby kept growing. A neck came next, sprouting shoulders and arms below it, followed by a body and legs, until a brand-new version of Jones was lying in the cot, wearing a blue Babygro. Maitland nodded, satisfied, and then he was carrying the real Jones with him out of the bedroom.
He crept down the stairs and into the hallway. He stole past a room with its door shut, beyond which voices could be heard talking and laughing.
There was a pile of open mail on a dresser. Coats hanging on pegs.
Maitland opened the front door quietly, clicked it shut behind him, and then he was running down the path into a quiet residential road lit by the orange glow of street lights. Jones could hear the rush of air around them, the sound of Maitland breathing hard, and the gun chuntering on about something.
Maitland turned down one street . . . and then another . . . and then another.
He passed a row of shops and there was a name above one of them: Jones the Greengrocer.
‘Jones,’ said Maitland. ‘That’s your new name now, boy.’
And then the memory stopped running and everything faded to black.
When Jones opened his eyes, he was still standing in the garden, the sharp taste of the memory fruit ringing in his mouth. His fists were clenched so hard they looked like little rocks in the moonlight. Everything Maitland had said about finding him was a lie. All the guilt Jones had been feeling about not obeying his Master and remaining a Badlander hardened into something else. It was anger.
Moments later, he was sprinting back to the house, his heart pounding in his ears.
The gun was snoring when Jon
es opened its wooden case and tipped it out onto the floor of Maitland’s study.
‘What the devi—’
‘You and Maitland were lying all along.’
‘What are you t—’
‘You never found me on the steps of no church.’
‘What’s got into you, boy? What are you talking about? Have you been dreaming?’
Jones crouched down beside it. ‘No. I’ve been remembering. I’ve been growing a memory bush. And tonight I found a fruit and when I ate it I saw the truth as clear as day. You and Maitland stole me from my parents. My mum had black hair and green eyes and my dad was blond and handsome. And you took me from ’em, right out of my cot with the stars and the moon hanging above it.’
And, for the first time, the gun was speechless.
‘Tell me who they are,’ demanded Jones. ‘Where I came from.’
‘Please, Jones,’ implored the gun, turning its muzzle away from him. ‘I can’t.’
But Jones just growled. ‘I know what some Badlanders get up to, stealing kids to train ’em up when they don’t have no one and leaving a fæcce in their place to get ill and die. I know cos I met other apprentices what told me. And now I know Maitland was a Badlander who did it too, who stole me for his apprentice. So who were they?’ he shouted. ‘Tell me about my parents!’
‘You can’t ask me anything. You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
The revolver shuddered. ‘Jones, don’t ask any more questions. You can’t—’
‘Who are the—’
Before the boy could finish, the revolver fired a shot and the bullet pinged into the wall behind him. Jones kept very still for a moment. Shaking. His breathing coming in tiny bursts. His right ear was ringing. Gingerly, he touched it and found a tender graze.
Shocked, Jones opened his mouth.
But the gun shuddered again. ‘Jones! No more questions. Please! It’s another charm. I can’t tell you or anyone else about the things you want to know. Maitland wanted it kept a secret.’