by Kim Newman
Amy nodded.
‘Not too impressive now.’
‘Someone who weighs a ton fell on her,’ said Amy.
‘I do not weigh a ton, St Bernardette.’
‘You in the mask,’ said Amy, ‘do you surrender?’
The Peril mumbled urgently. She had inhaled a patch of her hood and gagged herself. If choked, that was no worse than she deserved.
‘You could be sat on again,’ said Amy. ‘Little…’
Startled eyes swivelled behind the mesh and took in the looming Gillian Little.
‘Fancy a nice sit-down on someone squashable?’ asked Amy.
The Little Girl made great play of stretching and yawning.
‘I’m sooooo tired,’ she said, smiling – almost sinister.
The Peril spat out her mouthful of wet mask and cried a high-pitched ‘Pax!’
‘Surrender accepted,’ said Amy.
She found the seam between hood and body stocking and took hold, peeling cloth back from an inch or so of undistinguished neck.
‘Returning to an earlier discussion,’ said Amy, ‘can anyone here say which Wrong ’Un we have at our mercy?’
Shrugs all round.
‘Search me,’ said Frecks.
‘Knowles,’ said Amy, catching the girl’s attention, ‘using the observational methods of the great Guilbert Phatt, can you name the maid behind the mask?’
‘It’s never a maid. Papa says the one who done it should never be a servant. It’s always the nice friendly fellow.’
‘Not in this instance, obviously. But do you know who this is?’
‘Not a clue.’
Amy wriggled the hood off the Peril’s head. The culprit’s hair was pulled loose. She had to spit and shake to get it off her face.
‘Good gravy, it’s Shrimp Harper!’ exclaimed Frecks.
‘Who you didn’t recognise because she was wearing a mask!’ said Amy. ‘Point proved!’
‘That’s not a mask,’ pooh-poohed Frecks, ‘that’s a hood. Quite different thing.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Speke, stroking her chin disturbingly, ‘quite.’
‘I’ve never seen that girl before,’ said Miss Memory, forgetting Harper had been in the Remove with her for four terms. ‘The murderer shouldn’t be a new character brought on in the last chapter. Mystery readers would vandalise library books and send nasty postcards to the publisher. Mystery readers are unreasonably demanding, if you ask me.’
Amy was disposed to give up entirely.
Harper sat up defensively and looked at Frecks and Amy, then at Speke and Little, then even at Knowles. No easy escape route.
‘You could try the window,’ said Amy helpfully. ‘There’s ivy. It’s not too loose. And the wall might hold off crumbling for a few minutes.’
‘Though we’re awfully high up,’ said Frecks.
‘And you’re no floater,’ put in Speke.
‘We’re not using that word,’ said Amy. ‘Ever again.’
Shrimp was puzzled by Amy’s flash of anger at someone else.
Amy was too. Was she still disturbed by Speke’s hands? Light Fingers would frown on prejudice against a fellow Unusual. Amy would too, especially in herself.
‘You can’t fly, Harper,’ she said calmly. ‘And that get-up does not suit you.’
‘Not at all it don’t,’ said Frecks. ‘Unflattering in the nether regions. Baggy around the ankles. And the colour! Did you use beetroot juice to dye it?’
Amy felt the prickle of Harper’s leeching touch.
‘Don’t do that,’ she insisted.
Harper set her mouth in a determined line and exerted her Talent.
Speke slammed Shrimp around the head, smacking her shelled palm against her cheek and scratching with spines.
‘She told you not to do that,’ said Speke.
Harper screamed and held her face. She stopped trying to drain anyone.
‘My hand tingles,’ said Speke, examining her pale palm. ‘That’s funny. I usually only feel hot or cold.’
She’d slapped Harper quickly enough. It wasn’t just her hands that were hard-shelled. For a Second, Harriet Speke was a tough little egg. Fifteen minutes, at least. Amy wished she could warm up to her.
‘Who put you up to this?’ Frecks asked Shrimp.
‘Not telling,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Code of Break.’
Amy was iffy about the prohibition against snitching.
Telling on a girl to a beak was not done. Telling all to a paladin was the lot of any apprehended Wrong ’Un. When the debutante of the year was tied to an anchor in a tank that gradually filled with water, Dr Shade strung Bizou De’Ath’s father from the undercarriage of his autogiro and took a sightseeing trip over the Thames to persuade him to cough up the location of the Ghoul Mob’s Aquarium of Abduction. Amy could imagine the splash Blake De’Ath would have made if he’d plead Code of Break as an excuse for being unforthcoming.
Amy stretched the hood between her fists and rolled it into a strangling cord.
Harper was defiant. Amy wound the cord round her neck.
She wished she were still wearing her mask. Harper should see the death’s head glinting in the blurry light as the blood stopped going to her brain.
Harper was certain Amy wouldn’t throttle her.
She didn’t know the same went for Death’s-head Hawk.
Amy tightened the cord.
Maybe Harper wasn’t as certain now.
Shrimp began gurgling.
‘Steady on, Amy,’ said Frecks, touching her arm. ‘No need to break her windpipe.’
For a few seconds, Amy didn’t relax… and Harper’s eyes popped.
Then she let go. Frecks was right. No need.
‘You had us worried for a mo,’ said her friend.
Amy brushed away a gnat of guilt. Was she ashamed she’d started to strangle Shrimp or ashamed she’d stopped?
Harper unwound the rolled-up hood from her neck.
‘You’re all in trouble now,’ she said. ‘Multiple Major Infractions.’
‘So you’d peach on us,’ said Amy. ‘Code of Break or no?’
‘You said it – I’m a Wrong ’Un. We follow no code. I know that now. I shouldn’t even try to play by rules. Anyone’s rules. You’d never notice if I did, anyway. Every other bungler or blighter gets chance after chance. But not Jackie Harper. Not the perishing Shrimp. I am reminding you that you’re not like me. You never let me forget it, so it’s only fair you can’t either.’
‘Fair!’ exclaimed Frecks.
‘Yes, fair. You go on and on about being fair and codes and just causes… but it’s only hot air.’
This wasn’t how Shrimp usually talked. Someone had put ideas in her head. She’d had the last tutorial of the day with Miss Kratides, only a few hours ago. What had they talked about? The teacher was a great one for letting wolves off the leash.
‘You can’t snitch on us without snitching on yourself,’ she told the wriggling Shrimp. ‘You’re Out of Bounds after Lights Out too.’
Harper smiled slyly. Here was the familiar, unmasked, unstrangled Shrimp. Smug in her own parasitical way, feeding off her own bitterness when cheated out of feeding off others.
‘It’d be worth it to see you punished. Expelled.’
Speke went for Harper with both hands.
Shrimp screamed and shrank away from the chittering crab-fingers.
‘I’m not doing this,’ said Speke. ‘They are!’
Harper was terrified by Speke’s hands.
Amy felt the draining prickle again, but it was ripped away. Shrimp got half to her feet and scrambled across the Music Room. Her body stocking ripped under her arms and her pumps slipped on the worn carpet. She went flying face-first into Knowles, who held her up…
‘Harper, no,’ shouted Frecks. ‘Leave her be!’
Shrimp pressed against Knowles, bending her over the half-column on the dais. She put her face close to Miss Memory’s and breathed in. That was how she drain
ed folk, getting near and inhaling the air around their bodies. She stole sap and spirit. She licked her lips as she did it.
Despite the ridiculous costume, the Purple Peril was a true monster.
A fluke.
Frecks and Amy strode across the room, Speke and Little at their sides. They gathered sternly round the dais, surrounding Shrimp.
Harper snarled, ‘Stay back or I’ll take everything!’
Knowles muttered about bonnet trim and flapping bats. She was grey in the face. The electric frizz went out of her hair. She wilted.
‘You will anyway,’ said Frecks making fists.
Throttling a Wrong ’Un was wrong. Punching her in the face was fine and dandy.
Amy was becoming impatient with rules written and unwritten.
When a deb was drowning, Code of Break was suspended.
With mentacles, Amy lifted small objects – twisted triangles, broken brass keys, flute shards – and angled them in the air, aiming them like daggers. With a snap, she could riddle the Shrimp with such shrapnel… and Knowles shouldn’t get too badly hurt, though she could expect a slight piercing.
She was a moment away from that snap.
Harper looked up from Knowles and smiled. Her pallor gave way to a healthy glow. When infused, Shrimp seemed oddly innocent. A clean, happy postcard princess.
She held up her hand, palm out.
‘Unsteady on your feet, Walmergrave?’
Frecks wobbled. She wasn’t recovered from her dose of Shrimp.
Amy steadied her friend. Her cloud of sharp missiles vibrated in the air.
‘Keep back, you lot,’ said Harper. ‘Especially you with the I-don’t-know-what hands…’
Speke clacked her fingers but didn’t pounce.
‘This is lovely,’ said Shrimp, enjoying her meal, enjoying her audience.
‘And this is a lesson…’
The Purple Peril Triumphant!
Then Harper burped…
Little laughed.
Shrimp burped again and her glow rapidly vanished. She looked ill.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Speke. ‘Milk gone down the wrong tube?’
Shrimp staggered, letting go of Knowles.
‘No, really, I… This isn’t fair… This is…’
‘Is she going to be sick?’ asked Little. ‘Shall I fetch the bucket?’ Harper clawed the air like Count DeVille exposed to direct sunlight. She wasn’t just physically ill – her convulsing stomach showed through the body-stocking – but addle-pated. She’d drained Knowles not of her pep but of her discombobulation.
‘I have a bonnet…’ shrilled Shrimp. ‘I don’t know what comes next.’
‘Trimmed with blue,’ sang Little. ‘Do I wear it, yes I do! I will wear it when I can, going to the ball with my young man!’
Harper’s brows knit. She was afraid as well as poorly and confused.
Amy let her makeshift weapons drop unnoticed.
Knowles unbent, alert and focused. She stood up refreshed, like Frecks first thing in the morning, eager to extol the joys of a bright fresh day.
Discombobulated no longer.
Indeed, supremely combobulated.
Shrimp crumpled in a heap, twitching.
‘Did I miss anything?’ asked Knowles.
‘We know who has Light Fingers’ second secret,’ said Amy.
Miss Memory toe-prodded Harper.
‘“She could use her Talent to heal the sick – but won’t”,’ she quoted. ‘Dearie me, what a wretch!’
‘How do you feel?’ Frecks asked.
Knowles tapped her head, did mental arithmetic, was satisfied, and smiled.
‘Better than you look.’
Frecks was weighing heavier on Amy’s shoulder.
‘I’ll be buttered,’ said Frecks, ‘I’m going off again…’
Her eyes fluttered closed.
Unlike Harper, Amy was prepared. She braced her back and legs, then gently let her friend down.
IV: Blessings and Curses
FRECKS WAS SNOOZING soundly. Amy hesitated to wake her.
‘Best let her sleep it off,’ suggested Knowles.
Miss Memory was probably right. Frecks was done in.
They all were, but the vigil wasn’t over. The Purple Peril was unmasked, but other hands were against them.
The hour of the Broken Doll was yet to come.
Knowles’ torch and Amy’s lamp were running dim. The rest of the Main Building was quiet. Whole floors of dark, empty rooms. Amy wouldn’t get a wink of sleep in so lonely a place. Silence would keep her awake.
‘I could carry Walmergrave next door,’ said Little. ‘She can kip in my bed.’
‘A kind thought,’ said Amy. ‘But we’re supposed to be watching over you, not keeping you up all night.’
The Music Room was a smoky ruin. No hope of setting it straight before morning and no undoing damage done. Miss Dryden would get a shock. When annoyed, the music teacher was the scowling image of Beethoven in a bonnet.
‘We’ll take the Black Notches,’ Amy told Speke and Little. ‘No need for you to get infracted for all this.’
Speke’s hands played with the smashed double bass, fitting the pieces together in new configurations.
‘I can’t think of a yarn to explain it,’ said Speke. ‘No one will believe the truth but no one will believe anything else either. Anyone good at fibs? I can’t tell a whopper to save my life.’
‘Oxenford is our champion liar,’ said Knowles, ‘but her “exaggerations” are of the Munchausen variety. More entertaining than convincing.’
Knowles crouched over Harper, who was curled on the dais. Unconscious, but in pain. She hugged her stomach. Her knees were drawn up tight.
‘Shrimp’s out for the count,’ said Miss Memory.
‘She’s not invited to the Green Room,’ said Speke.
Knowles patted Harper’s back.
‘Poor idiot,’ she said. ‘I know how she feels, because it’s how I felt.’
‘What was that about her secret?’ asked Speke.
‘“She could use her Talent to heal the sick – but won’t”,’ said Amy.
‘She healed me,’ said Knowles.
‘By accident,’ insisted Amy.
Knowles looked at Harper from several angles, not without sympathy.
‘Many of Miss Kratides’ secrets tell the what but not the why,’ she said.
Amy remembered hers. You are right to be afraid of the Broken Doll.
In that case, the why was obvious… because she’s dangerous. Which was little help. Crucial details were withheld. Formless fears were hardest to overcome.
‘I can guess why Shrimp won’t use her Talent to heal the sick,’ said Amy. ‘She’s a nasty, selfish girl.’
‘There’s more to it,’ said Knowles. ‘You don’t have to be a saint to work miracles. In fact, if you aren’t a saint and can make sick people feel better, there’s a fortune in it. Laying on of hands, aches and pains relieved, ten guineas please, call again soon. It’s not just the l.s.d. Think of patients dependent on Harper’s whims and moods. She’d sit on a plush divan, wearing a turban or a white coat. Folk all around petitioning, desperate to keep on her good side, straining not to dislike her so they can get what they want – what they need – out of her. Shrimp’s usual party piece is as much a nuisance for her as anyone she battens onto. She only gets one chance with most people. Everyone avoids her after the first fainting spell. Even in the Remove, we make her sit in the corner. So she makes out she doesn’t want – or need – friends. She’s very lonely. No wonder she’s twisted.’
‘Are you making excuses for her? After what she did to Frecks? What she tried to do to you?’
‘No, Amy. I’m doing what you suggested. Applying observational methods. I have an advantage. Harper has done her worst to me, and – by accident – her best too. It cost her dearly. I understand how her Talent works. Because it’s like mine. She harms by inhaling the vitality of healthy folk and heal
s by inhaling the malady of a sick person. When I bone up on a subject, what goes into my head doesn’t stick. After a while, I’m ignorant again. I don’t think the confusion Harper pulled out of me will last either. But it’ll be horrid for her until it wears off. She’s cramming weeks of brain fever into a single night.’
Amy still wasn’t sympathetic. Harper had picked her path.
‘Could she help Devlin get back in shape?’ she said eagerly. ‘Or fix Bok’s knee?’
Knowles considered it. ‘At the cost of going rubbery or limping for a bit? Probably.’
‘Then we’ll make her do it,’ said Amy.
‘I can make her,’ said Speke. ‘With my hands.’
Knowles looked at them. With Dyall Dizziness sucked out like adder venom, she seemed more grown-up than before. She was like the word portraits of her mother in the early Guilbert Phatt mysteries. Knowledgeable and thoughtful. At this moment, Knowles was saddened by what she saw in Amy and Speke.
‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ she asked. ‘Make a slave of Harper?’
‘Stretch is your friend,’ said Amy. ‘Don’t you want her better?’
‘Of course. I want us all better. You too.’
‘I’m not ill,’ said Amy.
‘But you are worse. You should see your face at the moment. It’s more frightening than your mask. Look at your new cloak. It’s black.’
Suddenly self-conscious, Amy wasn’t sure she liked this new Miss Memory.
‘Zorro wears a black cloak,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s not frightening.’
‘You’re not dressed like Zorro,’ said Knowles. ‘I was turned upside-downsey in Villa DeVille but I know who you got the cloak from. Not El Zorro, “the fox so cunning and free”, but El Murciélago, “the Black Bat Night”. You’ve picked your costume to scare people.’
‘Not people… Wrong ’Uns. They should be scared.’
‘What’s a Wrong ’Un?’
‘Them,’ said Amy. ‘Those who do wrong. The girl who chained you and Dyall, knowing what it would do. Whoever or whatever’s out there in the china mask playing puppets. We can’t let them have it all their own way. We can’t let the Broken Doll laugh at us because we follow a chalk line on the floor and won’t step off no matter what.’
‘You sound like Harper. Where do you suppose she got it from?’