by Kim Newman
No, of course not. She’d be dead.
Still, others would be saved. Frecks, Little, Paquignet.
Even Speke – whom Death’s-head Hawk would have to tackle next, lest she pick up the mask and the name. Unforgiving Speke. Then her friend, Little. Terrified, but angry and strong. Not to be taken for a Dim. Once they were done with, Harper deserved worse than she’d got so far.
Shrimp is a Pest. Chase Shrimp. Hurt Shrimp. Break Shrimp.
Crowninshield II, Nobbs, Ziss, De’Ath, Inchfawn. Wrong ’Uns all. They should be broken. Stamped with the Death’s Head. As a warning to the rest. Sidonie Gryce beckoned. Amy couldn’t just leave that witch to Moria Kratides. Their difference was personal. Other rotters she didn’t know personally were begging for a breaking. Spring-Heel’d Jackanapes, the Gaiety Ghoul, Stepan Volkoff, the Slink. They deserved no mercy. The Lady of the Lake would want them cast down. Their lot was the Mausoleum or the Morgue. Despatched by the Death’s-head Hawkmoth.
First, there was a neck to snap. Wires and strings to cut.
Amy’s mentacles coiled around the Broken Doll’s throat.
The edges of the crack in the mask ground together.
Just a little more pressure… and…
‘Amy,’ said Paquignet, ‘don’t. You won’t only break her. You’ll break yourself.’
Amy heard Paquignet, but didn’t relax her grip.
Just causes were all well and good, but unending. A paladin strives nobly and clears a patch for honour, but in the end must falter and fall. The unjust swarm back across the beach, tear down the monuments. Innocents are put under the yoke or to the sword. A fresh paladin eventually rises to the challenge, but the Great Game is played at the expense of those on the sidelines. Their lot was to be trampled, lashed or forgotten. Being rescued or avenged was no recompense for the suffering.
The line wasn’t always chalked where you needed to go.
Amy kept up the pressure.
With additional mentacles, she scooped hand-crabs and tossed them at Larry. They thumped against her thin chest and arms, tore her sleeves, burst on the floor when they fell.
The cloak flipped off Frecks’ face. Frecks sat up, blood on her forehead.
Amy’s friend was saved. For the moment.
Amy could save her for all time. With just a little effort.
Dolly is a Wrong ’Un. See Dolly. Chase Dolly. Hurt Dolly.
Break Dolly for good.
Not the Broken Doll, but the Beaten Doll.
The cloak rose around Larry, folds animated. Tendrils slapped Amy’s mentacles. Larry folded her arms over her chest and let the cloak fight for her. The Doll could animate or shift objects with Amy’s stolen Abilities by hiding inside Larry’s mind and concentrating. Amy should learn that trick. She still relied on conjuring gestures, exerting her will like an orchestra conductor.
Amy held up her hands and made tight fists. Her arm muscles were taut as cables. Her mentacles constricted. She forced pain out of her head and into the cloak. Despite its recent feeding, it grew weaker as dawn neared. Amy mind-wrestled the shade of Count DeVille. She outstared a voodoo master. At last, the cloak stiffened like a batwing kite. It collapsed, heavy cloth slapping Larry’s legs, no more dangerous than a kilt of curtains.
DeVille was down… but the Doll still stood.
Amy sensed Larry’s larynx being compressed… vertebrae straining, pinching a nerve.
One sharp snap and it would be over.
‘You’re a Glory not a Death’s Head,’ cried Paquignet.
Amy squeezed…
VIII: Results
THEN STOPPED.
Amy caught herself in time.
She couldn’t claim she didn’t know what she was thinking. No ghost mask or parasite skirt whispered in her mind, urging her to be Doll or DeVille.
Death’s-head Hawk was her own idea.
Amy let Larry go, but the girl still choked and struggled. Stripped of stolen Abilities, she fell like an unstrung marionette. She landed on Palgraive’s front-row desk, rolled off the lid, and got jammed in the seat. The cloak wadded around her legs like a too-big blanket. She tried to free herself, stamping and twisting. The more she shook the more stuck she got. She slammed her face against the desk in frustration and lay there, china cheek to ink-stained wood. The girl inside the mask was exhausted. Her voodoo stare dimmed. But she wasn’t dead.
‘Good show, Amy,’ said Paquignet. ‘Well done, girl.’
Paquignet had nagged her at the crucial moment.
Amy had opened a Wrong Door but not stepped over the threshold. Being a Death’s Head was easier than being a Glory… at first. Larry was a pointed illustration of how that ended. A suit of armour could turn into an iron maiden.
Amy stepped down to the floor. Hollow doll-face carapaces crunched underfoot. The purple duplicates congealed, jellying en masse. Larry had made too many too quickly.
Frecks, fully awake, dabbed her bloody face with a hankie.
‘Have you enough sticking plasters for this?’ Frecks asked Amy.
She handed over the medical kit.
‘You’ll need to wash first. You are a sight.’
‘Thank you, nursie.’
Little held Speke. Both were wary of Amy now.
And no wonder.
Was that blame in Speke’s eyes? Resentment? The towel had unwound from her stumps. Little hugged her friend protectively. Perhaps too protectively. Little should be careful. She wasn’t just big. She was big and strong.
Paquignet stood over Larry.
The Girl With Green Thumbs had elected herself Lady of the Lake for the night. She didn’t look or sound like herself.
‘You’ll thank me,’ she announced.
‘More likely she’ll thump you, Floradora Girl!’ said Frecks. ‘Explanations had best be forthcoming forthwith!’
The door of Miss Kratides’ study opened. Another Fleur Paquignet stumbled out, wrists bound behind her.
The old Paquignet, the one from last term… smaller, greener, spryer.
The real Paquignet.
Who was the new girl? A duplicate from the Purple? No – she wasn’t puce in the face.
‘Venetia,’ said the imposter, close to Larry’s shaking mask, ‘I’m trying to make it up to you too.’
The false Paquignet spoke to all the girls in the classroom.
‘We were playing the Game. To win. Drearcliff Grange are no different. It was never meant cruelly. I speak for the school. The Capt might have a qualm or two about the Finish. He understands how you might feel the final moments of play were less sporting than the ideal. I was sent here as an exchange student. Moria knows all about it. We had a jaw-jaw session yesterday. Geoff Jeperson sends his regards, by the way. Especially to Serafine. If you want to know a secret, the Capt is a tiniest bit sweet on the Seraph. That’s why he’s gone a bit soft. He’s told me to make it right. It’s an obligation. The School Charter demands it. I swear on St Cuthbert’s honour, such as it is.’
The shammer unhooked a wig and wiped off his greenish face.
‘This isn’t what I look like,’ he said. ‘I can’t show you that. I don’t really know myself.’
‘Alfred Henry Wax!’ said Amy.
She should have known.
Among other annoyances and astonishments, Amy was irked by his casual reference to a teacher by her first name? Moria, indeed! Humblebumblers treated all women – no matter title, accomplishment or status – as maids or shop girls. They high-handedly called females to heel with a sharp, coaxing or familiar ‘Millie’ or ‘Gretchen’ or ‘Florrie’.
Aside from that, in general and with specific regard to Amy… how dare he!
‘H’At your serveece,’ he said, scraping her nerves. ‘No, sorry. He’s faded to nought. They always do. My Paquignet’s gone already. I sometimes miss them. Isn’t that funny? They’re real people to me.’
The true Paquignet eased herself into a desk seat and rubbed her wrists together behind her back. What must
she think?
One of Speke’s hands was crawling through purple sludge. Amy nudged it towards Paquignet. The fingers might still be good with knots.
Speke shuddered as she saw her severed hand nip behind the desk. No, she didn’t see… she felt. Stealthy and purposeful, the crab-hand climbed to Paquignet’s bonds and fiddled. Speke was using her detached body parts. If anything, she had more control over her free hand than when it was fixed to her wrist.
Her hands were handier.
Speke saw Amy notice her new Ability and regarded her coolly.
Mentacles of a sort extended from her stumps to her hands. She could puppeteer them into all sorts of mischief. Another girl, another Application discovered in extremis. Would that change how she felt about Amy? Miss Kratides expected them to be at daggers drawn. Kentish Glory was still in the market for an arch-nemesis. What had Amy thought to call her – Miss Stumps? Daisy Dextrous? The Punch and Judy Girl?
Paquignet’s wrists were freed and she made and unmade fists to get the sap flowing again. She wasn’t disturbed by Speke’s crawling hand. It clambered onto her desk lid and waited for approval. Paquignet stroked its carapace as if it were a healthy ficus. Speke and Little gathered. Another triad in the making. Handy Hands, Strong Girl, Green Thumbs. Paladins or Wrong ’Uns? Or just an End of the Pier Show?
The purple mess was almost dissolved, leaving only streaks of dried scum.
Amy tried to see H’Alfie ’Ampton in Wax. He hadn’t taken off his Paquignet disguise but rearranged it. She had another heart twinge of fury at the random unfairness. The rat had worn make-up in school for weeks and not been infracted. A real girl dabs on the merest speck of rouge and is scrubbing the Heel come Sunday. A fellow plasters his face with Leichner and gets away with it. A greater injustice than the Dreyfus Case! It must be taken to the House of Lords!
She caught herself getting distracted – by his impertinent use of first names, by his profligate application of make-up. A dozen irritating particulars provoked disproportionate ire. None were why she was really angry with young Master Wax. It was the other thing. Their last encounter. The betrayal at the Finish.
Amy would far rather snap his neck than Larry’s. Was that why he’d intervened? He could get round Kentish Glory but feared a Death’s Head.
They might pass it off as ‘playing the Game’ at Humble College, but gulling a girl was low and callous. Amy felt hot shame that she had been taken in. Wax had made her think less of herself, perhaps permanently. No matter how appealingly he chased his tail, she was not ready to stroke the dog that bit her. A.H. Wax – Culprit of a Thousand Faces. Just being in the same room made her dream up revenges. Would he enjoy being upside down in the air? Slammed against the ceiling? Dunked in the Bristol Channel?
‘Are you a boy?’ asked Little.
‘Mostly,’ said Wax.
‘Eek,’ said Little, stepping behind Paquignet and Speke to hide her bare legs.
Wax pulled a toggle on his belt. Trouser legs rolled down from under his skirt, which he undid and removed. He took a few steps, getting the measure of a new walk. At first, he overdid the masculine effect, heaving shoulders like a knuckle-walking gorilla. He toned it down and got proper balance. Amy doubted this slouch was any more natural than the fairy-steps he’d taken as Paquignet.
‘I was sitting next to a boy all along,’ said Little, cheeks crimson. ‘Uck!’
‘It’s all right, Gilly,’ said Speke. ‘You can’t really get germs from boys.’
Amy wasn’t so sure about that. Girls could get germs and worse from A.H. Wax.
His Talent – if Talent it was, not just a diligently acquired skill – was deceptive. Now his Paquignet was finished, Amy saw there had been screaming tells. He resembled the real girl, but hadn’t her knack with plants. Vines saw through him and withered no matter how much he used a watering can. He never got the voice right and called Amy by her first name when Paquignet wouldn’t. The flaws came to mind only after the curtain. H’Alfie was the same. Convincing when limping around, but ridiculous in retrospect. It wasn’t just acting. Wax was an Unusual. His Talent clouded the mind, lulling folk into falling for his acts. He might be able to pull off his personations without wigs or costumes. He made you want to believe in his disguises.
Of the girls in the classroom, only Larry could explain the extent of Wax’s perfidy – and she was lost inside herself. Another thing Amy was blamed for that was really his fault. Frecks, Speke and the real Paquignet were more puzzled than annoyed by the strange, exotic creature – a boy! – who had popped up among them. Only Little was properly appalled, and she’d have been the same about anyone in trousers.
Only an hour ago, Amy had worn a mask. Now she came down on the side of being barefaced. A paladin might conceal their true name, but never their true self.
Wax must know she was still furious with him. Even Humblebumblers weren’t that insensitive. He demonstrated courage just turning up – if not exactly showing his face – at Drearcliff Grange.
He said he wanted to make it up to her.
Her instinct was to tell him his unwanted intervention didn’t make it up to her – or the school. Not by a considerable length of limestone calcite.
He had only reminded her who she was.
Which was the right thing to do. Sloshing Death’s-head Hawk on the head with a flowerpot would have saved Larry. Letting Amy make her own decision was riskier, but saved them both. She shed the Death’s Head of her own free will.
Still, she wasn’t ready to thank him.
‘I’m not your enemy, Amy,’ said Wax.
‘Then who is?’ she demanded.
The question hung in the air. Frecks darted a glance at Larry, who still lay over her desk. Speke looked from her hands to Amy. Little tried her – pretty poor – best to shrink so there were girls between her and Wax. Paquignet alone was above it all. Her only enemies were spring frost and clumsy lawnmowing.
Moria Kratides came out of her study. She took tiny Japanese steps, as if hobbled by a kimono. Thick-soled shoes and piled-up hair drew attention to her short stature. She sat behind her desk.
Mouths fell open. Including Amy’s.
Wax tutted at the interruption.
‘Now, children,’ said Miss Kratides, ‘what have we learned?’ The teacher was outwardly calm but buzzing. She’d been up all night too. Amy’s antennae jangled. Miss Kratides gave the impression of knowing more than she was telling – and, through her red-lettered cards, she’d already told a lot.
Her manner was odd. She knew the Remove had long since grown out of the ‘now, children…’ stage. Drearcliff Grange was not a nursery. Even Firsts didn’t need to have their hands held.
But it stung. What had they learned?
Amy was annoyed, exhausted and confused… but had to admit she was thinking more clearly. Prompts and hints had been necessary, but the working-out was her own. She was Kentish Glory. She understood her choice. Though proud of herself, she felt a pinprick at the loss of Death’s-head Hawk. If this was growing up, she didn’t much care for it.
Others had suffered far worse from the Kratides Method. If Knowles, Speke or Larry declared the result – Top in Cleverness for the Term and Gold Stars for New-Found Abilities – worth the Ordeal of the Broken Doll, Amy would eat her now-superfluous Death’s Head mask.
Miss Kratides cast an eye around the classroom. The purple residue was all but vanished. No damage done. That wasn’t so back in the Music Room. Miss Memory had stayed behind and was stuck with tidying things as best she could before the Yeoman Lute Quartet (‘The Peasant Pluckers’) arrived to practise madrigals.
Miss Kratides was fascinated by Speke’s hands. They cringed on Paquignet’s desk as if the small woman were a roaring spectre with a raised chopper. Speke got a mental grip and her hands sat up to attention. They had become expressive.
Frecks finally asked the question. ‘Did you do all this, Miss?’
‘I did very little,’ said the teacher. �
�I oversaw and encouraged, where necessary. But you must learn for yourselves. Which you have.’
‘What she means,’ began Wax, ‘is that she’s delighted you’re all alive. Because now Headmistress won’t push her over the cliff.’
Miss Kratides’ frozen cheek twitched.
Amy squelched her outrage at the outsider’s impertinence. Drearcliff Grange girls could mock a beak or carp at a rule – the Code of Break practically required that they do so – but if anyone else spoke ill of the school or any of its staff they’d jump to the defence. Her immediate instinct was to round on Wax and give him a stern talking-to. But she wouldn’t be distracted. She had her own bones with Miss Kratides. Which needed picking this exact moment.
‘Where did Larry get the mask and the cloak?’ she asked.
Miss Kratides didn’t immediately answer.
‘Tell them, Mori,’ prompted Wax.
Mori?! This was too much! ‘You’ve met our exchange student, I see,’ said Miss Kratides.
‘Sorry about him, by the way. Alf-and-Alf isn’t easy to get shot of. I’ve been trying for years. You tear off one face and another appears, twice as annoying.’
Wax spat out a laugh.
‘She’s my sister,’ he explained. ‘I can’t believe she’s allowed to be a teacher. She shouldn’t be in charge of cats, let alone girls. Not with her shabby, sorry record. Mitéra thinks it’s a hoot. She says Mori’ll join the Women’s Auxiliary Police next and clap us all in the Mausoleum.’
‘That is not likely,’ said Miss Kratides, glaring.
Girls with brothers didn’t need nemeses. Amy had noticed that before.
‘You’ve ducked Amy’s question,’ said Frecks. ‘Cleverly. So I’ll ask it too. Mask and cloak?’
‘I furnished one,’ said the teacher, ‘but Laurence made the other… or found it, or it found her.’
Larry hadn’t made the cloak, so that was the item provided by Miss Kratides. Venetia Laurence – last in the Remove’s register of first names – hadn’t yet had her personal tutorial. She and the teacher must have had private meetings. The Broken Doll had been busy for at least a week. Small, unthinking cruelties put cracks in Larry’s heart. Amy, Wax and Frecks were only the latest guilty parties. Her family had been mistreating her all her life. In the end, Larry chose a mask to fit how she felt. Broken, not whole. Then someone cunning ‘oversaw and encouraged’. Amy could imagine. Smaller even than Larry, Miss Kratides would sit next to her like a friend – not with a desk between them like a beak. A drip of sweet poison in the ear. A helpful stir of the bubbling cauldron. Then a shyly presented gift. The teacher had suggested tactfully that Amy become a Death’s Head. She’d urged Larry to become a Worse Thing. Miss Kratides was the maker of this Broken Doll.