The carriage swayed to a stop and the door opened to reveal Charlotte.
‘She’s asleep. I’ve covered her with blankets, but we don’t have long. The air’s biting.’
Felix shifted the pile of papers so she could squeeze in.
‘Did she say anything?’ he asked.
‘Mostly bragging about her own genius and complaining about the hardships of being a woman, as if I didn’t know.’
Leander held a piece of cake out, but she shook her head. Felix saw him pretend to put it back in the basket, but instead slip it into his pocket.
‘The letter,’ said Charlotte. ‘Did you leave it in my uncle’s study?’
‘Yes,’ said Leander. ‘Well, sort of. I got caught by the housekeeper and had to drop it on to the carpet. I hope he sees it.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘At least we tried.’ She rubbed her hands together, then stuck them under her arms for warmth.
‘I suppose we just have to wait and hope,’ said Leander.
‘We’re on our way to Stafford, through Coven. What’s in Stafford?’ asked Charlotte.
‘Coven?’ said Felix, a memory stirring but still foggy. ‘Did she mention anything else?’
‘She said her secrets have been buried for eight years, whatever that means. I think she was suspicious. I might have been too nice.’ Charlotte was shivering. Felix didn’t know if it was because of the cold or the horror of the night’s events.
‘No luck here, either,’ said Leander. ‘We—’
‘Wait.’ Felix cut him off. Charlotte’s words had loosened something in a dusty corner of his mind. An idea was waiting just beyond his grasp. Buried for eight years. He dropped to the floor, combing through papers they’d already checked. ‘Leander, quick. The Grimoire of Marsh and Blight, where did we put it?’
‘Which one is it?’ Leander joined him on the floor.
‘The blue one with the golden edges.’ Charlotte pulled her feet up on to the bench to give them space.
‘Got it.’
Felix clambered on to the seat beside Charlotte. Leander began tidying away the papers.
‘Where is it, where is it?’ Felix turned the book upside down and shook it, causing a shower of dried petals and paper scraps to fall into his lap. He discarded the book to sort through them. ‘I saw a note. I had a nagging feeling it might mean something.’
He pushed a scrap of paper into Charlotte’s hand and she unfolded it, revealing a verse written in a scratchy, slanted hand.
Be gone from this house,
Be gone down the hill,
Go back to your king,
You have eaten your fill.
‘Poetry?’ Charlotte suggested.
‘Not poetry,’ said Felix. ‘It’s a letter to the rats, asking them to leave a house.’
Leander shuddered and tucked his legs in, as though the mention of rats might summon them. ‘Ask them to leave? Why not just kill them?’
Felix shook his head. ‘You should never kill a rat. There are whole kingdoms of them. Kill one and dozens will come for revenge. If you ask nicely . . .’
‘But what’s the use in writing a note? Rats can’t read, can they?’ Leander said.
‘Of course they can’t read!’ Charlotte’s tone was scornful.
‘What would you know?’ said Felix. ‘You’ve never understood the old ways.’
‘Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s right.’
‘Just because someone had a tutor once doesn’t mean they know everything,’ snapped Felix. Now was not the time for Charlotte’s opinions. He was on to something, he knew it . . .
‘I don’t need a tutor to tell me rats can’t read!’
‘You have to be right all the time!’ Felix slammed his hand down on the book. The thud brought him to his senses and they all fell silent, listening for any sign that Pinchbeck had heard them.
Felix took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘It’s not important whether rats can read or not. Let me think.’
He ran his fingers over the looping scrawl on the fragile yellowing paper. This wasn’t Pinchbeck’s handwriting. It belonged to her husband, Edmund Pellar.
Pinchbeck had introduced Felix proudly to Pellar on that first day. ‘He’ll draw in custom for us. Listen to how well he can play,’ she’d said, and Felix had delighted in their praise as he performed for them. He remembered the tune he’d played for Pellar, and wished he could play it again to summon the memory.
Pellar had been gruff but kind, setting up a bed for Felix and making sure the boy had enough to eat. He was a tall man, older than Pinchbeck, with a strong, commanding presence.
That same evening, Pinchbeck was serving Pellar dinner at the tiny table in the wagon. ‘Remember I mentioned the spirit rappings, and how much money they make? When we do it, Felix here could play music to set the mood.’
‘Hmm.’ Pellar had been stony-faced, giving nothing away.
‘And just imagine if the boy had a disappearing trick, to make it seem like the violin was haunted!’ Pinchbeck spoke like someone telling a child that spinach was delicious – high and false and overly cheerful. She fussed and fluttered round her husband, almost giddy.
‘No.’ Pellar’s voice was a bass drum.
‘But darling, consider—’
He grabbed Pinchbeck by the arm. Felix pressed back into the corner, fearful things would get violent. ‘No. That’s my final word, Augustina. Don’t test me.’
He walked out and Pinchbeck stomped and sulked her way through the evening. That night Felix woke to the sound of hushed arguing.
‘You’ve already done it, haven’t you?’ came Pellar’s voice, demanding and low.
‘No.’
‘You promised you would stop, but he’s like them, isn’t he?’ Though it was pitch-dark, Felix could picture the disgust on Pellar’s face. ‘You betrayed my trust!’
‘Shh! The boy will hear,’ said Pinchbeck.
Felix pulled his blanket over his head and screwed up his eyes, wishing he was back at home, wishing for Isaak.
There came the scrape of chair legs on the wooden floor, the click of a latch, then the door swung shut, shaking the flimsy walls. Their voices faded away. Felix stayed put under his blanket, listening for their return, but the next morning he was alone. He stayed by the cart, sweeping and dusting and collecting firewood, but Pellar and Pinchbeck were still gone when he settled himself back down to sleep that evening.
When she finally returned, a full day later, Pinchbeck wore a black veil. ‘Edmund took ill in the night. I didn’t want to frighten you. We went for the doctor, but it was too late to save him,’ she said. She was gentle, reassuring, holding Felix’s hand tightly like she was afraid to lose him, too. ‘It was the fever.’
There was no further explanation. It struck Felix as a little strange because the man hadn’t seemed unwell, but what did he know of doctors and fevers? His tentative questions were met with tears and he quickly learned it was not his place to wonder. He tagged along to the church, the stonemason, the coffin-maker, as Pinchbeck made arrangements. Back at the wagon, she filled a crate with the tools of Pellar’s trade – bundles of herbs, cloth poppets, salt crystals. ‘We’ll bury them with him. It’s what he would have wanted.’
That was it. Felix shook his head and blinked hard to dismiss thoughts of the past.
‘Coven,’ he said. ‘That’s where Pinchbeck’s husband is buried. I was there . . . it was eight years ago.’
‘Secrets buried for eight years,’ said Charlotte.
The candle spluttered and flickered. Leander scrambled to light another before it burned out.
‘She buried him with his own charms and trinkets—’ said Felix, and Charlotte was quick to follow his thought.
‘You think she buried something important with her husband?’ she asked. ‘Something we could use?’
‘There was a whole boxful of things to go in the coffin. Mostly rubbish, I thought, but maybe . . . After all, Coven isn�
��t the quickest way to get to Stafford. There must be a reason to go there.’
His thoughts were in tangles. He hadn’t thought about Pellar in a long time. But, now that he did, Felix remembered he had travelled through Coven with Pinchbeck many times, even though it was a tiny, unimportant village, without even a proper inn. It had been years since their last visit, soon after she stole Charlotte. Or was it after she stole the last little girl, Rosa? Pinchbeck must have a reason for heading back that way now.
‘We need to look in the coffin,’ Felix said.
‘Disturbing a grave – that’s hideous,’ Leander said.
‘It’s all we’ve got.’ Felix felt like he was shivering on the inside, but managed to keep his voice steady. Pinchbeck trusted him. And she had taken him all round the country so he could look for Isaak. If he did this, it would be a betrayal he could never recover from. But he couldn’t lose Charlotte. And now there was Leander to consider, too. Felix felt as if his soul was being pulled in two directions, in danger of tearing at the seams.
‘What if she buried another grimoire, one that tells us how to break her spell? Or, or what if one of the amulets she buried is the source of her magic somehow?’
It made sense that she would hide any object that could undo her magic somewhere the children could never reach it.
‘If that’s where she gets her magic from –’ Leander jumped up, excited, and banged his head against a pan hanging from the ceiling – ‘maybe she’ll get more, and keep all of us.’
‘I don’t—’ Felix began, but Leander interrupted.
‘I know we want to escape. But if she could keep all of us that’d be the next best thing, yes? At least we’d be together and safe.’
‘No!’ Charlotte grabbed his wrist. ‘You didn’t hear her. She’s finished with me. She doesn’t want me any more.’
‘And, even if she could keep all three of us, it will never be enough,’ said Felix. ‘She’ll want fresh children for her ghostly photographs. She’ll have to steal more.’
‘And it won’t be any old children,’ said Charlotte. ‘Now that she’s seen what someone like my uncle will pay to see a child he loved again, don’t you think Pinchbeck will want more of the same?’
Leander’s eyes widened. ‘You mean . . . she’ll take children from families? Happy children? Safe children?’ He stared at the others as the realization sank in. Felix had never seen him looking so pale. ‘It’ll be a whole new business. Stealing children just so she can summon their “ghosts” for profit.’
The wind whipped round the carriage and blew in through the cracks, bitter and cruel.
‘We’re the only ones who can stop her,’ whispered Leander.
‘It’s only a few miles to Coven. She’ll wake before then,’ said Felix.
Charlotte produced a green glass bottle, no bigger than her thumb, from one of the drawers. ‘Laudanum. Let’s get the carriage as close to Coven as we can. Then we’ll help her down into the carriage to warm up, and I’ll put a few drops in her drink.’
14
The Hanged Man:
An Involuntary Pause,
Reversal of Fortune, Change
The night was as cold and clear and still as glass. The three children left Pinchbeck slumbering beneath her blankets in the carriage and set out under the moonlight. Foxes were fighting in the distance, making an awful sound like a baby wailing in the darkness. The trees reached out with gnarled branches, and half-dead brambles scratched and snagged at their clothes.
Exactly the right kind of night for grave robbing.
It was wrong to be excited, but Leander was giddy, like his blood was full of bubbles, and red-hot fear pulsed through his chest with each breath. The world had never seemed so vivid and alive. It was very late, and they’d had no rest, but they moved tirelessly on. Leander carried a shovel, Felix the lamp from the front of the carriage.
‘Where’s the grave, Felix?’ whispered Charlotte. ‘Do you remember what the headstone looked like?’
‘In a corner, near the walls. I’ve never seen the stone; we moved on before the soil settled.’
‘What if there isn’t one?’ said Leander. If the grave wasn’t marked, they were lost. They’d drugged Pinchbeck for nothing.
‘There is. I remember us visiting the mason,’ said Felix.
They split up to find the stone. Charlotte had printed the name on a scrap of paper so Leander could match it to the inscriptions, but the stones were worn and mossy. The others worked faster, checking three or four stones to Leander’s one. He was shamefully slow.
John Walker Cartwright, aged sixty-six.
In Loving Memory of Catherine George.
Benjamin Shotton, at peace.
Sacred to the memory of Edmund Pellar.
Pellar!
Leander’s heart thumped against his ribs. He’d found it! He whistled and the others were with him in a trice.
The headstone was surprisingly grand, though very overgrown and set crookedly in the ground. No one had tended this grave in years. Apart from the name, the only thing engraved on the stone was a strange symbol made up of triangles and a single curving line, which, if Leander squinted his eyes, could almost be the outline of a rat.
‘Quickly,’ said Charlotte, ‘before I change my mind.’
But digging up a grave was not quick. The clay-rich soil was almost frozen, hard and heavy. They had only one shovel between them – the one Pinchbeck kept on hand in case a carriage wheel got stuck in the mud. A trowel was lying discarded by the wall and they grabbed it, two digging while the other stood stamping their feet and tucking their hands under their arms for warmth. Progress was painfully slow, bodies burning with the effort, fingers numb with the cold. The longer it took, the more chance of them being discovered, or of Pinchbeck waking to find them gone. Leander’s imagination twisted the trees into Pinchbeck’s shape and transformed every sound into the swish of her skirts or the click of her heels.
‘Not much further,’ said Felix after an age. The edge of the hole was already at his shoulders. ‘I can feel something.’ They scrabbled and scraped at the dirt, revealing the long, thin shape of a coffin.
This was it, then. They were going to commit a terrible sin. Now they were actually here, the plan seemed foolish – and gruesome. In Leander’s old life, he would’ve scoffed at fairy tales about curses and hidden spellbooks. But here they were, three enchanted children in an open grave. Would Edmund Pellar’s resting place hold magic that could save their lives, or nothing but a mouldering pile of bones and rags?
The coffin lid shifted beneath them. All three shuffled back as close to the muddy edges as possible lest it crack completely.
‘We’ve made a terrible mistake.’ Charlotte’s voice shook. ‘If Pinchbeck comes here, she’ll see the earth disturbed and know what we’ve done.’
‘If we find the answer here, it won’t matter,’ said Felix.
‘And, if we don’t, she’ll kill us all.’
‘Too late now.’
The wind dropped and the world was silent apart from their ragged, terrified breath.
‘I’ll do it.’ Leander surprised even himself. As frightened as he was, this was his chance to be the hero, and make up for his earlier cowardice. ‘I’ll prise it open.’
The other two climbed out to give him room, and stood like mourners above him, caked in grave dirt. Charlotte’s hair was half loose from her braids and they all glistened with sweat despite the chilly air.
Leander lined up the shovel with the edge of the coffin lid and planted his foot on top of it. He would be brave. There was no other choice. He made the sign of the cross, then forced the shovel into the coffin and leaned on the handle with all his weight.
The lid budged a little, then stopped. He shoved against the handle again and this time there was a hard crack, like the snap of a whip. The old wood splintered and gave way, leaving a hole in the lid the size of a dinner plate.
‘I can’t bear to look. Is it awful?’ s
aid Charlotte, covering her eyes.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Felix, peering into the gap.
Determined, Leander shifted the shovel and repeated the action nearer to the tapered top. Nails began to pull away from wood. After a third time, he crouched in the narrow space and forced his fingers under the lid. In his imagination, he saw ghostly fingers touching his; he pushed the vision away.
Closing his eyes as tight as he could, he flung back the lid. It hit the other side of the pit with a wet thud.
Breathing shallow and shaky, he straightened up and pushed his shoulders back against the edge of the hole. He didn’t care about the others seeing how scared he was now. He wanted to be far away from the corpse before he opened his eyes.
Would it still have skin?
Would it look like a person?
He clutched the shovel to his chest for protection and opened his eyes.
The coffin was empty.
Well, at least there was no body. Instead, the wooden box was filled with broken rocks and twigs and long-dead leaves.
‘How can it be?’ said Felix.
‘Where is he?’ said Leander, flooded with relief.
Charlotte dared to peep. ‘Bodysnatchers? Or has it rotted away?’
‘Wood rots faster than bones,’ said Felix. ‘And graverobbers wouldn’t trouble themselves to leave bricks in his place.’
‘How did Edmund Pellar die?’ Charlotte asked him.
The Vanishing Trick Page 12