Next to her bed stood a silver lava lamp on a stylish teak table. As the wax inside it stiffened, the bird visions overhead disappeared. She read the notice beside the lamp—
DEAR GUEST,
PLEASE ENJOY THIS UNCOMMON LAVA LAMP. YOU WILL WAKE UP ENERGIZED IN THE MORNING, AND AT NIGHT YOU WILL FEEL RELAXED AND READY FOR SLEEP.
WITH COMPLIMENTS,
GUESTHOUSE SWANKYPANTS
Ivy pulled back the covers. She was wearing gingham-check pajamas embroidered with the logo of Guesthouse Swankypants—a disco-dancing woman with an afro and flared trousers. A shag-pile carpet tickled Ivy’s toes as she padded into a lounge furnished with a molded plastic table and chairs in gaudy shades of orange and purple. The remains of the burgers, fries and milkshakes she and Seb had eaten last night were on a room-service trolley in the corner.
Her brother stood gazing out the window, his expression distant. “You sleep all right?”
“Yeah…surprisingly.” It crossed her mind that the uncommon lava lamp could have suppressed any nightmares she might otherwise have had about the Dirge’s army of the dead.
“I’ve been trying to work out what object the Sands of Change is,” Seb said. “If the name is a clue, it isn’t very helpful.”
She joined him at the window. Beyond the veranda, the street was busy with traders doing early morning deals on everything from feather dusters to drinking straws. On the balconies of the buildings opposite, people set off for work on flying brooms and cleaning mops. The display in the window of a shop named Tierrific Ties caught Ivy’s attention—an array of patterned ties around the necks of glittery, grinning mannequins. But as she watched their expressions changing from happy to sad, the ties changed color too.
“The riddle doesn’t make sense either,” she admitted. “I keep getting stuck on that ‘bathed in breath’ bit. It’s so odd.”
“I thought about that too.” Seb gestured to Tierrific Ties. “It could mean that the Sands of Change is something you put close to your mouth, like a tie. That would explain the ‘bathed in breath’ line, because you’d always be breathing on it.”
Gazing at the mannequins’ sparkly lips, Ivy thought about which other objects might also fit Seb’s theory. “What about drinking straws? Or sometimes people blow on their glasses before cleaning them too. Would that count?”
“Yeah, or pens and pencils—I always chew mine at school,” Seb said.
Ivy watched a man sipping a coffee as he strolled along the pavement. “There’s also teacups, chopsticks, napkins, cutlery…” She sagged. “I guess it doesn’t exactly narrow down what type of object the Sands of Change could be.” She jumped as an iridescent peacock feather suddenly appeared at the end of her nose. It floated upward and swished to and fro, writing letters in the air above her head.
Dear Ivy…
It flipped over and did a loop-the-loop. Ivy jerked her head, dodging aside.
“Who’s that from?” Seb asked, shuffling back.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I wasn’t expecting anything.”
…my warning difficulty with may
your family
cannot
“What’s wrong with it?” Ivy said. “The handwriting keeps changing.”
faster than I
must listen gates
The plume wiggled back and forth as if it was being tugged in opposite directions.
“I’ve never seen a featherlight act like this before,” Seb admitted.
The feather continued jotting disjointed phrases until, with a soft puff, it disappeared, leaving only three words shimmering in the air:
Yours, Mr. Punch
Half an hour later, the message was still spinning through Ivy’s head as she and Seb arrived outside the Rice Is Nice burrito van, where they’d arranged to meet Valian. Papier-mâché models of turkeys in pilgrim hats sat on the roof. Seb traded for two breakfast burritos, and he and Ivy ate them while they waited. Ivy had just swallowed her last mouthful of tortilla when she spotted Valian approaching with a girl. She had golden skin, chin-length silky black hair and a broad smile. “Judy!” Ivy’s spirits lifted as she greeted their uncommon friend. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Judy gave Ivy a hug. “Valian said you needed some help, so I put together my most practical Hobsmatch ensemble and—here I am. What do you think?” She did a twirl, fanning out her denim skirt. She was wearing thick woolen tights, roller skates and a green satin bomber jacket. A sweep of matching green shadow on her eyelids made her wide hazel eyes pop.
“You look great,” Seb said, hastily combing his fingers through his hair. “It’s good to see you.” They exchanged an awkward smile. Ivy remembered Seb murmuring Judy’s name to the uncommon mirror at the Tidemongers’ base. Although he’d never actually admitted to liking Judy, Ivy could guess his secret.
“Valian described to me what he saw in the Frozen Telescope,” Judy explained, somber now, “and everything that the three of you heard at the Tidemongers’ base. It doesn’t sound…good.”
“That’s an understatement,” Seb remarked. “We have to find Rosie as soon as possible.”
Judy nodded. “Valian and I have just come from the featherlight mailhouse. We wanted to find out whether Rosie could have been traveling by pram too, like Mr. Rife. So we made inquiries with both of our trade contacts, but no one’s heard of an uncommon pram being sold in the last seven years. Another dead end, I’m afraid.”
By the set of his jaw, Ivy could tell Valian was disappointed.
“Still,” Judy continued, smiling, “you’ve got one lead on Mr. Rife—you know from the sheet music that he did meet Rosie, so that sounds promising. As does that riddle in Amos’s journal.”
As the four of them set off in the direction of the auction house, Ivy told Valian and Judy about Mr. Punch’s mysterious featherlight message. “I couldn’t understand any of it,” she admitted.
Valian scrunched his brow. “If there were different sets of handwriting, it almost sounds like the message was written by more than one person.”
“Maybe it was,” Judy commented. “Mr. Punch is a Hob, remember—his race of the dead have several broken souls trapped inside them. I only ever recognize him when he appears as quartermaster looking like a young man with a red beard, but he must have many more guises.”
Ivy tried to count how many different versions of Mr. Punch she’d seen. He had appeared as an old man with a crooked back, as a softly spoken shopkeeper and as the fresh-faced quartermaster that Judy knew. His distinctive aquamarine irises were the only of his features that never changed. “I just hope he’s OK,” she said. “He’s never acted like this before.”
The streets grew busier as they walked along. It seemed that even more Thanksgiving decorations had appeared overnight—rust-colored pumpkins and gilded pinecones were now arranged on the steps leading up to most shops, and the air was starting to smell of apple pie and cinnamon. Arriving at the entrance of Forward & Rife’s, they found the door to the courtyard closed. Seb grabbed the handle and gave it a yank, but it was definitely locked. He examined a note fixed to the knocker, then held it aloft for all to see.
“What could be so important that Mr. Rife and Mrs. Bees have decided to shut up shop?” Ivy asked, peering up at the roof. Security guards patrolled around the edge of the garden. “It’s a pity my senses don’t reach far enough to check whether that pram is still there. If we knew it had gone, then at least we’d know they’d left Nubrook.”
“Mr. Rife wasn’t planning on visiting his buyer, Midas, until after the auction,” Valian reminded them. “Perhaps we made him nervous by asking questions about Rosie. We know he’s hiding something.” He bent down and squinted through the keyhole. “Great. They’ve got uncommon shuttlecocks inside.”
Seb jerked his head up. “Those weird
things you hit when you’re playing badminton? What do they do?”
“They fly around acting like mobile security sensors,” Judy explained. “If they detect something that appears out of place, they sound an alarm.”
Ivy took a closer look. Flitting through the air as fast as dragonflies, the shuttlecocks made a whirring sound as they moved. Occasionally they hovered in one place long enough for Ivy to see how they worked—their feather skirts rotated at high speed like propellers. “So I’m guessing that means we can’t sneak inside to check if the pram’s still there or not? Or search for other clues either?”
“Unfortunately not,” Valian said. “Even if I used my boat shoes to move through the walls, one of the shuttlecocks would likely spot me.”
“What if we divert the shuttlecocks’ attention?” Seb suggested. “Anyone got anything we can use to create a distraction?” He turned out his pockets, flashing his phone, a wallet and—Ivy noted—the pair of cufflinks he’d collected the day before at the Tidemongers’ base. “I’ve got my drumsticks too, but with the amount of noise and destruction they’d cause, we’d be bound to attract the interest of the security guards on the roof—and everyone out here as well.”
Valian patted the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “Same problem with everything I’m carrying.”
Ivy knew her yo-yo—which generated tornados—would cause all sorts of chaos. She contemplated asking Scratch to make a loud noise, but that would only draw the shuttlecocks’ attention to her satchel.
Judy hesitated. “I can’t promise this will work, but I’ve got an idea. Can you give me some cover?” she asked, indicating the passing crowds.
Seb and Valian positioned themselves between Judy and the street, hiding her from the wandering gazes of the passersby. Judy considered the marble wall of the auction house very carefully—running her fingers over it and studying the way it looked in her shadow before flattening herself against it. She scrunched up her nose and, gradually, her skin, hair and clothes all turned a perfectly matched shade of marble gray.
Ivy blinked, unsure how Judy was achieving the effect or even whether it was permanent. The reddish-pink of the inside of Judy’s mouth appeared hovering in midair. “Can you see me?” she asked.
“Not if you don’t speak,” Seb said. “It’s brilliant.”
In a streak of color, she reappeared—still with her back flat against the wall, as she had been before.
“Judy—it’s better than brilliant,” Valian said. “The camouflage will fool the shuttlecocks and the security guards, so you’ll be able to slip into Mr. Rife’s office easily. We can even use the cufflinks Seb took from the Tidemongers. If you plant one of them in Mr. Rife’s pram, then we’ll be able to track him if he does leave Nubrook.”
Ivy could hear excitement rising in Valian’s voice. It was a good plan. “How did you even do that?” she asked Judy.
“Well, as you know, every race of the dead has its own strengths and weaknesses,” Judy explained. “Phantoms like me have the ability to manipulate light. With a little concentration I can make something appear a different color.” She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I’ve never actually attempted to camouflage myself before.”
“You’re a phantom?” Seb’s face brightened. “I should have guessed sooner…you can touch the ground, but only on wheels; you’re fun-loving and colorful…it makes sense now.”
Ivy gave her brother a sidelong glance. All that homework he’d been doing with Scratch now made sense: he’d wanted to know more about Judy.
“So…where do you stand on the whole ‘soulmates’ thing?” he asked casually—although Ivy noticed his neck stiffen, like he was bracing himself for the answer. “From what I read, the dead community is pretty divided on the issue. Not everyone wants to be Departed.”
Judy arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been reading about the dead?” She smiled. “Personally, I’d rather be alive if all things were possible, but as they aren’t, being a phantom is as good as it’s gonna get. I’ve got no desire to find my soulmate.”
“Right…cool.” Seb’s posture relaxed, although his cheeks flushed as he handed Judy the cufflinks. “Good luck sneaking past the shuttlecocks.”
“I’ll come find you when I’ve hidden a cufflink in the pram,” Judy told them. “You shouldn’t wait around for me; time is against us.” She walked over to the door and disappeared through it, leaving behind a glittering metallic outline, as if gold dust had been sprinkled in the air.
“Judy’s right,” Valian said, ignoring the goofy grin on Seb’s face. “If we can’t question Mr. Rife right now, we need to investigate another lead. Why don’t we retrace my parents’ steps on the afternoon they were in Nubrook? If we can find out where they found the Sands of Change, we might get an idea as to what it is—and solve that riddle.”
“The only trade they made that day was by Breath Falls,” Ivy reminded them. “We’ll have to start there.”
Valian stuffed a hand in his pocket and retrieved his ping-pong ball. “It’s not too far from here. We can bounce on the way.”
“Are you sure this is OK?” Seb asked, holding his ping-pong ball above a wooden street bench. “I’m not going to get arrested or anything?”
Valian aimed his ball at a nearby lamppost; Rosie’s image appeared on it a moment later. “It’s within GUT law to put up posters, as long as they’re not being used to generate business.” He pointed to the boarded-up windows of a shop on the other side of the road. “Look there—you see what I mean?”
Ivy picked her way through a river of traders on the way over. A sky driver swooped low over the street, hauling a woman up onto his flying vacuum cleaner. As the woman had been waving her hand in the air a moment before, Ivy guessed that that was how you hailed a ride in Nubrook.
Planks of chipboard covered the old shop fascia. They were affixed with various IUC trading announcements, several lost property notices and advance warnings of road closures. There was even a poster proclaiming the opening of Strassa, the WORLD’S FIRST SKYMART! in Tibet: The technological capital of the uncommon world! A market hidden in the clouds of the Himalayas. She examined the picture of Strassa. It looked like a city exploding out of the side of a mountain. Brightly colored mosaic towers rose from the rock, separated by star-shaped platforms filled with fountains and market stalls.
She pushed aside a couple of trading notices and threw her ping-pong ball at the space she’d made in between, but it rebounded unexpectedly. She had to leap to catch it before it sprang out into the crowd.
“Finished,” Seb announced when Ivy returned. He was standing by his bench with a smug look on his face. Not one inch of the wood remained uncovered: he’d printed so many copies of Rosie’s poster that the colors bled into one another, making the prints resemble a series of Andy Warhol portraits.
“Er—thanks,” Valian said, wincing. “Let’s move on; the waterfall’s along here.”
They continued through several wide, uncluttered streets of a beautiful district of First Quarter, where all the storefronts were decorated with ornate Art Deco moldings and stained glass. Ivy noticed more of the dead traipsing around with “soulmate” signs around their necks, and she also spotted materializers playing official underguard announcements addressing the issue: “Please remain calm,” a senior underguard officer announced in one video. “We are actively searching for ways to locate your soulmate.”
Valian found a trio of disposable red plastic ponchos in a rubbish bin and, handing one each to Ivy and Seb, he said, “Here, put these on. You’ll need them as we get closer.”
Ivy slipped the garment over her head, trying not to laugh at Seb, whose sleeves only reached his forearms. “Why do I have to wear a child’s one?” he complained, dangling his arms like a scarecrow.
Ivy smirked. “You are a child, Seb.”
They turned ont
o a terrace heaving with traders, all wearing the same red ponchos over their Hobsmatch. Many were clustered near a barrier on the far side, peering into a wall of dense mist. Ivy couldn’t see what lay beyond, but judging by the deep rumbling noise resonating in the air, she assumed it was the Falls.
Shadowing Valian, she and Seb edged through the crowd. They passed a tall man with a shaved head wearing a bib promoting Nubrook Sights. He was addressing a group of people holding uncommon snow globes. Ivy guessed they were tourists and he their tour guide, and as she moved closer she heard him saying, “…Breath Falls is one of the great wonders of the uncommon world, an entirely uncommon-made waterfall in the downtown district of First Quarter in Nubrook. The silver colossus was designed in 1934 in the Art Deco style by Vermillion Spruce, the famed Danish architect. The water draws its source from Hudson Bay and is filtered by uncommon devices before reaching Nubrook….”
When Ivy drew level with the railing, alongside Seb and Valian, the air felt cooler and full of the crisp scent of ice. Moisture settled on her cheeks. She blinked, gazing up through the spray. Looming above them was a gigantic silver statue of a man in a long cape; his head alone was the size of a block of apartments. He had sleek wavy hair and smooth round eyes like an ancient Greek figure. His hands were cupped under his chin so that the water gushing from his mouth fell over his fingers before tumbling into the foam below. The cascade was so ferocious, mist clouded around his lips like breath.
“I can see where the waterfall gets its name from!” Ivy shouted. She traced the statue down; the trunk of the man’s body disappeared into the froth.
The Uncommoners #3 Page 7