The Uncommoners #2

by Jennifer Bell

  Ivy wasn’t sure what Selena Grimes meant, but it couldn’t be good. Mucker came from the expression “common as muck.” It was the horrible slang term for commoners—people who, by blood, weren’t entitled to know anything about the uncommon world.

  All of a sudden something hit her on the arm and she squeaked in shock. Seb was standing beside her, Valian a little way behind him. An angry hiss filled the air, making the hairs on the back of Ivy’s neck stand on end.

  “Spies,” Mantis Man growled, his antennae clicking.

  The liquid shadow had worn off.

  Selena shouted, “Get them!”

  With a great whoosh, Mantis Man extended his wings and rose into the air as Selena shot in Ivy’s direction.

  Ivy ran, her feet hammering across the deck. Sprinting ahead, Valian turned down the next aisle. Ivy raced after him and almost collided with Seb.

  “Keep going!” he cried, pumping his arms. “The bug guy is right behind us.”

  They could hear the ominous beat of wings overhead. Seb snatched the Great Uncommon Bag out of his hoodie and whispered something into the opening.

  “Throw it here,” Valian yelled.

  Seb lobbed the bag, and Valian caught it in one hand before skidding to a halt by the ship’s rail. The sea beyond was black. “We have to jump,” he told them, panting. “Trust me.” Using one hand for support, he hurdled the bar and leaped over the edge.

  Seb shoved Ivy forward. “Ivy—go!”

  Scrambling up onto the rails, she snuck a look over her shoulder. Selena Grimes and Mantis Man were almost upon them. Inhaling a great lungful of air, she jumped into the waves.

  Her limbs flailed. She spied the Great Uncommon Bag fluttering just out of reach, the heels of Valian’s red basketball shoes disappearing inside.

  “I-veeeeeeee!” Seb called, falling behind her.

  Wind screamed in her ears as she forced her arms down and aimed her head at the opening, diving into the bag.

  Ivy adjusted the desk lamp to see the wound on Seb’s forehead more clearly. The scratch wasn’t very deep, but the skin around the edge was puckered and red. “That Mantis Man must have caught you in midair before you got inside the bag,” she said, patting the graze with a damp cotton ball. “Do you think he’s Selena’s new henchman?”

  Seb gripped the edge of the table, wincing. “Got to be; I didn’t see her pet grim-wolf with her.” His voice echoed up to the high ceiling of their dad’s office at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The room was stuffed with more reading material than a small library: string-tied bundles of academic journals packed the windowsills and never-ending volumes of encyclopedias filled the shelves. In one corner an old microscope sat on a desk, and on a table in the center, a brass desk plate gleamed with the words EMMET SPARROW, RESEARCH DEPARTMENT.

  “Make sure the wound’s clean,” Valian advised, standing guard by the door. The hallway beyond was dark. “I’ve never seen a race of the dead like that before, so I don’t know if that guy had venomous skin or not.”

  Seb’s face fell. “Sorry…venomous skin?”

  Ivy stuck a Band-Aid over his wound, threw the used cotton ball into a wastepaper bin and closed the first-aid kit. As she returned the box to the window ledge, a lone black cab rumbled past on the puddled road outside. Only an hour and a half had passed since eleven p.m., when they’d left in the Great Uncommon Bag; London was quiet.

  She sat down on her dad’s chair; his sweater was slung over the back. An image of the chief officer’s dead body crept into her mind and she pulled the sweater onto her lap and squeezed it tightly, wishing her dad was there.

  Valian hurried away from the door. “Quick—get down!”

  Light flickered out in the hallway. Seb rolled onto the floor and Ivy slid under the table as a flashlight beam illuminated the room. It moved slowly across the walls and then, after a few seconds, disappeared—along with the sound of fading footsteps.

  “We can’t stay here,” Ivy whispered, wriggling back into the chair. “If a security guard sees us, we won’t be able to explain how we got in.”

  Seb poked his head up. “The only reason I told the bag to bring us here is because Dad’s books might help us understand what Selena Grimes was saying. You know—about that Jar of Shadows.” He asked Valian, “Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “No, but I’ve got an idea what it might be.” Valian’s expression darkened. “A name like the Jar of Shadows suggests it’s a one-of-a-kind object; and we already know five one-of-a-kind objects that the Dirge are interested in.”

  A bead of sweat ran down Seb’s forehead as he pushed the tatty Great Uncommon Bag into the center of the table. “You mean, you think the Jar of Shadows is like this, one of the Great Uncommon Good?”

  Ivy shifted in her seat. If the Dirge ever got hold of one of the Great Uncommon Good, everyone—uncommoner or not—would be in danger. “What do uncommon jars do?” she asked Valian.

  “They store fears,” he told her with a tremble in his voice. “If you cry into an uncommon jar, your greatest fear leaves you and remains in the jar until it is opened again. Uncommoners use them as a way of dealing with phobias. The more powerful the jar, the greater the number of fears it can hold.”

  “Right…so why would the Dirge want one?” Seb asked. “They don’t exactly seem the scared type.”

  “Maybe not,” Valian replied. “But I once saw a commoner break a jar by accident. It must have contained a fear of falling because after it shattered, a gigantic chasm appeared in the ground and the man dropped right into it.”

  Ivy had a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. “So you’re saying that maybe the Dirge don’t want to store a fear at all; they want to release one….” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Maybe not just one…If the Jar of Shadows really is one of the Great Uncommon Good, there must be a huge number of fears inside it. Didn’t Selena say something about the jar having Pandora’s power?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve only heard of one Pandora before,” Seb said, “and she had a box.”

  Ivy vaguely recalled her dad telling her the story of Pandora; it was from Greek mythology. She scanned the bookshelves until she spotted a volume titled The Greek Myths. Opening the book on the table, she skimmed the contents before turning to the right chapter. “Here we go—Zeus created the first woman on Earth and named her Pandora. He gave her a box that, when she opened it, released all evil into the world.”

  “Great gift, Zeus,” Seb muttered drily. “Does it mention anything about Pandora’s power?”

  As Ivy read ahead, a cold sensation swept over her. “No, but according to this, over thousands of years the myth has been mistranslated. In the original story, Pandora isn’t given a box at all….” Her hand started to shake. She looked up at Seb and Valian. “She’s given a jar. The Jar of Shadows and Pandora’s box are the same thing!” She traced her finger across the text. “When Pandora opened the jar, it released sickness that brings death to men and myriad other pains.”

  Seb smiled thinly. “Fun times, then.”

  “Sounds like the Jar of Shadows contains all the fears of the world,” Valian said. “We’ve got to stop the Dirge from getting hold of it.”

  “Great,” Seb huffed. “It’s just our luck that we’re heading back to Lundinor at the same time as the jar. What’s the plan?”

  The name Lundinor drifted through Ivy’s head like a secret password. It felt like only yesterday that she and Seb were wandering the cobbled streets of the gigantic underground market, staring wide-eyed at all the uncommon objects for sale. “Valian, shall we meet you there?”

  He nodded. “I’ll see what I can discover beforehand. If I can find out who is importing the jar, we can narrow our search in Lundinor. There can’t be many traders that use the MV Outlander. I’ll take the Great Uncommon Bag to the Scouts’ Union in Edinburgh�
��it’s where scouts from all over the U.K. meet; it’ll be the best place to find out. In the meantime, make sure you keep out of Selena’s way.”

  Ivy could feel the cold hands of danger on her shoulders. “I wonder why she hasn’t followed us here already.”

  “Too much of a risk,” Valian said with certainty. “Seb, you remember what you told me a few days ago?”

  For the past few months, while they’d been at school, Seb and Ivy had been communicating with Valian using uncommon feathers.

  “What, that the Ripz have just released their new album?”

  Valian’s expression went blank. “No. The other thing—about seeing an underguard on the way to school.”

  “Oh.” Seb smiled awkwardly. “Yeah—I thought it looked like an underguard uniform. I tried to follow him, but he disappeared.”

  Ivy had seen one too. Or so she thought. If underguards showed up in the common world, it was usually bad news.

  “Well, since you left Lundinor last winter, I think the underguards have been monitoring you,” Valian explained. “It makes sense that they’d want to check up on you, what with your family history…No offense.”

  Seb sighed. “None taken. Our great-grandfather was in the Dirge; we can’t ignore it.”

  “And our great-uncle,” Ivy added in a small voice. She wished they could ignore it or, even better, that it wasn’t true. Living with the knowledge that Blackclaw and Ragwort were her relatives was so painful.

  “Thing is,” Valian continued, “Selena won’t risk coming after you herself, not with the underguard likely to spot her and ask questions.”

  “So what do we do when we get to Lundinor?” Seb asked. “I mean, apart from trying not to be killed by Selena Grimes and her giant bug servant.”

  “Keep your eyes open,” Valian replied, “and listen for anything that might be useful. We need to locate that jar.”

  “If we find it, we can’t destroy it,” Ivy told them. “That’ll just release the fears inside. We’ll have to think of something else.”

  “Great,” Seb moaned. “Low chance of success, high risk of mortal danger. What’s not to love about this plan?”

  “There’s one small trip I need to make first,” Valian said, his dark eyes shining. “Now that we know that the bag can take us to an actual person, I figured…”

  Rosie, Ivy thought. Valian was going to see whether the bag could find his missing little sister in the same way it had found Selena Grimes. “Good luck,” she offered with a hopeful smile.

  “Thanks.” Valian pulled a few short brown feathers out of his jacket pocket. “Here—take some of these in case you need to contact me. When you get to Lundinor, keep to the busy areas and don’t go anywhere on your own. Selena will be waiting for you to slip up. Don’t give her a chance.”

  “Are you sure about this, Granma?” Seb asked, tugging on the straps of his rucksack. “It doesn’t look like there’d be an entrance to Lundinor hidden around here.”

  Ivy peered up and down the quiet residential street that Granma Sylvie had led them to, only a ten-minute train ride from their London home. It seemed totally ordinary: a row of brick houses with gravel driveways and, on the opposite side, a long wooden fence. As there were no buildings peeping over the top, Ivy assumed that this backed onto railway tracks or undeveloped land.

  Granma Sylvie’s heels clicked along the pavement. “I agree it seems unlikely.” Her long silvery hair had been swept back into a neat bun and she was wearing a fitted velvet jacket and wide-leg palazzo trousers. She looked smarter than usual, as if she was on her way to a job interview. “However, I asked Ethel to repeat the instructions three times and we’re definitely in the right place. There should be a gate farther along.”

  Hearing that Ethel Dread had been involved, Ivy felt more at ease. Granma Sylvie’s long-lost best friend was the proprietor of the House of Bells in Lundinor, and more steely-eyed and streetwise than any other trader Ivy had met. “Did Ethel say why we’re not using bag travel like last time?”

  Granma Sylvie stiffened. “Apparently there are restrictions on gaining access to Lundinor this season. You need a special permit to travel via uncommon bag; otherwise you have to pass through an entrance like this.”

  Restrictions…? Ivy studied her granma’s expression to see if she knew more than she was letting on, but Granma Sylvie’s hard mouth and twitchy eyes only showed that she was nervous. Ivy didn’t blame her. Returning to Lundinor in the shadow of their dark family history would never be easy.

  Granma Sylvie stopped by an unlocked gate in the fence. “This must be the one.” She inched the gate open and the three of them slipped through. On the other side was a huge overgrown field of gardens, dewy and flattened after last night’s rain. Plots of freshly turned earth sat alongside beds of bushy green cauliflowers and red cabbages. Wild bluebells swayed among the weeds at its edge.

  Seb dodged an overturned plant pot. “Maybe the entrance is disguised to stop commoners from discovering it.”

  Ivy rubbed her nose—the air stank of compost, making it twitch. She searched into the distance. There were a few people tending to plants or digging soil, but the place seemed very quiet. “Either that or underguards are continuously stripping commoners’ memories to make them forget what they’ve seen,” she suggested. She had an unpleasant flashback of her parents having their minds wiped by uncommon whistles, and shook her head clear. Thank goodness they were on holiday this week, celebrating their wedding anniversary. At least they’d be safe.

  “Why have the underguard summoned you back, anyway?” Seb asked Granma Sylvie.

  She squared her shoulders. “It appears that as I’m the only member of the Wrench family known to be alive, I have inherited the entire family estate. The underguard told me I must be present while they catalog everything, before I can formally claim it.”

  “Sounds boring,” he commented, flashing Ivy a sidelong glance. “Will we get to see you much while we’re there, or will you be too busy sorting that out?”

  Granma Sylvie adjusted her handbag shakily. “I don’t know. I haven’t met any of these…underguards, but the tone of their communications hasn’t exactly been friendly. Can either of you see this entrance? Ethel said we’d spot it easily.”

  As they tramped farther in, Ivy searched for anything that might be out of place, but the gardens seemed quite ordinary.

  “I must have known about this entrance when I was younger,” Granma Sylvie said. “I’m sure Ethel feels strange having to explain it all to me again; thank goodness I have her to help.”

  “We’re still learning too,” Ivy said, offering her a sympathetic smile.

  Granma Sylvie ran a hand through Ivy’s messy hair. “I know. It would just be a whole lot less frustrating if my memories returned in one go. Instead, moments of my old life trickle back without warning.”

  Ivy studied her closely. “Have you had any other memories return?”

  Granma Sylvie’s expression darkened. For a second Ivy thought she wasn’t going to say anything, but eventually she sighed and admitted, “Something came back to me a few days ago….It’s complicated.”

  Ivy shot Seb a nervous look. The last time Granma Sylvie remembered something from her time in Lundinor, it had proved to be so significant, it had helped Ivy and Seb to rescue their parents.

  “The details are still hazy,” Granma Sylvie continued, “but I recall a large black door. I’m not quite sure where it is, or what’s around it, but it felt very familiar, as if I’d seen it many, many times.”

  A door…Ivy ran through the possibilities in her head. Lundinor was the size of a city; this door could be anywhere.

  “Painted across the front of the door was a symbol.” Granma Sylvie rummaged through her handbag for a notepad and pen, scribbled something down and held it up. “There. It’s like a figure eight, with a f
lat base and a flat top.”

  Ivy considered the drawing carefully. “Like an hourglass.” Her mum used a timer that shape when boiling eggs.

  “I thought so too,” Granma Sylvie agreed. “But there was something really odd about the symbol; it appeared to be smoking—as if it had been drawn on with acid that was burning through the door.” Her voice hardened. “And when the door opened, Selena Grimes was standing on the other side.”

  “Do you have any idea what it means?” Seb asked. “What Selena’s doing there?”

  Granma Sylvie fiddled nervously with the scrap of paper. “Something to do with the Dirge, maybe. We know my father was a member; I suppose I can’t dismiss the possibility that I too was involved somehow.”

  Ivy’s eyes widened as she heard the doubt in Granma Sylvie’s voice. There was no way she had ever been complicit in her father’s horrific crimes!

  A black door. A smoking hourglass. If Ivy could find out how they were connected to Selena Grimes, she might be able to put her granma’s mind at rest and learn more about their enemy. They had to try everything to stop Selena from finding the Jar of Shadows.

  “Why do you think it’s come back to you now?” Seb questioned.

  “The night before the memory returned I received a featherlight from the underguard, summoning me back to Lundinor,” Granma Sylvie replied. “When I woke the next morning, that black door was in my head.”

  Seb took the piece of paper from her to examine the hourglass symbol. “Do you think Valian’ll recognize this?”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Ivy opened her satchel and pulled out a stainless-steel bicycle bell. There was a deep groove cut into the top, as if it had been damaged in a nasty cycling accident. She smiled as she flicked the lever on its side.

  “Mornings to Ivy!” the bell declared in a ting-a-ling voice. It sounded high-pitched and breathless, like an excited child.

  “Scratch!” Ivy hugged him close. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Scratch was an uncommon bell and not her best friend. “Do you know anything about a black door painted with a smoking hourglass?” She didn’t add a question about the Jar of Shadows; Scratch had been with her on the MV Outlander—if he knew something, he would have said.