The Uncommoners #2

by Jennifer Bell

  Ivy’s skin tingled. The Jar of Shadows. She glanced at Jack-in-the-Green’s bag with the notebook tucked inside.

  Seb shrugged. Squasher shook his head, splattering slime across the table. “Haven’t heard nothing about a jar,” Mick said, stroking his wiry orange beard, “but I’ll let you know if I do…for a price, obviously.”

  Jack-in-the-Green tipped his head. “I need it by the evening of May Day.”

  In two days’ time…Ivy wondered what the urgency was.

  Mick the Stretch smacked his three hands against the table. “Right then, now that’s done, let’s get this game started.” He offered his metal box to Jack-in-the-Green, who picked a suitcase, bell and glove and placed them on the board.

  “Here’s my rules,” Mick the Stretch began. “We play traditional Grivens: you only move one piece per round. Last person still fighting after three rounds wins.”

  Ivy imagined Grivens must be some kind of board game, but the chopping board had no grid, just an outer black section and an inner red square. Her gaze drifted across the trophy cabinets to a mahogany shield studded with two silver plates. They were engraved with the words:

  INTERNATIONAL GRIVENS CHAMPIONSHIP 1979, MAI MASIMA, THAILAND: RUNNER-UP

  INTERNATIONAL GRIVENS CHAMPIONSHIP 1781, MOSVOK, RUSSIA: WINNER

  She bit her lip, growing more and more anxious. Seb looked like he was about to run away at any moment. Ivy could only imagine what was going through his mind. The dead players would turn murderous if they realized he wasn’t who he said he was.

  “Right, gentlemen,” said Mick the Stretch. “Time to select your first weapon and move it into the red.”

  Using a long green claw, Jack-in-the-Green pushed forward his suitcase piece. Squasher chose his glove, Mick the Stretch his bell. Seb’s eyes flicked between the three pieces on his side of the board before he gave the suitcase a panicked nudge.

  “See you on the other side!” Mick declared gleefully. He struck the chopping board, sending it spinning with a loud thrum.

  The air stirred.

  With a sinister hiss, everything within the chalk circle went blurry. Ivy rubbed her eyes, assuming it was some kind of illusion, but as clarity was restored, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

  Seb and the three dead players were still standing around the square table, but their surroundings—up to the edge of the chalk circle—had completely changed. The dark hunting-lodge decor had been replaced by a tarmac helipad, blue skies and a view of a sprawling glass metropolis in brilliant sunlight. It was as if they had been transported to another part of the world entirely.

  Seb’s chest was going up and down, though Ivy couldn’t hear him panting. Everything in the room was silent—but now the Grivens pieces were moving, changing shape.

  Jack-in-the-Green’s suitcase opened to reveal a miniature samurai sword, which then materialized—much larger—in his claws. He drew away from the table and began swiping it back and forth. Ivy held a hand over her mouth. Mick the Stretch was swinging a rusty ax. She didn’t understand….Had the pieces turned into weapons?

  Seb looked like a trapped animal as he glanced from one opponent to the other. Ivy wasn’t sure what to do to help him. A red and white football helmet appeared in his hands and, after a moment’s hesitation, he shoved it on his head.

  Jack-in-the-Green aimed his sword at Squasher. There was a flash of silver, and then, with a whoosh, sound flooded back and the four players returned to the room, exactly as they had been before….

  Except that Squasher had no head. It fell to the floor with a squelchy thud, a dumb grin on its lips.

  Seb grabbed the table edge, his knuckles turning white. Ivy had no idea how he was staying in character.

  Mick calmly scooped Squasher’s head off the floor and placed it back on top of his body. There was a wet crackle, and then…

  “OK, OK,” Squasher groaned, punching a fist on the table. “I admit it: those were some good blade skills.”

  Ivy couldn’t believe it. Grivens wasn’t like any board game she’d ever heard of—how could a beheading be part of the rules? Squasher wouldn’t be so cheerful if he was a living, human player….

  Like Seb. Ivy knew she had to do something to get them both out of there.

  Her eyes flicked toward the bag that Jack-in-the-Green had thrown at her feet. Careful not to disturb the bearskin rug, she sank to her knees and folded back the top of the bag. She could sense without touching it that it contained only one uncommon object.

  She slid off her gloves and, with her bare fingers, prodded around inside. They grazed what felt like the leather-bound book Jack-in-the-Green had been holding earlier, and she brought it out. She could sense voices emanating from within, though it didn’t feel warm to the touch.

  As she flipped it over, she started.

  The leather cover was embossed with the symbol she had been staring at barely half an hour before: a smoking hourglass. This time, the smoke was drawn on in wiggly lines.

  The graffiti…Perhaps the Dirge did have something to do with it, after all….And if whatever was inside the book had led Jack-in-the-Green to the Jar of Shadows, then the smoking hourglass must be connected to the jar. When Mick the Stretch began speaking again, she hurriedly stuffed the notebook into her satchel.

  “Well then, you lot.” He cracked his three sets of knuckles. “Second round?”

  Ivy checked the reflection of the room in the trophy cabinet. Seb was desperately eyeing the bearskin rug.

  “Ripz?” Mick the Stretch looked suspiciously at Seb. “You all right?”

  “Oh, er…” Seb laughed nervously as the room fell quiet.

  Ivy was trembling. Think. Think…She could jump out and shout, “Surprise!” but she was fairly certain she—and Seb—would be killed within seconds if she did that. In her panic, she scuffed the back of the bearskin rug with her hand.

  The rug swayed.

  Ivy jolted. It was uncommon.

  “Don’t yooo like yoo-urr toenails?” Squasher asked Seb. “Yooo haven’t eaten any.”

  He mumbled something that sounded like “I’m not very hungry.”

  The table creaked as Jack-in-the-Green leaned forward, resting on his pointy green elbows. “Not hungry? I’ve never met a grimp who wasn’t hungry.”

  Ivy knew by the sound of his voice that she’d run out of time.

  She had one idea left, but it was completely crazy. Taking a deep breath, she swung her arms and leaped up toward the top of the bearskin rug, ripping it down off its hooks.

  The bear’s head roared with glee as its hide fell through the air and stopped, hovering just off the ground. Ivy grabbed Seb’s rucksack off the floor and sprang on top, trying to recall the stance people assumed when they were riding uncommon rugs.

  Seb gawped. “Ivy?” His voice was shrill.

  The faces of the three dead players showed first surprise and then anger. Jack-in-the-Green’s long arms twitched….

  But before any of them could move, there was a sound like a cork popping, and a frayed burlap sack appeared in the middle of the floor. Shaggy dark hair and a brown face poked through the opening.

  “Valian?” Seb exclaimed, his voice climbing higher still.

  In the space of a second Valian seemed to take in the scowling faces of Mick the Stretch and Squasher, Seb’s terrified expression and Jack-in-the-Green’s glowing yellow eyes. Everyone was still for a moment.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  “Kill them!” Jack-in-the-Green’s wings burst out of his suit as he rose into the air, aiming straight for Ivy.

  With a growl, Mick the Stretch climbed onto the Grivens table. Launching himself out of the Great Uncommon Bag, Valian rolled aside just in time to dodge Mick as he thumped down on the floor, attempting to pulverize anything that moved.


  Squasher started toward Seb. “Ivy,” Seb shouted, “do something!”

  Ivy took hold of the fur that had once covered the bear’s shoulders and tugged it hard, steering the rug toward the ceiling. “Get on!”

  With a massive leap, Seb caught hold of the edge and clambered aboard, narrowly avoiding a double blow from Squasher’s slimy arms. Valian skidded under the Grivens table, escaping Mick the Stretch. Ivy saw him fishing around in his inside pocket. She caught a glimpse of three gunmetal ball bearings in his hand before he tossed them into the air….

  And then everything was floating. Ivy’s stomach shot into her mouth as she was lifted up toward the ceiling. She was weightless, like an astronaut in space. She clutched the bearskin, trying to pull herself back down, but the rug was wobbling all over the place.

  Seb splayed his fingers through the bear’s fur, trying to hang on. “What’s happening?” His hair was standing on end.

  A few feet away, the game table rose into the air, along with a confetti of Grivens pieces.

  “The ball bearings are uncommon, from a Newton’s cradle!” Valian shouted, his arms flailing as he swam out from underneath it. “They suspend gravity.” With an effort, he managed to work his way toward them, pulling himself onto Seb’s back.

  Mick the Stretch and Squasher bellowed furiously as they hovered up to where Jack-in-the-Green was floundering against the ceiling. “You cannot escape me!” he snarled. Two of his arms darted toward Ivy like long green spears.

  Seb kicked one of them away; Ivy ducked to avoid the other.

  “We need an exit!” she cried. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She urged the rug toward the wall it had once been covering, but it moved incredibly slowly, as if traveling through molasses.

  Seb slipped his uncommon drumsticks out of his sleeves and beat them as hard as he could in the direction of the wall. With an earsplitting crash, the wood paneling smashed and a hole the size of a small car opened onto the carousel. The silver figures stopped dancing and gaped as the bearskin found a turn of speed and zoomed through the gap. Ivy pulled hard on the bear’s shoulders so that they swooped up out of the reach of any silver arms and accelerated high over the Dead End.

  Angry roars sounded behind them. An orb of green light shot past Ivy’s head and landed with a crackle in the stubby branches of a withered black tree below.

  “What was that?!” Seb cried, throwing his hands protectively toward his hair.

  Ivy heard the thud of wings and looked over her shoulder. Jack-in-the-Green was in hot pursuit, his yellow eyes pointing in their direction.

  Valian fumbled with the Great Uncommon Bag, muttering something into it. “Ivy, do you think you can fly us into the bag on the back of this thing?”

  “Anytime now would be good!” Seb shouted as he was narrowly missed by another orb.

  Ivy tugged the bear’s fur with one hand and they banked left, out of the way. “I can try.”

  “OK, here goes.” Valian hurled the bag out in front of them and it billowed open like an old wind sock.

  Ivy aimed the bear’s head for the dark hole. “Everybody get down and hope this works!”

  The bear gave a roar of surprise as they all whooshed into darkness. Ivy gripped its fur tightly, trying to keep it straight, despite the fact that the Great Uncommon Bag was really in control. She felt the bearskin relax between her fingers, as if it was glad to escape from Jack-in-the-Green. Cool relief flowed through her limbs too—for a moment back there she’d thought they weren’t going to make it.

  The bag tunnel was unexpectedly short. Ivy, Seb and Valian emerged into a small dusty room that was flooded with light. The rug slipped out from beneath them and landed in a heap against one wall; the bear’s tongue lolled from its jaws as it panted.

  Climbing to her feet, Ivy looked around.

  The Cabbage Moon.

  She and Seb had stayed in the inn—in the very same bedroom, in fact—on their last visit, only it was subtly different now. The view through the window was framed by the dark edge of a thatched roof, and over the empty fireplace the once-plain uncommon wallpaper—which could fold itself into ornaments and furnishings—was patterned with warm sunflowers. Ivy’s duffle coat hung over the wardrobe door in the corner and her suitcase was on a chair beside the bunk beds.

  Seb got to his feet and raised an arm, grimacing. “Yuck! Get it off. Get it off,” he cried, wiping his tongue with his sleeve. “I can’t believe I had to eat a toenail to avoid being killed. Being an uncommoner sucks.”

  Ivy frowned. “Are you OK?”

  There was a dark ring of sweat around the top of Seb’s T-shirt, and his hands were shaking. “What do you think?”

  Behind her, Valian, still short of breath, got to his feet. “Why were you two playing Grivens?” He looked from one to the other disbelievingly. “It’s a miracle we weren’t all killed.”

  Ivy averted her eyes, feeling like she’d let everyone down. She should have figured out a way for her and Seb to escape sooner.

  “Seriously,” Valian continued, stripping off his leather jacket and throwing it over the end of the bunk. “Explain.”

  Seb had an unhinged look, as if he was reliving what had just happened. “What was that game? Do you know anything about it? Do you play it?”

  “Me?” Valian raised his eyebrows. “Absolutely no way! Even when the game was legal, the only living uncommoners who played it were professionals…and crazy. Grivens is infamous for causing the deaths of hundreds of competitors over the years. That’s why they banned it in the UK. It’s still legal in America and a few other countries in Europe.”

  Ivy thought back to Squasher’s grisly severed head. “The chopping board was uncommon. I felt it.”

  Valian nodded. “That’s how the game works. When a Grivens piece is pushed into the red square, the board imbues it with a unique power—it can turn into a weapon or a shield. The four opponents must stay within the chalk circle to play.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t in that circle all the time,” Seb interrupted. “That’s why it was so freaky! When they spun the chopping board, the room changed; it’s like we went somewhere new.”

  Ivy blinked, the scene returning to her. “You did go somewhere new—at least, that’s what it looked like. I couldn’t see you for a while, and then it was as if a portal had opened up in the middle of the room and you were…somewhere else.”

  “It happened instantly, for me. We were on a helipad, really high up.” Seb looked at Valian. “How is that even possible?”

  “It’s all part of the game,” he explained. “When the chopping board spins, everything within the chalk circle gets taken to somewhere in the Krigvelt and the game continues there. There’s normally a short interval before those on the outside can see what’s going on.”

  “The Krigvelt?” Ivy repeated. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a collection of combat arenas located in various places around the world,” Valian said. “Every time the chopping board is spun, players get transported to a different battleground. If you die fighting in the Krigvelt, you die when you return to the original location too.”

  “And people actually watch this?” Seb asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  “I told you—it’s illegal in most countries now,” Valian said, “but hundreds of years ago, Grivens was a really popular sport. There’s still a huge stadium in the West End of Lundinor.”

  Ivy considered the silver figures that had tried to attack her and Seb on the carousel. “That’s why those dead guys didn’t want an audience. They didn’t want to be found out.”

  Valian scoffed. “If those dead guys are associates of Selena’s henchman, they’re probably some of the most wanted criminals in Lundinor. That’s why there was an uncommon chandelier on the ceiling—it releases masquerade vapor, a gas that disguises dark d
eeds.”

  “Ivy and I found out who Selena’s henchman is,” Seb remarked. “An assassin named Jack-in-the-Green.”

  Valian froze. “Jack-in-the-Green?”

  “You’ve heard of him?” Ivy asked, perching on the bottom bunk.

  “Everyone’s heard of him—I just didn’t know that’s what he looked like.” Valian sank down and leaned against the wall. “Gobbles like him can change their appearance, and I don’t mean in a grimp-eating-toenails way.” He smiled apologetically at Seb. “Gobbles can transform into anything—a tree, a brick wall, a glass of water. I heard that Jack-in-the-Green once disguised himself as a chair and waited for weeks until his victim finally sat on him; then he slit his throat.”

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” Seb said. “With a professional assassin at her disposal, Selena is even more powerful than before.”

  Ivy’s spirits sank, but she clenched her fists. “Jack-in-the-Green said that he hadn’t found the jar yet; he needs it by May Day. Selena and the Dirge must be planning to use it then.”

  Valian’s eyes flashed with panic. “That’s the day after tomorrow! I didn’t find out anything useful at the Scouts’ Union. Have you guys discovered anything else?”

  “Well, I did get a glimpse of that piece of paper Jack-in-the-Green showed at the Grivens table—the one with the measurements for the jar,” Seb said. “It’s almost as tall as Ivy—it’s going to be difficult to hide it.”

  Ivy bit her lip. “That black door on the carousel can’t be the one Granma remembers, but at least we didn’t go through all that for nothing.” She opened her satchel and pulled out the leather-bound book she’d taken from Jack-in-the-Green’s bag. “Jack-in-the-Green said he’d been using a formula inside this to hunt for the jar. It’s got a smoking hourglass on the cover—just like the one Granma described and the one on the Great Cavern Memorial.”

  “I don’t recognize the symbol,” Valian admitted.