Odge stopped to take it all in, her eyes glistening with tears.
‘Are you all right?’ Lina asked.
Odge smiled at the platform as if it were a long-lost friend. ‘I’m more than all right.’
A ghost dressed in a porter’s uniform was hovering there to meet everyone, directing the poor bewildered magical creatures to places where they could stay. ‘The witches have rooms on Portland Place and Northcote Road,’ he said, tipping his cap.
Odge stared at him, mouth ajar.
‘What is it?’ Lina asked, prodding her. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost! Well, I suppose he is a ghost, but still … Haven’t you seen a ghost before?’
Odge had seen a ghost before, of course, and Lina knew that. What she didn’t know was that Odge had seen this particular ghost before, when she first came to platform thirteen all those years ago. But Ernie Hobbs, despite being very old and very dead, now looked very different. His thin frame was now fleshed out, and the buttons on his shirt were bursting.
‘Is that our Odge?’ he asked in amazement, turning his attention to the two girls. ‘And … Ben?’ he guessed, looking at Lina.
‘It is me!’ Odge said, wrapping her arms through the ghost. ‘And of course that’s not Ben, Mr Hobbs.’
‘Yes,’ Mr Hobbs said. ‘You’re quite right.’
‘This is my friend Lina,’ Odge said. ‘Lina, this is Ernie Hobbs.’
‘A pleasure,’ Lina said, curtseying, which made Ernie Hobbs laugh and tip his cap.
‘He’s put on weight, hasn’t he?’ came another voice.
Lina watched as another ghost, with long grey hair and sparkling eyes, glided into view.
‘Oh, hello, Mrs Partridge! I did think he looked a little different,’ Odge said, as the ghost floated down to a bench and crossed her legs.
‘We decided to swap, you see,’ Mrs Partridge said. ‘Our jobs, I mean. I was the cleaner, and Ernie was the railway porter, and we had done it for years. So one day we thought we’d have a change. Well, of course Ernie took over my cleaning duties right around the time they were doing up the station. Odge, you’ll notice it is quite changed, though luckily we managed to keep them off platform thirteen. But they added more food shops than I can count, and we all know what happens when food goes off.’
‘It becomes ghost food,’ Odge explained to Lina.
‘I really like cleaning,’ Ernie said as an old baguette floated up and straight into his mouth.
Mrs Partridge rolled her eyes. ‘I am very much enjoying my new role as railway porter.’
‘And I am so enjoying being the cleaner,’ Ernie said, catching three ghost muffins as they sailed past. ‘Someone’s got to do it!’
‘Off to look for my umbrella,’ a ghostly woman informed them as she sailed fast towards the Lost Luggage Office.
Lina could tell why this was Odge’s favourite gump – there was something so homely about it, despite it being filled with ghosts. It wasn’t as fancy as the one in Vienna; in fact, it was quite shabby. But the warm glow of sunlight on bricks and the funny duo that was Ernie and Mrs Partridge made Lina forget about the harpies for a moment. She imagined what it must’ve been like for Odge, arriving at platform thirteen when she was her age. Her first time in the human world!
‘We’re here to find my aunt Maureen,’ Odge said. ‘And we don’t have much time.’
‘Ah,’ Ernie said. ‘Balding Maureen. I’ll get you some pennies from the lost-property tin – London is expensive these days.’
‘She won’t be easy to find, I fear,’ Mrs Partridge said. ‘Ever since the harpies’ takeover and rumours that you were leading the rebellion reached us – well done, by the way! – she’s been moving from place to place. She’s worried the harpies may come for her. Use her as bait as a way to get to you.’
‘What was her last known address?’ Lina asked. ‘We could start there.’
‘No,’ Odge said. ‘When someone is lost, we always start with the pearly mermaids.’
Mrs Partridge nodded in approval.
‘Who,’ Lina asked, ‘are the pearly mermaids?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE TUBE
Lina had only ever read about the London Underground in books; she’d never actually seen it.
They’d boarded a tube from King’s Cross and were going around London on the Circle Line, but to where, exactly, Lina wasn’t sure, and she certainly wasn’t about to start quizzing Odge about it in front of the humans.
She hugged her backpack tightly, giving it a pat every so often to reassure Ray that she was still there and everything was absolutely fine.
Everyone in their carriage looked so dazed and bored that she wondered if they had been sitting in their seats for years. A young woman across from her was blowing bright pink gum bubbles, her arm flopped across the empty seat next to her.
But it wasn’t empty for long – a small ghost boy in a blazer and school cap got on at the next stop and plonked himself down in the seat to the left of the woman with the bubblegum. His scratchy-looking knitted socks struggled to cling to his legs, and he was muddy, as if he’d been wading through rubble all day. He stared around the carriage sadly as if he were used to being ignored, but his face brightened when his eyes fell on Lina.
‘Hello,’ he said, tipping his cap. ‘Where are you from?’
‘She’s from Vienna,’ Odge replied, before picking up a newspaper and burying her nose in it.
The young woman with the chewing gum nodded in awkward acknowledgement, mistakenly assuming, it appeared, that Odge’s comment was directed at her.
‘Can no one else see him?’ Lina whispered to Odge.
The boy beamed at Lina.
‘You have to believe in them first,’ Odge muttered as the tube ground to a halt. She threw down her newspaper. ‘This is our stop. Goodbye, you cheeky mud-covered little ghost boy!’
The young woman with the chewing gum looked offended.
Lina waved goodbye to the boy and trotted after Odge. She was difficult to keep up with sometimes, walking in bounding strides that forced Lina to break into a jog.
They’d alighted at a station Lina had never heard of before: Blackfriars. She knew all the usual ones – Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Baker Street, Paddington, but not this one.
‘We just need to find Temperance. She’ll be around here somewhere,’ Odge said, raising a hand to her head like a pirate and scanning the street.
‘What does she look like?’ Lina asked.
‘Um, well, I’ve never actually met her, but she’s got a Grecian dress on, her hair is pulled back and she’s holding a jug.’
‘Right,’ Lina said slowly, wondering if Odge had perhaps got that wrong. Then again, if she was right, Temperance was going to be very easy to find.
‘Ah,’ Odge said, pointing to someone up ahead, ‘there she is!’
The person Odge was pointing at was a middle-aged man yelling into his telephone. ‘Odge, I don’t think that could possibly be—’
‘Behind him,’ Odge said, walking fast in the direction in which she’d pointed.
Lina followed, and they came to a stop, just past the angry man, at a statue of a woman perched atop a fountain.
‘Temperance is a statue?’ Lina asked. She supposed that did make more sense than a real lady in a Grecian dress walking around London with a jug.
‘We’ll wait until he leaves,’ Odge said, nodding at the man on the phone, who had now turned a furious shade of purple. ‘Don’t want him to see anything.’
They waited patiently while the man screamed words like ‘CUSTOMER SERVICE’ and ‘LAWSUIT?’ before accepting something for free, and then he was off.
They both turned and looked up at the statue. She was beautiful, with a long mane of neatly tamed hair. In her hand was a jug, tipped forward, spilling out imaginary water. A pathetic dribble of real water snaked out from under one of her toes instead.
Odge spotted Lina’s unimpressed expression. ‘They cou
ldn’t make it an impressive fountain or else it would attract the crowds.’ She cracked her knuckles. ‘Right, let’s try this. My mother once told me about a holiday she took to see the pearly mermaids, and I’ve never forgotten the password.’ She turned her attention to the statue. ‘Hello there, Temperance. I like your plates of meat.’
‘WHAT?’ Lina cried. ‘She’s got a jug, not plates of meat.’
Odge shot her an irritated look, but her face quickly softened. ‘Ah, of course. You’re Viennese, so you probably don’t know Cockney rhyming slang. Plates of meat means feet.’
As soon as Odge finished, water began to gush from the jug.
‘Quickly,’ she said, ‘hold your hand in it.’
Lina obliged, though she didn’t want to. The water was filthy and as thick as gravy. She indulged Odge, holding her hand still, palm up. And then it happened – a small, perfect pearl landed in her hand. She closed her fingers around it so it didn’t wash away.
‘Did you get one?’ Odge asked hopefully, holding up a pearl.
Lina nodded and gripped it tighter. ‘Now what?’
‘Thanks, Temperance!’ Odge said, looking around. ‘There should be stairs that lead us down under the bridge. Ah – there they are!’
The steps lay barely a few skips from where Temperance stood, and within seconds they were standing hidden under the bridge arches.
The pearly mermaids lived in a very old and secret part of London known as the River Fleet. It ran from the ponds of Hampstead all the way down to where they were standing at Blackfriars Bridge. In Victorian times, the humans had decided that the river, which they barely used at all, should be incorporated into the sewage system. ‘You can imagine how annoyed the pearly mermaids were about that,’ Odge said.
‘They live in a sewer?’ Lina said with a shudder.
Odge smiled. ‘But I’ve heard they’ve done wonders with the place!’ She leaned over the edge and tossed her pearl into the water.
Lina followed suit, but she was surprised by the sound it made – it didn’t make a plop as she’d expected, but rather hit the water with an almighty crack, like a firework exploding under the surface.
At first nothing happened, and Lina wondered if perhaps Odge had misremembered, and they’d wasted their only chance. Would Temperance give them another pearl, or was that it? But to her relief the water began to bubble, slowly at first, and then more aggressively. Glints of silver and gold flashed under the surface, like treasure ready to be found.
‘Stand back,’ Odge said, pulling Lina by the backpack as the water began to spit at them. The clanking groans of long-forgotten metal echoed around them, and then out of the water burst two lopsided spiral staircases, covered excessively in pearls of every size.
There was no time to waste. Lina jumped on to the staircase and tried to steady her feet as they began their descent. A thin layer of gunk covered each step, making it a slow process. Lina looked up, wondering if any of the humans walking the bridge might think to peer over and catch a glimpse of them.
She stopped when she was neck deep in water and looked around, expecting to see a secret passageway like the gump on platform thirteen, but there was nothing – just more water and bridge stumps.
‘We have to keep going a little further,’ Odge explained. ‘You can hold your breath.’
‘What about Ray?’ Lina cried.
‘He’s a mistmaker,’ Odge said. ‘They’re amphibians. It’ll only be for two minutes or so.’
‘TWO MINUTES?’
Two minutes was a ridiculously long time. She had asthma. She was about to say so when Odge leaned over and squeezed her hand.
‘Just follow the staircase, and you can’t go wrong.’ And then she disappeared under the water.
‘Odge!’ Lina cried, dunking her head under. ‘Odge!’ She came back up, spitting grimy water. The spiral staircases creaked and swayed, shifting slightly in the tide.
Lina imagined what her birthday would’ve been like if she’d chosen the long weekend in Salzburg. She would’ve avoided a swamp chase, a harpy talon to the head and, now, potentially dying on a pearly staircase under a bridge she had never heard of before.
She closed her eyes. She was here now, so she might as well finish this. It was her mission, after all, and she had convinced Odge there was hope.
She took a deep breath and went under, pulling herself down the staircase. At one point, she lost her grip, and her legs floated up above her, disorientating her completely. She kept on, her hands shaking as she held tight to the pearly banister. Finally she reached the bottom, but when she did there was nothing – no Odge, no pearly mermaids (whatever they were) and no visibility. The water was gravy-thick.
The staircase groaned and began to retract, folding itself back into the watery depths from where it had come. Lina’s mind raced: maybe the pearly mermaids weren’t letting her in because she was a human; maybe she’d done something wrong; maybe this was it.
She turned to swim to the surface, but something pulled her back. It glinted in front of her – a string of pearls in the near darkness. She grabbed hold of it, unsure if it was a good idea or not, and swam down, following the string until she reached a narrow tunnel. Through she went, kicking her legs as fast as she could, willing herself to hold her breath for a few more seconds. Up ahead, she could see bright light and the silhouettes of people on the surface. Huge hats of feathers and pearls and a hag that looked awfully familiar.
‘You did it!’ Odge cheered, fishing Lina from the water and setting her down in a puddle.
Lina gulped in air and rubbed her eyes, her hands still shaking. Hushed whispers and the plops of a million droplets of water filled her ears. They were in a grand old tunnel, lined with a knee-deep stream of sewage water and peppered with garlands of pearls. And all around, in every corner, crevice and pool of water, lounged the pearly mermaids.
‘You brought a human with you, hag?’ a mermaid said, staring intently at Lina. ‘You know we ’ave a no-human rule.’
‘She’s not one of those humans,’ Odge countered.
The mermaid looked about twelve years old. He had long dark hair and a pearly waistcoat. His tail scales were coloured a sewage brown with a pearlescent sheen.
Another young mermaid popped out from the stream of water. She was about Lina’s age and had bright green eyes. She wore a crown of pearls and soaked feathers. ‘Where you from?’
‘Vienna,’ Lina said quietly, feeling a little shy.
‘I ain’t never heard of that one,’ the mermaid said, pulling herself out of the water. ‘I’m Cholly. This is my big brother, Plomtee.’
‘I once knew a mermaid called Plomlee,’ Odge said. ‘She lived in the Pimlico swimming baths and had a terrible singing voice because of the chlorine.’
‘That’s our mam,’ Cholly said. ‘We grew up in those swimming baths. Then she decided to move back home, and ’ere we are.’
‘Is she here?’ Odge asked. ‘It would be nice to see her again.’
‘She’s up Hampstead Ponds ’avin’ lunch wiv her friends. But what can we ’elp you wif?’
All the pearly mermaids edged closer, apparently very keen to see why this fantastical hag and human girl had come so far to see them.
‘We need help locating Odge’s aunt,’ Lina explained. ‘Her aunt Maureen.’
‘Baldin’ Maureen!’ Plomtee cheered. ‘Yeah, we know ’er. We have a right bubble bath wi’ her.’
‘Bubble bath is cockney rhyming slang for laugh,’ Odge whispered to Lina.
‘You want us to locate ’er, then?’ Cholly asked. ‘We can do that, for a small fee.’
‘We don’t have anything to pay you with,’ Lina said. ‘We used the only change we found to buy tickets for the tube.’
‘What’s in that backpack you got?’ Plomtee asked.
‘A mistmaker,’ Odge said, before Lina could stop her.
The pearly mermaids began to whisper excitedly.
‘We could use one of them do
wn ’ere, we could,’ Cholly said.
‘He’s not for sale,’ Lina said quickly. ‘He’s a beloved pet.’
Cholly and Plomtee exchanged looks.
Odge smiled at Lina. ‘Yes, he belongs to the Prince. We cannot trade him, I’m afraid; it wouldn’t be proper.’
If there was one thing pearly mermaids respected, it was royalty. They had their own royals and were big fans of the royal family of Mist, even if they were human.
‘Anything else,’ Lina said. ‘Just not Ray.’
Cholly’s eyes shifted from Lina to Odge’s feet. ‘I could do with ’aving a pair of them blue boots.’
‘But you don’t even have plates of meat!’ Lina said, making the entire underground tunnel of pearly mermaids erupt into hysterical laughter.
‘She’s getting the ’ang of ’ow we speak down ’ere, in’t she, Odge?’
Odge laughed too, although Lina noticed she had shifted her feet so one boot toe was sitting protectively over the other.
‘Fine,’ Odge said eventually, reluctantly taking the boots off. ‘The boots for the location of Aunt Maureen.’
Cholly reached out her hands, eagerly grabbing for them. Her tail flopped about behind her, splashing water up on to the crumbling ceiling bricks.
‘But they’re your favourite thing,’ Lina whispered.
Odge handed them over. ‘No. My friends are my favourite thing – and if this can save them, then I don’t need my blue boots.’
‘We’ve got a replacement for you!’ came a shout from a mermaid further down the tunnel. A pair of tattered old leather boots came soaring through the air and landed at Odge’s feet. They were soggy, and the heels were missing. ‘From the late seventeenth century, those – proper antique.’
Odge managed to force a ‘thank you’ before pulling them on. She stepped to the side, making a squelching noise.
‘You suit ’em!’ Cholly said. ‘Now, Plomlee will find your aunt.’
Beyond Platform 13 Page 8