Echo Quickthorn and the Great Beyond

by Alex English

  ‘Is this it?’ Horace blinked and sat upright, interrupting her thoughts.

  ‘What?’ replied Echo, without looking up.

  ‘A small gold and emerald pin in a wolf ’s head design,’ read Horace.

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘No, I’m serious.’ Horace stabbed a forefinger at the book. Echo glanced at him and then the book. Her heart almost stopped and the room spun round her. There, on the velvety parchment of the library book, was a drawing of her mother’s pin, in black and white. She gripped the edge of the table.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked Horace. ‘You look . . . funny.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Echo shoved her chair up to Horace’s. ‘Better than fine in fact. What does it say?’

  ‘It says it’s a minor piece belonging to the Crown Jewels.’

  Echo took the pin out of her pocket, checking quickly over her shoulder that nobody was looking, and compared it to the one in the book. She traced the pin’s familiar golden curves with her thumb. The drawing in the book was identical, from the wolf’s pelt of finely woven golden strands to the gleaming facets of its emerald eye. She ran her finger down the page and found the description, but when she began to read she found herself dizzy all over again.

  A small gold and emerald pin in a wolf’s head design, one of two identical pieces made for the Crown Princess Serafine by Messrs Evergreen & Spruce. Both were stolen in the Black Sky Wolves’ infamous Zeppelin hijack, where jewellery worth seven million guineas was taken. None of the items has ever been recovered.

  A Zeppelin hijack? So the jewellers and the professor had been right. Seven million guineas! Every part of Echo’s body prickled with excitement. The pin really was part of the stolen Crown Jewels. And there was another one out there somewhere.

  She flipped the pages over, her heart thudding, but the next chapter of the book was a long and boring essay about wigs and, however much she and Horace searched, there was no more information on the hairpins to be found. But Echo’s mind couldn’t stop spinning with questions. How had her mother ended up with a stolen pin in the first place? And where were the Black Sky Wolves? It was all still a perplexing mystery, but one that, somehow, she was getting closer to solving.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Echo scanned the streets outside the library for guards before slipping out of the door with Horace, Gilbert curled round her neck. Although her mother’s pin was securely tucked away in her pocket, she couldn’t help feeling the weight of it. Seven million guineas! People would steal for that kind of money. Or maybe even kill. She thought she caught a glimpse of oily black hair as she looked over her shoulder with a shiver, but, when she looked again, passers-by bustled past without a second glance.

  ‘Are you coming?’ asked Horace.

  ‘Yes!’ Echo took another quick look around. Her imagination was working overtime! She pushed the pin deeper into her pocket and pulled her scarf more tightly round her face as she hurried after him.

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ she said, as they made their way back along a path through the neatly clipped lavender beds of Clearwater Park. ‘It really is stolen.’

  Horace nodded. ‘The timing works. The jeweller told you the robbery was fifteen years ago. Before you were born. So perhaps your mother could have got hold of the pin sometime in between.’

  ‘But how?’ Echo stopped, suddenly exasperated. ‘Nobody from Port Tourbillon’s been to Lockfort, except Professor Daggerwing. And nobody from Lockfort’s been here. Except us. So how can my mother have had one of the Crown Jewels?’

  Horace shrugged. ‘Someone must have secretly brought it to her . . .’

  ‘Or she came here in secret,’ finished Echo. ‘If only I could ask her.’ A sudden wave of emptiness caught her by surprise and she clenched her fist round the pin. ‘One day I will.’

  She studied Horace’s doubtful face. ‘Why are you looking like that?’

  ‘Looking like what?’ Horace flushed.

  ‘Tell me,’ Echo demanded, stepping in front of him. ‘What is it? You don’t think I’m going to find her, do you?’

  ‘It’s just . . . all you’ve got is a hairpin. How do you even know she’s still alive?’

  ‘Of course she’s alive!’

  ‘But . . . but then wouldn’t she have come back for you?’ asked Horace.

  Echo opened and closed her mouth. She had often asked herself the same question, in the dead of night when everything had seemed hopeless. Had her mother not wanted her after all? Sorrow rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down. ‘Something must have happened. I don’t know.’ Echo shrugged, as if she didn’t care. ‘She’ll tell me all about it when I find her.’

  ‘It’s just . . .’ Horace trailed off.

  ‘What?’ Echo scowled.

  ‘Well, mothers don’t do things like that. My mother would never . . .’

  ‘Never what?’

  ‘Well, she wouldn’t have left me.’

  Horace’s words stung. Echo’s sorrow suddenly turned to anger. ‘Neither would mine,’ she snapped.

  Horace opened his mouth to say something, but Echo interrupted. ‘I’m going to the Mech Market. Why don’t you go home and talk to your caterpillar eggs.’ She stalked off through the rose gardens without saying goodbye.

  Echo was still fuming by the time she walked through the cogencrusted archway to the Mech Market. But the only way she was going to prove Horace wrong was by finding her mother, and that meant somehow tracking down the Black Sky Wolves. Abena had said at the Cog and Gasket that she would ask her brothers. Perhaps she’d learned something Echo could use.

  Echo found Abena lying on her back underneath Smokesister, surrounded by spanners and frowning up at the mechanical dragon’s innards.

  ‘Ah, you’ve finally returned. Nice haircut.’ Abena peered up at her through her goggles. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Echo rubbed her eyes on her sleeve, hoping Abena couldn’t see she had been crying. ‘I had to lie low for a while,’ she explained. ‘Did you find out anything from your brothers about the Black Sky Wolves?’

  ‘Jed said they were rumoured to have raided a load of merchant ships in the Mondegreens last year, so he reckons they’re still around. Their captain is a woman called Indigo Lil,’ said Abena. ‘And Theo said there’s still a fifty-thousandguinea reward for their capture or the return of the jewels, but nobody’s ever claimed it. Fergus is away building fancy technology for some explorer called Jefferson and isn’t back for a while, but I’ll ask him then.’

  She adjusted something with a spanner and dodged to one side as a shower of small cogs rained down on her. ‘Blast this clockwork.’ She pushed her magnifying goggles up on to her forehead and wriggled out from beneath the dragon. ‘It’s so fiddly. I can’t get these back in.’ She gathered up a handful of the tiny cogs. She glanced at Echo’s hands, then grabbed one and examined it. ‘You’ve got small fingers. Reckon you could give it a try?’

  ‘Sure.’ Head still spinning with the new information, Echo shuffled, feet first, under the metal dragon’s chest.

  ‘Put these on,’ said Abena, handing her the goggles. Echo strapped them on and blinked as the eyepieces whirred into focus. Abena passed her a cog and a screwdriver. ‘It needs to go right in there,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘I can see it,’ said Echo, putting her tongue between her teeth and wrinkling her brow as she slotted the tiny cog between the others. She aligned the teeth, tightened it in place with the screwdriver and slid back out from beneath the dragon. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘You’ve done it?’ said Abena, her brown eyes wide. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Echo.

  ‘But . . . how?’

  ‘I just sort of . . . slotted it in.’

  ‘Ha!’ The portly man with the handlebar moustache came out from his workshop, a clockwork beetle in his hand, and slapped Abena on the back. ‘Poor Abena’s been struggling with that all morning!’

  Abena blushed scarlet. ‘It’s
too fiddly,’ she said. ‘Give me a nice bit of welding any day. Clockwork is not my thing.’ She took the magnifying goggles from Echo with a gruff, ‘Thanks,’ and turned back to her blowtorch.

  ‘Oh, don’t be cross, Abena,’ said the man. ‘She’s obviously got the gift.’ He turned to Echo and shook her hand before inspecting it. ‘Yep, good hands for clockwork,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy assisting me with these?’ He shook the beetle at her. ‘I could do with some help.’

  Echo gazed at his workshop and its glittering array of clockwork creatures for a moment before breaking into a huge grin. ‘Do you mean it?’ she said. ‘I could learn to make these?’

  ‘Only with top-rate tuition.’ He tapped his nose and winked at her. ‘I’m Mr Mainspring, but you can call me Jimmy.’

  Keen to avoid the frosty atmosphere that had grown between her and Horace, Echo spent the rest of the day in the workshop at the Mech Market, painstakingly assembling and disassembling clockwork under the guidance of Jimmy Mainspring. It was delicate work, but Echo loved seeing all the parts come together into something with purpose – a beautiful creation that flew of its own accord. It was so much better than embroidering all those pointless samplers and handkerchiefs! She found the hours melted away until finally the evening of the meeting at the Guild came.

  ‘Gotta go!’ she said, suddenly realizing the time and wiping the oil off her hands with a rag.

  Jimmy looked up from his work. ‘Wait there. I’ve got a little gift for you, as payment for all your hard work.’

  He rummaged in his workbox and took out a miniature clockwork bird with feathers of copper and gleaming white enamel.

  ‘My own postal pigeon!’ said Echo, turning it over in her hands and carefully stretching out one wing to marvel at the intricate metal feathers. She beamed. ‘Thank you, Jimmy.’

  ‘It’s not just any postal pigeon,’ said Jimmy. ‘It’s my own design. You enter the coordinates here.’ He showed her a series of dials under the little bird’s wing. ‘Write your message and put it in the bird’s claw here, then let it fly. When the message is returned, the bird will navigate its way back to you. You just need to calibrate it to something metallic, something you always keep with you. Do you have anything?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Echo, thinking of her mother’s pin.

  ‘Well, you just set it, using this dial here, and it can find you wherever you are.’

  ‘Oh, Jimmy, it’s the best present ever.’ She gave the stout man a hug and her heart glowed. In just a day, she’d learned so much, and not just about clockwork. Making things with her hands had made her feel more real somehow. Not just a grateful ward of the king whose only role was to be quiet and look presentable, but someone who could create things, who could do things, who could change things.

  ‘Thank you, Jimmy.’ She carefully stowed the pigeon in her pocket before racing all the way back to Hawthorn Square, Gilbert clinging to her shoulder, and a huge smile on her face.

  Echo found Horace and Professor Daggerwing in the parlour. The professor was wearing a white shirt and a crumpled maroon velvet suit that looked like it had been lost in an attic for several years.

  ‘How do I look?’ he asked.

  Echo took in the frilly white cuffs that dangled from the jacket sleeves. ‘Um . . . odd,’ she said.

  Horace looked up from his caterpillar jar. ‘She means smart.’

  ‘Do we need to dress up?’ asked Echo, ignoring Horace.

  ‘No, no, not necessary at all,’ said the professor, running his hands through his hair and making it stand up at a peculiar angle. ‘I just like to make an impression at the Guild. Are you ready?’

  Echo threw her scarf round her face, just in case she was recognized, then she grinned. ‘I’ve been ready all day!’

  ‘Well, chop-chop!’ The professor clapped his hands together. ‘We must be there at seven. You’re in for an absolute treat!’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Explorers’ Guild was a grand green-stone building with wide oak doors and a coat of arms inscribed with a mountain, a dragon and a compass.

  ‘It’s a very exclusive club,’ whispered the professor, as they rapped on the knocker and waited on the doorstep. ‘Members and their guests only. I only gained entry after delivering my ground-breaking paper on the origins of the kibblesnerts of the Verdigris Plains.’

  The door swung open and a white-gloved butler ushered them inside. They followed Professor Daggerwing down a corridor lined with ancient objects from explorations gone by – the fossilized tusk of a merwhale, excavated by Captain Mei Fan on her expedition to the far west; a fragment of parchment from the Scrolls of Pomegranth; an ancient-looking wooden sled once hitched to a team of wolves and driven across the frozen wastes of Dark Nordland by the heroic Colonel Femi Fox.

  As Professor Daggerwing told them the stories of each object in a hushed voice, Horace’s eyes grew wider. ‘There’s so much out there,’ he said, with a shiver.

  Echo gazed at the artefacts in awe and delight, imagining the long-ago heroes who had brought such treasures back to Port Tourbillon. They had all been searching for something, and they had found it. She touched the hairpin, still deep in the pocket of her breeches, and it filled her with courage. The world might be big, but that wasn’t going to stop her. These brave men and women hadn’t given up and neither would she.

  At the end of the corridor, double doors opened into a dimly lit lecture theatre with rows of velvet-backed seats. Professor Daggerwing directed them towards the front of the auditorium and they took their places, Echo in the middle, the professor and Horace on either side.

  Echo scooped Gilbert out of her pocket and perched him on her knee, where he had a good view of the stage. The air smelled of musty tobacco smoke and old tweed and there was the gentle murmur of voices as the room began to fill. Echo gazed at the explorers and adventurers who had come to listen.

  ‘That’s Dr Fitzwilliam, over there in the front row with the grey hair,’ said Professor Daggerwing in a loud whisper. ‘He was the first man to navigate across the Stony Sea, many moons ago. And that’s Evander Jefferson, something of a rival of mine.’ The professor shook his head. ‘We were both heading to the Violet Isles last time I saw him, trying to catalogue the elusive Greater Brimstone, that huge butterfly variety I was telling you about, Horace. I dare say he’ll be talking about them tonight.’ He sighed regretfully. ‘He’s beaten me to it thanks to my detour to Lockfort.’

  The professor continued to point out eminent explorers and scientists in the audience until the lights dimmed and the crowd hushed.

  The first talk was not exactly what Echo had expected, although Professor Daggerwing listened, rapt, as a pair of women explorers droned on about rock formations and soil composition. It didn’t seem very adventurous at all. Echo glanced to her left. Horace had fallen asleep and was snoring softly, his head lolling back on the velvet seat. Even Gilbert, perched in her lap, looked bored.

  Echo wriggled in her seat as the two women finally finished. Next a tall dark man with long grey-streaked hair and a bushy walrus moustache lumbered on to the stage to rapturous applause.

  ‘This is it,’ whispered Professor Daggerwing, clutching Echo’s wrist. ‘Evander Jefferson. I wonder if he did manage to spot them? Nobody’s presented a photogram of a Greater Brimstone yet!’

  Echo stifled a yawn and nodded politely. A hush fell over the room as Evander Jefferson began to speak. Echo slid down further in her seat and let her eyes close. Her body relaxed and she was just slipping into a dream when she felt a sharp nip on her collarbone. She jerked upright to find Gilbert on her shoulder, staring right at her, his scales an urgent red and his crest upright in a way that said, Listen.

  ‘What?’ she hissed.

  ‘Shh!’ said someone in the row behind.

  Echo glanced up at the stage. Evander Jefferson was still talking.

  ‘. . . unfortunately, this meant our trip was cut short due to safety concerns before we wer
e able to see so much as a chrysalis. We would strongly recommend avoiding the area for the foreseeable future.’

  Echo frowned. What was so interesting about this?

  Jefferson continued. ‘As you all know, the Black Sky Wolves became notorious fifteen years ago when they infamously robbed the Royal Zeppelin and have never been seen since. They are considered incredibly dangerous and are known for kidnapping people and enslaving them to work on their ship. Although they haven’t been sighted in recent years, people exploring remote regions regularly go missing, and it may well be that these pirates are responsible. We were incredibly fortunate to avoid their notice.’

  The Black Sky Wolves! Echo sat up, electricity running through her skin.

  Jefferson pulled down a creaking white screen and fired up a steam projector. Echo leaned forward in her seat as he continued.

  ‘We spotted their ship, the very distinctive Scarlet Margaret, to the south and were able to take this photogram.’

  A grainy image appeared on the screen, showing a huge airship with billowing sails moored above a curved beach of black sand.

  ‘The most notorious of the crew is their current captain, Indigo Lil, so called due to the indigo clay she smears on her face before going into battle. She’s known to be savage and heartless and fond of torturing her victims. Her true identity has never been confirmed. However, we did find this old photogram in the Guild Archives.’

  The projector clicked and whirred and another much older photogram shuddered on to the screen, showing a fiercelooking gaggle of men and women slouching in front of the same airship. Gilbert scuttled down Echo’s arm and peered intently at the image on the screen. At the fore was a ferociouslooking woman with long white curls, clay-smeared cheeks and a gleaming cutlass at her hip. But someone else in the photogram made Echo’s head spin.

  In the very bottom corner of the photo was a sad-looking woman with her arms behind her back. A woman with a head of wild dark curls like Echo’s. And in those dark curls was a hairpin in the shape of a wolf’s head, its eye a gleaming emerald.