Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend

  Then slowly, on the upper floors where the fanciest and most expensive suites lay empty, things started to sort of… go to sleep. The lights went out and wouldn’t come back. The heating turned off, the hearths were all extinguished, and it became so cold you could see your breath clouding the air. Eventually the suite doors locked themselves and wouldn’t open for anyone, not even Jupiter.

  Kedgeree, Frank, and the rest of the staff were worried. They’d tried everything to coax the sleeping parts of the hotel awake again, even going so far as to stage a fake party one night, but the Deucalion was having none of it. It had continued slowly shutting down, room by room, floor by floor.

  Jupiter, meanwhile, refused to engage, insisting it was just being childish and ought to grow up, and reminding everyone that he was in charge, and he would decide when they reopened, and he wouldn’t have his hand forced by a building.

  But Morrigan didn’t think the Deucalion was being childish. She thought perhaps its feelings were hurt. Maybe it felt at a bit of a loss now that its halls were so empty, and the quiet had thrown it off its game a little. She’d been extra nice to her bedroom since the closure, just in case, complimenting its every transformation—no matter how odd. The recent addition of a terrarium full of large black spiders had been the ultimate test of her generosity, but upon its arrival she’d merely nodded and said in what she hoped was a cheering voice: “Very skittery. Lots of legs.”

  “The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth floors are now in full hibernation,” said Kedgeree. “The Conservatory on the fourth floor has frosted over and the Smoking Parlor is showing definite signs of weariness. The second-biggest ballroom was, last I checked, a mosquito-infested swampland.”

  “Oh yes,” said Dame Chanda as she and Martha descended the staircase into the lobby. “I was hoping to use it as a rehearsal space yesterday, since the music salon has shrunk to the size of a closet. But the smell! The humidity! Simply dreadful.”

  Martha wrung her hands. “Oh dear. And the lights in the Golden Lantern cocktail bar have been flickering for days. It’ll be the next to go.”

  “What in the Seven Pockets is happening to this place?” asked Dame Chanda. “Jove, I fear the Deucalion is angry with us.”

  “It’s not angry,” said Morrigan. “It’s upset. And maybe a bit confused.”

  “It’s BEING A BABY.” Jupiter threw his head back and let his voice echo around the empty lobby. They all looked up, flinching as the blackbird chandelier gave an ominous flicker and ruffled its light-filled wings.

  It was nice, having one day when the Hollowpox wasn’t all the media was talking about. But by the time the Saturday-evening papers came out, it was back to being front-page news, with two new attacks having occurred just that day. Jupiter left in the afternoon and was gone all night.

  She’d finally told him about Squall’s offer that morning after breakfast, and was relieved by his response.

  “Squall is a liar,” he’d told her vehemently. “You know that. He’s playing mind games again, trying to use your fears against you.”

  “Then… you don’t believe he created the Hollowpox?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I believe he created it. It’s precisely something he would do. But I don’t believe he’ll be the one to cure it. Even if he did have a cure—which I very much doubt, because when has he bothered to clean up any of the mess he’s made in Nevermoor?—none of this is your responsibility, Mog. We’re not trading you in, no matter what he’s promising.”

  “But what if—”

  “Listen to me.” He looked her straight in the eye. “We can’t stop him from entering Nevermoor on the Gossamer, but we must stop him from getting into your head. I don’t want you to give this a second thought, understand?”

  Morrigan nodded and took a deep, steadying breath through her nose. “Jupiter, tell me the truth… do you really think Dr. Bramble is going to find a cure?”

  “She’s getting closer every day,” he’d said, and he was so convincing she’d almost believed him.

  That evening, something very odd happened. Something that would change everything, although Morrigan didn’t fully understand it at first.

  Jack had gone back to school for an orchestra rehearsal, but Morrigan, Martha, and Charlie were seated around the big fireplace in the empty lobby having a supper of fish and chips and mushy peas (the staff dining room had lost its heating just that day), when Dame Chanda returned from her weekly dinner date with the man they all called Suitor von Saturday.

  “My darlings, have you seen Kedgeree?”

  “I think he’s in the Smoking Parlor,” said Charlie, “trying to fix the smoke flow. It has a bad cough.”

  Morrigan peered over the soprano’s shoulder at a scruffy young man with a knapsack slung over one shoulder, gazing up in awe at the blackbird chandelier.

  “Is that Suitor von Saturday?” she asked in a gleeful whisper. “He’s so… um…” She wasn’t sure how to describe him. Disheveled? Unshaven? Inappropriately dressed to be having dinner with Nevermoor’s foremost soprano? “So… not what I was expecting?”

  Martha giggled, but Dame Chanda looked perplexed.

  “Suitor von—who? No, darling, that’s not the Count of Sundara. I just met this gentleman outside on the forecourt. He says he’s here to service our gas stoves.”

  “Gas stoves? Our kitchens are fully Wundrous.” Charlie looked up from splashing vinegar onto his supper, frowning, and called out, “What company are you from, mate?”

  The man trotted over to join them, digging into his knapsack, but ignored Charlie’s question, instead asking, “You Morrigan?”

  Morrigan licked a bit of green gloop off her finger. “Um, yes? Who are—”

  CLICK.

  The camera flash blinded them just long enough for the man to run out the front door while they sat blinking in confusion.

  “OI! Come back here!” Charlie shook off his shock, jumped up, and chased the man, but returned minutes later, empty-handed and bewildered.

  It had been a strange, inexplicable thing at the time, but they couldn’t do much about it except agree to tell Jupiter as soon as he got home (whenever that might be). It wasn’t until the next morning that Morrigan understood.

  WUNDERSMITH!

  That was the headline. In big, bold letters right across the front page of the Sunday Post. It sat above perhaps the very worst photo of Morrigan that had ever been taken.

  “I have mushy peas on my face,” she said miserably for the umpteenth time, still staring at the newspaper twenty minutes after it had swung into her life like a wrecking ball. “Why did they have to print the photo in color?”

  “Is that really the most pressing issue?” Jupiter asked in a mild voice.

  “I have mushy peas on my face!”

  He shrugged. “Makes you look less dangerous than the headline suggests. That’s something?”

  “It makes me look like I’ve got a bogey!” she said, glaring up at him.

  Morrigan was mortified by the photo, but in truth it wasn’t nearly as bad as the accompanying article on page two.

  MORRIGAN CROW: A NEW THREAT

  TO NEVERMOOR?

  Friday’s terrifying fireblossom mystery has been solved today with the shock revelation that the Wundrous Society has been secretly educating a Wundersmith for almost two years. Morrigan Crow, aged thirteen, is believed to be responsible for setting the rare arboreal species ablaze using an unknown and uncanny ability that even senior members of the Society don’t understand.

  According to an anonymous source inside Wunsoc, Crow is in fact a citizen of the Wintersea Republic who was brought to the Free State illegally to participate in trials for the Wundrous Society. Her membership provides immunity from deportation.

  The source claims the High Council of Elders had no choice but to admit Crow, lest she put the public at risk.

  “Who knows what she’d get up to outside our walls? She’s what we at Wunsoc call a ‘dangerous entity.�
� Nobody knows exactly what she’s capable of, but she’s already seriously injured another student.”

  The news has come as a shock to many who believed there were no more Wundersmiths after the last living Wundersmith, mass murderer Ezra Squall, was driven from the Free State over one hundred years ago and never seen again. It is not known whether Crow could be descended from the late Squall, or if these abilities have emerged spontaneously. Neither is it known precisely what the nature of Crow’s sinister powers might be, or what they might become.

  What is known is that the Wundrous Society has been harboring a dangerous, potentially lethal weapon for nearly two years, and this publication believes that citizens of Nevermoor have a right to know and respond.

  Crow’s patron, the renowned Captain Jupiter North, owner and proprietor of the Hotel Deucalion and an officer in the League of Explorers, could not be reached for comment at the time of print.

  “Couldn’t be reached for comment! I can always be reached for comment, I’m extremely reachable,” Jupiter growled. Morrigan raised an eyebrow at him. “All right, fine, I’m not always reachable. But the fact is they didn’t try to reach me because they knew the Elders would kill the story. Oh, and it’s interesting how the fireblossom mystery’s suddenly ‘terrifying.’ Yesterday it was a miracle! You know, I should—”

  In a sudden fit of temper, Morrigan rolled up the paper and tossed it into the fireplace, where it blackened and curled satisfyingly. The hearth in her bedroom had been growing bigger and bigger while Morrigan paced the floor, reading furiously. It now took up half the wall, its fire burning brighter and crackling louder, practically begging her to hurl the offending item into its blazing maw.

  “Quite right,” said Jupiter with a nod, clearing his throat. “Good show.”

  “Thank you. Do you have another copy?”

  “Dozens. Bought every one I could find before anyone else did.” He glanced sideways at her. “We can burn those too, if you like.”

  “Maybe later.” Morrigan collapsed into her octopus armchair. Its tentacles twitched and rearranged themselves around her, offering silent support. “I don’t understand. How do they know? I thought nobody saw me! Who’s this inside source they’re talking about?”

  “An absolute fool with no regard for anyone but himself and his own gain.”

  “You think it was Baz,” Morrigan said simply.

  “I absolutely know it was Baz.”

  “How?”

  Jupiter’s expression was dark. “I know Baz.”

  Morrigan pressed a hand to her stomach. She felt sick.

  There was a horrible, creeping familiarity about all of it. This was what she’d grown up with, after all. This was the life of a child on the Cursed Children’s Register in the Wintersea Republic: always the dangerous one, always the untrusted one. Always the one to blame when bad things happened. Was this her fate in Nevermoor too, then? Forever fearing what she might be accused of next?

  “Mog, listen.” Jupiter perched on the end of the bed, ducking his head to look her in the eye. “It’s going to be all right. I promise. This was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s quite a bit earlier than you or I or the Elders would have preferred, but it’s nothing we can’t deal with. A few newspaper headlines, a bit of unwanted attention for a couple of days, and then everything will die down. You’ll see.”

  Morrigan had never known her patron to be so wildly mistaken.

  By the end of the day everyone in Nevermoor must have known the name Morrigan Crow, because it was all over the evening papers. A handful of reporters showed up at the Hotel Deucalion, lingering in the forecourt and trying to catch a glimpse of the dangerous Wundersmith, shouting Morrigan’s name, trying to draw her out. The precious anonymity Holliday had so kindly preserved for her had been ripped away with a single camera flash. Just like that.

  Morrigan’s racing, circular thoughts made it hard to fall asleep on Sunday night, so she woke late on Monday morning and almost missed Hometrain. It didn’t help that her bedroom’s usual wake-up cues—her lamps slowly brightening like the sunrise, and the gentle sound of birdsong—were entirely absent. It was dark and silent.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked Room 85 irritably, then caught herself and gave the wall a little pat. “Not your fault. I like those new curtains! Are they, er, seaweed? Smells… lovely.”

  Hometrain was already at the platform when Morrigan arrived. As she ran on board, every face of Unit 919 shot up, looking guilty (except for Anah, who was snoozing on a beanbag). Francis reached out to turn the volume on the wireless radio all the way down.

  So, they’d heard.

  “Morning, Morrigan. All right?” Miss Cheery called from the front of the carriage, radiating warmth as always without having to say much at all. Morrigan nodded, tight-lipped, and the engine rumbled into life. “Good. Let’s get moving, then.”

  “Morning, Snotface,” said Hawthorne merrily.

  She scowled, taking a seat on the sofa next to Lam. “It was mushy peas.”

  “I’d stick with that story too, if I were you.” He gave an exaggerated wink, and even though Morrigan was still furious about the photograph, she almost laughed. Almost.

  “Shut up.” She threw a cushion at his head, then nodded at the wireless. “Well? What are we listening to? Is it about me?”

  With an apologetic grimace, Francis turned up the volume.

  “—but no, of course the High Council isn’t going to comment, Alby, because it’s all lies!” said a deep, posh voice over the airwaves. “Who is this Morrigan Crow? Where has she come from? And if she is what this inside source claims she is, where’s the proof? Come on, Alby. The Wundersmith was exiled from Nevermoor over one hundred years ago! And now, what, we’re supposed to believe he’s some little girl?”

  “That’s not what they’re saying, though, is it, Mr. St. James. They’re saying—”

  “St. James?” said Morrigan. “Is this—”

  “Yeah, from the Concerned Idiots of Nevermoor,” said Cadence. “Shh, listen.”

  “If you ask me,” St. James said, barreling over the top of the host, “this is a deliberate intimidation tactic from the Society. The Concerned Citizens of Nevermoor protested at Wunsoc on Friday, and by Saturday night there’s a ‘leaked story’ from an ‘anonymous source.’ This is the Society trying to send a message: Keep in line, don’t challenge us, because look what happens when you do. We’ll set our imaginary Wundersmith on you!”

  “Then you believe the whole thing is a fabrication?”

  “I believe,” St. James said with an impatient little huff, “that I want to hear it from the Wundrous Society themselves. No—I want to see it. Let’s see this so-called Wundersmith in action. If it’s not true, then are the Society simply telling lies to threaten and silence their critics? If it is true, then… well. That is a serious problem, and it needs to be dealt with.”

  At that declaration, Morrigan felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

  Was that what she was? A problem that needed to be dealt with?

  The host cleared his throat. “If you’re just tuning in now to Good Morning Nevermoor with Alby Higgins, we’re discussing the issue on everyone’s radar this morning. Is there really a new Wundersmith, or is it all a hoax? Let’s take some calls from our listeners—”

  Cadence reached out and turned Alby Higgins off. “I bet it was Baz who leaked it.”

  “That’s what Jupiter says.”

  “I’ll get it out of him. He always forgets what my knack is. He’s at Proudfoot House today for the meeting. I’ll make him tell me after that.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you plotting to mesmerize your own patron, shall I, Cadence?” Miss Cheery called back from the driver’s seat.

  “Cheers, Miss.”

  “Cadence.”

  When they arrived at Wunsoc, Miss Cheery walked them through the Whingeing Woods and all the way up to Proudfoot House. There were people at the main gates again,
and she seemed to be trying to shield Morrigan from view.

  “They must be here for the fireblossom tours,” said Morrigan.

  She couldn’t help feeling proud, despite the trouble those trees had brought her. The view from the top of the drive had completely changed. Gone were the spidery, bare black branches, like witches’ hands reaching up to the sky. In their place, a fiery overstory in what must have been a thousand different greens, glowing warmly on this cool morning, with patches turning to orange, bronze, and gold here and there. Morrigan thought they made Wunsoc more beautiful than ever.

  “They’ve had to cancel the fireblossom tours,” said Miss Cheery. “Journalists kept signing up for them and trying to sneak into Proudfoot House, or to ask nosy questions about—” Miss Cheery cut herself off, with a glance at Morrigan.

  Morrigan peered down at the gates again and saw what she hadn’t before: a sea of cameras and microphones. “About me.”

  “Ignore, ignore, ignore,” Miss Cheery told her. “Do not go anywhere near those gates, Morrigan. This will all blow over in a day or two. Don’t you worry.”

  Cadence didn’t get a chance to mesmerize Baz and make him confess, because their usual Monday-morning Containment and Distraction meeting was canceled.

  “Any idea why it was called off?” she asked Morrigan as the pair made their way to a lecture theater on Sub-Three for their midmorning lesson. A famous Wundrous Society philosopher was visiting to give a talk called “Why Are We Here? Questions of Existence, Mortality, and Morality” (which they both agreed was a bit much for a Monday).

  “No,” Morrigan said glumly. “Probably another attack.”

  They heard a sniffle and stopped in the middle of the corridor. A round little figure in a medical uniform was huddled, shoulders shaking, behind a statue of the late Elder Atherton Lusk, founder of the teaching hospital.