Nomad

by R. J. Anderson

  But when she climbed into bed that night and found her sister still awake, she knew with sinking certainty what she was about to ask. “Did you get the money yet?”

  “I’m working on it,” said Ivy. “Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Are you going to sell that treasure you hid in the barn?”

  Ivy sat up, aghast. “Cicely!”

  “I couldn’t help it,” her sister pleaded. “I saw something sticking out between the rafters and I had to know what it was.”

  Well, at least she hadn’t found the sword. Ivy had hidden that beneath the wardrobe, where even Cicely wouldn’t be likely to spot it. “All right, yes,” she said. “Martin and I found the treasure together, so he gave me a share. But Mum doesn’t know about that, so don’t say anything.”

  Cicely nodded, satisfied. She wriggled down beneath the coverlet, and soon was quiet.

  Yet even knowing her sister would be happy to let her leave the house tomorrow, Ivy had an uneasy feeling there was something, or someone, she’d overlooked. Not Marigold: she’d assume that Ivy was off learning falcon-shape. Not Mattock either: he’d promised to take her to Redruth, and it wouldn’t be like him to break his word. She had the treasure already, so there was no difficulty there…

  So what could she have forgotten? Ivy was still puzzling over it when she fell asleep.

  As soon as Ivy arrived at her rendezvous with Mattock the next day, she knew something was wrong. It was all there in the slump of his shoulders, his downcast eyes. She gripped the straps of her rucksack and opened her mouth to ask—but he spoke first.

  “Nettle died last night,” he said. “We buried her this morning.”

  Ivy looked at the rock-littered floor of the adit, a painful tightness in her throat. She hadn’t even said a proper goodbye. “Did anyone… notice?” she asked, knowing Matt would understand what she meant.

  He shook his head. “She made Jenny promise to wrap her up so no one could see her wings. She wanted to be buried as a piskey.”

  “She was a piskey,” Ivy burst out angrily. “In every way that matters. Nettle was honest and hard-working and loyal, and she loved the Delve. She shouldn’t have had to hide what she was to get the respect she deserved.”

  “You’re right,” Mattock said. “She shouldn’t. And neither should you.”

  Ivy stopped breathing.

  “Mica told me, when he was drunk,” he said, stepping closer. “I’ve known all along. I just figured you’d say something when you were ready.”

  “But… when you saw Nettle, you were shocked—”

  “Of course I was. I never expected her to be a faery.” He took Ivy’s hand, reassuring. “But when I thought some more, it made sense. There’s a story the hunters tell about a time when there wasn’t enough piskey-women to go around, so the knockers went hunting for faery brides. I used to think it was just an old uncles’ tale, but… I guess not.”

  “And you don’t hate me?”

  “How could I? I know you.” He gave her a faint smile. “Half faery or not, you have a true piskey’s heart. That’s all that matters.”

  The knot of tension in Ivy’s chest dissolved into grateful warmth. Matt was everything she loved about the Delve: solid, familiar, comforting. She rose up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

  Matt’s hand tightened on hers. “Ivy,” he began—and thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Oh, no.” Ivy pulled away, grabbing her pack and swinging it onto her shoulders. She’d wrapped up the treasure so it wouldn’t jingle, but it was still heavy. “We’ll be soaked. Come on!”

  Reluctantly Matt followed her out of the adit, then took the lead as they moved through the trees, changing to human size so they could cover more ground. Above the tangled branches the clouds hung low and leaden, and raindrops were starting to fall. Ivy had to hurry to keep up with Mattock’s long strides, but she didn’t ask him to slow down. She only hoped they’d reach Redruth before the storm broke.

  Moving with the confidence of familiarity, Matt led her by a series of footpaths and wooded trails, then to a tree-lined roadway with pavement running along one side. He kept a brisk pace, and Ivy had to trot to keep up as they left the countryside behind for the stone hedges and slate-roofed houses of Redruth.

  The rain fell steadily, flattening Ivy’s curls and dripping down the back of her neck. Cars whizzed along the roadway, spraying muddy water in their wake. The houses closed together, penning them in. Ivy’s shoulders burned from the weight of her rucksack, but she hefted it and kept walking. It couldn’t be much further now.

  At last they came to the city center, where the road shied away from a cobbled avenue watched by a tall clock tower. Humans hurried in and out of the shops, umbrellas raised and collars turned up against the weather. A statue of a miner stood on a pedestal, arms outstretched as though longing to fly; farther down a pack of hounds made from of old miners’ boots shone wetly in the rain. Mattock led Ivy to another street, turned right, and stopped beneath a worn-looking sign that said GEMS AND MINERALS FOR SALE. He opened the door, and a bell tinkled as he led Ivy in.

  The shop was small and bare of decoration, apart from shelves of rock samples and a few cases tilted to display the minerals inside. But the shelves were dusty, the glass smudged with fingerprints, and in the dim light even the crystals looked dull. The whole place had a shabby, neglected air, as though its owner had long stopped caring whether anyone came in or not.

  A thin, grey-haired man emerged from the back of the shop, rubbing his spectacles clean on a corner of his shirt. At first he looked irritable, but as soon as he put the glasses back on and focused on them, his manner changed at once.

  “Welcome, honored folk of the Delve,” he said, standing to attention. “How can I serve you?”

  Ivy was taken aback. As she’d understood it, the Pendennis family’s agreement with the piskeys should have ensured them a comfortable and prosperous life. But from the look of this place and the man’s strained, almost fearful expression, something had gone badly wrong with the bargain.

  Still, there was nothing she could do about that now. “I have some things to sell,” she said, slipping off her rucksack. “I was hoping you could give me money for them.”

  “Things?” Ralph Pendennis blinked. “You mean ore? Gemstones?”

  “Not those kinds of things,” said Ivy. She walked to the till, turned the pack upside down and let its contents spill across the counter.

  Once the clattering subsided, the silence was profound. Ivy could feel Mattock’s stare on her back—even he could tell that this treasure was hundreds of years old, and that it hadn’t come from the Delve. The older man was staring too, pinching one corner of his spectacles as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He moved to the counter, picking up one item after another for examination.

  “This is beyond me, I’m afraid,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “Antiquities aren’t my specialty, so I’d hesitate to put a value on them. But these pieces are… quite remarkable.” He peered at Ivy. “May I ask how you came by them? They aren’t piskey-made, surely; the workmanship’s not fine enough.”

  “No,” said Ivy, “they’re not from the Delve. But I’d like to sell them as quickly as possible, so if you can’t help me, can you tell me who can?”

  Ralph Pendennis rubbed his chin, as though engaged in some internal debate. At last he opened a box beside the till and took out a small, cream-colored card.

  “Try my nephew Thom,” he said, pushing it across the glass to Ivy. “He has a shop in London. Make sure to tell him you’re one of my customers—” he laid a faint but definite emphasis on the word my— “and that I expect him to treat you fairly.”

  Ivy caught the hint: Thom Pendennis wasn’t always as honest as he should be. Well, that fit with what Martin had said about him, so she’d know to stay on her guard. But how could Ivy go all the way to London when she couldn’t even fly? Martin had mentioned a train, but she’d still need money for a ticket
…

  “There must be something here you’re willing to buy,” she said. “For the sake of our bargain, if nothing else?”

  The older man’s lips pursed—calculating, Ivy thought, until she looked closer and saw the unhappiness in his eyes. No, he did not want to give her money; by the looks of this shop, he didn’t have much to spare. But either he was too honorable to break his oath to the piskeys, or he feared what might happen if he did.

  “These,” he said, pulling a handful of Roman coins toward him. “I’ll give you forty pounds each.”

  Which wouldn’t be enough to keep Ivy’s family from losing the house, but surely enough to get her to London. She’d have to hope that Thom Pendennis would respect his uncle’s advice, and deal fairly with her.

  “All right,” she said, scooping the rest of the treasure into her rucksack. “I’ll take it.”

  Mattock stayed quiet until he and Ivy left the shop. But the minute they were alone, he rounded on her. “I thought you were selling your mum’s wedding jewels. But treasure? That’s spriggan stuff, Ivy. What are you doing with it?”

  “I told you I had some coins and jewelry to sell,” said Ivy, brushing the wet curls out of her eyes. The clouds were still grumbling overhead, and she wished she could will herself home, but that would only upset Matt even more. “And there’s treasure in the Delve, too.”

  “Treasures we made from our own gems and ore, with our own skill, for our own people! Not human treasure stolen from graves and barrows and hoarded away all greedily, so no one else can enjoy it!”

  “Well, I’m not hoarding it, I’m selling it. So now somebody can enjoy it.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Ivy set her jaw. “My business is my own, Matt. As yours is yours.”

  She started up the street, and after a pause Mattock caught up to her. They walked for some time without speaking, and then he said, “He gave it to you. Didn’t he.”

  “Who?” asked Ivy, not breaking stride.

  “The spriggan you freed from the Delve. He gave you some of his treasure, to reward you for letting him go.”

  Ivy spun to face him. “Firstly,” she said, “he told me he was a faery, not a spriggan. Secondly, we found the treasure together, so half of it is mine by right. And thirdly, he’s gone off and I’ll probably never see him again. So even if he was a spriggan, what difference would it make?”

  “It matters,” said Matt quietly, “because you were traveling with him. It matters because he really was a spriggan, no matter what he said. And it matters because…” He ran a thumb along her cheek. “You’re crying for him.”

  “It’s raining, Matt,” she snapped, jerking away. Yes, an unexpected surge of misery had risen up in her at the thought of never seeing Martin again, but she’d pushed it down before it could show… or at least she thought she had. “And I can travel with anybody I like.”

  “You can’t even see it.” Mattock looked nauseated. “He’s bewitched you, deceived you, just like the spriggans did to piskey-girls in the old stories.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Ivy set off again, stomping through a puddle. “He did no such thing.”

  “What makes you so sure? How would you know if he did?”

  Because she’d doubted, questioned, and quarreled with Martin too many times to be under his spell. She knew his faults, his sins, his most infuriating traits—all the things he would have hidden from her if he had the power, which made her all the more certain that he didn’t. But how could she explain that to Mattock, without telling him the whole story?

  “I just know,” she said. “Trust me.”

  Matt winced. “This is why the Joan doesn’t want us living on the surface,” he said. “Why even hunters aren’t supposed to go far from the Delve, or have anything to do with other magical folk. Because if we start getting mixed up with spriggans and who knows what else… soon we won’t be piskeys anymore.”

  And only an hour ago he’d been telling her it didn’t matter to him that she was half faery. “You sound like Mica,” she accused. “No, worse—you sound like Betony. Do you really believe that’s what makes us piskeys? Refusing to change or learn or adapt in any way, and treating every outsider as a threat?”

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  “We pride ourselves on our honesty and hard work,” Ivy went on fiercely, “and how generous we are with each other. We think we’re so much better than those selfish faeries and greedy spriggans. But you’ve seen all the armor and weapons in the Treasure Cavern, the same as I have. Our ancestors weren’t kind, peace-loving folk. They attacked faery wylds and spriggan tribes and destroyed them—”

  “It was a different time,” Mattock interrupted. “A harder time, when everyone had to struggle to survive. We’re not like that now.”

  “Only because there’s nobody left to fight,” Ivy shot back. “Because after we’d killed off most of our enemies and stolen their women and girl-children, we hid underground where no one could find us. That wasn’t a triumph, Matt. It was cowardice.”

  Matt was silent.

  “And now the daughters and grand-daughters of those stolen women are dying. It started with my mother and Nettle because they had no knocker blood to give them resistance, but it won’t end there. And if men like you don’t stand up for them—”

  “This isn’t about the Delve!” Mattock tore off his cap and slapped it against his thigh. “You’re the one I’m worried about. I thought you might give me a chance, if I could only make you understand how I feel. But now I don’t know anymore.”

  Ivy felt as though someone had punched her in the heart. “What do you mean?”

  Matt sighed. “What do you think, Ivy? For nearly a year now I’ve been watching you, thinking about you, wanting to be with you. I’ve listened to your troubles, and helped whenever I could. I’ve even risked my life for you, when it came to that. But you’ve never treated me as anything but a friend.” He turned the cap over in his hands. “And now I know why.”

  “Stop right there.” Ivy clenched her fists, struggling with the urge to cuff him. “If you felt about me that way, why didn’t you say so? Where were you at my last Lighting, when all the other girls had dance partners, and I was sitting in the corner with Cicely? Yes, you’ve been kind and helpful and—and all those other things. But how is that different from what Jenny or any other good friend might do? I’m no mind-reader, Matt. You should have told me.”

  “I tried,” he said. “More than once. But you always cut me off or changed the subject.”

  Ivy opened her mouth to deny it, then realized with a pang of guilt that he was right. He’d been trying to talk to her back in the adit, less than two hours ago. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He knocked his cap into shape and put it on again, looking resigned. “Even if you had known, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Would it?”

  Ivy had no idea what to answer. She’d never imagined any of the young men in the Delve would want her, least of all someone as big and strong and good-looking as Matt. And for the past few weeks she’d been too busy trying to save her people to think about anything else.

  But if they could defeat Betony and bring all the piskeys to the surface, or better yet find a way to purge the Delve from poison and make it safe again… wouldn’t she want to make a life for herself among her own people, if she could?

  The rain was tapering off, the storm clouds rolling away toward the west. A woman emerged from the bus shelter, shaking out her umbrella. Ivy watched three cars and a lorry rumble past, and finally said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Hope dawned on Matt’s face. “Then it’s not too late,” he said, moving closer. “Come back to me, Ivy. Get rid of that spriggan rubbish you’re carrying, and let me bring you some good honest ore from the Delve instead.”

  “Get rid of it?” Ivy clutched the straps of her pack. “What are you talking about?”

  “
Throw it away, put it back where it came from, I don’t care. Just don’t let him own you any longer.” He touched her wet hair, let his hand fall to her cheek. “Show me you’re still the Ivy I grew up with.”

  He thought that Martin owned her? That he’d bought her loyalty, maybe even her love, with a crock full of old jewelry? The idea made Ivy’s stomach curdle. She knocked Matt’s hand away.

  “I’m the same person I’ve always been,” she snapped. “I took this treasure to help my family, not myself, and I don’t have time to waste making you feel comfortable about it.”

  “Ivy, please—”

  “No. That’s my final answer, Matt.”

  She’d meant about the treasure, nothing else. But Mattock’s bleak expression said otherwise. “You’ve made your choice, then,” he said. “I see how it is. Goodbye, Ivy.”

  He moved to go, but Ivy caught his arm. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “What about the Delve? What about Jenny? You can’t just give up on them because of me!”

  The look he gave her then was as cold as she’d ever seen on Mica’s face, or even Betony’s. Ivy faltered, and her hand dropped to her side as Mattock turned his back on her and walked away.

  Ivy stood by the roadside long after Matt had gone, staring at the pavement. Then she took a deep breath, shouldered her pack, and set off to find the train station. She’d seen signs for it when she and Matt were walking to Ralph Pendennis’s shop; it couldn’t be far.

  But though she tried to focus on the task at hand, her thoughts kept wandering back to her quarrel with Mattock. Now that Jenny could no longer come to the surface, Matt was the only remaining link between Ivy and the Delve. If he washed his hands of her, she’d have no way to find out what was happening to her fellow piskeys.

  But then, Ivy realized with sudden bitterness, it wasn’t as though she’d been doing much for them anyway. She’d already warned Jenny and Matt about the poison, and encouraged them to warn others. What more could she do without going into the Delve herself, risking her life and—if she were caught—putting everyone she loved in danger as well?