Book Read Free

Nomad

Page 24

by R. J. Anderson


  A sob tore at Ivy’s throat, and her chest knotted with grief for the brother she feared she’d never see again. But she put her head down and kept running.

  One blind, desperate flight up the Great Shaft later, Ivy crawled between the bars and collapsed onto the muddy ground. For a long time she lay there, spent. Then she mustered the last of her strength and willed herself back to Molly’s house.

  She’d barely stepped in the door when Cicely came pelting to meet her. “Ivy! You won’t believe—” She stopped, her brown eyes widening. “Where have you been? Is that blood?”

  “It’s not mine,” Ivy said. “It’s… nothing you need to worry about. What won’t I believe?”

  “Mum!” Cicely’s face shone with delight. “She’s alive! David saved her! Come and see!”

  A human had brought her mother back to life? Numb with astonishment, Ivy allowed Cicely to drag her down the corridor to the master bedroom. There sat Marigold propped up against the pillows, with Molly’s father by her side.

  “But how did it happen?” Ivy asked, once she and her mother had finished hugging and laughing and crying with relief. “Thorn told me you were dead!”

  “She was dead,” said Thorn from the doorway. “I may not be a healer, but I know that much. That’s what I kept trying to tell him—” She jabbed a finger at David Menadue—“when he started pushing her chest and puffing into her mouth like a lunatic.”

  “CPR,” said Molly’s father, a little sheepishly. “I thought if I could keep her heart going long enough to get her to hospital…”

  “Or in this case, until Broch woke up enough to help,” said Thorn. “But by then it didn’t take much magic to set her right. She’ll be weak for a few days, that’s all.” She frowned at Ivy. “What happened to you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” said Ivy, and turned to David Menadue. “But who told you… well, everything? What made you come here in the first place?”

  “He rang to talk to Mum, the night you flew to the Oak,” Cicely piped up before Molly’s father could answer. “He wanted to know why she couldn’t come to the phone, and I tried to put him off, but he could tell I was upset and he kept asking questions and I—I couldn’t lie.”

  “Molly had told me a few things, after her mother died,” added David. “So I wasn’t as unprepared as I might have been.” He looked wryly at Marigold. “Though finding out that I’d married one faery and fallen in love with another was still quite a shock.”

  Fallen in love? The words thumped into Ivy’s heart like stones. How could that be? They’d only met a couple of times…

  Yet David had rung the house at least twice since then that Ivy knew of, and probably a few more times that she didn’t. And for weeks now Marigold had been going out more than usual, and coming home late as well—could she have been meeting Molly’s father?

  Of course she could. She was a faery: she could travel by magic, and there were few places between Cornwall and London that she hadn’t already been. Even the phone call that had upset Cicely could have meant something very different than they’d thought: not Marigold pleading with David for more time to pay the rent, but asking him to be patient while she sorted out her feelings…

  “David,” said Marigold gently, “perhaps we should talk about this later. Ivy’s tired.” She didn’t say and filthy, but she didn’t have to. Reluctantly Ivy let go of her mother’s hand and left the room.

  “Broch’s sleeping,” Thorn told Ivy in her crisp, no-nonsense tone. “And I’m about to turn in myself. But tomorrow we’re going back to the Oak—and now that everything’s settled, you should come with us.”

  Settled? Ivy had never felt so far from it. The joy of finding Marigold alive had distracted her, but no happiness could erase the grief of what had happened in the Delve. And if losing Jenny and her brother—and possibly Matt as well—wasn’t bad enough, Thorn had just reminded her that she’d promised to hand Martin over in exchange for her mother’s life.

  But Ivy couldn’t tell any of that to Thorn. So she nodded, then went into the bathroom and shut the door. She turned the shower to high and stepped into it with all her clothes on, bowing her head as the dirt and ash and blood that covered her washed away. Then, silently and brokenly, Ivy wept.

  “Come on, lad! We’re almost there!”

  The boy struggled after Helm as they crossed the moor, crunching through dry heather and dodging thickets of gorse, scrambling over stone hedges into pastures cropped short by sheep and cows. When they’d left the cliffs and headed inland, he’d known the older spriggan had a plan—but they’d been running for more than an hour, and the piskeys behind them were getting closer every minute. Where could they be going?

  Soon he found his answer, as they crested a low hill and staggered down the slope beyond. There a ring of tall stones stood like grey-robed sentinels in the moonlight, and Helm clutched the boy’s arm, bringing him to a halt.

  “Can’t go… much farther,” he panted. “Make our stand here.” He limped toward the stone circle, and the boy followed.

  As they drew closer, three more stones emerged from the shadows at the center of the ring—two stubby, smooth-worn pillars no taller than waymarks, and between them a round boulder with a hole in the middle. Helm hurried around the outside of the circle, touching each tall stone in turn, then pulled the boy inside.

  Never had he stepped into a place that felt more ancient, or more powerful. He could sense magic tingling all around him, like a web of power laced between the stones, and he stood in the heart of it, silent with awe.

  Yet he could hear the piskeys shout as they came over the top of the hill, see them running toward them with bows and thunder-axes in hand. What was the use of this place if it couldn’t shield them from their enemies? Where in this ring of stones, or the empty stretch of withered ground around them, could two spriggans hide? Worried, he turned to Helm—and to his surprise, the old warrior gripped his shoulders and kissed him roughly on both cheeks.

  “It’s a hard road I’ll be sending you on, lad,” he said. “And I can’t say where it’ll lead you. But I’ll tell you this. My old mam was a wise woman, gifted with the Sight, and she was in the birthing cave with your mother when you were born. And when she came out she said to your father and me, ‘If that one lives to be a man, he’ll be the saving of our people.’”

  The boy drew back, shaken. “Me? But… how?”

  “Ayes, well, that’s for you to find out.” Helm gazed through the circle, his weathered face lined with anxiety. The knockers were fanning out to surround them, moving with the confidence of hunters sure of their prey. “That’s why the Grey Man tried to keep you unawares, for fear that if you knew too much the prophecy might not come true. But now we’ve come to this place…” He wrapped his arms around one of the stubby pillars, muscles straining as he lifted it from the ground. “I know—we’ve been—on the right course—all along.”

  The boy watched, bewildered, as Helm staggered over the grass with his burden and dropped it into a new position, no longer in front of the holed stone but beside it. Then he heaved up the second post and moved it to the other side.

  “The piskeys use this place for healing,” he said, wiping his hands on his jerkin. “But we spriggans remember it has other uses, too. Look through that hole, lad, and tell me what you see.”

  Cautiously the boy crouched, peering into the dark circle. At first he saw only the taller pillars on the far side, black against the glittering stars. But then Helm stepped behind him, laying a hand on each of the two posts. The net of magic around them shivered—

  And everything changed.

  The boy’s mouth dropped open. The ring of standing stones had vanished, the stars were drowned in a sea of cloud, and the post Helm had moved was back in its former position. But it looked battered now, with a thick crust of lichen upon it, as though it had stood there for hundreds of years…

  Something whizzed through the air and Helm grunted, head
snapping to one side. The piskeys were using their slings, and a flying pebble had grazed his brow. Blood trickled down his face, but still he clutched the stones on both sides of the portal, unwilling or unable to let go.

  “Get on with you!” he said. “Go through it!”

  The boy didn’t hesitate. There was nowhere else for him to go now, and an unknown future was better than certain death. He scrambled through the hole, and tumbled onto the other side.

  The world blurred, inverted, and righted itself again. Mist swirled before his eyes as he rolled onto the gravel. From the far side of the portal he heard the hiss of an arrow, and Helm’s huff of breath as it struck.

  “No!” screamed the boy, reaching to seize Helm and drag him through the portal. But as the old spriggan’s hands fell away from the stones, the hole turned black and a soundless explosion knocked the boy flying. His head struck something hard, white fire exploded behind his eyes, and he knew no more.

  Ivy fell out of bed, landing with a thump on the floor. Her heart galloped wildly, and her mind reeled with disbelief. Could it be? Was this the answer she’d almost given up seeking, the reason she’d been having these strange dreams for so long?

  Cicely stirred and blinked, half-wakened by the commotion. “It’s all right,” whispered Ivy, climbing in beside her. “Go back to sleep.”

  Her little sister burrowed under the covers, her eyes drifting closed again. Ivy tried to calm herself and follow her example, but her thoughts were racing with excitement and a new, unexpected hope.

  She’d thought her dreams had to be about Martin’s great- or great-great-grandfather, because the story had happened so long ago. But if Helm had sent the boy hundreds of years into the future…

  If her guess was right, it could change everything. Yet Ivy had to be certain. These memories could be the key to Martin’s freedom, but if she were wrong it would cost him his life.

  Ivy groped for the nightstand, found her copper bracelet, and slipped it on. It had no power, not anymore: the finding-spell was long broken. But Martin had given it to her as proof of his trust, and it seemed only right to wear it now. She lay back, folding her hands over her breast, and closed her eyes.

  She’d tried so long to keep Martin at a safe distance, part of her was still afraid of opening herself up to him. She was a piskey and he was a spriggan, after all. But she had a Joan’s blood on her hands now, and her people had rejected her. What did she have to lose?

  Nothing but her pride, and Ivy had little left of that. If she wanted any hope of saving Martin, she had to do this. She forced herself to relax, set her own fears and sorrows aside, and focus her thoughts completely on him.

  The first memories came in fragments, disconnected scenes that felt at once intimate and remote. She stumbled blindly down an unfamiliar road, her head full of fog and emptiness. A shrill blare sounded behind her and she leaped for the hedge in terror, only to be knocked spinning into the dark. And when she woke, she was in a room full of gleaming metal objects and strange noises, with human faces staring in at her from every side.

  He was riding away from the hospital in a thing called a car, with a grim-faced woman beside him. He was climbing out a window in the dead of night, restless with hunger and a gnawing, irresistible urge to escape. He was kneeling on the floor in a drab little West End flat, weeping over the body of a human he’d never wanted to kill. He was peering through the stage curtains of a tiny theater, watching Lyn and Toby argue about whether to cast him in their production of Othello…

  The visions came faster and faster, whirling through Ivy’s mind. She saw, she felt—and more than that, she understood. When Martin had poured his magic into her to save her life, he’d inadvertently given Ivy all his memories as well, including some that he himself had long forgotten. But she hadn’t been ready to use that gift, or fully appreciate it, until now.

  Martin had made some bad choices in his life, done things that even he couldn’t excuse or forgive. He’d deceived and betrayed people who’d done him no harm, and he’d turned his back on mercy when it was offered him. But he’d also been the boy who’d taken pity on a lonely faery woman weeping in the darkness, and who’d spared the life of a frightened piskey-child at the risk of his own.

  At last his memories slowed to a trickle, leaving her with one last image—Martin kneeling beside a battered, unconscious girl lying among the rocks, touching her cuts and bruises and healing them one by one. He stooped and kissed her brow, then lifted her in his arms and carried her away.

  And when Ivy opened her eyes, it was morning.

  “You’re leaving?” Cicely dropped the plate she’d been scrubbing into the water and grabbed a dishtowel to dry her hands. “Right now?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Ivy told her. “I have a promise to keep.” She glanced at Thorn and Broch, waiting in the kitchen doorway. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  “You mean… you’re going with them?” Cicely looked stricken. “But what about Mum and me?”

  Ivy took her by the shoulders. “It’s only for a little while,” she said. “But you don’t really need me to look after you, not anymore. Look how brave you were when Mum was hurt. She wouldn’t be alive if not for you.”

  “But I wasn’t brave at all.” Cicely’s lip trembled. “I was terrified the whole time, and when Molly’s dad called I started crying and told him practically everything, and now…”

  Ivy put an arm around her. “Come with me,” she said, and led her down the corridor to their bedroom.

  “And now what?” she asked, shutting the door behind them. “He saved her life, Cicely. And he loves her. If she loves him too, isn’t that a good thing? Dad’s gone now, and Mum being lonely isn’t going to bring him back.”

  Her sister sniffed, but she nodded. Ivy slipped a hand under her chin and tilted it up. “And you were brave, in every way that matters,” she said softly. “No matter how scared you were, you didn’t give up or run away, and you made sure Mum was looked after. I’m proud of you.”

  Cicely’s eyes brimmed, and she gave a wavering smile. Ivy kissed her cheek. “I’ll be gone for a day or two,” she said. “But when I get back, I’ll teach you how to travel by magic if you like.”

  “Really?” Her face brightened. “Can you teach me how to turn into one of those big, beautiful birds, too?”

  So Cicely had seen her fly away, when she’d gone to find help for their mother. And now Ivy knew what she’d only suspected before: that she’d made that desperate flight to London not as a swift, but as a falcon.

  “I don’t know,” she said, giving her sister a farewell hug. “But we can try.”

  With no great need for urgency, and Broch’s fatigue slowing them down, Ivy expected their journey would take most of the day. But once her falcon had caught up with Broch’s slow-flapping rook, they only had to fly a short distance before the three of them could land and start traveling by magic instead. Following the faeries’ lead, Ivy willed herself from one landmark to another, revisiting all the places they’d stopped before. By midday they had reached the Oak.

  The great tree looked much less daunting now that Ivy knew the faeries who lived there—and especially now that she had the hope of saving Martin to encourage her. She followed Broch and Thorn up to the queen’s apartments and would have accompanied them into the audience chamber as well, but Wink plucked her elbow and drew her aside.

  “Queen Valerian wants to talk to Thorn in private,” she whispered. “Why don’t you come and have tea with me, until the rest of the council arrives?”

  So Ivy had to wait, and it seemed like hours before Linden poked her head through the doorway and said, “They’re ready.” But once she walked into the chamber and saw the whole council seated on the dais—especially the queen, with those searching grey eyes that seemed to look right through her—she wished it had taken longer.

  Ivy had promised to show the Oakenfolk where Martin was hiding, and she was prepared to keep her word to
the letter. But that wouldn’t stop her from helping him escape before Rob and the others could catch him. And once these faeries realized what she had done, Ivy feared they would never trust her again.

  “Broch tells me that your mother is healed,” said Queen Valerian. “Are you ready to fulfill your part of the bargain, and lead us to Martin?”

  “Yes,” Ivy said. “He’s in London, in a shop owned by a man named Thom Pendennis. I can take you there.”

  “Good.” Valerian turned to the council. “Rob, you are in command. Go with Ivy, and take as many of our people with you as you think best. Is there anyone else who wishes to go?”

  “I do,” said Rhosmari. She cast an uncertain look at Ivy, who gave a faint smile in return. She’d feared this girl before, thinking she must hate Martin as much as Rob did. But now she’d seen Martin’s memories, she knew better.

  Martin had manipulated Rhosmari cruelly, earning her trust only to betray her to the Empress. But instead of taking revenge on him, she’d forgiven him and let him go free. He’d scoffed at her mercy then, but he’d never forgotten it—and in the end he’d repaid her by saving the life of Timothy, the human boy she loved. If anyone but Ivy could believe that Martin was capable of repentance, it would be Rhosmari.

  “There may be a fight,” Rob warned her. “And knowing Martin, it’ll be ugly. Do you really want to see that?”

  “Yes,” said Rhosmari, with a lift of her chin that reminded Ivy painfully of Jenny. “I am the ambassador from the Green Isles, remember, and it is our prison that Martin escaped.”

  Though Martin had escaped before he could be sent to prison, not after, so it was hard to imagine why the faeries of the Green Isles should care if he were captured or not. But if Rhosmari wanted to believe that her reasons were political as well as personal, Ivy wasn’t about to argue with her.

  “We should wait for nightfall,” she spoke up. “There will be fewer humans about to interfere.” And Thom would have closed up the shop and gone home by then, so she could talk to Martin alone.

 

‹ Prev