Bring Me the Head of Ivy Pocket

by Caleb Krisp

  It was a horrid place. Broken windows. Marks on the walls. Rooms without doors. There were vagrants fast asleep. Men drinking. A woman with no teeth sitting on the stairs, shouting at someone who wasn’t there. The smell was simply awful.

  We found a room upstairs. There was no fire in the room, and it was bitterly cold. We huddled together beside the cold hearth. My mother kept the scarf pulled up around her cheeks. “I know it’s grim,” she said, her breaths heavy and slow. She pulled a note from the top of her dress and slipped it into my pocket. “We’ll find somewhere better tomorrow. Somewhere nice.”

  I nodded. But I did not believe her.

  A bright light suddenly flashed in my face—and the dream was over. I blinked. Bringing a hand up to shield my eyes. Between my fingers I glimpsed Rebecca standing in the doorway.

  “Ivy, are you all right?” The girl rushed into the cell and pulled me to my feet. Hugged me rather feverishly. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No, dear, not a bit. How . . . I did not think they would let me see you.”

  “Nor did I,” said Rebecca, the faint glow of her translucent skin throwing light upon the walls. “They woke me up and said we were to go.”

  I was frowning now. “Go where?”

  Two guards marched into the cell, each orange coat cinched at the waist with a thick belt holding two daggers. They grabbed us and marched us from the cell.

  “Where are you taking us?” Rebecca asked.

  “What is going on?” I demanded to know.

  The guard pulling Rebecca looked at us with cool indifference. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Justice Hallow’s orders.” That’s what I heard one of the guards mutter as we were hurried down the spiral staircase. We found ourselves back in the same windowless chamber where we had first been captured. The same lime floors and arched brick ceiling.

  “Don’t drag your feet!” said one of the guards, pulling Rebecca ahead of me.

  “Stay close, Ivy,” said Rebecca meekly. “Stay close.”

  “Don’t worry,” I called back. “I’m right behind you!”

  “Shut up, both of you!”

  We were practically pulled through the dank chamber. There was barely enough time for me to glance at the one part of this underground room that had captured my interest. The pool of water. But as we swept past, headed for the arched doorway, I saw that the water wasn’t the same vibrant gold. Now it was a murky lilac. And as it bubbled it released a hideous odor—a cross between rotting fish and Mother Snagsby.

  “We don’t have all night!” said my guard, pushing me through the doorway.

  We were marched down a dim passageway. Then out through a thick metal door that led to a walled courtyard, glistening under the emerald moon. There were two carriages waiting by a set of iron gates. Blackened windows. Bolts on the doors.

  “They are going to separate us,” said Rebecca anxiously.

  “Yes, dear, I’m afraid you’re right.”

  But we were both wrong. One of the guards went to the front carriage. The other bundled Rebecca and me into the back carriage—together. The door was shut, and I heard the bolt sliding into place. Then one of the guards gave the word. I heard the carriage in front begin to drive off, and a moment later we followed suit.

  There was no light in the cabin, so it was rather helpful that Rebecca gave off a faint glow. In the half light, I could see the uncertainty and the weariness on my friend’s face. And I knew that her head was swimming with bad thoughts.

  “This is a good thing, Rebecca,” I said.

  “It is?”

  “They have taken us together. Is that not a stroke of great fortune?”

  But fear pierced the girl’s dark eyes. “Why were there two carriages?” she asked. “Where are we going? What are they going to do with us, Ivy?”

  “Not a thing,” I replied with supreme confidence. “For we are never going to reach our destination.”

  Rebecca was frowning. So I explained my plan. Then some time flew by. Roughly half an hour. We waited patiently. Finally, with a nod to Rebecca, I began pounding on the roof.

  “Please help! Please help!” I hollered as convincingly as I could (which was thoroughly convincing). “Rebecca is dead! She is dead!”

  I heard the driver pull up the horses. The carriage slowed. A set of boots hit the road beside us. Then the squeak of the bolt being slid back. The door opened.

  “What are you on about?” said the guard.

  “Look at her, you neckless fathead,” I sobbed wildly. “She was perfectly fine and then she . . . she wilted and fell against the window.” I bawled like a troll whose bridge had collapsed. “My dear friend is dead as a doornail!”

  Rebecca was perfect. Crumbled in the seat. Utterly still. Eyes closed.

  “If she’s dead, why’s she still glowing?” snarled the guard.

  “What’s going on down there?” called the driver.

  “Nothing at all,” shouted the guard. “Just two brats taking us for fools.”

  Which was the exact moment I swung my leg and kicked him in the chin. Then unfurled my fist and blew the last of the slumber rocks in his face.

  I pulled Rebecca up, and we had leaped from the carriage even before the guard hit the ground. There was a great deal of ruckus and carry-on. The driver cursed us like a drunkard. I saw him jump from the carriage and holler to the carriage in front. But by then we were running like the wind.

  The woodlands. We were deep in the woodlands, the white trees standing like an army of ghosts guarding the night. Rebecca and I charged through the moonlit forest. I was in the lead—with no idea where I was going. We just had to get away. Find a place to hide.

  Behind us, I heard the driver shouting our names. And a few more voices calling to one another. “Look over there.” “They can’t have gone far.” “Justice Hallow will cut our throats!”

  “Why are we stopping?” said Rebecca, panting madly.

  I pointed to the tree behind her. It was as white and majestic as the rest. But it had great streaks of black upon the bark. And the trunk was hollowed out. Dead. And a perfect place to hide. For Rebecca, at least.

  “What about you, Ivy?” said the girl when I ordered her inside.

  She stepped carefully into the hollow. The cavity was small so she had to crouch down. And though she didn’t entirely disappear—her skin was too luminous for that—the shadow of the darkened tree trunk made her difficult to spot.

  “What about you, Ivy?” said Rebecca again. “Where will you hide?”

  “Nowhere, dear. I’m going to circle around and steal the carriage right from under that driver’s nose. I recently had cause to steal a wagon, and I’m rather good at it. I will drive back this way and collect you.”

  “Be careful,” said Rebecca. “Oh, Ivy, be careful!”

  I nodded and took off. Making a wide loop around the stationary carriages. I pulled up behind a tree. Looked about. The driver was nowhere to be seen. The guard still unconscious on the ground. Just up ahead, the trees thinned out into a clearing. There was a low stone fence. And a millhouse. I saw the guard from the first carriage stalking about. He kicked his unconscious coworker in the leg and cursed his name. Then he climbed onto the carriage and signaled the driver. “We best get on,” he grunted, “before we lose this one as well.”

  Something in what he said pulled at the knot already in my stomach. And brought a tingle to my flesh. I cannot say why exactly, and I knew it wasn’t the time for such things, but I felt utterly compelled to see who was in the back of that carriage.

  The driver whipped the horses, and the carriage took off at speed. I sighed—there was no way I could leave Rebecca and start running after it. Besides, in a short time it would be too far down the dirt road to catch. Except that it wasn’t. The carriage turned toward the millhouse.

  I glanced around for any sign of our driver. There was none. So I darted through the trees, dropped down, and crept toward the stone fence. The carr
iage had stopped a few feet from the front door. I peeked over the fence just as the guard jumped down. He unbolted the carriage door. Opened it. Then climbed inside and, a few moments later, climbed out again. Only this time he was carrying something. It was wrapped in a blanket and was about the size and shape of a child. Or a small adult. Were they dead? If so, why would they be locked in a carriage?

  The impulse to jump the low fence and take a closer look was overwhelming. But I did not. I simply watched as the guard carried the body toward the house. As he climbed the three steps leading up to the porch, he stumbled. The side of the blanket slipped, revealing a girl—the glow of the green moon a spotlight on her face. And it was all I could do not to cry out. For the girl was me.

  15

  “She looked just like you?” Rebecca was frowning up a storm. “How can that be possible?”

  “It puzzled me too,” I replied. “Though the explanation is simple enough. I’m frightfully certain you could travel to a thousand worlds and there would be an Ivy Pocket in each of them—a girl like me is essential to civilization.”

  When I returned to the second carriage, the driver was there—loading the sleeping guard into the back before taking off. It seemed that searching the woodlands for two runaway girls wasn’t his cup of tea. So our escape would have to be on foot.

  I had run back to collect Rebecca. The girl’s skin was so faint I could see the veins, like tiny rivers, tracking over her cheeks. She looked as weary as I felt. But we had little choice but to start running. The driver was certain to sound the alarm, and the woodlands would be swarming with Orange Coats.

  As we bolted, I told Rebecca about the girl I had spied being carried into the millhouse.

  “Now I understand why those guards recognized me when I first came to rescue you,” I said as we ran up the side of a shallow gorge. “They thought I was the girl in the blanket.”

  Rebecca slowed her pace. “But it does not make sense,” she said. “Why would they be keeping someone who looks exactly like you in Prospa House? And why were they moving her tonight?”

  We crossed a moonlit road, the bright green moss scarred by carriage wheels. “I’m sure the explanation is monstrously straightforward,” I said. “They usually are.”

  The sound of horses coming down the road sent us both scurrying behind a tree. I heard the galloping hooves slow as they passed by. Then stop. Neither Rebecca nor I was game to sneak a look.

  “Ivy Pocket, we know you are out there,” shouted a woman. “We work for the Mistress of the Clock, and we have come to bring you to safety.”

  Rebecca grabbed my arm. “Who is this Mistress of the Clock?”

  I smiled brightly. “Miss Frost.”

  We journeyed on horseback, Rebecca and I each sitting behind a rider. Both were fierce-looking women—one dark, one fair—in brown pants and black coats. They did not say much at all, but they rode with great skill. Jumping two fences and passing through a ravine, the water up to our knees.

  Our destination was a weather-boarded farmhouse. Rather modest. A maid greeted us, and we were ushered upstairs to a small chamber—it had whitewashed walls, a bed, a chamber pot, and a great many knickknacks.

  “Sit and rest,” I told Rebecca, pointing to the bed.

  The girl did as I suggested. Taking a seat on the bed. She looked up at me and managed a smile. “Thank you, Ivy,” she said. “Thank you for coming even when I told you not to.”

  I was about to say something terribly modest when a rather unhappy creature marched into the room. “What have you to say for yourself, Miss Pocket?”

  Miss Frost regarded me as one might a triple murderer.

  “Well, hello to you too, dear,” I said.

  “I instructed you to stay at the cottage in Weymouth.” Miss Frost was pacing about the room in her gray dress, her bright red hair pulled back in a bun, her pale face a mask of ill humor. “So imagine my surprise when I discovered you had fled in the night like a thief.”

  She was referring to the fact that I had dug up the Clock Diamond—the very stone she had hidden from me—and taken it with me. Hideous dingbat!

  “It’s a good thing I did escape,” I said rather proudly. “For Miss Always came that very same evening looking for me. Poor Jago was captured, probably cut up into at least four pieces by now. I wanted to rescue him, but there wasn’t time.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Miss Frost. “Jago fought bravely and managed to escape into the tall grass, where he hid until Miss Always and her henchmen departed.”

  Which was thrilling news! “When were you there?” I asked.

  “I returned from your world just a few hours ago.” Miss Frost frowned at me. “You look rather sickly, Miss Pocket.”

  I practically ran toward the tomato-headed warrior. “Did you see Anastasia? Was she there? Did she—”

  “Anastasia and Bertha reached the cottage,” interrupted Miss Frost. “As for how she is—fragile is the word I would use. We . . . I spoke at length to her, and I feel sure that in time she will recover.” She paused. Sighed. “Rescuing Anastasia could not have been easy. You did very well.”

  As Miss Frost gave out compliments like a starving man gives out chocolates, I wished to bask in the glow of her approval. But there wasn’t time. For I had questions aplenty. “How did you find us?” I dug the diamond out from under the top of my braid and threaded it on the necklace, then fixed it around my neck again. “How did you even know where I was?”

  “Bertha told me your plan.” Miss Frost did not ask anything at all about my ingenious hiding place for the stone. Which was infuriating! “As for how we found you, I have an informant at Prospa House who sent word that you had been captured and were being moved tonight.” Miss Frost glanced briefly at Rebecca. “Though I am not at all clear why you were both moved. I suspect Justice Hallow wished to use your friendship as a bargaining tool.”

  “A tool for what?” I asked.

  Miss Frost started to speak, then stopped herself.

  “The water,” said Rebecca faintly from across the room.

  It took a moment for me to understand what the girl was talking about. “Oh, yes,” I said, sitting down on the bed beside Rebecca. “The water in that strange underground chamber stank to high heaven.”

  To my complete surprise, Miss Frost practically ran at us. Her face knotted most anxiously. “What color was the water?”

  “Lilac,” was my reply.

  Miss Frost began pacing again. Muttering to herself. Something like “What has she done? Could it be true?”

  “What are you muttering about, woman?” I demanded to know.

  “That pool of water is the portal that allows passage between our worlds,” she said. “It was created using an enchanted sun diamond centuries ago, and it is alive. It is alive, Miss Pocket, and as such it can be killed.”

  “You think the portal is dying?” said Rebecca.

  Miss Frost nodded. “I believe it may have been poisoned.”

  Which reminded me of something. I told Miss Frost about the small vial of purple liquid that I had seen Justice Hallow slip into her pocket. This caused Miss Frost’s eyes to narrow and her lips to purse even more violently.

  “Then it is true,” she said. “I suspect she used the sap of the jugular tree—there were only six of these trees in the entire kingdom, and all were destroyed when dark magic was banished from Prospa centuries ago. But there have always been rumors that Justice Hallow inherited a small bottle of the poison when she became chief justice. It is the only toxin strong enough to kill something as mighty as the portal.”

  Which suddenly made me think of my conversation with Justice Hallow. “I have it on good authority that you and Miss Always need the portal,” I said. “Is that true?”

  Miss Frost nodded. “Many moons ago, a royal alchemist discovered that injecting the blood of the portal into your veins gives the user certain abilities.” She glanced out the small window overlooking the moonlit yard. “If the portal
dies, so too does my work as Mistress of the Clock.”

  “Well, thank heavens for that!” I declared. “Now no one else will have to suffer like Rebecca and all of those other poor souls.”

  “I . . . I think I might lie down,” said Rebecca quietly.

  I helped make the girl comfortable. Fluffed the pillow. Wiped her brow. I would have stayed by her side, but Miss Frost practically pulled me away.

  “Have you no sense at all, Miss Pocket? Without the portal, our worlds will be split forever. The stone’s power comes from the portal, and without it, you will not be able to cross back—you will be stranded in Prospa forever. If there was any way I could stop the portal from dying I would, but there is no antidote to the jugular’s poison.”

  “Then I will take Rebecca and leave now,” I said quickly. “After all, I only came for her, and now we can go home again.”

  “Are you really so foolish?” snapped Miss Frost. “Rebecca cannot return to your world, not in the way you imagine. I tried to make you see sense, but you never listen. Further, the Clock Diamond allows you to travel at will, but it will not work for Rebecca. She would need to use the portal, and even then . . .”

  I looked over and saw that Rebecca had fallen into a fitful sleep.

  “If that is true, then Rebecca and I will simply sneak back into Prospa House and be on our way.”

  “You think it is that easy?” Miss Frost crossed her arms. “Prospa House, indeed the entire city, will be swarming with guards.”

  “Then we will go tomorrow,” I said, crossing my own arms.

  “It might be too late,” said Miss Frost, her voice softening. “Miss Pocket, while we cannot know exactly when Justice Hallow poisoned the portal, I believe that its death, while slow, would take less than a day. Prosparian folklore talks of a hunter who was poisoned by the jugular’s sap at sunup and was dead by sunset.” She put a finger under my chin, lifting my head. “Use the Clock Diamond and return to your home. There is no hope for Rebecca—accept that and go while you still can.”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” I whispered. “She is coming home with me.”