by Jon Mayhew
Time slowed down.
The spade’s metal blade glimmered, flashing in the crimson light of the Amarant. Corvis turned, eyes wide in shock. He threw himself backwards but Josie had not aimed at his head or body – she had aimed at his arm. The spade was old; years of cutting through clay earth had sharpened it to a knife’s edge. It struck Corvis’s wrist. Josie winced at the shower of blood that spurted from his severed hand, which fell to the floor, still clutching the Amarant.
Corvis slumped against a gravestone, staring dumbly at the stump of his wrist pumping his lifeblood into the cold earth at his feet. He gaped at Josie, then at the two remaining Aunts, who advanced slowly towards him.
‘Get back,’ he said, his voice already slurring from the loss of blood. ‘If you kill me then you will go back to being mere carrion crows . . .’
He tried to turn and run, but Josie could see that his feet refused to move, making him twist drunkenly and fall behind a gravestone. The Aunts fell upon him, tearing with their claws. Limbs thrashed in the air and a disgusting gargling sound forced Josie to cover her ears. For a short moment, Corvis’s remaining hand gripped the top of the headstone. Josie watched, paralysed, as his blood trickled down the lettering on the stone, filling each character and spelling out the name The Great Cardamom.
Corvis’s death scream penetrated Josie’s covered ears. Then all lay still and silent. She edged forward and peered over Cardamom’s gravestone, needing to be sure that Corvis was really dead. Shadows swirled like smoke in the darkness. Josie stifled a scream. Corvis lay in human form again, pale and bloated, his skin maggot white. Two crows pecked at his raw, bleeding stump, dragging at sinews and muscle. One hopped on to his shoulder and cocked its head at Josie, then plunged its beak into his eye. The other gave a raucous caw, making Josie stumble back, and both birds flapped their wings, lifting themselves into the shadows of the moonless night. Josie stared after them as they became indistinct, melting into the dark.
‘Josie?’ Alfie’s voice snapped her out of her trance. He still lay cradling Wiggins, who groaned every now and then.
But Alfie wasn’t looking at his guardian. Instead, he stared at Mortlock, who had dragged his ravaged carcass to the fallen Amarant. He held the flower before him.
Its light grew stronger, bathing Mortlock and repairing his broken body. Brown parchment skin grew light and pink, spreading over swelling muscle. Hair sprouted from his shining scalp. His whole frame seemed to expand as organs grew and flesh returned. Soon Mortlock stood, clothed in rags from the grave, but a picture of living health.
‘Maybe if you see me as I was, you will know I am not a monster,’ Mortlock said with a smile. Josie nodded, taking in his broad nose and wide forehead. He reminded her of a lion with his hair swept back. Looking on him now, alive and unmarked by the grave, Josie almost forgot the terrible things he had done. Her father was alive! She turned and looked at Alfie. He shared the same wide mouth and broad nose. There was a marked family resemblance.
Wiggins let out a groan, tearing at her fantasy. Mortlock had nearly killed the old man; Mortlock had wanted to kill Cardamom. Now he was out of his grave and he would control the world.
‘We can’t let you keep the Amarant,’ Josie said, her heart heavy. She’d lost Gimlet and Cardamom, and now Mortlock would probably kill her, Alfie and Wiggins. But this wasn’t only about their lives. She had to destroy the Amarant for everyone else who had ever loved and lost, for all the people whose lives the Amarant would pervert and ruin in the future. And for the poor cursed souls of Lorenzo’s Circus.
‘I can’t let you take it, Josie,’ Mortlock said. He already sounded resigned to the fact that he would have to destroy his own children. Then he hesitated. ‘When the crow took the Amarant, you cried. Were those tears for me?’
Josie paused for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘For the father I never had. For you, lost and powerless.’
‘I am your father. Couldn’t you join me in everything the Amarant will enable me to do?’
‘Never.’ Josie shook her head. ‘You can’t stop death, and you will have to kill us to keep the Amarant. Whatever you do, death will find a way to creep into your perfect world – and a living death is the most awful thing of all. The Amarant is a curse, even if it looks like something beautiful.’
‘Then I shall make an end of it,’ he said, raising the Amarant. Josie closed her eyes and bowed her head, waiting for the final explosion of pain that would end her life.
Nothing.
A gentle breeze blew hair across her face, and she looked up. Mortlock stood with the Amarant above his head. A trail of light corkscrewed down around his body, gradually increasing in speed. A low moaning sound came from the Amarant.
Mortlock smiled at Josie. ‘The Amarant is a living flower. I only have to command it and it will destroy itself. But the price is my own life – I told you that. Sacrifice and a tender heart, Josie . . .’
‘Yes,’ she said, staring up at him wonderingly, tears spilling down her face.
‘I love you, Josie. Both you and Alfie,’ he said gently. ‘I always wanted to know you – to know what being a real father would be like. And now I’ve found you, seen you . . . I see that I could never keep the Amarant without killing you, my own children, and I just can’t do it. Not when you are so full of life and love. And I’m tired, Josie, so tired. Now get away, quickly! Before it’s too late.’
The pace of the swirling light increased, and sparks flashed from the Amarant like a miniature lightning storm. The flower’s song grew to an anguished howl. Mortlock screwed his eyes shut. Alfie had clambered to his feet, and a strong wind buffeted them as they stood watching. The old yew’s branches groaned and creaked as the force of the gale increased.
Alfie tugged at Josie’s elbow. Wiggins leaned heavily on his shoulder. Josie glanced back to her father as he clutched the Amarant in the heart of the crimson storm. He opened his eyes and smiled, his hair blowing wildly as the Amarant howled.
‘Try not to think too harshly of any of us, children,’ Mortlock called above the screaming Amarant. ‘Go, or it will destroy you all. Hurry!’
The noise deafened Josie now and the wind nearly blew her over. Alfie dragged her away from the blinding halo of light that surrounded Mortlock. She shielded her eyes as his flesh began to darken, his limbs thinned and grew wizened. Wiggins staggered past Josie. He’d lost his glasses again and without them he could barely see. The wind reached hurricane force as the whirl of light around Mortlock sought to suck everything in. Josie, Alfie and Wiggins linked elbows and stumbled towards the gates. Dead leaves whirled around the yard, empty bottles that had been discarded over the graveyard wall flew past their heads, and floral tributes from newly dug graves smashed through the air.
Josie screamed. Skeletal fists punched through the soil. Long-dead bodies dragged themselves from the graves of Gorsefields Yard on decayed arms. Their empty eye sockets turned towards the Amarant as it built up to a final explosion of power.
She could feel the force of the Amarant dragging at them, pulling them back. Leaning their bodies into the wind, the three of them inched nearer to the rattling gates. With a final effort they hurled themselves forward. The wind suddenly stopped, sending them into the street in a tangle of arms and legs.
In the split-second stillness, Josie looked back to see Mortlock raise a hand.
‘Live, children, live!’ he called, then vanished in a blinding flash, a deafening boom. It sounded like a thousand cannons exploding at once.
The whole graveyard seemed to lift. Bricks and lumps of gravestone flew out of the yard, bouncing off the houses that surrounded it. Windows shattered. Josie heard people screaming and babies crying. Glass and debris littered the street.
Alfie lay slumped over Wiggins with his eyes closed. Josie reached for him as darkness filled her vision.
.
Epilogue
Josie sat in the parlour above Wiggins’s shop. She stared out of the window at the
rough and tumble of the street below. Easing herself forward, she winced and sat back. She’d never quite understood how she’d ended up back at Wiggins’s, tucked up in bed. Over the following days, she’d heard broken conversations from the shop downstairs. Customers had been enquiring after Wiggins’s health ever since news had got out that he’d been near the terrible gas explosion that had devastated the chapel and churchyard at Gorsefields. Wiggins was mending very well, thank you, she heard Alfie reply. He seemed to be up and about as if nothing had happened.
Josie straightened up and massaged the base of her spine with a groan.
‘You still grumblin’ about your aches and pains?’ Alfie said as he entered the room with some cold beef and a crust of bread for her. ‘I thought us Mortlocks healed quicker than most. You’d better hurry up and get better or you’ll be letting the family down.’
Josie rolled her eyes. ‘Is that who we are?’ she muttered, not looking at Alfie. ‘Mortlocks?’ The idea was still new, and still painful. How would she forget that vision of her father, rotted from years in the grave? She shivered at the memory, still haunted by it every night in her sleep.
‘Well, I suppose so, like it or not. You can’t choose your father, can you?’
‘You know what? You look like him,’ Josie said. ‘Much more than I do.’
‘That’s why Cardamom asked Wiggins to look after me, so I’m told,’ Alfie said with a sniff. ‘He couldn’t bear to look at me once Lilly had gone. Reckons I reminded him too much of Mortlock.’
‘So what about Wiggins? How could he live with you reminding him every day of Mortlock?’ Josie gave Alfie a dark look. She still wondered if she could stay under the same roof as Wiggins, after all he’d done.
‘He’s a practical man, Josie. He did what he had to do to protect his friend and he brought me up well. Whatever you say about him, he risked everythin’ to save his best friend. Not many people would do that. Where would we be – you, in particular – if he hadn’t rescued Cardamom?’
‘I don’t know.’ Josie felt the ever-present tears returning. There was so much to come to terms with, so much that was almost inexplicable in both their pasts. ‘I think a lot about Cardamom. Who was he really? I thought the world of him and yet now I feel I hardly knew him at all. What was he? A charlatan? A coward who couldn’t stand up to Mortlock? He never, ever told me the full truth about anything, and it’s hard to forgive him for that.’
‘He was an ordinary chap, Josie. But he loved you, for sure. There’s good in all of us and a bit of bad, too. They were all ordinary blokes who’d grabbed hold of somethin’ terrible and powerful that took them right out of their depths. That plant was too much for any man, if you ask me.’
‘Yes.’ Josie sighed and looked out of the window again. ‘There must have been some good in Mortlock, to sacrifice himself like that. It was as if in the end he wanted a way to redeem himself. He had one last chance, and he took it.’
‘Most folks ultimately want good more than evil,’ Alfie said and squatted down close to her. Not for the first time Josie envied him his happy-go-lucky temperament.
‘Do you suppose the curse has been lifted from Lorenzo’s Circus?’
‘I’d think so, now that the Amarant’s destroyed,’ Alfie replied. ‘No plant, no power to keep the curse goin’. I’m bettin’ they’re all laid to rest now. An’ I had word from Arabella. She’s safe. Mr Carr called in at her village. She’d been pesterin’ all the bargemen who moored up there, askin’ if there was any news of us.’
‘It’s good to know she’s all right,’ Josie said, pulling the crust of bread apart. She was suddenly famished.
‘And what about you, Josie?’ Alfie said softly. ‘Mr Wiggins wants you to stay here, y’know.’
‘I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’ll do, Alfie,’ Josie said, looking back out of the window.
‘Well, you can stay as long as you want.’ Alfie stood up. ‘And if you do decide to leave, you know where we are.’
‘Our father could have ruled the world,’ Josie whispered, grabbing her brother’s hand and staring through the window at the bustling crowds below. ‘But he gave it all up for us. I keep thinking about that.’
‘Then maybe we should be a little bit proud to be called Mortlock,’ Alfie said, a grin lighting up his face. ‘He left you with somethin’ else if only you’d realise it – the most precious thing goin’, I reckon.’
‘What?’
Alfie held out his arms and his beaming face softened. ‘Stay with us, Josie. I don’t wanna lose you.’
Josie gazed at him, then, smiling for the first time in a long while, said, ‘Very well, Alfie Mortlock, I’ll stay. Though what you want with a bossy older sister, I can’t fathom.’
Alfie laughed, stealing some of her bread. ‘We’re twins, how can yer be older? Bossy, yeah. Older, never . . .’
Josie jumped to her feet and put her hands on her hips. This, she thought, is an argument that will go on for years.
.
There was a crow sat on a tree,
And he was as black as black could be.
Now this old crow said to his mate,
‘Let us go and find something to eat.’
They flew across the wide, wild plain,
To where a farmer had sown some grain.
Up came the farmer with his gun,
And he shot them both, excepting one.
The one that escaped flew back to the tree,
And he said, ‘You old farmer, you can’t shoot me.’
‘Two Old Crows’, traditional folk song
Table of Contents
Cover
Imprint
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part the First
Epigraph one
Chapter one
Epigraph two
Chapter two
Epigraph three
Chapter three
Epigraph four
Chapter four
Epigraph five
Chapter five
Epigraph six
Chapter six
Epigraph seven
Chapter seven
Epigraph eight
Chapter eight
Epigraph nine
Chapter nine
Epigraph ten
Chapter ten
Epigraph eleven
Chapter eleven
Epigraph twelve
Chapter twelve
Epigraph thirteen
Chapter thirteen
Epigraph fourteen
Chapter fourteen
Part the Second
Epigraph fifteen
Chapter fifteen
Epigraph sixteen
Chapter sixteen
Epigraph seventeen
Chapter seventeen
Epigraph eighteen
Chapter eighteen
Epigraph nineteen
Chapter nineteen
Epigraph twenty
Chapter twenty
Epigraph twenty-one
Chapter twenty-one
Epigraph twenty-two
Chapter twenty-two
Epigraph twenty-three
Chapter twenty-three
Epigraph twenty-four
Chapter twenty-four
Epigraph twenty-five
Chapter twenty-five
Epigraph twenty-six
Chapter twenty-six
Epigraph twenty-seven
Chapter twenty-seven
Epigraph twenty-eight
Chapter twenty-eight
Epigraph twenty-nine
Chapter twenty-nine
Epigraph thirty
Chapter thirty
Epigraph thirty-one
Chapter thirty-one
Epilogue
Final epigraph
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