Sparrow Falling

by Gaie Sebold

  She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. “Look up, child.”

  The girl did so. “Hmm. Your eyes... your eyes match the shade of my favourite slippers. If I have you sitting at my feet, that will be pleasing. Tell me, can you sing?” The girl cast Stug a pleading glance.

  “Not well enough to please you, my lady,” he said. “But she can recite. I thought you might enjoy that.”

  “Recite? Recite what?”

  “Poems, ballads... she has a most retentive memory.” He had tested the girl, and given her more poems to learn. Of course, she could not read, but she was extraordinarily quick to memorise.

  “Recite something for me,” the Queen said.

  “What would you like, ma’am?” The girl said.

  “Something...” The Queen tapped her chin with one finger. Her hands were very long, and narrow, and white; she had touched Stug, once, and it had taken all his control not to whimper. The girl had seemed unaffected by her touch, but then she was a slum child, and probably had no more sensibility than a snail.

  “Something sad,” the Queen said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Would you like to hear about Sweeney Todd the barber, ma’am?”

  “And what is a barber?

  “Someone who cuts people’s hair. Only this one’s wicked, ma’am, and murders people...”

  “Stop.” The Queen cut the air with her hand and Stug shuddered. No, no, it was going so well...

  “You should never give away the ending of a tale in its beginning,” the Queen said. “If you are to recite for me, you must learn these things. Will you remember?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “The Stug says you are retentive. If this proves true, and you please me, then you may stay.” She turned back to Stug.

  There was a whisper and rustle at the door, a genteel commotion of silks and shimmer. Stug felt the nape of his neck shiver. Not now, not now!

  “Lady, we have news!”

  The creature was something like a horse, and something like a ferret. It had a long sly face, hooves, teeth. Clinging to its forearm was a naiad, trailing water, her long green luminous eyes inhuman and lovely as the moon. Gills pulsed in her neck, her shining red-kelp hair brushed the floor.

  “News?”

  “The ugly old woman, of the most grand and high Court of Chicken-foot.” The horse-creature sniggered as though at some fine joke. “Oh, wonderful gossip, my Queen – you will be most amused!”

  “Indeed, indeed,” the naiad half spoke, half-sang, her voice flying with gulls and gales.

  The Queen turned away from Stug and the girl, swept back to her throne of pearl and bones, and arrayed herself on it, chin propped on her hand. “Bring me essence of moonlight. And a sugar-cake. And poppy wine, with... let me see... with ant’s eggs. I have a fancy for them.”

  The lower members of the court scattered frantically to do her bidding. Stug thought about clearing his throat, but did not, quite, dare. If she forgot them they could be here for hours, and back home that could mean days – or more. Time slipped and slid, here, and could not be relied on.

  “Child, come to me,” the Queen said, and gestured to the girl. Stug gave her a little push, though she was already going, willingly enough, still agape and perhaps not sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  The Queen turned to Stug. “We will speak in a quarter-moon, little man. If the girl still pleases me...”

  Stug opened his mouth to plead, and shut it. This was the closest he had come to success. None of the other children had pleased her. He had had to give them to Simms. What happened after that was none of his concern.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Go away now, little man.” She flicked her fingers at him, as though he was something stuck to her nail. “Go. You do not please me.”

  The girl did not plead, or beg to be taken home. She did not even watch Stug leave, but instead stroked a flower on the Queen’s gown, as though, with all the wonders surrounding her, a simple buttercup was the most amazing of them.

  The Sparrow School

  EVELINE WAS SCOWLING at the kitchen cupboards – they were almost out of everything – when there was a quiet knock at the back door. She jumped as though jabbed with a pin. Back in the days when a slow hand on a plump pocket would have been enough to send her to Newgate she’d never been so nervy – but then, she’d only had herself to worry about. Now, she felt like that fella Cinquevalli that she’d seen at the music hall, who balanced a man on one arm and juggled three balls with the other.

  Whoever it was had simply tapped, not rung the bell – she waited. Maybe it was just a branch.

  But then the knock came again. “Whyn’t you ring, if you’re so all-fired eager?” she muttered to herself, then straightened her spine, put on her most formidably schoolmarmish expression, and flung open the door.

  And there, looking like a bit of dirty paper blown all the way to her doorstep, clinging to his broom as though it were his anchor to the world and peering wide-eyed at the nearby woods, was Bat.

  “’Ullo, miss,” he said, glancing at her briefly before scanning the woods some more.

  “Bat! What are you... never mind. Come in, then.”

  He bolted past her and watched as she shut the door.

  “You all right?” she said. “Was there someone after you?” Her stomach chilled. What if someone were out there right now, watching the school? If they knew where she was...

  “No, miss.” Bat shook his head vigorously, his dreadful hat sliding back and forth.

  “What were you all in a pucker for then?”

  “It’s awful... big, out there, miss. And quiet. And it don’t half smell funny.”

  “That’s cos it ain’t full of smoke and other people’s shit,” she said. “Come sit down. How the devil did you get all the way out here?”

  “I come on the horse bus, miss. Juicy Peg made me, she paid. They made me put my broom on the roof, miss. Nearly drove off with it, they did.”

  “Well it’s safe now. Lean it by the wall before someone falls over it. You want some milk?”

  “Yes please, miss.”

  While he drank his milk she bolted the kitchen door, in case someone should come wandering in. She fetched him a bowl of the stew left from the girls’ lunch and put it in front of him. “Now, what’s going on?”

  “A couple days back, Viper turns up. And his coach is outside and Peg comes down and I seen her watching so I goes over, and she told me to stay out of sight, but she’s watching and so I watch too. Then we seen him come out with one of the Huntridge girls, the copper-top, and get in his coach, and Peg she gets all of a flither, and says she knew it, and calls him a filthy beast. And I ask what she means but she says all she knows is he’s up to no good, and maybe she should call a peeler, only if she does what would she say, and...”

  “So what happened?”

  “I got in, miss.”

  “You got...”

  “I got in the steam car, miss.”

  “What? Don’t tell me Peg told you to do any such thing!”

  “No, miss. Only the car wouldn’t start, miss, and he was pulling levers and swearing, and I give Peg me broom and run over and nip into the basket on the back for the luggage and pull the lid down, and off we go.”

  “But what...” She looked at him, and shook her head. “Why?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Bat said. “Except I thought, maybe, p’raps he was selling her to pirates?”

  “Pirates?”

  “Well, he could’a been, couldn’t he?”

  “And what were you going to do if he was?”

  Bat shrugged, and spooned up more stew. “Chase ’em,” he said, muffled.

  “So what happened?”

  “We bounced along for ever such a long time. I maybe fell asleep for a bit. It was all right in that basket, there was a blanket and everything, but it did throw me about, ’specially the last bit.” He held out a sticklike arm and displayed a massive bruise. “I nearly yelled wh
en I got that, but I didn’t.”

  “Good boy.”

  Bat grinned and shrugged. “I don’t suppose he’d have heard me anyways, the noise it made. Anyways we stopped, and I heard ‘em get out. I snuck a look and we was by a building, maybe in the City, I dunno. I was going to get out but I thought I’d better wait, on account of I wasn’t sure where I was, also he’d left it running so I reckoned he was coming back. When they came out she was all done up fancy and her hair different. I shut the lid again and he drove and drove; and I thought maybe we really was going to sea, only then it stopped, and it was everso quiet. And I heard the doors open and shut and he says, ‘Mind what I told you,’ and there’s sounds like them moving off and so after a bit I opens the top and looks out. It’s getting on dark, and I can’t see no lights or nothing, just a bit of road and grass and a hill, like a park, but bigger. They’re going up the hill so I gets out and goes after ’em, but they just – the air went funny and then they wasn’t there no more. I tried to follow them but then...” He took another spoonful and chewed as he considered. “There was sort of a stream, only it looked wrong. I thought maybe it was the sun, at first, ’cos it was going down and everything, and the stream was all red, but I got close and it wasn’t water, miss, it was blood. I was going to try and go over, see if they’d gone that way, but it disappeared. And I didn’t know where they’d gone, and there was a big yellow thing with eyes, miss, sorta like a horse only fat, that made a noise – Muuuh – and blew at me, so I ran, and got back in the basket, then he come back without her and then we goes off again. And I wakes up in the basket back in town and gets home and tells Peg, and she put me on the bus and makes me come here.”

  “That’d have been a cow, that fat horse,” Eveline said, absently, her mind working. “And the other was the Stream of Blood. Just as well you didn’t try to cross it. You’da been in trouble for sure.”

  “Did I do right, miss?”

  “You done bloody spectacular. You’d better stay here the night, and I’ll send you home tomorrow.” She’d have to come up with the fare, somehow.

  Stug was stealing children, and taking them over the border, into the Crepuscular. To the Emerald Court? To the Queen? Why?

  And what was Stug getting in return?

  Eagle Estates

  SIMMS WAS WAITING when Stug got back to his offices.

  “I told you not to come here during the day,” Stug growled.

  “I had some news I thought you’d want.”

  “News? If it’s about the tenants, it can wait.” Stug glowered at the man. It was a risk, being involved with someone like this – he was a thug, a nasty brute of a man, but he was useful. “I’ve nothing for you, not this time.”

  Stug didn’t mind having him along when he went to see the tenants, but respectable people came to these offices, and having this fellow around – he stank. Not physically – he kept himself neat and clean, but nonetheless, he stank, of back alleys and unpleasant dealings and knives in the dark. The reek of bad deeds rose from his flaunting sideburns and the tilt of his midnight-black bowler.

  “Well now,” Simms said. “I could go away, and not tell you, and by the time you saw me this evening, and I told you, you might be saying, well, I’m right in it now, you shoulda’ told me. And then you’d blame me, and I’d be doleful about that, I’d be very doleful. Acause we’ve got a good business relationship, you and me, and I’d hate for that to be done over because you could have got some information from me, at the right time, and didn’t. See?”

  The man’s theatrical flair made Stug’s skin itch and tighten. “Well don’t hang about the step, then, come in.”

  “Don’t worry, I ain’t been here long enough for any of your respectable clientele to notice my humble presence, Mr Stug. I made sure I waited until I saw you coming before I hung about your step. After all, I know we’re not of a type, eh? I’m not a man of reputation like you.” He paused, one foot in, one out, the shadow of the door cutting across his face. “Well, I am,” he said, thoughtfully, “only not the same kind of reputation.”

  Stug led the man up the stairs, aware of a crawling sensation between his shoulder-blades the whole time. He poked his head through the door of Jacobs’ cubbyhole. “Go take those papers over to the bank,” he said.

  “Yes, Mr Stug.”

  “And take your time, make sure they’re checked properly. I don’t want any mistakes. And don’t disturb me when you go out, or come back, crashing about, I want some quiet. I’ve things to do.”

  “Yes, Mr Stug.”

  He shut the door behind him, and waved the man into his office. “Well, Simms? What is it?”

  “So, you’ve been looking to tighten things up around here, I see.”

  “What? Oh, yes. Security. I have to be careful. The world’s full of rogues.”

  “So it is, Mr Stug, oh, yes indeed. Only that’s the thing, you see. That’s the very thing I wanted to drop in your shell-like, that was.”

  “What are you going on about, man?”

  “A young woman, Mr Stug. A certain young woman who came a’visiting. Now at first I thought, maybe she was here to see that rasher of wind you’ve got doing your under-stair work. But then I thought, Mr Stug, he’s a respectable sort of person, he wouldn’t want those kind of goings on... going on, not he. He wouldn’t be having with it. And I didn’t think she was the kind of person who he would be having personal doings with, perhaps an indigent relative or such, because she didn’t look indigent, oh, no, got up very smart, she was. Respectable smart. Because the idea of any other sort of smart lady a-visiting of Mr Stug, well, that would never cross my mind. Wouldn’t even begin to consider the thought of crossing my mind, that wouldn’t.”

  “Do get on.”

  “As you wish, Mr Stug, as you wish. Rogues, you said. Well, not to put too fine a point on it.”

  “Oh, so there is a point?”

  The man paused, one eyebrow afloat, then when it was clear Stug had nothing more to add, he went on, “She’s a rogue, Mr Stug. Oh yes. I got a clearer look at her on her way out, and that young woman is someone I know of old, and a rogue she is indeed.” He held up a hand. “You might not wish to think it, I know, her seeming all respectable, which is something I admit she’s exceptional good at, but she broke into your place, for a start of it, which is, you’ll admit, roguish behaviour.”

  “Oh, I knew that.”

  Simms’ chair, which had been tilted back, slammed down level, and Simms’ bowler slid low over his eyes. He glared at Stug from beneath it, putting Stug firmly in mind of something hiding under a rock.

  “You knew.” His voice was flat.

  “She told me as much. Simms, are you telling me you know this young woman?”

  “Indeed I do, though I never persuaded her to work for me. But obviously you know all about it, and it doesn’t bother you that she’s a prig by profession, that is, a noted and accomplished filching mort, that is to say, a thief, and a gulling, sham-cutting trull that’s got the eye of Westminster on her. I’ll be on my way then, Mr Stug, and sorry to have wasted your time this fine morning.” Simms was out of the chair and on his way to the door before Stug got the words out.

  “What? Wait!”

  “Oh, so that she didn’t tell you?” Simms paused, one hand on the door handle, and looked over his shoulder.

  “Didn’t tell me what? Sit down man, tell me what you mean. Westminster?”

  Simms span around, whipped the chair under him and planted himself in it.

  “Thereby hangs a tale, Mr Stug. Oh, yes indeed. Our little Evvie, Mr Stug, Evvie Duchen, she was a common thief and trickster of the most adept, only she was took up by a government man. He come looking for her. By way of being very generous, he was, when he was on the hunt for her. Now he didn’t know I knew he was government, but I’m a cautious man, Mr Stug, I like my buttons buttoned and my braces braced, I do, so I made enquiries of my own, and I found out. And then Evvie Duchen disappeared. And it seems like
not long after that this government man disappeared, along of another fella of some importance, off overseas somewhere. Most mysterious and maybe a bit embarrassing, you might say, being as government men aren’t supposed to just disappear off of the face of the earth, without a by-your-leave or a fare-thee-well. Now they’ve never come home, those fellas, but it seems like Evvie Duchen did, only not going under that name no more, is she?”

  “No,” Stug said, staring at the wall beyond Simms and tapping his fingernail on the desktop. “No, she isn’t.”

  “And there’s them as might be interested in knowing that while their ever-so-clever government fellas, with all of their schooling and such, managed to get themselves lost in foreign parts, one little street-urchin got herself home and dry, and doing quite well by the look of her. Or maybe, and that’s the thought that come to me, Mr Stug, maybe they already do.”

  The same thought, at the same time, amid the whirl of speculation, had already occurred to Stug. “You think she’s working for the government?”

  “Well, Mr Stug, she was a bright enough spark, she was, but running a business? By herself? Now that’s the sort of thing I don’t believe would be going on without she had someone setting her up, and backing her up. She’s only a mort when all’s said and done.”

  “Well,” Stug said. “That’s very interesting, Simms.”

  “I thought it was the sorta thing you might want to know, Mr Stug.”

  “Indeed. Indeed.” Stug leant back in his chair. “I am gratified to find you so careful of my interests.”

  “You’re a generous employer, Mr Stug, I’d be a fool not to do my best for you.”

  Stug took a key from around his neck and opened a drawer in his desk, extracted a tin box, and opened that with another key. He took out a sheaf of notes and passed them to Simms. “I hope this will be acceptable?”

  “Most kind, Mr Stug, most kind.” Simms tucked the notes away in a pocket inside his jacket.

  Stug raised his brows. “You’re not going to count it?”

  “Now, Mr Stug, I’m sure we know each other well enough that I can rely on you to do the right thing.”