Wundersmith, The Calling of Morrigan Crow

by Jessica Townsend

  But seeing it for herself really was something else. It was like walking through the scenery from a hundred different plays. Morrigan’s head was spinning; she could hardly take in one strange thing before they’d moved on to the next.

  It was confusing and thrilling, and tricky to tell how much was real and how much was illusion. Everywhere they went, Morrigan made a game out of trying to spot the seam, just as Dave had told them. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was also easy to see the people working hard in the background, trying to keep the illusion going. They were usually up high—perched on a balcony or a rooftop, overlooking the scene and concentrating hard.

  “There!” she shouted, grabbing Hawthorne’s arm. She pointed up at a fourth-floor window above Cooper Court (which according to the map was doubling as an outdoor nail salon and an arena for unicorn-based equestrian events). A man and woman were stationed there, muttering to themselves in a constant stream and never taking their eyes off the courtyard below.

  “Do you have to do that?” Hawthorne grumbled. “Can’t we just enjoy the magic without poking our noses behind the curtain?”

  “But it’s fascinating!”

  When they passed through a veil of steam into a noisy open-air restaurant bursting with food stalls, Morrigan felt certain they’d be stopping at last. This, surely, was what Hawthorne had been looking for.

  One woman was cooking on three enormous silver saucerlike pans simultaneously, flames and jets of steam shooting up into the air around her. Her flagrant abuse of spices made Morrigan’s eyes water, but there was also the smell of something unidentifiably meaty and delicious. Other stalls offered stews, flatbreads, hot chips, fried dumplings, and crabs boiled in barrels… and, Morrigan noticed with disgust, buttery sautéed snails, deep-fried pig intestines, crunchy fried grasshoppers, and rats roasted on skewers like strange, fleshy popsicles.

  “Rat skewer?” she suggested to Hawthorne, making a face. “Or pig intestine? What’ll it be?”

  But again, he hurried her to the other end of the precinct, where they hit a wall of fairy floss—a flat, cloudy curtain of pink spun sugar. Hawthorne turned to her and grinned, tearing off an enormous strip of floss and letting it melt on his tongue before leading her on through the sweet, sticky, paper-thin curtain and into their surprise destination:

  “Sweet Street!” announced Hawthorne, throwing his arms wide as if he’d just welcomed Morrigan into his spiritual home. Sweet Street encompassed three whole blocks and was packed with chocolatiers and toffee makers, people stirring huge metal pots full of popping caramel corn, cake stands and crêperies, tables piled high with rock candy and bonbons, and an ice cream parlor that specialized in two-foot-high sundaes.

  Hawthorne was in his element. She could tell this was a place her friend returned to every year, because he had very firm ideas about which stalls promised the best use of their time, money, and stomach space.

  “Sugarplum donuts are a MUST,” he told her, pointing out a stand that sold hot fried donuts injected with oozing purple sugarplum jam and rolled in cinnamon sugar. “And sherbet roses. But forget the crêpes. Overrated.” He also steered straight past a chocolatier offering every kind of truffle imaginable (coconut truffles, peach truffles, peppermint, champagne, praline, grasshoppers… what was it with all the grasshoppers?) and straight to one where thick straps of chewy caramel were hand-stretched and sold by the yard.

  When Morrigan couldn’t possibly eat another bite, she momentarily left Hawthorne chewing and wandered through a mist of gray fog into an alley of fortune-tellers offering readings by crystal ball, tarot cards, palms, tea leaves, and bird entrails. There was even one who invited her to spit in his hand so he could read her future from it. Morrigan politely declined, backing away from him as he became more insistent, and accidentally stepping through another curtain into…

  Nothing. Morrigan could see nothing. She could hear nothing.

  It wasn’t that it was dark. She wasn’t peering into blackness. She wasn’t looking at anything at all. She’d gone blind.

  She cried out—Hawthorne!—but her voice was gone. Or could she just not hear it? Maybe he had heard her. She touched a hand to her throat and felt the vibrations as she yelled again for her friend, but no sound reached her ears. She’d gone blind and deaf.

  Stay calm, Morrigan told herself. Stay calm.

  She felt someone brush against her and caught the scent of strong perfume on the air. Another person bumped into her and large hands grabbed her shoulders roughly. She smelled stale, smoky breath as the hands patted all over her head and face, as if trying to figure out who she was, and then pushed her aside.

  Stay calm stay calm stay calm. What was step two? Oh—retreat. Morrigan forced herself to take a careful step backward, and another, but then another hand grabbed hers, a much smaller hand than the last—a child’s hand, like hers.

  Is that you, Hawthorne? she cried, but of course no sound met her ears. Her hand grasped on to a shoulder, and it was the same height as her own, perhaps a little taller—it might be him.

  The hand pulled her onward. Together they made their way through the bumbling, blinded crowd, buffeted this way and that, clutching tight to each other until finally they burst through the darkness on the other side.

  Morrigan felt like a skin diver coming up for air. The world was color and light and sound again. She gasped as if to catch her breath, though she hadn’t been holding it. She blinked into the newfound brightness as her eyes adjusted, turning to Hawthorne. “What was that?”

  But it wasn’t Hawthorne who’d pulled her through.

  Cadence Blackburn stood beside her, breathing heavily.

  “Cadence!” said Morrigan, unable to hide her surprise. “What are you—”

  “It’s real.” Cadence’s eyes blazed with fear and excitement. “The Ghastly Market! Morrigan, it’s real—and it’s happening now.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE GHASTLY MARKET

  I saw a man turn down Devilish Court.” Cadence was steering Morrigan through the crowded bazaar at breakneck speed, past noisy stalls and through curtains. “I yelled at him to stop but he didn’t hear me, and then he was gone.”

  “You—what? Ow, Cadence, you’re hurting my arm.” Cadence loosened her grip but didn’t let go, and didn’t slow down. “What are you saying, you were just walking past Devilish Court and you happened to see someone—”

  “No, dummy, I was standing across the street watching it. I was thinking about all the disappearances, and about what you told us, about the Ghastly Market, and what you saw. And this afternoon I realized—if it is real, if what you saw was the Ghastly Market being set up, and if it is them that’s behind the disappearances, then it’s bound to happen tonight, right? Opening night of the bazaar! The timing is too perfect.”

  “I guess,” said Morrigan, “but, Cadence, wait—”

  “So I waited to see who would show up at Devilish Court. And get this: It’s not even a Pink Alert anymore. It’s changed. It was upgraded to a Red Alert. But this guy just went straight in, didn’t even look twice. Then I saw another man go in five minutes later, and this one was wearing a mask. And then a woman went in, and she had a scarf wrapped around most of her face—in the middle of summer! So then I went to find you. Hawthorne told me you were coming to the bazaar together. I’ve been looking for you everywhere, and I finally spotted you just before you slipped into the Courtyard of Nothing. Come on, this way.”

  “But I should at least tell Haw—”

  “He’ll be fine,” Cadence insisted. “Come on, we have to hurry.”

  Minutes later they arrived at the familiar mouth of Devilish Court, which was so narrow Morrigan thought it barely qualified as an alley. The plaque on the wall had indeed been altered.

  DEVILISH COURT BEWARE!

  BY ORDER OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL ODDITIES SQUADRON AND THE NEVERMOOR COUNCIL, THIS STREET HAS BEEN DECLARED A RED ALERT TRICKSY LANE

  (HIGH-DANGER TRICKERY AND
LIKELIHOOD OF DAMAGE TO PERSON ON ENTRY)

  ENTER AT OWN RISK

  Morrigan read it through twice. “…likelihood of damage to person on entry. Does that mean the trick has changed?”

  “It must have, if they’ve reclassified it. But I’ve been thinking: You got through that spew-feeling trick before, right? And those people I saw, they’ve obviously gone through to the other side too. I think whatever Devilish Court has changed into, it must be possible to push our way through it.”

  “A Red Alert, though…”

  Morrigan looked from the sign to Cadence and back again, pulse quickening as she felt her resolve strengthen. She’d wanted to investigate the Ghastly Market, to look for Cassiel and Paximus Luck and the others. This was her chance! Both to help Jupiter in his hunt for the missing people, and to prove that it wasn’t her—that Heloise was wrong. Maybe if she could find the missing people, the Elders would let her back into Wunsoc?

  She nodded vehemently. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

  Cadence smiled, and together, they marched down Devilish Court. Nothing happened at first, and Morrigan had a moment of hope that perhaps there was no trick anymore, that the sign had it wrong… until suddenly, she felt as if all the air was being sucked out of her lungs.

  “Keep going,” Cadence said in a tight, breathless voice, tugging her onward.

  As Morrigan became increasingly desperate for air, her survival instinct kicked in and thrashed wildly within her, trying to pull her back the way they’d come, back to light and oxygen and safety.

  “Trust me,” said Cadence, squeezing her hand. “All right?”

  And Morrigan realized… she did trust Cadence. (When had that happened, she wondered?)

  She fought back against her instinct, stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other. Her lungs were empty, her head felt as if it would burst, and she was frantic for air but there was none to be had, just a burning in her chest and—

  They burst through some invisible barrier, gasping for breath and finding it at last. Morrigan thought she might collapse from the pain in her lungs and the dizziness in her head, but they’d made it. Wordlessly, Cadence pointed upward.

  Like a mockery of the spectacular Nevermoor Bazaar welcome sign above East Gate, a shabby white wooden arch curved over their heads and on it—newly painted in black letters—were three words:

  THE GHASTLY MARKET

  “It is real,” panted Morrigan.

  “I knew it,” said Cadence fiercely.

  They gaped at the square, which was no longer empty but heaving with buyers and sellers, none of whom looked particularly friendly. This place had none of the charm of the Nevermoor Bazaar. The bazaar was shiny and magical and welcoming; the Ghastly Market felt like it had been spat on, walked over, and rubbed in the dirt.

  “I can’t wait to tell Mildmay how wrong he was,” muttered Cadence, then nudged Morrigan in the side. “Oi—don’t stare so much, you’ll draw attention. Just be cool.”

  But as they made their way through the market, Morrigan couldn’t help staring, and she definitely couldn’t be cool. The wares on offer here were unlike any she’d seen in the other precincts. To her left, a table of assorted unnimal organs, fresh and bloody. To her right, an array of jars holding pickled unnimal heads and limbs, and even, she noticed with revulsion—

  “Is that a human head?” she shrieked, pointing at a shrunken, strangely peaceful face floating in a jar of yellowish preserving liquid.

  Cadence steered her away, muttering from the corner of her mouth, “Be. Cool.”

  They passed a black canvas tent with a sign outside that simply read: SECRETS BOUGHT AND SOLD, and farther along, a woman offering to smuggle anyone in or out of the Wintersea Republic “for a fair price.”

  “Teeeeeeth!” shouted a man as they walked by his stall, making both girls jump. “Teeth and fangs, get yer teeth and fangs here. Unnimal, Wunimal, human toothy pegs alike, get ’em while I’ve got ’em. Molars, canines, wisdoms, tusks. Use ’em for hexes, use ’em for jewelry, I don’t care what you use ’em for, long as you pay me. TEEEEEEEEEETH, get yer teeth here!”

  The farther into the Ghastly Market they went, the darker and uglier it became, until Morrigan wanted to close her eyes and run back. She longed for the bright lights and joyful music of the bazaar. The jostling crowds at the Ghastly Market were easy to get lost in, and the clientele here didn’t seem inclined to make eye contact with anyone, but nonetheless, Morrigan was beginning to feel… visible. Two children alone, their golden W pins gleaming at their necks. They were utterly out of place.

  She hastily unpinned the evidence of her Wun status and shoved it in a pocket. “Take your pin off,” she whispered to Cadence.

  There was one tent, right in the center of the market, that seemed to have drawn a bigger crowd than any of the others. A huge cluster of people queued before one very large, surly-looking man who was standing guard at the tent door and holding the leashes of four formidable-looking dogs. He ushered people inside in pairs, counting them as they went, and then suddenly held up a hand to stop the next people in line.

  “Right, folks, we’ve reached capacity. The auction is full. Better luck next time.”

  “You’re joking, aren’t you, son?” complained a bearded man at the front of the queue. “Come on, be fair. I’ve been waitin’ months for this.”

  “Then you should have arrived earlier,” said the doorman. “Strictly limited numbers. First come, best dressed. You know how this works, I saw you at the spring auction.”

  The customer leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “Listen, I’ve uh… I’ve come for that big item. You know the one I mean. And I’m planning to bid high. My money’s as good as anyone else’s.”

  Morrigan and Cadence exchanged a look. Big item. Could it be one of the missing people?

  “I’m sure it is, but your punctuality’s dreadful,” said the doorman. “You’ll have to wait for the autumn lots. Good day.”

  The man pulled desperately at his beard. “Come on, mate—that beast’ll be long gone by—”

  “I said GOOD DAY,” snapped the doorman. “Now get out before I have my friends chase you out.” He tilted his head toward the four chained dogs, which started growling on cue. The bearded man sloped away. As he went to pass by Cadence on his way out, she held out a hand to stop him.

  “You’re not going to take that, are you?” she asked.

  The man sneered and tried to push past her, but Cadence simply said, “Stop,” and he stopped. She peered up into his face and spoke in a voice like a swarm of bees. “Go back there and show him what happens to people who disrespect you.”

  Morrigan saw something shift in the man’s eyes, as if his will had suddenly galvanized. He stormed back up to the front of the queue and began shouting and pressing his stubby finger to the doorman’s chest. The dogs snarled and barked, straining at their leashes, and the dispersing queue of people re-formed, drawn like magnets to the promise of a brawl.

  “Come on,” murmured Cadence. Using the disturbance as a cover, they slipped through the opening of the tiny canvas tent… and emerged inside what looked like a dark and sumptuous ballroom, lit by candelabra.

  Morrigan let the canvas drop behind her, and instantly the noise from outside was doused like a flame, replaced with a quiet, civilized chatter and the clinking of wineglasses. It was strangely disorienting. She spotted an unattended table that held an assortment of masks, hoods, and veils and a sign that read FOR YOUR DISCRETION AND CONVENIENCE. Grabbing a pair of rubber unnimal masks, Morrigan pulled the hairy gorilla face down over her head and thrust the fox at Cadence, who made a face at it.

  “Nobody’s going to notice me,” she protested.

  “Look around,” said Morrigan. The rubber gorilla mask muffled her voice. “Do you see anyone here showing their face? Do you want to be the odd one out? Put it on.”

  Cadence’s description of the people she’d seen going down Devilish Court suddenly made sens
e; everyone here was trying to disguise themselves in some way. Nobody wanted to be recognized in a place like this.

  And then Morrigan saw it. At the opposite end of the room, sitting in a cage atop a high, red-curtained platform like some kind of trophy…

  “Dr. Bramble’s Magnificub!” Morrigan said with a gasp.

  The cub had a ruff of thick, matted, dirty white fur, and big blue eyes like crystal orbs. Hissing and yowling, clawing madly through the metal bars, he fought like a lion, though he was clearly terrified and desperate for escape. Morrigan cringed. She wanted to run right over and set him free, but that would have been idiotic in the extreme.

  The atmosphere at this end of the tent was less civilized. The crowd jeered and roared with laughter as they threw things at the poor cub—food, stones, empty bottles—trying to aggravate him even more. It worked; instead of cowering against the back of the cage, the cub fought ever more wildly, ever more loudly, his bright blue eyes shining with terror. Morrigan watched, feeling queasy and helpless. Beside her, Cadence’s breaths came in short, sharp bursts.

  “Our first big draw card today, ladies and gentlemen!” shouted a man standing next to the Magnificub behind a wooden podium. He wore a brown tweed suit and a mask that covered the top half of his face, and he held a cane that he occasionally hit against the metal bars of the cage with a ringing thwack. “I present to you the grand—and extremely rare—Magnificub. Little beastie doesn’t look like much now, of course, but we all know how enormous—and enormously useful!—a fully grown Magnificat can be. Fiercely independent creatures of an extremely Wundrous nature, Magnificats will nonetheless make capable and docile beasts of burden—especially if you choose to cut out their tongues from infancy! It’s all the rage in the Republic. Don’t be afraid, ladies and gentlemen, of the notoriously fierce Magnificat intelligence—oh no! Contrary to popular belief, they can be subjugated if you go about it the right way.”

  Morrigan felt bile rise in her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to control herself. They were going to cut out his tongue? That poor little cub? Morrigan had a sudden, sickening realization—was that what President Wintersea had done to the six Magnificats who pulled her carriage? Was that why they never spoke?