by Kim Newman
Amy felt her own face and Paule’s, finding no injuries. The Purple left aftertastes and lingering images.
Torchlight swung across Keele’s face. She was astonished.
‘Enid,’ she said. ‘That’s Enid. Mauve Mary is…’
‘Who?’ asked Amy. ‘Enid who?’
‘ffolliott. Enid ffolliott.’
‘ffolliott-Absent?’
‘No,’ said Paule. ‘ffolliott-Presence.’
XVIII: Sisters Light
‘THIS IS WORSE than last term,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Then, the Moth Club were strictly outside School Rules, but so were the Hooded Conspiracy. The Black Skirts are School Rules. Nothing hooded about them. Moth masks are no use any more. So few of us are left in Grey that even the dullest of the Dims could tell at once who we were.’
Amy was forced to agree.
This inquorate meeting of the Moth Club was convened in the Biology Lab annexe. In autumn, before the Black Skirts were dreamed up, Miss Borrodale had supposed that Amy might be interested in the Calloway Collection. The most exotic specimens were in the annexe, stuffed under glass domes, floating in jars of brine or arranged in drawers. Loosely interpreting casual invitation as actual permission, Amy had let Light Fingers pick the lock. If they approached Fossil now and requested the key, they would have no joy. The science teacher only bestowed favours on the Sisters Dark. Inchfawn was restored as Fossil’s pet, which made Amy all the warier of the six-eyed sneak.
It had been a mistake to think Inchfawn permanently sent to Coventry. Going Black was a way back.
Light Fingers lit a Bunsen burner. Adjusted to burn pure blue, it gave off enough light for the girls to see each other’s faces and enough heat to warm their hands.
‘You know what we are,’ said Amy. ‘Moths around a flame.’
‘…which is supposed to be dangerous. For moths.’
Amy had tried to tell Light Fingers everything. Having lost Kali’s friendship by keeping uncomfortable truths from her, she didn’t dare chance it again. She did her best to explain Daffy Dora Paule and the Purple, the true identity of Red Flame, the unholy partnership of Hooded Conspirator and the Black Skirts, and that Mauve Mary was ffolliott-Absent. A lot to take in. Light Fingers had trouble following it all – especially when it came to wood-wolves and dust-golems. Amy knew she sounded like the old Smudge. Indeed, her story was more far-fetched than Smudge’s wildest exaggerations.
Her friend seized on the oddest things to fuss over. Told about Amy and Kali saving Beauty Rose from the Runnel and the Flute, Light Fingers was miffed she hadn’t been included in the rescue party – which was entirely her own fault for making herself scarce. She was so aggrieved to have been dropped from the team that she forgot to be appalled by revelations about Ponce or horrified by the dread shadow of the Other Ones.
‘…and, in this Purple place, you have feelers? How can you keep your hat on?’
Light Fingers put her hands up to her forehead and waggled her forefingers.
Amy couldn’t help but laugh at that.
‘I don’t understand where Dr Swan is in all this,’ said Amy. ‘I thought she was for us. She went on and on about Unusual Girls. I can’t see how she’s let this happen.’
She detected a whininess in her own voice which she disliked, and resolved firmly to change her tone… though it was difficult to complain cheerfully.
‘I told you how the Ordinaries are,’ said Light Fingers, crowing a little too much. ‘Headmistress couldn’t stand against all of them. I’m not surprised Bainter and the rotters have got her out of the way. It was bound to happen.’
‘What should we do?’
‘We can’t do anything, Amy,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Too many of them and precious few of we. I’m giving it until the snow melts enough that I don’t leave tracks, then I’m over the wall. Will you come with me? There’s nothing for us here.’
‘The Moth Club,’ Amy said, searching for a hope.
Light Fingers shook her head. ‘Frecks and Kali aren’t with us this time. Even if they weren’t Black Skirts, they’re not like us.’
The other half of the Moth Club left off talking whenever Amy came into the cell, but were elaborately polite. Kali started speaking proper English, with a musical Kafiristani accent. Frecks sounded more and more grown-up and stopped taking crafty naps in Double Geog. It was as if they’d been fetched off by the fairies and replaced with well-mannered changelings.
Beauty Rose was often in the cell, occupying Light Fingers’ rocking chair. Since the Runnel and the Flute, she and Kali had become friends. They were always passing notes back and forth between them, with smiles and smirks and strange little giggles that had a razory touch on Amy’s skin. For a girl who didn’t talk, Rose filled silence with a great deal of meaning.
Once, Amy came back to the cell to find Frecks, Kali and Beauty waving their arms like a proper Black Skirt triad. When Amy hove in view, they all three quickly folded their arms and tried to look innocent. Their simpering lasted only a few seconds before they collapsed into laughter – Beauty laughed by tapping her chest and nodding her head at the same time – directed at the Grey interloper.
‘Too difficult to explain, old thing,’ said Frecks, wiping away tears of mirth. ‘Just take our word for it, it’s funny.’
That set them off again. Amy withdrew and went to the Library – angry and hurt and sad.
…and yet Amy still wasn’t ready to give up on her friends. Or on School.
But Light Fingers was persuasive.
‘Schools are like prisons,’ said Light Fingers. ‘I know that from my parents. Jails have cells, lights-out, Chapel, flicker shows, bells, slop, stains, whips – just like here. Modern schools and modern prisons are built on the same model, Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. Old ones just turn out the same, like Drearcliff Grange and the Mausoleum. Look at the bottle-topped walls. Patrolling guards in black. Your wood-wolves are guard dogs. I’d rather pick oakum or sew postbags than brush the blasted Heel. I’ve been working out escapes. Wherever you go, you should think how to get out if you have to. Every building, every room, every friendship.’
Amy’s heart hurt. She had heard this doctrine from Light Fingers before, but it had seemed like a game rather than a serious way of life.
‘Even without snow, Gould could track you.’
Light Fingers shook her head. ‘I’m prepared. You know the perfume Peebles got from her uncle for Christmas. That pongy stuff she hates and never uses? I can take it off her hands. I’ll sprinkle scent on my bed and some clothes I’ll leave behind, then douse a fox or a rabbit so it’ll leave a false trail while I nip off in the other direction. I’m quick, remember. It’s an advantage.’
Amy saw Light Fingers had thought it through.
Had she dreamed up tricks to deal with anyone who might go against her? Was that level of distrust sensible, or dangerous? Amy knew what being alone was like and didn’t want to go back to it. At Drearcliff, she had found friends.
Light Fingers saw her hesitating.
‘Amy, even without you, I’m going…’
The door was opened. Light flooded the annexe.
‘Going where?’ asked Miss Borrodale.
Snitcher Garland had gone to Fossil, of course. A Black Skirt triad came with them – Inchfawn, Bryant, Vail. With skipping ropes wound round their fists, they tried to look like a Wild West lynching party. The effect was somewhat spoiled by them being titchy schoolgirls rather than rangy cowboys. The black hats helped, but not enough. Ants were only fearsome in a horde… as individuals, or even in small groups, they were just bugs, the lowest, dullest, meanest sort of insect.
‘The lock’s been tampered with, miss,’ said Inchfawn, holding a magnifying glass to show the tiny scratches Light Fingers had left.
Occasionally, Amy had felt sorry for Inchfawn. Never again.
‘Naisbitt, Thomsett. Major Infractions. The Heel. Naisbitt – this comes as no surprise. The apple, in this case, does not fall far fr
om the poison tree. But Thomsett… I have to say I’m disappointed. I had thought more of you.’
Inchfawn’s excited smile was terrifying. She was close to wetting herself.
Vail, to whom Amy had never paid attention, was blank-faced, not even relishing petty victory or advantage as Garland or Inchfawn did. What did Vail get out of the Black Skirts? She had always been among Viola’s ‘courtiers, attendants, guards, clowns, & co.’ An ant crawled down the side of Vail’s face, like a tear.
‘This, girls, is what grasshoppers look like,’ Fossil lectured the Black Skirts. ‘The lack of industry, the slyness, the arrant sabotage. We are not grasshoppers.’
She tapped her ant brooch.
The Black Skirts’ arms shot up in the antenna salute. Hands waved and fingers flapped like agitated antennae.
Amy felt more ashamed than aggrieved, but Light Fingers was sullen. She expected no better from the Ordinaries.
‘Mute defiance, eh?’ said Fossil. ‘Not a seemly attitude, girls. I trust you’ll improve your conduct in your new form. You’re to report to the Remove.’
The Remove
I: To the Leper Colony
BEING ‘REMOVED’ DIDN’T just mean hiking to Temporary Classroom Two for lessons. Now Houseless persons, the lowest form of living ghost, Amy and Light Fingers were booted out of their Desdemona digs.
If Amy could have gone Black, she would have done – to keep her cosy place in Frecks’ cell, to stay well in with friends who now pretended not to know her or solicit the approval of teachers who’d gone cold on all Greys. She’d have skipped and antenna-waved and marched with the other ants… if the option were open to a fluke like her. She’d have turned on others, too, happy to march in step with the Black Skirt majority and scorn the pale dregs of the Greys.
Realising she was no better than Inchfawn made her tears hotter.
Mother would take the news with an exasperated sigh and sham pity. She was used to Amy humiliating her. A favourite expression was ‘what your poor father would have said I don’t know’, which truly meant she knew exactly what Father would have said and that it would have been withering. Amy had her own ideas about what Father would or would not have said. She resolved not to write home about her removal.
What happened at Drearcliff could stay here.
To put the old tin lid on it, Fossil had characterised them as grasshoppers. Caelifera! As a science teacher, Miss Borrodale should know Aesop’s Fables was an unreliable entomology text. Grasshoppers were as active and ferocious as ants. In battle, flight-capable, voracious grasshoppers would prevail over nest-building, cowering ants. Locusts were grasshoppers, and they numbered among the Plagues of Egypt. The Lord God didn’t bother visiting ants upon Pharaoh.
Removal was supervised by Digger Downs, who was more pro Black Skirt even than Fossil. An insect badge crawled up and down her jacket. A giant ant, over an inch long (Dinoponera australis?). One of its legs was tethered to a black thread pinned to her lapel. The living brooch strayed as far as the ruffle of Downs’ blouse but couldn’t reach the skin of her neck. The insect must want to give the teacher a nasty nip.
Ranks of Black Skirts gathered to watch Amy and Light Fingers laid low, antenna-arms raised and stiff. The skipping rhyme and the repetitive crunch of stomping feet came from the Quad. Those sounds were heard everywhere these days.
The disgrace meant she wasn’t permitted to fetch her own things from the cell. She had to make a list of her possessions and give it to Bryant. It wasn’t easy to remember everything off the top of her head. Some items she didn’t want on record. She had trophies of her night-time exploits, including a conspirator’s hood retrieved from the broken tower and broken-off pieces of tile and chimney pot collected while floating. Her Kentish Glory togs were in with the rest of her kit.
Bryant went up to Amy’s former cell to collect everything on her list. Amy supposed Frecks or Kali would hand over anything she happened to forget – or just chuck it out of the window.
The condemned girls waited outside in the cold. Fulwood came out of the dorm to take away their enamel Desdemona badges. Amy hadn’t remembered to wear the thing half the time, but giving it up was like having her head shaved in the market square. Light Fingers was required to unwind and hand over a House scarf. She made a point of shivering. At least, they didn’t have epaulettes to be ripped off or swords to break. If anyone tried to snap a hockey stick over their knee they’d do themselves an injury.
Bryant’s triad came out of the dorms with Amy’s trunk held up over their heads, as if demonstrating the proverbial ant knack of carrying many times its own weight. Another triad, with Pulsipher on point, followed with Light Fingers’ trunk – a family heirloom plastered with stickers from theatres where her parents had performed. Her rocking chair was left behind, classified as furniture rather than a personal possession.
Amy looked up and saw Frecks’ face at a window.
She stuck her hand up to wave at her friend. Frecks exhaled, misting the glass to opacity.
Another arrow to the heart.
Light Fingers was almost smug. Having her worst fears proved warmed her a little.
Frozen slush was cleared from gravel paths. Green grass showed through the thinning snow. In other circumstances, Amy would have delighted in the approaching thaw. Now, she felt as if she were at a hasty funeral for a double suicide.
Downs tooted a whistle. Amy trudged along after the removal girls.
‘My old man said “foller the van” and don’t dilly-dally on the way,’ said Light Fingers. At Drearcliff, doing a midnight flit was less of a disgrace than being removed. Anyone could be short of funds. It took effort to fall short of expectations.
Kindly, Light Fingers took Amy’s hand and squeezed.
As they passed, the Black Skirts chittered and waved their arms in agitation. That was new.
The Black Skirts were becoming less like girls, more like bugs.
The exorcism of Mauve Mary had sped the process along.
‘Ignore them, Amy,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Ignore them and they’ll go away.’
‘We’re the ones who’re going away, Emma.’
Some Black Skirts had specks crawling on their faces and hands. Ants crept out from collars and cuffs. Into eyes and mouths.
This was wrong. Ants weren’t like that… lice or mites lived on the human body, but were mostly too small to see. Even Professor Rayne didn’t go so far as to say ants could colonise people. Had Rayne fille brought these ants back from the Purple? The Flute was open and the Purple was exhaling through it… breathing out bugs, ants in pants.
‘Courage,’ said Light Fingers, helping her along.
Purple or Purple-ish things were all around these days… wood-wolves, dust-golems, insects unknown to science. Not yet in the open, but in thinning shadows, gaining confidence. The ants weren’t in pants any more… they were everywhere. School was turned into a giant anthill.
Rayne didn’t show up to witness their removal. Did the Queen Ant even knew who they were… or who anyone was? She had divided School into Black Skirts and Ghosts. In Rayne’s world, there were no individuals. Even queens were replaceable.
Amy and Light Fingers followed their luggage across the grounds. Black Skirts on all sides waved and shrilled. Unremoved Greys made themselves scarce, for fear of being further lumped in with flukes. Amy bitterly regretted not speaking up when others were being kicked.
The Auxiliary Dorm, known as Remittance Man’s Rest, was a former stables. Even Dauntless wouldn’t put up with it. The horse shared a cottage with Joxer.
Devlin met the new arrivals with something like a welcome. She stuck out her paw, knobbly wrist extending six inches from her sleeve. As they shook hands, Amy felt Stretch’s pliable bones shift.
The Remove wasn’t a House, so it didn’t have a House Captain. Devlin was stuck with the responsibilities but benefited from none of the privileges.
Incidentally, who’d be Desdemona Third Captain now Light
Fingers was gone? Probably – uck! – Inchfawn.
‘Welcome to the Fluke Show,’ said Stretch, not unkindly. ‘Sorry, but you’ve to put up where we can fit you and there’s only one cell with two free berths. Far end on the right. Thought you’d rather bunk together than be prised apart. Your chests have been dumped already, just outside your cabin. Do what you can to get stowed away. We’re short on shelves and wardrobes. Not much on home comforts at all.’
Amy and Light Fingers, still holding hands, passed under the lintel.
Inside, the dorm still smelled strongly of horse. Duckboards were laid over a beaten earth floor. Ill-fitting doors let in draughts. Each pen had four cots shoved into it. There was no electric, but oil lamps hung from posts.
Palgraive stood under a light, smiling as ever. Little flames danced in her eyes, as if her maggot were fascinated by fire. Frost sat on a stool in the corner. She looked up at the newcomers eagerly… then slumped, disappointed. Who had she expected to come and rescue her?
Lamarcroft – who knew she was an Unusual? – stood by a music stand and practised scales on a miniature bugle. Lungs wore her untidy black hair clipped short and had a Grecian fringe. She was – had been – Goneril’s archery champ. She paid no attention to the newcomers.
Like orphans abandoned in a wood, Amy and Light Fingers ventured cautiously down to where their trunks were dumped. Amy’s was open. Her belongings were jumbled. Books dumped on clothes. Brushes in with pens and pencils. Roly Pontoons’ floppy feet stuck up from the mess.
They looked into their assigned cell. It had dusty windows at horseneck-height.
Two small girls sat in the gloom, playing Old Maid. Harper and Dyall.
Amy and Light Fingers looked at each other and – through strength of will – didn’t burst into tears.
‘Hullo, new chums,’ squeaked Harper. ‘Come in and make yourselves at home. We won’t bite.’
