by Kim Newman
‘Did I do well, Kentish Glory?’ Poppet asked her.
‘You did splendidly. What county are your people from?’
‘Wiltshire.’
‘Your moth name is Scarce Forester. Distinguished by silvery-green wings.’
‘Can I have a mask like yours?’
‘Large Dark Prominent will make you one.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Light Fingers. ‘But for now, perhaps you could go outside and hide behind the Budgies. Keep a look out for Black Skirts.’
Poppet smiled at the responsibility.
‘Yes, go on, Poppet,’ Amy said.
They were relieved when Dyall left, and felt ashamed about that. Poppet was, as ever, eager to be helpful.
Marsh and Gould checked Gifford and Quilligan.
‘Sleeping the sleep of the conked-out,’ said Gould, snuffling Gawky’s hair. ‘They smell like plum duff, though.’
‘Heel, girl,’ said Devlin. ‘Eating Seconds is against School Rules.’
Gould giggled at that, which made her fur ripple. Like Marsh, she was in no sense conventionally pretty… but Amy suspected they’d not go short of beaux. Wolf Girl and Gill Girl were stunners, all right – weird, but no stranger than the perfect doll face of Beauty Rose.
Devlin lifted Keys’ head and dropped it on the desk.
‘Out cold,’ she said.
Keys’ rattling breath shifted letters across her blotter.
‘Look at this,’ said Laurence, holding up Quilligan’s specs, which had fallen off. One lens was broken.
‘And there,’ said Knowles, pointing at the wall of photographs. Some hung crooked. Smashed glass had fallen out of a few frames.
‘What will Dyall be like when she’s too big to be called Poppet?’ said Light Fingers, impressed. ‘A Scarce Forester who can fell trees?’
Amy suppressed a frisson.
She looked again at the photographs. Rows and rows of Old Girls caught in time, and always Dr Swan in the middle. Paule was in the pictures too, mostly half-hidden behind others.
Paule joined Amy. So many were gone from School but she stayed.
‘I don’t like having my picture taken,’ she said.
Amy wasn’t surprised. The camera sometimes saw more of Paule than she cared to show. In the 1915 photograph, her face was blown up by a purplish imperfection in the plate and seemed a yard across with extra eyes and noses.
A rattle made Amy’s heart pause for a long moment but Keys hadn’t come round. Devlin was holding up the famous ring of keys, detached from the custodian’s belt.
‘These could come in handy,’ said Stretch.
‘My dad says you should never lift anything on impulse,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Always plan ahead, take what you mean to and leave all else well alone… no matter the temptation. If you crack a safe to pinch a duchess’s diadem, you don’t take the packet of scented letters you happen to find there.’
‘Remind us again where your dad is these days?’ said Devlin.
Light Fingers shrugged, not offended. ‘Fair point,’ she conceded. ‘But the keys will be missed. School will be turned upside down until they’re found and we’ll most likely get found out. Besides, you don’t need keys to open locks… if Thomsett can’t tumble tumblers with her mentacles, I can wiggle most things open with a bent nail and a hairpin.’
Amy wasn’t sure Light Fingers should be so confident. Some of the keys were unusual – more like implements of torture or the solutions to puzzle-games.
Keys’ keys are totemic objects,’ said Paule. ‘They can open locks that don’t seem to be locks and close doors so they can never be opened again.’
The others looked at Paule askance. Used to ignoring her daffiness, they were starting to guess she made sense more often than a stopped clock’s twice-a-day.
‘Have a care, Stretch,’ said Amy. ‘Don’t open anything by mistake.’
The ring rattled by itself, as if the keys heard what Amy said.
‘Lob ’em my way,’ said Laurence. ‘I’ve a notion.’
‘I’ve read that book,’ said Stretch. ‘A Bright Idea, by Ivan Ocean.’
Devlin, suddenly eager to be rid of the keys, reached out and dropped them in Larry’s hands.
Laurence sat cross-legged and shut her eyes. Now, she was concentrating on her Abilities.
A purple fold opened in the air. Larry popped the keys into the pocket. Normally, this seemed easy as posting a letter. Now, she looked as if she were forcing down a second helping of boiled swede.
‘Paule’s right,’ said Laurence, grimacing. ‘They’re not just ordinary keys. They’re…’
She gulped, as if about to be sick.
Amy was concerned.
Then, Laurence reached quickly into her pocket and pulled out the keys. She dropped the ring on the floor.
‘Careful,’ she said. ‘One’s hot.’
She was right. One of the keys – a long, spindly metal rod with an adze-like head – glowed as if pulled from a furnace. The others were just cold metal. The hot key visibly cooled.
‘Put the realies back now,’ said Laurence.
Slightly doubtful, and extending her wrist to keep the keys away from her body, Devlin did as she was told – hooking the bunch back on to Keys’ belt.
‘We should at least have tried the tuck cupboard first,’ said Knowles. ‘And the armory where Fossil keeps Sieveright’s rifle.’
‘It’s only an air gun,’ said Light Fingers.
‘Say “only an air gun” after you’ve been shot with one,’ commented Gould.
‘Shush,’ said Amy. Laurence was still concentrating. She wasn’t finished yet.
Larry reached into the pocket and pulled out another set of keys. These were bright purple.
‘Voy-lah!’ she said.
Light Fingers took the keys and examined them against the originals.
‘They’re the same,’ she said. ‘Except for the colour. The weird one’s even a little warm.’
Laurence stayed sat down. She was woozy and drawn. Her new trick took a lot out of her.
‘Have you done that before?’ Amy asked.
Laurence nodded. ‘Just with… little stuff.’
‘Good luck spending purple half-crowns,’ said Devlin.
Laurence shook her head, smiling a little. ‘Not money,’ she said. ‘Stamps. I tried it with stamps. The extras came out purple. Exactly the same, but purple.’
‘That’s an amazing Ability,’ said Light Fingers. ‘Even more than smuggling and spying.’
‘Seems useless to me,’ said Larry. ‘Whenever is it handy to have two identical things with the extra being purple? What you did this morning would be beyond me. My fair copies would come back purple. Besides, you never get anything you don’t pay for somehow. I may be only a Second, but I know that.’
‘You lack imagination, my dear. And your stubborn moral streak holds you back.’
‘Leave off her, Naisbitt,’ said Knowles. ‘Thanks to Larry, we have the Keys to the Queendom. We can get in anywhere we want without them knowing we can…’
‘…providing we can match the keys to the locks, yes.’
‘Which shouldn’t be beyond your Ability. You can try every key very fast can’t you?’
‘Just because I move quickly doesn’t mean everything else can keep up. A stiff lock is still stiff. If I try to open a door fast, I’ll most likely pull the handle off. I used a typewriter fast once. The works got tangled like string. Speed turns into force – good for hammering nails, bad for stroking a cat.’
Laurence stood up now. She had been faint – ‘you never get anything you don’t pay for somehow’ – but pulled herself together.
Poppet could point or radiate. Larry could copy. Devlin could stretch her face. Light Fingers could probably flick a nail through a brick wall.
The Unusuals were learning Applications for Abilities. Dr Swan ought to be proud of them.
Which reminded Amy…
‘Come on, girls. Let’s get upstairs bef
ore Keys wakes up.’
She led the way. The telescope fixtures drooped, unattended. No remote eyes were on them.
At the top of the stairs was a door. Normally open, now shut. Light Fingers sorted, quite swiftly, through purple keys and found the right one. She opened the door, slowly so as not to break the lock.
‘Thanks, Larry,’ she said.
Amy hadn’t even considered this door might be locked. Her plan wasn’t well-thought-out, even for something thrown together in haste.
Eight girls crammed into the corridor leading to Headmistress’s study. It was lit by stuttery electric light. Amy didn’t remember it being as long on her earlier visits as it was now. Not being invited made this place more forbidding.
How many School Rules were they breaking?
Now was not the time to think about that. The others wanted Kentish Glory in the forefront, not Amy Thomsett in a dither.
At the other end of the corridor, a dead end was covered by a bas-relief of savage, magnificent Britannia, girded by the flag, sat on the White Cliffs of Dover looking out to sea. On her trident points were stuck pop-eyed severed heads resembling Phillip II of Spain, Napoleon and Kaiser Bill. The personification of Great Britain looked a little like Lungs Lamarcroft. She even had half her chest showing.
As Amy led them towards Headmistress’s office, Britannia’s trident shifted. Her gory trophies shook.
Gould let out a high-pitched, whiny yelp.
Amy was suddenly floating a foot above the floor, hair fanned out and prickly, eyes fixed on Britannia’s red-white-and-blue-painted face.
‘Thomsett, you’re flying,’ said Devlin, in awe.
‘She only floats,’ said Light Fingers. ‘It’s not the same.’
The bas-relief had not come to life. A hidden door was opening outwards.
Amy moved forwards, swimming through the air.
Gould was on all fours, snarling. Marsh reared up, glaring. Devlin’s fists were the size of pineapples. Knowles shut her eyes. Laurence took a catapult out of her pocket – the one in her blazer, not the one in the air.
‘Here’s something you don’t see every day,’ said a familiar voice from the dark beyond the door. ‘A Kentish Glory with black wings.’
Frecks – Lady Serafine Walmergrave – stepped into the corridor.
Amy’s old cell-mate wore an immaculate Black uniform and her Uncle Lance’s silver snood. She hefted a cricket bat.
‘Gould, go for the throat,’ shouted Light Fingers, as if letting slip a dog of war.
The Wolf Girl bounded along the corridor. Frecks batted her aside effortlessly. Gould slammed into the wall and fell, howling, to the carpet.
‘Light Fingers, dear,’ said Frecks, bat straight as if she were commanding the crease, ‘perhaps you shouldn’t be so eager to send others to get your cloutings for you.’
‘Amy,’ said Light Fingers, ‘fly!’
X: Just and True
ALL AT ONCE, Amy realised that if she could shift other things, she ought to be able to shift herself. When floating, she was practically weightless. She could lift herself up and throw herself forward like a paper plane. She wrapped what Light Fingers called mentacles around her own body, latching on to that core which was where she lived. It was different from picking up a book or a pencil without using her hands, but was – she found – something she could do. It was even a pleasant, bracing sensation. Airborne, she felt stronger, clearer. Some of the senses she had tasted in the Purple came back.
Now, she thought herself forward. Not flying, but close to it.
Frecks was impressed. Her jaw dropped and her eyes goggled.
‘That’s new,’ she said. ‘Removal has its perks.’
Amy reached out, stretching the way Devlin extended her arms, trying for a hold on Frecks’ bat. Her phantom fingers brushed wood. Frecks must have felt the tiny pull and yanked it back.
Laurence let fly with her catapult. A pebble bounced off Frecks’ shoulder.
‘Ouch,’ said Frecks. ‘Pax pax!’
She dropped her bat and put up her hands.
‘I’m not with the Black Skirts,’ she said, rattling her chainmail hood. ‘Not since I put on this blessed thing.’
Gould growled. She had recovered but was still on all fours, fur bristling and teeth bared.
‘Down, girl,’ said Frecks. ‘Sorry I sloshed you, but you came at me with your scratchers out. We’re on the same side. I’m creeping about where I shouldn’t ought to be just the same as you shower.’
‘You’re a fluke?’ said Knowles, incredulously.
‘I’m something, all right. I don’t think it’s me. It’s Uncle Lance’s mail coif. When I said “blessed thing” I wasn’t just being euphemistical. The wire wool balaclava makes the skipping rhyme goes quiet. Do you lot really not hear it?’
Amy descended and settled her feet on the carpet. Her weight came back.
‘Of course we can hear it,’ Light Fingers said. ‘“Ants in your pants, take another chance…”’
‘Not like that,’ said Frecks. ‘I mean the rhyme in your head, even when you’re alone, even when you’re sleeping. Like ringing in your ears after a loud bang. Not a sound out loud, but something inside.’
Amy and Light Fingers looked at each other.
‘It dislodges everything else,’ Frecks went on. ‘Like when you hear a song and the words get stuck in your head for days… only it’s more than the words, it’s the rhythm. It stops you thinking. If you try, it hurts. Like a Portuguese man o’ war wrapped round your brain. To make the hurt go away, you have to stay in step, keep skipping, follow instructions, do what… what Rayne wants.’
‘Like ants,’ Amy said. ‘They wiggle their antennae when they’re getting orders.’
‘If you say so,’ Frecks said. ‘I wondered if it was like Marconi waves and Morse signals. Go full Black Skirt – not just by putting on a dingy boater, but by taking the full package – and you turn into a wireless receiver. Part of you’s still there, but keeps in its kennel – no offence, Gould. You do what is expected, what Queen wants. It hurts if you don’t, but that’s not why you do it. You want to serve Rayne – for what she is, not who she is. She’s against you lot because she says you’re broken. You can’t get on the path.’
‘I don’t think we’re broken,’ said Amy. ‘I think we’re hardy. Like people who don’t catch colds when everyone else has the sniffles.’
‘That’s how I see it too,’ said Frecks. ‘Wearing the coif is like having a bandage on a cut, not like not bleeding. If I took it off, I’d skip with the rest of ’em. My lugholes don’t half chafe and it’s useless for keeping warm. These metal rings are like ice.’
‘Why did you put it on?’
Frecks shrugged. ‘It seemed to want me to. The way Rayne wanted me Black Skirt. That started with girls having a notion to change their stockings. The idea came from somewhere. When I gave in and went Black, the chainmail woke up and wasn’t having any of it. Near the drawer where I kept the coif, I felt it calling – stronger than the skipping rhyme, at least at close range. I took it out. Touching it was shivery. Maybe there was a woman’s voice, telling me to don the armour. Perhaps I imagined that bit – I don’t know.’
‘You make things up to fill in gaps where you don’t understand,’ said Paule.
‘That’s about the size of it, Daffy,’ Frecks went on. ‘Donning the old coif was like a bucket of ice to the phizz. Woke me up properly. I realised I must look a right clot, hopping up and down like a clueless First, marching about on Godfrey Knows What mission. I went along with the charade as long as I could, reckoning I had a rare opportunity to spy on the Black Skirts from within. Espionage is in my blood, remember. British Intelligence, that’s me. It’s deucedly hard to fake being in their gang, though. Get a stitch and stagger out of a ranks and they turn on you. If they weren’t so dim, they’d have cottoned on sharpish. It takes three of them to tie a shoelace. They aren’t good at noticing things which don’t fit their anthil
l. Rayne is the cleverest and even she’s missing something.’
‘Insect queens are slaves as much as rulers,’ said Amy.
‘I thought you liked her,’ said Light Fingers, accusing.
‘I liked what she did… standing up to the witches,’ said Frecks, frowning. ‘I doubt if anyone could like her. It’s as if there’s no her to her, really. And when there was only one of her, she was admirable. You have to admit that. But when she was everyone, when the Black Skirts were everywhere, she just replaced a bad thing with a worse one.’
‘Come back, Sidonie Gryce, all is forgiven?’ crowed Light Fingers.
Frecks shrugged.
‘I tried to find out what the Black Skirts are up to by remaining in the ranks,’ said Frecks. ‘But they don’t know themselves. They march and skip and don’t ask questions. They’re marking those lines all over the show, like putting out flares for a night landing.’
‘It’s called the Runnel and the Flute,’ said Amy. ‘Our hooded friends are involved in that.’
‘Yes, I saw them creeping about,’ said Frecks.
‘You’ll never guess who Red Flame is,’ said Light Fingers, delighted at knowing more than British Intelligence. ‘Kali’s father!’
‘What a turn-up for the books,’ said Frecks. ‘I spotted Ponce Bainter and the other one, the woman…’
‘The Professor,’ said Amy.
‘Rayne’s mama,’ said Frecks, as if everyone knew already – and Amy realised she had sort of worked it out.
‘A veritable termagant,’ said Frecks. ‘Spotted me in the crowd and wanted to stain me with a Uniform Infraction. I knew what that meant. Off with the silver coif. Skipping in step again. Ants in the blooming pants. Not for I, no fear. Do you know how boring it is, being a Black Skirt but awake at the same time? Worse than Double R.I. So I ditched my two watchdogs – Kali and Rose, both far gone – and took trouble to vanish. Word’ll be out on me now. What one ant knows, the whole colony knows.’
Amy was happy her friend was her friend again. She and Frecks hugged. Frecks lifted her off the floor.
‘I missed you,’ she whispered in Frecks’ ear.
‘Good old Amy,’ said Frecks, setting her down.
Light Fingers was still suspicious.
