“I don’t need your help to find it,” she retorted.
“You do if I have your device,” Mr. Cleat said, sitting back in his chair. “And your spider. You can hardly go without them, can you?” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “And if you don’t help me tomorrow evening, you’ll never see either of them again.”
A roar was building inside Tess, but she forced it back. “How do you know all this? About me, and my—where I was born?”
Mr. Cleat rubbed a hand through his hair. “You’ve been spoken of since you were an infant, Tess, in the jangling wires and hissing frequencies and tapped-out codes that link the worlds. People have been looking for you in all known realities almost from the moment you were born. You were a legend, some said; a fabrication, said others. Few of us actually believed in the truth of you, a refugee from a dying world, the girl whose father risked all he had to save.” He paused, pursing his lips thoughtfully for a second before continuing. “And of course he ran to save his own hide, too—to keep himself out of the clutches of those who wanted to use the device he’d built for their own ends.”
Tess blinked. “Wait. The device he’d built?”
Mr. Cleat raised his eyebrows. “You mean you hadn’t guessed? I’m surprised. Yes, Tess. Your father was—is—the architect of the Star-spinner. He forged it from materials excavated from the Tunguska blast site on his world and yours, from metals and other things that fell from the stars.” He shrugged. “The exact science is beyond me. All I know is that it works.”
“But it can’t do what you want it to,” Tess said, desperately hoping she was right. “It can’t take your bombers through to a different reality. It just takes me—one person at a time.”
“That’s because you haven’t conducted the correct experiment yet,” Mr. Cleat told her. Then he frowned. “You know, I may have been wrong about you after all. A great scientist needs to be someone with imagination, Tess—a person who sees beyond the obvious to what is possible. A person who asks questions that don’t seem to have answers. You’ve had every chance to do just that and yet you’ve been content to focus on yourself.” His eyes narrowed. “A lot like your father, perhaps.”
“That is not fair,” Tess said, fighting back tears.
“Well, let’s prove me wrong then,” Mr. Cleat said. He sat forward once again. “How about this for a deal? If you don’t do precisely what I require tomorrow evening—and I do mean precisely, because there is a lot at stake—then I’ll be forced to take extraordinary measures. It doesn’t bring me any joy, believe me. But I’ll do what I have to do.”
“Just tell me,” Tess said, through gritted teeth and smeared glasses.
Mr. Cleat stared her down for several long seconds, his eyes sharp as scalpels. Finally he began to speak in a low and deliberate tone. “Tomorrow night I will have at my disposal five bombers. These are flying machines, as I’ve told you before, which have the power to reduce anything on the ground to a smoking crater, killing anyone unfortunate enough to be in their path. Currently their pilots are a bit nonplussed with me as I’ve refused to give them exact coordinates for their mission. I can’t, of course, as they’ll be flying where our coordinates will be meaningless. But I can change my mind and give them coordinates at any time. I can give them the exact location of a lovely old building on the corner of Carlisle Bridge, overlooking the River Plura, right here in our fair city of Hurdleford. Many young ladies live there, I’m told. A rather happy place by all accounts.”
Tess held her breath, trembling as he spoke. With his next words he froze her still. “And it might interest you to know that the lives of every single person in that building depend on your agreeing to help me.” He paused, leaning closer, his eyes sharpening with every word. “You’ve already said I can offer you nothing to change your mind, so the only recourse I have left is to take something away. I’m forced to tell you this, then: if you persist in your stubbornness, you’ll never see your beloved Miss Ackerbee, nor anyone from her blasted Home, ever again.”
* * *
“Yes. Yes, I quite understand. But please—won’t you just give me a chance to explain? I have it on good authority that a child is in danger.” Miss Ackerbee paused, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Whose authority? An eyewitness—a child named Millicent, who had been employed in the household.”
Rebecca winced as she watched Miss Ackerbee’s facial expression changing with every word that came down the telephone line.
“A simple charwoman-in-training? I hardly think it’s fair to discount her testimony because of her position!” Miss Ackerbee’s gaze flicked to Rebecca’s face; her fury could burn holes straight through the wall. “She knew the child well and she witnessed the ill-treatment firsthand.”
Please, my dear, Rebecca begged inside her head. Let it go.
Miss Ackerbee’s mouth drew tight against her teeth as she listened. “I simply cannot believe you’re unwilling to take this complaint seriously.” She paused again. “Childish imaginations? Sir, I have worked with children for almost twenty years. I know exactly— Sir? Sir?” Her mouth dropped open as she stared at Rebecca. Slowly she replaced her telephone receiver. “He hung up,” she said.
“I know, love,” Rebecca replied sympathetically. She folded her arms across her middle. “They’re not going to listen to you. The time for asking nicely is over, I think. It’s time to do something instead.”
“But what can we do?” Miss Ackerbee said, taking off her spectacles and pressing her hands against her eyes. “The law can do nothing. The police can do nothing. Nobody will touch a rich, well-connected, apparently law-abiding man, not even when I try to explain that one of my girls…that my girl…” Miss Ackerbee broke down and Rebecca hurried to her. She hugged Miss Ackerbee tightly and Miss Ackerbee clung to her in turn.
“Aurelia,” Rebecca whispered. “She is our girl. Our girl. The only person who loved her more than we do was the man who left her here.” She paused, readying herself for what had to come next. “And we trusted her once—it’s time to trust her again.”
Miss Ackerbee pulled back to look into Rebecca’s face. “What do you mean?” she said, a small hiccupping sob interrupting her words.
“We raised that girl to be clever. We raised her as nobody’s fool. But also she came to us that way. She has formidable courage that belongs to nobody but her, and she chose to face this challenge head-on once already. It’s not the law she needs; it’s us. And her friends.” Rebecca held a hopeful breath. “She doesn’t need a police van to knock on the door and take her away. She needs help to get the answers she went there to find. We owe her that.”
“We owe her safety,” Miss Ackerbee said, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “Her father crossed worlds to leave that child on our doorstep, and this is what becomes of it.”
Rebecca’s eyes shone. “Exactly, Aurelia. Exactly. Imagine how proud of her he’d be.”
Miss Ackerbee gave a tiny tired nod, closing her eyes just as they overflowed. Rebecca watched hopefully as expressions flitted across Miss Ackerbee’s face.
Then Miss Ackerbee cleared her throat and straightened up. She cleaned her face, blew her nose as daintily as possible and reached out to find her spectacles.
She put them on like a queen readying herself for battle.
“What then is our plan?” she asked, and Rebecca smiled.
“For that,” she said, “I think we need to have a word with Wilhelmina.”
Thomas sat in the observatory with the window open. The darkness had long ago given way to the pinkish gray of dawn and he wrapped himself loosely in a blanket, hoping the cool of the morning would keep him awake. He hadn’t slept much in the twenty-four hours since Tess had vanished; he’d dozed a bit during daylight hours but through the night he’d waited for any sign that she was coming. There had been nothing.
Moose sat on Th
omas’s blanket-swathed knee, gazing out at the day. “I know,” Thomas whispered to the mouse. “It’s daytime again and she’s not here. And there’s nothing we can do except hope, is there, boy?” Moose quivered, his ears changing direction as he listened, and then he scampered for Thomas’s head. His tail dangled in Thomas’s eyes as the mouse changed position, tiny claws prickling the boy’s scalp.
“What is it, Moose?” Thomas asked. He looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of his mouse, and then he heard it—a squeaking noise from the chapel below. His heart leaped into his throat.
The vestry trapdoor, he thought. The tunnel! Could it be Tess? He knew he’d mentioned the tunnel to her. Maybe she’d had to use the Star-spinner in her own house, which meant she would have arrived in Thomas’s, and it had been safest to come to the chapel that way. But if it isn’t…
Thomas tossed off the blanket and slid across the floor. Moose clung to his head as Thomas began to climb down the ladder, intending to go just far enough to see into the chapel, but as his shoes touched the rungs, footsteps rang out in the chapel—heavy footsteps, coming fast.
“That’s not Tess,” Thomas muttered, leaning down to look. He almost lost his grip when he saw Mackintosh striding up the central aisle, his face a mask of fury. His cheeks were crimson and his teeth were bared and his bulge-eyed gaze was fixed on the boy.
“No!” Thomas shouted. “Get away!” He scrambled back up the ladder and began to fiddle with the bolts that held it in place. They were supposed to release in a trice if there was an emergency—but there had never been an emergency before and Thomas hadn’t kept them oiled. His fingers shook and slipped as he tried to undo them, even just enough that he could drag the ladder up into the room, out of Mackintosh’s reach…
“Give it up, lad,” Mackintosh growled, landing on the bottom rung of the ladder with the grace and solidity of a sack of coal. He gripped the sides and began to climb. “You’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Get out of here!” Thomas sobbed, pushing himself away from the hole in the floor. Moose scrambled for his shoulder, tucking himself tight against Thomas’s neck. “You’re never supposed to come out here!”
“Oh, right? A bit like you’re never supposed to go into my office.” Mackintosh’s head was through the hole and still he climbed. Thomas cast his gaze around, hoping for something to throw, but there was nothing. Even his sharp-edged tins of food were in the cupboard, all the way across the room.
“Nothing in that house belongs to you,” Thomas said, getting to his feet. “It’s not your office. It was my father’s workroom and you’ve got no right—”
“Give it a rest!” Mackintosh roared. His gaze landed on Thomas’s desk, with his radio and Oscillometer and the pile of his mother’s notebooks. “I’ll have those back and all,” he said, striding toward them. “You’ve got no need for this stuff, boy—it belongs with me.”
Thomas stood in his path and Mackintosh stopped, a mocking grin on his face. “Like that, is it?” the man said.
“Those were my mother’s,” Thomas said, sticking out his chin and trying not to fall down. “Which means they’re mine now.” He raised his fists and Mackintosh laughed.
“I don’t have time for this,” the man muttered, grabbing Thomas by the upper arms in a grip so tight that Thomas cried out. Moose, squeaking wildly, ran down Thomas’s arm and up onto Mackintosh’s sleeve quicker than a blink, but Mackintosh threw the boy, hard, against the nearest wall.
Thomas landed awkwardly, his head whacking against a wooden pillar, and just before he blacked out, he heard Mackintosh’s voice. “Get off me, you rotten vermin!” the man yelled, pulling Moose off his sleeve and flinging him to the floor. He raised his boot to stamp and Thomas knew no more.
* * *
“Nobody mentioned headdresses,” muttered Wilf, settling hers on top of her too-tight hairdo. “I mean, there’s looking ridiculous in public and then there’s this.” She examined her reflection in the dusty mirror. She and what seemed like a hundred other girls were crammed into the basement of something called the Interdimensional Harmonics Society, which, Millie assured them, meant they would soon be on their way to Roedeer Lodge. The room was abuzz with preparation, loud voices shouting instructions and not a small amount of excitement. Wilf, for her part, merely felt so nervous she could vomit.
“Oh, do budge up,” snapped Prossy, shuffling over to crowd Wilf out of the mirror. “At least you don’t have three feet of hair to tuck in somehow. There simply aren’t enough pins in the world.” Her plait was wound around her head like a crown and her headdress sat on top of it like a raft atop a golden sea.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” asked Wilf, frowning at Prossy’s movements. “Have you hurt yourself?”
Prossy finished pinning on her headdress and turned to Wilf with a mischievous grin. “Look at this.” Casting a glance around, she pulled Wilf to one side and gathered up her long black skirt. Before Wilf could protest, Prossy had lifted the skirt up high enough to display one leg encased in a long, thick sock—and a hockey stick, which was shoved down inside the sock. She had tied a ribbon around the neck of the stick just above her knee, keeping it tight to her upper leg.
Wilf’s mouth dropped open and Prossy dropped her skirt, settling it neatly. There was no sign of the stick besides the fact that Prossy couldn’t bend her knee much as she walked. Somehow she was managing to make up for it by taking long strides and talking a lot.
“What do you need that for?” Wilf asked, aghast.
“She’s not a ‘that’; she’s my best gal, Hortense. Never leave home without her,” Prossy said sagely, patting her thigh.
Wilf didn’t have a chance to reply before a door opened at the top of the room, drawing her eye. A woman stepped through it with a bosom like a galleon in full sail. “Girls!” came her loud, crisp voice, followed by a barrage of sharp claps. The room fell silent and everyone turned to face her.
“Now, ladies,” she began, “you’ll form two neat lines and we’ll assemble outside where Mr. Cleat has arranged a fleet of steam cars for us…” The woman’s voice droned on but Wilf allowed herself to tune out. Mr. Cleat. This was really happening. In less than an hour, she’d see Tess again.
“Quick march, girls! One, two! Let’s get going!” The woman (“Mrs. Hayden,” Millie whispered) led the way through the downstairs floor of the Society building. Wilf tried not to look around too much. She figured a girl in service—like she was supposed to be—would be far too well trained to be nosy, but she couldn’t help seeing some things, like the framed portrait of Mr. Cleat on one of the walls in the lobby. She gave it an evil glare.
Then the girls were being ushered two by two into one of three steam cars parked outside, each vehicle gently hissing. Prossy stepped up into the steam car with her good leg, drawing the one with the hockey stick behind it. Wilf threw her a grin and she returned it.
“I still can’t believe Miss Ackerbee is letting us do this,” Wilf said as they found seats near the back. She remembered the worry in her housemistress’s eyes as Millie had outlined her scheme for infiltrating Fairwater Park.
“I reckon Miss Whipstead talked her round,” Prossy replied. Wilf nodded, her own worry returning. When they’d been summoned to Miss Ackerbee’s parlor the day before to brainstorm a plan, Wilf had surprised herself by feeling relieved. She should have guessed; it was impossible to keep a secret in Ackerbee’s.
Today, Miss Ackerbee and Rebecca had seen them off, giving hugs and kisses and whispered wishes of good luck, smoothing shoulders and tucking back locks of stray hair as though they were off on a school trip. Wilf had thrown a glance at the house as they’d walked away; the upstairs windows had been lined with watchful girls, each pair of eyes willing them on. She’d lifted a hand to wave and a forest of hands had waved back.
And now Wilf found herself chugging up the quays alongside the
Plura in a steam car, not knowing what to expect next. It was a bright day, sunny and warm, and the river sparkled. They passed the Gossamer Bridge, and Wilf realized she’d never been this far north of the city before.
“We’ll see Kingsbridge Station soon,” Millie’s cousin Rosaleen said, turning round in her seat to talk to them. “After that it’s not far to the main gate of Fairwater Park.”
Wilf nodded and gave Rosaleen a grateful grin. Rosaleen turned round again, settling herself in her seat before Mrs. Hayden caught sight of her.
“So what’s the plan for when we—” Wilf began, muttering out of the corner of her mouth to Prossy, but her words were drowned out by the roaring of an engine—a petroleum one, by the noise it was making—swooping overhead. It was overwhelmingly loud and it was belching out a thick black cloud. The steam car seemed to jerk to one side as everyone leaned to look out of the windows at the same time.
“What is that?” said Prossy, her eyes round as she searched the sky. Wilf pressed her nose against the glass as another engine noise ripped through the air above their heads. She saw the riveted belly of a silver machine passing over the steam car before roaring out over the water. It flew upriver, following the course of the Plura. The machine was long and thin, tapering near the end, with two straight stretched-out wings on either side. At its nose flickered a propeller, chopping at the sky. As Wilf watched, a second machine joined the first and they accelerated away, banking and turning as they reached the furthest point that Wilf could see on the horizon before finally vanishing from view.
The Starspun Web Page 18
