Rise of the Darklings (32 page)

Emily felt the hot tears begin to flow. She stood up and ran toward the door.

“Emily?” called Jack.

“Leave me be!” Emily called. “Just, everyone … leave me alone.” She pulled the door open and stormed out of the classroom, then ran down the hall and out into the street, where she sank down onto the pavement. She was so tired.
All she wanted was everything to be back to normal, for everything to return to the way it was.

She’d felt exactly the same way in the days after their ma disappeared.

She was ten when it happened. At first all she’d felt was sorrow and fear. She and William hadn’t known what to do, how they would survive. William barely even understood what was going on.

But after those first few days, the sorrow and the fear were pushed out of the way by more pressing matters. Who would look after them? Who would feed them, clothe them? There was no way Emily would let them take her and William to the workhouse, so it had fallen to her to try and bring some money in.

That was when the anger set in. Anger that first her da, then her ma, could just leave them like that. She knew, deep down, that something must have happened to them. But that didn’t stop the anger and the resentment. She was just a child. She was supposed to have stories read to her by her da. Instead, she was barely scraping out a living selling watercress.

It wasn’t the work she minded—she would have had to do that anyway. It was the responsibility. She loved William dearly, but it was hard to have to look after him all the time.

Then over the next few weeks, the self-pity set in. Why did it have to happen to her? Why not someone horrible, like Victoria Ashdown? What had she done to deserve all this?

She’d snapped out of that when she came home one day to find William weeping uncontrollably in the corner, calling out for their ma. Emily had held and rocked him until he stopped crying. That was the day she grew up, the day she knew she simply had to do what had to be done.

What she was feeling now—the anger, the self-pity—she had gone through it all before, and she knew it was pointless.

Emily straightened up and wiped her eyes. The road she had been staring at was made from old shields—round, oval, square, rectangular—all of them laid down and held in place with some kind of clear glue. About twenty paces farther up the street, the shields changed to metal dinner trays, brass and silver, many of them lacquered or painted and all of them covered with the same substance.

She became gradually aware of an itch at the back of her mind trying to get her attention. Something had triggered it. Something she had just been thinking about. Was it something about William? No, she didn’t think so. Her ma? Her da?

Something stirred. Something to do with her da, then? What had she been thinking about? Her da disappearing?
No. What else then? Having stories read to her by her da?

That was it. Something about stories.

The stories her da used to read to her came from one battered book, a book that Ma said had belonged to
his
father before him. She felt a twinge of sorrow. The book was probably destroyed now, lost in the mess that used to be their home.

But something about the book was important. She tried to remember what it had looked like. The cover was made from battered and scuffed red leather. A verse from an old nursery rhyme had been scrawled onto the first page.

Emily’s eyes opened wide. She vaguely remembered her father telling her that those few lines of rhyme were his favorite.

She closed her eyes to think. What was the rhyme? She tried to imagine the page in her mind, to see the untidy scrawl on the yellowing paper. She remembered thinking it was a curiously sad rhyme. How did it go?

She had it!

Emily ran back inside the classroom. Corrigan was standing on a desk trying to wrest a piece of chalk out of Mr. Pemberton’s hand. Jack was watching them with an amused look in his eyes.

“I said no,” snapped Mr. Pemberton. “The chalk isn’t for drawing lewd pictures with.”

“I’ve got it! I remember the rhyme!” Emily shouted.

All three of them turned to face her in surprise.

Corrigan released Mr. Pemberton’s hand. “You’re sure?”

Emily nodded. “It was in a book my da used to read to us.”

“I think you’ve cracked it,” said Mr. Pemberton thoughtfully, turning to the board. “This line here. ‘A father’s favorite rhyme will confirm the truth.’ ” He stared at them expectantly. “That confirms that it’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, surely?”

“Why?” snapped Corrigan. “Explain yourself, gnome.”

“Well, the verse Emily just recited. It’s only one verse of a rhyme … hold on.”

Mr. Pemberton turned to one of the bookcases and ran his finger along the spines until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out the book and paged through it.

“Here we go.” He cleared his throat.

He closed the book with a satisfied thud. “Emily’s riddle starts off with the line, ‘A father’s favorite rhyme will confirm the truth.’ We deduced that the rest of the riddle referred to St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Whispering Gallery, yes?
This
nursery rhyme—her father’s favorite rhyme—confirms our deduction as definite. I mean, I know it doesn’t refer to the cathedral
as such
, but it does mention St. Paul. And when you look at St. Paul’s Cathedral as the answer, then everything else makes perfect sense.”

“So does that mean the key is hidden at St. Paul’s?” asked Jack.

“It would appear so,” said Mr. Pemberton. “At least, that is my interpretation.”

“But how will we find it?”

“ ‘Speak the rhyme and the whispering shall reveal all,’ ” quoted Emily. “We speak the rhyme in the Whispering Gallery and see what happens.”

Mr. Pemberton smiled at Emily. “Exactly. Congratulations, dear girl. You’ve solved the puzzle.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

S
t. Paul’s Cathedral stood at the top of Ludgate Hill, its dome and cross stark against the night sky. Emily thought it looked like an upside-down goblet.

Ludgate Hill wasn’t really a hill. At least, not from the position Emily, Corrigan, Jack, and Mr. Pemberton had taken, outside a tailor’s shop in Carter Lane. The wide lane headed in a straight, even line to the front of the cathedral, whose stairs led up to a row of pillars that stretched across the front of the building.

The cathedral was daunting. Not just because of its size—although that was certainly enough to daunt anyone—but also because of what it represented. Emily had the feeling
God would be watching them, disapproving of their entry into his place of worship.

There was a scuffling sound behind her. She turned to find Mr. Pemberton leaning on his walking stick, hopping from foot to foot.

“Sorry,” he said, embarrassed. “It’s all the excitement.”

“Where are the others?” asked Corrigan from his usual place on Emily’s shoulder.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” said Pemberton. “They’re around. Hidden, like shadows in the night,” he said melodramatically.

Corrigan snorted his irritation. Emily knew he didn’t want Mr. Pemberton here. And he certainly didn’t want the small army of gnomes Mr. Pemberton had roused from their sleep right after Emily deciphered the riddle. The two had argued for a full ten minutes back at the school.

“But we can help,” Mr. Pemberton had argued. “We can act as lookouts, protect you should anything untoward occur.”

“The only thing
untoward
will be you lot tripping over your own feet and giving us away,” Corrigan had responded.

Mr. Pemberton was adamant, and he had won out in the end. Emily thought this was because Corrigan didn’t want to talk to him anymore. He had simply walked off in mid-argument, leaving Mr. Pemberton to scramble around and organize his people.

And now here they were, the four of them, about to sneak into the largest cathedral in the city.

At least the fog had lifted, thought Emily, trying to look for something positive.

“Should we get on with it?” said Jack.

“A sound idea, young sir. The Devil waits for no man, as they say.”

“Um … yes. Fine,” said Emily.

They left the cover of the tailor’s shop and hurried along the pavement toward St. Paul’s. It towered over them as they approached, gradually blocking out the night sky. They drew to a stop at the bottom of the wide set of stairs that led up to the portico.

Emily shivered, unsettled by the silent streets. London wasn’t meant to be quiet. It was meant to be filled with life, with shouting and laughter. She squinted up the stairs into the ominous shadows beneath the pillars.

“What are we waiting for?” asked Corrigan.

“We’re not waiting for anything,” Emily said. She turned to Mr. Pemberton, and her words froze in her mouth as she stared in shock at the gnome.

“What? Oh, my goodness. I don’t have something up my nose, do I?” He hastily took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his nose. “How embarrassing. Is that better?”

“It’s not that. It’s …”

“It’s your eye,” said Corrigan. Mr. Pemberton’s left eye was squinting, the pupil pointing off to the side.

“Oh! Do forgive me. It does that sometimes.” He bent over and did something with his hands, and when he straightened up again, the eye was facing in the proper direction. “Better?”

Emily looked at Mr. Pemberton in dismay. “You have a glass eye?” she said flatly.

“Yes, lost it some years ago. Terrible accident. Luckily, a Miss … Oh, how vexing. What was her name? A Miss something-or-other. She fixed it for me.”

“Miss LaFleur?”

“Yes, that’s it! Do you know her?”

Emily locked gazes with Corrigan, seeing the same realization mirrored in his face.

“Snow?” said Jack, seeing the expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“If LaFleur is watching, she’ll report this to the Queen,” Emily said to Corrigan. “We have to move quickly, before they get organized.”

But even as she spoke, a line of about thirty dark figures slid out from behind the pillars up above.

But it wasn’t the fey.

“Good morning, Miss Snow,” said Mr. Ravenhill. He took off his top hat and smiled coldly. “You’ve been getting up to mischief again. Hasn’t she, Mr. Blackmore?”

Blackmore staggered down the steps to stand by his master. “She has indeed, Mr. R. A right royal pain in the backside, that’s what she is.”