Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket (13 page)

By then the blanket was hovering above the mattress, all aglow. It was clear that something mountainous was concealed beneath it and I quickly surmised that there was only one ball of luminous blubber that could be responsible for such a display. Then the blanket fell in a heap, slipping through her as if she were not there.

‘What an
interesting
day you’ve had, child,’ sang the dead Duchess.

‘Mind your own business, you fiendish fatso.’

The ghost laughed, her nostrils smoking like a furnace. ‘If it is any consolation, never have a mother and her two daughters been more deserving of an exploding cake.’

I ignored her, pouting magnificently and folding my arms.

The ghoul moved slowly towards me, leaving a trail of starlight in her wake. ‘Didn’t I help you with your mother on my last visit? She was most impressed by your dusting – you know she was.’

Yes, it was true. But that was before this afternoon’s tea.

The Duchess of Trinity licked her lips, her black tongue slithering like an eel. ‘Will you help me – will you arrange a discount funeral for my dear cousin Victor?’

I climbed off the bed. ‘That all depends – what can you tell me about Rebecca?’

‘I
do
have some news that might interest you, but first I must have your promise that you will help me.’

‘The last time you asked for my
help
it was a clever plot to kill Matilda – why should I trust you this time?’

The Duchess nodded her head. ‘I will be honest, child. You will probably discover that Victor wrote a pamphlet about me, following my death, in which he pointed out my many faults.’

I was frowning with gusto.

‘Now, most girls your age would think that was the perfect motivation for vengeance.’ She thrust her plump and largely
transparent finger at my chest. ‘I know
you
will see that I admired Victor for his unflinching honesty. He cared nothing for my title and treated me as an equal. You understand, do you not?’

Well, of course I did. ‘Your cousin was the only person who had the courage to tell you what a miserable, miserly, monstrous old bat you really are. And you loved him for it.’

‘How wise you are, child.’

‘It comes easily, dear. For I have all the natural wisdom of a pot-bellied yogi or, at the very least, a spotted owl.’

The light inside the ghost bloomed, brightening the dim bedroom. ‘But say nothing about our communication to my cousin when you approach him about the coffin,’ she warned. ‘It might set him against the idea if he knew it came from me.’

‘Yes, yes, he won’t suspect a thing,’ I said impatiently. ‘Now tell me about Rebecca. What have you learned? Have you seen her? Where is she being held?’

‘Prospa House,’ came the reply. ‘Your friend is in Prospa House.’

Progress at last! ‘How will I find this place?’

There was no reply. The Duchess just hovered before me looking rather thoughtful. Perhaps she was thinking. Then she said, ‘You have no business there, child.’

‘Rebecca is my friend. There is no more important business,
it seems to me.’ My gaze hardened. ‘How do I find Prospa House?’

‘You know how,’ purred the Duchess.

And of course, I did. But I couldn’t do it here in the house.

A faint smile crossed the ghost’s pallid lips. Without a word she began to close in on herself until the ghoul was nothing more than a ball of light, white smoke lifting from her like a smouldering log. The ball flew swiftly across the room and stopped before the door handle. Then the Duchess’s plump finger emerged from inside the ghostly sphere and darted at the keyhole. And as it moved the finger moulded itself into a key and slipped into the lock. I heard a crisp click.

Then the Duchess was gone.

I was already at the door when I heard her ghostly refrain.

‘You have no business there, child.’

I turned the handle and slipped out into the hall.

London in the wee hours was painfully quiet, the silence occasionally broken by a passing carriage. Or the odd dog barking in the night. The sky was black and final. Not a star to be found. Gas lamps did their best to throw splashes of light about the place.

My stomach was a tangle. My mind a whirlwind. I had expected that being away from the house would make lifting the veil and reaching Prospa as easy as falling from a log. But it had not. I had stopped several times and employed the techniques set out in Ambrose Crabtree’s manuscript. At first I stared into a streetlamp, which nearly sent me blind. Next I chose to focus on a discarded carriage at the end of a narrow alley. Again, no luck.

So lost was I in thoughts of Rebecca and reaching her, that I wandered rather far from home. Gone were the neat rows of terraces. In their place were large buildings of dark brick with barred windows and iron grilles. My pace never faltered – I didn’t know where I was headed, but I pushed on, unable or unwilling to stop, as if a beacon was flaring in the distance. I couldn’t see it, yet it felt as if I were following its signal. Rebecca’s haunted face reached into the farthest corners of my mind. And I repeated the words
Prospa House
again and again.

Turning left, I walked the length of the footpath. Stopped. Looked up – the sign said
Winslow Street
. I sighed. The hour was late and it was probably time to head home before my escape was discovered. But I only took a few steps before I stopped again.

Glancing across the road, my eyes were captured by a cavernous space between a shoe factory and a boarding house.
Even in the faint lamplight I could see that the building had been torn down (or had burned). Great piles of bricks lay about like coal stacks. It was a ruin. All that remained was a part of the front wall. A hole where a window used to be. And the front door with the frame around it.

I crossed the street to take a closer look. The door was set back from the footpath and on the crumbling wall beside it, there was a brass plaque. Tarnished and worn by age. My eyes moved back to the door, standing proud amongst the remnants of the building that had once held it up. I thought of my lost friend. And it was happening before I even knew it.

A familiar buzzing charged the night air. Under my dress the Clock Diamond awoke, hot against my skin. The buildings on either side began to bend and ripple. Then they melted away, dropping silently. The ground shook until my teeth began to chatter. All the while I watched the door. Even when a great white wall breached the ground and pushed up, lifting towards the heavens.

The building seemed to stretch, like it had just woken up, spreading out, left and right. It was a beast, tall and wide. Walls flew up and out. Vast windows filled in with glass and wood. Ribbed columns rose along the front. The front door coloured itself a glossy black. A gold knocker, shaped like a half-moon, pushed out with ease. The tarnished plaque began to glow and
glisten as if it had just been polished. Then a path of silvery stone blossomed beneath my feet. A hedge grew up on either side, rising to my shoulders, its leaves blood red.

I walked towards the door. Stopped before it. The plaque read
PROSPA HOUSE
. My heart lurched. My mouth dried. I was here! I glanced up at the building, trying to take it all in. The windows were cast in darkness, save for one on the third floor where a candle burned. A shadow swept quickly across it. Then the light blew out.

I reached for the handle, praying the front door would not be locked. But as my hand closed around it, I felt … nothing. My hand was bunched in a fist, having passed straight through the silver knob. Most peculiar! Suddenly, I heard the rumble of voices as two men came around the side of the building. Their heads were shorn and both were dressed in ghastly orange coats and black boots. They had a perfect view of the front door where I was standing like a lump. But they appeared not to see me!

I recalled Ambrose Crabtree’s rules – did he not mention that when a person crossed between worlds only their soul took the journey? Perhaps this meant I was a kind of spirit, unable to open doors and whatnot. Which would be a great help in sneaking about the place, but could make rescuing Rebecca rather difficult.

Then the door began to flicker, like a candle in the wind, fading one moment, then whole and solid the next. Between each flicker I would catch a glimpse through the door – but instead of finding a hallway or a room behind it, all I could see were piles of bricks. Fearing that time was against me, I lunged for the handle a second time.

‘What’s going on here then?’

As I spun around, I felt the great swoosh of air as Prospa House fell away behind me. The stone path dissolved into the ground in seconds and the neat red hedge melted like snow. Once again I was on the grim and unremarkable Winslow Street. And a rather portly night constable was coming towards me wearing a look of profound suspicion.

‘It’s four in the morning. What are you doing wandering around Stockwell all by yourself?’

He was short. Double chin. Eyes set wide apart. Ginger whiskers only added to the catastrophe.

‘What business is it of yours?’ I demanded to know.

To have reached Prospa and have it ripped away was the cruellest of blows.

The constable seemed slightly startled. ‘Well … it’s my job, that’s what, and you should be at home tucked up in bed. You’d better come with me, missy.’

‘It’s a sad state of affairs when a twelve-year-old girl can’t
roam the streets in the dead of night without being harassed by a constable,’ I declared with a huff. ‘My instinct is to grab your baton and teach you a thing or two about manners. But as it’s late, I’ll let you off with a firm slap on the wrist and a general warning.’

I slapped his pasty wrist with great commitment and then, with the constable still looking utterly stupefied, ran like the wind without looking back.

‘I locked that door, I’m sure of it,’ muttered Mrs Dickens, spooning a generous helping of porridge into my bowl as I sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Your mother was madder than a hungry bear after that cake calamity and she told me to lock your bedroom door and check it again before I turned in for the night.’

When Mrs Dickens had come to wake me up, she was rather startled to find my bedroom door already unlocked. Once I had crept back into the house, I had no way of locking the door behind me. Naturally, I called to the Duchess of Trinity, requesting that she come back and lock it. But she hadn’t.

‘Mrs Dickens, you mustn’t be too hard on yourself,’ I said, adding a pinch of cinnamon to my porridge and shovelling a dainty helping into my mouth. ‘You are as old as the sun and your brain is practically pickled from all of that whisky you drink.’

‘I take a wee sip every now and then, nothing more.’ The housekeeper looked suitably crestfallen. ‘My mind’s always been sharp as a tack.’

‘And now you can barely remember your name. It’s monstrously sad.’

‘Mrs Snagsby would throw me out on the street if she knew,’ said Mrs Dickens, returning the pot of porridge to the stove. ‘I’ve never seen her so angry, not in all my years at this house.’

‘How was I to know there was gunpowder in the flour sack?’ I declared. ‘It was a
small
mistake – a few flesh wounds, the odd facial scar – nothing to fret about.’ A great wave of sorrow rose up and swallowed me. I looked up at the housekeeper and something in her kindly eyes made me say, ‘Mrs Dickens, why doesn’t Mother Snagsby like me?’

‘What a thing to ask!’ She sat down beside me. ‘Lass, you mustn’t take it to heart, though I admit she’s a stern sort of woman. That’s just her way.’ I saw her eyes lift to a small portrait of Gretel sitting above the hearth. ‘Give her time and she will warm to you.’

‘She must miss her terribly,’ I said, pointing to the picture.

‘You are right,’ said Mrs Dickens faintly. ‘It’s as if she doesn’t remember how to be happy without Miss Gretel around.’

‘How long has she been in Paris?’

The housekeeper got up suddenly and busied herself wiping the table. ‘Well, that’s a hard one … I’m not a great one for numbers.’

I put down the spoon and wiped my mouth. ‘Mrs Dickens, is there something you’re not telling me?’