The Elemental Detectives, page 11
Robert flinched as the ribbon tightened around his chest. Walbrook and Fleet stared at each other, then the ribbon fell in loose wet loops around Robert’s feet.
“Trouble me again,” Walbrook said, “and I will ensure there is no one to help you.”
She turned her back on them and walked towards the stone table. The silver circle flickered again.
“You go first,” Marisee said to Robert.
He jumped towards the hole, grasped the edges and scrabbled his way through. Marisee clambered on to the bed, grabbed the smooth edges of brick and, with Robert’s help, sprang through like a jack-in-the-box. A gust of cold air almost blew her bonnet off.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Where we need to be,” Robert said. “Among the dead.”
THE FUMI
Marisee was sitting on a stone path. There was no sign of the hole she had scrambled through. She stood up slowly and brushed down her skirts. The path cut through a churchyard. The church itself was topped by a great copper dome and a stone tower. In front of the church, there was a narrow alley and the back walls of a mansion house. Marisee recognized that clean stone. It was the Mansion House. The church probably sat right on top of the Walbrook river. Just a few feet away, on the other side of that wall, were the yeomen and a Dragon who would both quite happily kill them. Just below her feet, Lady Walbrook must already be making revenge plans. They had to leave, now.
Robert was studying a gravestone. He turned towards her and waved his arm at the rows of mounds and tombstones.
“Try the dead,” he said. “But there are so many dead. How do we know which ones we must listen to?”
Marisee nodded her head towards the Mansion House and lowered her voice. “We have to find out quickly. There might be archers patrolling.”
Robert moved to the next gravestone. “Lady Fleet made sure we came out here. She must have meant these dead.”
“We came to this churchyard because that’s where the door opened!” Marisee said. “What if the door opens again and it’s Walbrook this time? That’s if we aren’t shot by the Goldsmith’s archers first. We can’t stay here!”
“So where do we go, Marisee?” Robert’s hands were on his hips. “Lady Fleet was trying to help us!”
“How? She couldn’t even tell us the name of the child!”
“Because she didn’t know it! I think we’re here because there’s a clue somewhere.” Robert turned away from Marisee and walked further down the row of graves.
Marisee looked around at the gravestones. There were so many. It would take days to check them all and she didn’t even know who she was looking for. It was only afternoon, but the sky was darkening. Twilight was coming early, like it wanted to trick more of London into sleep. And they were still no closer to stopping the sickness or finding the Freedom. And she certainly didn’t want to be in the churchyard when it was dark. She didn’t want to be here at all, but Robert was right. Where should they go?
A scrap of paper blew across the churchyard, catching on the brambles. It freed itself, jittering across the tops of the uneven grass, before lifting in the air and floating towards Marisee. It brushed lightly against her nose, then dropped towards a gravestone. She wished she could just flutter from place to place like that.
Kweek!
The sound cut through the stillness. Robert looked around too. Was it a strange birdcall? Marisee could see no birds, not even rock doves.
Kweek!
It came from above her, high up near the church steeple. The weathervane’s gold pennant swung to and fro.
“There’s no wind to move it,” Robert said, coming back to her.
The weathervane spun all the way until it pointed west.
Marisee jumped up. “It’s telling us which way to go!”
The weathervane spun wildly again. This time it pointed east.
“Is it?” Robert asked.
“Is that supposed to help?” Marisee yelled up at it. “Because it’s not!”
The pennant spun hard again as a cloud of smoke billowed towards it. Marisee could feel no heat. The pennant slowed, then squealed before stopping. The dark cloud stretched wide, like it was spreading its wings, then tipped away from the steeple and glided down to the churchyard.
Oh! Marisee felt a prickle of excitement. Was that what she thought it was? Surely it couldn’t be anything else! “It’s a Fumi, Robert! An air spirit!”
It was long and thin, like smoke twisting out of a chimney on a windy day. Its head was as wide as a shovel and its body as narrow as a broom-handle.
“That was not enjoyable.” Its thin metallic voice scratched at the inside of Marisee’s ears. Darkness curled where its mouth should be, two rents in the smoke formed eyes. “I haven’t spun myself since 1666. It’s something I’ve always preferred not to do. When that Wren fellow built those new churches, he changed the weathervanes. I really can’t get used to them.” The Fumi compressed into a thick, black column. “You Solids always make things worse.”
Marisee gritted her teeth. How come the first Fumi she met had no manners? Perhaps all the elementals were rude. It was no surprise that they were always so close to war.
“I do not just mean the weathervanes,” it said. “There is all your mundungus stink filling the sky. The air above is so heavy that even a Solid could walk on it. And now, even your dreams are sick! Must you ruin everything for yourselves?”
“I … er…” Robert was staring at the Fumi. He seemed to collect himself. “I’m honoured to meet you.” He gave a sweeping bow. Marisee wondered how many times a day he had to bow for Lady Hibbert. “Lady Fleet told us that we should ask the dead to help us stop the sickness, but we don’t know how. Can you help us?”
The dark mouth swirled. “No. I cannot.”
“Oh,” Robert said. His shoulders slumped.
“I am not permitted to help you,” the Fumi said. “The Articles confine us to minimal contact with Solids – which suits us well.” The Fumi swelled and compressed. “But the Articles do allow for favours.”
“Favours?” Marisee asked.
“Is that not the correct word?” The Fumi said. “I speak the languages of sparrows and chimneys and weathervanes. My Solid English requires refinement.”
“Does that mean you can help us?” Marisee asked.
“It means that we can help each other. A favour for a favour. I have a friend. Their name is—”
The Fumi made a noise like a nail scraping across an anvil. Marisee shuddered and wanted to block her ears, but didn’t want to appear rude, even if the Fumi’s own manners may be lacking.
“That is their name in Weathervane,” the Fumi said. “The first mouth-language we learn. Their true Fumi name is—” A patch of pink the size and shape of a petal blossomed around the Fumi’s mouth, then faded. “I believe it beyond Solids’ ability to pronounce our names correctly,” it said.
“You would like us to help your friend?” Robert asked.
“I would like you to find my friend,” the Fumi said.
Robert frowned. “Where did you lose them?”
“They have lost themself.” It shook its shovel-head. “They are a nosy sort and decline to follow rules. We are rarely permitted to descend lower than the roofs, but my friend can never contain their curiosity. They go where they should not. They even…” The line mouth puckered into a tight circle and flattened again. “They even go beneath the ground. They were last sighted in the region of Montagu House in Bloomsbury. I believe that there is something called a museum there. My friend heard that it is as full of curiosities as they are themself. They wished to see them.”
Marisee had no idea what the Fumi was talking about. Robert was nodding, though, like he understood. “There is a museum in Montagu House,” he said, “on Great Russell Street, not far from the Hibberts’s mansion. Some of Lady Hibbert’s friends have visited it.”
“Find my friend,” the Fumi said. “And I will help you.”
Marisee tried to keep her sigh quiet. “We want to help you, but the sickness is spreading quickly. Our friends are dreaming in the Ether and won’t wake up unless…” Poor Camilla. Poor Cicely and Angelica.
“Unless they’re woken up and used to search for the Freedom,” Robert finished for her. “That’s what they want. Lady Walbrook says that whoever holds it can create a new London.”
The Fumi’s smoky body gave another wiggle. “I have no care about London, new or old. We will survive. But I miss my friend as you miss yours. I fear that mine has become trapped.”
“Trapped where?” Marisee asked.
“I do not know. I never go beneath the earth.”
No, Marisee could not imagine this creature of smoke and air wafting around underground. “Do you mean it’s stuck in a well or a tunnel?”
“Such words hurt my ears,” the Fumi said. “In any language. But yes, I believe that is where they are. They have strayed somewhere that is forbidden and a Magog or one of your beloved Chads is holding them.”
Marisee and Robert looked at each other. Did the Fumi expect them to fight another elemental?
“So you won’t help us until we find your friend?” Marisee said quietly.
The Fumi turned so pale that for a moment all Marisee could see was its mouth. “We are not like the Dragons! We do not make deals that we try to break. I will help you first. If you succeed, then you must help me.”
Oh! This was better!
“Yes,” Marisee said, eagerly. “We will search for your friend if you help us now. I promise you that.”
“Are you sure, Marisee?” Robert asked. “Where would we start looking?”
“In Bloomsbury!” she said. “Where the museum is! And we’ll have Grandma to help us!”
She hoped that was true. So much.
Marisee made a sweeping bow towards the Fumi. “We accept your offer.” She ignored Robert’s questioning look. “A favour for a favour. Now, please tell us how the dead can help us.”
The Fumi stretched so thin that Marisee could see the scrap of paper stuck to the tombstone behind it.
“You must follow your nose,” it said.
Then it floated away. Just like that! All that was left was a strong smell of beef tallow and wood ash, then that too disappeared.
“No!” Marisee shouted. “That’s not help! It…”
The scrap of paper unpeeled itself from the tombstone and drifted towards her, even though there was no breeze. Marisee made a grab for it, but it looped up, then dropped on to her nose. As she reached for it, an airy hand seemed to pluck it off and send it gliding back to the tombstone.
Robert reached for the paper. This time it didn’t fly away. He handed it to her. She studied both sides. Each was blank.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.
She looked up at the weathervane again. It was still pointing east. Was that the way they were supposed to go? Perhaps the writing was secret, written in lemon juice, and she was supposed to smear it with coal dust to see it. Marisee didn’t have any coal dust. And, thinking about it, the Fumi didn’t have fingers to write with. She hoped it wasn’t written in Weathervane language, screechy air on paper. That would not be helpful at all.
“It floated around the churchyard,” Robert said. “What if it isn’t the paper itself that’s important? What if it’s trying to lead us somewhere?”
“Yes,” Marisee said. “To my nose. And I already know where that is.”
Robert tapped the gravestone. “This is where it landed after your nose.”
“We’re in a graveyard. Of course it landed on a gravestone.”
“But why this one? It landed here twice. What does it say?”
“I don’t know! You’re closest. You read it!”
“It would be better if you did,” Robert said, quietly.
Marisee was not in the mood for this. The sky had turned from greyish blue to dark grey with a sallow tint that did not look like sunshine.
“Why?” she said. “Can’t you re—”
Robert stared back at her.
“Oh,” she said. Why had she thought that he could read? Not everyone was as lucky as her. Grandma had taught her when she was small. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know.”
He shrugged and looked away.
She crouched down next to the gravestone, squinting at the worn epitaph and read it out.
Here lies the body of
Mrs Mary Heskew,
wife of Robert Heskew,
who left this world while
partaking of an ice cream
in Hyde Park.
“Oh, poor Mrs Mary,” Marisee said. “What a strange way to die.” There was so much death in this city, but somehow when it was a Mary, it felt worse. She ran a finger over the words. “Is the ice cream a clue?” Lady Fleet had said they should try the dead. Was there a dead ice cream seller she should ask?
She didn’t know of any ice cream sellers. Nobody in her village had ever tasted ice cream, including herself. Then she clapped her hand over mouth. Of course it wasn’t the ice cream that was important. Where did rich folk go to find out about other people’s business? She knew that.
“Hyde Park,” she said. “That’s the clue. That’s where we must go.”
“I know that park,” Robert said. “I have to attend Lady Hibbert there every Tuesday. She goes to meet her friends to talk about their other friends.”
Marisee knew it wasn’t just people who gossiped there. “It’s full of streams and rivers,” Grandma had told her. “Chattering away and complaining about the new Serpentine lake and the waterworks. There are other things there too, Marisee, best not discussed.”
“Like what?” she had asked.
Grandma had thought for a moment and then said, “Ghosts. So many of them I’m surprised there’s room for living people. The gallows are just on the other side of the park wall, so some of those ghosts aren’t looking their best. They can be useful for a bit of gossip now and again, but they’re not my business.”
Marisee ran her fingers over poor Mrs Heskew’s gravestone. “It’s full of the talking dead too,” she said.
“You mean ghosts?”
She nodded. “But if you don’t want to come…”
He hesitated for a moment. “Do you know the way?”
“I think so.”
“Then let’s go.”
They crept through the alleyway behind the Mansion House and ran through a barge yard, jumping over scattered planks of wood and coils of rope and out on to a road that led them to Cheapside.
“If we follow the direction of the Thames, it will take us towards Westminster,” Marisee said. “But we’ll turn north along the way.”
And she would make sure to avoid the dark alleys around Covent Garden. London was now completely silent apart from the crunch of her boots on the ground, the soft soles of Robert’s shoes and their ragged breath as they hurried west. There were no carriage wheels, no tapping of hooves. The merchants had disappeared. Perhaps they had bolted themselves into their own mansions.
Nor were there beggars pleading for alms. Marisee supposed that they would be like the rag seller Grandma had found on Tuesday, deep in a happy sleep, while their tired bodies wasted away in this world. Had the rag seller ever woken again? Marisee shivered.
A figure suddenly loped out of a doorway towards her. He was a tall elderly man. His striped waistcoat was missing every button so it gaped open, showing bare skin pulled tight over his ribs. A scarlet necktie was knotted at his throat. He blinked as if he was bathed in bright sunlight.
“Missy!” His balled-up hand snapped open and shut. “You have to tell Madam Blackwell to give it up, Missy. You can’t win.”
Yellow mist curled from his mouth. A dull pain gripped the back of Marisee’s neck, spreading up through her head. Somewhere in the distance, a woman’s voice sang something sad and tender and the cymbals clashed in time. Marisee tried to edge round him. He blinked hard at her and swayed.
“Missy, please!” He reached out and tugged at Marisee’s apron. “Missy, please! She promised!”
“Leave her alone!” Robert tried to pull the beggar away.
Another person stepped out of the doorway. She had discarded her broom, but Marisee recognized the old woman who had been sweeping the crossing outside the Mansion House. Her bony fingers grasped Robert’s sleeve.
“She knows about you,” the sweeper croaked. “She knows who you lost. If you help her, she’ll let you see him again. She promised.”
“She knows?” Robert’s voice was faint. “She promised?”
“Where’s Madam Blackwell, Missy?” The beggar’s nails gripped Marisee’s shoulder. “Tell me, Missy. Help me, Missy.”
The sleepwalkers’ yellow breath hung around them and – no – was there a yellow taint to Robert’s breath? His eyelids were fluttering. Marisee shoved the beggar away from her and made a grab for Robert’s hand.
“Run!” she yelled.
He hesitated, his face confused, then he seemed to snap back to real life. They dodged around the crossing sweeper and ran. Marisee’s sides hurt and her chest was tight. A dog bounded out of an alley and ran alongside them.
“Do you think it’s sick too?” she gasped as she ran.
“Its breath’s clear,” Robert said.
Yes, it was, but what if it was a Chad sent by Lady Walbrook to spy on them? The new Sadler was fox-like. A Chad could look like anything! This dog was small, mottled brown and white and had lost half its tail. Marisee tried to outrun it, but her chest felt like it was being pulled apart.
“I need to slow down,” she puffed.
Her wobbly legs were only good for walking, and even that was a struggle. Her throat hurt and her feet stung from the pebbles digging through her boots. Robert was wheezing beside her. The dog slowed to their pace, its tail stump wagging. Then it trotted past them to raise its leg on a lamp post. Once it was done, it scampered away.
It really was just a dog. Not everything in this sick London had changed.
“Ready to carry on?” she asked.
