Rook, page 12
“There’s that same turnippy aura in here, as well,” I announced as we entered. “I’m starting to recognize it more clearly.”
“What exactly does that tell us?” Dupin asked.
“Not enough,” I admitted. “But it proves the crimes are related. Probably. Maybe.”
“That’s an excellent start!” Jackaby said. “You’re finding your stride. Just watch, Inspector. She’s about to crack this case wide open.”
After several minutes of searching, I had cracked open precisely nothing. A thorough tour of the house had turned up only a pair of charmed reading glasses, a few magically reinforced spools of thread, and a loaf of uneaten zucchini bread. The bread wasn’t even supernatural; it just smelled pleasantly like nutmeg and cloves. What it did not smell like was a clue.
“I found another spent match!” Jackaby called merrily, pulling his head out of the tailor’s garbage can.
“Everybody uses matches,” Dupin said.
“This is no use,” I sighed. “Let’s try the next site.”
Townsend’s neighbor was still watching as we filed out of the house sullenly. “You find anything about our Pip?” she asked.
“The investigation is ongoing,” Dupin replied automatically.
“Did you know him?” I asked, pausing. Something about the woman felt off. She seemed pleasant enough, and her question was steeped in earnest concern, but there was a hazy mist hanging around her. It was barely visible, but it looked the way burning smells, with just a hint of lime. I scowled. I had seen that energy somewhere before, I was sure of it. I strained to remember, but I felt as though my mind had magnets in it repelling my thoughts every time they came too close. The aura had something to do with D’Aulaire, didn’t it? Or possibly Alina? The memory hid itself away like an awkward child at a fancy party.
“He’s a sweet young man,” the woman said. “A bit lonely. I tried to set him up with my niece once, but they were both too shy. Anyway, I always make an extra portion for him whenever I’m baking, and he helps mend my Harold’s work clothes when they get too worn out. Harold’s always wearing out his trousers.”
“I take it that was your zucchini bread, then?” I asked.
The woman looked confused. “How’d you know about that? Never did get around to bringing it over to him. I did my baking a few days ago, but I think someone must have run off with it while it was cooling on the windowsill.”
I glanced at Jackaby and back to the woman. “It seems to have made it into his house,” I said. “It smelled nice.”
“Oh.” The woman shrugged. “My memory’s not what it used to be. You’ll find him, though, won’t you? Harold and I are worried sick.”
“We’ll do our best, ma’am,” Dupin assured her.
As we left, I tried to place where I had sensed that tint on the woman’s aura before, but the thought slipped around in my mind like a marble in a drawer full of odds and ends. Soon it was gone entirely.
Our next stop was the home of the greengrocer—a half goblin called Dibb.
“I examined this one myself, two weeks back,” Dupin said. “Neighbors seem to think he’s an upstanding citizen. We searched the property. He’s been growing a handful of otherworldly plants in a makeshift greenhouse, but none of them appeared valuable or dangerous. Maybe you can see something I missed.”
Dupin opened the door, and we were immediately hit by a noxious odor. Inky black clouds rolled down the staircase to spill out the open front door. Jackaby coughed.
“Death,” I whispered.
Dupin covered his nose with his sleeve. “Didn’t smell like this two weeks ago.”
I followed the aura up to the second-floor landing, where it was pouring like a waterfall down the steep attic stairs. Jackaby nodded toward a large crack and a dark crimson patch on the ceiling where the plaster had been stained from above. The drips had long since dried, but the smell was horrible. My head was starting to spin again, and I bit my lip to keep myself grounded. I could do this. I had seen bodies before, and if I was going to be of any use, I couldn’t be squeamish.
I ascended, steeling myself as I reached the top step.
“I should be the first to investigate,” Dupin began, mounting the stairs behind me, but I was already pushing open the narrow door.
The sight that awaited us was a nightmarish mess. A rough hole in the roof about three feet around provided a beam of light, which shone like an unforgiving spotlight on the remains of Mr. Dibb. Flies buzzed all around him. I stepped off the top stair and out of the way, but couldn’t bring myself any closer.
“Good lord,” Dupin choked as he climbed up the stairs behind me. He inched past, his back hunched under the low ceiling. “He must have fallen through the roof.”
“At considerable speed,” I agreed, trying not to breathe through my nose. “Watch your step. The impact cracked the supports beneath him.”
I looked up at the hole in the ceiling and followed a dim trail down to the corpse. The aura must have been painfully vivid once, but it was two weeks faded now. “For what it’s worth,” I managed, “I don’t think he felt the impact. I’m pretty sure he died on the way down—half a mile up from here, maybe more. I would guess heart attack.”
Dupin leaned forward to peer up through the hole. “How? Where did he fall from?”
I shrugged. “No idea. That’s where he came from, though.”
Jackaby poked his head into the attic behind us. “Oof.” He grimaced. He turned toward me. “Turnips?”
I swallowed, glancing back at the body. The odd, turnippy aura was a darker shade than it had been in the other crime scenes, stained no doubt by the gruesome nature of Mr. Dibb’s demise, but the tint was definitely there. I nodded.
It was longer than I would have liked before we were out of the attic and back in the fresh air in front of Dibb’s house. Dupin left Jackaby and me to wait while he flagged down a patrolman and instructed him to summon officers who would attend to the remains of Mr. Dibb.
“Good work so far,” said Jackaby. “We’re making stellar progress.”
“Are we, though?” I asked. “Because missing people seems preferable to dead people.” I sighed. “It seems like every step we take makes this whole thing less clear than it was before.”
“That’s how you know you’re doing it right,” he assured me. “Got to get the whole knot out into the open before you can untangle it all. Let’s review. We’ve got our bodies, D’Aulaire and Dibb. Wildly different causes of death. No obvious connection between the two. Yes?”
I nodded.
“Then we’ve got Townsend and Highcourt—both missing. Totally different lives. No obvious connection between those two, either.”
I nodded again.
“And then we’ve got Alina—in custody and linked to just one of the missing people and one of the dead ones. No memory of either and no obvious motives. Oh, and a stolen necklace—you noticed turnips there, too—that’s somehow also connected to the whole thing. Am I forgetting anything?”
“The mystery auras,” I said. “There have been two distinct traces at multiple crime scenes, tying all of the cases together.”
“Right.” Jackaby raised an eyebrow. “Wait. Two?”
“Yes,” I said. “The turnippy one and the . . . the other one.” I scowled. What had the other aura felt like? Where had I noticed it? My head hurt. What was missing? And what was the thread that tied it all together?
“I’ll have uniforms here within the hour to secure the site,” Dupin announced, striding back toward us.
“In the meantime, who’s next on our list?” Jackaby asked.
The inspector flipped through his pad. “Two not far from here. Both have been missing about a week and a half. There’s a pipe fitter several blocks uptown by the name of Bo Thurse. Quarter troll. Or, in the opposite direction, we’ve got a midwife named . . . Mary Horne.” His eyes flicked to me.
An image of the child in the alleyway, alone and afraid, flashed in my mind. “Horne,” I said. “Let’s finally look into Mary Horne.”
My feet were aching as we stepped up the walk to the next house, but I pushed the pain to the back of my mind. The sun was already beginning to hide behind the buildings to the west, but it was not too dark for me to catch a glimmer of movement between the leaves of a tree across the street. I chalked it up to neighborhood pixies and followed the inspector into the midwife’s house.
The house smelled of sage and lemongrass, and jars filled with all manner of herbs and powders lined the shelves. They were labeled in swooping cursive—things like witch hazel and mugwort and rose hips—and they shared their space with crystals and books and bundles of dried sticks.
“You were right, Inspector. This is definitely the home of a practicing witch,” I observed.
“Always nice to have one of those around,” Jackaby added. “Practical magic has a way of lifting up a neighborhood. It’s the subtle things.”
“What did you say was her line of work?” I asked the inspector.
“Midwife,” said Dupin.
“Mm. Good career for a witch,” said Jackaby.
“Anything magical pop out to you?” Dupin asked me. “We gave this one a once-over, but most of her ingredients are things you can buy at a corner shop. Just plants and things.”
“Just because you can get something from a shop doesn’t mean it isn’t magical,” said Jackaby. “Besides, all plants have a little magic to them, and putting the right plants together can make their magic even stronger. The right ingredients blend together and become something special. There’s a jinni who runs a delicatessen on Market Street, and his roasted red pepper hummus is positively enchanting.”
“I’ll look around,” I told Dupin.
“I’ll check the garbage!” Jackaby called merrily.
There were two bedrooms off the main hall. One of them housed a wide bed with books piled high on the nightstand. The other had a small, humble bed with a thick quilt and a well-worn stuffed elephant beside the pillow.
The magic in this house was not flashy or bright—it felt solid, grounded. It carried its energy the way a sensible basket carried books home from the lending library. That faint trace of turnip-tinted energy hung in the air, just as it had in the other homes, but in this one, the energy of the rest of the house seemed to bristle against it.
“Aha!” Jackaby’s voice drew me back into the front room. He marched toward me, holding something triumphantly between his fingers.
“A spent match?” I asked.
“A third one!” Jackaby confirmed. “The question is—are they matches? Matches to the other matches, I mean.”
“I’m sure lots of people use matches,” I said, but Jackaby was already digging the first two matches out of his jacket. He held them up side by side.
“They’re just ordinary old—” I hesitated. I blinked. “Hang on. They do match.” I took them from Jackaby, who grinned proudly.
“I’m pretty good at being you, as it turns out,” he observed, smugly. “That’s something.”
“All three of these came from the same matchbook,” I said. “Or at least, they were handled by the same person. And that aura—the turnippy-colored something—it’s heavy on their tips. I can see it as clearly as the charred black. Okay. So this is something. But what is it?”
“It’s odd,” said Jackaby. “Odd is good.”
“It’s not odd enough,” I countered. I don’t know what I had expected. I’d been holding Mary Horne in the back of my mind for so many days—I suppose I had imagined that coming here would somehow unlock it all. “We need more. What’s next, Inspector?”
“Next,” said Dupin, “is a nice roast beef and potatoes with my wife, and then bedtime stories with the kids. We’ve been across half of New Fiddleham, Miss Rook. The night shift will look after Mr. Dibb’s body, and whatever is behind this, it will wait until tomorrow for us to track it down.”
“Right,” I consented, miserably. “I suppose it will have to. We have a dinner of our own, and we’re already late for it.”
We bade Dupin good night, and he hailed a hansom cab outside of the midwife’s house. The bushes ahead trembled in the cool evening air.
“It’s not so late yet,” Jackaby said. “We can still make it home in time to whip up a quick something. Are your parents fond of mushrooms? I’ve been meaning to try out an interesting recipe I found in a very old book I had tucked away in the attic. Not a cookbook, per se, but the dish sounds lovely all the same.”
“This is your house, isn’t it?” I asked, softly.
“What?” Jackaby turned back to the house and then to me.
“You’re looking for her,” whispered the shadows just past the bushes that lined the front walk.
“Oh,” said Jackaby. He blinked, squinting into the shrubbery. His aura flickered a wistful purple for just a moment.
The girl stood up, slowly. Her hair had not gotten any less messy since I had seen her in the street. Her eyes looked tired. “I haven’t gone back in,” she said. “Not since that night.”
“Mary Horne. She’s your mother?” I asked. The child didn’t answer. Her aura churned with grief and fear and loneliness. “We’d like to help you find her. Her and a few other people, too. Were you here when it happened? Did you see who took her?”
The girl’s lips tightened and her brow furrowed. After a long pause she shook her head. “I was hiding. I went under the bed.” The leaves rustled behind her, and she flinched, glancing around nervously.
“What did they sound like?” Jackaby asked.
The girl shrugged and shook her head. “She didn’t do anything wrong. She never hurt anybody. She just makes special bundles that help people get better or make their pain go away.”
“Spell bags?” Jackaby asked. “Very traditional magic. She sounds like a lovely lady.”
The girl wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “She knew she wasn’t supposed to keep selling her medicine, but people need it. She was careful. She even went to the fairy lady—the one who helped Mr. Dibb deliver his special vegetables. But it didn’t matter. They came anyway. There was a scuffle, and then . . .” Her voice petered out.
“They took her?” I said.
The child’s eyes fixed on a scrap of pavement at her feet. “They didn’t look under the bed,” she mumbled. “I waited. And then I ran.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Mary Horne knew Mr. Dibb?” Jackaby asked.
The girl sniffed. “She gave him medicine sometimes. And he found ingredients for her. Mr. Dibb was good at finding ingredients and stuff. He’s the one who told her about the fairy lady.”
“Who is the fairy lady?” I asked.
The girl shrugged. “She’s gone. They took her first. And then they took Mr. Dibb.”
“Actually, Mr. Dibb—” Jackaby began, but I put a hand on his arm and shook my head. The child did not need to know the grisly details.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She looked from Jackaby to me, her expression stoic. “I’m not stupid. I heard the policeman talking about a body. They’re coming for all of us.” Her eyes just stared off into the distance. “One by one.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said.
“Do you think that she . . . that they . . .” The girl’s voice faltered. Her brows were turned down in a strong glare, but there were tears welling up in her eyes. Her aura raged like a hurricane.
Jackaby and I exchanged a quick glance.
“We’ll find her,” I said.
“Are . . . are you lying?” she managed.
I took a deep breath. “A lot of those people who have been taken appear to have had . . . certain items they might have needed to deliver in secret—enchanted clothing, exotic vegetables, medicine. If there was one person helping all of them do that, then she might be the connection we’re looking for. Do you know if the fairy lady lived near here?”
The girl glanced around again, but ultimately nodded. “Not far.”
“Well.” I turned to Jackaby. “Dinner’s already going to be late. What’s one more stop?”
chapter sixteen
The girl took us through back alleys when she could and kept to the shadows when she couldn’t as we made our way toward the home of the “fairy lady.” She looked over her shoulder at every turn.
“You never did tell us your name,” I said.
“Nope,” she confirmed, curtly. “I didn’t.”
“I was only thinking it might make conversation slightly easier.”
She glanced back at me and shrugged. “I’m not supposed to give my name out. That’s giving away your power, and you should only do that with people you trust.”
“Ahh.” Jackaby let out a contented sigh. “Great advice. I love to see parents raising their children with practical knowledge and a realistic view of the world around them. I like your mother more and more, young lady.”
“Do you have a nickname or something you would like us to call you instead?” I asked.
The girl shrugged. “Something tough?” she said, after a few more steps. “And scary. Like . . . Grim Reaper of Souls. Or Deadly Nightshade. Or something like that.”
“Those are superb selections,” Jackaby said with a sober nod. “Yes. Trust your gut.”
“Or take your time,” I added with a small cough. “You don’t think those ones might be a bit too . . . ostentatious?”
“Nonsense,” said Jackaby. “She could go by Grim for short. Marvelous name for a young lady. Grim. It’s sharp, but still unique.”
“I don’t think—”
“I like it,” she said, flatly. “You can call me Grim. That’s the house, up there. The one with the green door. Her husband should be there. He’s called Mr. Finkin—but nobody’s seen the fairy lady for days.”
