The Dread Penny Society, page 11
“We want to take you back home,” Wellington added.
Suddenly, the bluecap was visible again, closer this time. And it remained.
“We know you come from the mine by Ipsley,” Tillie said. “We can take you back there.”
Wellington opened the box. The flame disappeared.
“Perhaps it ain’t fond of traveling in a box,” Tillie said.
“I can’t say I blame it.” He tucked the silver humidor into the leather sack he’d borrowed from Mr. Combs. “Maybe we can convince the little sprite to follow us over the moors.”
Tillie flourished the enticements again. “Mr. Bluecap! We want to take you home.”
Nothing.
She looked at him. “Perhaps if we start walking in the direction of Ipsley, it’ll follow?”
Wellington shrugged. “It’s worth trying.”
“I’d imagine it’ll take an hour of walking,” she warned. “And we’ve been out here an hour already.”
He took the dangling jewels from her nearest hand, then slipped his fingers around hers. “I’m game for a long walk if you are.”
They walked hand in hand, waving the sparkling lures about. The occasional backward glance revealed the blue flame following. But in the moment after they looked, it always disappeared.
“It is following us,” Tillie whispered.
“I know.”
On and on they walked. The sky overhead grew heavier and darker. The wind blew fiercer with each passing moment. The moors were no place to be in a storm. They were too far from Summerworth to turn back and too far from Ipsley to be at ease. A bone-chilling gust nearly knocked Tillie over.
“Perhaps we should’ve made this trek in the pony cart,” she said.
“The flame would have spooked the pony. This could only be accomplished on foot.”
After nearly an hour of winding through the moors, Ipsley came into view. The mine would be nearby. But where, exactly?
Tillie looked around, uncertainty in her face. She, apparently, didn’t know either. “We cannot come this close only to fail. Where is it, Wellington?”
“The mine or the bluecap?”
“Either one,” she said. The wind pulled at her hair and dress, yet she stood stalwart and fixed. How could anyone not see and admire the strength of this remarkable woman? She spun and motioned with her handful of jewelry. “There’s the flame.”
Wellington rushed alongside her toward their flickering quarry.
“Please,” she called out. “We’ll help you find your home.”
“Truly.” Wellington added his voice to hers. “Your mine is nearby; we know it is.”
The blue flame flew further afield. They rushed after. They could not lose it. Not now. Not when they were so close to returning it to its home and ridding Summerfield of Alsop, Henson, and their lot!
The bluecap suddenly stopped. It hovered in place, flickering but not truly moving. In the instant before they reached it, the flame dropped straight down and vanished, not into thin air. Into a hole.
Wellington grabbed Tillie’s arm and pulled her to a stop, her toes mere inches from the edge of a mine shaft. He drew her back to safety. The hole beneath their feet glowed an otherworldly blue.
“I believe our mysterious visitor is home at last,” Wellington said.
Tillie leaned the tiniest bit forward and called down into the mine. “Could you return the things you stashed away? We’ve a shrew back at Summerworth who won’t leave us in peace without her brooch.”
The light grew brighter. Tillie stepped back. Wellington put his arm around her, unsure what was happening or what threat might arise next. The last weeks had taught him to expect what he could not possibly foresee.
A full dozen blue flames shot up out of the shaft and swirled around the two of them, whipping up even more wind than the storm brewing overhead. Tillie turned, burying her face against Wellington’s chest. He set both his arms firmly and protectively about her as they were enveloped by the flames.
No heat emanated. Indeed, the flames were cold, like a draft from the dark corners of a . . . a mine. Stronger and stronger it blew, the pull of it twisting and turning. The vortex tugged at Tillie, threatening to yank her out of his arms.
“Wellington!”
He tightened his grip. “Kneel down.” The wind carried his voice away. Had she even heard him? “If we’re lower, it’ll be harder to topple us.”
The whirlwind pulled her further, stretching his fingers painfully.
“The wind is too strong.” Tillie’s voice pleaded with him.
With every ounce of strength he had, Wellington pulled her against him as he lowered himself—and her with him—to the muddy ground below, kneeling in the midst of the onslaught.
They hunched there as the blue whirlwind continued. They’d returned the wandering bluecap. Did its “family” think they’d kidnapped it in the first place?
Tillie was still sliding away. Her slight frame was no match against the pull of azure wind. She would be torn from him, perhaps tossed into the mine shaft. He wrapped the open sides of his jacket around her, then crouched over her, trying to shield her and weigh her down.
“We brought it home,” he called out into the cold, blue cyclone. “We mean no harm. Let us go. Please.”
With a flash of white, the flames disappeared. Only the gusts of humid moorland wind remained, and the first raindrops of the breaking storm.
Wellington kept still, waiting, watching for the bluecaps to return. Nothing emerged from the mine shaft. No light. No sound. No movement.
Tillie peeked out from her protective cocoon. “Are they gone?”
“I believe so.”
She sat up straight, trembling and muddy. “I thought they’d blow me right off my feet and into the shaft.”
“So did I.” He kissed her temple. “You weren’t hurt were you, my dear?”
“No lasting damage.”
They scrambled to their feet, muddied but otherwise well.
“We make a fine team, Tillie Combs.”
She smiled up at him, rain pelting her face. It was coming down harder now. They likely had time enough to reach Ipsley before the sky fully broke open, but only if they moved quickly.
“We’d best hurry,” he said.
He kept her hand in his, and they moved swiftly toward the town. It wasn’t until they were nearly there that Tillie stopped abruptly.
“Our sparklies.”
He looked at her, unsure what she meant.
“All the jewels we were holding, to lure the bluecap onto the moors.” She held up her empty hands. “They’re gone.”
He hadn’t even noticed. His handful was missing as well. “Did we drop them?”
She shook her head. “I was clutching them tightly as I could manage.”
He had been as well.
Tillie looked back in the direction of the mine. “They took it. They took the treasures.” Her shoulders drooped. Rain dripped from her sodden hair. “I suppose this means Miss Fairbanks won’t be getting her brooch back.”
“Likely not.” The wind blew rain up his sleeves and down his collar. They’d be soaked in another minute or two. “She’ll rail and bluster, but I’ll settle with her. Then she’ll be on her way. They all will be.”
“Is that a promise?”
“A solemn vow.” He took her hand once more, the rain coming down in buckets. “But for now, my dear, it’s time to run for cover.”
Installment VIII
in which our brave Couple finds their Happiness!
Having procured a cart and pony at the coaching inn in Ipsley after waiting out the storm in a private dining room, Wellington made the drive back to Summerworth with an exhausted but joyful Tillie at his side.
“I am a bit disappointed.” Her amused smile contradicted her declaration.
“What has disappointed you?”
“Our thief proved to be none of the things on m’original list.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue.
He laughed. “You were hoping for ill-mannered dogs and well-coordinated magpies?”
“Oh, mercy, that would have been a lark to sort out.”
He grinned at her. “I believe we had quite a lark regardless.”
She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Chasing mythical creatures out onto the moors. What greater lark could there be?”
He pondered that for the length of a breath. “Mere weeks ago, I would not have thought racing over the moor was a worthy pursuit. I fear I was every bit the pompous bore you accused me of being.”
“I really did call you that, didn’t I?”
“You did, indeed.” He led the cart around a bend in the path. “And you were utterly correct. I’ve spent too many years alone. The only company I’d kept with any degree of regularity was that of . . . well, people not unlike Mr. Alsop and Miss Fairbanks and their ilk. I’d lost sight of the Wellington I was when we were children.”
“I loved that Wellington,” she said. “He was my dearest friend.”
“What do you think of this Wellington?”
She wrapped her arm around his. “I think he’s wonderful.”
“And I think this Tillie is rather remarkable as well.”
They reached the front portico of Summerworth. His unwelcome guests would still be inside, likely moaning and groaning over Miss Fairbanks’s missing jewelry. Wellington would do his best to settle the matter, offering to replace what was stolen and subtly pushing them out the door.
Mrs. Smith met them in the front entryway, her expression frantic. “What a scene!” She fanned herself with a dishrag. “You’d not believe what’s happening.”
Oh, mercy. Wellington met Tillie’s eye. She clearly expected as much theatrics as he was anticipating.
“We’d best go face it,” he said.
“And if they lob accusations at me again?”
Wellington set his shoulders. “Then I will toss them out with none of the civility I’ve been silently rehearsing.”
She lifted an eyebrow and popped a fist on one hip. “I’m not afraid of a horde of creatures. We’ve faced down a number of them today already.”
He took her hand in his, the lightness in his heart entirely at odds with the discomfort of the coming confrontation. On the first-floor landing, Pip found them. He bounced and jumped, grabbing for their hands.
“Come see. Come see.”
“Come see what?” Tillie asked.
“All of it!” Pip dragged them up another flight of stairs and through the door to Wellington’s rooms. “See. All of it!”
There, piled as high as Pip’s knees, was a small mountain of jewelry, shiny metal boxes, silver brushes, and even the missing mirror and painting. Heavens, the Combses’ spade was there as well, as was a hand plow and a milking bucket. The items Wellington and Tillie had taken out onto the moors, the ones that had disappeared from their hands during the blue whirlwind, were there also.
“All of it,” Tillie said.
“One of these will be Miss Fairbanks’s brooch.” Wellington began digging for it.
Tillie dropped to her knees and joined the search. Mr. Combs, upon entering and hearing of their task, joined in the effort. As did Pip. And Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Within the hour, Miss Fairbanks was in possession of her brooch, the rained-in houseguests were on their way, and Summerworth was peaceful and joyful again.
“They won’t be the last visitors to disapprove of my being here,” Tillie warned as the traveling coach disappeared from view.
“I will remove anyone and anything that makes you less than happy, my Tillie. And soon enough, visitors, whether human or not, will learn that you matter to me more than they do.”
“And Pip?” Tillie asked.
“He will learn that he matters to us too.”
“Us.” She sighed. “I do like the sound of that.”
“Then you are going to love this.”
He kissed his beloved Tillie, holding her close as the wind whipped over the moors, cold and wild and tinted blue.
Chapter I
Ace Bowen had been a student at Higglebottom’s School for the Dead for a few months and was quickly becoming the school’s most legendary pupil. He was learning the art of being a ghost faster than anyone before him, and he did it with flair.
He walked the corridors of Higglebottom’s with an otherworldly strut. Ghosts could walk, no matter that the living seemed to think all they did was float. Floating, in fact, was more difficult.
The other students always waved to him as he passed. The staff shook their ghostly heads in amusement. He was the life of the school, so to speak. He, along with his friends, Bathwater and Snout, was also the source of most of its mischief.
“Pouring ink into the laundry cauldron so the haunting shrouds all turned light-blue. Tightening all the floorboards so none squeaked during the Third Form’s ‘Ghost Walking’ exams.” Professor Rattlebag had been listing the boys’ pranks. He wasn’t likely to finish before the end of the dinner hour. “Teaching the school parrot to mimic the sound of rattling chains so Professor Dankworth could not be heard during her ‘Disguise Ghost Conversations with Sundry Sounds’ lesson.”
Oh, the parrot could mimic more sounds than just chains. Bathwater sputtered, trying to hold back a laugh. Ace lounged in a chair that wasn’t there—a skill most students didn’t master until at least Third Form.
“I think it best you three go directly to your dormitory,” Rattlebag said. “There will be no dinner for you.”
Skipping dinner wasn’t much of a punishment as ghosts did not actually need to eat, but learning to pretend as if they did proved helpful when wanting to go unnoticed amongst hungry Perishables.
The boys rose and made their way toward the office door. Ace aimed his path toward the wall.
“Not through the wall, Mr. Bowen,” Rattlebag said, sounding far too tired for a ghost who’d not needed sleep in nearly a millennium. “You haven’t mastered the skill yet. Nurse Snodsbury was quite put out the last time she had to reassemble you.”
Willing to save Snodsbury a bit of bother, Ace passed through the open door with his ghostly feet a few inches off the floor, another skill a First Form was not meant to have mastered.
No, Higglebottom’s had never seen a student quite like him.
“Rattlebag has no sense of humor,” Snout said as they walked toward their dormitory. “Those gags were brilliant.”
Bathwater shrugged. “Maybe things stop being funny after you’ve been dead nine hundred years.”
“Rattlebag certainly stopped being funny,” Ace said.
They all laughed, not the least worried about punishments or expulsion. The teachers liked them, despite the havoc they wreaked.
“Two weeks until the Spirit Trials,” Snout said. “Do you mean to ask Cropper to join our team?”
Ace was considering it. They needed a crack team for that term’s trials.
For eight hundred years, school terms at Higglebottom’s School for the Dead had ended with the Spirit Trials, a series of tests in which the students demonstrated all they had learned about being a proper ghost. A high enough score allowed the winning team to advance to the next Form early.
Ace was bored to death, as it were, of First Form studies. “Cropper’s whip smart. But he’s not a lot of fun.”
Bathwater attempted to sit in an absent chair but mismanaged the thing, spilling onto and partway through the floor. “I guess I’m not so whip smart, myself,” he said, pulling himself up with some effort. He managed to not leave any bits of himself behind.
Snout eyed Ace with curiosity. “Would you rather have a diverting teammate or a helpful one?”
“The three of us could do well enough to at least pass the Spirit Trials,” Ace said. “Might as well have a lark doing it.”
“Even if it means not skipping to Form Two?” Bathwater asked.
If ghosts had actual hearts, Ace’s would’ve dropped a bit at that question. He wanted to be challenged at Higglebottom’s. But he’d not had much time for larks and absurdity in life. He meant to enjoy a hardy helping of both in the afterlife.
“If we don’t qualify to skip ahead early, we can make the most of our final term in Form One.”
“Rattlebag might advance us anyway,” Snout said. “Anything to get us out of his classes.”
“All the more reason to make certain the Spirit Trials are a highlight.”
“Are you aiming for more mischief?” Bathwater sounded worried. Though he enjoyed their mischief and joined in eagerly, he did worry a bit over it.
“You bet your afterlife, I am.”
Somewhere in the room something thudded, a common sound in a school full of ghosts learning to be proper haunters. But nothing had fallen or shifted or lay in a heap.
“What was that?” Bathwater asked.
“I don’t know, but I mean to find out.” Ace floated—a bit of showing off helped build a touch of confidence—to the noisy side of the room.
Nothing seemed amiss.
Then the bed skirt rustled. The wind wasn’t blowing outside the ancient school. No one in the room was practicing making a draft.
Ace knelt on the floor, careful not to slip through, and peered under the bed, directly into the eyes of a boy. But not just any boy.
A living one.
Chapter II
“Blimey!” Snout declared over Ace’s shoulder. “It’s a Perishable.”
“What’s it doing here?” Bathwater asked.
Ace shrugged. “Beats me. I’ve never heard of a living person being at Higglebottom’s.” He eyed the terrified face under the bed. “What are you doing here?”
“I was caught in a storm,” the boy said. “I came inside to get out of the rain.”
“It hasn’t rained since yesterday.”
