13 Secrets (20 page)

Suki nodded to the trash cans. “You get in there and get that coat on,” she told Rowan. “I’ll wait here. Fabian, once she’s in position, you go in. This is it.”

Rowan stood, throwing the knapsack over her shoulder. She headed out of the garden toward the alley, then, once out of sight from the other tables, she doubled back into the trash area undetected. Quickly, she pulled the fox-skin coat from the bag and threw it around her shoulders, transforming as the catch was fastened. She took a moment to adjust to the peculiar shrinking sensation as she became fox-size, then took the knapsack in her jaws and dragged it out of sight behind one of the trash cans.

The stench of the rubbish pervaded her fox senses. Rotting food and waste reeked in the summer heat, and flies buzzed around her ears and tail as she made her way to the exit nearest the pub, poking her muzzle around the side to show Suki and Fabian she was in place. She took a quick snatch of air that wasn’t fetid before shrinking back into her hiding place and trying not to breathe the rancid smell.

“Go,” she heard Suki say.

The scent of fresh sweat, born of anxiety, reached her as Fabian passed her hiding place. Then he was through the door and out of sight.

Fabian blinked as his eyes adjusted to the gloomy light inside the Spiral Staircase. A little way in and to his right was a set of carpeted stairs leading up into the living area, and to his left a door was cracked open, revealing a small storeroom stacked with boxes of snacks and soft drinks. He waited at the foot of the stairs, but heard nothing from above.

Straight ahead was the bar area, and behind the counter a dark-headed girl adjusted the tuning on a crackling radio. The rest of the bar was empty, customers preferring to be outside in the sun. He could easily sneak up the stairs, but did not dare to, especially after Suki’s warning. There was a risk he could be caught if he went up without permission.

He swallowed his nerves and approached the bar. The strong odor of stale beer hit him, leaving him queasy.

“Excuse me?” he said, his voice timid.

The barmaid looked up.

“I’m one of Jack’s friends,” Fabian said. “Is he coming out today?”

The girl shrugged, checking her reflection in the mirrored glass behind the counter. It seemed to please her. “He’s upstairs, I think. Go on up and ask him—do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” Fabian lied. “I’ve been here before.” He backed out of the bar, returning to the stairs. His
forehead moistened with perspiration. He took two apprehensive steps up the carpeted stairway and drew a deep breath.

“Jack?” he called, in a surprisingly steady voice. “It’s me, Fabian.” He stopped, realizing his error. How many times had the power of names been discussed? Too many to think about, and now he had just blurted his out in the presence of something fey and potentially dangerous. “
Idiot!
” he cursed under his breath. There was no choice except to continue. “Are you still coming out?”

There was no reply. Something shifted upstairs; the sound of a footstep on a loose floorboard. Fabian took another slow step up. “Jack?” he called again. He craned his neck but could not see much further than the banister, except for a couple of doors in the hallway, both closed. With no natural light filtering through, it was dark. Fabian spied a light switch by his hand. His finger hovered over it as he tried to decide what to do. Any minute now Jack’s father could return and complicate things.

Impulsively, Fabian flicked the switch, and the hallway flooded with light. He looked back up the stairs—and half-fell, half-leapt back to the bottom in fright, twisting his ankle.

The woman they’d seen at the window stood motionless at the top of the stairs, watching him. Her head was tilted to one side, alert, like a dog about to pounce on a rabbit. Her face was waxen, and her
brown hair hung limply in greasy shanks on either side of her head.

Fabian fought the instinct to flee and forced himself to smile.

“Oh, you made me jump!” he said, giving a little laugh. “I was wondering if Jack’s still coming out today? My mum’s taking us for a picnic.”

The tilted head slowly straightened.

“Jack cannot come out with you today.” The woman’s words were slow and controlled, as though she was fighting some deep-rooted urge. Adrenaline surged through Fabian. He shoved his hands in his pockets to hide them, for they were trembling uncontrollably.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Did he forget to tell you?”

The woman’s emotionless eyes bored into his, unblinking.

“He did not tell me about any… picnic. And now we are doing something else.” She massaged her right wrist with her left hand.

“Typical Jack,” Fabian said, forcing himself not to squirm or look away. “Never mind. I don’t suppose you could send him down for a minute, could you? I just wanted to ask him something. It’s about a school project.”

“Jack cannot come down.” The voice grew colder. “He is a little tied up.”

Despite the fact that he was sweating heavily, the words sent a chill running over Fabian’s flesh.

He is a little tied up.

It’s the truth
, he realized.
The truth spell means she can’t lie… but she’s managing to choose her words carefully to try to throw me off the scent.

“Not to worry, then,” he said, backing down the stairs. “I’ll catch up with him soon.”

On the last step he turned, skin crawling at the thought of the thing’s eyes fixed on the back of his head. He carried on past the stairs, out of sight, and stopped short just before the back door.

He bent down, quickly pulling his shoelaces loose to buy time in case he was discovered by Jack’s father or the barmaid. In his head he counted slowly to thirty, listening for any movement from the stairs. From the main bar he heard voices and low music from the radio. He forced himself to tune them out, his mind wrestling with what to do. Suki had warned him to avoid going upstairs. But he had failed to draw Jack away, leaving the boy and his little sister at the mercy of the changeling. For that, Fabian could not help feeling somehow responsible.

A slow, creeping footstep retreated on the landing above, and a tiny click sounded as the light was switched off again. Somewhere upstairs a door closed softly, and a young child began to cry. The plaintive noise set alarm bells clanging in his brain, making his decision for him.

Fabian finished counting and tied his shoelaces again. He stood up and wiped his hand across his face. Then he rounded the corner to the stairs, gripping the banister, and began to climb as quietly as he knew how.

The crying grew more pronounced as Fabian got to the top of the stairs. His eyes had adjusted to the dim light now, and he saw the outlines of doorways from daylight squeezing through the gaps in the frames. One door was open a tiny crack; he tried to get a sense of which room it might be, or whether anyone was in it, but neither saw nor heard anything. The wailing came from a door behind him, the furthest from the stairs. To reach it, he needed to pass the door that was ajar.

He crept along the hallway, the carpeted floor absorbing the sound of his footsteps. He passed two closed doors. The third was the one that was slightly open. He paused outside, pressing himself against the wall. His heart pumped like that of a frightened rabbit. A frantic whispering from inside the room
made it to his ears. He strained to decipher any words, but could not.

Chancing a quick look through the gap, he assessed what he saw. Wooden units, a sink, and a black-and-white tiled floor. Liquid glistened on the smooth tiles. Nearby were fragments of glass. Something had been broken and spilled, and there was a horrid smell coming from the room, briny and metallic.

A loud bang from inside the kitchen made him bite his lip. The whispering became a mutter.

“I’ve tried to act like a good mother, haven’t I? But it’s not easy.
Never easy
. And what does a mother do? She makes dinner. But cooking isn’t the thing. Cooking
spoils
it….”

A manic chuckle followed, and Fabian squeezed his eyes shut. Composing himself with great effort, he leaned around and this time looked through the other gap—the one in the hinge side of the door.

The changeling mother stood hunched over the work surface, its back to the door. Behind it the kitchen table was laid with four plates, and one of the settings was for a high chair.

The changeling’s body shook with effort, but Fabian could not see what she was doing from where he was. Between the cries from Jack’s sister in the back room, he thought he heard wet sounds, like something being cut. He contemplated creeping to the furthest door while the changeling was still occupied. But then it turned, cementing him to the spot.

In its right hand it clutched a large, dead fish. It was still raw and had been opened up, but it had not been cleaned properly, for its innards dangled in a wet, dark mass. The changeling mother slapped it down on one of the plates and stared at it. Speckles of red hit the white crockery.

“No good,” she murmured. She lifted her hand, slimy with fish guts, and tugged at her hair. “Can’t do it anymore… can’t keep pretending. They’ll know now. Only wanted
her
. I only want the girl.”

Fabian retched, clamping his hand over his mouth and nostrils. Unable to watch any longer, he slid past the door and followed the crying noise, almost staggering in fear. He reached the door and turned the handle, silently begging it to open. It did. However, his next footstep yielded the very same creaking of the loose floorboard that he had heard earlier. Had the changeling heard it above the child’s cries?

Panicking, he pushed the door open and entered the room. It was dim, for the curtains had been drawn, but he saw that it was a toy room. In a playpen over by the window, a toddler sat wailing, snot trailing from her nose. Jack sat on a chair in the opposite corner, a gag in his mouth and his eyes bulging in terror. At first Fabian could not see what bound him to the chair, but on approaching he recognized the glittering strands of weblike thread that encompassed Jack. There were crisscross cuts over the boy’s hands where he had struggled against it. Fabian had seen it before a year ago in Hangman’s
Wood on the night Tanya had almost vanished into the fairy realm.

Hurriedly, he yanked the gag away from Jack’s mouth, holding his finger to his lips to indicate that they should keep quiet.

“She’s in the kitchen,” he whispered. “I couldn’t get you to come down so I decided to come up.” He glanced at the child. “And she’s not leaving. I think we need to take your sister with us and get out of here. We can’t wait for Rowan to come up—we just need to escape, all three of us.”

Jack shook his head. “I can’t get free—I don’t know what this stuff is but it’s not coming off! Just leave me…. Take Lucy and go.”

“Shh. It’s spidertwine,” said Fabian. He pulled Tanya’s scissors from his pocket and started to cut at the thread, which fell away at their touch. “It can’t be broken by human hands, because it’s magical.” He held up the scissors. “But so are these. How did she tie you up? I thought you were protected.”

Jack’s face was pained. “I was. My dad noticed my shirt was inside out just after I’d got the potion and made me turn it the right way. I meant to turn it back again when I got upstairs but I was so focused on what to do with the potion that I forgot.”

Jack brushed at the last of the disintegrating strands and stood up, rushing to the playpen. “I put the spell in a glass and made out it was a drink,” he said, lifting Lucy out. The little girl clung to him, her crying easing to a whimper. “Then I dropped it on the floor for her to
walk in. That’s when she went crazy and tied me up. She said if I didn’t let her she’d take Lucy…”