Other Alice (14 page)

I only had to look at Gypsy and Piper for proof of that.

T
HE LAMPS ABOVE OUR HEADS
flickered back on. A few people began to drift away, but many stayed, eager to make the most of
the atmosphere and the shops being open later than usual.

Mum went off to buy us paper cones of sweet roasted nuts. We stood in silence, not quite sure what to do next. Piper would clearly rather have been anywhere else and looked like a snared fox
that was thinking about chewing off its own leg in order to escape, but whatever power it was that Gypsy held over him kept him there.

Once he took his flute out and brought it to his lips, but Gypsy swiped it away from his mouth and scribbled something down, holding it out for me to read.

‘She said put your flute away,’ I said slowly. ‘And don’t try any of your tricks with us, or she’ll snap it under her boot.’

Piper put the flute away sulkily. I watched him, remembering the eerie faces of the people who had been throwing coins to him earlier. Had he been using the music to cast some kind of spell?
Charming their money from them? What was he trying to do now – escape?

When Mum returned, she handed out the treats, then glanced at Gypsy. ‘I have to go now, my darlings. My car to the airport will be picking me up soon. But you two stay out and enjoy the
evening. Not too late, though.’

Gypsy nodded.

Mum eyed Piper. I could tell she didn’t much like the look of him. ‘No guests tonight, either.’

I looked over Gypsy’s shoulder as she wrote something.

Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything
.

Mum kissed the both of us, then shrugged her handbag further up her shoulder and left. We watched her go in silence. Gypsy held her fingers to her cheek where Mum had kissed her, like she had
forgotten what a kiss felt like.

‘Now what?’ I asked.

Gypsy shook her head slightly, as if shaking a cobweb or a memory away.

We find somewhere quiet to sit and have a drink
, she wrote.
Piper’s paying. And then he’s going to tell us everything he knows about that story and who he stole it
for
.

We found a stall and each got a frothy hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows, then sat on some stone steps nearby. They were cold and damp and within seconds my bottom was freezing. I
shivered, hoping we wouldn’t be long.

If the Summoning had worked, we needed to be home in time for midnight; that’s when the Summoned were supposed to appear. I wanted to be in Alice’s room, around her things, if she
did come. I needed to plan what to say. I sipped the hot chocolate, too anxious to enjoy it, but glad of its warmth in my hands.

Luckily, Gypsy wasn’t planning on wasting any time. She settled next to me, indicating that I should read out the questions she’d written.

‘Who told you to steal the notebook?’ I asked.

Piper stared at me, a slight sneer about his mouth, then he looked away. He’d refused to sit down, instead leaning against a wooden door set back in the wall.

‘A woman,’ he said finally. ‘Well, a girl, I s’pose.’

I frowned. Gypsy made another note.

‘Which is it?’ I read. ‘A girl or a woman?’

‘A girl,’ said Piper. ‘About Gypsy’s age, maybe a bit older. She was small, thin.’ He bumped his shoulder into the door like he wanted it to open and reveal an
escape route. ‘I . . . I didn’t like her. Proper creepy, she was.’

‘Describe her.’

Piper drained his paper cup, then crushed it in his fist and dropped it. Gypsy shot him a loathsome look, but it was wasted. When he spoke, his breath misted the air.

‘I just did.’

Try harder
.

He shrugged. ‘Sort of pretty if you looked at her quick. In a plastic kind of way.’ He paused, glancing in Gypsy’s direction. ‘Not . . . not natural. But
when she spoke to me that’s when I saw her properly and she just looked . . . weird. Like a doll that had been put together wrong. Her clothes were too big, like they belonged
to someone else.’

I waited tensely for him to go on, a feeling of dread spreading in the pit of my stomach. Gypsy sighed in a way that suggested she was finding none of this very helpful.
What else?
She
wrote.
Hairstyle, scars?

I repeated this aloud to Piper.

‘Black hair, too neat like a wig. Bright red lipstick.’

Dolly
. The hot chocolate curdled in my stomach. I put the cup down, feeling sick. She’d known there was no way I’d give her the notebook – or that she’d even get
near me again after I’d run – so she’d sent Piper instead.

Gypsy made a note.

‘And her eyes were like blue glass.’ He picked at a flake of paint on the door. ‘I didn’t see her blink once. But it was her hands that really got to me.’

I read out Gypsy’s next question, my voice hoarse. ‘What about them?’

At this, Piper shuddered. ‘She had gloves on at first, but she took them off when she paid me. Her hands were just . . .
black
. Rotten with oil, or dirt or
something. And her nails were bitten, ripped off right down as far as they could go, all bloody and scabbed round the edges.’ He grimaced. ‘But it was good money, or I’d have told
her to forget it.’ He looked at me, then Gypsy. Both of us were glaring. ‘Knew it was a bad idea,’ he muttered.

Boohoo
, Gypsy wrote, which I didn’t read out.
Where did you meet her and what did she say?

Piper folded his arms. ‘I’d pitched up in the square for a while, over there.’ He nodded to the other side of the roaring bonfire. ‘She asked me how much money I’d
made.’ He allowed himself a small smirk. ‘I thought about telling her to keep her nose out, but I’d had a good afternoon, so I told her. Added on a bit extra for good measure,
like. She said she’d double it if I collected something for her.’

An angry noise escaped my lips, something between a bark and a hiccup. ‘
Collect?
’

‘Yeah.’ The corners of his mouth turned down. ‘I knew it wouldn’t be nothing good, not for that amount of money, but it was easier than I thought it’d
be.’

‘What
were
you expecting?’ I asked, curious.

‘From the state of her hands, I thought she’d been trying to dig something up. Something buried maybe. So, when she said what she wanted, it didn’t seem a big deal. easy just
to take something from a kid.’

‘Did she describe me to you?’ I asked.

Piper shook his head. ‘Nah. She just pointed. You were walking through the town square right at that moment.’

The sensation I had then was as though a large spider had crawled over the back of my neck. So, even when I thought I’d escaped Dolly earlier, I’d been wrong. She’d been
watching me from a distance. But how did she even know who I was? Had she been watching before today, too?

‘She came up to me earlier,’ I said quietly. ‘She was trying to get me to give the notebook to her – she told me her name was Dolly and that she was a friend of
Alice’s. I didn’t believe her.’

What would she want with the notebook, though?
Gypsy wrote.

Piper shrugged. ‘Seems like there’s a lot of people who want it. Gypsy, you and this Dolly. And, if you lot want it, then there’s bound to be more who are looking for it,
too.’

I didn’t like the idea of that at all.

Gypsy flapped the notepad, drawing everyone’s attention back.

What about the notebook? What did it look like? How big was it?

‘Pretty small,’ said Piper. ‘But thick, and well made, not cheap. Stitched together, not glued, but so well used the binding was falling apart. Some pages were
missing.’

I kept my eyes on Piper, not daring to look at Gypsy. I couldn’t let her know I had the missing pages. They were all I had. I didn’t want to risk losing them, too.

How many were missing?
My voice croaked as I read.

Piper fidgeted, looking uncomfortable. I wondered, as he couldn’t read, if maybe he was unable to count, either. ‘I dunno.’ He held a thumb and forefinger a tiny distance
apart.

Gypsy seemed to be doing a small sum in her head. She scribbled something, then tapped the page.

Probably only sixteen pages
.

‘What makes you think that?’ I asked. Her accurate guess unnerved me.

Gypsy wrote impatiently.
It’s to do with how books are made. My father worked with someone who repaired books. A bookbinder. Sometimes I’d talk to her and she’d tell me
about her work. That’s how I know. But it’s just a guess
.

‘Gypsy?’ Piper’s voice was low. He was half hidden in the shadow of the doorway. ‘I’m . . . sorry, all right? If I’d known you were looking for
that story, I’d never have given it away.’

Gypsy stared at him, her expression unreadable. Perhaps, like me, she was wondering if he was genuinely sorry, or just trying to make things easier on himself.

‘You didn’t give it away,’ I said huffily. ‘You sold it! And don’t ever tell me how much you were paid, because it’ll never, ever be enough!’

Piper shrank back further into the shadows as if they could shield him, but it just made me angrier.

‘Anyway, why are you saying sorry to Gypsy?
I
was the one you stole from. Me! That notebook belongs to my sister, who’s missing. And that story is more important than you
can possibly know!’ I broke off as Gypsy took my hand. It was trembling with anger.

‘I can make it up to you.’ Piper’s voice was low, unexpected. There was no trace of arrogance now. If anything, he sounded a little afraid.

‘How?’ I muttered. ‘Not that you can make things much worse.’

Piper slid down the door and rested on his haunches. ‘I think Gypsy was right. There weren’t that many pages missing when I took it. But before . . . before I handed
it over . . . I pulled out another section.’

‘
What?
’

Gypsy sat bolt upright. She began writing frantically.

You’d better not be lying
.

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I swear.’

‘Where is it?’ I asked. ‘Show us.’

‘I ain’t got it on me. I knew she’d be suspicious if some of it was missing and ask me to turn out my stuff, so I stashed it.’

Where?
Gypsy scrawled.

He swallowed. ‘Somewhere close. It’s safe.’

‘Why did you take it?’ I asked.

‘Dunno. I hadn’t meant to. I only thought of it when I saw part of the book was already missing. I thought if some pages were gone it wouldn’t hurt to take a few more.’
He stopped, clearly reluctant to finish.

‘Go on,’ I pressed.

‘I could tell how bad she wanted it,’ he continued. ‘It made me wonder who else might want it, too.’ His hair flopped over his eyes, but he left it there. ‘I
figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep some of it as a sort of . . . leverage.’

Gypsy looked as if someone had dangled a dead rat under her nose.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Piper said, his mouth set in a sulky, vicious line. ‘I know what you think of me. But at least I told you. I could’ve kept quiet.’

Gypsy clambered to her feet.

‘Where are you going?’ Piper asked.

Take us to wherever you stashed the pages
, she wrote.
I want to see them
.

‘Now?’

Why wait?

‘Perhaps we
should
wait,’ I said quickly, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. If the pages Piper had taken mentioned Gypsy, or him, it could be disastrous. I also had
another reason for wanting to delay it. ‘We still don’t know anything about Dolly. She was watching me before. What if she’s watching us now?’

Piper’s dark eyes darted about. ‘He’s right. We should wait till tomorrow; it’d be easier for us to be followed and not realise it tonight when it’s dark. We could
be leading her straight to it.’

Gypsy huffed out an impatient breath, then nodded reluctantly.

‘So now what?’ Piper asked.

‘I need to get home,’ I said. ‘There’s not much else we can do tonight.’

Except wait for Alice to be Summoned
, I thought, but kept this to myself in case Gypsy asked to listen in. But, as it turned out, Gypsy had another request.

Perhaps there are other clues in Alice’s work somewhere
, she wrote.
Even if it’s not the story itself, there could be notes, pictures, or something. I should come with
you
.

‘What about me?’ Piper enquired. ‘Take it I can go now?’

He was rewarded with a withering look from Gypsy.

You’re coming with us
, she wrote.

‘
Him?
At my house?’ I said doubtfully.

He’s more slippery than a slug in a bowl of jelly. And until we have those missing pages I don’t want him out of my sight
.

‘All right.’ I shot him a warning look. ‘But if anything goes missing, even a crumb, I’ll know who to blame.’

We got up and moved through the town. Only a few people remained now and most of the streets were empty. Litter was strewn across the cobbles and we followed it like a trail until we reached the
corner of Cuckoo Lane. I stared past the shop, now closed, to our house a short way down. It would be empty now, apart from Twitch . . . and Tabitha, if she was still where I’d
left her asleep earlier. No Alice, no Mum and no Dad. I thought back to this morning when I’d seen Gypsy for the first time.