The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden (13 page)

Silence rang through the basement. Deadnettle opened his mouth and closed it again. There was no safe thing to tell him, or way to explain. He'd end every one of the
faeries himself before he told Mordecai of a spell that would split one faery into two, one of them more magical, more special than his brethren. Marigold trembled with panic, and Samphire placed her hands on Thomas's shoulders. They dropped away to her sides as he walked right up to Mordecai.

“I was,” he said, completely calm.

Deadnettle blinked.
Oh, good boy. Oh, you very clever boy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A Means of Escape

I
WAS,” SAID THOMAS AGAIN
when Mordecai didn't respond. “They brought me back. We can do that, you know, if the magic's just right. Marigold and I made a plan, ages ago, that we would, if something happened to the other. We can do it to anyone. Only if we're well rested, though. It takes quite a lot of energy.”

“Anyone?” Mordecai breathed.

“Anyone,” said Thomas firmly. The other faeries chimed agreement. Deadnettle nodded solemnly.

“I will be richer than I ever could have imagined. Think of it! Jensen and the others will never know what hit them now. I shall be famed the world over! Marvelous. Marvelous! I shall cancel the sessions for the week. Plans
must be made! You must rest. Fresh food will be left for you shortly. Prepare yourselves. And”—he pointed to Deadnettle—“please do not forget what happens if you anger me.”

With that, he fairly flew back up the stairs, slamming the door behind him. Footsteps thundered overhead.

“Goodness,” said Samphire.

“That was—” Marigold began.

“Exceptionally clever,” said Deadnettle, who dragged himself to standing and limped over to Thomas. “I may have been quite wrong about you. You have your own kind of magic.”

Thomas's eyes went to the painful burns covering the faery. “Touching iron isn't magic.”

“Perhaps not,” Deadnettle agreed, “but I am beginning to see that
different
may not be such a terrible thing.”

“I could've told you that from the start.”

Some of the faeries laughed, a sound that had its own magic, too, for Thomas knew how rare it must have been these past many years. Deadnettle properly introduced the faeries Marigold had once pointed out to him, and now it didn't seem quite so awful to know their names. Samphire, Teasel, Woodrush, Milkweed, Violet. Each one smiled at him. Violet was very small, half as high as Thomas, but she fixed him with such an intelligent look he stepped backward.

“Hello, Thomas. Goodness, you really do look just like Thistle. I never really believed the bit about changelings, but here we are,” said the one named Woodrush, or perhaps it was Milkweed.

“I can get you home,” Thomas told them. “I know I can. If he”—Thomas pointed up to the ceiling—“can open the gateway, I must be able to. Goodness, he's horrible, ain't he?”

There was no arguing with this, but, “There is the slight difficulty that we are now trapped here, Thomas,” said Deadnettle. “We are no longer allowed to leave, which Mordecai allowed for us to dispose of our dead because he does not like to touch us if he can help it. I imagine it makes us too real, if he were to do so, and he might be forced to think of what he does to us.”

“You're trapped. I'm not,” said Thomas, smiling. They could not touch the iron that now apparently barred the windows and doors, but he could. “Though 'e'll be keeping a closer eye, to be sure.” Thomas inched through the gloom to one of the slimy brick walls. “You blew silver to dust. Can't you do the same to these?”

“To nothing made by human hands,” said Marigold.

That made sense, inasmuch as anything about all of this did. “Right, then. I've another idea, but best if I wait here a bit.”

He was given the cleanest mattress on which to sit, and the candle moved close by so's he could see in the dim. Marigold sat to his left, Deadnettle to his right. Fresh food had indeed been left for them at the top of the stairs. Thomas ate a few small bites to be polite, but left the rest for the others. “Tell me about the faery realm,” he said, and listened.

It was . . . not like hearing a story he'd heard before, as such, or listening to someone recount a memory, but Thomas found that he could picture Deadnettle's words easily. More easily than expected, for a land on which he'd never set eyes. He could see the hills and the valleys, the shimmering lakes and not a scrap of iron anywhere. The faeries lived in huts of stone and grass and spent their days gathering food, amusing themselves and one another with their magic, playing beneath the sunlight and the stars.

And now they were kept locked in cellars and cages. Thomas felt ill.

That was the other thing. “There,” said Deadnettle, “we do not sicken. If injured, we heal. This is why our bodies are strong enough to live for centuries; they are never weakened.”

“Will it make you better, if you can get back?”

Deadnettle paused, then shook his head. “I do not know. I suspect the damage is already too great, but I
would be thankful enough for the pain to leave me. The others will heal.”

Thomas listened more, as if to Lucy telling him a story at bedtime, as Deadnettle spoke of how the faery realm came to be. The old faery's voice was weakening, and he grimaced each time he moved, but he did not stop. Once, the faery realm and the human realm had been one and the same place, layered one on top of the other, as Thomas had just the day previous thought of London. Humans had come, and they and the faeries had lived together in peace.

For a while.

But they had brought iron with them, forged it into blades and tools. Smoke from their fires and steam from their smiths choked the faeries, and their hills were flattened by shovels. And when it was discovered that the faeries could speak with the dead, they were seen as evil.

“So our queen—not Wintercress, then, but one before her, and from whom you are descended—performed an extraordinary feat of magic and sent our land away from this world. Her name was Hazel, and she left gateways, just in case they were ever needed. The trees that share her name, though not all of them. A few very special ones. And her magic was such that she made it possible only for those of the royal line to open and close them.”

“And I am the last,” said Thomas.

“You are.”

“Then how did Mordecai do it?”

“I have long wondered. I can only guess that Hazel was more knowledgeable about faery magic than about human skill. Humans have long tried to move between the worlds. We are kept here for that very reason. Mordecai would have no Society if it weren't for that desire, and Mordecai somehow gained the knowledge he needed. That is all I know.”

Thomas's eyes felt heavy, and his mind, too, full of thoughts. He curled on the mattress as sleep stole over him, thick and dark. Dreams shifted like the wind he could not move, full of voices. One voice. But though he strained and strained his ears, he could not hear its words.

He startled awake. The candle flame shone yet, much lower than before. By its light, he saw the other faeries, asleep, some with their eyes open. It must be late enough now that he could safely leave.

His foot was on the first step, his set of lock picks taken from his satchel and held tight in his hand. They'd served him well, opened countless graveyard gates. Marigold touched his shoulder. “What are you going to do?” she asked. Thomas squinted and saw Deadnettle watching them, listening too.

“I've spent my years so far as a grave robber,” Thomas
said, a grin forming. “Reckon digging is the same anywhere. Wait for me.”

•   •   •

The windows of the little house glowed from the hearth fire within. Thomas raised his hand, ready to knock, but that was daft. It'd been his home for years, hadn't it? He turned the knob and heard a gasp louder than the crackle of the flames. An instant later, Lucy had squashed him to her, and for a moment, just a moment, everything that had happened since Thomas had left felt like a dream. A dream full of voices.

“My boy,” she said, squeezing him even tighter before letting him go. Silas sat at the table, lacing up his big boots. Charley dropped his fork. In the corner, Thomas's pile of blankets waited just as he'd left it, ready for him to come back. It had been quite a long time since he'd last slept, and they had never looked so inviting. But there would be time to sleep later.

“I need help,” said Thomas, looking right at Silas. He felt Lucy's eyes on him. “Please and thank you,” he added.

“Aye, do ye now?” said Silas. “With what, may I ask?”

“Digging,” Thomas answered, and again he smiled. When it came right down to it, digging was much more useful than turning a rose into a mushroom, though he'd take the silver pebbles bit if it came to him. “I'm sorry
for running off, truly I am, only I had to find out. And I have, and they need help.” The whole way here, Thomas'd wrestled with how much to tell them, but Silas was going to see the truth for himself soon enough, leastways if he agreed, and he'd tell Lucy. Charley knew already. Thomas told them the story, every bit of it, and did his best to ignore the gawping.

“This better not be a load of cobblers, boy,” Silas said, fetching his shovel.

“Who could imagine such a thing?” whispered Lucy. “Those poor creatures. Whatever will you do with 'em once you've dug 'em out?”

Ah. That plan was, well, not scuppered as such, but not fully formed yet in Thomas's mind. “I'll think of something,” he said. “Mordecai's going to go right around the twist when he figures I've lied to him. We don't have much time.”

They'd never had much time, not since the whole business began. The worlds were drifting apart, and Deadnettle was dying, and Thomas didn't know what to do. But he remembered Deadnettle watching him with new eyes, calling him the king of the faeries. He was. He would save them, somehow.

Laden with shovels, Thomas led Silas, and Charley, too, across the river. As Charley had rightfully pointed out,
three pairs of hands were better than two, and this was going to be backbreaking stuff. Not even digging into a grave in the dead of winter was as bad as this'd be.

But he'd done that a hundred times over. Surely that added up, neat as the sums Lucy used to set.

The sign for the Shoreditch Spiritual Society gleamed dully. Thomas scowled at the ring of iron around it, though it didn't hurt him. Silas whistled under his breath at the poshness of the place. “Cor,” whispered Charley.

“Need to make sure this one's empty first,” Thomas said, pointing at the house beside, separated from the Society by a narrow alley. “Deadnettle thinks so.” And it looked it, crumbling and dark, the paint on the window sashes flaked to nothing.

Charley withdrew a set of slim metal picks from a pocket. “Simple as Simon.” The door creaked open on hinges in sore need of oil. Dust billowed up from the rugs under their boots.

It was a grand place, however, despite the neglect. Cobwebs wove over marble, and beetles had chewed their way through finest oak. “Shameful, this is,” Silas grumbled. “A palace like this rotting empty while some folks as has to do with much less. Shameful.”

That might well be true, but it was convenient. Thomas hardly fancied digging from the next road over. “We must
find the stairs to the cellar,” he said. His voice echoed through the empty rooms.

Once they did, Thomas near wished they hadn't. The cellar reeked of rotten potatoes and mold, the stench making his eyes water. He'd have liked to pinch his nose, but no digging would get done if he did. He supposed he'd smelled much worse, deep in the graves, though he wasn't usually buried in them himself. The walls closed around. A match flared, and a lamp sputtered to life.

Walls. Thomas turned, pointed to the one they needed. Hoisting his shovel with its iron blade, he struck hard at the brick. Rescuing the faeries with iron. Now, there was a thing.

Silas and Charley took up their places beside him; the noise was suddenly immense. He hoped it wouldn't wake Mordecai, next door and somewhere high above the cellar. If it did, well, he had Silas and Charley with him, and they could do things faeries couldn't. Things with heavy iron-bladed shovels. “I'm sorry,” Thomas said through the din, sure the faeries would hear him.

“Still not sure I believe any of it,” Silas said between blows with his shovel. Bricks fell away around their feet. “All sounds like nonsense from a story, if you ask me.”

Thomas bit his lip and tried hard not to shout as his shovel fell on his toe. It
did
sound like a tale, something from a book. He would think of that later. His muscles
ached and the calluses on his palms, allowed to rest for a few days, burned again. “There's silver at the end of it, I promise you,” he said to Silas and Charley. “That's what matters, ain't it?” He'd always thought that's what mattered to Silas.

Silas paused, panting, a sheen of sweat over his reddened brow. “You think I like our business, boy? Let me tell you, sometimes you do as you must for there to be stew and coal, and you try not to think of it too much.” Silas struck again, and a wall of earth cascaded down.

Coughing, blackened, they cleared the rubble into the middle of the cellar. Dirt was easier going, huge scoops of it flying through the air. It muffled the smell, at least. Charley whistled a tune, jaunty and too bright for this dark place, until Thomas's shovel hit brick once more with a loud
thunk
.