The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden (3 page)

No. Deadnettle could not allow himself to think like this. He refused,
refused
, to die in this horrid, iron-banded
city. And that was the only reason Deadnettle clung to a last scrap of hope—for to abandon it would mean certain defeat, and he might as well close his eyes, concede surrender this very instant.

He pushed himself to his feet and looked around. He had very good vision in the dark. The others lay in varying states of rest, slumbering or something close enough to it that it made hardly any difference. That was good, for two reasons: They weren't paying much attention to him, and they were resting up for the evening. Mordecai's grand celebration.

It was supposed to be Deadnettle's grand celebration, not Mordecai's. But Thistle had failed at the first attempt, the practice.

Mordecai knew the significance of the date. And, Deadnettle supposed, it was a special occasion for himself and the others, too. Thirteen years exactly since they had been brought here.

But things had been so different then. Wintercress had been alive. Deadnettle had been strong.

Marigold was sleeping. Good. He had needed her for the graveyard errand, but this, this he would do alone. The first flower-seed of doubt, of mystery, had been planted in the boy's mind, but it wouldn't grow without nourishment.

Despite what he had said to Marigold, Deadnettle's
plan, if it could be termed such, was as faint and illusory as their chances of returning home. He had not lied to her—he could not do that—but nor did he have a clear path forward. He would watch the boy, yes, but as much to figure out which steps to take as to decide if it was worth taking them for Thomas.

Daylight was a risk. For that matter, so was leaving the cellar, but Samphire was upstairs with Mordecai and whatever group of furred, diamond-crusted society ladies he'd gathered today. And Deadnettle had no intention of using the front door.

Wrapped in his hooded cloak, Deadnettle strode through the streets of London. The trick was to move quickly, give no one a chance to look for too long, to wonder. Above all, it was imperative he not shy from the iron, or scream if he got too close. Behind the patched, scratchy cloth covering his face, Deadnettle gritted long, pointed teeth. He did not listen to the hum of chatter that filled the city. Unlike Marigold, he was not curious. While she still appeared so human, she could come and go among them almost as she liked. And what she liked were the humans' vast lending libraries and bookshops. More than once, Deadnettle had been forced to find her, or send one of the other fledglings if he was too weak himself.

Thistle used to accompany her. He wondered whether
she would venture out alone now, in what he hoped was the short time they had left here.

He slipped past the window of the tiny hovel just as a shadow might, and listened. He had very good hearing, any hour of the day. He didn't have to be anywhere near this close by, but it was . . . soothing . . . to be in the presence of the last of Wintercress's blood, even if Thomas didn't know it.

The bricks at his back were filthy and worn, but Deadnettle didn't give that overmuch thought as he sat down to wait. There were worse places, and the hard, scrabbling lives of the poor humans who dwelled for miles around meant there was little expensive iron to be found. Little, but enough. What there was settled into Deadnettle as a deep, feverish ache, and there was simply the occasional additional sting as someone walked past three streets away with a poker or a pipe.

Silas Marsden's footsteps came from the west, heavy and mean. Deadnettle roused himself and listened, as much to get a sense of the boy as for the information Deadnettle might glean about Thomas's next movements. He did not seem a . . .
bad
child, difficult as it was for Deadnettle to think of humans any other way.

The boy was not precisely human, Deadnettle reminded himself. But he was closer to that than anything else. From
what Deadnettle had seen, Thomas did not have the faeries' sensitivity to iron, nor their enhanced senses. He had suspected there was someone in the graveyard with them the previous night, but had he possessed Deadnettle's abilities, there would have been no doubt.

Doubt. Deadnettle was consumed by it. If the boy had no faery skills whatsoever, it was possible he would be able to do nothing for them. It was
likely
he would be able to do nothing for them. If Thomas could not take Thistle's place in the ritual, or if some other way to use him couldn't be found, Thomas would indeed be as useless as a human. He had been raised by them and did not know he could be anything but. Likely, he didn't even know there was another possibility.

He would. Soon. If he was clever enough. And if he wasn't, well, nothing would ever matter again.

The sound of Silas Marsden's boots arrived before the scent or sight of him did, and Deadnettle had plenty of time to press himself into the shadows of sunset before Silas neared the house. He listened to the man enter, to the conversation that began and the questions Thomas asked of his parents. Or at least, the people he had believed to be his parents until this moment.

The true story . . . Deadnettle hoped to tell him that in good time. He was being told part of it now, not by
Deadnettle himself but by Silas and Lucy: the tale of the night they found him in the graveyard.

Deadnettle listened, but not with much interest. He knew all of this already.

“So you don't know where I came from, or who would've left my brother for me to find.”

Deadnettle's ears pricked. It didn't take much cleverness to guess that Thistle had been put there for a reason, but it was a positive sign.
He was not your brother, child,
he wanted to say, but this wasn't the moment. If he must, he would do exactly what he'd told Marigold he couldn't—stop the boy in the street and tell him everything. But it wouldn't come to that. Inside the hovel, paper was rustling. Not cheap pulp, but good, thick card, with gold leaf around the edges.

“They left me these,” said Thomas. “Must've done it for a reason.”

“A séance?” Silas Marsden scoffed. “What, you supposed to go natter to the ghost of your poor brother, ask who put 'im in that hole?”

Deadnettle couldn't see Thomas's face, and he could not read minds. He hazarded, however, that Thomas was giving this idea due consideration. Well, this was the first test. Would the boy do as Deadnettle had instructed in the note, and not speak to anyone?

It was
essential
that he stay silent and hidden as possible. If Mordecai glimpsed him, there was no telling what might happen next.

But then, if Thomas couldn't follow a simple instruction, it didn't much matter.

“P'raps,” said Thomas.

He hadn't told Silas and Lucy what the note said, beyond the name. This was a positive sign too. A secret kept.

“I don't see the 'arm in it,” said a quiet voice. “It can be a birthday treat. This is very odd, I'll grant that, but Thomas is right. These must've been put in with . . . must've been put there for a reason.”

“Feh. It isn't possible, I tell you. Suit yourselves. Go if you must, but dead is dead, and they don't speak. Anyone tells you different, they're a liar and a cheat.”

Deadnettle nearly laughed as he stood to leave. Nearly. Foolish humans.

CHAPTER THREE

The Curtains Part

T
HEY SAID YOU WAS ALIVE?
In a grave, but alive?”

“More
on
one, they said. And I'm here now, aren't I?” Thomas asked.

“Urgh. That's disgustin', that is.”

Thomas wasn't so sure. The idea didn't bother him quite as much as perhaps it should have, or as much as it bothered Charley, but then, Charley hadn't grown up helping Silas from the time he could first hold a shovel. Charley hadn't really grown up anywhere much. He was just always around, sleeping in whatever corners he could find and scrounging food from any folks with some to spare. He was about Thomas's age, in as much as that was possible to guess beneath several layers of thick grime.

Thomas had found him sailing a toy boat, pieced together from scraps of wood, in the river shallows. Charley'd seen Thomas first, waving him over to ask if Thomas had any coin to spare. Never one for many words, Charley, but he'd ask that any chance he got. Thomas didn't, but coins . . . coins were on his mind, right enough. Had been since Silas and Lucy watched Thomas leave, with only a halfhearted attempt to stop him running from the house, his share of pie untouched.

He scowled down at the rippling surface. Perhaps they knew they couldn't boss him about anymore, seeing as they weren't his real parents.

“So they've got no clue where you came from?” Charley asked, flicking his boat away from the edge before it mired itself in the mud.

“Not a one. Silas just picked me up and took me home.” As if Thomas had merely been another treasure surrendered from a graveyard, the very same one where they'd been digging the night before. “After a while, they named me Thomas. Said a boy needed a name, and that was that. 'Cept . . .”

“What?”

“Little while after, they had a visitor, they said.” Silas hadn't wanted to tell Thomas this part; that much'd been clear as water. “Strange chap in a fine cloak who stood in
the doorway and told 'em to take care of me. Gave 'em a whole sackful of silver coins and left again.”

“Bet Silas spent those quick as blinking,” said Charley. Thomas nodded. Silas claimed he'd gone after the man, but Thomas could only imagine how divided his attention must have been, between a purse full of money and a mysterious man who might ask for it back given half the chance.

But, again, it made no sense. The bloke had been rich, clearly, and thus there was no reason why Thomas need have grown up in two small rooms, thieving from the dead so there'd be supper on the table.

“Funny business,” said Charley. The boat was stuck in a sodden clump of leaves and twigs, but he paid it no attention, deep in thought. “I reckon you should go find 'em. Your family, I mean. What I'd do, if I knew where to start, if only to tell 'em to go eat an onion for chucking me out. Maybe they had no choice. You never know. And if they's rich now, maybe they'll take you back in.” Charley laughed. “And if they do, tell 'em to take me, too!”

“Right.” Thomas tried to smile. He didn't have much more of an idea about where to start looking than Charley did.

But he knew one thing.

“You on a job tonight?”

Charley shook his head. “Been too few of 'em recently, to be honest. Could use a nice big haul. I'll retire like one of those fancy lords, with folks to bring me kippers and cakes on a silver tray.” He lay back on the muddy earth and flung out an arm to pluck an imaginary morsel from an equally imaginary serving dish. “That'd be the life, wouldn't it, Thomas?”

It would, indeed. “If it's fancy you want, we're off to one of them grand theaters tonight,” said Thomas. “Got the tickets as . . . as a present.” From someone who had left Thomas a strange note. From someone who wanted him to see the performance.

But not to stay or speak to anyone. Well, he'd see about that. He'd wear a cap, though, if it mattered that much.

“Got an extra,” he said to Charley. “Silas won't go.”

“Sounds like a jaunt. All right, then.”

He left Charley prodding at his boat with a stick again and headed for the graveyard, the tallest of the tombs and headstones poking the sky like needles up ahead.

The grave was still there. Less a grave than a patch of earth, it was true, with no marker, nowhere for mourners to kneel. A sad thought, that perhaps there was no one who
would
mourn. Perhaps this boy under a few inches of earth was the last of Thomas's own blood.

My name is Thistle
, said the note in Thomas's pocket.
“Your name is Thistle,” said Thomas aloud. It would have to do. There were no flowers laid down, and he didn't like to imagine what flowers might grow come summer. Young, bright things that rotted far too soon.

It seemed he couldn't stop from imagining.

Against all he had ever been taught, without shovel or spade and under the bright light of day, Thomas began to dig. The dirt stung his palms and made his fingernails so grubby he was surely in for a proper hiding from Mam—from Lucy—later, but deeper and deeper he went.

Skin, when he reached it, was colder now, the chill and the stain from the earth seeped into it. Clean enough, though, to see his own face again.

The spot on his cheek was nothing special. It wasn't in the shape of any one thing, or even very large. A tiny smudge always darker than the rest, as if Thomas never scrubbed that patch hard enough with the soap.

How odd, that this boy should have it too.

Thomas inspected Thistle's face. He really was
exactly
the same.

Overhead, the watery sun oozed down the sky toward the hills. It would frost tonight, Thomas could tell by the scent of the air. Likely the last one before summer's warmth arrived for good.

London was beautiful in frost. From this small hill,
Thomas felt as if he could see the whole city, its jumble of towns and trees and spires stitched together like an old blanket. Of course, he could only see a tiny corner, really, one frayed edge of the city spread so enormously around him.

Thomas knew well its graveyards and cemeteries, the places where folks went to be forgotten. He knew the way to the shadowy door where Silas traded the things they dug up for small coins and the way to the market where Lucy spent them. He knew the hidden crannies where food could be had for air and promises.

But beyond those, there was all of London, and beyond that, all of England and then some, of which Thomas knew nothing. Out there, somewhere—he had no inkling where beyond the first clue, the theater, but
somewhere
—were secrets. About him.

Charley was right. Thomas should find them.

“Oi! You there! What you up to?”

No voice like that ever promised good news. Without looking, Thomas scooped a few handfuls of earth and threw them to cover the face in the grave once more. Slow, limping, uneven footsteps followed as Thomas jumped up and ran across the graves to a gap in the fencing just big enough for a small, thin boy to wriggle through.

He was on the wrong side of the hill for home now, but no matter. It wasn't yet dark, and who gave a whit if night
fell so completely that he couldn't see his own hand in front of his face? The whole lot of them—Silas and Lucy and whoever dumped him in that grave when he was a baby, if the story was even true—could go eat an onion. That'd make 'em cry far more than if Thomas didn't go home.

The moment of rebellion was fleeting. He wanted to go back, so's he and Lucy and Charley could go to the theater, but there was a hint of possibility in the thought of running away. He didn't have to do as Lucy and Silas bade him anymore. He didn't have to stay with them one more day if he didn't wish to. As he ventured farther from the graveyard and into a warren of narrow, cobbled streets, he was beginning to get the first hints of courage.

Children younger'n him were forever being sent away, to work down mines and up chimneys, without anyone to hold their hands or wipe their sniffles, not that Silas would ever do such things. Lucy, perhaps, but not often.

Thomas jutted his chin. Not often enough for him to miss her, to miss either of them. He'd be ab-so-lutely fine on his own. He wanted to see where he came from. He'd have an adventure, and find his family.

Silas was always telling him to find his bones. Well, he would.

And he would start tonight.

•   •   •

Thomas scrubbed his face and, at Lucy's insistence, scrubbed it again. No amount of effort with soap and a rag was going to get Charley completely clean, however; Lucy soon gave up on him.

“Load of nonsense, I say,” said Silas from the corner, watching their preparations. “Fakes and fools, the lot of them.”

Lucy turned upon him a look that would have sliced a potato clean in two. “It's very popular, I hear.”

Silas scowled. “Wouldn't want to hear anything no dead folks had to say to me.”

That, Thomas could well believe. He didn't expect the dead had much nice to say to Silas—or to Thomas himself. For the first time, something dark and irritable fluttered in his belly. He didn't know what they would see or hear. He didn't know why someone wanted him to see and hear it.

But they did. It was a clue, and besides, Thomas had a lifetime of doing what he was told.

Up to a point. If he were to tell Lucy that he planned to sneak away tonight and demand answers from anyone he could find involved in the performance, she'd undoubtedly forbid it.

He kept his lips firmly closed as Lucy rubbed at his cheek with her rough thumb, wet with spittle. She put a cracked mirror into his hand, and he saw the face of the boy in the grave.
My name is Thistle.

Darkness hadn't quite fallen, but it had definitely stumbled over the horizon by the time Thomas, Charley, and Lucy closed the door on a muttering Silas and stepped out into the road.

“This is aces,” said Charley, leading the way north, up into the heart of the city. “Cheers, Thomas.”

Aces
remained to be seen. The nervous creature in Thomas's middle flipped over once more. Lucy patted his hand.

“I'm curious too,” she said. “I know as Silas never wanted to tell you, said you were ours soon as we started raising you, and that's true enough. But I tell a lie if I say I've never wondered who left you there for us, a peach for the plucking.”

Thomas swallowed. They were nearing the river now, that great, black, rippling ribbon of a thing. Boats bobbed gently on the water, stark against the sky. He had no blessed clue what he would do if finding his family was as simple as skipping into the theater and announcing himself.

And he had no inkling as to why his true family would be messing about with this business, but it was no accident that the boy—Thistle—had been left right where Thomas would find him. Whoever had done so wanted him to have the tickets in Mam's little cloth bag too, put there for safekeeping.

Every curve and groove of the cobbles pressed up
through the thin soles of Thomas's shoes as he skipped ahead to come in step with Charley, who was grinning. “Adventure!” he said. “You know, Tom, old boy, I've always figured there was more to this great wide world of ours than that as we see. Stands to reason, don't it?”

“Why d'you say that?” asked Thomas, but he had never felt alone in graveyards, and he wasn't thinking of Silas's company.

“Folks used to think fire was magic, didn't they? Then they thought clockwork was. Mebbe it is. I got my fingers on a fine old clock once, and I tell you, no matter how many times I took it to pieces and put it back together, I couldn't see what made it tick. Point is, just 'cause a thing's strange, that don't mean it's not real. Don't see why speaking to ghosts should be any different.”

That was . . . a very
Charley
way of seeing the whole business, but the dark thing in Thomas's belly lightened like a sunrise. This would be fun, and he would get answers—not all of them perhaps, but some. He would find out why Thistle had been left for him. Someone there tonight would know; he could feel it clear as he could feel the paper in his pocket when he put his hand there.
Speak
to no one.

Feh, as Silas'd say.

They were almost there. A queue of people snaked
along the wall of the grand theater, and it began to slither forward as the doors were flung open. The queue was made up of people like Thomas and Lucy and Charley, dressed in their best that wasn't good enough, not compared to the ladies and gents stepping out of carriages at the curb.
They
were clothed in silks and taffetas, and they swept past the rabble straight into the theater. Such people did not do something so common as wait.

Soon, it was time to climb the marble steps. How different it felt to loose, grime-slicked cobbles.

“Stay behind me and keep close, both of you,” Lucy instructed, fishing the tickets from her purse. Around her shoulder, Thomas saw a bearded man in a top hat greeting some of the fancier guests, one eye on a wooden box with a slot cut into the top. Lucy slipped the tickets inside and stepped out of the way to make room for the group behind them.