Angel Arias (12 page)

‘Jarrold?’ His father sounded huskier but still stern.

‘I was hungry, Father.’

‘You know you’re not to come out of your room after prayers.’

‘Pardon, Father.’

‘Close your door and don’t leave until morning. Where is your mother?’

‘In the kitchen mending Emilia’s tunic.’

‘Goodnight, Jarrold.’

Their father’s tone was so commanding that Naif felt, for a moment, like she was back in the compound with Father.

Jarrold backed through the doorway, his body continuing to shield any view of the room. As soon as he shut the door, he bundled Naif back into the coal hutch, clicking the door shut on her before she could say a word.

Almost simultaneously, she heard his bedroom door swing open again.

‘Father?’ said the boy in a calm, surprised tone.

‘What are you up to, Jarrold?’

‘N-nothing, Father. I told you I was hungry. And the hounds are keeping me awake. What’s happening outside?’

‘Miscreants, no doubt. Boys who don’t obey their parents. Get into bed.’ This time his father’s voice made Naif tremble. There was so much power in it. And threat.

‘I was just getting a book to read, Father.’

‘Not tonight. You’ve disobeyed the rules.’

The cracks of light that seeped into her tiny hiding place abruptly vanished, leaving her in the pitch black.

She waited, unsure what to do.

After long moments, the bedroom door opened then closed. Jarrold’s father was checking again.

This time an eternity passed before the hutch door opened. Jarrold peered in, his face barely visible in the darkness.

‘He suspects something. I’d better stay in bed. I’ll have to leave the hutch door shut in case he checks on me,’ he whispered. ‘Here’s another rug.’

He passed it to her.

‘Thank you,’ Naif whispered. ‘Jarrold, what does your father do in Emilia’s room?’

Jarrold’s made a soft, strangled sound as if he was trying to speak but it wouldn’t come out. Then he shut the door without answering and left her alone.

E
xhausted from her walk across the city, Naif slept despite the hutch being cramped and stuffy. Her dreams were disturbed; Markes lying in a coffin, and conversations with dead Toola. But worst was her nightmare about Emilia; a creature with strong, oily fingers reaching from under the girl’s bed and grasping her throat the way the Night Creature had taken Krista-belle. Naif woke from that one with a start, her chest heaving and tears on her face.

Krista-belle. I’m sorry.

She uncurled a little and rolled over. The space was not quite big enough for her to straighten out so she sat up keeping her head bent, and stretched her cramping legs. The darkness seemed a little less, suggesting morning was close.

Even though some of her energy had returned, her head was thick, as though she was about to become ill. Wriggling into a more comfortable position, she lay down again and thought about the last few days.

It had been a terrible risk to come back to Grave and yet her compulsion to do so, to find the truth, remained unshakeable. But Markes was now in the hands of the wardens and it was her fault. She’d wanted him – urged him – to come with her.

What would they do to him? What would he tell them?

She must find a way to free him. But what if they’d already administered an obedience strip to him? He hadn’t practised with pain like she had. He wouldn’t be able to withstand it. And there was only one day left before Ruzalia returned,

A noise in the room made her stiffen and then she heard Emilia’s voice.

Cracking open the door to the hutch she peered out.

Emilia was holding a candle and tugging at Jarrold, who lay rolled in a ball under a sheet, snoring.

‘Emilia?’ she called softly.

The girl put her finger to her mouth and continued to shake Jarrold awake.

He took a few moments to rouse from his deep sleep. ‘Wha–’

‘Sssh. The meeting is late today in a place called Oracion. That’s all I could find out.’

‘Where’s that?’ asked Jarrold, rubbing his face.

‘I don’t know but the wardens will search for Naif again soon – at dawn. You’d best take her now.’

Jarrold sat up and rubbed his face, then he looked at his sister.

‘Is Markes in the Holding House?’ asked Naif.

She nodded. ‘The wardens will hurt him to find out what you are doing here. I have to go. Father’ll be waking soon.’

Naif noticed the dark rings under her eyes and the tense set of her mouth.

‘Thank you, Emilia,’ she said.

‘I’ll look for you at the markets.’

Jarrold climbed out of bed and wrapped his sister in a bear hug. ‘Thanks, Em.’

She sagged against him a little, then pulled away and handed him a key. ‘Go through the workshop.’

Jarold took it from her and nodded.

As she slipped out of the room, he scrubbed his face again and went across to his drawers to pull out some clothes. While he changed, Naif kept her back turned, collecting the blankets and pillow from the coal hutch and returning them to his bed.

‘My friend Gurney will know where Oracion is. He lives near the Holding House. We’ll go there first.’

‘No,’ said Naif. ‘Markes first.’ Even though there was little time to spare, she couldn’t bear to think of him alone with the wardens – or what they might have done to him.

He handed her a fleecy shirt to wear over her shift.

She put it on as he rummaged underneath his rack of clothes. From there he produced a pair of boots.

A surge of gratitude flooded through her. Jarrold was a kind boy, fired by the idea of adventure. Again he reminded her of Joel.

Just as well
, she thought.
Or he may have shut the door in my face yesterday
.

She put the boots on and laced them tight, trying not to worry about her filthy feet. Jarrold opened up a small box that sat on top of his drawers and, with his back turned to Naif, took out several items, which he put in his pocket. He turned and gestured to the door. They crept downstairs as they had earlier, Naif keeping her steps in time with his.

They reached the front door without incident but as Jarrold put his hand on the latch, a loud knock rattled the whole frame. It was followed by a low whine.

Hound.

Jarrold froze but Naif reacted instantly, pulling his fingers away from the door before he could open it.

‘Wardens,’ she mouthed.

He snapped out of his trance and led her back down the corridor to the kitchen. On their way through, he scooped up some fruit and bread and stuffed them inside his coat. He stopped at the cold safe and opened it, grabbing out a slab of cheese.

Then he unlatched the back door and they were outside.

The tiny alley behind their house was more of a crack between buildings. The back wall of the Clockmaker’s loomed up immediately in front.

Naif began to walk towards one end but Jarrold pulled her back. ‘They could be waiting down the end. Best go through the shop.’

He produced the key from his pocket and busied himself at a large padlock that secured a door in the wall in front of them. It took some moments of jiggling before it opened. ‘Emilia and Markes used to meet in here.’

As he spoke, a light went on in a room at the top of the house. The curtain drew back and a figure stood framed in the window.

‘It’s Emilia,’ said Naif.

‘She won’t tell where we’re going,’ reassured Jarrold as the lock clicked open. ‘My sister never tells, no matter what she says.’

‘But what if your father . . . what if he makes her?’

‘Em knows how to keep things from him. She’s had to,’ said Jarrold. ‘Here. Best get inside, before they send someone around the back.’

They entered quickly.

Jarrold brought the lock and chain with him. While he secured it from the inside, Naif stopped and looked around. They were in a large storage area that appeared to lead into a smaller front building. From what she could see in the gloom, the workbenches harboured tool pouches and sheaves of thin wood. The air was tainted with the smell of wood oils.

‘Come on. Won’t take the hounds long to work out we came through here,’ said Jarrold.

She followed him into the shopfront where they had to slow to negotiate the narrow aisles between rows and rows of clocks. Though it was dark, many bore eerily glowing decorations, lending the room some light. The ones hanging on the walls had long-tailed birds painted on their square faces and cone-ended pendulums hanging below; the kind that Naif knew were in many Grave homes, even Seal homes. They had one themselves, though it was smaller and with only a single bird.

The mantelpiece clocks sitting on the shelves were much more ornate; gilded and carved so intricately that even now she wanted to stop and run her fingers over them to feel the little curves and dips. All of them made clunking noises as their mechanisms shifted, making it sound as though the room were alive.

As they reached the front door, it seemed that every clock in the shop began to chime. The noise made Naif clench her teeth. She wanted to run from it, and pushed against Jarrold’s back, hurrying him to unlatch the front door.

Outside, the night-lamps mixed oddly with the dawn light, casting a dull yellow glow into the growing pink of the sky.

‘That way,’ whispered Jarrold, pointing to what Naif thought was the west side of the prayer space. ‘Keep to the edges.’

He began to jog. Naif kept up with him at first but by the time they reached the opposite side of the square, she had a pain in her side and her feet hurt from slipping in his ill-fitting shoes.

‘Jarrold, have – to catch – my breath.’

He stopped and looked back across the square. The sky was definitely lightening. They could make out the signs on the nearby buildings, and the squat wooden seats that dotted the square.

‘Just for a moment.’

But as he spoke the hounds swarmed into the square from the Clockmaker’s shop and milled around the doorway, barking.

‘They’ve scented us!’

He grabbed Naif’s arm and hauled her down a street to the west. Though not much taller than her, his solid frame was built for power, and he half-carried her along.

They passed a mixture of homes and shops, but before long the buildings turned solely back to homes. Like Jarrold and Emilia’s house they were tall, narrow places with neat gardens and stone fences.

Naif ran until she thought she’d be sick from it. Her feet screamed in agony now, rubbed raw against the old, stiff leather.

But Jarrold wouldn’t let her stop until they reached a miserable-looking street where the cobblestones were broken apart and piled into mounds, making it near impassable. He urged her behind a barricade of logs and wooden barrels and then over a crumbling wall.

The house on the other side was mired in a build-up of thick mud, and mildew grew up the walls in grey swathes. In the pre-dawn light the garden was nothing more than rubble.

He ran up the steps to the front door and wrenched it open.

Naif limped after him. Once she was inside, he pushed the door shut and barricaded it with a broken chair that lay on its side nearby.

‘They’ll search to the west of Deope. They won’t think we’re in here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Naif, catching her breath.

‘If we go under Deope we’ll get to where Markes is by midsun.’

‘Do you think he’ll know where Oracion is?’

Jarrold shrugged. ‘P’raps.’

‘Let’s hurry then. How do we get down there?’

‘That’s the best part.’ He passed her an apple from inside his jacket and she tucked it in her coat. ‘Right here.’

He strode off down the corridor to the stairway. Before reaching it, he stopped short at the under-closet, a small, dark room of the kind that Naif’s mother kept their extra winter blankets and wet-boots in.

He slid the door across. Inside was inky dark.

‘There’s a hole in the floor here. We’ve got a rope attached so that you can slide down, to underneath the house. It’s a bit hairy,’ he said. ‘Just make sure you don’t let go of the rope until your feet touch the ground. There’re potholes all over the place. Some of them are really deep. Maybe down to the underground water table.’

‘Water?’

‘Well, it would be, I expect. The bridge was built for people of the old city to cross a river. That’s why we’ve got so many good wells in Grave. We’re sitting on top of it.’

Suddenly the floor beneath Naif didn’t feel so solid.

He noticed her hesitation. ‘You want me to go first? Might be better anyway. I can catch you as you come down. I’ve done this before.’

Naif nodded. ‘Please.’

‘Don’t expect to come out the other end clean.’ He gave her a grin.

She returned the smile and then frowned. ‘Jarrold, are you sure Emilia will be all right? What if they ask questions about where you are?’

He hunched his shoulders, his face taking on the same guarded look it did when Naif had last mentioned her name.

‘She’ll be fine. Father is an Elder; they will not harm her.’ He said it in such an angry, disgusted way that it didn’t reassure Naif at all. ‘Now, come on, in case they take it into their heads to be brave and follow us.’ He crouched down. ‘Make sure you slide the door shut after you come through. You can lock it from the inside. Just slot the peg into the loop. We made that,’ he finished proudly. ‘That way no one can follow us down.’

Then he was gone, slipping through the hole in the floor almost as nimbly as Liam had done into the storm drains.

Naif crawled into the space and felt around with her hands until she found the gap in the floor. She fumbled with the door, sliding it across and slipping the peg into the loop as Jarrold had told her to. It was odd to think that while she’d lived her whole secluded life as a Seal, Liam and Jarrold had each been exploring underground parts of the city.

‘Naif?’ Jarrold called up.

‘I’m coming now.’