Museum of Thieves (8 page)

Without waiting for an answer, he led the way through another couple of rooms to a closed door with ‘staff only’ written on it in faded letters. He took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and ushered Goldie through it.

Behind the door there was a mattress and a pile of quilts. ‘You’ll be safe here in the back rooms,’ said the old man. ‘This door’s always locked. Guardians won’t catch you here.’

Goldie wasn’t at all sure that a locked door would be enough to keep Guardian Hope out. But she was too tired to argue. With a sigh she sank down onto the mattress. Then she crawled under the thinnest quilt and fell instantly asleep.

.

uardian Hope did not know why the Fugleman wanted them to search this ugly little building. ‘Tell them you’re looking for the missing girl,’ he had said when he called them to his office earlier that morning. ‘But keep your eyes open for anything suspicious. Anything out of place, or strange.’

No offence to His Honour, but the only out-of-place thing that Hope was interested in was the runaway girl, and
she
was probably holed up somewhere in the Old Quarter of the city, near where she lived. Which meant that one of Hope’s colleagues would have the pleasure of catching her when it should have been Hope herself.

But when Sinew confessed that the museum didn’t have a Resident Guardian, a worm of curiosity uncoiled inside Hope. She didn’t let her interest show on her face. She was too cunning for that, oh my word yes. Instead, she kept questioning Sinew about the girl, as if that was the true reason for their being here and not just a pretence.

And now she was on a mission from His Honour! She could hardly wait to carry out his instructions. She stalked through the drab rooms, peering into every corner, poking behind the broken display cases, looking for things that were
out of place
, or
strange
.

At the same time, she allowed a corner of her mind to slip into her favourite daydream, the one where she was part of the Fugleman’s inner circle, where she had power and importance and influence. If she did this job properly, that dream might well come true . . .

‘Haven’t we been through this room already?’ said Comfort.

‘What?’ said Hope, jolted out of her fantasy.

‘Look at that cupboard with the smashed doors. We were here just a few minutes ago.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Hope, glad of the excuse to needle him. ‘We haven’t retraced our steps, have we, colleague? We haven’t turned aside at any point? We haven’t been
spirited away
by
demons
?’

She laughed briefly at her own wit, then settled back into seriousness. ‘I think you’ll find I have an excellent
sense of direction. Keep your mind on the job.’

Comfort’s face closed in a barely concealed sulk, and he strode through the nearest doorway without waiting to see if Hope was following.

Twenty minutes later, Hope found herself standing in front of the broken cupboard once again.

‘There,’ said Comfort smugly. ‘I told you so.’

‘Self-righteousness,’ said Hope, ‘is a sin. I’d hate to have to report you, colleague.’

‘I wasn’t being self-righteous, colleague,’ smirked Comfort. ‘I was merely pointing out that we’re going in circles. That’s a fact, is it not? It’s clear enough to me.’

‘What’s clear to
me
, colleague, is that you have brought us astray. It
was
you who led the way out of this room, was it not? You must’ve taken a wrong turn. Perhaps you weren’t concentrating.’

Comfort’s sallow face reddened. ‘I’d like to see you do better, colleague.’

‘And so you shall, colleague. So you shall.’

Hope fully intended to take them back to the office. Despite what she had said to Comfort, she found the rooms confusing. If she could get hold of a floor plan, it would help them to be more efficient in their search.

She didn’t realise straight away that they were lost. She led the way through room after room, retracing the way they had come. But somehow, instead of reaching the office, they ended up back at the broken cupboard.

Hope snorted in surprise and annoyance. She set off again, back through the gloomy rooms with Comfort hurrying along behind her. Around the glass cases. Through this doorway. Through that doorway. Turn right here. Turn left there . . .

And there was the broken cupboard again! Hope glared at it, suspecting that it was mocking her in some way.

Comfort cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps it’s time to summon help—’

‘Ridiculous,’ said Hope. ‘Ridiculous!’ And she set off once more. Back through the gloomy rooms. Around the glass cases. Through this doorway. Through that doorway. Turn right here. Turn left there . . .

In the end, she let Comfort shout for help. She wouldn’t normally have given up like that, but they were wasting time, and so she was not displeased to see Sinew hurrying towards them.

‘These rooms!’ he cried out as he approached. ‘They all look the same! Don’t feel bad, Guardians. Even the keepers get lost almost daily. Sometimes I think we should paint little tracklets on the floors, all in different colours, and then we could follow them to wherever we were going. But what if we got lost while we painted the tracklets, and
they
went around in circles? Ha ha ha!’

The man was even more of a fool than Comfort, but at least he managed to get them back to the office. Hope commandeered the chair behind the desk and, with Comfort at her shoulder, began to ask questions.

At first she tried to make them sound casual. How old was the museum? Who started it? Where did the exhibits come from?

But Sinew’s answers were so vague that she quickly lost patience with him and began to snap out questions one after the other, as if she was conducting an examination.

Exactly
how many
rooms were there? What was in them? How many of them were locked? Who had the keys? Where did
this
door lead to? Where did
that
door lead to? How many employees did the museum have? How long had they been here? Where did they sleep? Where did they eat?

At last, irritated beyond measure by Sinew’s useless answers, she said, ‘I wish to inspect your records.’

‘Our what?’ said Sinew.

‘In the last couple of hours,’ said Hope, ‘I’ve seen broken glass. I’ve seen loose rocks that any passer-by could pick up and throw. I’ve seen chairs that would collapse under the first person who sat on them. This building is a death-trap, and there may well be an unSeparated child loose on the premises. If I’m to find her, I’ll need your records. Your pay sheets. Your floor plans.’

Sinew nodded uncertainly. ‘Will the records for the last five years be enough?’

‘That’ll do for a start. Go and fetch them. Quickly now.’

Sinew wandered out of the office, looking as if he had already forgotten what he was about. Comfort leaned down and murmured in Hope’s ear. ‘Under the desk.’

Hope slid her chair out a little way and peered beneath the desk. And there, tucked into a corner, so grubby that it was almost (but not quite) beyond recognition, was a scrap of white silk Separation ribbon.

‘Ah!’ said Hope. And she pressed her lips together so that Comfort wouldn’t see how pleased she was.

.

hy are they asking all those questions? What do they want? Here, wake up, I’m talking to you! What do they
want
?’

Goldie yawned and mumbled, ‘Go away, Jube! What are you doing in my bedroom, anyway?’

She stretched, expecting to feel the tug of the guardchain. It didn’t come. Her eyes flew open . . .

Kneeling beside her was a boy. His face was dirty. His black hair stood up in spikes. And on his shoulder – so close that Goldie could see its wrinkled eyelid, could smell the musty stink of its feathers – sat the slaughterbird!

She tried to scramble off the other side of the mattress, but the boy grabbed her arm. ‘Why do your Guardians want to see our records?’

‘Let
go
of me!’

The boy shrugged and let go. ‘Suit yourself,’ he said. But the slaughterbird on his shoulder blinked its wicked eyes at Goldie as if she had no
right
to suit herself. No right at all.

Goldie stumbled to her feet. ‘Well?’ said the boy. ‘Why are they so interested in our records?’

‘Reco-o-o-ords,’ croaked the slaughterbird. Its great beak was only inches from the boy’s face, but he hardly seemed to notice.

Goldie tried to gather her scattered wits together. ‘I-I don’t know!’

The boy shook his head in disgust. ‘They’ve never taken any notice of us before. But they’re here now and it’s all your fault.’

When she heard those words, the last scraps of sleep fell away, and Goldie remembered what she had done . . .

For a moment, she couldn’t move with the awfulness of it. Ma and Pa were to be tried and sent to the House of Repentance. And it was all her fault.

She swallowed. ‘I’ll have to go back,’ she whispered, feeling sick at the thought.

‘Back where?’ said the boy.

‘Whe-e-e-e-e-ere,’ croaked the slaughterbird.

‘To— To the Guardians. I— I’ll tell them that it was just me.’ Goldie bit her lip. ‘They should imprison
me
and let Ma and Pa go.’

She tried the door that led to the museum’s front rooms, but it was locked. ‘Have you got a key?’

‘Maybe,’ said the boy. ‘Maybe not.’ And he turned and walked off.

Goldie ran after him, keeping well away from the slaughterbird. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to give myself up.’

‘Oh, that’ll
really
help,’ said the boy sarcastically.

Goldie flushed. ‘You can’t keep me here, not against my will.’

‘No one’s keeping you anywhere,’ said the boy.

‘Yes, you are. The door’s locked!’

‘Can’t you get past a little thing like a locked door?’ The boy snorted. ‘I don’t know why Sinew thinks you’re going to be so useful.’

Goldie stopped dead. She had almost forgotten that she wasn’t here by chance, that she had been led here.
Driven
here. ‘Useful?’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing,’ said the boy over his shoulder.

‘Why did Sinew bring me here? Why did he hide me? What does he want?’

‘No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-thi-i-i-i-i-ing,’ mocked the slaughterbird.

‘I
am
going back,’ Goldie called after them.

The boy heaved a loud sigh, and turned around. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You can do what you like, for all I care. If you love your precious Guardians so much, go and throw yourself on their mercy—’

‘I
don’t
love them! I hate them!’

‘—but it won’t do your parents any good.’ His voice was bitter now. ‘They’ll still be sent to the House of Repentance. And it’ll only make things worse for them, knowing that you’re in Care.’

‘Ca-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-are.’

Goldie didn’t want to believe him. But deep in her heart she knew that he was right. Once the Blessed Guardians got their hands on someone, they did not let go.

Oh, Pa! Oh, Ma! I’m so sorry!

She could have wept then, out of fear and guilt and fury, but the boy and the bird were watching her. So she said, as calmly as she could, ‘Well then, I— I— I’ll go to Spoke.’

‘A lot of good that’ll do,’ said the boy, turning away again. ‘At least if you stay here you might be able to help.’ He sniffed. ‘Though I doubt it.’

‘Help?’ said Goldie. ‘You mean help Ma and Pa? How?’

The only answer was a derisive croak from the slaughterbird, and before long the boy and the bird were out of sight, hidden by rows of cabinets and display cases.

Goldie tried the door again, though she knew it would not open. She felt as if she was teetering on the blade of a knife. On one side of the blade lay Spoke, and Ma’s relatives, and safety, if she could reach it. On the other side was the museum with its unanswered questions and its dangers (a
slaughterbird
!) – and the possibility that she might be able to help . . .

When she caught up with the boy, he didn’t seem at all pleased to see her. The bird on his shoulder looked bigger and blacker and more terrifying than ever.

‘Um . . . what’s its name?’ said Goldie.

‘She,’
said the boy. ‘Morg is a
she
, not an
it
.’

‘Mo-o-o-o-o-o-o-org.’ The slaughterbird ruffled its feathers and glared at Goldie.

She took a step backwards. ‘Does it— Does she bite?’

The boy’s mouth twisted in an unpleasant smile. ‘Yes. She likes eyes especially. If you were lying on the ground with a broken leg, she’d wait until you were too weak to fight her off, then she’d peck your eyes out one by one. Plop. Plop.’

He’s trying to scare me,
thought Goldie.
He doesn’t know that I’m scared half to death already.

‘That sort of thing doesn’t happen,’ she said. ‘Not nowadays. Not here.’

The boy shook his head as if he couldn’t believe how stupid she was. ‘You think you’re still in Jewel,’ he said, ‘but you’re not. You’re in the museum now – and
anything
can happen.’

The back rooms of the museum were very different from the front. The ceilings were high, and the walls were lined with huge gilt-framed paintings of soldiers with long side-whiskers, and fat-faced queens in old-fashioned dresses.

One of the paintings seemed to stand out from the others. ‘Who’s that?’ said Goldie, pointing at a young girl in brightly polished armour with a sword and longbow in her hands. On a banner above the girl’s head, a black wolf snarled.

‘Some old princess,’ said the boy.

‘She’s not old.’

The boy rolled his eyes. ‘I meant olden days. She was some sort of warrior, hundreds of years ago.’

Goldie looked closer. The painting was cracked with age, but the girl seemed to stare proudly back at her. ‘Princess Frisia?’

‘Who’s she?’

‘You know, the children’s story. The warrior princess of Merne.’

‘How should I know?’ The boy shrugged and kept walking.

Goldie hurried to keep up with him. ‘Where are we going?’ she said.

‘None of your business.’

‘How am I supposed to help?’

‘None of your business.’

‘What’s your name?’ She looked more closely at him. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere before, haven’t I? Didn’t you used to live in the Old Quarter? Near Gunboat Canal? What are you doing here?’

‘None of your business.’

The display cases that they passed held suits of armour and skeletons and whips with knotted lashes. Between them were piles of whaling pots and boneshaker bicycles and old wooden carts. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. Spider webs hung from the rafters.

Goldie had never imagined that such a place could exist within the boundaries of Jewel. She thought of her parents’ warnings and shivered.
Poisonous insects . . . dust . . . purple fever . . .

‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing at something made of iron, with cruel, spiky jaws.

‘Mantrap,’ said the boy, and he grinned at the look on her face.

Above Goldie’s head a whale skeleton groaned as if it was dreaming of the sea. The hair of a stuffed water rat stirred. Something flapped leathery wings. With each movement, with each sound, her skin prickled.

But at the same time the blood surged through her veins and she had never felt so alive.
I’ve been asleep!
she thought.
I’ve been asleep all my life and now I’m waking up!

The rooms seemed to go on and on. Goldie knew that the museum couldn’t possibly be this big, but still it stretched in front of her. The doorways that they passed through were as wide as boulevards. The glass cases formed a never-ending line.

And then they went through a doorway, and it was as if they had stepped out into the very middle of a road. Except that the ceiling was still there, high above them. And there were no roads like this in Jewel.

Directly in front of them was a vacant block. It was covered in thornberry bushes and deep shadows. In the middle of the block was an enormous tree, and cradled in the branches of the tree was a little wooden house, with a rickety ladder leading up to it.

Goldie had never seen anything quite so interesting. She took a step towards the tree – and stopped. Right at her feet, so close that Ma and Pa would have had heartstroke if they had seen it, was a ditch.

A huge ditch, more than twice her height, with water in the bottom.

Dirty water.

Filthy water.

Disease-ridden, child-drowning water . . .

And suddenly everything that had happened to Goldie in the last day and a half caught up with her. Her excitement drained away and all that was left was fear. She stood staring at the ditch with her mouth open and her head awash with warnings.

‘What’s the matter?’ said the boy, who was already scrambling down one side of the ditch and up the other. ‘Are you scared?’

‘Um . . . no.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘I’m not!’

‘I knew you’d be useless,’ the boy said. And, without a backward glance, he disappeared into the shadows of the vacant block, with Morg on his shoulder.

Goldie didn’t know what to do. At first she thought she’d wait there until he came back. Then she heard a faint creaking noise, as if someone was tiptoeing towards her, and she decided that it would be better to go and find Sinew or Herro Dan.

But the thought of walking all by herself through the dim rooms, with the creaking sound trailing along behind her, made her feel sick. So in the end she stayed where she was.