Rose (12 page)

Rose rubbed her hands over her eyes wearily. He was right.

“You'll have to break in,” Freddie said. His voice was matter-of-fact, but when she looked up in amazement, Rose caught an excited gleam in his eyes.

Gus gave a stately nod. “He's right.”

“Are you both mad?” Rose asked. “You want me to burgle the orphanage…”

“I shouldn't think it would be very difficult,” Freddie said thoughtfully. “Aren't they mostly trying to stop people getting
out
?”

“Bars work both ways,” Rose muttered. But he was right. She knew ways they could get in. If they wanted to.

Although she hated the idea—what on earth would happen if they were caught? She would be sacked for sure and probably sent back to the orphanage and locked up there till she was fourteen. Then they'd send her down a mine or something—Rose couldn't help but agree. It was the only way.

“Drat that Sparrow woman,” Gus said, as they crept along the corridors. “If it weren't for her, we could ask the master, but when I spoke to him this morning, he didn't listen to a word I said. And he did no work this afternoon. Not a scrap of magic. He just stared out the window, smiling,” he added sadly.

Rose frowned, remembering her first meeting with Mr. Fountain, those glinting, all-seeing blue eyes. She couldn't imagine him gazing foolishly out a window.

“Tomorrow, as soon as Susan is asleep, then,” Freddie warned Rose, as they parted by the servants' stairs.

She nodded and climbed wearily back up to her room. The work of the house wasn't harder than the orphanage, after all, but she was getting considerably less sleep.

***

Rose woke to find Susan shaking her roughly.

“Come on, you lazy little brat, wake up! We've the fires to do. Will you get out of bed?!”

While she was washing, Rose decided that as soon as she'd sorted out Maisie, she would get Freddie and Gus to help her turn Susan into something horrible. Just because she didn't want to tell everyone she could do magic, it didn't mean she couldn't make use of it. Occasionally.

Mrs. Jones was reading the newspaper with her morning tea when Rose arrived back from lighting the fires. “Poor little mite,” she was muttering. “That poor woman. She must be beside herself.”

“What is it, Mrs. Jones?” Rose asked curiously. She knew the cook liked nothing better than to gossip over the news in the mornings. Mrs. Jones was particularly fond of the more gory murders, and in the stifling warmth of the basement kitchen, with the gas lamps reflecting off the copper pans, the accounts did resemble some far-off fairy tale.

Mrs. Jones peered around the newspaper. “Another child gone, dear. Another! Don't you go lingering out on the streets when you go on an errand, Rose. It's not safe. Police! Bunch of spineless rabbits. Hah! I don't know what the world's coming to, I really don't.”

Rose slipped around to read over her shoulder.

MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE IN KENSINGTON

YOUNG GIRL MISSING

“They're only bothering now because it's rich kids,” Bill muttered, pouring half a jar of honey onto his porridge. “Four, they say! More like twenty-four.”

“What are you talking about?” Rose asked. Missing children. More and more of them. Not just Maisie. It all had to be connected, she was sure. There was a cold feeling in her stomach, as though she were staring into that black mirror again.

“Street children. They went first. But no one cares, do they? Tidies the place up a bit if there's no one sleeping in the shop doorways. The police only took notice when it was the little darlings from around here that started disappearing.” Bill stabbed his porridge angrily, and Mrs. Jones rustled her paper.

“Nonsense! Stop frightening Rose. There can't be that many. The police would know.”

But Rose thought she looked rattled—as though she'd like to believe what she was saying but didn't quite.

Rose borrowed the paper later that morning when she spotted it lying on the table, but it hardly said anything more—just a heartbreaking description of the lost child's parents, who were offering a large reward for her safe return.

Was it connected to Maisie's disappearance too? It couldn't just be coincidence. She'd laughed to herself when Mrs. Jones gave her that funny little bag of herbs, but she should have taken it more seriously. All those children. What could someone want with all those children? Rose shuddered. Freddie was right. They had to get into the orphanage tonight, no waiting, whatever it took. There must be clues there, somewhere, and it might not be just Maisie who needed rescuing.

That is, if they were still alive to be rescued.

***

“You're kidding me…” Rose whispered angrily.

“No, I'm not! What did you think we were going to do, wander along to the front door and pull back all the bolts in the middle of the night? Perhaps wave to the constable as we stroll down the front steps?” Freddie stood by the open window with his arms folded and his black eyes snapping with impatience. “Even doing this, we've got to leave Gus behind to talk to the alarm spells for us.”

“Could you please hurry up!” the white cat hissed at them. “This window
really
wants to shut!” He was sitting on the occasional table, next to another pretty Ming vase. Distractedly, Rose hoped he was being careful. His ears were laid almost flat to his head, and he was staring grimly at the window.

Rose leaned over the windowsill and looked down into the dark alley that ran along the side of the house.

“But why this window? Why not one of the ground-floor ones?” she wailed.

“Because this one has the wisteria to climb down,” Freddie pointed out, in the over-patient tone of someone talking to the very dim. “And Gus can't do the downstairs windows. They've got more spells on them.”

“I'm not going to be able to do this one for much longer! Will you stop fussing and get on!” Was it Rose's imagination, or were the white cat's whiskers starting to fizzle at the ends?

“It's all right for you, you're not wearing a skirt,” Rose moaned, as she looked at the wisteria, laden with purple flowers. It was very
thin
…

“It's stronger than it looks,” Freddie said helpfully. “I think…” Then he giggled.

“Why are you enjoying this so much? You've got to climb down it too. We could break our necks!” Rose glared at him.

“It's an adventure, isn't it?” Freddie said happily. “It's like something Jack Jones, Hero of the Seven Seas, would do. He'd be down that wisteria like a shot!”

Rose shook her head sadly. “He's
drawn
that way, Freddie,” she muttered. “He probably bleeds ink.”

“Well, if you fall, you'll probably bounce,” Freddie said. “Magic, remember? I fell down the stairs a week or so ago and I floated. It was fantastic.” He stuck his head out of the window. “Maybe we should just jump! Oh, come on, Rose.” He shook his head at her in a lordly fashion. “It's only like climbing a tree!”

“I've never climbed a tree! And anyway, I should think you start from the bottom, not the top, which is what's worrying me.” Rose looked down at the dark ground and shuddered.

“Go! Now!” Gustavus gasped. “It's starting to close. If you don't go right now, you won't go at all!”

Freddie and Rose drew their heads in anxiously and looked up. Gus was right. The sash window was starting to slide slowly but inexorably down.

“I'll go first, then I can catch you if you fall,” Freddie said gallantly.

“You most certainly won't!” Rose stuck one leg over the windowsill. She had been well trained at St. Bridget's and she was allowing no one the chance to peep up her skirt. “Oh my goodness,” she murmured, as the wisteria wobbled under her. A waft of sweet scent billowed around as she shook the flowers.

“Hurry!” Freddie was hanging out of the window. “It's shutting faster now, I'm going to have to come after you!”

Rose felt the wisteria stems shake as Freddie climbed out onto them.
Don't fall off the wall, don't fall off the wall
, she begged it, as she clung on tighter, feeling with her foot for the next sturdy branch. In her haste to be on the ground before Freddie's extra weight made the whole thing collapse, one foot slipped, and she slid downward, grabbing frantically at the branches.
Help!

“Rose, are you all right?” Freddie hissed.

“I think so,” Rose gasped back. Miraculously she seemed to have kept her hold, and she was only a few inches from the ground now. “But I'm not sure I can move. It's—um—it's holding on to me.”

“What is?” Freddie was almost level with her now. He was obviously a practiced climber, and he landed on the paving slabs with a gentle thump and a smug grin which made Rose want to smack him.

She held out her wrist. “Look.”

“Oh…” Freddie's grin faded. “Er, did you ask it to do that?”

Rose looked at the leafy, bright-green stems that were wrapped around her arm. “I might have done,” she agreed cautiously. “I did think
Help!
when I was slipping.”

“Mmmm. And it did. Maybe you should tell it you're all right and it can let go?” Freddie suggested.

Rose stared pleadingly at the wisteria. “Um, thank you…” she whispered.

“Do you have any other amazing magical abilities you'd like to tell me about now, before we go any further? You know, just in case we need to tame a sea serpent or something, so I don't go risking life and limb unnecessarily?”

Rose shook her head. “I don't know,” she said, as the wisteria stems gently released her. “Oh! The statue in the square moved when I looked at it, or at least I thought it did…”

Freddie sniffed. “It does that for everyone. That's my grandfather; he was horrible when he was alive, and he hasn't changed. Come on.”

Rose trotted after him down the alleyway. “Do you mean that actually
is
him? I thought it was a statue!”

“Him with a stone coating.” Freddie pulled a tiny lantern out of his pocket and blew it alight. “He thought being buried would be boring. He was that sort of person. He once fed me a marble and told me it was a special kind of gobstopper. I nearly choked to death.”

They peered out into the square. It was very dark. The idea of an almost-alive statue watching them from the garden was most off-putting, Rose thought.

“I wish we could run,” she murmured. “I hate this creeping along.”

“We mustn't. If anyone saw us they'd think we'd done something wrong, and we haven't. Yet.” Freddie lifted his lantern to peer at a street sign. “If anyone stops us, your mother's ill, and I've come to fetch you home, all right?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” It was odd to think about having a mother, even if it were only an imaginary one. Rose found herself wondering what was the matter with her, and hoping it wasn't anything very serious. “Around this next corner, we're nearly there.”

The orphanage was tightly barred and shuttered, but all the orphans knew there was a way into Miss Lockwood's garden. Some of the girls still had brothers and sisters outside, who weren't allowed to visit. A few of the local children had loosened some of the bricks and now it was possible to climb the wall into the garden, especially if you had someone to help you up.

Freddie boosted Rose to the top of the wall, and she hauled him up after her.

“Just mind the rose bush as you drop down,” she warned him. “It's prickly. And I was named after it.”

Freddie gave her a look that Rose suspected was meaningful. “They aren't connected!” she whispered crossly, as she padded across the tiny square of grass to the window.

“Is it locked?” he called quietly after her, trying to extricate himself from the rose thorns.

“Only latched, I think.” Rose pulled out a butter knife from the pocket of her thick hooded cloak. She had borrowed it from the kitchen, and she had a horrible feeling it was silver—certainly Bill had been polishing it. If she was caught with it outside the house, she would probably be hanged. But it had been all she was able to find. She levered it in between the window and the frame, and pushed the catch up. The window jolted open, and Freddie hurried to shove her in.

“Lucky you're so skinny,” he muttered. “I can't fit in there. Do you see anything useful?”

Rose looked around, rubbing her bruised side. A few more weeks of living at the Fountain house, and she might not have been able to fit in either. She could see why burglars started young.

Miss Lockwood kept all the children's records in a big old chest full of narrow drawers. She obviously had some sort of system, but Rose wasn't sure quite what it was, so she just had to ferret through all the drawers.

“Haven't you found anything yet?” Freddie hissed from the window. He was obviously getting twitchy.

“No…” Rose was at the bottom drawer now—it had to be this one. “Oh, look, this is my record!” Rose's fingers shook a little as she unfolded the form, but it didn't tell her anything new.
Female
child
found
abandoned
in
St. John's churchyard. Aged about one year. Medically sound. Clothing destroyed due to infestation. Christened Rose
. Well. That was it. Except that Miss Lockwood had added last Monday's date and
Placed
in
service
, alongside the address of the Fountain house.

Rose stuffed it back anyhow, blinking suddenly sore eyes.
Clothing
destroyed
due
to
infestation
. Her clothes hadn't even been good enough for an orphanage.

Behind her records was another set, with the name crossed out and rewritten, and behind those were several more like it.

“I've found Maisie's papers!” Rose whispered excitedly to Freddie. “Alberta James, she's down as now.” She flicked anxiously through the other papers.

“Freddie, look. It isn't just Maisie. There are others too—Lily and Ellen and Sarah-Jane…I think Miss Lockwood just puts all the records she's looked at recently together. Four girls all gone from the orphanage in the same week? That's—that's just stupid. No one would ever believe that…”

“Unless they've been glamoured,” Freddie argued.

“But all the other girls would know,” Rose pointed out. “They can't have bewitched everybody, can they?”