Chapter 1
Malachy Fitzgerald leaned on his walking stick and stared at Lizzie Brown in disbelief.
‘You mean to say you’ve never heard of King Arthur?’
‘I’ve heard of Queen Victoria,’ Lizzie said with a shrug. ‘She’s the one we’ve got, and that’ll do for me.’
The two children were halfway up the path that threaded up the side of the spectacular mountain called Arthur’s Seat. Overlooking the city of Edinburgh, it humped against the skyline like a sleeping dragon.
Lizzie looked down the way they’d come. She could still make out the red and white shape that was the show tent of Fitzy’s Travelling Circus, standing out among the green of Holyrood Park. The caravans, including her own, were huddled in a cosy group behind it, as if to keep the chill October winds at bay. Her nose tingled from the sharp, cold air.
It had been a long journey to reach the Scottish city, and after spending hours jolting along in the back of a caravan, the circus folk wanted nothing more than to shoot off and explore the new site. But the work of setting up always came first.
Fitzy, the owner and ringmaster, had a kind heart but wouldn’t tolerate slackers. ‘A circus is like a pyramid of elephants,’ he had told Lizzie once. ‘We all stand on one another’s shoulders. It only takes one person to slack off, and next thing you know, it’s raining elephants.’
So the pegs had been hammered, the boxes unpacked, the animals corralled and the huge tent poles hauled into place, until the circus stood proud and ready. After that, the men were free to go and explore the pubs, while the women headed to the shops and the children did whatever they liked, so long as they stayed out of trouble.
Lizzie, the circus fortune-teller, and Malachy, the owner’s son, were remarkably bad at staying out of trouble. When Fitzy demanded to know where they were off to, Malachy had told him: ‘We’re going to climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat, Pop.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Best view of the city from up there.’
Fitzy had raised an eyebrow. ‘All right. But make sure you’re back here by three – I don’t want to have to send out a search party because you two were off hunting the wild haggis or some such foolery.’
As they climbed up the mountain, it dawned on Lizzie that Malachy had another reason for wanting to reach the peak. The boy had a club foot, and though he used a walking stick sometimes, he refused to let his disability slow him down. He sometimes set himself physical challenges and forced himself to achieve them. Like this hike.
Halfway up, Lizzie had asked who Arthur was.
Malachy shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never heard of him. He was the legendary King of Britain, back in the olden days. Had a round table all the knights used to sit around … Don’t yawn, Liz, it’s rude.’
‘Don’t sound like my sort of story, to be honest.’
‘No? There’s a witch in it. Bit like you!’
Lizzie laughed and shoved him playfully. ‘Tell me about her, then.’
‘Ooh, she was evil. Morgan le Fay, her name was. She tried to bring down the kingdom with her wicked schemes. She managed it, in the end, sort of. That’s why there’s only ruins now.’
‘What sort of a name is Morgan Le Fay? Sounds French.’
‘You’re not wrong!’ Malachy sounded impressed. ‘It means Morgan the Fairy. I bet you thought fairies were just pretty little things, didn’t you? Well, they aren’t all like that. There’s all sorts – dark ones as well as light. Ask Ma Sullivan … why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Because you’re totally off your head, sunshine,’ Lizzie scoffed, shaking her head. ‘Bloomin’ fairies. There’s no such ruddy thing!’
‘It’s only a story. You don’t have to blow your top over it.’ Malachy strode past her without looking back.
She could tell he was struggling, but she knew better than to offer to help him. Now she felt bad for hurting his feelings. ‘Sorry, mate. It’s just … there weren’t no time for fairy stories back in Rat’s Castle where I grew up.’
Rat’s Castle was a sprawling London slum of narrow, filthy streets. Some families lived ten to a room, with nothing but a bucket for a bathroom if you were lucky, and no food except for what you could beg or steal. Lizzie thought any fairy that set foot there would shrivel up and die – if fairies had even been real, which of course they weren’t.
Even when her mother had been alive, she had never told Lizzie fairy stories. Lizzie wondered why. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to fill her daughter’s head with the sweet lie of everything ending happily ever after. She had sung, though – old folk songs and street ballads. Those, Lizzie would always remember.
Her father’s only stories had been about the drunken fights he’d got into. If he’d won, there would be boasts about how the man he’d beaten up was twice his size, but he’d flattened him with a single punch. If he’d lost, he’d spit out a bitter story about the other man’s cheating or the treachery of his friends.
‘I don’t need fairy tales,’ she told Malachy happily. ‘Real life’s magical enough for me, since I joined up with you lot.’
Fitzy’s Circus had blown into Lizzie’s life like a glittering tornado, whisking her up and out of the misery of the slums. Now she made her living as the circus’s fortune-teller in residence, among larger-than-life characters more strange and wonderful than she could ever have dreamed.
In a way, she herself had become stranger and more wonderful than any of them. Because Lizzie had a power she didn’t fully understand. All through her life she had glimpsed the future in her dreams, but it was only when she joined the circus that she learned how to use her clairvoyance to the full.
She was no sideshow fake, but a genuine psychic: the only one in the country, for all she knew. Just by touching someone’s palm, she could see into their past and future. She could also speak to the spirits of the dead. Sometimes, visions would strike her without warning, as if some higher power was pointing her towards a wrong that needed to be set right.
She and Malachy walked on. He chatted about King Arthur’s legend, while Lizzie admired the view. The mountain was bare, with only a few bushes and patches of scrub, but the sight of the wide open space still thrilled her – she was out of Rat’s Castle’s stinking streets for good.
‘Come on, Lizzie,’ Malachy said, wincing. ‘We’re nearly there.’ He strode on ahead of her.
‘It’s not a bloomin’ race!’ she shouted.
The mountain’s summit was a pitted crown of exposed rock. Malachy went to stand by the edge, shaking his walking stick in triumph, and for a second Lizzie thought he looked like a chieftain from the olden days, brandishing his spear at the city below.
She joined him and sat down on the rough rocks. The view really was as magnificent as they’d been told. Edinburgh was spread out far below them like a map brought to life. Lizzie imagined flying through the clouds like a witch, looking down on the beautiful labyrinth of streets and houses. There was the castle with its battlements and towers, brooding above the rooftops, somehow majestic and haunted at the same time.
‘I’m glad we came here,’ she said softly. ‘I never dreamed I’d travel to a different country.’
‘Scotland is beautiful,’ Malachy agreed.
Lizzie let her gaze rove over the cityscape, following it round – and then she saw some factories in the distance by the harbour. Like an ugly scab on a child’s face, they blighted the whole city. Tall brickwork chimneys stained with soot spewed out black smoke into the sky.
‘I don’t like them buildings, though,’ she said with a shudder. ‘They’re like monsters. Devils, even. Chewing up everything around them, and belching out poison.’
Malachy laughed out loud. ‘Listen to you! You sound like one of those reformists, handing out tracts in the street. “Improve working conditions! People before profits!”’
‘But they’re horrible! Look at them.’
Malachy stood and hooked his thumbs through his braces. ‘That’s progress, Liz. It doesn’t always look pretty, but it’s the future.’
Lizzie turned away. ‘It ain’t a future I want any part of.’
‘Don’t be soft,’ Malachy said with scorn. ‘Industry’s a good thing. It’s what makes this country strong. Rule Britannia and all that.’
‘It stinks if you ask me,’ said Lizzie, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
The two of them dragged themselves back to the circus camp, arriving worn-out and breathless with three minutes left to go. While Malachy went to help Fitzy prepare for opening night, Lizzie slipped into the show tent to watch the performers rehearse.
A little thrill of satisfaction went through her as she saw she hadn’t missed the Astonishing Boissets. They were trapeze artists and high wire walkers – and young Dru Boisset, at fourteen, was a rising star of the show.
Lizzie watched him walk from one end of the wire to the other with his sister Collette poised on his shoulders. ‘Smile!’ yelled their father, Pierre. ‘I do not care ’ow much it ’urts. Always smile for the crowd.’
Dru smiled and waved to the empty seats. His eye caught Lizzie’s, and his smile broadened, becoming real. Lizzie blushed and waved back, her thoughts suddenly in a muddle. Dru seemed to have a lot more muscles than he used to…
Without warning, Collette’s smile faltered and became a grimace of pain. Dru seemed to sense something was wrong and hurried to the end of the rope. His sister climbed down the ladder, clutching her back and moving stiffly as a broken doll.
Better give them some privacy, Lizzie thought as the Boissets huddled together to talk. Something’s wrong, by the look of it.
She went and found her friend Hari in the animal enclosure. Her eyes widened as she saw a furry little creature hopping about in front of Hari. ‘Wait, is that a monkey?’
Hari flipped a raisin into the air. The monkey flung itself up, caught the raisin and began to nibble it. ‘Lizzie, meet Hanu,’ Hari said. ‘He’s the newest member of our circus menagerie.’
‘Hanu?’
‘Short for Hanuman – he’s one of our Hindu gods. The monkey god.’
Lizzie knelt down for a better look. ‘Can I touch him?’
‘Of course you can. He’s tame.’
Very gently Lizzie reached out and stroked the soft fur on the monkey’s head. Hanu glanced up at her with beady black eyes. ‘He looks like a little wise old man,’ she said, enthralled. Then she jerked back in surprise as Hanu skittered closer. She locked eyes with Hari and kept very still.
The monkey tugged at the fabric of her skirt, then lifted himself up and settled in a warm heap in her lap. He blinked at Lizzie as if to say, ‘I can sit wherever I like’.
‘I love him,’ Lizzie said. ‘Wherever did you find a monkey up in Scotland?’
‘He was a present from the Maharaja Gurinder Bhatti. To say thank you for the show we put on, and … for the other stuff.’
Lizzie knew exactly what ‘the other stuff’ was. The Maharaja had summoned the circus to Whitby, in the north of England, to put on a show for the locals at his expense. But unbeknownst to him, someone close to him had been plotting to steal his prized ruby, the Heart of Durga. It had all been connected to the appearance of a mysterious ghost ship in Whitby Harbour.
The monkey bared his teeth and made a chittering noise. ‘He wants to be fed,’ Hari explained. ‘He always wants food. Greedy little beggar. Here, you feed him.’
He passed Lizzie a date, and she held it gingerly and watched Hanu reach up to take it. They monkey bit, chewed, glanced around as if fearful some other animal would snatch his date away, and then bit again.
‘Look at his little fingers,’ Lizzie breathed. ‘They’re just like a person’s.’ Watching the monkey eat, she realized that she was starving too. She lifted Hanu out of her lap and set him on Hari’s shoulder. ‘You’d best stay here, little fella. If Ma Sullivan catches you in her tea tent, she’ll scream blue murder.’
Ducking into the tea tent, Lizzie saw that her friends Erin and Nora, the Amazing Sullivan Twins, were having their dinner too. Their mother was outside, fetching more wood for the cooking stove.
‘Did you make it all the way to the top of Arthur’s Seat?’ Erin asked. ‘Did Malachy?’
‘Course we did,’ said Lizzie with her mouth full. ‘You can see all the way over the city. Come next time!’
‘We can’t,’ Erin said, kicking the folding table leg. ‘Ma won’t let us.’
‘“Climbing up a mountain? Are yeh mad? What if you twist an ankle, eh?”’ said Nora, imitating their mother’s Irish brogue.
‘“What about your practice? We’re not here for a holiday!”’ Erin joined in.
‘“When you break both your legs, don’t come running to me!”’ the twin bareback riders finished together, and burst out laughing.
‘My ears are burning,’ Ma Sullivan said darkly, as she came back into the tea tent. Erin and Nora instantly clammed up. But their eyes still twinkled with silent laughter.
Ma Sullivan had a saucer in her hand, and as Lizzie watched, she added little pieces of food to it. Then she turned to leave.
‘Have we got another new animal?’ Lizzie frowned. ‘I haven’t seen a cat around.’
‘It’s for the Good Folk,’ Ma Sullivan said.
Lizzie looked blank.
‘She means the fairies,’ Nora explained.
Lizzie laughed, not sure if Nora was joking. ‘Not you lot as well as Malachy! Am I the only person in the circus who doesn’t believe in fairies?’
‘Hush, now,’ Ma Sullivan said sternly. ‘There’s more fairies in Scotland than anywhere else in these lands. If you look with your heart, and not just your eyes, you might be lucky enough to see one.’
Nora and Erin nodded. ‘You’d best be careful, Liz,’ Erin said. ‘You’ve got to treat them right, the fairies. If you don’t, they’re liable to take it personal.’
‘And that,’ Nora said with a serious look, ‘always means trouble.’
To find out what happens next, read