Chapter 11

Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound of knocking shattered Lizzie’s sleep like a boot through her window.

She sat up groggily, her tousled hair spilling down her shoulders. The light coming in was dim, so Lizzie knew it must still be early morning.

‘What?’ she yelled.

‘It’s Malachy,’ came the answer. ‘You need to get up. Now.’

Lizzie groped her way out of bed and unbolted the top half of the door. Malachy stood on the step, his face grim.

‘What’s the emergency?’ she said, still foggy-headed from sleep. Memories of the day before circled like fish in muddy water. One of them flashed a fin: Amelia. ‘Have they found her?’

‘It’s not that. It’s Pop. He wants to see all of us that went on the fairy hunt. Big top, five minutes.’

Lizzie yawned. ‘What time is it?’

‘Time you were dressed.’ Malachy went running off in the direction of the Sullivans’ caravan.

Fitzy wasn’t happy – Lizzie could tell from the look on Malachy’s face and the way he sounded. More of the previous day’s events came back to her, and she looked longingly at her warm bed, but she quickly pulled on the clothes she’d left in a heap on the floor – they felt rough as sackcloth in the cold of early morning. A quick glance in the mirror told her she looked dreadful. She could fix that easily in ten minutes, but she only had three. A few swipes with the hairbrush would have to do.

She ran across dew-sodden grass to the silent show tent. Fitzy was waiting for them, with his back turned like a schoolmaster. Only when every one of the Penny Gaff Gang had arrived did he turn around.

‘I was a happy man yesterday, at first,’ he said softly. ‘For once, there was a magnificent article in the paper about us. Superb publicity.’

Lizzie sat trembling, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

‘Our friend Fergus was true to his word,’ Fitzy went on. ‘He kept his promise. Some other people made me a promise too. They promised to be home on time.’

He held up a colourful poster showing the twins and Dru doing their Highland Fling stunt. GALA SUNDAY PERFORMANCE, it proclaimed.

Slowly Fitzy tore the poster in half lengthways. The sound of ripping paper made Lizzie’s teeth clench. He crumpled the pieces into a ball and flung them over his shoulder. The pupils of his eyes were pinpoints of black fury. ‘We had record ticket sales after that article, and we had to cancel the show!’

Lizzie hadn’t even considered that possibility. The whole show called off? Her mouth fell open in surprise.

Fitzy noticed and rounded on her.

‘Erin and Nora, missing! Colette and Dru, missing! Hari, missing!’ With every ‘missing’ he smacked his fingers into his hand, making Lizzie flinch. ‘I had to cancel the show or I’d have been laughed out of town! But they weren’t just lined up around the street to see the show, oh no. Guess who the crowds had come to see.’

‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie stammered.

‘“There is but one genuine psychic in Edinburgh, and that is Lizzie Brown of Fitzy’s Circus,”’ Fitzy quoted mockingly. ‘Sound familiar?’

Lizzie felt like she was falling through the ground into a bottomless pit. ‘Oh Gawd.’

‘Dozens of ’em!’ shouted Fitzy. ‘With pockets full of cash! Everyone wanted a reading from the Magnificent Lizzie Brown – only Lizzie Brown was off hunting for fairies!’

‘Dad, let her get a word in!’ Malachy protested.

‘All right. But I’m not happy, Mal. With any of you.’

All the Penny Gaff Gang hung their heads. They all loved Fitzy and looked up to him, and Lizzie could tell they all felt as bad as she did that they’d disappointed him. It was down to her to say something.

‘We’re really sorry,’ she began. Everyone quickly agreed. Fitzy stuck out his chin, folded his arms and said nothing. An apology was the least he could expect, she knew.

‘We would have been back in time, honest we would,’ she said. ‘But Amelia went missing. Alexander MacDonald’s daughter, remember? She ran off and disappeared, and we all searched for hours and couldn’t find her, and then we had to talk to the police, and they kept us for ages, and by the time we got home we’d missed the show.’

‘So you came straight back?’

‘Well … no.’ Lizzie fidgeted. ‘We talked to Fergus first. He wants to help us find Amelia, Fitzy!’

‘Let’s get something clear, once and for all.’ Fitzy rapped his cane against one of the central tent poles. ‘Listen up, you lot. Yes, even you, Collette. I need to drum something into your thick skulls.’

They waited.

Fitzy threw his arms up towards the canvas roof over their heads, and bellowed, ‘This is your first responsibility. The circus. People here depend on you! You’re not just taking money out of my pocket if you miss a show – you’re betraying everyone. For some of you, that includes your own parents. Got that?’

‘Yes,’ they all mumbled.

‘I know you’re brave kids. You like to help people when you can, solving mysteries and what not. I’m proud of you for that, always will be. But there’s no need to go looking for trouble. Savvy?’

‘Circus comes first, Pop,’ said Malachy. ‘We won’t neglect our duties in future.’

‘We promise!’ Nora said. The Penny Gaff Gang all agreed loudly.

Lizzie followed them out of the tent, her heart aching. I meant well, she told herself. I was only trying to help Amelia. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?

But it did nothing to ease the bitter, hollow feeling inside her. For the first time since he’d taken her on, she’d let Fitzy down. Now things could never be the same between them.

The tea tent was usually a place where Lizzie could hide away from the world. Within its colourful canvas walls, Ma Sullivan ruled like a kindly queen, and woe betide any circus member who brought a quarrel in under her roof. The show tent might be Fitzy’s domain, but this was hers and everyone – Fitzy included – respected that.

This morning, however, Ma Sullivan found bad news waiting for her. Pa Sullivan was sitting at breakfast, reading the morning papers. The front page screamed: MACDONALD HEIRESS MISSING.

‘Fergus got his scoop, then,’ Malachy said.

‘Poor wee thing,’ Ma Sullivan sighed. As usual, she talked as she worked, helping the children to platefuls of porridge, fried bread, cooked tomatoes and eggs. ‘I could have told that uncle of hers: don’t go looking for trouble and trouble won’t come looking for you.’

That’s more or less what Fitzy told us, Lizzie thought. ‘They were looking for fairies,’ she said.

‘Aye, and fairies are trouble!’ Ma Sullivan muttered something under her breath, spat once on the floor and rummaged with something in her pocket. ‘A fairy hunt, indeed! Where’s the sense in that? They might as well have gone to play football with a wasp’s nest. Leave the Good Folk well alone.’

‘If fairies are so bad, why do you call them the Good Folk?’ Lizzie asked, curious.

‘To keep from offending them, my duck.’ Ma Sullivan added a dollop of jam to Lizzie’s porridge; it lay there like a ruby. That’s my reward for not mocking, Lizzie thought to herself.

‘They’re not bad. Well, there’s some that are bad through and through. You don’t want to be running foul of evil spirits like Black Annis or a kelpie. But stay on their good side and you’ve no need to fear them.’

‘Erin said fairies steal children,’ Lizzie said. ‘That doesn’t sound very nice.’

‘Oh, but the way the fairies see it, it’s a kindness!’ Ma Sullivan said. ‘Some poor little human child gets to go to Fairyland, where they’ll live for ever and be treated like a princess.’

Lizzie thought of Alexander MacDonald, desperate to find his niece. ‘Not kind for their families, though.’

‘The fairies leave behind a child of their own, in trade,’ Ma Sullivan told her knowingly. ‘I remember back home in Roscommon, there was a young couple who had a fairy mound in their back garden. Well, he was a fool of a man, and he went and dug into it in search of gold.’

‘But he didn’t find any,’ Erin joined in excitedly. ‘He just angered the fairies, so they took the couple’s baby and left a changeling in its place!’

‘A changeling?’ Lizzie worked her tongue around the strange word.

‘It may look like a human baby, but it’s from the faerie folk,’ said Ma Sullivan. ‘Changelings are always ill-tempered. They howl and cry all the time. And if you walk out of the room, so the changeling thinks it’s all alone, and if you listen carefully you can hear it laughing and talking to itself in a grown-up voice.’

Nora gave a horrified shudder. ‘Imagine that! A little baby talking with a nasty old man’s voice!’

Lizzie thought it sounded like a convenient explanation for children who wouldn’t settle. No doubt many a mother blamed ‘the fairies’ for her screaming child.

‘I see that look on your face, Lizzie Brown!’ Ma Sullivan scowled. ‘If you’d been in my kitchen yesterday, you could have seen fairies here in the flesh! This country is riddled with them.’

Nora and Erin gaped. ‘You saw them, Ma?’ they said together.

‘I was that close.’ She pinched her fingers together. ‘I’d laid out some biscuits to cool, and when I came back in, a whole stack of ’em were gone!’

‘Are you sure it wasn’t Sean?’ Lizzie asked with a smirk.

‘It wasn’t me!’ Sean said, sounding genuinely shocked – but then he always did when you accused him of anything, whether he’d done it or not.

Ma Sullivan folded her arms triumphantly. ‘And how could it be him, now, when the door was locked, and the only way in was through a wee tiny window?’

Lizzie finished the rest of her breakfast in a grumpy silence. Back in her caravan, she tidied herself up in preparation for a day of readings and her reflection looked back at her with sad eyes. Most days, Lizzie would whistle and sing as she brushed her hair, because she looked forward to her work. She pulled her weight at Fitzy’s, and she was proud of it. The money was good, but it was helping people that she really enjoyed.

But as she changed into her mystic robes this grey morning, there was only one person she wanted to help. The search for Amelia would be well underway by now. First light, the constable had said. Lizzie’s heart ached to be there with them, helping to search.

No point in asking Fitzy if she could join the search, though. She had a day of lost trade to make up for as it was. She made her way toward her little tent, and with a sinking heart saw the line of people already waiting.

‘There’s dozens of ’em,’ she groaned, ‘and we haven’t even opened yet!’

By the time Lizzie’s long, long shift was over, she was wishing she’d never let Fergus write his article. Calling her ‘Edinburgh’s only genuine psychic’ had been a heck of a recommendation. Client after client had begged for her advice, until she had had to add a new rule: only fifteen minutes per client! Even then, many of them overstayed their time and Malachy had to fetch Bungo to persuade them to leave.

In the end, the only thing that stopped the constant trade was the start of the show in the main tent. Lizzie looked outside, saw nobody waiting and heard Fitzy’s voice welcoming the huge crowds to the evening’s performance.

Phew. She collapsed back into her seat, feeling like a wrung-out dishrag. It was dark again, so the search for Amelia would be over by now for today. Surely if the searchers had found anything, Fergus would have come and told her?

There had to be something she could do to help. She felt in her pocket and pulled out Amelia’s hair ribbon. Yesterday, she’d seen Amelia’s memories through her own eyes. Maybe today she might catch a flash of where she was now? Even if it was only a second’s glimpse, it had to be worth a try…

She concentrated and a vision instantly blossomed into life in her mind.

She saw the huge oak tree and Amelia dancing. No, she wasn’t just dancing – she was chasing someone. High, bright laughter trilled through the air. A figure was vanishing around the tree. It wore a shimmering dress of diaphanous material and on its back was a blur of colour like butterfly wings.

‘Come here, fairy!’ called Amelia.

The silvery laugh came again and then there was the sound of singing: ‘O fairies true, join us do…’

The song no longer sounded silly. It was mischievous, even sinister – it was everything Ma Sullivan had said fairies were. Lizzie had to get a clear look at the fairy. She strained to see—

Sudden as a snapping stick, the vision ended. The curtain to Lizzie’s tent opened.

‘What? Who’s there?’ Caught between two worlds, Lizzie floundered for a moment. Then she saw it was only Collette, peering in with concern. She rubbed her eyes. ‘Sorry. I was having one of my turns.’

‘May I come in?’

‘Course you can. Aren’t you meant to be in the show tonight?’

Collette winced as she sat down. ‘My back is ’urting too much. But my heart ’urts worse.’

‘It’s Amelia, isn’t it?’

Collette nodded, her eyes glistening in the candlelight. ‘I want her to be all right. I am so worried about her.’

Lizzie must have let the surprise show on her face, because Collette quickly added, ‘I love les enfants! All of them. You did not know?’

‘To be honest, you’re so glamorous I never thought you were the type.’

Collette shrugged – just like Dru, Lizzie thought – and gave a rueful little smile. ‘I cannot wait to have children of my own.’ She sighed deeply. ‘But it is hard to find a husband when you are always on the move, hein.’

Lizzie hesitated, wondering if she could trust Collette, and came to a decision. It would be easier if she just said it all at once. ‘I saw Amelia just now, in my vision. She was dancing around a tree. With a fairy.’

‘A fairy,’ Collette repeated. Her eyes widened.

‘I know!’ Lizzie burst out. ‘Every time someone says fairies have taken Amelia, I’ve been calling ’em stupid, but what if that’s what really happened?’ She flailed her hands as she grappled with the idea. ‘I can’t call it stupid if I’ve seen it myself, can I? Maybe fairies really do exist!’

‘Seeing is believing,’ Collette murmured.

‘I used to think ghosts were hogwash – then I started talking to them. Erin’s right. You can’t stay a sceptic after that.’

The memory of the last ghost she’d spoken to surfaced in Lizzie’s mind: Amelia’s mother. Beware the fairy, she’d said.

Lizzie sprang up out of her chair. ‘Oh gawd. Her uncle! That fairy … I have to tell Alexander MacDonald what I just saw.’

‘So what are we waiting for?’ Collette threw her shawl over her shoulders.

‘We?’

‘Naturellement. I will come too.’