TIM STOOD UP AND LOOKED AROUND. There were more people in the cemetery now. On the weekends, the dead always had more visitors.
Tim brushed off his jeans and started walking. It wasn’t that he had any destination in mind. Unless there is some weird realm I haven’t yet visited called Explanations Land, or Confusion’s End, Tim mused.
He left the graveyard, and it finally occurred to him that having Titania, Queen of Faerie, as an enemy might not be very good. In fact, antagonizing her the way he had probably wasn’t the brightest tack to take. But he’d taken it. There was no going back now.
But he couldn’t go forward either. Titania’s accusations stung. Mostly because he was so afraid they were true. She was right—he didn’t know anything, and that made him dangerous. He hadn’t meant to go to the manticore’s lair. But if he hadn’t, Faerie would still be a wasteland, and Tamlin might have wound up dead anyway. Titania, too, for that matter. Why didn’t she see that? He shook his head. Who knows how her twisted green mind works?
Grown-ups were always interfering, getting in his way, or plain old coming after him. Still, he supposed he had to try to figure them out—if only in self-defense.
He wandered into a playground and was surprised to see how deserted it was. The only kid around was a chubby girl, about ten years old, sitting on a swing. She rocked slowly back and forth, one foot trailing in the dirt.
This is Saturday, isn’t it? Tim thought. The place should have been overrun with kids.
The lone girl sat muttering and scowling. Her mood matched Tim’s exactly. He sat on the swing beside hers. She glanced over at him.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you one of the kidnappers?”
Kidnappers? Tim raised his eyebrows above his spectacles. He didn’t think he particularly looked like a kidnapper. Then again, he didn’t exactly look like a magician either, and he supposedly was one. “No. I’m just me. Wondering if you’re okay.”
“Oh.” She looked puzzled. “No one has been asking me that.” She pouted and kicked her legs hard, setting herself swinging. “They’re all too busy worrying about Oliver.”
“Who’s Oliver?” Tim asked. “And why’s everyone so worried about him? Is he sick?”
“No, he’s gone missing. Like the others.”
“What others?” Tim asked.
She stared at him with open eyes and mouth. “Don’t you read the papers? Or watch the news?” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe Tim’s sheer stupidity. “I was interviewed on the nine o’clock news after it happened. Mummy taped it and everything.”
Tim squinted. The girl’s story was beginning to sound familiar. Of course. Molly had mentioned missing children earlier that day. But that was in some other town, not here, he thought.
“Didn’t that happen somewhere else?”
She rolled her eyes. “First, Brighton. Then here.”
That must explain why the playground is empty, Tim thought. All the children in this neighborhood must have gone missing, too.
“So,” Tim continued, “who is Oliver?”
The girl scowled. “My little brother.”
Hm. Clearly she isn’t a fan. “So, if all the other kids are gone, why aren’t you missing?” Tim asked.
“I had to go to the orthodontist.” She grimaced and showed him her braces. “When I got home, everyone was gone.”
“Do you have any idea where they went?” Tim asked, curious in spite of himself. It was kind of a relief to worry about someone else’s problems for a change.
“No one knows. But I bet it has something to do with that foreign kid who was always playing at the abandoned manor.”
“What foreign kid?”
“He had a funny accent and wore the strangest clothes. I never saw anyone like him before.”
“Where was he from?” Tim asked.
The girl shrugged. “America, I suppose. He kept going on about it being a free country where he came from. Isn’t that what they call America? He was always trying to get us to play games. Baby stuff. Hopscotch and the like. Nursery rhymes.”
“Have the police been ’round?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Course they have. Just like on the telly. They asked me loads of questions. But I don’t think they’ll ever find Oliver.”
“Do you miss him?” Tim had always wondered what it would be like to have a sister or brother, especially in the last few weeks when everything had grown more and more confusing.
“My mum does. She’s frantic. I wish I was the one missing. No one pays any attention to me. All they care about is my stupid, piggy brother.”
So much for sisterly love, Tim thought.
“The foreign kid is gone now, too. Maybe he wasn’t behind it at all. Maybe the kidnappers got him as well.” The girl shivered. “Maybe someone is out to kidnap all the children in the whole world. I overheard my parents talking, and they said forty children disappeared from Brighton. The same sort of case.”
“They’ll figure it out, I’m sure,” Tim said.
“How do you know?” she demanded in an accusing tone. “You don’t know anything.”
“Well, what I mean to say is, uhm, I’m sure your brother is okay,” Tim said.
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t.”
Tim shook his head. No matter what he tried to say, it was the wrong thing. Is it me? Is it girls? Is it this girl in particular? He wasn’t even sure which she was more upset about—that her brother had gone missing or that she hadn’t.
A woman with light brown hair and wire-rim glasses rushed into the playground. “Avril!” she cried. “You were supposed to be home ten minutes ago! I was so worried.”
Ten minutes? My dad doesn’t start to worry until I’ve been gone extra hours, not extra minutes. If then.
The woman charged over to the swing and swooped the girl up into her arms. “I was afraid you’d been stolen away, too,” she said.
Tim noticed a smirk cross Avril’s face. He suspected that she had planned this. Tim was fairly certain Avril was going to continue being late as long as she could get away with it. She obviously relished the attention.
The woman finally noticed Tim. “You should get home right away, young man,” she scolded him. “Go inside and stay there. There are crazy people around.”
Tim stood. “You have no idea,” he replied.
Marya stood in a confusing jumble of noise and motion. She blinked a few times and took a deep breath. That set her to coughing. The air was gray here, almost chewy, compared to the bright clean world of Free Country.
Where are they all going, she wondered, and why are they all in such a hurry? Women in slim short skirts with matching jackets strode purposefully toward stairs that descended underground. Men hurried along carrying newspapers and leather cases.
Daniel was right—people had little boxes attached to their ears with wires. Others spoke loudly into small devices they held up to their heads.
Marya had seen a city before, though she’d been in Free Country for so long that she wasn’t accustomed to such bustle any longer. But this city was nothing like St. Petersburg or any other city she’d seen before. The fountain in the center of the square and the cobblestone side streets reminded her a bit of her old home, but everything was crowded and close together. And there were so many people.
And those vehicles! Where were the horses and the carriages? Strange-looking metal carriages with rubber wheels growled and squealed around her. People shouted at one another from windows of the cars and on the street. It was overwhelming.
Marya took a few steps backward into the protective shadows between two towering shiny buildings.
“Lissen you,” a gruff voice growled at her. “Get offer me ’ouse.”
Startled, Marya glanced around but saw no one.
“Get off!” the voice shouted.
Marya realized the voice was coming from below her. A head suddenly poked out of the large cardboard box behind her, like a turtle emerging from its shell.
“This is my ’ouse, and I’ll have none of yer lot running me out,” the man snarled.
Marya stepped off the cardboard flap she’d been standing on. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize.”
The man squinted at her as if he were trying to decide if she were sincere in her apology. His thick face was covered in stubble and dirt.
What kind of world is this? Marya reached into her pouch and pulled out one of her apples to give him. She must have been more nervous than she realized—the apple fell from her hands.
The man stared at the apple, then at Marya, then back at the apple again. With the quickness of a striking cobra, the man snatched the apple. He pulled himself completely inside the box.
“Breakfast?” the man muttered inside his strange little house. “Lunch?” Marya heard a crunching sound: The man must have taken a bite of the apple. “Brunch!”
Satisfied that the man no longer deemed her a house thief, Marya went on her way.
“Timothy Hunter, come out, come out, wherever you are,” she chanted in a singsong voice. Her bare feet made no sound on the pavement. She took care to avoid the stickiest, dirtiest spots. Now that she was here, she wasn’t quite certain how to begin her mission.
After the first shock of the chaos had worn off, Marya could see why this place had fascinated Daniel. The shop windows were full of such amazing things. She couldn’t imagine what they were for or what they did. The people looked so interesting, their faces displaying every conceivable emotion, their clothing clashing in wild disharmony. There was so much movement, so much to see.
Marya watched an unlikely pair of women cross a street. One wore thick, dark face paint, with black rings around her eyes. Tattoos covered the bare arms revealed by her black sleeveless shirt. Next to her was a woman dressed in bright colors, her blond curls pulled into a bouncy tail on top of her head. What struck Marya most was that the woman in black had a big smile on her face and the perky-looking one was scowling angrily. As they crossed to the other side, a young man on a wheeled board veered between them. And a man with exposed knees, white socks, and sandals nearly backed into them as he held a small device in front of his eyes and clicked, pointing the box at a tall building.
“It’s like a dance,” Marya exclaimed. Somehow all the dancers managed to keep to the imperceptible pattern and not smash into each other.
A sparkling display caught her eye. She stopped to peer into the window of a jewelry store. Bracelets and necklaces sat in velvet cases, glittering in the afternoon light.
This might be just the place, Marya decided. Fixing her bracelet was one of the tasks she had been determined to accomplish in her time away from Free Country.
She opened the door and stepped inside. A little bell jangled, announcing her presence. The store was quiet and clean.
A stout man looked up when he heard the bell. He held a case of gold rings that he was just returning to the glass cabinet. He slipped the case onto a shelf and turned the key in the lock.
He eyed Marya, and she realized it might be unusual to be barefoot in the city. She awkwardly stood with one foot on top of the other, trying to cover up the worst of the dirt.
“Yes, miss?” the man said.
“Do you fix things?” Marya asked.
“We’ve been known to. If it’s jewelry you’re talking about.”
Marya smiled. “Good.” She pulled her precious bracelet from her pouch. “Can you fix this?” She held the bracelet out to the man.
He squinted at it. “Possibly, possibly.” He took the bracelet from her. His hand felt warm and clammy.
“Mmm.” He turned the bracelet over, then held it up to the light. His squinty eyes opened wide. “Good lord!” he exclaimed. “A Lermontov!”
His hand closed around the bracelet. Marya didn’t like the way it disappeared into his fat hand.
He leaned over the counter and glared at her. “All right, young woman. Where did you steal this?”
Shocked by the accusation, Marya replied indignantly, “My mother gave it to me! Empress Anna gave it to her. But it didn’t fit her right so she gave it to me.” There. That should settle things. She rummaged in her pouch and brought out an apple. It was shiny and perfect. “Will you fix it? I’ll give you an apple.”
“An apple?” the man bellowed. He leaned over the counter even farther. His face was mere inches from Marya’s. His breath was stale. “Off with you this instant! And be glad I don’t have you arrested.” He pointed sternly toward the door.
Marya stared back at him. Why did her bracelet make him so angry? She looked at the apple. It’s a particularly nice apple, she thought, the best of the lot. Maybe I should have offered two?
The man came out from behind the counter, placed a meaty hand on Marya’s slight shoulder, and practically shoved her out the door. “Go! And don’t let me see you here again, or I shall call the police on you!”
The door slammed behind her.
“But…my bracelet…” she protested meekly. Marya had been in Free Country for an awfully long time. It had been ages since anyone had treated her so roughly. She wasn’t sure how to respond.
Feeling defeated and forlorn, she leaned against one of the potted plants that stood on either side of the jewelry store door. “My mother gave it to me,” she murmured. She traced a pattern on the pavement with her big toe. “It’s all I have left…” Marya crossed her thin arms over her chest and tried to keep herself from crying.
“What’s wrong?” the potted plant asked.
This didn’t surprise Marya. In Free Country, that sort of thing happened all the time.
“That store man took my bracelet,” Marya explained to the plant. “He said I’d stolen it, then he took it.”
An interesting face appeared between the parted fronds of the plant. “Oh, he did, did he?” the person in the plant said.
Marya was pretty sure it was a woman’s face. She wore paint on her lips and her eyelids, but her hair was short, even shorter than most of the boys’ in Free Country. And it was a purplish black, like the color of a bruise. Marya had never seen anyone with hair that color before. A sparkly jewel glittered in the side of the woman’s nose.
“I just wanted the man to fix it,” Marya explained, “so I could wear it again. But now it’s gone.”
The long ferns parted, and now Marya could clearly see that the plant person was a woman, even though her clothing seemed more appropriate for a man. She wore a white button down shirt, a skinny black tie, black pants with black suspenders, and a long white apron. She leaped through the leaves and over the side of the large cement container that held the plant. She dropped a cigarette to the pavement and stubbed it out with her heavy black shoe. “You just stay here,” the woman said. “I’ll take care of this.”
Marya watched as the determined woman pushed open the jewelry store door and stepped inside.
Marya sat down on the cement plant holder and waited. A few minutes later, the woman came out, dangling the bracelet in front of her. “Here you go,” the woman said.
Marya had no idea how the woman had done it, but she was thrilled. “Thank you!” she exclaimed, taking it back. The bracelet could stay broken, as long as she never came that close to losing it again.
The woman stretched, then grinned. “No problem.”
“Are you a dancer?” Marya asked the woman. “You move like a dancer.”
“Me? A dancer?” The woman laughed. “Not even close. Though this waitress gig has me on my feet all day. Spinning and ducking and lifting.”
“Oh!” Marya reached into her bag and pulled out an apple. “Would you like an apple? They’re very nice.”
She held the apple out to the woman. She wanted to give her something as a reward for retrieving her bracelet. She knew that when someone does you a favor you should always show your thanks with a gift. That was the way it was done in the palace. If her mother worked extra hard to be sure the empress’s dress had three dozen more feathers on it, the empress would often give her a little gift. Or if her mother delivered a secret message, or sent someone away that the empress wished to avoid, another gift would arrive. Sometimes a gift for Marya would be sent along, too. That was before Marya had been taken away to learn to dance. She never received any gifts after that.
“My name’s Annie,” the waitress said, eyeing the apple.
“I’m Marya. Really, the apple is quite good,” she assured Annie. “It isn’t a bit like in Snow White.”
Annie laughed. “Believe me, I’d never be mistaken for that gal.” She took the apple and bit into it. A huge grin spread across her face and her eyes shut as if she were thinking the nicest thoughts in the world. “Mmmmm. This is delicious.” Her eyes popped open. They were a lovely shade of chocolate brown. “I haven’t had an apple this good since I was six or seven.”
“Why were you in the plant?” Marya asked. After meeting the man who lived in a box, she wondered if the tree was where Annie lived.
“I wasn’t in the plant,” Annie explained, crunching on the apple. “I was on the other side, sneaking a ciggie. I swore I’d quit, so I didn’t want anyone to catch me from the café. I heard you and wanted to find out who it was speaking on the other side.”
“Oh.”
“I was on a break…which is quite over now. Well, it helps to be headwaitress.” She gave Marya a once-over, as she took another bite of the apple. A little juice trickled down her chin. She wiped it off and grinned. “For this, I owe you a fizzy drink at least.”
Annie lay a hand with painted blue fingernails on Marya’s shoulder. Her hand was calloused and rough, but her touch was light. Not like the clamping paw of the man in the jewelry store.
“All right,” Marya said. “But I can’t stay long. I have to find somebody.”
Annie walked Marya around the plant and opened the door to a cheerful café. Black-and-white linoleum made a checkerboard pattern on the floor. Booths ran along the large windows, and red leather stools with chrome posts sat before a shiny silver counter. One little old lady sat at a booth, nursing a cup of tea. Two boys about Marya’s age sat at the counter, sipping tall frosty drinks through straws.
“This place is a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” Marya said, settling onto a stool at the very end of the counter.
“What, the café?” Annie asked. She slipped behind the chrome counter and reached below it for a tall glass, which she filled with ice.
“No,” Marya replied, “the city.”
Annie used a strange hose to fill the glass with liquid. “So you’re not from around here, I take it?” Annie gave Marya the glass and popped a straw into it. Marya took a sip of the sweet, bubbly drink.
“No,” Marya replied. The bubbles tickled, and her nose wrinkled.
“I should have guessed that from your accent,” Annie said, “which is quite lovely, I must say.” She leaned against the back counter and took another bite of the apple.
“Thank you. So is yours,” Marya said. She liked the rough way the waitress spoke. It made her sound like she had grit in her teeth.
“You’re supposed to meet someone here?” Annie asked. “Or near here?”
“Oh no,” Marya said, making the high seat swivel. It squeaked a little. “He doesn’t know I’m looking for him.”
“I know the feeling, luv.” Annie laughed. “So give us a hint. How do you propose to find this mystery man?”
Marya held the glass and thought seriously about the question. She realized that she didn’t have a plan at all. “I haven’t decided yet.”
She couldn’t fail this mission. No matter what she thought of Kerwyn, Free Country needed help. Besides, if she failed in getting Tim to Free Country, Kerwyn would decide it was because she was a girl, and she didn’t like that. Not at all.
“I guess I thought I would just know how to find him once I got here,” Marya confessed. She hoped that didn’t make her sound foolish.
Annie grinned. “Just as I suspected. You’re one of those optimists I keep hearing about.” She winked at Marya. “Well, it’s a slow shift. Tell you what. For a small commission, I’ll see if I can’t help you find your gentleman.”
Marya could not believe her good fortune. First this kind woman had retrieved her bracelet, and now she was going to help her with her mission. “Oh, that would be wonderful!” Marya’s brow furrowed. “What’s a commission?”
Annie tossed the apple core into a trash bin. “In this case, another of those apples. If you can spare another, that is.”
That seemed fair. Marya solemnly handed over another apple, shining it first on the hem of her dress.
Annie picked up a thick book from the back counter. “Now to business. This mysterious young man of yours. He is young, isn’t he?” She plopped the book down in front of Marya.
“Yes. About my age.”
“Splendid. And he does have a name, doesn’t he?”
Marya giggled. “Of course he does. It’s Timothy. Timothy Hunter.”
Annie flipped open the book. She turned several of the pages. Marya saw that the pages were filled with long lists of names with numbers beside them.
Annie ran her blue fingernail along one page. “Figures. There must be a thousand Hunters in here.” She glanced at Marya. “You wouldn’t know his old man’s name, would you? Or his mum’s?”
“I don’t think he has a mother anymore.” Marya bit her lip, trying to remember. “But I think Kerwyn said that his father’s name is…William.”
“Then he’ll be a Bill or a Will or a William. There can’t be more than forty of them. Piece of cake.”
“No, thank you.” Marya was too excited about finding Timothy Hunter to eat.
“What?” Annie looked confused for a moment, then she smiled. “Oh. No. It’s an expression: piece of cake. It means dead easy.”
“Oh.”
Annie balanced the book on one arm and plucked a strange-looking device from a holder on the wall. She punched little buttons on it and grinned at Marya. “I’ll just phone them all,” she promised.
So that must be what that interesting thing is, Marya observed. A phone. I’ve heard about them from the children who came to Free Country recently from this world.
“Hello?” Annie said into the telephone. “Is this the Hunter residence? This sounds odd, I know, but do you happen to have a boy named Timothy? Sorry to trouble you, then. Ta.”
She put the phone back into its cradle on the wall, then faced Marya and shrugged. “One down. Thirty-nine to go.”
Annie punched number after number. She sometimes had to stop, as people came into the café. Annie chatted up the customers and brought them plates of food. While she did this, Marya held her finger on the line in the phone book so that Annie wouldn’t lose her spot in the long column of names and numbers.
What with the frequent breaks, quite a bit of time had passed when they reached the end of the list.
Annie placed a plate in front of Marya. “You must be hungry by now,” she said.
Marya stared down at the plate. On it sat two slices of toasted bread, with something yellow and gooey oozing out the sides.
“Go on,” Annie encouraged her. “That grilled cheese won’t bite.”
Marya didn’t feel hungry, but she picked up the sandwich anyway and nibbled one corner, without moving her finger from the spot on the page. Annie had gone to the trouble of fixing her this snack. She couldn’t be rude and not eat it. Not after Annie had helped her so much.
“Come on. It’s not the end of the world,” Annie said. She rested her elbows on the counter. “What’s so special about this Tim anyway?”
“He’s magic.”
Marya could feel Annie’s chocolate-colored eyes on her. Had that been the wrong thing to say? But it was the truth. That was what was so special about Timothy Hunter.
Annie stood back up and placed her fists on her hips. “He is, is he?”
Marya snuck a peek at Annie from under her long lashes and saw that she was smiling.
“Well, perhaps we won’t give up on him just yet,” Annie said. “We’ve got one last William to try.”
Annie turned the directory around so that it faced her. Marya lifted her finger so that Annie could read the number.
Annie punched in numbers again. Marya wished and hoped for luck.
“Hello? Is Timothy Hunter there?” Annie covered the mouthpiece with one hand. Her brown eyes twinkled. “We’ve got it!” she exclaimed. Then she lowered her voice and added, “The mister sounds a right old sourpuss though.”
Marya’s heart thudded. It was finally going to happen. She was finally going to contact Timothy Hunter, the great magician!
Annie uncovered the phone. “Is this Mr. Hunter?” she said. “It is! Well, I’m calling on behalf of a young woman who’s traveled a considerable distance to see your son.”
Marya nodded. That was certainly true. She wondered how much farther she was going to have to travel.
“Actually, I don’t know why,” Annie said. “Why don’t you ask her yourself.”
She held the phone out to Marya. Marya stared at the odd-looking thing for a moment, then wrapped her fingers around it, blinking with confusion.
It was lighter than it looked. Marya turned it back and forth in her hands, puzzling over how to best use the talking device.
“Hello?” she said tentatively, her mouth midway between the two circular ends.
She heard a voice coming out of one side. She quickly brought that end up to her ear. “Hello?” she repeated.
“What’s this all about?” a gruff voice demanded. “Has Tim caused more trouble?”
The man in the telephone sounded harsh and angry. It made her stomach tighten. She reminded herself that she was terribly close to finding Timothy Hunter. That made her feel braver.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Marya explained. “I just want to talk to Timothy. It’s important.”
“Tim’s not here. He never seems to be here these days.”
“Oh. Maybe he’s not there because you’re so angry,” Marya suggested. “Would it be all right if—”
Marya heard a click, then an odd, flat buzzing sound.
She lowered the phone. “He stopped talking. Now there’s just this buzzy noise.”
Annie took the phone, listened for a moment, then hung up. “I’m afraid he’s rung off on you, dear.” She glanced down at the phone book. “Well, if I had to live in Ravenknoll, I’d probably be a grumpasaurus, too.”
Marya’s green eyes widened. “You mean that book tells where he lives?”
“You bet.” Annie nodded. “Thirty-four Traven House, Ravenknoll Estate. That’s a Council home. I’ve got an A-to-Zed of London down here. I’ll show you where it is.”
Annie reached under a counter and pulled out a book of maps. She flipped it open. “See, that’s where we are now. And that’s where your Timothy Hunter lives.”
Marya stared down at the squiggly lines. So this is London, she thought. Somewhere in this jumble of streets lives a master magician. And it’s my mission to find him.
Annie went to wait on more customers, and Marya studied the pattern of the map, memorizing names and turns and directions. Satisfied that she knew her way, she hopped off the stool and slung her pouch over her shoulder.
“Thank you for everything,” she told Annie. “For getting my bracelet back, and especially for helping me find Timothy Hunter.”
“You’re leaving? Planning to walk all that way?” Annie asked, a concerned expression on her face. “You don’t even have shoes.”
“Oh, I do,” Marya explained. “I just don’t wear them. Not for walking anyway. Bye now.”
Marya strode out the door, ready to resume her mission.
“Wait,” she heard Annie call behind her. “I get off at eleven. I could take you…”
Marya waved but didn’t look back. Now that she knew where Tim was, she wasn’t going to let anything deter her. After talking to Timothy’s father, she thought Timothy might welcome the chance to escape to Free Country.
Marya walked and walked. She stood on a corner beside a woman pushing twin babies who were howling miserably in their pram. Marya noticed that on the other side of the unhappy babies, there was a scruffy-looking dog, sniffing in the gutter.
Marya grinned. This was an easy problem to solve!
She tapped the lady pushing the pram. “Excuse me?” Marya said. “The babies want to pet the dog over there.” She pointed to the dog in the gutter. “But they can’t because they’re tied up too tight. That’s why they’re crying.”
The woman stared down her nose at Marya. “That filthy mutt?” the woman said.
“Why are they tied up like that?” Marya asked. “Are they crazy? At the palace they tied up Uncle Grigori because they thought he was crazy. He wasn’t, though. Just different.”
The woman recoiled a bit, as if Marya emitted an unpleasant odor, then hurried away.
“See you later, alligator!” Marya called after her and her howling children. A girl in Free Country always said that, and Marya loved the phrase. Marya waited for the woman to shout back the proper response—“In a while, crocodile”—but she didn’t. The woman and her babies vanished into the crowd.
Marya knew she still had a long way to go. She walked along crowded streets. Some of the shops in this area had goods sitting out in front, taking up space on the sidewalk. A little boy reached for an orange on a low display table. Before his fingers closed around the fruit, the man with him jerked the boy so hard the child nearly tumbled over. “Stop that!” the man snapped, smacking the boy’s hand. Marya was surprised that such a little boy didn’t start to cry. Then she realized the boy was used to this treatment.
Marya rounded a corner. She stopped to let three girls about her age charge past her and up the steps of a small, old building. They were chattering in a lively fashion, and each had a bag slung over her shoulder. Of all the people she’d seen since leaving Annie’s café, these girls were the first to seem truly alive. They glowed with something that lit them up from the inside.
Curious, Marya peered into the large, dirty window—and gasped.
If Marya ignored the street around her, she could have easily imagined she was watching a scene from her own, previous life, back home in St. Petersburg.
A dozen or so girls in identical tight black uniforms stood in the room, waiting for a dance lesson to begin. Each girl had her hair pulled back from her face. Some of the faces looked nervous, others calm. One girl was eyeing another, trying to pretend she wasn’t studying her rival practice pirouettes. Several preened in front of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, while two girls purposefully kept their backs to their reflections.
A door swung open and a tiny, thin woman with silver streaks in her severely-pulled-back bun stepped into the room. Instantly, the girls assembled themselves into rows. A young man carrying sheet music followed her into the room. He sat down at a beat-up old piano in the corner.
The ballet mistress clapped her hands, the man played some chords, and the girls began the familiar opening barre exercises.
Marya shut her eyes and clutched the railing, her head swimming. It was hard to watch, filled with reminders of her old life. But the pull from that room was impossible to resist. Marya opened her eyes again and watched the girls. When they finally took a break, Marya had to force herself to remember her mission.
She dragged herself away and continued walking. The streets got dirtier, the houses shabbier and closer together. There were more vacant lots filled with trash, more empty buildings with boards over broken windows.
The dingy surroundings pushed hard on Marya’s skin, squeezing images of the ballet class right out of her. Her pace slowed, as the oppressive air and the dismal sights weighed her down. Her feet hurt and her muscles groaned. Her pouch now felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds, and the strap etched a groove in her shoulder.
She glanced up at the street sign. She was close. The streets were emptier now and the few people on them were more careless with themselves. Ragged clothing barely stayed on their slouching bodies.
Marya stood on a corner and her heart sank. She faced street after street of identical buildings. How would she ever know which was Tim’s? She had forgotten the number.
“Eeep!” She let out a small shriek as she felt a hand grasp her bare ankle. She shook off the hand and stared at the young man who had grabbed her. He lay on the ground, his back supported by a trash bin. He didn’t look much older than her.
“What’s in the bag, moggie?” he asked. At least, that’s what she thought he had said. It was hard to tell, his words were so slurred.
There was another boy, also a teenager, slumped against the wall. He was laughing at nothing, just staring in front of him and laughing.
“Nice moggie,” the boy in front of her said. “What’s in the bag? Pretty bag.”
Marya reached into her pouch and tossed an apple at the boy. He picked it up and stared at it as if he’d never seen an apple before. Maybe he hadn’t, Marya thought. He was terribly thin, and his hair was purple and green. But now that he had released her ankle, he didn’t seem that scary. She peered into the alleyway. The boys seemed to live there, so they must know the neighborhood.
“Do you know where Ravenknoll Estate is?” Marya asked.
The boy turned the apple around and around in his hands. “You’re lucky, little moggie. Next corner, you’re there.”
“Thank you.” She took out another apple and handed it to him. “This is for your friend.”
She turned away from the strange, lost boys and went looking for Ravenknoll Estate.
“Oh, Tim, poor Tim,” she murmured. “I do believe Kerwyn is right. You will be better off in Free Country.”
Now that she was here, Timothy Hunter’s house number popped back into her head. She stood and stared at the sad house in front of her. She couldn’t even guess what color it had once been under the grime. A sagging wire fence stretched between two equally dismal lots. A smashed-up car squatted in the run-down driveway.
He lives here, she told herself. It was hard to imagine anything as wonderful as magic surviving in such a place. The palace was exquisitely beautiful, she reminded herself, and it was full of cruelty nonetheless. So perhaps, even in such squalor, magic can thrive.
Marya stepped carefully along the broken pavement; her bare feet were now grimy. She knocked on the door. Marya could hear loud voices inside and music. Perhaps they didn’t hear her knock. She tried again.
Finally she decided no one was going to answer the door, so she sat down to wait.
She rummaged through her pouch and pulled out the ballerina statue Daniel had given her. “Are you okay?” she asked the small dancer.
“You can’t help it if you can’t really dance,” she whispered to the statue. She thought back to her dancing lessons in St. Petersburg. It hadn’t been the shoes that had held her down, Marya knew that now.
“Poor little doll.” Marya murmured. She hugged the statue close. Dolls can’t dance. They can only pretend. That was the reason for Marya’s failure right there. All Marya had been for the Empress was a doll, a plaything. Marya had never believed in herself.
She remembered the day she had left the palace for Free Country. Kerwyn had arrived as a missionary. He had been doing just what she was doing now. He had left Free Country to spread the word and bring children in. Kerwyn had found Marya crying after the dancing master had called her an oaf and beaten her. Kerwyn found her and told her that he could take her to a place where dreams could come true. Even dreams like hers.
So she went. Only it hadn’t turned out quite as she had expected. She never managed to forget the way her mother used to sing to her on summer evenings while she brushed Marya’s long red hair. Or the way that you could draw faces in the frost on the palace windows in wintertime. There was too much she missed. That’s what held her down now. Even in Free Country. She could never dance like the Shimmers. She was too tied up inside.
And Marya wasn’t in London because Timothy Hunter had somehow cried out to Free Country. He was part of a plan. She looked around at the place where Timothy Hunter lived. Or maybe he is crying out, she thought. Marya knew if she lived in this place, she might be crying all the time.
She sighed. And wondered how much longer she would have to wait.