Goodly and Grave in a Case of Bad Magic

“We stopped off in Grave Village on the way here. I had a fancy for one of Busby’s custard slices. You know how fond I am of them. I was attacked by two blasted urchins. A girl and a boy. Unbelievable,” Lord Percy replied.

“Did they steal anything?” Lord Grave asked.

“No. Managed to fight the little guttersnipes off. Left me with a few cuts and bruises, that’s all,”

“A few cuts and bruises! Dear Percy was very lucky, George. The boy had a knife.” Lady Sibyl’s words gave Lucy a little jolt, and she exchanged glances with Lord Grave, who was surely thinking the same thing as her – was this the same boy who’d attacked her and Violet?

“The vicious little beast wielded it without hesitation, and he would have used it on me if Percy hadn’t bravely shielded me from harm,” Lady Sibyl continued, dabbing at her eyes with a very fancy lace handkerchief. “But you know the most disturbing thing of all, George? Those beastly children weren’t just ordinary nasty little reprobates. They were magical.”

Lord Grave raised his bushy eyebrows. “Extraordinary. Come on, Percy, let’s get you inside and comfortable, then you can tell all. Vonk, would you organise tea in the MAAM meeting room please? Lucy, perhaps you could help Vonk and then join us.”

Lord Grave and Beguildy each grabbed one of Lord Percy’s elbows and began to guide him up the steps to the front door and into the hallway of the house. Once everyone was inside, Lord Percy, Lady Sibyl and the Beguildys removed their coats and hats. After warming themselves in front of the hallway fire, they headed off to the MAAM meeting room with Lord Grave, leaving Lucy and Vonk to lug all the outdoor garments to the coat cupboard.

“Children attacking you and Violet, and now Lord Percy!” Vonk shook his head as he hung up Lady Sibyl’s cloak, which was trimmed with black and scarlet feathers.

“I’d bet my life one of them is the boy from the alley,” Lucy replied, reaching up to hang Beguildy Beguildy’s navy-blue coat, which had a very fancy brass neck-fastening featuring a ship in full sail.

“We’ll soon find out. No doubt MAAM will get to the bottom of it. Come along, we’d best go and fetch the tea things.”

When Lucy and Vonk reached the kitchen, Vonk looked cautiously around before asking where Becky was.

Mrs Crawley gave a little snort of amusement. “Cleaning out the lavatories and the chamber pots. I know I shouldn’t laugh. She’s absolutely furious, but with Violet laid up … Whatever’s the matter, Vonk?”

“There’s been another incident, Mrs C.” Vonk pulled out a chair and sat at the table. Lucy and Mrs Crawley did likewise. Then Vonk explained what had happened to Lord Percy and Lady Sibyl in Grave Village.

“But that’s terrible,” Mrs Crawley said when Vonk had finished speaking. “Poor Lord Percy. Could there be some connection to the attack on Violet and Lucy? What does his Lordship think?”

“I haven’t had a chance to ask him, but I think there is,” Lucy told her. “He’s having a MAAM meeting now. He asked for some tea to be sent up. We’d better put plenty of sugar in Lord Percy’s.”

“Oh, but of course!” Mrs Crawley immediately began buzzing around the kitchen, putting the kettle to boil on the range and setting out the china on a tray, as well as a couple of plates of biscuits. While Mrs Crawley was attending to the teapot, Lucy and Vonk swiftly examined the biscuits. They were relieved to find that they were normal almond ones without any experimental flourishes such as cockroach legs.

When everything was ready, they set off upstairs. Vonk carried the tea tray and Lucy carried the biscuit plates.

“You can do the honours, Lucy,” Vonk said when the two of them reached the door to the MAAM meeting room.

“Havana!” Lucy exclaimed. She always enjoyed being the one to utter the password that made the meeting-room door swing open of its own accord. And, although she was now quite familiar with what lay beyond the door, she still felt a buzz of excitement at stepping over the threshold and into such a fascinating room. A large glass display cabinet took up the whole of one wall, and it was filled with strange-looking instruments made of silver, gold and brass. They were all inventions created by Lord Percy and had various uses, including detecting the misuse of magic. At the moment, all of them were silent and still.

“You should settle yourself down with the others and I’ll serve the tea,” Vonk whispered to Lucy.

As Vonk busied himself with pouring tea and handing round the biscuits (Lucy smiled to herself as she saw that each member of MAAM examined them suspiciously before eating them), Lucy parked herself next to Bertie and Smell.

“I call this meeting to order!” Lord Grave announced. “In light of what happened to Lord Percy today, we need to consider who the children behind the attack might be. Sibyl, Percy, what made you conclude your attackers were magical? Did they cast any spells?”

“Briefly,” Lady Sibyl said. “The boy tried. He very clumsily aimed some attack sparks at me when I went to Percy’s aid.”

At that very moment, the glass cabinet began to rattle. One of the instruments, a golden star attached to a coiled golden spring, was bouncing up and down.

“Why is it doing that?” Lucy asked.

“Because somewhere a child is using magic, or rather using magic when they shouldn’t,” Lord Grave explained. “You see, although child magicians can of course use magic, it’s generally not allowed unless they are in their own home or another magician’s home and are being supervised by an adult. There’s simply too much that could go wrong. This little contraption gives the alert if a child is breaking the rules. Of course they could be clever enough to make their magic undetectable, but they would have to be exceptionally talented.”

The golden star began jiggling even more wildly.

“Can it tell you who’s doing the magic? Or where?” Lucy asked.

Lord Grave shook his head. “It covers a radius of some two hundred miles, but it can’t pin down an exact location or identify the culprit. But I would wager that it has something to do with today’s events. The last time that machine went off on a regular basis was a couple of months ago, when you were being a little wayward with magic, Lucy. That’s what set me off looking for you.”

Lucy felt her face grow warm. When she’d first met Lord Grave, she’d been using a magical playing card to win poker games, although at the time she had thought it was simply some sort of trick card. Lord Grave had brought her to Grave Hall so that she could learn to use magic properly.

Her embarrassment increased when Beguildy Beguildy made an exaggerated tutting noise and wagged his forefinger in an admonishing manner. Lucy and Beguildy weren’t exactly the best of friends. However, he had rescued her from a stressful situation during the Jerome Wormwood investigation, so now she was trying to be a little more tolerant of him and vice versa. Admittedly, this could be a challenge at times on both sides.

“Let’s get back to business,” Lord Grave continued. “Percy, Sibyl, can you describe the children who attacked you?”

“I didn’t get a good look at them,” Lady Sibyl said. “Percy?”

Lord Percy grunted and opened his eyes. He’d been nodding off, his head drooping towards the table. “Sorry, what?”

“The children. Can you describe them?” Lord Grave said.

“Oh, well. Let me think. The girl wore a cloak. Hood up. Couldn’t see her face. The boy … Tattoo on his neck, under his ear. Looked like a bluebird.” Lord Percy’s head began to droop again.

“A tattoo?” Lord Grave said. He puffed excitedly on his unlit cigar. “We could have a lead here. Do you all remember the Hard Times Hall fiasco?”

“Hard Times Hall! Yes, you could be on to something, George,” Lady Sibyl said, nodding her head vigorously. The peacock feathers she wore in her hair bobbed up and down as if in agreement.

“What’s Hard Times Hall?” Lucy asked.

“An orphanage for magical children. Wait a moment.” Lord Grave left the table and went over to a large wooden chest. He lifted the lid to reveal a mass of papers inside. Although they looked rather haphazard, they must have been in some sort of order as Lord Grave soon managed to locate what he needed. He pulled out some newspaper pages. They were slightly yellowed and when Lucy looked closely she saw they were from an edition of the Penny Dreadful and dated the year before. Lord Grave always called the Penny a “frightful old rag” but nevertheless he seemed to be one of its most loyal readers and had an extensive collection of back copies. Lord Grave spread the pages in front of Lucy and Bertie.

“You own an orphanage, Father?” Bertie asked in astonishment.

Lord Grave waved his hand dismissively. “As far as the Penny and the rest of the non-magical world is concerned, I do. But in truth it belongs to the whole of the magical community. It’s where we look after magical children who have no one else to care for them. But all that’s by the by. The point here is those children who escaped. About a dozen of ’em, have never been found. Or perhaps not found until now.”

Lord Grave pointed at the drawings of the Hard Times Hall escapees. “Percy, this boy with curly hair, he has a bluebird tattoo on his neck, do you see? Is it the same boy?”

Lord Percy had to be prodded awake by Beguildy Beguildy. He stared intently at the drawings that accompanied the article, as though he was finding it difficult to focus. “Yes. He looked a little older than he is here, but yes, that’s him.”

“Sibyl? Do you recognise the boy too? Or these other children?”

“As I said, I didn’t manage more than a glimpse of any of them. I was too concerned about dear Percy.”

Lady Sibyl wasn’t the only one to be concerned about dear Lord Percy. The rest of MAAM looked at him in alarm as he began swaying gently in his seat, as though being blown by an invisible wind, his eyes were closing again.

“Oh dear. I must admit I’m not feeling very well,” he muttered.

“I think we’d better get you into a nice warm bed,” Lord Grave said. “Vonk, is Lord Percy’s room ready?”

Vonk stepped forward from the corner where he had been quietly standing. He often stayed on hand when there was a MAAM meeting going on, in case anything was needed. “Yes, I believe so.”

“I would like a brief lie-down, I must admit,” Lord Percy said. He tried to stand up, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to be able to make it out of the room and up the stairs to bed under his own steam. Vonk hurried off to fetch Mrs Crawley, who soon bore Lord Percy away upstairs to bed in her strong and beefy arms.

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