13 Curses (34 page)

It turned out that she was right.

In her glamour disguise they sneaked Red out, and as they walked the lanes to the bus stop, she skirted their ankles, dipping in and out of the tall grass at the side of the road. By the time the bus came, the girl had replaced the fox, and three children boarded.

It was a quiet day in Tickey End. The cobblestone streets were almost deserted, inhabited only by a few last shoppers and withered leaves that chased each other across the ground. They hurried through the town square and into the narrow side streets.

Wishbone Walk seemed a little livelier, with music and voices coming from some of the inns. They passed
the Spiral Staircase pub, from which a delicious smell of home-cooked food wafted, and moved farther along.

Suddenly Red stopped dead.

“There it is.”

“The shop?” Fabian asked.

“No,” said Tanya, following Red’s eyes to a derelict building with boarded-up windows. “The children’s home, where her brother was taken from.” She tugged at Red’s sleeve. “Come on. Don’t stand here staring—it could draw attention to us.”

They set off again.

“Hardly any of the shops have numbers,” Red muttered. She was keeping her head down despite the empty streets, wearing an old cap of Fabian’s to help hide her face.

“There,” said Tanya. “Pandora’s Box is number twenty-five, and Clifford’s Accountants over there is twenty-one. Number thirteen will be on this side, farther down.”

They ran the rest of the way, counting down the numbers as they went. But as they halted outside number thirteen, all three of them stared in dismay at the painted-out windows and C
LOSED
sign hanging in the door. A
FOR RENT
sign above the door confirmed the shop was empty.

“I don’t believe it,” said Fabian, rattling the door. He cupped his hands around his face and peered through.

Tanya and Red squeezed into the doorway beside
him. The shop was bare inside, save for a pile of unopened mail clustering around the inside of the door. Fabian moved out of the doorway and stepped back into the street.

“It’s not even a jeweler’s anymore,” he said, pointing at the name of the shop. “The Baker’s Dozen. I remember it now. Horrible pies, no wonder they closed down.”

“So that’s it,” said Tanya, joining Fabian. “A dead end.”

“Not necessarily,” said Red. She brushed past them and walked a little way on. To the side of the shop was a wooden gate. It opened as she lifted the latch. “Through here, quickly.”

“What are you doing?” said Fabian as Tanya slid through the gate after Red. “We can’t do this, it’s trespassing!”

“Like she’s worried about
that
when she’s wanted for kidnapping!” Tanya said scornfully.

Fabian couldn’t argue with that. He closed the gate behind them, with a quick glance either way to check that they weren’t being watched.

“It’s all clear,” he said. “I don’t think anyone saw us.”

At the back of the bakery was a little kitchen, visible through a glass panel in the door.

“There’s a key in the lock on the other side!” Fabian said. He rooted in his pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. “I bet I can have that key out of there in five minutes.” He patted himself down. “I
usually carry a piece of wire to push the key through with…”

“Or we could just do it the fast way,” said Red, stooping to the ground. Her fingers curled around half a broken brick that had come loose from the wall, and then she stood up, brought her arm back, and threw it at the window.

The glass shattered, and Fabian looked on in unabashed admiration. Scouting the yard, Red collected a handful of newspaper from by the dustbins and wrapped it around her hand to push out any jagged edges of glass left in the frame. When the pane was free of shards, she slipped her arm through and unlocked the door.

“Search every inch of this place,” said Red, closing the door quietly behind them. “We need to be quick. I’ll search the kitchen, and you two look in the front of the shop. Fabian, you comb the floor, and Tanya, you check all the drawers and surfaces.”

They set to work, and it was fast work as the drawers in the counter were empty and the floor was swept clean. After only a few minutes Fabian gave a small cry and pounced on something.

“Here!”

“Show me!” Red demanded.

“Oh,” said Fabian, adjusting his glasses. “It’s nothing, just a silver button.”

They continued to search, but even after going over everything twice they had found nothing.

“Don’t get too close to the front door,” Red warned
Fabian. He was sorting the mail on the floor and had stacked it neatly to the side of him, checking the floor where it had lain and prodding each envelope for a telltale bulge.

“There’s nothing here,” Red said, disheartened.

“Don’t these shops usually have basements?” said Tanya.

“Some of them do,” said Fabian. “But there’s no sign of a trapdoor or any other kind of door that might lead into one.” He stared at the floor, pushing a leaflet around with his toe.

“Let’s go,” said Red, heading for the back door. “We should get back—it’s getting dark now anyway.”

“Hang on,” said Fabian. He bent down and picked the leaflet up. “This is advertising a sale in a local jeweler’s.”

“So?” Red said impatiently. “It’s not much good if it’s not the shop where the bracelet was made, which was
here
, remember?”

“But look at the name,” said Fabian, holding the leaflet up.

“Stickler and Sons,” Tanya read.

Fabian pulled his notes out of his pocket. “The original shop was called Stickler and Fitch,” he said. “But what if they decided to part ways, and this Stickler person set up on his own—a family business?”

“It’s possible,” Red said. She took the leaflet from him. “But even if it was the same company, it’s not the same place. It’s moved.”

“Only to a few streets away,” said Fabian. “Look,
it’s in Turn Again Lane—that’s only around the corner!”

“It’s worth a shot,” said Red. “But why would they change locations just to move a street or so away?”

“Lots of reasons,” said Fabian. “More space, or less—if they were having problems with the rent.” He looked at his watch. “We’d better hurry—it’s nearly closing time.”

They left the shop, slipping through the gate and into the street once more.

“This way,” said Fabian, beckoning them back in the direction of Pandora’s Box. They passed it and went into the next street, then Fabian took a right into an alley.

“This is a shortcut,” he said, calling over his shoulder as he jogged ahead. Soon the alley gave way to another little tumbledown road of shops and cottages. “This is Turn Again Lane. Stickler and Sons is at number thirty-one.”

“Thirty-one,” Tanya repeated. “That’s thirteen, with the digits swapped around. Anyone else think that’s just a coincidence?”

The shop, when they found it, was tiny. Seemingly, Fabian had been right about the move to smaller premises. The place was run-down, its windows adorned with bird droppings, and its doorway littered with leaves that no one cared about enough to sweep.

“What a dump,” said Fabian.

“Some family business,” Tanya agreed, nodding
to the shop’s name, for either through vandalism or neglect, several of the raised letters on the sign had dropped away, leaving it to read:
TICKLE & SO
.

“Let’s go in,” said Red, but as she reached to open the door a balding man ducked through it, fumbling with a bunch of keys.

“Sorry, I’m closing,” he said with a slight frown as he saw them waiting there.

“But it’s not five o’clock yet,” said Fabian, pointing at the opening hours in the window, and then at his watch.

“It is in my book,” the man grumbled. “I’ve not sold a thing all afternoon. Come back another time.”

“Oh, please,” said Tanya. “Can’t you spare just a few minutes? It’s my grandmother’s birthday tomorrow. I need a gift for her.”

“We know what we’re looking for,” Red added.

The man hesitated.

“Please?” Tanya said again.

“Oh, all right,” he muttered. “But just a couple of minutes, mind.”

He turned on the lights again and held the door open as they poured into the shop.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked as they scanned the glass cabinets and counters.

Red pulled the bracelet from her pocket.

“Silver charms,” she said. “To go on this. She collects a different one every year.”

“But it’s bare,” the shopkeeper said, peering at the bracelet.

“It was stolen,” said Tanya, thinking quickly. “The bracelet was recovered, but all the charms were gone. We’re trying to find replacements.”

The man scratched the bald spot on his head.

“We don’t do much of a trade in silver charms,” he said. “Gold, yes. But silver, only a few, and most of those are secondhand. Shame really, as it’s what we used to specialize in.”

“Can we see what you have?” Fabian asked politely.

The man nodded and bent down behind the counter. They heard a drawer open and close, and then he bobbed up with a velvet tray of six or seven silver charms.

There, in its center, a silver heart was pinned to the velvet. It was duller than the rest and appeared much older. Engraved into its surface was a tiny pair of wings.

“Any of those take your fancy?” the shopkeeper said, clearly wanting to hurry things along.

Red exchanged glances with Tanya and Fabian. They were both wide-eyed.

She pointed to it with a trembling finger.

“That one. The heart. How much is it?”

The man leaned forward, prodding at the charms.

“Don’t remember that,” he said. “Funny. It doesn’t seem to have a price.”

Beside her, Red heard Fabian gulp.

“Let me check my books.” The man vanished through a doorway into the back of the shop.

“We’re such idiots!” Fabian hissed the moment
they were alone. “We don’t have any money to buy the stupid thing! Unless either of you do?”

Red and Tanya shook their heads.

“That’s settled then,” said Red. “We’ll just have to steal it.”

“Wait,” said Fabian. “Look.” He pointed to a handwritten sign behind the counter.
WE BUY TO SELL
, it said.

In a flash, Fabian took off his watch and laid it on the counter, just as the shopkeeper came back through.

“I don’t know where that came from,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s no record of it coming in. Looks like you’ve got yourselves a bargain, kids.”

“Will you take an exchange?” Fabian said, pushing his watch forward.

The man narrowed his eyes and stared at them suspiciously. For an awful moment, it looked as though he was going to refuse.

“I think we all know that the watch is worth more than the charm,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather come back with the cash?”

“We don’t have the cash,” said Fabian. “And it’s important.”

The man shrugged. “All right. It’s for a present, you say? I’ll get you a box.” He scooped Fabian’s watch up and took it with him into the back.

“Are you sure it’s one of the charms?” Fabian whispered. “I mean, it looks like it, but…”

“It is,” said Tanya. “I’m certain of it.”

“Let’s ask him to put it on the bracelet, then,” said Red. “No point having a box.” She reached out to unpin the charm from the velvet tray with her thumb and forefinger, the bracelet tucked into her hand. As her fingers skimmed the charm a curious thing happened. There was a small, metallic clink, and the charm vanished from the tray. Red dropped the bracelet in surprise.

“Where did it go?”

“There,” said Tanya, pointing to the bracelet in amazement. “It’s attached itself to the chain.”

“It must have been drawn to it, almost like a magnet,” said Fabian, his wide blue eyes even huger behind his glasses.

“Then there’s no doubt,” Red said in a low voice. “This is it. We’ve found the first charm!”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Fabian.

They called their thanks to the shopkeeper, who was still rummaging around in the back, and then left the shop.

“What about the box?” he said, coming back into the empty shop. Through the grimy windows he saw the three children vanishing from view. He stood shaking his head for a moment, then put on his coat, ready to shut up shop for the second time that evening.

Outside, it had started to rain. Tanya, Red, and Fabian ran to the bus stop, their spirits lifted with their find.

“I can’t believe we figured it out,” said Fabian,
whooping as they headed to the back of the bus and sank into the seats. “We actually did it!”

“Yeah. We did it,” said Red, but she could feel her smile fading on her lips as the thrill of the find wore off. It had just hit her that this was only the beginning: the first charm.

Somewhere out there, twelve more charms were waiting.