Sparrow Falling

  Published 2016 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-84997-925-2

  Copyright © 2016 Gaie Sebold

  Cover art by Tomasz Jedruszek

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  To the assorted rogues and rebels who get their crowbars under the window, and make it that little bit easier for the rest of us.

  The Sparrow School

  THE WOMAN IN the purple hat picked up the Gladstone bag and scurried from the room. Eveline gave her time to leave, picked up her own Gladstone – the one that actually had the money in it – and walked, not too fast, not too slowly, towards the door. Too fast a walk attracted attention, made people wonder why you were so eager to leave. Too slow left you without enough time to make the door before someone raised the alarm.

  Instead of exiting, she slapped the door with her hand, spun around and dropped the bag between her feet. “All right, ladies, who can tell me what that was?”

  The handful of girls in the room, perched on hard wooden chairs, looked at the floor, the walls, and their neighbours. Finally one of them, a skinny creature with dark eyes and a forceful nose, put up her hand. “A pigeon drop, Miss Sparrow?”

  “Good, Adelita. So where’d I almost come a cropper, then?”

  Another girl, almost as skinny and with skin so pale it looked greenish compared to Adelita’s warm gold, said, “Was it the bit where she started to open the bag, miss?”

  “Yes. Good. Doris, in’t it? Right. You got to make sure you’re out of the way, or give ’em a good reason to get out of the way themselves, like I done then, saying I thought I seen a peeler. Now, she goes ahead and opens the bag, what do you do?”

  “Run, miss?” Adelita said.

  “No. Why’d that be bad? Anyone?”

  “’Cos people’d be looking, miss,” said another girl.

  “S’right. Now, she’s not gonna call the coppers if she thinks about it, because she’s handling stolen goods – six months hard, you can get for that –” Eveline spun around, and raised a finger. “But. You got her on side to start with by not letting her think. All right? Anyone who gets took like this, they ain’t the thinking type, generally – so relying on ’em to think ain’t a good idea. So she might yell for a copper first and think later, and then you’ve got six helpful citizens holding you down and she realises she’d be better off somewheres else. So, she looks in the bag. What do I do? Anyone?”

  There was silence.

  “What I do,” Eveline said, “is plan. Think it through. Think about everything that can happen. Use your brains, my birdlets, that’s what you’re here for, to learn to use your brains. There’s plenty enough people in this world think we’re only good enough to use our bodies, being as we’re female – but if that was all there was to us, none of us’d be here. Right?” She aimed her finger at the class.

  “Right, miss,” the girls replied.

  The purple hat poked back through the door, and fell off, to general giggles, revealing a mop of brown curls surrounding a worried expression. “Eveline?”

  “All right, Beth?”

  “There’s someone to see you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You’d better come.” Beth Hastings tended to look distracted whenever she was away from her precious mechanisms, but Eveline could see that she was more anxious than usual.

  “All right. Ladies, before next class I want you to come up with what you could do before the drop that’ll make it all right if she does open the bag, right? And three more things that could go wrong, and ways to deal with all of ’em. Now, before you go: what’s the rules?”

  “Keep it simple, miss.”

  “Good. And?”

  “Make ’em think it’s their idea, miss.”

  “Lovely. And?”

  “Find out what they want to hear, and tell it to them,”

  “Good. And what’s the one we never, ever break?”

  “We never rob the people we come from, miss.”

  “Not just the people you come from, Doris. ’Cos not all of us here came from poor, though none of us wants to go back there. You don’t rob the poor. You don’t take from them with less than you. I may be training you up to run a con, I may be giving you skills what lots of people don’t think are right nor proper, but any one of you ever uses ’em against the wrong mark, knowing it, then you’re going to answer to me. And I asks really hard questions. All right?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “And remember, no chattering to the other girls, I don’t care how curious they gets. Class dismissed, then. You done well today, ladies. Keep it up.”

  The girls filed out, and Beth and Eveline walked down the corridor.

  “You’re a natural at this, aren’t you?” Beth said.

  “Me, a teacher. Who’d have thunk it? All right, Miss Hastings, give us the worst, you look like you swallowed a goose.”

  “It’s the grocer’s boy. Again. He’s been told not to bring us any more unless we pay him. And this morning it was the butcher’s boy. They won’t give us any more credit, Evvie.”

  “Oh, they will,” Eveline said, grinning, though inside, her stomach tightened.

  She managed to charm the grocer’s boy into one more delivery with a combination of a few quid on account, promises, wit and a little light flirtation – she was only a year or so older than he, and he wasn’t used to smart teacher ladies who could turn a friendly insult like a barrow boy. She reassured Beth – who tried to look as though it had worked – and walked slowly out into the grounds, biting her lip.

  She’d have to go talk to the butcher. She didn’t want the girls going without meat. She’d spent enough time hungry that she knew, after a point, it did nothing to sharpen your wits.

  None of us want to go back there.

  The trouble was, there were only so many people who could afford to school their daughters who thought it worth the money. Generally, those girls didn’t end up in Eveline’s ‘special’ classes, because of the risk they’d let something slip to their parents. The special girls were mainly runaways, street children, survivors by their wits as Eveline herself had been. And still was.

  She was teaching these girls the skills she’d learned herself, but she didn’t intend they should use them just to get money from marks – it was too risky, for one thing, in all sorts of ways.

  Eveline scowled at the bright sunshine which showed up the cracked plaster and rotten window frames all too clearly. She’d had the money to buy the place, but keeping it up, that was another matter.

  Still, she had schemes. Eveline Duchen – though it was Sparrow, not Duchen these days – always had schemes. She’d made connection with some old contacts of Ma Pether’s, people who kept their ears open, for a price. After months of waiting, interspersed with occasional scraps of worthless information (for which they still expected to be paid – and she had to pay, you didn’t risk losing sources like those by stiffing them) – they’d finally found her a business that would suit her purposes.

  If everything worked out.

  “YOU SEEM TROUBLED, Lady Sparrow.”

  “Hey, Liu.”

  “You are definitely troubled.” Liu pulled a comically anxious face. “Where is my insult?”

  “I d
on’t insult you that much! Here, you’re got up very fancy, what’s going on?” Liu was always a natty dresser, whether in a frock coat and a homburg, or as, today, in deep blue silk with soft black shoes and a little round hat.

  “Oh, I have some errands to run for which this is more appropriate dress. But first, I understand that the grocer is causing problems.”

  “Oh, you heard that, did you?”

  “I can, if you wish, go and speak to him.”

  “No, Liu, s’all right.”

  “You think he will not speak to me for fear of some subtle Oriental evil? I do not have to look Chinese.”

  Liu, being half fox-spirit, had an enviable ability to change his appearance, though he could only keep it up for so long.

  “It’s not that, Liu.” Evvie sighed. “You know we have to get some proper money, regular.”

  “Proper, regular money? That sounds most dreadfully respectable. I think maybe you are not Eveline at all, but some deceiver, wearing a glamour to fool me.”

  “I’m a schoolteacher now, Liu, it don’t come more respectable.”

  “I too was, and still on occasion am, a schoolteacher. I should object to being called respectable, however.”

  Eveline scowled. “S’all very well, but I got responsibilities now. It’s not just the girls, it’s Mama. I got to look after her.”

  “This is true and most honourable. But must you do it by turning respectable? I shall not know you.”

  “I don’t know as I shall know myself. But if I get arrested running some scam, what’s going to happen to them all? Besides, people might start taking an interest. The wrong people. I can’t risk it.”

  Liu sighed. “It is all gone, then? The money from the jewels?”

  Eveline’s sister Charlotte, who was something between a favourite and a pet at the Emerald Court of Prince Aiden of the Folk, had sent Eveline a gift of jewels – whether out of guilt for her abrupt and rather brutal refusal to return to her family, or meaning to let them know how much better off she was, Eveline wasn’t sure. She tried not to think about Charlotte. It hurt. She knew her mother worried, that the Folk were always capricious and frequently lethal, but Charlotte had made her choice, and didn’t seem to care, so Eveline tried not to care either.

  Today the reminder flicked her on the raw, and she snapped, “Yes, it’s gone! You think I forgot, or counted ’em wrong, or something?”

  “I would never make such a foolish mistake. When it comes to money your senses are finely attuned.”

  “They’ve had to be. We can’t all steal a chicken when we’re hungry.”

  Liu stopped, and looked at her, his eyes unreadable. “I thought that stealing was your profession.”

  “So?”

  “Have you become ashamed, Lady Sparrow? Is the company of a thief something you no longer wish for?”

  “Don’t be a goose, I didn’t mean that.”

  “Ah, and there is the insult. Good, now the formalities are taken care of. I had come to wish you farewell, but perhaps it is not necessary, as it seems you find my company unpleasant.”

  “I do when you keep twisting my words.”

  “Then I shall leave, and no longer be here to do so.” Liu bowed, and turned away.

  “Where are you going?”

  “As I told you, I have errands to run. I will return, however, if you feel you can bear it.”

  “Liu...” But he was gone, into the trees that bordered the school grounds, quick and silent as he always was.

  Eveline swore. She didn’t know what was wrong with Liu lately, he never used to be so touchy. And what was this errand of his? She hoped it wouldn’t get him into trouble – but then, he was a slippery one, and he was Folk – or at least, half so. He could get himself out of most things easy as winking.

  Still, she couldn’t help glancing at the woods where he had disappeared.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY the butcher came himself. He was a lean, pallid, liverish man, who put Eveline strongly in mind of one of the chickens that hung, head-down and beak-dripping, in his window.

  “I wish to speak to the master of the establishment,” he said.

  “That’d be me. Or mistress, rather. How can I help you?” Eveline said.

  “You can help me, young lady, by allowing me to speak to the proper person.”

  Eveline choked down a remark about not being proper but being the person he wanted anyway. He didn’t seem in the mood for levity. Nor, to be honest, was she – it was just the way her mind worked. “I know it may seem unlikely, Mr Blaithwaite, but I am the proprietor. Our name, the Sparrow School, is on the gate, and I am the Sparrow in question. What was it you wished to speak to me about?”

  He glared her up and down, looked beyond her as though hoping to see some reassuring male presence, but encountered only Beth, hovering, and looking at him as though he were a fox and she a rabbit.

  Deciding that no more proper authority was about to appear, he waved a piece of paper under Eveline’s nose. “I am a patient man, Miss... Sparrow. But my patience is limited, indeed it is, and my bill is now overdue by some weeks. I would appreciate payment at your earliest convenience. That is, I don’t intend to leave without it.”

  “What is the total, Mr Blaithwaite?”

  He named a sum. Eveline blinked. “Would you wait here a moment, Mr Blaithwaite?”

  “No, Miss Sparrow, I will not. I want my money.”

  “As you will, Mr Blaithwaite. Miss Hastings?”

  “Yes, E... Miss Sparrow?”

  “Please bring my cash box from the study.”

  Beth swallowed. “Yes, Miss Sparrow.” She darted off.

  “A pleasant day, though unseasonably warm,” Eveline said. “It must be hard to keep the meat fresh in this weather.”

  “My meat is always fresh. But I need to get back to the shop. I hope that young woman will not be long.”

  “The study is not far, Mr Braithwaite.”

  “Good.”

  Eveline thought furiously. She knew to a penny how much there was in the cashbox, and it wasn’t nearly enough for the butcher’s bill. She could ask Ma Pether for some of her counterfeit coin – Ma always kept some about – but even if she was willing to let on to Ma how bad things were, that was a half-minute solution at best. The butcher would be back, and with the Peelers at his tail like as not.

  Besides, it wasn’t as though he’d given short weight or rotten meat – the stuff was good quality.

  She put her hand in her pocket and felt the comforting smooth weight of the little jade fox Liu had given her. The thought of selling it hurt, and Liu would be upset – as though he wasn’t already – but for all his sense in some things he really didn’t seem to understand how badly they needed money, or at least, why she wasn’t going the old way about getting it.

  There was nothing else left to sell. Even in her thieving days Eveline had never owned any jewellery for more than the length of time it took for Ma Pether to sell it or Evvie herself to want it less than she wanted a bite of bread and sausage.

  Beth came scuttering down the corridor, somewhat flushed and with her madly curly hair escaping its bun, as it always did in moments of stress. “Here you are,” she said.

  “Thank you, Miss Hastings.” Ask him to wait a week, and sell the fox? What will I tell Liu? Go to Ma Pether? Which?

  She was still wrestling with it when she opened the cashbox.

  There was far more in it than there should be. Eveline managed to control her expression, but it was a near thing. She shot a glance at Beth, who was trying to look innocent and only succeeded in looking pleading.

  “I do apologise for the delay, Mr Braithwaite,” she said as she counted out the coins.

  “Well, I’m sure you do your best,” he said. “But perhaps you should hire an accountant.” He leaned down, and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “I’m doing myself down, here, but perhaps you should order less. Girls don’t need to eat meat every day, you know, not like boys.” He gave an unu
sed-looking smile, tipped his hat, and walked back to his carriage.

  “Wish I’d stiffed him now,” Eveline said. “Condescending...”

  “I’m sure he meant it kindly.”

  “Because he thinks we can’t cope, being girls. Trouble is,” she said, closing the cashbox with a sigh, “he’s right, isn’t he? We ain’t coping. And I’ll thank you to tell me where that brass came from, Miss Magician.”

  Beth hunched her shoulders. “I had some.”

  “Beth...”

  “I sold a couple of things. Tools. We needed the money.”

  “Beth, you can’t sell your tools! You need ’em!”

  “And we need to pay the butcher. So.”

  Eveline gave her a fierce hug with the arm that wasn’t holding the cashbox. “Numbskull. What’re you going to do, tighten bolts with your teeth?”

  “I’ll manage,” Beth said, flushing. “We do need money, though, don’t we? Eveline, this scheme of yours... I hope it works.”

  “So do I.”

  WHEN EVELINE RETURNED to the house, the post had been delivered. She winced at the sight of what she had already learned to recognise as yet another bill, and shoved it under the others to open when she had the strength.

  The next envelope was addressed to Mrs Madeleine Sparrow. Someone was writing to Mama, and under her new name. That probably meant it was safe, but... Eveline thought about going to the kitchen and steaming open the envelope. No-one would question her if they caught her at it, but it would hurt Mama a great deal if she should find out. She ran her thumb over the lush cream stationery. The handwriting was neat and confident. It didn’t have the look or feel of officialdom about it, but she hadn’t a deal of experience with official letters.

  On the other hand anyone who knew either Mama or herself under their old name, Duchen, would hardly bother writing first. They’d be bursting the door down with boot and truncheon – or bundling people into a carriage in the dead of night.