Bring Me the Head of Ivy Pocket by Caleb Krisp

Author:Caleb Krisp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

Lily nodded sadly. “Rebecca. Her name was Rebecca.”

“Blimey,” I heard myself say. “I know her. She is why I am bound for Prospa House. I have come to bring her home.”

“No one gets out of Prospa House,” said Amos. “Not alive, anyhow.”

“Of course she is getting out,” I said, jumping from the barrel. “I have been there before, I know where she is being kept and . . . she must be there.” I was suddenly troubled by doubts. “What will I do if she has been taken somewhere else?”

“You can bet she’s still in Prospa House,” said Amos firmly. “I have a friend who works in the city—he said the souls stopped coming a few weeks back. Justice Hallow wouldn’t waste a remedy, even one who causes trouble.”

“What color?” said Lily suddenly.

I frowned. “What color?”

“You said you have been to Prospa House,” said the girl. “What color were the doors where they were keeping Rebecca?”

“Yellow. Why?”

“That’s because she was a new soul,” said Amos. “Remedies grow weaker with each healing—that’s why they’re moved to other floors.” He looked down at his arm and touched the paste, which had started to dry and crack. “By now I’d guess she’d be on green. Or purple.”

“How many colors are there?” I asked.

“Purple is the last,” said Lily softly.

I thought of Mr. Blackhorn, whom I had discovered on my last trip to Prospa House. His room had been a vile shade of purple. “Prospa House is a wicked place,” I declared.

“Yes,” said Amos, “but the Shadow is worse.”

“Papa was taken when I was just a baby, and Mama got sick last summer.” Lily’s voice quivered. “It showed on her hands first, the skin turning dark gray. Then it spread until her whole body was covered.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“She wasn’t in pain,” said Amos firmly. “The Shadow is lethal, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Then the boy stuck his arm in a bucket of water and washed off the paste. We all gathered around to look. Underneath my natural remedy, the wound had healed—it was still rather red, but the cut had closed and mended.

“How’d you do that?” said the boy, his face a mask of wonder.

“Who are you, Ivy Pocket?” said Lily.

I smiled. “One of a kind, dear.”

“The Shadow took them all.”

“Who?”

“The Queen and her kin,” said Lily.

“Wiped out the whole bloodline,” said Amos. “That’s why we have Justice Hallow and her kind running things now—been that way for two centuries.”

“It’s Justice Hallow who decides who can see the remedies,” said Lily. “The healings are meant to favor neither rich nor poor, but it doesn’t work that way. Not at Prospa House.”

We had been walking for nearly an hour through the white woods. Amos and Lily thought it best to keep clear of the farmhouse, in case Miss Always came looking. I noticed a set of train tracks snaked through the forest, winding between the bare trees.

“Leads straight to the city,” said Amos, pointing to the tracks. “If you want to reach Prospa House, that’s how.

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