She didn’t pause to explain that she was already climbing as fast as she could; excuses were for the lazy, or so Aunt Betony always said.
Though if it hadn’t been for Mica’s carelessness, she’d have got Cicely to her first Lighting in plenty of time and found her a good seat into the bargain… But if dwelling on what should have happened made any difference, Ivy would have sprouted wings long ago. She set her jaw and kept climbing.
‘Oh, it’s not fair,’ wailed Cicely, as sounds of music and laughter drifted down from above. ‘Ivy, let me go ahead, I don’t need a light, there’s plenty of room-’
‘You can’t fly the Shaft blind,’ said Ivy firmly. True, compared to the piskeys’ own neat tunnels the Great Shaft was enormous. But there was a cap of concrete and metal over the top, and if Cicely didn’t see it coming she’d knock herself senseless. ‘When you’ve got your own glow, you can go ahead if you want. But right now, you stay with me.’
Cicely whimpered, but made no further protest. Ivy reached for a grip and pulled herself up again, her muscles trembling with the effort. By rights she shouldn’t be climbing the Great Shaft at all, and if anyone found out she’d be in serious trouble. It would have been safer to go through the tunnels — but that would have taken twice as long, even if she and Cicely were running. And besides, it gave Ivy a private thrill to know that she alone, of all the piskeys in the Delve, could climb like this.
At last her groping fingers brushed wood, slimy and rough with age. She had reached the old ladder. Ivy hooked one arm over the bottom rung and gazed up at the half-rotted wood and rusted metal before her, chewing her lip in consideration. Once this ladder had carried human miners down the shaft to their day’s work. Then the tin mine had closed, and its shafts were caged off to keep careless humans from falling in. Now and then some idle passer-by shoved a stick or a stone between the bars and let it drop, but apart from that no one had touched this ladder in well over a century. She’d have to make herself human size to climb it, but would it hold her weight?
Well, she’d soon find out. Ivy took a deep breath and willed herself to grow.
It would have been easier if she’d practised first. The shift in size threw her off balance, and she grabbed the next rung just in time. But she had no time to waste on panic. The moment her body stopped tingling she was on the move, scrambling for the top of the shaft. ‘We’re nearly there,’ she gasped to Cicely. ‘It’s not too-’
‘All hail Joan the Wad!’ came a muffled shout from above them, and the top of the shaft flared with golden light. Cicely’s face crumpled. ‘We missed it.’
Guilt and frustration tumbled like rocks in Ivy’s stomach. She’d done her best, but it hadn’t been good enough. There’d be another Lighting at midwinter, but what consolation was that to Cicely now? And as usual Mica was to blame but he’d never admit it, and Cicely would never dream of reproaching him. Not the older brother who brought her berries and bits of honeycomb, and gave her piskey-back rides around the cavern. In Cicely’s eyes, Mica could do no wrong.
‘Well,’ said Ivy, and then she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She reached for the next rung, and continued climbing towards the surface.
‘People of the Delve, be welcome,’ Betony declared, with a disapproving glance at Ivy and Cicely as they crept to a seat at the back of the crowd. She took the copper bowl from Nettle’s hands and raised it high, so that everyone around the wakefire could see it.
‘This is the draught of harmony,’ she declared. ‘Let us drink and be one in heart, proud of our heritage and true to our ancient ways, so that enemies can never divide us. A blessing on the Delve, and a curse on faeries and spriggans!’
‘A curse on the spriggans!’ the others chorused — and Ivy loudest of all. The very mention of those filthy creatures made her burn inside, an old ember of rage and bitterness that would never go out. First they had taken her mother from her, and if that weren’t bad enough, they had stolen her father as well.
Or at least they might as well have. After Marigold disappeared Flint had spent days blindly wandering about the countryside, until the Joan took away his hunting privileges and confined him to the Delve for his own safety. Since then he had done little but work in the mine, hammering away night and day with his thunder-axe. He seldom spoke, and never laughed; he ate the food Ivy cooked for him without seeming to taste it, and slept poorly when he slept at all. He still came to every Lighting, but only long enough to replenish his glow. And he never played his fiddle any more.
‘Curse them,’ Ivy whispered, but Cicely remained silent, her eyes on her lap. Guilt pricked Ivy again, and she gave her sister an apologetic squeeze before reaching for the copper bowl now making its way around the circle. The draught inside was clear as spring water, sparkling lights dancing across its surface; Ivy tipped the bowl and drank a mouthful before helping Cicely to do the same.
‘Oh, it’s wonderful,’ breathed her little sister, surfacing with flushed cheeks and wide brown eyes. ‘I had no idea piskey-wine was so nice. Can I-’
‘Not until you’re older,’ said Ivy, and handed the bowl on. Cicely’s lower lip jutted, but she seemed a little less gloomy as the drink passed from one piskey to another and finally made its way back to Betony, who poured the dregs hissing into the fire.
‘And now,’ the Joan proclaimed, ‘let us eat!’
At once Ivy and Cicely jumped up, following the other piskeys towards the long tables. All Ivy’s favourite dishes were here tonight — from pasties stuffed with rabbit and chopped roots, to roasted woodlice with wild garlic, right down to the thick slabs of saffron cake waiting on a platter at the far end. And to drink there was spring water and chilled mint tea, as well as several bottles of the sparkling piskey-wine — though it would be another year before Ivy was old enough to drink more than a small cup of it, and Cicely was too young to have any more at all. But that scarcely mattered with so many other good things to enjoy.
As they ate, Ivy glanced at Cicely and was relieved to see her sister’s mood improving with every bite. Soon she was chattering to Jenny and giggling at the faces Keeve made at her across the table, and Ivy’s own spirits began to rise as she realised she hadn’t entirely spoiled her sister’s first Lighting after all.
But then she glimpsed Mica strolling by with plate in hand, and her smile faded. There he was, relaxed and dressed in his Lighting best — and here Ivy sat with her breeches and her bare grimy feet. The old aunties gave her pitying looks over their shoulders, and she could practically hear what they were thinking: What a shame young Ivy can’t take proper care of herself, especially when her brother and sister look so fine. But she’s always been sickly, and with no mother…
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Cicely around a mouthful of saffron cake. ‘You look like you’ve eaten gravel.’
‘Never mind,’ said Ivy. ‘It’s nothing you need to worry about.’
‘One-two-three-four!’ called the crowder, and the musicians struck up a lively tune that twanged Ivy’s muscles and tugged at her bones. As a child, she’d been too shy and short of breath to dance in public. Even when all the other children were skipping about, she’d hung back and pretended she didn’t care. But Marigold had seen through her diffidence, and as soon as they got home she’d held Ivy’s hands and skipped around the cavern with her until the two of them collapsed in a giggling heap on the floor.
Marigold hadn’t worried so much about Ivy’s health in those days; she’d told Ivy that her lungs were just a little slower to grow than the rest of her, and they’d soon come right. And she’d promised Ivy that one day she’d be able to dance just as well as any piskey in the Delve, if not better.
Well, now Ivy could. But not to this tune. This was a flying dance, where the males tossed the females high in the air and stepped to one side as their partners fluttered down, and Ivy could not have taken part even if someone had asked her. She walked over to Cicely, who was watching the dancers with the same wistful longing, and sat down by her side.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you want to dance?’
‘I don’t have a partner,’ said Cicely glumly. ‘And it’s already started.’
Ivy jumped up and thrust out both her hands. ‘Then dance with me,’ she said.
‘Me and you? But you’re-’
‘Stronger than I look,’ said Ivy, grabbing her little sister under both arms and heaving her into the air. Cicely let out a giggle, her moth-wings fluttering as she drifted back to earth — only to have Ivy whirl her around and toss her up again. Lifting her sister wasn’t nearly as easy as she pretended; Cicely was on the sturdy side, and Ivy’s muscles already ached from climbing up the shaft. But it was worth the effort to see those brown eyes sparkle, and hear Cicely’s squeals of delight.
No sooner had the Flying Dance ended than another merry reel took its place, and Ivy and Cicely kept dancing. The two of them whirled arm in arm beside the bonfire, Cicely stumbling over her own feet with laughter,
