The Purple Haired Craze

Which Is Full Of Blankets And Joy

"I am from the future."

Skulduggery stared at her, stunned into silence. Valkyrie was wringing her hands, looking agitated and flustered.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I didn't know you that well, in this time anyway and..."

"Wait, what do you mean, 'in this time'?"

Val looked even more uncomfortable. "I know you, in the future, quite well. We're best friends."

Skulduggery shifted, not really knowing how to react. "So how did you get here?"

"Livena is a time traveller. It's her discipline. I come from the 21st Century and I got taken back to this time period because I am important. I don't know why I am here really; Livena is trying not to interfere too much by saying too much, but I needed you to know." She shifted the blankets on her shoulders around her tighter. "I can't take the secrecy anymore, but particularly not to you. You won't tell the others, will you?"

"Of course not," Skulduggery assured and she instantly looked more relaxed. "But why me instead of Ghastly? Or Anton?"

"Because you are my best friend. At least, you are in the future. I don't really know what you think of me at the moment."

"You are definitely one of my close friends," he said. "We've known each other for a whole term and we are really close already, we have fun beating each other up during the combat lessons and we share a room. If that is not best friends, then I don't know what is."

Valkyrie gave a wide smile and leaned over to hug Skulduggery. "Thank you," she whispered.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't listening."

Liv's voice was unpredictably calm as she looked up from her latest batch of sewing, her face looking intrigued.

"I told him."

"Oh. I thought you were about to say something I didn't know."

"You knew I was going to tell him?"

Liv gave her an amused smile. "Of course I did. What did I tell you the morning after we arrived?"

Valkyrie half sighed. She hated being predictable. "That my decisions are mine, but you know what I decide."

"Well done! What you did wasn't wrong. He deserves to know."

"That's good; I was really scared I had done the wrong thing."

"The reason I'm not telling you much at all about what you need to do is because I don't have to. I just need to double check more than anything that everything is going as it should, and correct the problems that do occur. So far none have occurred, so it shows that everything is running to plan and that my mission is going smoothly."

Skulduggery was out with the other Dead Men, along with Mr Darning, who was in fact called Savage Darning, and Roshan on some sort of war meeting. They had been incredibly vague to the two of them, which annoyed Valkyrie slightly because she knew she could definitely be of help in the war effort with her level of power. But, as it was, they were sat in the living room near the fire sewing. Well, Liv was sewing. Valkyrie was failing to keep the threads from tangling, getting more and more frustrated as the material she was working on got more and more threadbare from the number of times she had unpicked threads poorly from the fabric. At one point, Liv plucked the sheet from her hand, telling Valkyrie to find something else to do.

"I want to beat up Skulduggery."

"He isn't here."

"That's kind of why I want to punch him."

"Go fight Ghastly's mum. She's a boxer."

"I haven't met her yet."

Liv looked puzzled and then your expression cleared. "Of course you haven't. Go help Aura with the cooking."

"I can't cook."

"Learn how to."

She rolled her eyes at the purple girl, but obliged, getting up and moving into the kitchen.

"Vallie!" came a cry from below her as a little toddler ran across to hug her knees.

Valkyrie smiled, bending to pick up the little blonde haired girl with bright green eyes. "Hello, Joy!" she said. Joy was her nickname, because she had not taken a name yet. She had very similar features to Skulduggery, which amused her greatly because she often rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders in a manner identical to the annoying boy. She even did the same little head tilts when she was confused.

She also had a very expansive vocabulary, as Valkyrie had found out in the couple of days of her stay at the O'Connell household.

"Come help Mama cook! She's making pie!"

"I think I will, but can I put you down?"

"Yes! I want to show you my drawing first though."

"Okay." Valkyrie let Joy drag her into the kitchen, bumping into Aura. "I'll help you in a moment," Val told her. "Joy just wants to show me her drawing."

"Of course."

On the slate was a drawing of a girl holding fire in her hand. Knowing that Aura and Liv were not elementals and that Joy had not yet developed her magical skills yet, she asked if it was a picture of her.

"Yes! See, this is your magic and this is the pretty dress you were wearing yesterday."

"I can see that! It's very lovely indeed."

Joy looked back down at the slate. "You can go help Mama now. I'm going to do more drawing."