scott street

13: SOPHIE

The Everwood Society for Cultural Preservation's night guards were underpaid and undermotivated, and that was where the trouble started.

Like, sure, they got a helmet with an ostrich feather in it, and a shiny new pike, and the title of The Esteemed Night Wardens By Appointment , but they were Nevers. Ravenswood Nevers, at that, who had come first in the Pustule Post's survey of Most Feral Nevers (By Kingdom) for ten years straight. The Society didn't want to bring in their own Ever guards, in case they got beaten up, mugged, or simply vanished, so they just hired locals and buttered them up with armour and titles. The Nevers did it because work was work, after all. Also, they were told they could keep the armour after their contract was up, which meant they could sell it for scrap, or put it on the market and tell Ever tourists it was an heirloom and turn a magnificent profit. The Never kingdoms had benefited immensely from The Tale of Sophie and Agatha. In the newfound era of goodwill between Good and Evil, Evers had ventured into Never territory, in a well-meant attempt to 'forge connections'. The Nevers had wasted no time in embracing this, and were happy to show the Evers traditional Never experiences, like unprovoked brawls, experimental foodstuffs... and scams. Lots and lots of lovely scams.

But the imposition wasn't all welcome. Every morning, The Esteemed Night Wardens By Appointment watched the parade of Ever workers coming in and out of the gingerbread house with a sort of glum resignation. It wasn't as if they exactly wanted Gertrude's girl back. But gutting her house to make it into a museum was a bit much– especially if it was being done by Evers. It seemed to them that the Evers must have had pretty poor memories, if they needed museums to remember what had happened where. It was all that embroidery and morris dancing and charity, they decided. Made you lose your grip on sanity.

But right now, they were watching the ponderous approach of a very elaborate carriage. This was the most exciting thing they had seen in several weeks. Up until now, the crowning jewel of their night guard sessions had been an immense badger that they had excitedly watched kill a rat.

"Huh," said Gregarious Redson. His parents were important Nevers that had decided dictionaries were for Evers, and had assumed gregarious was a word to do with illness, like his brothers Contagious and Pestiferous. "Bit late for an official visit from the Evers, right?" He was as rich and as clever as his parents, which was to say, a lot of one and not a lot of the other.

"Hmm," said Two-Counts Manslaughter, who got the title of Captain for being the brightest of the bunch. He was bright enough to know a piss-easy job when he saw one, for example. Now, he could see storm clouds on the horizon of his serenity. "I don't know about this one, boys."

"Oi," said Just Anna.

"Boy, and Anna..."

They had taken a while to work out that she hadn't meant her name was Just (first name) Anna (last name), but rather that she didn't have a last name, by which time it was too late. She had told them that she raised herself in the woods and had been nursed by a hellhound. She was twelve, and the other guards (men ranging from 21-55) were too scared to say they didn't believe her, because a little bit of them did believe her.

The carriage that was currently approaching them was a great chunk of blackened ash wood, with elaborate paintings of sinners suffering in the circles of Hell adorning the doors. The carvings over the immense wheels were each a squawking raven with wings outstretched, and each of the horses had a nodding plume of black feathers attached to its head. The carriage was being driven by a ferrety little lad who looked about ten, wearing an immense black cap that also had lots of feathers in it. It kept slipping over his eyes.