On the border between the dives and uptown stood a large, ramshackle building. The walls had sagged under their own weight, the paint had chipped and cracked, the windows were smashed, and the double doors on the ground floor looked like they’d been breached with a battering ram some age ago.
Chased by a herd of dead-eyed children Tobias jumped off the rattling omnibus and scuttled along with them toward the dreary building that they called home. A large, wrought-iron gate overgrown by ivy on one side and half-sunken into the ground on the other did little to dissuade the tiny horde from invading the property. Some had already snatched what precious few tallies they had on them from their pockets to pay the entrance fee.
The first time he’d come to the house he’d wondered aloud why they were paying a tally each to Mr and Ms Whittleberry. It wasn’t their building after all, just a scrapheap saved from demolition by bureaucracy, one of the few things gollies could be trusted to get right.
He’d spent that night sleeping outside under the willow in the garden and he wasn’t keen on repeating the exercise. Least of all when he’d learned the middle-aged pair had two snarling, drooling dogs chained up somewhere in case they needed to chase someone out. The willow had been sheltered enough to shield him from prying eyes, but a rustling roof had proved quite ineffective against the elements.
Tobias joined the tail end of a half-hearted queue that had formed near the cracked stone stairs leading up to the entrance. It could have been a nice place to live once, with plenty of room inside and a luxurious front garden. Now it was Grand Hotel Whittleberry until the Galdori could be ersed to evict the inhabitants of the vermin-infested ruin.
Mr. Whitlleberry hardly looked up at him. The man just held up his colossal hand, squinted his piggish eyes at whoever entered and grunted “move on” in a language that only he and some poppy-sniffing drunks seemed to understand. Still, the rugged man was a great deal more tolerable than his wife who could sniff out trouble ten feet away and peppered everyone she suspected of hiding something with questions. She had never managed to find a good enough reason to deny him entrance, but she would seize the opportunity if it presented itself to her. Perhaps the only thing they had in common, Tobias had once concluded, was their mutual disdain for each other.
Following the troupe of children, Tobias saunted up the stairs, grabbed a bedroll, a pillow and a torn blanket from a pile that the Whittleberries had prepared (though never washed, he suspected) and searched for a spot in one of the many rooms of the broken down house. It didn’t take him long to discover all the downstairs rooms were already filled up, and those on the first floor too. A room on the 2nd floor had some space left, but had been claimed in its entirety by a bratty teenager with dreams of starting a cult. It wouldn’t be good company, besides, his little group would soon be picked off by shady folk tempting them with easy jobs and quick money.
There weren’t many things Tobias was scared to do, least of all if he could annoy some clocking gollies with it, but he would never, ever start dealing poppy. Too many of his friends who’d tried had disappeared.
With a sigh, Tobias concluded there was only one room left in the house that was guaranteed to be empty. Not even the Whittleberries with their dogs dared to come up to the attic, they too had heard the wild stories about the vengeful ghosts who lived there. Still, it was an easy choice between ghost companions and a night out under the willow, especially with the cold he could feel coming on in his nostrils.
A vaporous fog slithered through the front garden and obscured the squadron of Seventen gathered just outside the wrought-iron fence. Dew still clung to the tall grass that hadn't been mowed in years and inside the air was filled with the quiet, peaceful breathing of two dozen souls.
When first light trickled through the cracks in the building, the Seventen announced their presence with a bang, The rotting double door was relieved from its hinges and the air disturbed by shouts, panicked screams and the angry barking of Whittleberry's dogs.