The Apothecary Page 0,39

my bird’s shoulders. Then I remembered Danby snatching my scarf away just as I was changing, and realised my wings must be missing feathers.

Benjamin and Pip were circling overhead, calling out to me, and I fluttered clumsily towards them. I started to think about what I should do to get to where they were, but as soon as I started analysing all the necessary motions, I felt myself fall.

“Catch the robin!” Mr Danby called.

“I’ll get her!” the matron said.

The ground came dizzyingly close, and the children shouted, “Fly! Fly away!”

I heard a panicked call from the skylark. I willed myself to be near him, stopped thinking, and instantly shot up into the air. The children cheered as I rose free. We were high over Turnbull, looking down at the dumbstruck and furious adults and the laughing, triumphant children. And then we were sailing away.

I had sometimes, before that day, had dreams about flying, but dreams had nothing on the real thing. We soared high over the streets of the East End, and the people looked tiny below. We could see where the bombs had fallen in the war, and where they had left buildings untouched. Pip wheeled and hovered and then dived with rocket speed towards the ground before soaring up again with a gleeful, birdlike laugh.

I couldn’t manage the acrobatics with my incomplete wings. I wondered if Danby still had the scarf, or if it had turned to feathers in his hand. I looked back towards Turn-bull and saw the green sedan pulling out of the drive. I realised that Danby and the Scar would know where Benjamin’s father was, and if we followed them, they might take us there.

Benjamin must have thought the same thing. When I swooped to follow the sedan through the streets, the boys did, too. We passed a few actual birds as we flew, and they all gave us a wide berth, not trusting a skylark, a swallow, and a robin all traveling together. One curious crow flew close to investigate, but it seemed to detect something unnatural about us, and cawed and flapped away.

The green sedan drove south, and west, and then stopped in an ordinary London neighbourhood, with rows of terraced houses. The car parked in a side street, and neither of the men got out.

I dropped down to the roof of the parked car, trying to land softly but nearly hurtling off the edge. The passenger window was open, letting out a curl of cigarette smoke, and I perched just above it. Benjamin landed beside me, then Pip. My hearing was better than usual, as a robin, and I could hear the Scar, out of sight in the driver’s seat, say in heavily accented English, “Children do not become birds, like this.”

“I would concur,” Danby said, “except that I saw it happen.”

“They cannot shrink so.”

“But they did!” Danby said. “It’s because of that book. The apothecary’s book. That Scott girl, the American, was ready to hand it over to me.”

Benjamin turned to me. His shiny bird’s eyes were bright, and he held his beak at a significant angle. You wouldn’t think that a skylark’s face could convey I told you so, but I’m here to tell you that it can. I was glad that Danby hadn’t discovered that Sergei had the satchel with the Pharmacopoeia in it.

“The children had clearly seen you before,” Danby continued. “Which means you’ve been careless.”

The German’s voice was icy and clear. “I am never careless.”

“They must have seen you at the shop,” Danby said. “Or in the garden. Someone who is careful might have noticed that they were there.”

The Scar muttered something I didn’t understand.

“And now they’ve flown away,” Danby said. “And they no longer trust me, and it’s impossible to get answers when your prisoner has taken those bloody muting pills.”

Benjamin and I looked at each other. The mute prisoner must be his father. He’d taken a pill like Shiskin’s, to make him unable to speak. Danby’s cigarette appeared through the open window, and he knocked the ash to the ground. I wondered how I had ever found his long, pale hands appealing. They seemed so sinister now.

“I could get answers,” the Scar said.

Danby sighed. “The drug makes speech impossible. It’s very clever.”

The passenger door opened with sudden decisiveness, and I flew, panicked, into a nearby tree. Benjamin and Pip scattered, too. Danby didn’t seem to see us. He got out of the car and ground out his cigarette with his heel, then straightened his