“You can open your eyes,” he said.
She did.
“How did you do that?”
“This is my home,” he said. “I can do things here.”
The sound of shoes slapping against the pavement, and two men were on the other side of the gates, rattling them, pulling at them.
“Hul-lo,” said Jack Ketch, with a twitch of his mustache, and he smiled at Scarlett through the bars like a rabbit with a secret. He had a black silk cord tied around his left forearm, and now he was tugging at it with his gloved right hand. He pulled it off his arm and into his hand, testing it, running it from hand to hand as if he was about to make a cat’s cradle. “Come on out, girlie. It’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you.”
“We just need you to answer some questions,” said the big blond man, Mr. Nimble. “We’re on official business.” (He lied. There was nothing official about the Jacks of All Trades, although there had been Jacks in governments and in police forces and in other places besides.)
“Run!” said Bod to Scarlett, pulling at her hand. She ran.
“Did you see that?” said the Jack they called Ketch.
“What?”
“I saw somebody with her. A boy.”
“The boy?” asked the Jack called Nimble.
“How would I know? Here. Give me a hand up.” The bigger man put his hands out, linked them to make a step, and Jack Ketch’s black-clad foot went into it. Lifted up, he scrambled onto the top of the gates and jumped down to the drive, landing on all fours like a frog. He stood up, said, “Find another way in. I’m going after them.” And he sprinted off up the winding path that led into the graveyard.
Scarlett said, “Just tell me what we’re doing.” Bod was walking fast through the twilit graveyard, but he was not running, not yet.
“How do you mean?”
“I think that man wanted to kill me. Did you see how he was playing with that black cord?”
“I’m sure he does. That man Jack—your Mister Frost—he was going to kill me. He’s got a knife.?
??
“He’s not my Mister Frost. Well, I suppose he is, sort of. Sorry. Where are we going?”
“First we put you somewhere safe. Then I deal with them.”
All around Bod, the inhabitants of the graveyard were waking and gathering, worried and alarmed.
“Bod?” said Caius Pompeius. “What is happening?”
“Bad people,” said Bod. “Can our lot keep an eye on them? Let me know where they are at all times. We have to hide Scarlett. Any ideas?”
“The chapel crypt?” said Thackeray Porringer.
“First place they’ll look.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Scarlett, staring at Bod as if he had gone mad.
Caius Pompeius said, “Inside the hill?”
Bod thought. “Yes. Good call. Scarlett, do you remember the place where we found the Indigo Man?”
“Kind of. A dark place. I remember there wasn’t anything to be scared of.”
“I’m taking you up there.”