First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

Published in this ebook edition in 2019

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

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Text copyright © Sophie Cleverly 2019

Illustrations copyright © Manuel Šumberac 2019

Cover illustration copyright © Kate Forrester 2019

Cover design copyright © HarperCollins Children’s Books 2019

Sophie Cleverly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008218232

Ebook Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008218218

Version: 2018-11-14

Praise for

“This is one of the best books I have ever read. It was exciting, funny, warm and mysterious.” Lily, aged 9

“The whole book was brilliant … after the first paragraph it was as though Ivy was my best friend.” Ciara, aged 10

“This book is full of excitement and adventure – a masterpiece!” Jennifer, aged 9

“This is a page-turning mystery adventure with puzzles that keep you guessing.” Felicity, aged 11

“A brilliant and exciting book.” Evie, aged 8

“The story shone with excitement, secrets and bonds of friendship … If I had to mark this book out of 10, I would give it 11!” Sidney, aged 11

For all the readers of Scarlet and Ivy. This last secret is for you …

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Chapter One: Ivy

Chapter Two: Scarlet

Chapter Three: Ivy

Chapter Four: Scarlet

Chapter Five: Ivy

Chapter Six: Scarlet

Chapter Seven: Ivy

Chapter Eight: Scarlet

Chapter Nine: Ivy

Chapter Ten: Scarlet

Chapter Eleven: Ivy

Chapter Twelve: Scarlet

Chapter Thirteen: Ivy

Chapter Fourteen: Scarlet

Chapter Fifteen: Ivy

Chapter Sixteen: Scarlet

Chapter Seventeen: Ivy

Chapter Eighteen: Scarlet

Chapter Nineteen: Ivy

Chapter Twenty: Scarlet

Chapter Twenty-one: Ivy

Chapter Twenty-two: Scarlet

Chapter Twenty-three: Ivy

Chapter Twenty-four: Scarlet

Chapter Twenty-five: Ivy

Chapter Twenty-six: Scarlet

Chapter Twenty-seven: Ivy

Chapter Twenty-eight: Scarlet

Chapter Twenty-nine: Ivy

Chapter Thirty: Scarlet

Chapter Thirty-one: Ivy

Chapter Thirty-two: Scarlet

Chapter Thirty-three: Ivy

Chapter Thirty-four: Scarlet

Chapter Thirty-five: Ivy

Chapter Thirty-six: Scarlet

Chapter Thirty-seven: Ivy

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Books by Sophie Cleverly

About the Publisher

Chapter One
IVY

he last secret was waiting for us in a drawer at the bottom of our father’s desk.

But the first surprise had been Father inviting us back for the holidays. Last time we’d been home, our stepmother had told us in no uncertain terms that she didn’t want us setting foot in their cottage ever again. But that chilly December, Father had telephoned our new headmistress at Rookwood School and told her that he would be picking us up instead of his sister – our Aunt Phoebe.

My twin, Scarlet, and I clambered out of Father’s motor car, taking in the sight of our home as we breathed frosty plumes into the air like dragons. I was trying to remember it all in case we were forbidden from returning once more.

It was a large cottage that could have come straight from a fairy tale, all bright stone with a perfectly thatched roof. Whereas Aunt Phoebe’s house was a working cottage – mud on the floors and dusty coats hung up on hooks – this place seemed to exist only to look pretty. As I gazed at it, I felt nothing but cold, inside and out. There was an iron gate that opened on to the pristine lawn where we had once sat with our suitcases, Scarlet waiting to go to Rookwood and me to Aunt Phoebe’s – it seemed like a lifetime ago. The roses clambering up the stone walls could have been beautiful, tinged with white frost, but they were beginning to brown and wither, and the thorns looked sharp.

It was funny how quickly the seasons could change from one to the other. It seemed only moments ago that we’d suffered an ordeal on All Hallows’ Eve, and shuffled through autumn leaves to the bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night. Now there were only two days left before Christmas, and here we were, at a place I thought we’d never see again.

Father walked up to the front door with our luggage, humming to himself. Scarlet and I followed, sharing a nervous glance as we crunched our way up the path. What were we going to find inside? I was sure our stepmother wouldn’t be pleased that Father had ignored her wishes and invited us back to the house.

But as the door was unlocked and we were led inside, we found the place cold and quiet – as if no one else was there.

“Where’s Edith?” Scarlet asked.

Father dropped our luggage and leant back against the door. He seemed a little out of breath. “Oh. Hmm. Probably out shopping, I expect.”

That didn’t quite make sense. There were no shops for miles around, and we’d been in the motor car, so how would she have got there? Unless Father had dropped her off and forgotten about it, but that seemed unlikely.

I peered into the sitting room and the kitchen, but both were empty, nothing but ashes in the fireplaces. A Christmas tree stood in a corner, with a few sad-looking baubles drooping from it and some boxes wrapped up underneath. There were stockings hanging on the mantelpiece, but from a glance I could see that there were only three, with our stepbrothers’ names – Harry, Joseph and John – sewed on.

“What about the boys?” I added, half expecting them to ambush us and start throwing things. “Where are they?”

Father put his hand over his eyes. He looked a little unwell, I thought. There was a strange tinge to his skin. “Probably … Probably playing outside. Yes.” He nodded, and then wandered off, leaving us standing there in the hallway.

It was most odd. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in our old bedroom, wearing as many of our clothes as possible to try to keep warm.

Scarlet was doing star jumps and blowing on her hands. “Do you think there’s any chance we’ll get some good presents this year?”

I shook my head. “Probably socks again.”

My twin looked down at her feet. “Right now,” she said, “I’d be happy with an extra pair of socks.”

As the evening began to draw in, we heard a crash and a stampede of footsteps downstairs that probably signalled the arrival of our stepmother and her boys. I looked up from the book I was reading and saw Scarlet’s expression – she was clearly dreading our first interaction with them as much as I was.

After a while, I heard Harry shout up the stairs: “Twins! Dinner!”

Scarlet stomped out of our room. “We have names, you know!” she shouted back. Reluctantly, I put my book down and followed her downstairs. I braced myself for the impending confrontation. Surely our stepmother would throw us out as soon as she saw us?

But to my surprise, she barely acknowledged us as we walked in. I saw her eyes narrow, but she said nothing – just handed us two plates with fairly reasonable helpings of pie and mash on them. “Go on, then,” she said, waving us towards the table and turning away.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps things wouldn’t be as bad as we’d thought. The fire was roaring in the kitchen, and things began to feel a little warmer.

We ate in silence, almost afraid to speak in case we broke whatever spell had caused our stepmother not to throw us out immediately. The boys nattered with their mouths open, which was enough to fill the air with noise (and, in some cases, food). Father eventually came in, and Edith jumped up to give him his plate.

“Here you go, dear,” she said in the voice she only used when talking to him. “This one is yours. Thank you for dropping us off earlier.”

“Oh,” he said again, looking at it in a strange sort of confusion. “Yes. Thank you.” He took it to the table and began to dig in.

I started to wonder if he was becoming even more absent-minded than usual, like Aunt Phoebe. It seemed to be getting worse. He hadn’t remembered that he’d dropped them off anywhere – unless our stepmother was lying about that for some reason. But I filed the thought away and tried to enjoy having a half-decent meal.

We finished dinner, and the boys quickly ran away. I could hear them pulling on the Christmas tree in the next room, and rattling the presents.

Father looked up from the last of his food. “Girls,” he said, and I jumped a little, not expecting the attention. “I found something I wanted to show you.” He put his knife and fork down and stood up. “Come on.”

We followed him, and I saw Edith frowning even harder as we left our plates behind. I had to smile a little at that. I knew from experience that she had probably been about to order us to do the washing-up.

“What do you think this is about?” Scarlet whispered to me as we headed down the hallway towards Father’s office.

“No idea,” I replied.

The fire inside his office had been lit too, and we felt the warmth as he held the door open for us. For a moment he stopped there, as if uncertain of what he was doing.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I was going to show you something, wasn’t I?”

Scarlet looked at me, and I gave her a confused glance in return.

Father went over to his desk and sat down on the chair. “I’ve been thinking a lot about your mother lately,” he said.

My mouth dropped open. I’m not sure I could have been more surprised if he’d said, “I’m planning a trip to the moon.”

Our mother had died when we were born, and Father never talked about it, especially not since he’d married Edith. The thought of our mother seemed to be so painful for him that he often avoided thinking about us too. And now here he was, suddenly initiating a conversation about her.

“What?” Scarlet exclaimed.

He didn’t seem to notice our surprise. “I still have some things of hers, you know,” he said. He wasn’t even talking to us, more to the frost on the windows that was shrinking back from the heat of the fire. “I’ve been keeping them locked away. But after your theatre performance – after I met your aunt for the first time, and what she told me about her …”

He started coughing and then trailed off. It took me a moment to recall what he was talking about, but I realised he meant our Aunt Sara. We had tracked her down when we discovered our mother’s true identity: that her maiden name had been Ida Jane Smith, not Emmeline Adel as we had been told. She had taken the name of her friend who was killed by Rookwood’s former headmaster, Mr Bartholomew, in a punishment that had gone horribly wrong. When Aunt Sara had met Father, she had told him all this, or at least some of it.

Scarlet leant forward and waved a hand at him. “Yes?” she said.

He blinked at her, and then carried on. “I only locked them up because I had a lot to think about. I found myself wondering if I had ever really known her. But then I thought …” He sighed, picked up his pipe between his fingers and twirled it. “No. It’s no matter. She was my Emmeline, and yours. I think perhaps I was giving the past too much weight. It was a lot to bear.”

Now it was my turn to be unable to meet his eye. It just seemed so strange for Father to be speaking to us like this – or even to be speaking to us at all.

“I decided to go through her things last week,” he said. “And I thought you girls should have this.” He reached down and opened the bottom drawer of his desk, pulling out a gift-wrapped parcel tied with a red bow. He handed it to Scarlet, who was nearest. “Merry Christmas and all that,” he said.

I nodded with wide eyes at Scarlet, and she immediately began tearing off the wrapping. Father wasn’t even watching us now, just staring out of the window again.

Inside was a brown cardboard box that Scarlet pulled open. And inside the box …

Firstly, there were two photographs. Scarlet pulled them out. In one, our mother and father’s faces gazed back at us. They stood together in front of a draped wall. Our mother clad in a beautiful white lace gown and headdress, and Father in a suit with a flower in the buttonhole. They were wearing the slightly serious faces of people who had to stay still for a photograph, but their happiness shone from their eyes.

“Your wedding picture,” I breathed. Why had Father never shown us this before? My glance lingered on it, taking in the details. I smiled at the sight of the familiar pearl necklace I’d inherited – a few dots of white round our mother’s neck – and at the bunch of white roses in her hand. Her arm was linked with Father’s. Things that perhaps meant nothing to anyone else, but meant everything to me and Scarlet.

Scarlet was smiling too. She put the photograph aside gently, taking great care not to damage it.

The one below was just as special. It was the two of them together again, but a little more recently. The picture was taken at a lake, with trees in the background. I wondered where it was, but it was nowhere I recognised – a strange reminder that our parents had had a whole life before us. This time our mother was wearing a dark-coloured cloche hat and a silky looking dress, and Father’s arm was round her. The bump under her dress gave away the fact that she was clearly several months pregnant.

I felt a lump rising in my throat.

Beneath the pictures, there was a fairly large carved wooden box, shiny with polish. Scarlet lifted it out and held it up to the light. Tiny silhouettes of ballerinas danced round the outside. Hesitantly, she lifted the catch on the front.

A familiar tune began to play, and a tiny ballerina in a white dress popped up from inside the box. She spun around in a never-ending pirouette, dancing in the firelight. Occasionally the tinny music gave a little jolt, and she would tilt slightly before carrying on.

We peered inside. There were a few trinkets in the bottom – some old rings and a pressed white rose that I realised was probably left over from their wedding.

Scarlet put the box down on the desk and threw her arms round Father, who looked shocked. “Thank you!” she exclaimed. “This is the best present ever!”

When she let go, he smiled softly for a moment. “Don’t mention it,” he said. Then his eyes slipped over us, and he went back to staring out of the window again. The moment melted away like the frost.

Chapter Two
SCARLET

or the next few days, I couldn’t stop thinking about the present we’d been given. Even on Christmas Day, when we didn’t receive a single gift, it almost didn’t matter. Father had given us something more special than anything you could buy at a fancy department store. He’d given us a piece of the puzzle that was our mother.

I’d barely noticed our stepmother’s stern looks over Christmas lunch. I hadn’t corrected Father when he accidentally called me “Ivy” twice. I hadn’t even had the urge to punch Joseph and John when they tried to put carrots in my hair.

I looked at the box and the photographs every chance I got. I almost felt like our mother was going to step out of them, somehow. Ivy and I opened the music box over and over again, watching the ballerina spin until the clockwork ran down and the final notes chimed slowly into the air.

“I know this tune,” Ivy had said after the first few listens. “It’s from the ballet Swan Lake!” I knew she was right as soon as she said it. I had sometimes heard our ballet teacher, Miss Finch, playing it on her piano.

But the more we listened, the more something began to stand out to me. It was that tiny jolt in the music. I held my ear close to it, and could hear a little click each time.

That Christmas evening, sitting on the floor in our dusty old bedroom, I opened it up again. I wondered if it always happened, or only sometimes. Was it just an accident, something that had been put together wrongly in the clockwork? Was I even hearing what I thought I could hear?

“Do you hear it too?” I asked Ivy, who was peering down at me from her bed.

“The funny click?” she said.

I nodded and flipped the lid shut once more. “What do you think it is?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps it’s a bit broken?”

It was possible, I supposed. I picked it up and gently turned it over, hearing the rings inside tumble up into the lid. There wasn’t any damage to it that I could see – in fact it looked pristine.

Ivy slipped off her bed and sat on the floor next to me. “Wait,” she said, after staring at the box for a few moments. “Open it again.”

I did as she said, and she pointed into it as the tune played. “Look. The inside isn’t as deep as the outside …”

Peering more closely, I saw that she was right. There was at least an inch or so on the bottom below where the rings and the pressed rose sat.

“I don’t know,” Ivy continued. “Perhaps it’s just where the mechanism goes.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I’ve seen one of these opened up before. All of the mechanics are under the ballerina.” I pointed to the miniature wooden stage that she was attached to. “But there could be something else under here.” I began running my fingers round the edges, and sure enough, I thought I could feel a seam in the wood. “Hmm.”

That was when the idea struck me.

As the ballerina wound down, I folded her away and then opened the box again. But this time, when I heard the strange click in the tune, I pressed on the side as hard as I could.

And much to our surprise, a drawer shot out of the bottom of the box.

“Gosh!” Ivy exclaimed, nearly falling sideways.

We both stared into the secret drawer. Inside it was a sheaf of folded paper, a little yellowed but mostly untouched by time.

“Please tell me it’s not diary pages,” Ivy said. “I don’t want to find any more …”

I poked her indignantly. Those diary pages I’d left her to find had saved me from a horrible fate in an asylum after our evil headmistress sent me there, thank you very much.

I pulled the papers out and flattened them on the floor. There were several, and they were covered in writing – or, more specifically, in numbers.

“Oh,” said Ivy as she pored over them. “Isn’t this—”

“The Whispers’ code!” I interrupted her.

It was a long story, but we’d discovered last year that our mother had attended Rookwood School, just like we did. And during that time, she’d been in a secret club whose members called themselves the Whispers in the Walls, fighting back against the nasty Mr Bartholomew. We’d found their coded book of accusations against him, and our best friend Ariadne had been able to translate it.

“We’ll have to take this to Ariadne,” Ivy said, and I nodded. If it was the same code, she would be able to tell us what it said.

But there was something else. As I leafed through the pages, I saw that there was something written on the back of the last one. I turned it over. It was real writing, not just numbers. The top line read:

For my husband

Ivy and I looked at each other in shock. Could this be a letter from our mother? Her last secret? We read on.

I hope that I am with you now, safe and well, and able to tell this all to you in person. If I am not, then I pray it is not because he has found me. I shouldn’t have got involved again. I see that now. If you can interpret the secrets I have written on these pages, then perhaps you will be able to act where I could not. But I beg you, proceed with the utmost caution. It is a path fraught with danger and corruption.

I wanted to tell the truth, but if I never do, just know this: I am sorry for what I have hidden. Everything I did has been with the best of intentions. I wanted to expose everything that he has done, to free the past and change the future for the better. Perhaps it is too late for that now.

My name is Ida Jane Grey. I love you.

My hands were shaking so much that I almost dropped the paper. Our mother was speaking to us from the past, like a ghost.

“I pray it is not because he has found me,” Ivy whispered. “Who’s he? Mr Bartholomew?”

“It must be,” I said, although I had no way to be sure, since we couldn’t read the coded writing. But our mother had spent her life running from him, so it seemed to make sense.

Ivy put her hand over her mouth. “You don’t think … he did something to her?”

I thought about it for a moment, but then I shook my head with certainty. “Our mother died in childbirth, didn’t she? I don’t see how the headmaster could have had anything to do with that. And whatever this says …” I turned the pages over in my hands, “… nobody’s got their hands on it for years. I don’t think Father had any idea these were in here.”

“We’re the first to see these since she hid them,” Ivy said, staring down in awe. I handed them to her and watched as she ran her fingers over the words.

“I need to know what it says!” I declared, jumping up. I wished we were seeing Ariadne sooner, but there was still over a week to go before we were due back at school. How was I supposed to bear having to wait that long? “It could be more information about the Whispers, more accusations!”

“Well …” Ivy replied hesitantly. “It might all be meaningless now. We got Mr Bartholomew thrown in jail. We exposed what he did to our mother’s friend. What else could there be?”

I sank back down on the bed, the spark from the new secret beginning to fizzle out. “Hmmph. You’re probably right.”

But I still felt a tingle in my fingertips from where I’d held the pages. Whatever was written there, whether it was important now or not – it had been important to our mother when she wrote it. That was what mattered. We’d never known her, but now we had something she’d left behind, that only we had seen. It was something special that could never be taken away.

Chapter Three
IVY

he holidays weren’t particularly filled with cheer, but they managed to pass without any conflict, which seemed like a Christmas miracle in itself. Our stepmother was constantly glaring at us, but she mostly kept her distance.

Father, on the other hand, seemed to be getting stranger by the day. He spent most of his time in his office, and then sometimes wandered around the house with no apparent purpose. He looked a little off-colour too, and wasn’t eating very much. But he seemed happy enough, in his own way. I wondered if he was still thinking about Mother.

We didn’t show him the papers that we’d found – Scarlet wasn’t sure if we could trust him, and we definitely didn’t want to leave them anywhere Edith might come across them. I just wanted to find out what they said first.

When the New Year arrived and the day finally came for us to go back to Rookwood School, we were practically buzzing with excitement. It seemed so strange to feel that way, given how horrible the school had been for us most of the time. But now it was full of friends, noise and chatter. It was alive, while our home just felt chilly and dead.

Our stepmother was standing in our bedroom doorway that morning, with her arms folded, watching us pack. “Don’t come back this time,” she sneered, before marching off. Scarlet made a rude gesture after her.

While Father drove us to school, I spent the whole journey through the winding lanes thinking of the music box tucked away in my bag. We’d hidden the papers inside it again, along with the photographs. Part of me was afraid that the secret catch would stop working and they’d be trapped in the box forever, but we’d tried it several times just to make sure. Each time it sprang open like it had before.

At one point, Father started coughing so hard he had to stop the car in the middle of the road.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

It took him a few minutes before he said anything again. He’d gone rather green. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just feeling a little under the weather, that’s all.” He slapped his face gently with his hands, recomposing himself. “Right. We must get going. I’ve got work to do.” And off we went again.

We pulled into Rookwood, through those grand gates, the stone rooks staring down at us from their pillars. It was a January morning and there was still a layer of frost over everything, making it sparkle in the sunlight. The bare trees waved their cold limbs at us as we passed.

As we went down the drive, the familiar sight of numerous motor cars and buses greeted us – each one spilling passengers out at the front of the school. I took a deep breath. We were back.

When we finally made it to the main entrance, Father stopped the car and helped us out with our bags. He seemed to be struggling somewhat. “Here you go, girls,” he said. “I hope you have a good term.”

“Thank you,” I said, unsure what else to say.

“I’m … sure we will,” said Scarlet. She wasn’t used to being on speaking terms with our father either.

Inside Rookwood’s huge doors, the new headmistress, Mrs Knight, was calling instructions to the girls who were streaming in. “Straight to your dorms, please! Assembly in one hour!”

We heaved our bags upstairs through the crowd. It took some time, but we eventually made it to our assigned dorm, room thirteen.

“Let’s dump our things here and then go and find Ariadne,” Scarlet suggested.

“Good plan,” I replied. I put my bag down in front of the wardrobe while Scarlet threw hers on her bed. Of course, there was something important I had to do first. I reached in with care and pulled out the music box, setting it down gently on the desk. It chimed quietly as it touched the wood. I hoped that it looked enough like any other trinket box that no one would think anything of it.

“I wonder who Ariadne will be sharing with?” Scarlet asked as she made a vague attempt at hanging up the few clothes she owned. A dress slid off its hanger, but she ignored it.

“Hmm.” I wrinkled my nose. “No idea.” Our best friend had been sharing with a girl named Muriel Witherspoon last term, but Muriel had been expelled after being responsible for a string of awful events. Now Ariadne was once again left without a roommate.

My excitement began to build at the thought of seeing Ariadne again. I’d missed her so much the past few weeks. She always knew how to cheer us up, like a ray of sunshine through the dark brooding clouds of Rookwood.

We made our way to her dorm room, where I was pleased to see the door already flung open and our best friend beside the bed with her suitcases.

“Ariadne!” Scarlet called out, running in to hug her.

I followed and joined in.

“Hello!” Ariadne said brightly, once we’d released her from the hug. “Did you have a good Christmas?”

I shared a look with my twin. “It was … fine,” I said. My thoughts immediately flashed to the music box, but we were interrupted by a voice from the doorway.

“Good morning,” came a voice with a Scottish accent. If Ariadne was a ray of sunshine, this voice was rain on the moors.

“Oh,” Ariadne said.

We turned round. It was the new girl, Ebony McCloud. She’d been involved in the havoc with Muriel last term, pretending to be a witch and frightening everyone. But she’d since apologised, and I supposed that at least she seemed to be trying to make up for what she’d done.

“Don’t worry,” she said, traipsing in with her black bag and dropping it on the opposite bed. She must have seen the look on our faces. “I won’t turn you into frogs in your sleep.”

Ariadne cleared her throat. “I must be forgetting my manners,” she said. “Good morning, Ebony. Nice to see you again.” She elbowed both of us.

“Morning,” I said as brightly as I could.

“Hullo,” said Scarlet.

A smile twitched at the corner of Ebony’s lips. “Mrs Knight was pretty cross when she found out I was pretending to be sharing a room last term. We’re always meant to share, so apparently I ruined the whole system.” She sighed. “And since you’re missing a roommate, Ariadne, I’ve been told I have to stay here.”

Ariadne looked a little unsure, but she still made an effort. “Oh goody,” she said.

“It’s all right, honestly,” Ebony said. “I won’t be pulling any of those tricks from last term. I promise. I’m just Ebony now. I didn’t even bring my cat.” That made us smile. Her cat, Midnight, had followed her to school last term and we’d all been convinced it was her magical familiar. Maybe Ebony really had abandoned her witchy ways.

Once we were all unpacked, it was time to go to assembly. We trudged downstairs to the hall, where we all filed in. The air was filled with chatter.

Mrs Knight took to the stage. “All right, girls, settle down!”

The chatter faded to a quiet mumble before it melted away completely.

“Welcome back for the spring term, everyone.” She cleared her throat. “I know we have had … difficulties in the past. But I am confident that we can push forward and make Rookwood School the best it can be!”

“Isn’t this what she said last term?” Scarlet whispered, but I shushed her.

“If we all work together,” Mrs Knight continued, “We can—”

She was interrupted by the doors at the back of the hall opening.

We all turned round. A man had walked in. He was fairly young, possibly in his twenties, though I couldn’t guess his precise age. He had dark hair, short on the sides and slicked back on the top. He had matching dark eyes and a close-cropped beard, and he was wearing a suit that looked tailored and expensive. He proceeded to lean against the back wall with an interested expression on his face.

“We can …” Mrs Knight tried again, but then faltered, seeming unable to ignore the distraction any longer. “Excuse me, sir!” she called towards the back of the hall. “We’re in the middle of assembly. Would you mind waiting outside?”

The young man looked around as if there might be someone else she was addressing. “Oh, don’t mind me, madam,” he said. “I’m just observing.”

There was utter silence as everyone stared at him. Few men ever set foot in Rookwood School, let alone young and well-groomed ones. And that wasn’t all – there was something strangely familiar about him.

“I …” Mrs Knight was speechless for a moment. “Look, I really must insist …”

The man sighed, stepped forward and then began striding towards the front. Hundreds of eyes followed him.

“Well, if you really must,” he said, with an unusual air of confidence. He hopped up on to the stage and stood looking out at all of us. “My name is Henry Bartholomew, son of Edgar Bartholomew, and I’m the new owner of your school.”

Chapter Four
SCARLET

hat? The whole school seemed to gasp at the same time.

I couldn’t believe it. Of all the sentences to have come out of a stranger’s mouth on the assembly-hall stage … Well, I hadn’t been expecting that. He was the son of our evil former headmaster? And he owned the school? Why?

“We will have to talk about this elsewhere, Master Bartholomew,” Mrs Knight said firmly.

He smiled back at her as if this was the most normal thing in the world. “Of course,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “That’s what I was hoping. I’ve got a lot of plans I want to explain to you. Oh, and do call me Barty, everyone does.”

He gave a winning smile as he stepped down off the stage and to the side of the room, though I don’t think anyone’s gaze left him. He leant against the wall again, putting his foot up on it like he owned the place – which, according to him, he did.

Mrs Knight looked around helplessly. Her eyes rested on Miss Bowler, our loud-mouthed games teacher, who was at the side of the room. “Ah!” she said, seeming relieved that she’d found a lifeline. “Miss Bowler, while I’m dealing with this, can you come up and give the announcements for the new term?”

Miss Bowler, who always liked the chance to shout at people, bounded up on to the stage and took Mrs Knight’s notes from her. “Right, then!” she boomed as the headmistress scurried off towards Henry Bartholomew. Her voice echoed from the walls. “Listen up! Hockey club will be starting next Thursday afternoon and …”

For possibly the first time ever, I don’t think anyone was listening to Miss Bowler (and she was pretty difficult to ignore). We were all trying to lip-read Mrs Knight’s quiet conversation with the young man in the corner. After a few minutes she led him back out of the hall, and once again all our heads turned round to follow them.

“Eyes front!” Miss Bowler yelled, and everyone snapped to attention again.

“What is going on?” I whispered to Ivy, once Miss Bowler was back in full flow. “And where did he come from?”

My twin just shrugged, but she looked worried. Whatever was going on … it didn’t seem good.

All anyone was talking about as we left the hall was the sudden appearance of Henry Bartholomew, or Barty (shudder) and what it all meant.

“I can’t believe Mr Bartholomew’s son is here,” I said. “What is he up to? Do you think he’s as bad as his father?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re on about,” said Ebony, who was walking beside us.

Oops. This was probably going to take some explaining.

“The old headmaster,” I began. “He was awful. Super strict. One of his punishments went too far and killed someone. We had to get him to admit it, so that the police would arrest him.”

Ebony recoiled. “Oh!” she said, looking horrified.

Then I remembered something. “Ivy! We nearly forgot! We have to show Ariadne …” I trailed off, seeing Ebony’s face.

After all that she’d done, had she earned enough trust to be part of our group? “Show me what?” Ariadne asked.

I looked at Ivy, but she was staring down at her timetable and not being at all helpful. I sighed. Maybe Ebony was involved already.

“We found some papers that belonged to our mother,” I explained reluctantly. “But they were in code.”

Ariadne gasped. “The Whispers’ code?”

“We think so,” said Ivy, who was paying attention again now. “Well, we hope so. Otherwise it’s going to take even longer to figure out what it says.”

“Oh gosh,” our friend exclaimed. “I’ll look at it after class. How exciting!”

But as we got nearer to the Latin classroom, there was a commotion coming from within that got louder and louder. We found our Latin teacher, Miss Simons, trying to calm everyone down.

“Please!” she was begging them. “Please sit down! We must have silence!”

But no one was listening.

“What happened to Mr Bartholomew?”

“And how come his son owns the school?”

“What do you think he’s going to do? Perhaps he’ll fix the heating!”

I saw that even Rose, who was usually silent, was whispering excitedly to her newly returned best friend (and my former worst enemy) Violet. I waved at them, but they were too engrossed in their conversation to notice.

Miss Simons looked over at us in exasperation. “Girls, please …”

I slammed my fist down on the desk. “Everyone shut up!”

That got their attention. They all went quiet.

The Latin teacher didn’t look as pleased as I’d hoped. “Scarlet,” she said with a sigh, “I appreciate the effort, but that was a bit much.”

“Sorry, Miss,” I said. “It worked, though.”

We found our seats, while Miss Simons started writing on the board. “Thank you, girls,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll find out about this Henry Bartholomew fellow in due course. Now, if we could please all focus on our Latin …”

The last lesson of the day for us was ballet. We ran to our room to change. I laid my hand on the music box. “Soon your secrets will be revealed,” I whispered to it. Ivy rolled her eyes at me.

Our ballet lessons were held down in the school’s chilly basement, with our two teachers, Miss Finch and Madame Zelda. We were the first to arrive, thanks to our speedy changing, and we stopped at the bottom of the stairs when we saw that Mrs Knight was down there talking to them.

“He says his father has died – though he didn’t seem too upset about that,” she said, running a hand through her greying hair.

I stepped into the room. “What? Mr Bartholomew is dead?”

The teachers turned to look at me.

“Oh, hello, Scarlet,” Mrs Knight said. “Yes, it would appear so. I saw the death certificate. That is how this young Master Henry has come into possession of Rookwood.”

Ivy looked shell-shocked. It was a bit of a surprise. Well, our former headmaster was a cruel man, and one who was very old and incredibly sickly. But it still seemed strange that he could really be dead and gone. After everything he’d done … And now his son was taking over?

“Um, anyway, yes, he tells me that he’s got plans for the school,” Mrs Knight continued. “But I’m telling everyone not to panic. I’m sure this will all be sorted out. I’ve arranged to meet him again at three o’clock.”

“Right,” said Miss Finch, sharing a worried glance with Madame Zelda. “We’ll see you in the staff room.”

Mrs Knight left, wringing her hands. She didn’t seem as confident as her words suggested.

“This sounds fishy,” I whispered to Ivy, who nodded, still wide-eyed and a little pale from the news. I wondered what these “plans” would be.

“Come on, then, girls,” Miss Finch called from her seat at the piano. “Let’s get warmed up.”

It was always a relief to get back to dancing again. For an hour, in front of the endless reflections in the mirrors, I could forget about everything. I didn’t have to think about the secret box or our stepmother or Mr Bartholomew and his son. It was nothing but muscles and movement and music. And for once, everyone else was focused as well. Even Penny withheld her usual snide comments.

But when the lesson ended, and we’d curtseyed to the teachers, reality came rushing back.

I kept wondering exactly what Henry Bartholomew had planned for us. “Should we spy on their meeting?” I whispered to Ivy as we took off our toe shoes.

She made a face. “How would we do that? We can’t just walk into the staff room – there’ll be teachers in there.”

Hmm. That was true. And even if we looked in through the windows, we wouldn’t be able to see anything unless we were pressed up against them, and that would certainly give us away. I sighed. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

At least we had something to focus on: showing Ariadne what we’d found at home. We raced back to the dorm. We still had a few hours before dinner, and Ariadne came straight to our room as soon as she’d finished with hockey. Ebony had somehow managed to get away with avoiding games all together, and was presumably still holed up somewhere writing essays on sporting activities – the task she’d been given after refusing to do sports last term.

After the news of Mr Bartholomew’s death had been thoroughly dissected, we sat around on the floor of our bedroom with the music box in front of us. “So look,” I said, eager to show our friend what we’d found. “You open it up and it starts to play the tune. But when you hear that strange click, you can open the secret compartment.” I pulled it and there, sure enough, were the photographs and the paper covered in code.

“Oh gosh,” said Ariadne as I gently handed her the papers. “How amazing! I can’t believe this secret was just hiding in there for all these years!”

“Does it look like the same code you translated before?” Ivy asked anxiously.

Ariadne frowned. “I think so. Or maybe a slight variation. I’ll see what I can do.”

I grinned at her. “You’re the best, Ariadne.”

She grinned back at me. “I’m so glad to be part of the team again.”

I wrapped my arm round her shoulder. “No matter what happens, you’re always part of the team!” I took a deep breath. “But … perhaps don’t show it to Ebony. Not just yet, anyway.”

Ariadne seemed a bit perturbed about that, but nothing could ruin my excitement at that moment. We were finally going to uncover our mother’s last secrets.

Chapter Five
IVY

s it turned out, we would learn about Henry Bartholomew’s plans for the school sooner rather than later.

It was dinner time that same evening, and we were all filing in as usual. Well, perhaps “filing” wasn’t the right word. The actual process was messier and involved a lot more shoving and name-calling.

We were in the queue for food when Scarlet started elbowing me.

“Ouch!” I exclaimed. “What is it?”

She pointed to the doorway. “Look!”

The man himself had just walked into the room. There was a noticeable drop in volume as more and more people noticed his presence. He didn’t seem to be paying anyone else any attention, though. He started pacing around the dining hall, staring at the walls and the ceiling. He kept his hands in his pockets while his dark eyes searched the place … for what?

“What is he doing?” Scarlet hissed.

I had no answer.

We were so busy staring at him that we didn’t notice the queue had moved on.

“Ahem!” The cook cleared her throat. “Move up, we haven’t got all day!”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, running to her and holding my tray out to receive the day’s usual helping of stew.

By the time we’d got to our house table, Henry had made it the whole way round and headed back out of the door. What was he up to? His expression wasn’t giving anything away. He just smiled confidently at the teachers on his way out.

Mrs Knight, however, was not so subtle. She was muttering something to Miss Bowler near the entrance, when Nadia walked past them.

“What do you mean you might have to close the school?” Miss Bowler exclaimed, so loudly that most people heard her. And those who didn’t soon knew what she’d said because the words had rippled outwards like a stone that had been dropped in a pond.

“What?” Scarlet said.

“Why?” Ariadne exclaimed.

And suddenly everyone was calling out, while Mrs Knight just stood there, the colour draining from her face.

“Girls!” she shouted, trying to stop the flow of conversation. “Girls! I need your attention, please!”

For once, people listened. I think we all wanted to know how she was going to explain this.

“Please, don’t panic,” she began. This wasn’t entirely reassuring coming from Mrs Knight, who had been known to downplay even the worst of disasters. She cleared her throat. “As you have all heard, the school has a new owner. Mr … Henry Bartholomew has made his plans clear to us. He wants to …” She froze then, staring into the distance as if she was an actor who couldn’t read the script.

“Where is she going with this?” Scarlet whispered, but I shushed her.

Mrs Knight took a deep breath and tried again. “He wants to close the building.”

The noise broke out again as everyone tried to talk at the same time.

“But why?”

“What would happen to all of us?”

“Where would we go to school?”

“Enough!” Miss Bowler boomed, and I could have sworn the chairs rattled beneath us.

I couldn’t help but notice that Mrs Knight’s hands were shaking. “Everybody calm down, please. There has been talk of safety inspections. It may only be temporary. Nothing is set in stone. Let’s just wait and see, shall we?”

With a meaningful glance at Miss Bowler, she left the room.

Miss Bowler turned to all of us. “What are you lot looking at? Spoons back in mouths and stop gaping! You will eat in silence!” Her face was red as she strode out after the headmistress.

The silence, as you can imagine, didn’t last long.

“Is she being serious?” Scarlet asked, leaning over the table.

“Obviously,” I replied. I was struggling to know what to say. “But maybe it’s nothing. Just some inspections, like she said.”

“But does he really have the power to shut the school, just like that?” my twin replied. “And if he does … couldn’t he just decide to close it down permanently?”

“This is horrible,” Ariadne said. Her face crumpled for a moment, and she looked like she was about to cry, but then recovered herself. “If the school closes … we’ll all be split up! Where will we go? What if I get sent back to Hightower Academy? If they’d even have me back, after I was expelled.”

“We won’t let that happen,” said Scarlet. I raised an eyebrow at her. I didn’t know how she could promise such things.

I stared down at my plate for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts. “I think we have to listen to Mrs Knight. We can’t start panicking when we don’t even know what Henry Bartholomew is going to decide.”

Ariadne made a sort of strangled sound in frustration, and dropped her head into her hands.

I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure how to feel. Rookwood had changed and it meant something different to me. Now it seemed that someone might have the power to take our school away. Not just to ruin its reputation as our old headmistress, Miss Fox, had once tried to do in a wild act of revenge, but perhaps to get rid of it all together. There would be no more secrets for us to find if it was closed down. Nothing left of our mother’s legacy. No more adventures with Ariadne and Rose and the others.

What if we were sent somewhere worse? Or – and it didn’t bear thinking about – sent back to our stepmother? She had more or less threatened in the past that she would have us both locked up rather than live with her again.

“Let’s not all start worrying about this right now,” Scarlet said, unusually being the voice of reason. “Maybe we should just listen to Mrs Knight. We have bigger things to think about.”

“Bigger things than the school being closed?” Ariadne asked, open-mouthed.

Scarlet poked her with a fork. “Yes, like translating that code! We have to find out what our mother was up to when she wrote that note. It could be important.”

My twin was right. There was nothing we could do about Henry and his plans right now, but we could find out what was in those letters.

Ariadne puffed the air from her cheeks. “All right, of course. I’ll try this evening. But how am I going to hide it from Ebony?”

“Just tell her you’re doing extra arithmetic work,” Scarlet told her. “Nobody would care about that.”

“But I do have extra arithmetic wo—” Ariadne started, before wisely cutting herself off.

I lay in bed that night with my mind racing. I didn’t want to think any more about what would happen to us if the school really were to shut down, so instead I tried to chase the thoughts of our mother. Just when I’d imagined there was nothing left for us to learn about her, we were on the brink of discovering more.

I silently prayed that Ariadne would be able to solve the code, that it wouldn’t be something completely different that she had never encountered before. But it would make sense for our mother to use the same code that the Whispers in the Walls had used, wouldn’t it? Would it reveal more secrets from her time with them?

I couldn’t sleep. I needed to know.

Sitting up, I whispered to my twin, “Are you awake?”

“Ugh. Yes,” she replied.

“I can’t even shut my eyes,” I told her. “I can’t wait to find out what the papers say.”

“Same,” my twin said.

But then there was a knock at the door.

It was well after lights-out. That meant the person at the door was either Matron checking on us, or …

We threw the covers off, jumped up and ran to the door.

“Ariadne!” I exclaimed as I opened it.

She was standing there in her nightgown, with a jumper on top, holding the sheaf of papers. “I translated it,” she whispered. I couldn’t read her expression in the darkness. “All of it. I think you’re going to want to know what it says.”

Chapter Six
SCARLET

e ushered Ariadne inside and shut the door as quietly as we could. I went to turn the light on, but Ivy stopped me.

“Don’t!” she cautioned. “If Matron gets up, she’ll see it.”

I didn’t think this was likely, given how Matron usually slept like the dead, and it seemed incredibly late, but I supposed she was right. We shouldn’t risk it.

“Don’t worry,” Ariadne said. “I brought a candle.” She sat down on the floor and pulled out a small holder from her pocket, complete with a tealight. Then a match appeared in her other hand, and she struck it, the bright flame flaring against the wick.

“Where do you keep all this stuff?” I asked her.

“In my suitcases,” she replied. That made sense. She did have far too many suitcases. “I’ve been decoding it non-stop since dinner. It took hours.” She shivered. “I had to tell Ebony I was doing extra-difficult arithmetic for fun.”

We sat down beside her on the patchy carpet, huddling together for warmth. She laid out the pages and her translations.

I peered at them in the flickering glow. “So it was the old code?”

“Yes, thank goodness. That made it easier, but still time-consuming.” She pointed at what she’d written. “Start here.” I began to read it aloud, as quietly as I could.

1

We moved into the cottage today. I never thought that I would be back living so close to Rookwood School. Mortimer has no idea that this is where everything began. He doesn’t even know who I really am. Knowing that Rookwood is just a few squares away on the map … that he may still be there … it brings it all back into focus once more. I thought I could forget, but I cannot. The truth is there and it scares me. After all these years, I remember our old secret code. I think I have to write this down.

2

Things are clearer today. I spent all night torturing myself. I have been running from my past, hiding from it, for too long. It isn’t just my truth that has been covered. My darling Emmie was killed and for all I know her killer is still right there in Rookwood School, facing no consequences. Perhaps I have been thinking about this all wrong. Moving here may be my chance to set her free.

3

I went back to Rookwood village. I persuaded my husband, Mortimer, to take me, told him it would be nice for a visit. I wore gloves in a vain attempt to hide the fact that my hands were shaking. I left him talking to the priest in the churchyard and headed to the shop. I covered my face with my scarf, praying that they wouldn’t recognise me, but nobody seemed to. Speaking to some of the villagers, my worst fear was confirmed. He is indeed still running the school. The lady I spoke to first glanced all around as if he were about to jump at us from the shadows. They are almost as afraid as I am, though they seem not to know why. But they told me the rumours—

Ariadne had stopped there. I glanced up at her. “What happened?”

“She cut herself off,” Ariadne said, handing me another page. Ivy leant over to see it too. “Here you go.”

4

I am back. Mortimer interrupted my writing yesterday. Perhaps he cannot read this code, but I still do not want to take any chances. He would only ask me what I am working on. I hope to tell him the truth someday, but not today.

The rumours I was told concerned the headmaster (I do not wish to write his name). He continues to have a fearsome reputation. But they also say that he does not truly own the school, that he took it on false grounds! This is important. I must investigate further.

I looked up at the others. “Are you hearing this? Mr Bartholomew might not have been the real owner of the school! Which would mean that Henry wouldn’t have inherited it. This could change everything!” I felt amazed that we’d found a secret about Mr Bartholomew so soon after his death. It was just what we needed – almost as if our mother had known, somehow.

Ariadne nodded. “Keep reading,” she said.

5

I think the rumours might be true. I have done all the research I can. Rookwood was owned by an old family for centuries – how did it pass to him? One minute he was merely the headmaster; the next, I read in the newspaper that the place has always belonged to him. Something is very wrong here. I fear that the only evidence may be inside Rookwood.

6

I have made a grave mistake. I should never have gone back to that school.

Ivy gasped.

I paused and raised my eyebrows.

“She came back here?” my twin exclaimed. “I never thought …” She trailed off, speechless.

Mortimer agreed to take me there again. He thinks I have a strange fascination, but he didn’t argue. This time I left him at the Fox and Hounds with his friend while I went to the school. Walking down that long driveway brought back years of memories I had tried to forget. I told the secretary that I was a prospective parent and she let me look around. Every step along the corridor felt dangerous, but I had to search for evidence. I made it to the library and I found some documents on the history of the building. But that was all. I searched other places, even the secret places I had known long ago, trying to look like an interested parent whenever anyone set eyes on me. But there was nothing.

As I went to leave, I saw him – the headmaster, Mr Bartholomew. He was striding down the hallway towards me. He met my eye for a split second, and my blood turned to frost. I quickly faced away and ducked into a nearby classroom. I still do not know if he saw me, and if he did … whether he knew I was the girl that had challenged him all those years ago. The one witness to Emmie’s murder.

I am afraid, though, that he does know. I am afraid that he will find out who I am and where I live. How could I have been so foolish? This is not for me to solve, not now that I am happy and safe and married. If I am to defeat him, I cannot be reckless. I need to be stronger. I need a plan.

That was all she had written. There were no more pages of Ariadne’s translation. I frowned. “She had all of this, and she never managed to take Mr Bartholomew down?”

“But we did,” Ivy said.

I looked up at my twin. She wasn’t meeting my eye, but I could see a tear glistening on her cheek. I knew how she felt. We’d been the ones who’d got justice for our mother and her friend. We’d finally stopped him.

If only she could have known back then that she’d finally be vindicated. I hated the thought that she’d died without finishing what she’d started, feeling that she’d failed. I curled my fist tightly round the pages.

“This is important,” Ariadne said. “Perhaps your mother was on to something. If Mr Bartholomew didn’t really own the school, then who did it belong to? Could it have been this family that she talked of?”

“Hmm.” I sniffed. I was trying to pretend I wasn’t on the verge of tears.

Ariadne’s eyes glittered in the light. She pulled out the remaining pages – they must have been the documents that our mother had found. They were a little yellow, folded very small and covered with curly handwriting that looked many years old. “I read these as well. It wasn’t easy.”

I squinted at them. Even some of the spellings looked unfamiliar, but I could make out the word Rookwood. “Anything useful?”

“It talks about the Lord and Lady of Rookwood. It’s a bit of their family history and the history of the house, how it was originally built in the sixteen hundreds and expanded and changed over the years. It’s all rather fascinating—”

“Summarise?” I said impatiently. Ivy rolled her eyes at me.

“Well,” Ariadne said, “I think what your mother was trying to get across was that this same family, the Woottons, owned the house for many generations. It was always passed down to the eldest child or, if there wasn’t one, to a cousin. It was supposed to stay in the family. So how did it end up in the hands of Mr Bartholomew?”

“Perhaps there was no one else left,” Ivy suggested, running her fingertips over the paper. “And he was given it because he wanted to run the school.”

“It sounds like that’s what Mr Bartholomew wanted everyone to think,” I said. “But what’s the truth?”

Ivy smiled sadly. “It’s been so long. I don’t know if we’ll be able to find out.” Ariadne gave a silent nod in response.

I stared into the candle flame for a moment, and I felt a flicker inside myself too. A spark of something. Something that would never go out.

“No, come on,” I said, looking back and forth between my twin and our best friend. “This is us we’re talking about. If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s finding the truth.”

“But after all these years—” Ariadne started.

“We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. The Whispers. Miss Fox. Rose’s family. We’ve uncovered all their secrets, haven’t we?” I told them. A grin spread across my face. “The truth can’t hide forever.”

Chapter Seven
IVY

e were rudely awoken that morning by the sound of a commotion from the corridor. I yawned as I pulled the door open to peer out.

There was a man standing several doors down, and he appeared to be having some sort of confrontation with Matron.

“Never heard anything so ridiculous in my life!” she was shouting, waving her arms about. She still had her dressing gown on and hair rollers in. “These are girls’ dormitories!”

There were other heads peering out of doors too. Everyone wanted to know what was going on.

“I appreciate that, madam,” the man said. He was short, with silver hair and spectacles, and he was carrying a clipboard. “But I’ve been employed to do a full inspection of the building.”

Matron shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t care what you’ve been employed to do! I’m not letting you walk around these rooms, certainly not while they’re occupied. And preferably not at all! What gives you the right?”

The man didn’t seem to be particularly concerned by Matron’s outburst. He looked slowly from his clipboard to his watch, not meeting her eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I have my orders from the owner.”

Scarlet leant round me. “He doesn’t sound particularly sorry,” she whispered.

She was right. He didn’t.

“You can’t be serious,” Matron said, flapping her arms. “When the headmistress hears about this—”

“When the headmistress owns the school, she can give the orders,” the man replied. “But for now I really must insist that you let me inspect the rooms.”

I could tell that Matron was taking a deep breath, the sort that she usually took just before shouting at us. But then she deflated like a burst balloon. “Fine,” she said, a little more quietly. “Fine. But you will do it later; do you understand? During lesson time.”

There was a moment of silence, and I thought that the man was going to argue again. But he just looked at his watch once more, and then gave a dramatic sigh. “All right. I’ll go to the third floor first, then. But I will be back. I need to look at every room.” And without further comment, he marched away.

Matron put her head in her hands, and she looked rather surprised when she lifted it again to find herself surrounded by a swarm of us. I had been swept along by Scarlet, but honestly I was as curious as she was.

“What’s going on, Miss?” Penny demanded.

“Who was that man?” Scarlet asked.

Matron muttered something under her breath, and whatever it was, it didn’t sound particularly flattering. “An inspector,” she said finally. “Sent by the new owner. Wants to look around and, I don’t know, measure the place or something. Well, not on my watch! Nothing goes on in these dormitories without my say-so!”

I shared a glance with Scarlet. I was fairly sure that wasn’t exactly true.

There was a rush of perplexed muttering as everyone began to debate exactly what this meant. Matron looked around at all of us, and then suddenly seemed to remember exactly where she was and what was going on.

“I can’t believe you lot are out of bed before the bell! I didn’t think that was possible! Shoo, the lot of you!”

She waved us back into our rooms where, sure enough, the screeching bell rang out to tell us it was time to wake up.

“Bit late for that,” Scarlet grumbled. “What do you think the inspector’s going to do? Do you think he knows about the secret rooms?”

I frowned as I pulled my uniform from the wardrobe. “I don’t know. The stairs to the ones in the basement were destroyed by the library fire, and the ones on the third floor are locked.”

“And they were mostly full of broken old furniture, anyway,” my twin finished. “But there could be more that we still don’t know about or haven’t found a way to get into. If he’s so keen to poke his nose in everywhere, he’ll want to know every single one, surely?”

She had a point. “Let’s just hope Mrs Knight doesn’t tell him anything,” I said. If there were more secrets to uncover at Rookwood, then we couldn’t let Henry Bartholomew be the one to find them first.

At breakfast, I wasn’t entirely surprised to see Henry standing by the door to the dining hall. He had a clipboard too, with a sheaf of notes on it – presumably given to him by his inspector.

I was planning to ignore him and walk into the hall. Scarlet, though, had other ideas.

She marched straight up to him. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Henry lifted his eyes from the clipboard and smiled down at her. His teeth were white and perfect. “Hello,” he said cheerfully. “Good morning to you too!”

Scarlet folded her arms and frowned at him. “Good morning? We got woken up early by your inspector trying to measure our rooms!”

“Mr Hardwick? Well, yes,” he said, his pleasant expression not wavering. “It needs to be done, I’m afraid. I must see what state the old building is in before I decide what I want to do with it.”

I tried to pull my twin away gently, but she wasn’t finished.

“What about what we want? Does that not matter to you at all?” she demanded.

He gave a sort of quiet laugh. “Look – what’s your name, girl?”

“Scarlet.”

“Look, Scarlet, I wouldn’t worry. This inspection is about safety. You don’t want the old place falling down on your heads, do you? It’s just something that has to be done.” He raised his palms to the ceiling in the universal gesture for I can’t do anything about it, honest. Then he patted her gently on the shoulder. “I’m sure whatever conclusion we come to will suit everybody.”

He flashed her yet another winning smile, then walked off, hands in his pockets and whistling.

“Hmmph,” Scarlet said.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She turned to me. “I wanted answers. I thought it would be easiest to get them straight from the source.”

“I’m not sure that helped,” I said, finally managing to drag her into the bustling dining hall.

She shook herself free of my arm. “It did no harm,” she insisted. “But he didn’t exactly give us anything useful. Thinks he’s a charmer, clearly. But he’s a snake!”

I thought about it for a moment as we pushed our way towards the serving hatch. “You think so? I mean, what if he’s genuinely nice?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “He’s the son of Mr Bartholomew. You really think he’s doing all this out of the goodness of his heart?”

I winced. She was probably right. But then again, shouldn’t we be the first to admit that children weren’t the same as their parents?

It was at that moment that Ariadne and Ebony walked in. Ariadne waved as they came over to join us in the queue. Scarlet turned to her. “Where were you two this morning?”

Ebony wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”

“We just woke up,” Ariadne said, yawning.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. Ariadne was a very heavy sleeper, and she’d been up so late translating our mother’s messages, I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t heard the commotion.

“I was up till all hours thinking about everything from yesterday,” Ebony explained. “I was sound asleep this morning.”

We filled them in about the inspector and our encounter with Henry.

Ariadne tried unsuccessfully to pat down a piece of her hair that was sticking up at an odd angle. “I suppose that makes sense. He wants to see if the building is worth saving. Or whether they should knock it down and use the land to build on.”

“Surely it’s worth saving,” Ebony said. “A place like this? It’s full of history. It should be treasured.” The radiator pipes beside us chose that moment to clank miserably, and a gust of wind blew the window open. Ariadne ran over to shut it.

“That’s what I’m worried about, though,” Scarlet told her. “That it’s the history they’re really after. The secrets that are here.”

I didn’t know if I believed that. “What if he really does just want to make money off the place? Is that better or worse?”

No one had an answer.

Several of our lessons that day were graced by the distracting presence of Mr Hardwick, the inspector. The teachers, most of them having unsuccessfully tried to shoo him away, agreed to allow him to look around each classroom. It was hard to conjugate French verbs and discuss Oliver Twist in English with him pottering up and down at the back of the class.

Every so often, he would stop, say “Hmm,” a little too loudly, and pull out a tape measure. Next he would be scribbling notes on his clipboard, the sound of the pencil scratching in all our ears. Then he’d be kneeling to peer at the skirting board, or standing on tiptoe as he tried to examine the ceiling.

“I swear,” said Scarlet during the last lesson of the day, “if he says hmm like that one more time, I’m going to strangle him with that bloomin’ tape measure!”

I watched as Mr Hardwick went over to the fireplace at the side of the room, one of the remnants of the old house, paused, and then said, “Hmmmmm …”

Scarlet jumped up out of her seat, but thankfully the bell rang right at that moment. I quickly dragged her out before she could do any damage.

The next few days continued in much the same manner. Lessons carried on as normal, and I felt almost settled back into being at school, but it was as though there was a cloud hanging over everything. We frequently glimpsed Mr Hardwick disappearing down corridors with his clipboard. Scarlet even tried to sneak a peek at what he was writing, but she came back mumbling that she couldn’t read his messy scrawl.

Friday dawned with a cold fog that crept on to the school grounds. I shivered as I looked out of the window. The skeleton trees resembled charcoal sketches against the silver sky. Nonetheless, I had a good feeling about the day.

But that feeling evaporated as soon as we walked into assembly.

For a start, Mrs Knight wasn’t in her usual place at the front of the stage. None of the teachers were. Instead, it was Henry Bartholomew.

“Why is he up there?” I whispered to Scarlet, but she was too busy staring at him to reply. The hall was abuzz with conversation.

“Hello, girls,” he said loudly, and everyone went deadly silent. I knew they were desperate to know what he had to say. “I thought I ought to come and tell you this myself. It just seemed the right thing to do.” He smiled as if he was congratulating himself.

“You smug—” Scarlet started to mutter under her breath, but I hit her before she could finish.

“I’m afraid my inspector has found that the school building is in need of a lot of repairs. And so it has been decided that Rookwood will shortly be closing in order to carry them out.”

He paused, his eyes scanning the hall for our reaction. I expected a rush of whispers, but there was still an uneasy silence. I think we were all trying to figure out what he meant. Would the school reopen afterwards? Questions filled my head until Penny finally raised her hand. Without waiting to be called on, she asked, “Closed temporarily? Or closed permanently?”

“Ah!” Henry exclaimed, clapping his hands together and pointing back at her. “Good question. We’ll be looking into the possibilities. It might be that the building would be better for another purpose. And if that’s the case, then, when it closes …”

I realised that Scarlet and I were leaning forward. We were both holding our breath.

“… it might be closing its doors forever.”

Chapter Eight
SCARLET

didn’t know how the teachers expected us to pay attention in lessons later that day after being hit with that bombshell in assembly. For the whole morning, they tried in vain to get us all to shut up. But it didn’t work. All anyone could talk about was the school potentially closing. There was endless debate as to whether Henry would really do it, or whether it was just a possibility.

“What are we going to do?” Ariadne asked desperately that lunchtime.

I swallowed the bit of sandwich I was chewing. “I’m working on it.”

The thoughts were whizzing through my brain. There had to be something we could do. I wasn’t about to let our old chum Barty take away the one thing that was keeping Ivy and me from the clutches of our stepmother. Who did he think he was?

I just didn’t have a plan. I hated not having a plan.

Ivy sighed. “Perhaps … if he really does decide to close the school, we just have to accept it, at this point.”

“Absolutely not!” I told her. But deep down, a tiny part of me wondered if she was right.

Friday afternoons meant ballet, and I was looking forward to that, at least. Ivy and I ran down the chilly steps to the basement.

“Oh, hello, Scarlet,” Miss Finch said. She was sitting in her usual spot at the piano. “Hello, Ivy. You’re the first to arrive, once again.”

“Anything to get away from the misery up there,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Well, we have some good news for you,” Madame Zelda said. She was stretching her leg up on the piano, rather impressively. “Just you wait.”

“Good news would certainly be welcome,” said Ivy, although she didn’t seem optimistic. She still looked despondent as she sat down to lace her shoes.

I prodded her in the shoulder. “Cheer up! Good news!”

“Maybe,” she said, staring at the floor.

When the whole class were present, with shoes laced and hair tied up, Madame Zelda snapped her fingers to get everyone’s attention.

“Now, girls. We have an announcement for you. This year’s ballet recital has been approved by the headmistress. We are going to be performing a version of the legendary Swan Lake.”

There were lots of gasps and claps.

I looked at Ivy, my eyes wide with excitement. This had to be a good omen, didn’t it? Our mother’s secret music box played the theme to Swan Lake, and now we would get to dance in it! Not to mention that it was one of the most famous and most beautiful ballets, one in which I had always dreamt of performing. In my head I was the white swan, dancing for a packed theatre.

Madame Zelda waved her hand. “Since there were some issues with the auditions last time …” I snorted at that. Penny had been causing trouble as usual. Then Madame Boulanger, the school French teacher, had been pretending to know about ballet just because she was French (although that too was debatable given her occasional Welsh accent). It hadn’t exactly worked out brilliantly. “We have decided that we will choose the roles by assessing your performance in class.”

Hmm. I didn’t know if that was a good thing, but I hoped it was. We’d just have to do our best in class. That would, at least, be a little less nerve-wracking than auditioning on the stage.

“But, Miss.” It was Nadia raising her hand this time. “We’ve just been told that the school is closing! What if that happens before we can do the recital?”

Madame Zelda and Miss Finch shared a look.

“My mother has an expression, Nadia,” Madame Zelda said. “It is: ‘Do not try to pick the apple before you have grown the tree.’”

“What?” said Penny, her face screwed up like a pig’s.

Madame Zelda sighed. “What I mean to say is that we will have to see what happens. Maybe we get apples. Maybe we get pears. Maybe we get nothing.” She shrugged.

“But Nadia has a point,” I replied, and it wasn’t often that I said that. I could almost see my dream role disintegrating before my eyes. “We’ll need a lot of time to practise and prepare. Henry Bartholomew might shut the school before we’re ready.”

This time Madame Zelda narrowed her eyes at me. “Were you not listening, Scarlet? We can’t be having all these what ifs.”

Miss Finch nodded slowly. “All we can do is our best. We’ll have fun preparing the ballet even if we can’t perform it, won’t we?”

I grumbled my agreement, and looked over at Ivy. She was still staring at the floor. I could see why now. She’d realised straight away that the promise of good news was too good to be true.

And perhaps it was. But perhaps there was also something we could do about it.

Despite the looming threat of the school closure, I danced my heart out that lesson. I was determined to win a great role, even if I would never get to perform it on the stage.

But I was thinking as well. Ballet always seemed to help my brain work, to clear the cobwebs and show me the ideas I needed. And I decided that what we really needed was a new approach.

I tugged on Ivy’s arm as we finished our curtsies and ended the lesson. “I’m calling an emergency meeting,” I said.

“A what?” she asked.

“An emergency meeting,” I repeated, a little louder.

She winced and held her hand over her ear. “All right! But why?”

“We need to find a way to save the school, and we can’t do it alone. And I don’t just mean calling Ariadne. I think we need more people. We need a team.”

The look on Ivy’s face told me that she wasn’t quite convinced by this plan, but I could feel the wheels starting to roll. I was on to something.

“Come on,” I said. “I’m starting with Penny and Nadia …”

After dinner, I stood in the darkening window of room thirteen, looking out at a small sea of confused faces.

Ivy was sitting on her bed, with Ariadne beside her. Violet and Rose were sitting on mine, talking to each other in voices so quiet that I could barely hear them. Ebony sat in the middle, on the carpet, like an island. Penny and Nadia sat a little way behind her, cross-legged.

“Right,” I said. “You’re probably wondering why you’re all here.”

“Why are we are?” Penny asked loudly.

I glared at her. “If you’ll let me finish … I’m calling an emergency meeting. To save Rookwood.”

I was trying to be a little dramatic, but my efforts went unnoticed.

“No,” said Penny. “I meant why are we here.” She pointed to herself and Nadia. “You hate us. I think Nadia still hates me.”

“I don’t hate you,” said Nadia, rolling her eyes. Strangely, Penny looked quite pleased with that.

“Shut up, both of you,” I said. “You’re here because you’re already involved, whether you like it or not. You’ve both been here the whole time – at Rookwood, I mean. You’ve seen everything that’s happened with Miss Fox and Mr Bartholomew. You even read my diary!”

Nadia had the good grace to look a little sheepish about that.

But Penny just shrugged. “I still don’t get it.”

“All right,” I said to her. “You want me to speak your language? Henry is a snake. It takes one to know one.”

“Huh!” she said. “Well, perhaps you’ve got a point there.” She was clearly trying to look annoyed, but her face soon broke into a devious grin.

“Right, then,” I said, clasping my hands together. “I think I should explain about the Whispers in the Walls. Some of you already know, but not all of you.”

There were a few knowing nods from my friends, while those who didn’t know what I was talking about looked puzzled.

“The Whispers was a secret group that our mother was part of, many years ago. We found out about them when Violet hid Rose in a concealed room in the basement that had their writing all over the wall.”

Ebony’s mouth dropped open. “Wait, what? There’s a hidden room in the basement?”

“Not any more,” Ariadne said. “The entrance was destroyed in a fire.”

“And why was Rose hiding in it?” Ebony asked.

“Because Violet rescued her from an asylum, and her family were trying to kill her,” I said.

“Oh,” said Ebony.

“So anyway, the Whispers’ aim was to expose the original Mr Bartholomew for his cruelty,” I continued, “and for the punishment he gave to a pupil that led to her death.”

Ebony had really missed out on a lot of the dramatic events at Rookwood.

Nadia raised her hand. “I heard he stabbed her with a letter opener.”

I sighed. “No. He didn’t. But anyway, we managed to track down all this information that the Whispers had, and we used it to trick him into confessing.”

Now Violet raised her hand. “I don’t understand where this is going.”

I glared at her. “You don’t need to keep raising your hands. Just listen to me, all right? The Whispers never managed to take down Mr Bartholomew, but we helped their voices be heard. Now we’re up against his son, and the school is about to be closed – whether that’s really temporary or not. And the thing is, thanks to Ariadne translating the secret code, Ivy and I have found some new information left by our mother.”

“What information?” Violet asked.

I put my head in my hands. This was like herding cats. Luckily, Ivy took over for me. “She was investigating the headmaster on her own too, after she left school. She’d heard rumours that he didn’t truly own Rookwood.”

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