Unbroken Ties (Keeping Secrets 2)

Chapter 3

The damp, cold air of the underground tickled at her skin as she hurried down the busy winding streets. She gritted her teeth and squeezed through the crowds, her fists swinging at her sides. She forced herself to slow down, determined not to let Fenrir intimidate her. She took a deep breath; it was more than that though. He had slammed shut another door to the werewolves' world in her face.

Sighing, she headed towards a boarded-up shop on one of the side streets. A lot of the shop fronts were closed along the alley, their windows covered in a thick layer of dust and grime; some of them had been smashed into a cobweb pattern of cracked glass. Weeds were sprouting out of the cracks in the walls, with broken bottles and empty sweet packets littering the slick cobblestones. It had been a surprise to find that the entrance to her father's bookshop, Haven, opened up into such a derelict area in Carwick below, considering its good location above ground.

Temperance had spent a long time searching for a door to the underground world in Haven. Knowing that the butcher's across the street had one made her suspect that they did too. It hadn't been easy to find. It was as if someone had deliberately hidden it.

While she called it a door, it was just a hole chiselled through the stone blocks of the floor. It was hidden behind the wooden panelling in the basement. There was a latch in the rotten wood that made it click open like an escape hatch. It seemed like it was a sheer drop down into the cavern but it acted like a magical wind tunnel, pulling a person up or down.

Temperance tried to avoid using it. She was afraid people would find out. But Fenrir had upset her so much she couldn't face going back to Winthrop's shop. This door to Haven was a quicker way home.

The plywood boards were fixed to the empty shop windows with rusty iron nails the size of her fingers. Temperance wondered what type of goods had been sold there and whether the property technically belonged to her father or not. She had no doubt that if he knew about the world beneath him, he would start using it.

Slipping in under a loose board, she hurried through the shop across broken glass and discarded, rotten furniture to the tunnel that would take her up to Haven. She stepped into a small ring of stones and waited until the magic sucked her upwards. When she reached the top, her ascent slowed and she saw the panel covering the hole above her was ajar. Dim light was shining through. She reached up to push the wooden board further back and clambered through the opening. Frowning, she glanced around and quietly closed over the hatch in the floor. There was no one else in the basement. She darted upstairs to check on her father and found him stripping the robes off the wizard mannequin in the window display.

"Dad!" She gave a relieved sigh that at least there was no one in the shop to see what he was doing. Her shoes creaked on the wooden floorboards as she skirted by the packed black bookcases. She crossed by the front door and realised he had pulled down the white blinds and flipped over the closed sign.

"What are you doing?" she asked, watching as he fell out of the window box, struggling with the wizard's cloak.

"Temperance! Where did you come from?" He didn't wait for her to reply. Instead, he bundled the clothes up into his arms and squeezed them to his chest with a wide grin. "I'll be back!"

He darted into the back room and slammed the door behind him. Because she didn't know what else to do, Temperance waited. The door flew open a moment later to reveal her father dressed in the wizard's clothes. The robes only reached his knees, making him look like a giant squeezed into a doll's dress. He held up his slim hands and popped on the matching pointed hat. His clear blue eyes gleamed as he tucked his greying blond hair under the rim.

"How do I look?" he said, posing with his hands on his hips.

"What's going on?"

"Your mother had a dream!" Pratchett rushed over to her. He gripped her shoulders, a serious expression on his face. "A foretelling dream!"