Shipwreck Island

by Struan Murray

  It pointed majestically at the sky, as if preparing to ascend heavenwards on one final voyage. It was the size of a hundred whaling ships joined together. Though it must once have been made entirely from wood, parts of it had been built over in stone, as if it had petrified with time, transfiguring it from a ship into a palace.

  What had once been its topmost deck was now its front wall, painted with a vast mural: hundreds of people in a garden of fat, fruit-bearing trees, so luscious that Ellie expected the plants to grow even as she watched. At the very top of the mural, right beneath the prow of the ship, a glowing, angelic figure had been painted to gaze lovingly upon the garden. Neither male nor female, it had immense, swanlike wings that spilled down the sides of the mural, sheltering the humans within their embrace, feathers changing to leaves, then vines, then roots that curled into the soil.

  Ellie walked towards two huge doors set within a great archway at the bottom of the mural, from which a staircase issued like a tongue. An iron gate rose before the stairs, and one of the armoured men stood next to it, tapping a rhythm on his gauntlet and humming softly to himself.

  ‘Um, can I go in?’ Ellie asked.

  The gatekeeper didn’t look at her. ‘Do you have official business?’

  ‘Uh, I’d like to speak to the Queen, if that counts?’

  ‘It does not.’

  Ellie grumbled. She grabbed the gates in both hands and squeezed her head partway through the gap, staring at the massive closed doors at the base of the mural.

  ‘Please don’t,’ said the gatekeeper. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many children I’ve had to pull from these gates.’

  ‘Does she ever come out?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If I stay here, will I see her?’

  The gatekeeper shrugged. ‘Maybe. She’s unlikely to see you, though.’

  Ellie sighed, trying to will the doors to open. Instead, a much smaller door opened at one side, and a line of eight girls emerged, each a replica of the other. They wore silver face paint, and long purple dresses with black flowers on each shoulder.

  ‘Who are they?’ Ellie asked the gatekeeper.

  ‘If I tell you, will you stop asking questions?’

  Ellie nodded.

  ‘They’re the Queen’s handmaidens. They serve Her Divine Majesty in all Her tasks.’

  ‘What tasks?’

  ‘That sounds like another question to me.’

  The handmaidens mounted the stairs towards the main entrance in perfect synchrony, and the doors were pulled open by two more guards in silver armour.

  Ellie gasped as she caught a glimpse inside. White marble walls. Gleaming black tiles. Glittering crystal chandeliers. She could hardly imagine what exquisite lives the handmaidens must lead as servants of the Queen; a woman who could rule an island larger than even the City, despite being a Vessel. Ellie pictured herself walking through the palace with her head held high, assisting the Queen and impressing her with all her knowledge. The hairs on her neck stood on end.

  Then the doors slammed shut.

  Ellie’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll be back,’ she told the gatekeeper.

  ‘I look forward to it,’ he replied. ‘Though maybe wear some shoes next time.’

  Ellie slouched away, feeling even more alone than before. She drifted down the street, dropping into a heap in front of a jeweller’s shop. Her heartbeat echoed through her whole body, like a clock ticking inside an empty cathedral.

  She thought of Seth, a smile on his face for everyone but her. She groaned, sliding down the wall until she was almost horizontal. A girl with a mess of curly ginger hair walked by, and Ellie wished dearly that Anna could be here with her right now, to lift her up and lead her off on some poorly thought-out and dangerous scheme.

  But Anna was a thousand miles away. In a city that thought Ellie was dead – that had wanted her dead. She tried to remind herself that, in a way, Anna was still with her. That friendships lasted beyond time, beyond circumstance. Beyond death. Anna had taught her that, and it had saved Ellie’s life. She tried to imagine Anna there with her now. Tried to picture her face.

  But it was so hard.

  She let out a long sigh, which took some of the pain with it, then eased herself up with her cane. She glanced down, then squinted.

  Something glistened on the paving stones. Many somethings, in fact.

  There were bloody footprints on the ground, dotted with white pinpricks of sunlight.

  A child’s.

  Ellie placed her bare foot next to one. It was about the same size as hers. The footprints trailed along the alley, and Ellie was afraid that a child nearby was hurt. She followed the footprints round a corner, down the street and into a dead-end alley, where they vanished beside a pile of crates.

  Ellie frowned, wondering where the child could have gone. Then she glanced up, and saw that, kneeling upon the highest crate, was a girl.

  She had tanned skin and long, messy dark hair. She wore a weathered blue cloak, black shoes and socks, and was watching something through a window.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Ellie. ‘Have you seen an injured child?’

  The girl’s head turned sharply in Ellie’s direction. She didn’t seem surprised by her sudden appearance, just annoyed.

  Shut up, she mouthed, then returned to staring through the window.

  ‘Can’t you see all these footprints?’

  The girl swiped her hand angrily through the air. She was pretty, about Ellie’s age or slightly older. Her cloak fell open as she gesticulated, revealing a glimpse of pale lilac beneath. Ellie gasped.

  ‘You’re one of the Queen’s handmaidens!’ she whispered, noticing a smudge of silver make-up beneath the girl’s right earlobe. ‘Are you here on royal business?’

  ‘Shh!’ said the girl.

  Ellie crept on to the crate. Up close, the girl smelled of honey and lavender. Ellie peered through the window, into a cosy kitchen. There were children’s paintings on the wall, racks of spices and herbs, and a wooden counter covered in coconut husks, tomato seeds and fish skeletons.

  A mother, a father, and three daughters sat round the kitchen table. The father presented the youngest daughter with a toy dolphin made from felt, which the girl clutched tightly to her chest. She wore a hat of flowers, and Ellie supposed it was her birthday. The man leaned back in his chair, watching his daughter with satisfaction. He had a warm face and kind eyes, which just then glanced up to the window, spotting Ellie and the other girl.

  ‘YOU!’ His roar made the glass tremble. He leapt from his seat and darted from view. Fabric brushed Ellie’s face as the handmaiden sprang down from the crate and raced along the alley back towards the street.

  A great shadow appeared, blocking the girl’s path.

  ‘I told you I’d hand you over to the Wardens if I caught you spying again!’ said the father.

  The girl stood frozen, hands trembling. Ellie looked from her to the huge man and back, then reached into her coat pocket. She retrieved a small metal sphere, praying it would still work after so many months at sea, then hurled it at the ground by the man’s feet.

  It exploded immediately, spouting a massive cloud of smoke that filled the alley. Ellie rushed forward, reaching out and finding a slim arm, and a hand, which gripped Ellie’s with surprising strength. A massive dark shape flailed above them as they snuck by, and then they were through the smoke and sunlight burst all around them.

  They hurried across the street and down another alley, hearing the man’s shouts behind them. Ellie clenched her teeth as she struggled to keep up with the girl, her right leg aching fiercely. As she turned a corner, her foot caught a box of empty flowerpots, and she tripped, nails and screwdrivers spilling from her pockets, her cane clattering away across the paving stones.

  Ellie heard a deep shout echo from close by: the man was chasing them. She looked up, and saw the handmaiden racing down the alley. Ellie groaned – her one chance to meet the Queen was slipping away.


  Then the girl glanced back over her shoulder.

  She saw Ellie on the floor, hesitated, then rolled her eyes and hurried back, snatching up Ellie’s cane. She pulled Ellie out of the alley and down another, through a bewildering riot of dangling laundry and drying fish hanging from wooden frames. Finally, they stopped in the cool shadow of a statue of the Queen. The girl sat down, eyeing Ellie suspiciously. Her cheeks were tinged pink, but she was otherwise composed. Ellie, meanwhile, was leaning on her cane and coughing.

  ‘Th-thank you,’ Ellie spluttered. ‘For coming back for me.’

  ‘How did you make that dark cloud?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ellie, still struggling to breathe. ‘It was … was one of these.’ She pulled another metal sphere from her pocket. ‘I call them smoke bombs. They contain … sugar, saltpetre and saleratus.’ She paused, waiting for the girl to be impressed, but she just stared at her. The girl’s eyes were large and brown with golden specks. ‘I make them myself,’ Ellie added.

  Still the girl said nothing, just stared.

  ‘I’m an inventor, you see.’ Ellie’s mouth had gone very dry.

  The girl did not appear to ever blink.

  ‘My name’s Ellie.’

  The girl’s ears twitched slightly. The rest of her was as still as the statue above them.

  ‘Um, what’s yours?’ Ellie said.

  ‘Kate,’ she said. ‘Can I see that?’

  Ellie passed her the smoke bomb. The girl turned it over in her fingers, studying it.

  ‘Um … Kate?’ said Ellie. ‘You work for the Queen, don’t you?’

  Kate looked up, a hint of danger in her eyes. A suggestion of imminent violence.

  ‘I just mean, um,’ Ellie stammered. ‘The thing is, I’d like to work for her too.’

  Finally, Kate blinked, slow and controlled. ‘What can you do for the Queen?’

  ‘Well, like I said – I’m an inventor. I make things. I made a boat that can go underwater. Do you think you could maybe ask her if I … you know …’

  ‘What would She want with you?’

  ‘Well, I think I could be useful,’ she said. ‘And I want to be part of something good. You work for the Queen, you must know what I mean?’

  Kate watched Ellie with that same dangerous stare.

  ‘You don’t want to work for the Queen, Ellie,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘The Queen cannot be trusted.’

  She threw the smoke bomb at the floor.

  Smoke rushed up Ellie’s nose. She coughed and reached out into the grey blanket around her. But her fingers touched bare wall, and when the smoke cleared, Ellie found herself standing in an empty alleyway.

  Alone.

  Leila’s Diary

  4,756 days aboard the Revival

  I bring the Crone water for her plants and for the boy. I buy fish from the fishing clans. Now that Blue Eyes is dead, I belong to no clan. I’ve no money either but the Crone gives me beetroots and onions to trade with, so plump and juicy that I reckon they’d spout water if you stabbed a hole in them. Not like the ragged vegetables the farming clans grow on the Sky Deck.

  ‘What’s your secret?’ I asked, watching her prune a cherry tree in the dim candlelight.

  ‘I have a god living inside me. Here, take this.’ She handed me some of the offcuts to collect in a bucket.

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘It doesn’t call itself anything.’

  ‘I thought gods had names. The Enemy has a name.’

  ‘That is the name we have given it, much to its delight, I’m sure. What’s your name, girl?’

  ‘Leila,’ I said. ‘Leila the whale rider.’

  ‘You’ll need a new name now.’

  ‘I don’t want a new name.’

  ‘It doesn’t describe you.’

  ‘So? You call yourself a Vessel, but I’ve yet to see any evidence.’

  ‘Hold this,’ said the Crone, putting a pot of soil in my hands.

  ‘I don’t even know why I waste my time here,’ I said, feeling my temper rise. ‘You’ve brought me nothing but misery, and a boy who stole my whale’s eyes and who sleeps all the –’

  Something touched my wrist and I dropped the pot. I expected a crash of clay, but … nothing. The pot was suspended a foot above the wooden floor, a branch curling from the soil, wrapping round my arm. I watched as sharp leaves uncurled from its tightly packed buds.

  The old woman looked at me.

  ‘You stay here because you think you have nothing else, child. No parents, no siblings and now no whale. The god in me, though … it lost this whole world. But with this one –’ she looked down at the sheepskin rug where the boy lay utterly still – ‘we might be able to make it new again.’

  The Crone passed her hand over the branch round my wrist, and a brilliant purple flower burst forth.

  A Lesson in Guano

  Seth left the Vile Oak early each morning to work on Janssen’s boat. Sometimes Ellie would be woken only by the sound of him closing the door on the way out, and would crawl from the sheets, grouchy and alone, the bedroom massive and empty.

  She stumbled down to the bar one day to find Molworth mopping the floor. The room stank of stale beer and wine and there were puddles of both everywhere, and a shattered violin for some reason. A man was asleep on a table by the window, his perfectly round stomach eclipsing the sun as it rose and fell.

  ‘Um, can I help?’ Ellie asked. Molworth prodded the man with the handle of his mop, eliciting nothing but a burp.

  ‘You’d only get in the way,’ said Molworth, pulling a fork from his pocket and inspecting the points in the sunlight. ‘What do you do, anyway?’

  ‘Well … nothing at the moment,’ Ellie said, sticking her hands deep in her pockets. ‘I’ve never had nothing to do before.’

  ‘Pray to the Queen, and She will show you a path,’ said Molworth, holding the fork over the man’s bare stomach. ‘And maybe try brushing your hair occasionally.’

  Ellie grumbled and stepped out of the pub. There was a high-pitched yelp from behind her, scattering chickens and seagulls.

  With nothing to do while Seth was fishing, Ellie wandered the island. She found a blacksmith’s by the Humpback Crags, where skinny, blue-furred goats leapt from rock to rock. The forge was hot and smoky and Ellie breathed deeply, imagining she was back in her workshop. She half expected Anna to appear, to hug her or punch her arm.

  ‘What do you want,’ said a huge woman, rising from behind the bellows. Her skin was a map of old burn scars.

  ‘I’m looking for work.’

  ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘A little? Though I don’t –’

  ‘I need someone to make my soup.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand, I’m an inventor.’

  ‘Then invent me some soup.’

  ‘I could … make you a machine that sharpens your tools, or … clears all this smoke? I could improve that forge of yours. It looks very old.’

  ‘You telling me how to do my job?’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Ellie. ‘I can tell you all sorts of ways you could do your job better.’

  ‘I don’t want sick-looking pains-in-the-neck, I want someone to make my soup.’

  ‘But please, I need a job!’

  The blacksmith rolled her eyes. ‘Pray to the Queen, and She will show you a path. Now get out.’

  So Ellie wandered south to the Abrami Coast, where old men and women sheltered in the shade of palm trees, and children frolicked and squealed in the shallows. She entered an apothecary’s, a cramped shop stuffed with shelves of colourful powders, the ceiling hung with a hundred bunches of dried plants. It smelled of rot and rancid fruit.

  The gaunt man behind the counter peered over the paper he was reading. On it were printed block capitals:

  LOREN DONATES GRAIN TO THE POOR. POOR OVERJOYED TO MEET THEIR HERO

  ‘Queen’s mercy, what’s wrong with you?’ the man said, eyes widening in horror. ‘Why haven’t you come to see me
sooner? You need Sprig of Marbel to put the colour back in your cheeks.’

  He held up a purple flower. Ellie made a face.

  ‘That’s nightshade. It’s extremely dangerous.’

  ‘Child, I know a bit more about plants than you do. Take this.’ He held out something small, round and red. ‘It will fix that leg of yours in minutes.’

  ‘That’s a radish. You’re selling these things to people as treatments? I’m surprised you haven’t killed someone!’

  ‘You watch your tongue, girl. Doreen Willis was getting on in years. And she had those warts on her face before she came to me.’

  ‘Look, can I have a job? I know a lot about plants.’

  The man looked her up and down. A big smile spread across his face.

  ‘No.’

  After that, Ellie tried a candlemaker, a cake-maker and a seamstress, none of whom had need of her help. She tried a chef, who thought she’d come to babysit her son. She tried an elderly clockmaker, who threatened to have her arrested. She tried a timid shoe-shiner.

  ‘I could invent a machine that shines the shoes for you,’ she told him excitedly. He had a brush in hand and a queue of extravagantly dressed noblemen waiting impatiently.

  ‘Oh dear, I think you should go,’ he mumbled. ‘You don’t look well – you might need a Sprig of Marbel from the apothecary.’

  ‘Ooh, it could have eight arms, and each one could have a hand that spins very quickly and shines the shoes, so you can just sit back and relax!’

  ‘But I like shining shoes.’

  ‘Please,’ said Ellie. ‘I really need a job.’

  The man looked deeply into Ellie’s eyes.

  ‘Pray to the Queen, and She will –’

  ‘Oh, I’ll tell you what she can do with her path!’ Ellie yelled, then scarpered as the noblemen rushed at her, like a flock of seagulls to a fish.

  ~

  The bedroom door swung open a few inches, then got stuck. Seth’s tired face appeared through the gap.

  ‘Why won’t the door open?’ he said wearily.