Death of East
Page 12
They walked home hand in hand.
8. LEANNA DREW THE MOON
Leanna knew she was a special little girl because the moon spoke to her. She knew that it shouldn't, and that she shouldn't listen, but none of that stopped it from happening. She drew pictures at school of her talking to a big moon face and the moon saying things like "try eating those soap suds, Leanna," or "that dog wants a bite of plasticine, go on," and in the pictures she would go ahead and do it. The moon, after all, was her friend.
But it wasn't always so nice.
She was five when it told her to kill her little brother. Her little brother was three months old. He lay in a cot and gurgled all day, while her parents fussed over him like he was a box of chocolates or something.
"Go on," said the moon, sidling up to her all smooth as caramel one night while she sat on her windowsill and drew his portrait. "Go on, everybody else is doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Killing their little brothers, dummy."
"Why?"
"Because it's cool," said the moon. "Everybody will want to be your friend if you kill your little brother."
"But he makes them happy like a box of chocolates. If he's dead they won't be happy."
"So?"
"So everyone likes chocolate, and they're sad when they run out."
"They'll buy more chocolate," said the moon.
"Maybe," said Leanna, and went to stand next to her baby brother's bed. He was sleeping. He didn't smell like chocolate, he smelt like milk. She touched his warm little head.
"Go on," urged the moon, "try it, just once."
Leanna's cat Leonides arrived. He jumped up on the bed and looked up at her in that curiously I'm-in-control-around-here way he had.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"The moon wants me to kill my brother," she said.
"Tut tut," said Leonides. He was a cat of few words.
"The moon says it'll make me cool."
"Cool? Cool is for trilobites, frozen in the Arctic."
"Really? What's a trilobite?"
"Aw, look at him," said Leonides, patting at the baby with his paw. "How cute."
"He is kind of cute."
"So he is," said Leonides, and went to sleep on the baby's arm.
Leanna looked up at the moon. "I can't do it now."
"Talk to your cat friend," said the moon huffily.
Leonides opened one eye. "You're not talking to the moon again, are you?"
"Um," said Leanna.
"That's very rude," said Leonides, then went back to sleep.
Leanna went back to her room, and did the same.
A week later Leonides got the flu. Her parents said he'd be OK but he had to go to the vet.
"Pip pip," he said weakly as they carried him away in the cat box. His whiskers were dipped and sad-looking, and that made Leanna sad, too.
The moon tried to cheer her up. "Let's play a game of noughts and crosses," it said.
"Sure," said Leanna, so they played.
"Now let's play hangman," said the moon.
"Sure," said Leanna.
"How about tag?"
"All right."
"Now let's kill your little brother."
"Sure," said Leanna, and went into his room, moon shadows stippling the cot, cartoon nightlight grinning inanely in the gloom. She took the pillow in her hands and leant over the bars.
"That's good," said the moon. "Good girl."
"Hmm," said Leanna, and put down the pillow. "I don't think Leonides will be happy if I do this."
"Really?" asked the moon, making a show of being surprised. "Why do you think that?"
"I don't know, but he's poorly and I don't want him to be sad."
"I'm sad," said the moon.
"No, you're not. You're just a chunk of rock in the sky."
The moon looked sad. "You've hurt my feelings."
"I'm sorry," said Leanna, "but it's the truth."
The moon made a sobbing sound, but Leanna knew that rocks didn't cry.
The next night the moon was back to normal. It told her Leonides would be back that day, and she should get a surprise for him. He would love it, said the moon. Leanna was overjoyed. Her two friends were finally getting along!
"This is the surprise," said the moon. "Go to the cellar and find one of dad's mousetraps. Set it, then put it in Leonides' cat litter. Make sure you cover it up."
"He'll like that?" asked Leanna.
The moon beamed down at her. "Sure he will. Cats love mice. Give him a mouse in his cat litter tray, he'll be your bestest friend for ever and ever."
"Good!" said Leanna, beaming back. "I will, I'll do it right now."
"There's a good girl," said the moon.
* * *
Leonides arrived back the next day. He was a little shaky and weak. "What what?" he said when he saw Leanna, and she ran over and gave him a big hug. He let her stroke him all she wanted, even though he was tired. She wanted so much to tell him about his surprise, and how from now on he and moon would be best friends, but she held back. She wanted him to be really, really surprised.
It happened in the night. In the morning her mother was at her bedside with the news, that Leonides had gotten stuck in a mousetrap and was in big trouble. He'd gone back to the vets, and they were helping him.
"Is he OK?" she asked. She didn't understand the connection between the mousetrap she had put in his cat litter tray and the mousetrap that had hurt him so badly.
"We hope so, honey," said her mother. Her little brother gurgled happily in the back seat.
"What happened?"
"Your father thinks he must have dropped one in his cat litter when he was setting them. He's so sorry, honey."
"Mousetrap," said Leanna, and started to cry.
They went to the cat hospital together. There a big man with a little stethoscope round his neck was friendly and gave her a sweet, introduced her to Puffy, the big fat white cat that lay slumped in the waiting room. He asked her if she thought he looked like a cream puff, and she said yes, and then cried some more. He said it would be OK.
Her father came out of the operating room, her mother stood up and they whispered something quietly. Her little brother squirmed beside her, tried to eat his fist, then her mother knelt down and put her hands on Leanna's knees.
"I'm sorry, honey," she said. "Leonides won't come home with us tonight." She looked up at her father, who nodded. "He's got to go away for a while."
"When will he come back?" she asked, catching the feeling of dread though she didn't understand it.
"He won't come back. He has to go for adventures now, out in the big wide world."
"No," said Leanna. "You're lying! He likes mousetraps. He wants to stay with us now. He loves me, and he's friends with the moon, too."
Her father knelt down. "Honey," he said, "Leonides does love you. He told me right before he left. But he has to go now. He doesn't want to, but he has to. It's something every cat has to do, some time."
"I don't want him to go," said Leanna.
"I know that," said her father, and hugged her. Her mother hugged her too. It was a big sandwich hug, but it didn't make Leanna feel any better. She wanted to hug Leonides, but he was leaving her. He hadn't liked her surprise.
* * *
At home that night the moon tried to comfort her. "There there," it said. "Don't cry."
"He's gone," she said.
"He must have been bored with you."
"He didn't like the surprise."
"And after you tried so hard to get it ready for him!" The moon put on its best sympathetic face. "He mustn't have really loved you then after all."
"No," she said, eyeing the moon sharply. "He did love me, he just had to go. My father said so."
"Yes, yes," said the moon effusively. "Of course, yes."
"He didn't like the surprise. It was your idea."
"Was it?" said the moon. "Are you sure?"
She wasn't.
Leanna yawned. "That's right," she said.
"I'll hum for you," said the moon, and he hummed the alphabet song, then Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Leanna thought she was about to fall asleep, and she felt quite nice for a while. Then her little brother screamed and started to cry. She heard her parents fumbling around in the dark. It was always like this, now.
The moon looked down at her. "I'm so tired," it said.
"Me, too," she said.
"You know what you have to do, don't you?"
"Leonides wouldn't like that."
"Leonides left you, Leanna. There's only me now."
"He's so noisy," she said sleepily. "He's never quiet."
"I know, I know," said the moon greedily.
"And they never listen to me anymore. It's only him. Even for poor Leonides, they brought him along. He didn't even know Leonides' name. It isn't fair."
"He makes it unfair."
"I miss Leonides."
"Tonight," said the moon. "We do it tonight."
"OK," said Leanna.
* * *
Her little brother fell silent an hour later. She watched the glowing hands of her alarm clock turn slowly round, unable to sleep. She waited for her parents to go back to bed, then she took a pillow and walked into her brother's room. The moon shone at her happily through the window.
"Go on," he said. "It'll all be better when you do."
"I know," said Leanna, and stepped up to the crib. Her baby brother was still awake and looked up at her curiously. His fat fingers balled into fists and screwed into his eyes.
"Hurry," said the moon.
"Leonides said he was cute."
"Leonides is dead," hissed the moon.
"What?" Leanna asked. The room seemed suddenly colder.
"Uh," said the moon, guilty eyes flashing. "I said, Leonides is in bed."
"No you didn't. You said he was dead."
"I did not."
Leanna glared up at the moon. "You wanted me to put a mousetrap in his litter tray when he was sick because you said he'd like it, but now you say he's dead."
"It was a surprise for him," whined the moon.
"He is dead! That means he's never coming back, doesn't it?"
The moon shrugged. "He may."
"I'm not an idiot!" Leanna spat. "I know what dead is. I miss him so much! And now you want me to kill my little brother, too. What if I miss him as well? What if I miss these fat little hands? He's the box of chocolates, what if I miss that?"
The moon's face turned dark. Clouds blossomed around it. "Do it!" it ordered, its voice rough and scary. "You silly little girl, do it now."
"No," said Leanna, "I won't," and she threw the pillow on the floor and stormed out of the room.
Behind her the moon remained, watching over the baby in the crib. "Then I will," it said. It reached out a slender beam of moonlight, and stroked the baby's lips. The baby's breathing stopped, and in moments it started to turn blue. It coughed a little, then choked under the moon's touch.
Leanna heard the noise from her room, burrowed under the blankets so the moon's voice wouldn't reach her. But she heard her little brother's little wet cough. She threw the covers free and ran back into his room, where the moon was grinning over the head of the cot.
"I've done it for you," he said. "You can thank me later."
Leanna looked from her baby brother turning blue to the pale smug moon in the sky, and for the first time in her life felt hatred. "I'll kill you," she hissed, and the moon flinched, bobbing in the sky. Then she screamed.
Her parents were in the room in less than a minute. She pointed to her brother and, her father picked up the baby while her mother cried out mad directions; pinch his throat, pat his back, clear his throat.
Within five minutes they were in the car and racing along through the night, all in their pajamas. There was no traffic and the world seemed different to Leanna like that, everything so dark and zipping by outside.
After they reached the hospital it was a blur of emergency rooms and doctors and attendants, all shuttling them with urgent directions from room to room. Finally they were seated in a waiting room, harsh white lights glaring down, and Leanna fell asleep in her orange plastic seat.
* * *
When she woke up she was a hero. Her brother was alive. Her parents hugged her and thanked her, but she was just happy her brother was still alive. She went in to see him and he gurgled at her. His face was slimy with baby food but she kissed him anyway. He smelt like milk. It was the happiest day of her life, but there was one thing she couldn't forget, and that stayed in the back of her mind throughout all the happiness and hugging.
* * *
She didn't go to school that day, and it was cloudy that night so she didn't see the moon. She knew he was hiding. He was afraid of her.
The next day at school she gathered up all the pictures of the moon she'd drawn, she even took down the ones from the walls that the teacher had proudly posted. Back at home she put them with a pile of other pictures, countless sheaves and scraps of paper she'd covered over with the moon while doodling late at night.
She put the pile next to the windowsill with a pair of scissors, and she waited there after her parents had put her to bed. She heard them fussing with her brother, who they'd moved into their room. She felt more alone, but it was alright, because there was something she had to do. So she waited.
She must have fallen asleep because she woke to the whispering of the moon over her shoulder. "Leanna," he sang. "Leanna, my baby girl."
"I'm not a baby."
"Of course not," soothed the moon. "I missed you last night. We need each other, don't we? Where would be, if we didn't have each other?"
"I don't need you."
The moon tutted. "Of course you do. Who will comfort you when he cries next door? Who will sing you to sleep while he bawls? Who will love you when all they care about is him?"
"Not you," said Leanna, and took the scissors to the first piece of paper and started cutting out the moon.
The moon flinched as the silver blades touched its image. "What are you doing? Stop it, it hurts!"
Leanna cut the tiny moon free and screwed it up in her hand. The moon in the sky crumpled for a second, paled, then looked down on her with fog-washed eyes. "Why are you hurting me? I love you, Leanna. I need you."
"I don't love you," said Leanna, and took up the next piece of paper, began to cut.
With every picture moon she sliced free and crumpled, the moon in the sky shook and dwindled, its glimmer fading and its voice growing softer and softer until Leanna could barely hear it.
"You'll never forget me," it whispered as she cut the last circle free and tore it into little pieces. Then it was silent. Leanna's room was silent. She let out a sob, briefly, then stifled it, because she was a big girl now.
* * *
That night she dreamed of Leonides. He was an explorer in the big wide world, having such amazing adventures, and he told her all about them. She drew the pictures when she woke up, telling the stories for her mother and father. Soon her little brother joined them on their adventures, even her mother and father, too. She drew them all, led by the fearless Leonides, marching through glaring white mazes and empty lands at night.
She never drew the moon again.
9. DEATH OF EAST
The giant rock hurtled through the sky a thousand fathoms high. Seawater and sludge boiled off at its hot red edge, burning a smoking trail above the clouds high over the Armorican continent. At the Pacifac Ocean's edge its great arc began to slow, and it dipped towards the ruffled grey waves, drawing within sight of a vast grey figure seated upon a vast grey throne, alone at the heart of the ocean.
It hit the water only miles from the throne's pedestal, burst froth and brine a hundred fathoms wide, then sank.
Hundreds more followed
, each on different arcs. Some soared far above the orange-sand barrens of Abindia, others over the sweltering deltas of the Mesopotame, some even above the ice-packed tundra of Ancharcita. Every day for a hundred days the rocks circled the world, until at last one struck its target.
Then everything changed.
* * *
"There's something wrong with the East," announced the Empire's Minister for Trade, his bald pate slick with sweat in the cardamom gas-lights of Lady Arabella's sitting room. "Our compasses no longer function, our maps are all useless, and we are at a loss as to why. The Empire is desperate, Lady, and I beg for your help."
The Lady Arabella eyed the slender gentleman before her. He was dressed in brown tweed with tartan-patched elbows, perched like an anxious figurehead on the edge of his chair. For such a high-ranking Cabinet member he cut a rather guileless figure.
"Steady yourself, sir," she warned, turning the brass musket-tamping rod she used as a cane idly in her hands. "The Empire is never desperate."
"I'm afraid in this matter it is," the Minister said, and drew a sheaf of papers out of his valise with pink and spindlish fingers, spread them across the low table.
Lady Arabella leaned in, studied the lists and charts before her. "Nautical reports?"
The Minister nodded. "We have lost hundreds of ships in the last three months alone. Some were bound east for Armorica or the Panamian passage, others lost in transit from the west, and distant Abindia. Of those few that landed safely, all claimed that the direction east, along with the lines of longitude you discovered, are no longer apposite to the task."
Arabella stopped swiveling the musket-rod, focused her steely eyes on the Minister. "East is immutable, sir, as are the lines of longitude. The problem must lie in the navigation. Have the compasses of these ships been tested?"
The Minister ran a white pocket square across his queasy brow. "I mean not to offend, Lady, but have you viewed a compass of late?"
"Of course not," Arabella snapped. She remembered well the indignity of Parliament men storming her apartments on the day she was cast from government. "Not since mine were stolen. Now I must license a geomancer when I set out to hunt."