Everything jolts, everything hurts. Opening my eyes I stare up at the dark snowfall.
I’m not dead then. Slowly I turn over and shake each limb. Nothing broken. The snow scrunches under my fingers, and below that, straw.
Frozen straw, but straw all the same.
I’m alive.
I’m still alive.
I let my feet over the side and slide to the ground. Never has the mud of a farmyard felt so good under my feet and I stand there, leaning against the hayrick breathing the thick cowy air and thanking Tod for the hours we’ve spent falling off roofs and surviving before picking my way over the frozen ruts and running out of the gateway.
Chapter 22
In the freezing dark I clamber up the drainpipe at the back of our house and in through Beatty’s bedroom window. Inside it’s even darker and she isn’t here. I put my hands over her bed; it’s still warm. From the floor I pick a paper bird. It’s perfectly folded.
Moving along the unlit landing, I slip downstairs and into my room. My old clothes are lying there where I discarded them, dryer and cleaner than the ones I’m wearing, so I strip off the once beautiful jacket and my vomit-stained shirt and breeches, and seconds later I stand redressed, warm, in my old woollen coat.
A moment after and I’m on the landing, I check the parlour. The shutters are still open and slight snowlight makes the room glow, but it’s empty. No sign of Grandma sleeping in the chair, no sign of anyone. Feeling the grate, I find it’s cold. So no one’s been in here at all today. I reach up behind the clock and find the sphere still there, warm and round and smooth.
But where is everyone?
Where’s Ma?
Where’s Polly?
Where’s Beatty?
Downstairs, the shop’s closed, and in the basement the range is almost cold. All the plates are tidied away as if no one’s cooked. Ma’s big coat’s gone from the back of the door, and Polly’s best boots from the fireside.
Even though it’s dark and cold, I keep searching, as if I might find them hiding in the cupboard or under the table.
Only the ticking of the clock makes any sound. I’ve never known the house so quiet. I try to feel good. The plans are upstairs behind the clock. The secret’s safe. But the quietness of our house worries me.
Where are they? In church? Surely they wouldn’t have taken Beatty – no one but me can carry her that far.
I know exactly how to get it.
Sick with fear I slip the bolts open on the kitchen door, and step back out into the night.
I miss the soft sounds of the hens as I pass the coop and I stand on a crate, listening. This time I’m sure there’s no one here, no Colonel lurking. Clambering over the coal shed I step into the street and creep around to the Griffin.
The door’s open a crack and Ma’s laughter rings out from the warm yellow room. Quiet as a shadow, I sneak over the threshold. At the table where I first saw the Colonel, sit Ma, Grandma and Beatty. I rush forward, so glad to see them safe that I don’t look properly.
I stop.
Caught half in, half out of the room.
The Colonel sits at the end of the table, cracking walnuts between his fingers.
He laughs and fills their mugs with something from a jug – his gold tooth shines in the candlelight.
“Athan!” shouts Beatty, curling her finger at me. “Where have you been? I thought the ghosties had taken you off.”
They all turn to stare.
“Here, boy.” Ma jams me on the bench next to her and whispers, “Colonel Blade’s paying.”
I plaster a grin across my face, determined not to show how worried I am to find this, all of them in his pocket. Ma, Grandma, even Beatty.
I settle myself between them. The Colonel looks at me unsmiling, his eyes hard and angry. Then he runs his tongue across his lips, like a man eyeing a tasty dish, and pulls a nasty smile. Ma prattles and giggles, and cuddles up to him. I move closer to Beatty.
“Where’s Poll?” I whisper to her. “What’s going on? What’s he doing here?”
“It’s all right. Poll’s measuring in Brock Street.” Beatty holds a mug of something steaming. Her eyes shine with excitement.
Grandma looks up from her mug. She frowns at me, sips a little and lays her head on the table.
Chatter flows over everyone. Ma’s is louder than the rest and it all feels jolly – very jolly – but I rub my wrists where the ropes were and sneak a glance at the Colonel. He smiles and pours out cider and blows kisses at Ma. Beatty leans against me. “I thought you’d left me, Athan. I thought you’d deserted me.”
“You know I wouldn’t.”
She doesn’t answer. Instead she knots her fingers into mine, holding me tight.
The Colonel shifts himself into the light. He puts his hands together so that just the fingertips touch. They form a cage. Placing the hand cage over the candle he leers at me. The flame leaps up around his fingers but he doesn’t move them. He keeps them there for minutes. Then slowly, like an executioner, he crushes the candle.
The flame dies; the hot wax flows out between his fingers.
Beatty sucks in her breath and stares. I do my best not to jump, but when I look up, his bright-blue eyes are gazing right at me. I glare back, feeling a flush of red creep up to my face. Beatty shakes beside me and I see that she’s not touched her drink, but Ma’s knocking it back, her face red and shining, her body squeezed into a silly new dress.
The Colonel picks wax from the hairs on the back of his hand. But he never moves his gaze from mine.
Deliberately, I look away. I try to seem unconcerned but I’m sure my face gives me away. Columbine Good sits in the fireplace. I notice her because for once she isn’t drunk. She’s a bundle of something wriggling at her feet. Kittens, for drowning, or puppies. She takes away the things that other people don’t want and makes her living out of it. Anything. Kittens, puppies, ghosts, children. It’s probably why she has to drink so much. She’s watching our table with pinched eyes, following the chat and drinking nothing. Perhaps she’s no money? For long minutes she gazes at the Colonel, her eyes narrowing and widening, her lips moving to a silent song.
Grandma’s asleep. Her top lip trembles with each breath. In a moment, she’ll start to snore.
Someone comes in behind us and the wind blows through the inn, whisking out the fug and filling the room with cold.
I turn. It’s Mr Katz and his sister. They look out of place, but they stop at the bar and Mr Katz leans forward to talk to Peter the landlord.
They’re buying wine.
“Now, Athan.” Suddenly the Colonel’s talking. “Athan knows summat about the sky. He knows how to get up there, don’t you, lad?” I say nothing.
“Athan is just the man to take us on a tour of the heavens, so I suggest, madam,” he holds out his hand to Ma, “that we take a little excursion to the yard of this fine hostelry to see the constellations.”
Ma springs to her feet and takes his waxy hand, a beam of pleasure on her face. “Boy, do as the Colonel says.”
“But what about Beatty?”
“Let her be, lad – child’s not well enough to go out stargazing.” The Colonel leads Ma down to the steps at the back of the inn.
“Don’t leave me here, Athan!” Beatty’s arms reach out to me as she perches on the bench, her legs dangling into the dark.
I hesitate. “It’s a public place. Grandma’s here. And Mr Katz is over there.”
Beatty’s face wrinkles as she looks at Grandma, whose snores now echo from the walls. But she waves me away and I run to the back door.
We’re out there for no more than a few minutes. Snow falls all around us, there’s nothing to see, certainly no stars. The Colonel dances Ma twice around the yard, then stops and leads her towards me. I can’t see his face in the chill dark. “So where’s Venus then, lad?” he asks.
“Well, you can’t see it,” I reply. What’s he up to?
“Up there I think you’ll find her �
� god of love.” He presses closer to Ma.
She giggles.
“And Mars, the god of war – just yonder.” He points south. Does he really know what he’s talking about?
“Oh, Colonel…” Ma says.
“Mordecai, call me Mordecai.”
“Oh, Mordecai – you’re so clever to know that. You really are.”
They stand so close together you’d struggle to put a blade of grass between them and I think of the sharp-faced woman and her wild looks and I see Ma, once fine but now a foolish shipwreck of a woman, and I hate him.
I clear my throat. They move apart. Ma puts her hand to her breast and laughs; the Colonel puts his arm through hers and leads the way back into the building.
I rush past them back to Beatty.
But she isn’t there.
“Where’s she gone?” I shake Grandma, but she spits out a glob of phlegm and looks muddled.
”Where’s my sister?” I ask some men sitting in the window. They shrug and go back to drinking.
I look up towards the bar, where Mr Katz and his sister were a moment ago, but they’ve gone.
Ma stands there blinking in the middle of the room, looking around like she might find Beatty in the air. The Colonel runs to the door to look in the street.
“Where’s she gone, Columbine?” Ma turns to the woman sitting in the fireplace.
But Columbine laughs and throws her apron over her head. “You’ve lost her, you’ve lost her, you’ve lost the little pearl. She wandered out with the fairies – she’s run away at last, the little changeling’s going home.”
Ma freezes and colour rushes into her face. She moves her head close to Columbine’s. “Don’t call my daughter a changeling! Shut your head, you daft creature, and start looking!”
“You know she’s a changeling – left by the fairies to serve you right.” Columbine rises to her feet. “It’s for stealing men from other women’s hearts. Twice.” Columbine spits the last word.
“But I was going to send her to a hospital – they’re going to make her better.” Ma’s face shakes with tears.
I look across to the Colonel. He gazes back. A smile plays over his lips and then he takes Ma by the shoulders.
“Don’t worry, Moll. She’ll be found. Athan’ll find her. He knows how to get her back. Don’t you, lad?”
And my blood freezes.
Chapter 23
Standing outside the inn, the snow settles on my face. Columbine staggers down the steps, the bag of mewling kittens slung over her shoulder. She stops, opens her mouth, closes it again and talks to the wall lamp.
“You, boy. You’re a good lad.”
“What?” I say. “Are you talking to me?”
“Maybe,” she says. Pulling a half-toothed smile, then singing something, she disappears down towards the river, the darkness swallowing her whole.
I watch Columbine go, wondering if that meant anything.
I search the falling snow, as if Beatty could be out here somewhere. He took her from under my hand.
Unless.
The snow slows and I run on white carpets of it, newly fallen, covering the grimy streets until I reach Mr Katz’s house.
He comes to the door himself.
“I am so sorry, Athan, but I have not seen your sister since we were in the Griffin Inn. She was sitting in the corner with your grandmother, and when we left she was still there.” His face is very concerned and he looks as if he really does care where Beatty is.
“Thank you,” I say. “But if you do hear anything?”
“We will keep a look out for her,” he says.
Skidding through the whirling snow, I run to Tod’s. His uncle stands over a coffin in the front yard, stuffing balls of cotton into a dead person’s mouth. He nods to me as I come in.
It’s colder inside than out.
“Tod back?” I ask.
“Receiving his just rewards,” Mr Ballon sighs.
I look through the window. The workshop’s only lit by a single lantern, but I can make out the scene straight away.
Tod’s there, his arms braced over the back of a chair while his father cracks a broad leather belt. Tod’s jacket hangs on a hook and he’s only wearing a shirt, breeches and torn stockings.
“One!” bellows his father.
Thwack
“That’s from your mother.”
“Two!” The belt strikes again.
“And that’s from me.”
“Three!”
Thwack
“And that’s from our Lord, for not honouring thy father and mother. Now, get out of here.”
His father sinks on to the chair and reaches for a jug. Tod stays leaning, trembling, his hair touching his father’s bald head. An odd sort of hiccupping sound fills the workshop and I realise it’s Tod, crying.
I wait outside the door of the workshop for a minute, then knock and walk inside. Tod’s father still sits in the chair and there’s no sign of Tod himself. The man doesn’t speak but waves me towards the wooden building at the back that passes as a kitchen.
Inside, Tod sits half naked and tear-stained before the empty fireplace, lighting a candle.
I don’t know what say to him.
He looks up at me and grins. “I was fiddling about with the machine, stretching the wings out, working on some new spars. I forgot a funeral – they had to do it without me.” His face is lined with tears.
“Tod, I’m dead sorry – I know, I mean I… Look – but he’s stolen Beatty.”
“What?” he says.
“Colonel Blade. He took them out to the Griffin. He took me prisoner but I escaped.”
“Prisoner?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t matter. Listen – it’s him. He’s taken her because he wants the plans.”
“Well, give ’em to him.”
My mouth drops open. “What? No!”
“Why not? What you got to lose?”
Why was Tod talking like this?
“Because – because I don’t like bullies,” I say. “And he’s bullying me – and because Mr Chen hid it and died for it, because poor Mr Haddock, who knew nothing, died for it, and because if we win, that ten thousand guineas might change all our lives. It might cure Beatty, and get you out of here, and us out of there, and because you got beaten for it – and because, because – he wants it. And he’s a cruel, brutal, awful monster of a man who’d use a crippled child…”
Tod leans forward and says a single word: “Beatty.”
I stare at him for a moment.
“I’ve got to give him the plans, haven’t I?”
Chapter 24
We agree that I’ll offer Blade the plans in the morning. Which gives us until then to search the town, every inch of it. We meet the mad and the drunk, who laugh at our questions, but the street girls give us chocolate and promise to help.
In the early hours we run into Ma. She’s in an awful mess, her hair all loose, her face ragged with crying.
“Polly’s back at the house – in case.” She leans on Tod.
“And the Colonel?” I ask.
“He’s searching with the watchman. They’re checking the rubbish pits.” Ma falls into sobbing. “My poor little girl, so tiny, all on her own. Whatever was I thinking – I can’t possibly send her away, I can’t live without her. The funny little thing.”
We take Ma back to the house. I run upstairs into Beatty’s empty room, where all that fills the space is a rag doll. I look at the place on her bed where she sits. It’s the only space not dotted with paper birds. I pick up the doll and turn back downstairs.
Grandma sits in the drawing room with Polly. She’s heating up blobs of sealing wax and dropping them into a cup of cold water. “Pigs – I see pigs,” she says.
Ma just stares at her.
Grandma drops more wax in. “Oooh – devils – I see horns, and all sorts, terrible things.”
I stand up and look over her shoulder. “I just see some red balls floating in a cup
.”
Ma presses her face into her hands and crumbles into tears. Polly comes over and gently strokes her cheek. Ma grabs Polly’s hand and holds it close.
“Ma, I know who took her,” I say.
Tod glares at me and shakes his head.
“Who?” She raises her eyes, and in the weak candlelight looks quite mad. “Was it Columbine?”
“No, not Columbine. She was still there after…” I reach towards Ma. “It’s your sweetheart, Ma. Colonel Blade.”
Her mouth falls open. For a moment she just stares.
The room goes pin silent.
Polly widens her eyes.
We wait.
When Ma speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper.
“Never, never talk to me like that again.” She rises and walks to the fireplace. “Athan, I thought I’d brought you up properly – you mustn’t do it – don’t tell lies, and don’t try and poison my mind.”
“I’m not trying to poison your mind, I’m trying to tell you the truth.” I reach out to her but she twists away. “He wants something, and Beatty’s a tool – nothing more. He just wants to get hold of it.”
“What?” she snaps. “What is it? What can it be that he’d take a child? How can you say that? How can you accuse such a gentle, kind man?”
Polly looks up at me and stares. Her eyes wide and clear and strong. She looks as if she’s just understood something.
I reach up behind the clock. “This,” I say, holding the ball out to them. “This is what he wants.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was Mr Chen’s. Your Colonel, he wants it, and he murdered to get it. Now he’s taken Beatty to force my hand.”
They all stare.
Tod’s jaw practically hits the floor.
“What is that thing, Athan?” asks Polly.
“It’s a box, but I can’t tell you what’s inside. It would put you in danger – better you don’t know.”
“D’you mean—”
“Ha! More lies. Lies, lies, lies,” interrupts Ma. “Nothing but lies. What did I do wrong to bring you up to be such a liar?”
I hold the ball up. “This is not a lie. This is a thing that could change the world. Your world, Ma. My world, Polly’s world, Beatty’s world.”
The Boy Who Flew Page 10