The Boy Who Flew

by Fleur Hitchcock

  It’s time for the evening service so there are people around, mostly scuttling over packs of ice and wagon tracks as quickly as they can, so I don’t think I look as if I’m following her.

  As we approach the house I hold back and see her safely in before I run the last few feet and crash through the door.

  “Ah – young Mr Wilde, how are the plans progressing?” For a moment I think Mr Katz is talking about the kite and then I realise he isn’t.

  “Beatty will be brought here at six. Mary?”

  She pulls the ball from her pocket and hands it to him.

  “What is this?” he says.

  “It was Mr Chen’s,” I say. “You don’t need to know more than that.”

  He rolls the ball from one hand to the other, examining the stars. “Beautiful craftsmanship,” he says. “I should love to know what it is for.”

  I clear my throat. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that. But the man you’re waiting for is a Colonel Blade.”

  “Colonel Blade,” Mr Katz repeats.

  “Yes, and he should bring Beatty here in about half an hour.”

  “Good,” says Mr Katz, smiling. “Now, off you go. Mary, you stay in the kitchen.”

  “I was going to watch from the other side of the road – from the rooftops.”

  Mr Katz pinches his lips. “I think it would be foolish. I think you should be well away from here. In case he sees you.”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”

  Mr Katz tilts his head. “Do you think he works alone?”

  I think of the sharp-faced woman, and the men at the assembly rooms. “No – I think there are other people.”

  “In that case he’ll have someone watching the house. You will be spotted.”

  He stands in the hall, the ball in his hand and his sleeves rolled up, and I suddenly worry that another person’s been caught up in all this who doesn’t deserve it.

  “Thank you, Mr Katz.”

  He bows.

  I bow.

  “And be careful, Mr Katz, very careful.”

  “And you, young Mr Wilde. You too.”

  I walk through the streets. I’m sure I’m watched. Mr Katz is right, I need to be seen to leave. And then, when I get down to the Griffin Inn I throw myself through the front door, fight my way through the drunks, out the back and shimmy up a drainpipe.

  I pause on the roof, looking down into the street.

  There’s no one I could identify as the men from the assembly rooms, but then, there are plenty of people down there muffled from the cold who I can’t recognise. Crouching in the snow shadow of a chimney I try to see what’s going on in New King Street, but I can’t see far enough.

  Carriages come and go.

  Sedan chairs come and go.

  From the pub I pass the stained-glass windows of a chapel and pick my way over a rotten warehouse until I reach a row of houses that give me a good view.

  Still nothing to see though.

  Bong

  Bong

  The abbey clock strikes half past.

  I wonder if that’s long enough.

  Tucking my hands under my armpits for warmth I wait, and watch and wait until the abbey’s bells strike seven.

  Then I clamber down and head up the town towards New King Street.

  “He didn’t leave Beatty?” I say, staggering back against the wall.

  Mr Katz holds his hands out. “He showed her to me, from a carriage, so I know she is well. She waved at me. He started to help her down, so I handed him the ball, and then he pushed her back inside and the coach took off again. I am devastated.”

  Above me a lamp flickers and I stare at it to stop myself bawling.

  “Thank you for trying,” I say. And I head out into the darkness.

  “Oh, Athan,” says Tod.

  “I know,” I say, tapping the fan into the engine and tightening the screw.

  We work on in silence.

  The kite looks almost ready. No way to launch it, without the wind in the right direction, but it’s almost ready and it fills Tod’s loft like a giant pink moth.

  “Looking good, isn’t it,” says Tod. “Like a proper air carriage. Do you think he knows we’ve built it?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t guess.” I snap. “But whatever he thinks, I’m going to look for some spirits of vitriol for the spark,” I say, grabbing my jacket and heading out into the freezing night.

  Trying to think of a way to find Beatty, I stumble out to Uncle’s farm. Frozen ruts, almost knee-deep, catch me as I walk and it’s hard going.

  Skidding on the pond I find myself quite suddenly by the deserted barns and, feeling my way in the dark, find Uncle’s wagon, still full of stuff from the day we emptied Mr Chen’s house. I can’t see a thing, but with my hands I trace the shapes. Without light, I can’t tell which containers hold the vitriol, so I fumble around until I find a wheelbarrow and carefully load it up with all of them.

  I push a flea-bitten blanket into the gaps and I wheel the barrow out, away from the farm but not straight towards the city, because I know I won’t be able to get it over the ruts. Instead I head south, where there’s a stone track and I can use it to get up towards Tod’s loft.

  It takes all night. But my anger keeps me awake and strong so I don’t even feel tired, though I still don’t know what to do about Beatty. With dawn, a strong cold wind picks up and it scours the river, rippling the oil patches on the surface that shine like metal under the grey light.

  I look up at the city. I’ve hardly ever seen it from this side.

  The backs of the buildings are rough with mortar and rubble stone; boat houses and warehouses falling into the water, propped up by rubbish and luck. Buildings stretch up into clouds, their tops lost in the mist, their feet standing in river fog.

  Something blows on the damp wind and lands on the water. A leaf? Then another, and a third.

  Looking at the river I see the surface is littered with a line of tiny spiky things. They’re floating on down to Bristol, masses of them.

  They look like folded shapes.

  Hundreds of them, litter the surface.

  Floating damp swans in the river – coming from the town.

  Paper birds?

  They ride the air like dandelion seeds and I follow them back to their beginning. There, stuck to the gutters of an old boat house, a cluster. Peppered around the high window, tiny shapes in all colours.

  Beatty’s paper birds.

  Are they real?

  I shiver in a mixture of fear and hope, put down the barrow and close my eyes. Then I look again.

  They’re still there, masses of them, and now I see they’re plastered to the river bank below and to the mud.

  She’s been flying them out of the window. She’s sent me the same message a thousand times and finally I’ve seen it.

  I stare and as I stare another bird whisks out of the window of the building and floats slowly down to land on the water.

  Abandoning the barrow I run over to cross the bridge away from the city. From here I can see better. It’s an isolated building, backing on to the river. I don’t think I even knew it was there. For a moment I watch. Two more birds fly out of the dark square. One plummets and dies in the mud below, the other floats, flying free on the air before escaping on the river.

  Traders are pouring into the city so I dodge between them, skipping over the ruts and mud, my hopes bouncing with me, making me skip higher and higher until I practically fly up to the loft.

  “I’ve found Beatty,” I announce to Tod. “I know where she is!”

  Tod’s fitting the electric box into a little basket under the kite and he stops to look at me, a piece of wire dangling from his mouth.

  “What? You’re kidding! Where?”

  “By the river. She’s been sending birds – those paper birds of Mr Chen’s.”

  “C’mon then,” says Tod, dropping the wires and grabbing his coat. “No time to waste.”

  Chapte
r 25

  We need Mary again to make the plan work.

  “So you’d get me to risk my life so that we can save hers – is that right?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Just about. Tod’s risking his too.”

  Tod smiles. “Willingly.”

  She reaches into a bucket where a fish is flopping. “He’s a fool, isn’t he. Look at him – his eyes are too close together and he can’t tie his laces properly.”

  Tod blushes and looks down at his feet. He loves her, I know it, and I think she loves him back but she’s got a funny way of showing it.

  “But, Mary, we can’t do this without you, honest. You’re the only one Colonel Blade doesn’t know. Please. There may only be hours left before he…”

  “If you want to know the truth, I’m scared.” She whacks the fish’s head on the draining board. Her face is as sour as it used to be at the Benefis school.

  I smile in the warmest way I can manage, but I expect it looks false. “Please?”

  She sighs and sprinkles the fish with flour. It flaps away until Tod grabs it and whacks its head on the side of the sink. “Very well, for your sister – but so long as you know.”

  I know she’s scared. We all are.

  The town’s teeming. Mary walks ahead. Tod and I creep between doorways like street thieves.

  She gets down to the abbey and we cross behind her on Orange Grove, skirting the Frappels coffee house before stopping. There, in the street, stands Colonel Blade.

  His back is to us and he’s talking to someone inside the coffee house, but I can’t see who. There’s a slatted screen between them.

  Squeezing myself under a cartload of cabbage I listen. I can’t hear very much over the market people calling to one another but I can catch the odd word.

  Tod opens his mouth. I press my finger against my lips and he squeezes in next to me. Mary slides into the shadow of the abbey. I hope she’ll wait.

  “How d’you mean?” Blade says.

  He listens intently and a small flicker of a smile crosses his lips, but he wipes it away with the back of his hand and taps his heel on the ground.

  “So what d’you want done? The boy’s given us the plans. What more can I do?”

  I listen really hard for the other voice but I can’t catch it at all.

  “So you just want me to stop him?”

  He listens.

  “And if he won’t – you want him dead?”

  He listens, smiles, and a little muscle in his cheek clicks on and off, on and off.

  Then he breathes in before letting out a slow long sigh, as if he’s making a great concession. “I’ll get your machines, or stop the little devil making his. But this time I’ll do it my own way and damn the consequences – for you and for me.” He turns and set off at a trot.

  Oh God. Where’s he going? I glance back at the coffee shop; there’s not time to see who he’s been talking to. I follow the Colonel, Tod by my side. Turns out, Mary hasn’t waited.

  It soon becomes clear he’s on his way down to the house by the river.

  “Lumme,” Tod says, touching my elbow. “He wasn’t part of the plan.”

  I shake my head. We’d had it all worked out: Mary was going to knock on the door and keep whoever was in the house busy with her basket of charity food, while Tod and I nipped up and grabbed Beatty through the window, and got away before she was missed.

  We hadn’t bargained on the Colonel being there.

  We catch sight of Mary where the town gives way to rubbish heaps that lead down to the river. I want to warn her, tell her that she doesn’t have to do it, but she marches on, close behind the Colonel.

  As we approach the river, the mist thickens, so that our feet disappear beneath the whiteness and our shins seem to sprout from nowhere. The Colonel strides ahead while Mary moves carefully behind him, her umbrella pulled close down to her face. Smoke from the rendering sheds between the warehouses coils up to mix with the mist, and the smell of damp charcoal and old meat fat is so strong I have to pull my scarf over my nose.

  Tod slips down behind a wall a few yards from the river. I crouch next to him. The warehouses hang above us and there isn’t much to them. They’re really boat sheds, more river and rot than roof and walls. You can see right through some of them.

  The Colonel makes for the biggest building and crashes in through the door. Everything shakes.

  We hear him climb the stairs.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I hiss at Mary, who is standing in the open, apparently frozen to the spot.

  She doesn’t respond. Under the flaps of her bonnet her pretty face is white, her eyes wide. She’s terrified but she steps forward to the door.

  “C’mon.” Tod pulls at my arm. I duck around to the north side of the warehouse; he vanishes to the south. Mary has to wait five minutes then knock.

  “That’s it! I’ve had enough,” I hear the Colonel shout. “I’ll wring his bloody sister’s neck, the little runt. Double cross me, would ’e? They’re no more use as the plans for a flying machine than I’m the King of England.” He stamps on the wooden boards. “And when I’ve throttled ’er – I’ll get me the next size up! Fetch the little pixie for me now, woman!”

  I stop.

  “Don’t speak to me like that! You – you!”

  It’s the sharp-faced woman and she’s angry. There’s the sound of a struggle and I run, scrambling along the outside of the building, up and up. Beatty must be at the top where the paper birds are.

  “Don’t you get uppity with me, you stupid cow!”

  More struggling and someone thumps into the side of the building, and a slap.

  “Oh!” the woman yells. “You brute!”

  Then the sound of Mary knocking on the door rings through the whole building. The shouting stops.

  A chain rattles and I haul myself up on to a gantry that runs across the riverside of the building. Tod’s foot appears at the other end. We’re climbing neck and neck, hand over hand. I reach up for a gutter, which comes away in my hand, so I throw it clear into the river. It splashes.

  Soon I hear feet pounding on the stairs. Mary can’t have stopped them for long then.

  I speed up. Above me is the window, plastered

  in the paper birds, but everything’s spongy under

  my fingers and it stinks of fish and tar and mushrooms. The wood is so rotten, I’ve nothing to hang on to.

  “Beatty?” I call up, as loud as I dare.

  “Athan? Are you there?”

  I could cry. It’s her all right. “I’m here, me and Tod, we’re coming, just stay tight.” But I can’t see how. How can we possibly get there? It’s like climbing through cake; it falls away in my hands. I poke a plank – my nail goes right through it. I poke another; it’s the same.

  From the other side of the hole, Beatty giggles.

  Her little finger pushes through from inside and the wood crumbles down past my feet. Tod hauls up next to me and together we pull a plank away. And another. It comes apart like a boiled egg shell, with each piece showing just a little more of Beatty sitting on the floor inside.

  “Yes, yes!” She claps, her eyes bright, her face thinner than ever. “I’m a bird and you can take my nest from me, yes, yes!”

  The door to her room rattles. A key screeches in the lock.

  We’ve a hole in the side of the room. We can see Beatty but there’s nothing to hold on to. Leaning on the strongest piece of wood that I can find, I slip my arm in and pull Beatty’s legs out through the gap.

  The door grates across the floor.

  Tod takes one of Beatty’s arms, I take the other

  and we balance on the tops of the windows from the floor below, teetering over the brown rushing water, held in place by our fingertips embedded in the spongy wall.

  “What the—” It’s the Colonel, he’s in the room behind us.

  Tod shoots me a glance then looks down at the water. I nod.

  “Fly, Athan, fly!” shouts Beatty,
and we throw ourselves off.

  Chapter 26

  We take what seems like minutes to hit the water, and when we do it sucks all the air from my chest and leaves me struggling to keep afloat. And then I don’t keep afloat any more, I go under. Beatty’s dress blows out around me. Through it I grip her skinny arm and I don’t let go even though we seem to be going down and down and I haven’t got a scrap of air left. We hit the bottom of the river and we’re tossed round and round, bounced and dragged across the mud, and still I hold on to Beatty. And then I hit a rock and must let go of her because I can’t feel the cloth any more. I thump to the bottom and push up, kicking off my boots, swimming hard and breathless, sure that what I can see of the sky through the muddy water is my last sight ever on the Earth, until suddenly I’m at the surface, gasping and sucking the air in and swimming against the stream.

  Crack

  Crack

  Spouts of water leap into the air in front of me. I struggle around and gaze back towards the warehouse.

  The Colonel’s balanced on a beam, a gun up against his shoulder, firing at us.

  “Athan!” shouts Tod, clinging to a boulder of mud on the side. “Where the heck’s Beatty?”

  “Has she not come up?” I shout.

  “No.”

  I plunge back down under the thick grainy water. Things thump into my sides and drape themselves around my face. I imagine the foul stuff that the nightmen dump in the river and the dead creatures washed in by the snow melt, the rats and the offal, and clamp my mouth shut as I dive down wafting my arms from side to side, searching for any trace of Beatty. My knuckles strike the bottom of the river again; stones and soft horrible mud slide over my hands, and my fingers grab things that give way in my grasp. I push up from the bottom, reaching for the air, and on my way something made of cloth brushes my face. I grab it and push hard with my feet, kicking and kicking, dragging and pushing it up above my head. It’s so heavy, this bag of cloth, it surely can’t be Beatty, but I yank at it, pushing and pulling, my lungs bursting and shrinking until someone else is tugging and the material floats all around us and we’re back up in the flow and the drizzle’s falling on my face.