by Garth Nix
‘Hello? Grandma, are you there? Pick up, it’s urgent!’ She waited a second, but no one picked up, so she kept talking. ‘You have to tell Kleo to get ready. The train cats are coming, right now!’
The machine beeped and cut her off. Jaide hung up and rang the number again.
‘It’s me again, on Tara’s phone. You have to get this message soon. You have to tell Kleo! If the train cats get to Portland and she’s not ready –’
Again the machine beeped.
‘Gah!’ Jaide gave up on the phone, but she wouldn’t give up on the situation.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Tara, coming up behind her.
‘Yes, I mean no.’ Jaide gave her back the phone. ‘There’s a problem. We have to go back.’
‘What?’ Tara blinked, startled. ‘But you’ve only just arrived.’
‘I know. It’s Grandma. She’s . . . she’s not well.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just called her.’
‘But how did you know you had to call?’
‘Because she’s really old and . . . frail . . .’
‘And she always forgets to take her pills,’ said Jack, coming to her rescue.
‘Yes, that’s it. If she doesn’t take them, she’ll get sick.’
‘Really?’
Tara wasn’t buying it, and Jaide didn’t blame her. The excuse sounded weak even to her, but what else could they do? The train cats were coming to Portland, and someone had to stop them.
‘I’m sorry, Tara,’ Jaide said. ‘I really am sorry. We’ll come over next weekend – maybe even tomorrow night, if Grandma is feeling better again. We’ll call you, I promise.’
The train blew its whistle and let out a great cloud of white steam.
‘What if I come with you,’ Tara said, ‘and Dad brings us back later, when he’s finished whatever he’s doing?’
‘Here he is now,’ said Jack, pointing. The familiar van was nosing its way into the car park. He frowned. ‘How did he get here without us seeing him pass the train?’
Tara ignored his question, her face screwed up in frustration.
‘But the doughnuts, all the things we were going to do –’
‘I know. We can do it all next time.’
‘But –’
Tara’s dad honked his horn. The train hissed mightily again.
‘We have to go!’ said Jaide, pulling Jack to the train.
Tara stood on the platform, torn between her father and her friends.
With a squeal of metal, the heavy iron wheels of the train began to turn. Jack and Jaide jumped aboard and fell into a seat, dragging their bags behind them.
‘Change your mind?’ asked the conductor from the back of the carriage. ‘Or change of heart – what is that cat . . . those cats – ?’
His eyebrows shot high up on his domed forehead as a tide of cats swarmed from underneath the railway station, ran across the platform and leaped on to the moving train.
The conductor fell back as the cats swarmed through the windows of the carriage and landed on him, knocking him to the floor. Three crashed into Jack and two on Jaide, all of them with their sharp claws out, slicing through clothes and flesh as they slid to the floor. The sound of feline feet scratching the top of the train heralded dozens more leaping from the station roof.
The twins fell back from the cats, who simply ignored them and went to sit on the seats, as if they were legitimate passengers. The conductor slowly got to his feet and bent over, holding his nose.
‘Achoo!’
He sneezed very loudly, and then sneezed again, as he fumbled with a spotted handkerchief he had pulled from his pocket. ‘Achoo!’
The train whistled again, and slowly chugged out of the station. The driver obviously hadn’t noticed all the cats swarming aboard.
‘Allergic,’ wheezed the conductor. He slumped into a seat and waved his hand in front of his face as if he could somehow dismiss all the cats. But even more of them appeared, jumping down from the roof and entering the carriage at both ends. Again, they were silent, and they moved slowly but purposefully, which made them even creepier.
‘This is crazy!’ exclaimed Tara, suddenly appearing behind the twins.
Jaide looked round so quickly she hurt her neck. In all the rush and tumble of the cats’ arrival, she hadn’t seen Tara skip aboard the train just after them. Now their friend was caught up in the train cats’ invasion of Portland, and who knew what else.
‘Uh, yeah,’ said Jaide, who was frantically trying to think of what she could do with Jack’s Gift to get the cats off the train. More and more of them kept coming in, and even though they just sat down, there was something very threatening about their silence and the way they were all looking at the twins.
Jack didn’t try to think about what he could do with Jaide’s Gift. Instead he calmly reached up and pulled the old-fashioned emergency cord.
It came away in his hand, leaving Jack with a three-foot length of rubberised cable that wasn’t connected to anything.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Jack. The train kept right on rolling, steaming indefatigably for Portland. ‘That should have worked.’
‘They must have cut the cable,’ said Jaide.
‘Or bitten through it,’ Jack said.
‘Who? The cats!?’
The twins stared at Tara, and she stared back at them. Neither Jack nor Jaide knew what to say. If they said yes, it would sound mad. If they said no, they would have to come up with another explanation. And it would be a lie – a lie that would soon be revealed, if the troubletwisters were to use their Gifts to stop the invasion.
Jaide chose to ignore the question and went to the stricken conductor. His eyes were puffed up like marshmallows and his breath, when he wasn’t sneezing, was thick and raspy.
‘Are you going to be OK?’ she asked him.
He tried to talk, but couldn’t, and ended up simply nodding.
‘Can we talk to the driver? The emergency cord isn’t working.’
He pointed to his side. There was a leather holster for a phone or a walkie-talkie there, but it was empty. At the same time, Jack saw one of the larger cats drop something out of its mouth, through an open window.
‘It’s gone,’ said Jaide urgently. ‘But we have to talk to the driver!’
The conductor waved at the front of the carriage. There was a connecting door marked No Unauthorised Entry that had to lead to the coal tender and then the locomotive.
Jack ran to the door and tried the handle.
‘It’s locked!’ he called back.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Tara plaintively.
The cats stirred, and all of them turned their heads together, looking back along the carriage.
‘Have you got a key?’ asked Jaide.
The conductor didn’t answer. His head slumped to one side and his puffy eyes closed. He was still breathing, but with a horrible rasping noise, and his lips were slowly turning a pale blue.
‘Check his pockets!’ shouted Jack. He tried the handle again, putting all his weight into it. But the carriage was old and very solidly built, and the handle and lock were bronze, and completely resisted his efforts.
Jaide made a face and started searching the conductor’s pockets, starting with his waistcoat, and was immediately rewarded by pulling out a big old key on a chain, which was fastened to a button.
‘I’ve got it!’ she cried, fumbling with the button.
At that moment, something white streaked down the aisle, jumped to a seat and catapulted itself on to her shoulders.
Sharp claws dug into her skin. Even sharper teeth fastened on to her ear and a harsh feline voice whispered in her ear: ‘Hold it right there, little girl, or I’ll bite your ear off.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Off the Rails
Jack saw Amadeus jump on to his sister and reacted instantly, reaching for his Gift, not even thinking about which Gift that might be.
A savage wind rushed up the l
ength of the carriage. It blew up and over the seats, knocking cats in all directions, and struck the white cat square in the back. Amadeus went flying, legs and tail splayed out like a starfish, yowling like a kitten.
But Jaide went flying too, tumbling along the aisle with a screeching mass of frightened cats.
‘Stop it!’ shouted Jaide desperately, as she tried to grab hold of a seat leg. ‘Jack! That’s enough!’
Stop, thought Jack to the wind that was now howling backwards and forwards along the carriage, just stopping short of where he stood in front of the connecting door.
‘Stop!’ he shouted.
But the wind didn’t stop. His Gift, formerly Jaide’s, was thoroughly out of control.
The carriage shook as though in an earthquake. And then the lights went out. The sun dimmed, as if a deep, dark cloud had passed in front of it. At first Jack though that Jaide was using his Gift somehow, but then he realised that he was doing this too. His Gift had jumped back to him, and now both of them were out of control.
‘Stop it!’ he yelled, thoroughly frightened now. ‘Stop this now!’
The Gifts didn’t obey him. The air was now full of cats, and the entire carriage was in danger of being swept away. That would solve the problem of the train cats and the troubletwisters, but it might also rid the world of one innocent conductor as well, not to mention the only friend they had made since coming to Portland – a friend who was now wailing in terror as the wind inexorably pushed her towards a half-open window. She had a grip on an armrest, but as soon as she lost that . . .
Tara would be gone.
Jack gasped as he realised she was moments away from death. Something shifted inside his head. The mad rush of his Gifts faltered. Cats fell out of the air like furry, overripe fruit, and the darkness ebbed away. Jack rushed to Tara and pulled her away from the window, staggering with her back to the connecting door.
Jaide landed on her side with a thud and was momentarily winded. Her face was stinging, and when she raised her hand to touch it, her fingers came away red. Amadeus unwound himself from a tangle of three cats not far from her, but before he could make good on his promise, Jaide forced herself up and pointed a shaky, bloodstained finger at him.
‘One more step,’ she gasped, ‘and we’ll blow you all into the sea!’
The white cat lowered its head and hissed at her.
‘I know all about your Gifts,’ he said. ‘And I know you can’t control them properly.’
His eyes were innocently blue, but Jaide picked up a definite glint of The Evil in everything about the cat.
‘Don’t be so sure about that,’ she said, backing up against the locked door to stand next to Jack and Tara, who was obviously in shock, her body shaking despite Jack holding her up. ‘I presume The Evil told you about us. What did it promise you?’
‘Satisfaction,’ replied Amadeus. He advanced a few steps, his followers jumping across to form up behind him. ‘Dominion. Revenge.’
‘I bet you were a nice cat once,’ said Jaide. Her fingers fumbled with the key, trying to fit it into the lock behind her, while at the same time she kept a close eye on Amadeus and all the cats that were swarming up behind him. ‘Have you thought about using your powers for good instead of evil?’
‘Good and evil are human words, human concepts. I just want what’s rightfully mine. Kleo stole the Portland catdom from me. I want it back.’
The key turned silently in the well-oiled lock.
Jaide glanced sideways at Jack. He lowered one eyelid, confirming that he’d seen what she was doing, and took half a step sideways, bringing Tara with him closer to the door.
‘And I just want to help my friend,’ Jaide said. She turned the handle.
A rush of perfectly ordinary wind swept through the gap, carrying with it a cacophony of sound, the harsh beat of metal wheels on metal rails, combined with the choof-choof-choof of the engine up ahead. Ragged clouds of smoke rushed past, swept backwards by their speed.
Jack dragged Tara through the door and out on to the narrow metal step that projected out of the passenger carriage. Jaide followed, slamming the door behind her.
The three of them could barely stand on the metal step, but there was no easy way to get to the broad steel step at the rear of the coal tender ahead. The two cars were connected only by a interlocking coupler and a safety chain of thick iron links, and they could all see the railway sleepers flickering past underneath.
The train appeared to be going much faster than it had when they’d been inside.
‘We have to jump across!’ shouted Jack. ‘They’ll come over the roof !’
Jaide nodded and looked back down at the flickering sleepers. If they jumped and fell, they’d be cut to pieces . . .
‘Now!’ insisted Jack. He turned Tara round and pointed at the ridiculously small platform ahead of them, which wasn’t even steady, but jerked around and up and down with the train’s movement.
Before Jaide could protest that they should leave Tara behind, she jumped, leaping elegantly across the gap. Jack followed, but the wind whisked around him and carried him up like a feather, so he landed on top of the coal tender. It wasn’t full, so he disappeared from Jaide’s sight with a frantic yelp.
Jaide didn’t hesitate after that. She jumped too, landing heavily next to Tara and smacking herself into the rear wall of the tender. Rebounding, she almost fell off before grabbing a handhold.
Tara looked at her fearfully.
‘What . . . what’s going on?’ she asked. It was almost a mantra from her now.
‘We have to get to the driver,’ said Jaide. But there was no obvious way forward, except by climbing up into the tender, and there was no easy way to do that. Unless you could fly, like Jack almost had.
‘Jack!’ Jaide called, looking up. ‘Jack!’
But it wasn’t Jack who looked over the edge. It was the slightly coal-dusted face of Ari, closely followed by several other cats, and finally her brother, who was significantly more smeared with black dust.
‘Behind you!’ he shouted.
Jaide turned just as three large heavy cats plummeted into her and knocked her off the narrow step.
‘Jaide!’ screamed Jack, almost going over the side himself as he lunged down, holding out a hand that would never stretch so far, or get to her in time.
Jaide twisted and stretched as she fell. Her hands hit something and closed desperately round the lever that controlled the coupler between the passenger carriage and the coal tender. It immediately gave way, but only moved a few inches before juddering to a stop again.
With her toes still on the back step of the coal tender, and her hands gripping the lever on the passenger carriage, Jaide was stretched out between the two carriages. Only the coupler stood between her and the lethal track below.
Jaide tried to tighten her grip, but there was grease on the lever. The sound of the train wheels was so loud it felt like someone hammering on her brain, and the lurch of the carriages was making her toes slip.
She closed her eyes and fought a rising sense of hopelessness. If she’d had her Gift, it would’ve been a simple matter to rise up on the wind to safety. Now all she had were her hands round the slippery handle, and a very strong and reasonable wish not to die.
‘Jaide! Hang on!’ shouted Jack. She could hear the fear in his voice. ‘Hold her feet, Tara!’
She opened her eyes and looked back. Ari and several Portland cats had jumped down and dispatched the cats who’d knocked her off – forcing them over the side. Jack was still up in the coal tender, balancing on his stomach as he leaned over the edge, obviously trying to work out how to climb down.
Tara was kneeling down on the step and a moment later, Jaide felt a grip round her ankles.
‘I’ve got you!’ shouted Tara nervously.
But she hadn’t, not really. Tara would never be able to stop Jaide falling, and she was stretched too far across for the other girl to help her back up.
The lever su
ddenly dropped another couple of inches. The coupler squeaked and groaned, and the feeble-looking safety chain danced wildly off to the side.
Jaide looked below her. If the lever went completely down, she would lose her grip, she knew. She would fall to the tracks and be run over by the train.
I need my Gift, she thought. I need it like I’ve never needed anything before.
Jaide shut her eyes and remembered. She remembered flying off the widow’s walk, being caught in the wind, to fly up and up and up, her body lighter than a feather –
Wind blew across her face. A cool, night wind.
Jack was shouting something, but Jaide paid no attention. Every part of her was focusing on the wind, on the memory of her Gift.
The locking lever suddenly lurched down an inch. Jaide’s hands slid down with it, grease splurging out between her knuckles.
Slowly but surely she began a slide that would end under the wheels of the train. All this had come about because she had tried to stop the train cats. How could she help Kleo when she couldn’t even help herself ?
The wind was roaring all around her, louder now than the train itself. It was her Gift at work – she could feel that now, her Gift in Jack’s hands, if it could ever be said to be in anyone’s hands really. It was like something outside of her, an arm or leg that occasionally decided not to obey her brain’s commands. Or a living thing in its own right, something that existed outside of her, and which, for a joyous, brief while, had shared its power with her.
Not being part of it was like losing her best friend – or even closer than that. Like losing her brother. It had been with her her entire life, and she had never noticed it. And now, somehow, she had lost it –
The lever dropped. Jaide’s fingers slid and grasped nothing but air. She fell, screaming, her eyes clenched tightly shut against the inevitable.
It didn’t come.
Her Gift cupped her in fingers of living wind and spun her like a sock in a dryer. Jaide shot up a good forty feet, right up through Tara’s grasping hands, then slowly glided down to land in the coal tender, next to Jack.