Day Boy

by Trent Jamieson

  CHAPTER 26

  I DREAM OF the city and it’s burning. I dream of the Red City and I’m running down those ruddy narrow streets: the drunken Hunter behind me. I come to the door of them lost boys, and I bang a fist hard against it. Grainer opens it but he doesn’t let me pass—there’s a light in his eye. I try to push through, and he slaps me to the ground.

  ‘We’re all burning tonight,’ he says, and I can feel the heat on my back. Sweat stings my eyes. ‘You best come tomorrow when we’re all dead.’

  Door shuts.

  And I turn to face my Hunter, and there’s nothing there.

  ‘Gotcha,’ the dark says, and there’s a knife in my chest, stuck and unmoving and all I am is the dying.

  I wake with a yell, scrambling up against the bedhead, cracking the back of my skull against the wall.

  ‘Nightmare?’ Dain asks. He’s standing over my bed, hand reached out to my face.

  Well, that doesn’t help! Lucky I don’t tend to a weak bladder. I sit up. Nod. To some the nightmare would start now with a Master waking them. They only wake when they want to scare or if they’re polite and enjoy conversation, like Dain. They feed mostly without anyone ever knowing. Fast and silent, in and out.

  ‘You been having bad dreams a lot lately,’ he says.

  I don’t bother lying, just nod.

  ‘I remember what it was like to have bad dreams, and good ones.’

  ‘You ever miss them?’ I ask. My back’s prickly with sweat. Dain’s sat at the foot of my bed.

  ‘No. No, I don’t.’ He stands, lips part grinnish. ‘It’s good you’re awake, means I don’t have to wake you.’

  I look to the window, can’t be later than 2 am. Might not even be midnight for all I know. ‘What needs doing?’

  ‘There’s a lost girl.’

  Anne.

  Dain sees; shakes his head. ‘No, not Anne. It’s the Dalton girl.’

  ‘Sally?’

  ‘Yes, Sally. She is missing.’

  I look at him hard, and he shakes his head again. ‘No, no. It is not one of ours. We do not hide what we do. This is our town, we are its Masters. People do not lose themselves without our permission.’

  ‘Then where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dain stands. ‘Get dressed, and be out the front in five minutes.’

  I dress as fast as I can, socks mismatched, and am still sleep-eyed and blinking when we leave the house. Dain doesn’t run ahead or disappear but walks by my side. And I’ve a memory of a cold hand closed around mine, a handkerchief dabbing at my snotty nose, and the tears that filled my eyes.

  Been a while since we walked together. Be quite pleasant weren’t a girl gone missing now.

  The moon’s rising and the sky’s streaked with clouds. I can smell smoke greasy with wet wood. There’s lit torches everywhere, working their way through the dark. And I wonder why we were so late on the scene.

  ‘Thought she’d be found by now,’ Dain says. ‘Kids have a habit of running out, once or twice. But I was wrong. There’s something not right here.’

  The whole town is up and in the square, and to one side are the Day Boys and their Masters. Sobel glares at me, but it’s more a matter of habit than true ire. The rest don’t even spare me a glance.

  Dougie gives me a little bow and Sobel clips his head. Grove grins and Egan whispers something in his ear; the smile dies on the vine of his lips.

  There’s a tension here, and something that borders on anger.

  It’s Dain that walks to the middle of the square. He raises his hands and all chatter stops.

  ‘We’re to take the east and the south sides of the town,’ he says. ‘There’s plenty enough people in the woods.’

  Like there can ever be enough people in a search. How much space does a young girl take up? How easy would it be to miss her? To walk by whether she’s hiding, or dead still?

  Far too easy, of course.

  ‘Where do you want me looking?’ I ask Dain.

  ‘Under the houses, down Esbeth Street, across to Main.’

  That’s eight blocks, but I can do it. He passes me a hurricane lamp.

  And it should be some sort of magical night with that moon and those clouds and the whole town out, like a fairy carnival, but it’s loud and desperate, and we search the town, and I hope it’s just Sally walked off in a huff somewhere. But from the look of her parents, both quiet, eyes wide, I know that’s not so. This isn’t a running, but a snatching and stealing. Another rogue Hunter maybe, though why they’d take a girl instead of one of us boys don’t make no sense.

  The air’s smoky with lit torches.

  And a wind comes up and it’s another hint of autumn’s failing, like the borders of some ancient empire’s been ceded up, and the troops are falling back to the next stronghold, sliding up north, sorrowful but no less certain in their march.

  I scramble under house after house, calling her out. And I don’t find nothing but growling dogs, and cats, and dust, and more spiders than I can bear. But I keep looking, covered in web by the time I’m done.

  Just walking back to the centre of town, night growing later. When I hear the call. And I start running.

  Sometimes the stories don’t work out like you want them to. I never found Sally Dalton. That was Dougie, and he wailed into the night, and came back with eyes wide, and he didn’t say how she looked, and I never wanted to know. I could see the raw of it in his eyes, and that was too much.

  World’s an awful cruel place.

  I see Anne held tight in Mary’s arms, and Mary—laughing mocking Mary—glares at me when I come close.

  So I walk home, alone, and Dain is waiting for me in the kitchen, already a cup of tea there, steaming, and I fold my hands around it.

  ‘Nothing we could have done,’ he says.

  ‘And who did this?’

  ‘The trail leads into the wilderness. If they’re half bright they’re already miles away from here. Doesn’t matter. We’ll find them. Justice will be done.’

  ‘Justice won’t do much for Sally.’

  Dain sighs. ‘No, it won’t. Sometimes all we have is the strength to make sure something doesn’t happen again. And even then…Mark, this is a cruel world, it’s always been that way, and it is all too quick and casual to remind us of that. There’s storms and fire and flood, and the hungers of the mad. And this thing is rare, has always been rare, but it is even rarer now. We protect our own, even if that isn’t enough. He will be brought to justice.’

  And I leave it at that.

  Two days later a man’s body is left in the square, arms bound with wire, throat cut. No one I know, no one the town knows. Don’t look like evil. Just looks dead.

  Dougie and me, we poke it with a stick on a dare. But there’s not a hint of pleasure in it. The body just lies there. And we’re left standing like fools, or worse, like we’ve done something that mocks Sally. And I know she was sweet on me. That she didn’t deserve such a death.

  The body’s burnt. The ashes cast
into the river by a priest of the Sun, and that’s all that’s said on that strange fella dead.

  ‘Did he do it?’ I ask Grove. ‘Do you think he really did it?’

  ‘Of course he did,’ Grove says, all definitive. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t of killed him.’

  Sally’s buried in the cemetery on the hill, under a tree that flowers white. You can look down on Midfield from there; watch everything that’s going on. Prettiest places are always kept for the dead, not that they care anymore. People who visit them, up on that gorgeous hill might, but who sits there mourning and admiring the view? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

  When I’m gone, I’m telling you, just chuck my quiet bones by the road; it’s what they’ve known all these years, and I’m not the one for ceremony. Ceremony’s too close to what them Masters have.

  There’s crying and sadness, and that night the six Masters visit her grave, and lay night flowers upon it, and a symbol of the Sun. None of which brings her back, of course. She’s lost. Dougie found her but she’s lost forever. Tears, flowers and suns don’t do nothing for that. We’re all lost eventually, I guess. We’re all cried over a little bit, but I don’t remember tears like for poor Sally Dalton.

  PART THREE

  A GUNSHOT, AIMED AT BIRTH

  The world thought otherwise

  Like it always does.

  CHAPTER 27

  NINE YEARS OLD, that’s pretty much all I know.

  The train pulls in, and Thom steps lightly to the platform, his papers checked by the Master of the Train, who pats his head and grins at me. ‘He’s all yours, boy.’

  I flick the Master a coin. ‘For your trouble,’ I say, and the smile slips. But he takes the coin, and the train gets going again. I look around me. Half-expected some of the other boys to be here, but no. And that’s a good thing.

  Mr Stevens gives me a nod, as he heads back to the line. It’s just me and the new boy.

  ‘Well, let me look at you,’ I say.

  He’s a small one, all right. I could carry him above my head like a bag of leaves.

  ‘I am what I am,’ Thom says. He grips a small suitcase in one hand so tight I can see the whites of his knuckles. It’s heavy, I can see him struggling, but I don’t make no offer of help. A Day Boy’s got his pride.

  ‘Yep, you are at that. Strong westerly could blow you over the ridge. We’ve miles to go before you sleep and all.’

  Thom makes a little sigh.

  And I give him a grin almost as wide as the Master’s, and twice as true. ‘Oh, woe is us and misery.’

  Thom drops the suitcase and bunches his fists, and it’s a struggle not to laugh.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ I say. ‘I’m at mock, we all are here, but you’ll get used to it. Don’t waste a fist on a foolish smile. You and me, we’re allies—as close as—and I’ll be teaching you the traps. So don’t start with the fighting.’

  Thom scowls, lifts up his heavy bag, and we walk home.

  Dain is waiting for us. He nods at me. ‘Thank you, Mark.’

  I give him a little bow.

  ‘Though you would do well to not annoy the Master of Trains so.’

  My face grows hot and red, and I catch a little grin on that young Thom’s face.

  ‘There is a lot you will learn from Mark, Thom, and some things you should not. You are a Day Boy, but that doesn’t mean the rules and proprieties do not apply to you.’

  Thom nods his head, and Dain reaches out a hand. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you at last.’

  Thom takes it, and it’s a good shake. He almost doesn’t look scared.

  ‘Mark will show you to your room.’

  ‘Our room,’ I say, magnanimous—I put the new bed in a couple of days back, carried it piece by piece up from the cellar.

  ‘Do as Mark says,’ Dain says. ‘He will teach you the ways of this town. He knows it like few others.’

  He nods his head, then is gone. And it’s just me and Thom.

  He drags his case after me, and pushes it onto the end of the bed. ‘You gotta lot of stuff in there?’ I say.

  Thom shrugs.

  There’s not much in his case to be sure, even for such a young one. A pair of heavy boots, jeans, shirts; one which has a yellowing oval picture of a bat on it. He’s a few heavy books too—they were the weight of that case—and I look at them with interest until Thom closes the case and slides it back under the bed. Maybe I pried too close.

  ‘We’ve plenty of books here,’ I say. ‘You like books?’

  Thom shrugs again.

  ‘Good.’ I look at my hands, rough and sore with the day’s work. ‘You tired?’

  He nods.

  ‘I’m tired too,’ I say. ‘Bone tired. There’s work in the morning.’

  But I don’t sleep much and sometime late in the night, late enough that morning can’t be too far off, I hear something I’ve not heard for a long time. I hear a young boy crying.

  It’s all right, I want to say, but I keep my mouth shut. You don’t take away a Day Boy’s pride. You don’t tell them it’s all right to cry into the dark.

  You just let them do it.

  We’re up early, and there’s a list of chores. Such a list like I’ve never seen, but it’s all simple stuff—a door to be marked with the circle and seven, goods to be bought, yard work—that’ll take us around the town. I get Dain’s logic. The boy needs to know his home and quick. Besides, we have an extra mouth to feed.

  You don’t know a place by staying indoors, you know it by walking and riding. I’ve got a bike for Thom. But today we walk. He pulls on a vest, near enough new, and a flat brown cap more stylish than what I’m used to. Dressed up. I give him the look up and down.

  ‘Working clothes,’ he says.

  I’m feeling a bit threadbare against them. Nicest working clothes I’ve seen. I can’t quit staring.

  ‘What do you wear here?’

  Shake my head. ‘What we’re given.’

  Thom looks down at himself. ‘This is what I was given.’

  ‘Then it’ll do,’ I say.

  Out in the Sun and the clear blue sky, Thom’s skin is pale as dry silt. He blinks in the light and takes a deep breath, like it’s his first.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ I say.

  Thom nods.

  Dougie is sitting in the shade under the awning at the tanners, picking his teeth with a twiggy bit of stick, pretending like he does that all day. He gets to his feet, slow, and sets his gaze on Thom. Doesn’t seem too impressed. ‘So this dandy-hat the new one?’

  ‘This is Thom,’ I say.

  Dougie reaches out a hand. ‘Douglas,’ he says, and yanks his hand away as Thom reaches for it. ‘Gonna need to be faster than that.’

  Thom sweeps out a foot so casual it’s like it didn’t happen, and Dougie lands hard on his arse, breath whoomphing from him.

  ‘That fast?’ Thom says.

  ‘That fast,’ I say, and we walk on, leaving Do
ugie with his legs out straight and dust on his pants, wondering just how he got there. Could offer the bastard a hand up, but I know he wouldn’t take it.

  Thom’s all pleased with himself, for sure, even chuckles a bit. So, as soon as we’re out of sight, I give him a clip under the ear, make certain he’s not expecting it—because I saw how quick he was too—but I nearly miss anyway. Get the feeling he expects most things, even before I know to give them to him.

  He skips ahead, light on his feet, flashing a big grin back at me. ‘What?’

  ‘You so desperate quick to make enemies?’

  Thom gives me a look of genuine surprise. ‘I did what I had to. In the Crèche…’

  ‘This isn’t the city,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ Thom says. ‘I know.’

  I laugh. ‘You surprised him, yep…I’ll give you that. What you’ve done is confuse him, but he’ll want some sort of payback, bloody or otherwise. I want to hear about this Crèche of yours.’

  ‘I’ll tell you one day, I guess,’ Thom says.

  ‘You two,’ Grove shouts. ‘Slow it down.’

  Grove catches us as we walk into Main, takes a while because we don’t really slow down that much. Puts a hand out to Thom.

  ‘You must be Thom.’

  Thom gives that hand a good old shake.

  ‘And you’re Grove.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ he says, pleased as punch that someone’s spoken of him. ‘Like your cap, by the way.’

  Thom smiles. ‘I’ve another exactly like it at home. This one’s yours.’

  He takes off the cap, fiddles with it, makes it somehow bigger, and passes it to Grove. Three movements fast enough that Grove is still blinking, not sure what to say.

  ‘Nah, I couldn’t—’

  ‘Got another just like it,’ Thom says. ‘I won’t take that back. It’s yours.’