‘Here,’ said David, offering a hand to her. ‘How long have ye been doing this, Louise, and still ye can’t manage it yerself?’
‘Shut up and just be helping me,’ said Louise.
Bruno saw both of them smile, though only to themselves.
Nic reeled Bruno in and helped him free. His feet were numb after so long suspended, and he had to walk some feeling back into them – through a cavern open to the world, to the edge of the mouth.
‘Careful,’ said Nic, but Bruno didn’t want to hear.
He had a view he’d never had, the entirety of Pitch End, the whole of the town seen from somewhere not within its walls. Looking down on familiar things all made small, Bruno found it difficult to imagine himself in such a place: so crammed tight, all the disorder of the buildings like they’d been dropped, all at odds; all scoured rough by the elements, all the lunatic tilt and lean of the place. He felt larger than it all, and at the same time smaller – his world, the one he’d known always, was almost nothing, and within it he was one of the smallest things.
Nic stepped up beside him. From his belt he took and shook out a spyglass.
‘What ye see?’ asked Louise, venturing even closer than Bruno to the edge of the mouth.
‘Pyres,’ said Nic. ‘Inkpot Lane, Whalebone Slope, the Squeeze-By…’
‘The people in those houses won’t be getting out if they light fires down the Squeeze-By,’ said David, stepping between Bruno and Nic.
‘Squeeze-By?’ said Bruno. ‘Do ye mean the Rat-Run?’
Nic, David and Louise stopped, all looking at him as though he’d insulted.
‘We don’t call them that,’ said David. ‘We use the old names for Old Town, not those names the Elders gave them.’
‘Ye might call it the Rat-Run,’ said Nic, tone softer than David’s. ‘But we know them as they used to be.’
‘And rightly should be!’ added Louise.
‘We’ll have to head in tonight,’ said Nic, turning to David. ‘If they’re searching so high and low, and burning too, we might not get another chance.’
‘Agreed,’ said David.
‘Head where?’ asked Bruno.
Nic didn’t answer right away. Instead from his belt he detached his pocket watch and opened it; Bruno saw that the moon inside was almost entirely in shadow.
‘Not long to wait,’ said Nic.
‘One hour till sundown to be rightly-precise,’ said David. Bruno saw a coin in David’s hand – a Pitch, tarnished and commonplace as any. David saw Bruno looking. His thumb slid one side of the coin away and a small clock face was uncovered. ‘One hour,’ he said, ‘so we better decide things good and fast.’
‘Aye, one hour,’ said Louise, quickly consulting her own pocket watch – one with deep grooves and swells, its casing like the whorl of a seashell.
‘But where are we going to?’ asked Bruno again.
‘Town hall,’ said Nic, and took his blade from his belt, turning it, examining its edge, running a finger along it. ‘Ten turns back, when Temperate Thomas was trying to stop the Rebels, when he stole all time, he turned Pitch End upside down looking for anything “indecent”. All books were taken. Pictos, maps, papers, anything he liked. Ended up confiscating lots more stuff than just Rebel things, anything he didn’t like the look of. One thing he discovered and stole were the winding keys for the Sentry army.’
The blade drew blood. Nic pressed his finger to his lip and sucked it clean, then returned the blade to his belt.
‘But,’ said Bruno (aware of being too disagreeable but unable to resist), ‘how do ye know they’re in the town hall? He could’ve moved them. It’s been ten turns.’
‘I have one other bother too,’ said David. ‘Does Louise even know where in the town hall the winding keys are hidden?’
‘I towl ye last week,’ said Louise and she stepped towards David, though couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘I haven’t managed to get a proper look inside all the town hall, not the whole way. I’ve been trying, following the Elders and everything. But we were supposed to have more time than this!’
‘Told ye I should’ve went,’ said David.
‘Shut up!’ cried Louise.
‘What did ye find out, Louise?’ said Nic.
Louise took a breath and shut her eyes. ‘I just know,’ she said, hands moving in the air, as though feeling her way somewhere, through darkness, ‘there’s this small door on the right at the back of the hall, behind the Faerie Fort. After that there’s some stairs ye go down and it brings you into a tunnel.’
‘Sounds easy enough,’ said Nic.
‘How many ways are there to go when ye get into this tunnel?’ asked David.
Louise’s eyes opened, flickered, looked away. Bruno saw her fingers touching one another, counting silently. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘maybe, about at least six … maybe …’
Nic said nothing. David shook his head. But Bruno suddenly spoke words he hadn’t known were coming – ‘I know the way to go from there.’
They all looked at him.
‘Explain,’ said David.
‘My da told me,’ said Bruno. ‘When I was four, just before he … before he went, he used to tell me this same story every night. It was about a boy, a locksmith’s son, who was looking for his father’s lost keys.’
‘The Tall Tale of the Locksmith’s Sanguine Son,’ said David.
‘Ye know it?’ asked Nic.
‘I know of it,’ said David. ‘It’s a more recent one. Don’t think Dr Bloom ever wrote it down so must’ve not been worth much.’
‘Be quiet,’ said Louise. ‘Just coz ye don’t know it doesn’t mean it means nothing.’ She moved towards Bruno. ‘Some were just used at bedtime and not written down, like the songs ye sing to children … my da used to tell me some too.’
Silence for many moments, and then Nic said, ‘Bruno, do ye remember it?’
All three looked at Bruno. He shut his eyes and imagined himself in bed, his father close, a stuttering light at the bedside, a storm beyond, and in a low voice Bruno began –
‘There once was a locksmith’s son, an only child who worked all hours of light and dark, all year, all three seasons. But the boy was not miserable, nor self-pitying nor hopeless – he was a sanguine child who arrived at all things with much enthusiasm. His teacher called him a dreamer, and that was true. But dreaming is no bad thing, and you should be mistrustful of those who say otherwise.’
‘I remember it too I think!’ said Louise.
‘What happens next?’ asked David, ignoring Louise.
Bruno opened his eyes, looked to David and tried to see sarcasm. But there was none. Bruno cleared his throat, and went on –
‘One day, after the locksmith’s son had spent the morning in his father’s shop – courteous, cheerful and rightly-helpful to all customers, taking orders and writing out receipts and giving exact change to the penny – the locksmith said that he had a job for his son to do. He told him a box of keys had been stolen from him. A box of keys that would unlock doors that some in Pitch End wouldn’t want opened. He had an idea (he said), a wee notion of where they might be hidden – in the passageways below the ruin of a home. The home of the founder of Pitch End, George Pitch.
‘Hungry for adventure, always willing to help his father, the boy agreed, and so set off at once to track down the lost keys.’
‘It’s not the town hall,’ said Louise. ‘He doesn’t go to the town hall, so how does that help? Maybe I don’t remember this one.’
Bruno said, ‘Perhaps it’s not meant to be rightly-identical. The story says George Pitch’s old house, but maybe it’s really the town hall?’
‘No,’ said David. ‘Dr Bloom would be rightly-exact about it.’
‘No,’ said Nic, who had held his silence for a long time. He was looking out over Pitch End, watching shadow invade. He turned to face Bruno. ‘It is rightly-exact,’ he said. ‘The town hall is built where George Pitch’s old house used to be.’
‘I am,’ said Nic. He looked just at Bruno. ‘Are you, Bruno? Do ye remember the rest of the story? How he got to the keys?’
Bruno wanted to say yes. But truth stoppered him; the Tall Tale would only unfurl when told, the words feeling inevitable as he said them. So he had to hope – wish and believe – that he held enough in his head to lead them, take them safely to the end.
‘I will remember it,’ he settled for saying.
‘Then that’s good enough for me,’ Nic said.
‘And me!’ said Louise.
‘But how are we gonna be getting down into town?’ asked Bruno.
Nic smiled. He strolled away from them. When he reached the back of the mouth, he said, ‘This is how.’ He took hold of the dark and tore it down. A crackle of material descending and a reveal – two things lurking, metal and canvas. Not Sentries, but what?
‘We call them the Cleggs,’ said Nic, and he slammed a hand against one. There was a sound like a struck dustbin.
‘Cleggs?’ said Bruno.
‘Ye know,’ said Louise, ‘like them big oul flies in the eastern fields that bite ye and get all fat on the blood, make ye come out in big itchy lumps that sting like anything!’
Bruno had never been in the eastern fields, so couldn’t sympathise. But he left Louise and David and moved closer to see.
The pair of gliders – Cleggs – had been slopped with pitch, their surfaces dulled, metal parts just visible beneath; rusted undersides, a testament to past battles in the wide, ragged tears and the dents Bruno could’ve fitted his head into. In the gloom of the mouth, this was all Bruno was allowed, struggling and failing to see where they began and ended, or began again. And he felt just as strong an urge to keep his distance as explore. Something in their presence threatened energy barely contained, sharp joints primed, looking ready to snap. Each had eight long, skinny legs that kept them standing.
‘They’ve not been used much is the only thing,’ said Nic. ‘But we’ll be grand. Dr Bloom hasn’t let us down. Yet.’
Bruno looked at him.
Nic cleared his throat, and continued: ‘We’ll take this one Bruno, you and me. David and Louise, the happy couple, on the other one.’
‘I’m not flying one of those gliders with her on it behind me,’ said David.
‘Get stuffed!’ said Louise. ‘And I’m flying it!’
‘And certainly not if she’s flying. She’s too unstable.’
‘I’m not mad keen on being on a glider with you either, Dave!’
‘If she flew she’d be all over the place, we need a calm approach.’
‘I can be calm!’
‘Ye’re a storm in a thimble, ye wouldn’t know calm if it slapped ye.’
‘What did ye say to me?’
‘I’ll go with Atlas. He’s a quiet one. I’ll not hear so much disagreeing from him.’
Bruno felt he should speak. ‘What about my satchel?’ asked Bruno. ‘Will it be okay with us?’
‘We leave The Book of Black & White here,’ said David. ‘If we bring it and it gets lost then—’
‘And if we’re leaving it,’ said Nic, ‘and they attack the chapel when we’re away, they’ll get it. It stays with Bruno.’
David opened his mouth to offer new argument but –
‘Stop!’ said Louise. ‘What does Bruno himself think? He’s the one has to carry it.’
Bruno looked at them all. But looked most to Nic.
‘I’ll be keeping it with me,’ he said.
Nic nodded. David held his hands up, then let them fall, muttering some further protest.
‘Decided!’ Louise shouted.
‘Let’s get ready, quick-smart,’ said Nic. ‘We might only have one go at this. Let’s make sure it’s our best.’
XXII
Flight
Bruno watched as Nic’s foot found a pedal, no more than a shard but when kicked it woke the Clegg. Against Bruno’s legs the glider trembled, thundered like it wanted to throw him off and would soon do something about it. Smoke streamed from everywhere, stars were dampened and David and Louise (on their Clegg, after all the protests) were lost to sight.
On the edge of the mouth, Bruno looked out – below all was dark, but with small buds of flame beginning in Old Town.
‘Ready?’ he heard Nic shout over the noise.
Bruno had no time to reply, only adjust the straps of his satchel that harboured so many things, contained so much of importance.
‘Hold on to yerself!’ Nic said.
And then they tilted, lunged, the Clegg intent on entry into night sky, and Nic released a holler, same as he let out in the Cavern of the Forgotten, Bruno feeling his whole self clench as they left mountain behind –
They dropped.
Bruno shut his eyes, holding Nic tighter as they fell. Without promise of being stopped or saved, Bruno kept his eyes shut, not screaming, not shouting, only awaiting sudden end and thinking: this is it and I’ll be gone soon. I’ll not be here any more. I’m going to die.
Thought it and thought it in tightening circles until he felt Nic’s foot twitch, kick. At once the engine cut, the heat scorching Bruno’s legs cooling, the stench of smoke dissipating and there was a sound to either side like two blows to the chest. They slowed, and Bruno needed to open his eyes to see –
Canvas wings, ribbed with steel, had opened and filled with air. They were no longer dropping. Most important thing to Bruno: he wasn’t on his way to dying.
The Clegg eased left and Bruno found himself leaning into the turn. He had a glimpse of Pitch End, the Clocktower the only thing he focused on – four-sided face held above the rising tide of smoke like a victim treading water – then gone as they whirled. Another snap and the Clegg’s wings returned to its side. They were back into a plunge, one Bruno guessed must have been begun by Nic. He clutched tighter still.
Nic cried over the rush: ‘I’ll not kill ye if I can help it! Don’t be such a worrier, Bruno!’
Bruno couldn’t be anything other than what he felt – scared but trying to master it. But he decided he’d keep his eyes open no matter what came next.
Down, lower, closer, and again came the hard punch of wind against canvas, wings of the glider thrown wide. Then higher, rising, lifting –
‘Want to let go of me a wee bit there?’ said Nic. ‘Ye’ll have me in bits by the time we land!’
Bruno did as he was told, and felt better for it. He was cold, but not the same cold that he felt in bed on endless Ever-Winter nights, or in Hedge School when frost spread pale tendrils across glass, water barrel in the playground losing reflections, puddles solid as stone. This was cold he could bear. And after many more moments, as Bruno straightened his back, he experienced the realisation, the thrill, of flight. Like the window of the world thrown wide, dark sky and sea surrounded him, enormous, no slip between to part them. Pitch End had shrunk smaller even than when he’d seen it from the mouth of the cavern; grubby thumbprint on a dark pane, all around blank and silent and terrifying. Exciting.
A few moments later Nic asked, ‘Ye alright or what?’
Bruno replied without a lie, ‘I’m alright.’
David and Louise appeared beside them, silent in flight. Both looked unhappy.
‘Is this a scenic flight now?’ asked David. ‘Down and up and all over the place. I know ye’re showing off for Atlas, but I’d be preferring not to be flying around all night.’
‘Me neither!’ said Louise.
Nic shouted to them, ‘Just circle a bit out over the bay, once or twice at least, check things. Then we’ll think about maybe—’
‘Think about?’ shouted David. ‘Atlas is rubbing off on ye, Delby! We’ve no time for thinking, we have to just do!’
David kicked a pedal on his own glider: one wing folded and they fell away to the right, steeply and not circ
ling but dropping, and not towards the bay but towards Pitch End’s centre.
Bruno heard Nic curse, and then follow.
‘How are we gonna get into the town hall?’ asked Bruno. ‘The doors, they’ll be locked for definite.’
‘There’s other ways,’ replied Nic.
They flew over Old Town. Bruno saw flame on gnarled fingers – the trees reaching from Old Town’s shattered roofs, fire flourishing, their crackle and sputter filling Bruno’s hearing. Then on but through smoke, landmarks looming like things just thought of: Clocktower, empty town square, town hall…
The glider’s wings tilted back, Bruno marvelling at how little sound they were making. ‘Get ready,’ he heard Nic say.
Bruno pressed his legs tight to the barrel-body of the Clegg as Nic’s feet and hands tugged and kicked at levers and pedals, wings almost vertical at either side then arching, glider slowing as its insect legs flicked – snap-spasm – and touched stone.
Bruno inhaled familiar Pitch End. Tasted sea, smoke, suspicion. He looked around. They’d landed on the roof of the town hall.
XXIII
The Dark, the Banshee and the Giant’s Staircase
‘Don’t forget yer Talent,’ said Nic.
Good thing he reminded him – Bruno struggled to catch the thread of it, the thoughts of nothing and being no one, being forgotten, unseeable…
Nic leapt from the Clegg and with head down ran, surrounded quickly by rising smoke. Bruno took longer to dismount, and when he did had to put all effort into not coughing or retching. He pressed both hands to his mouth and stood, trying to see. A breeze was dragging smoke from the Old Town fires, east to west. He could see nothing. Nothing, and then had to shift himself quick – David and Louise appeared, landing alongside the first glider with less noise and even more ease than Nic had managed.
‘How are we gonna—’ began Bruno.
‘Quiet,’ said David, voice muffled behind a tied handkerchief, him and Louise slipping from their Clegg. David held his crossbow, Louise her short shotgun.
Tall Tales From Pitch End Page 17