Tall Tales From Pitch End

by Nigel McDowell

  ‘But that Temperate,’ said Nic, ‘he already knew and wanted to continue on. The Clocktower was nearly finished, it’d taken nearly two years to be built and that couldn’t be undone. So Dr Bloom left the Elders and began to gather followers for a Rebellion. He started to build a clockwork army. He hid the pocket watches, putting four into the chests of the Withermen, thinking that even Temperate Thomas wouldn’t be for taking them out of a man’s chest, not the men who deal with the dead. And the others he gave to our fathers.’

  Nic stopped – pacing, picking – and leaned against the wall, spent, as though he’d travelled a great distance. ‘The Rebels were never going to be winning,’ he said. ‘We all knew that. Dr Bloom needed to a way to keep the cause going, hope that someday the Elders would be weak enough to beat. So he used The Book of Black & White and his Talent on me, Louise and David. Instead of making us old, he gave us his own youth. Wanted us to be young forever so we could keep on the fighting. Our fathers gave their youth too. And then they left.’

  ‘Where did they go?’ asked Bruno.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Nic. ‘On a boat, taking The Book of Black & White with them. And we came up here to stay, to get ready to fight again.’

  Bruno waited. Held his silence as long as he could before he asked his final question –

  ‘Ye’ve been here for ten turns?’

  Nic nodded. ‘I suppose I’m something like twenty-five turns old,’ he said. ‘Inside anyway.’

  ‘I’m younger than that,’ said Louise, quickly. She looked immediately baffled at her own words. She examined her own hands, her whole self, wondering.

  ‘It was a gift,’ said Nic, and he clenched his fists on the word. ‘It was the Elders who’ve been doing the wrong thing. Dr Bloom was in the right. He gave up his plan when he knew what would happen, tried to make it right.’

  ‘Just coz the Elders are wrong doesn’t mean Dr Bloom and our fathers were right,’ said Bruno, and he felt somehow weighted by the notion. But he went on: ‘Doing a thing just so ye can last, hold onto power and keep on fighting, that’s what Bloom wanted. And it’s what the Elders want too.’

  ‘He tried,’ said Nic, finally. ‘Dr Bloom left us the army, the pocket watches.’

  ‘The pocket watches restart the Clocktower,’ said Bruno, throwing a glance at his satchel. ‘If anything we should be destroying them.’

  ‘He said they’d help us too in some way,’ said Nic.

  ‘How?’ asked Bruno.

  ‘I—’ said Nic, and said no more. A final scratch at the wound. Blood escaped, drawing a line as dark as charcoal on his arm. Nic ignored it, returning to the ground to sit on the same spot he’d occupied earlier.

  ‘If the watches were meant to help,’ said Bruno, ‘he should’ve just been telling ye how, clear as anything, and not playing his games.’

  A moment, multiplying into many. Silence and then the rain, like a new voice in the conversation. It began like it would never stop, sharp and straight and silvered by moon, a torrent of dropped needles.

  Bruno turned away from Nic and Louise, the winding key for the Tiger-Sentry being turned over and over in his hand. Somehow he felt older. Older on the inside than out. No wiser, but lonelier. He sank too, in the end, eyes closing, and within the minute drifted, exhaustion a welcome sleep.

  XXVII

  The Tall Tale of the Clockwork Boy

  ‘Are ye ever gonna bloody wake up?’

  ‘I will,’ said Bruno, eyes still shut, forgetful of where he was. ‘Will be waking up soon, Mam.’

  ‘I’m not yer mam!’

  Bruno opened his eyes. He saw Louise, cross-legged and close.

  He moved and found he still had the winding key for the Tiger-Sentry in his hand. Then everything – all he’d learned, listened to from Nic – returned in a rush.

  ‘I’m awake,’ he said.

  Bruno put the Tiger-Sentry’s key into his pocket and eased himself up.

  Rain was still a racket, but was the world lighter, brighter? Perhaps (thought Bruno) the darkness was less deep. He shut his eyes, hard, then sat up a little straighter. And then he noticed – Louise was reading The Book of Black & White. The clasp that had held it shut was broken, in pieces by Louise’s feet.

  ‘What are ye—’ Bruno began.

  ‘I’m trying to learn,’ said Louise. ‘My da always said to learn what others are rightly afraid of. And I’m not gonna sit around moping. Boys are so rightly-keen for feeling sorry for themselves. If we’re gonna be beating that Temperate then I want to know why him and Dr Bloom thought this book was so bloody great.’

  Bruno had an instinct to tell her no – shut the book, put it aside. But a moment’s thought made him realise he would be betraying himself – he wanted to see as much as (maybe more than) Louise. He was afraid, but knew fear stopped things being discovered. If he’d obeyed fear, he’d never have found Tall Tales from Pitch End. He moved in a crawl towards Louise, and sat beside.

  Like the single page the Elders had hidden under the Clocktower for ten turns and used to leech youth from children, the inside of the book was black. Rough ridges, raised like raw wounds, marked the paper. Bruno thought first that it might be another language, then that it might not be language at all.

  ‘Can ye read it?’ he asked Louise.

  She was leaning – elbows on knees, fists pressed into her cheeks – close to the book, eyes narrowed. Louise took a long moment to say, ‘No. But if I sit and stare long enough, force all my feeling to thinking about the book – like when I use Talent – then I start to feel things. See things.’

  Bruno looked to the page too. His fingertips itched against one another. He made a decision, took a breath, and placed his fingers on the top of the page nearest him.

  His eyes shut themselves.

  Louise said, ‘Be careful.’

  Like he’d seen Temperate Thomas do, Bruno dragged down; his fingers felt things sharp on the surface that pained and caught, holding his progress, and then allowing them to pass. And behind his eyes Bruno felt a rising, an oncoming sensation, same as when he thought of being unseeable and knew he’d achieved it. But not pleasurable, not liberating like a Talent.

  His fingers moved on, like wanderers through a maze, down and across, from one ridge to the next, faster, easier. And then he saw things. Like scenes lit by lightning, possibilities for his Talent were glimpsed. He saw fire become ice, earth rising in sharp spikes to form whatever he desired, imagined. Bruno realised: I’m not just reading this book, the book is reading me. It knows what I want, and how to achieve it.

  Memories came, then – the old house burning, in Hedge School striking Sabitha, bodies scattered on Diamond Beach, his mother weeping, Temperate’s face losing old age – mingled with imagining, wishing: Bruno and his parents together still, on Diamond Beach, in their old house, on South Street. And then other, darker wishes: Pitch End split, breaking open, destroyed as Elders tumbled into the void, the entire town swallowed by the sea…

  ‘Bruno!’

  Louise’s shout, her snatching away of his hand, brought him back.

  Bruno opened his eyes. The world felt drab, poor, after where he’d been. He was shaking but felt stronger than ever. He looked at Louise. Her eyes were glistening, fearful. Then he looked to his hand, the one she was holding – blood stained his fingertips like ink.

  ‘What did ye see?’ she asked him.

  When Bruno spoke he felt stronger still. ‘Things that Talent can do. It’s not just feeling that fires a Talent, it’s imagining too. If ye can think of something, then it’ll happen.’ He remembered written words – Time in physical form will aid in the imagining of it. ‘It was what Dr Bloom imagined, what he wanted – must’ve been what he saw when he read this book. He built the Clocktower coz he knew it’d help him to keep Pitch End young. It’d help him to imagine it, help his Talent to do it.’

  He looked down and saw blood, a track crossing the page through rough complications. Louise slammed the book shut.r />
  ‘It’ll be doing us no good,’ she said. ‘We keep to Dr Bloom’s plan: keep the book away from that Temperate, along with our pocket watches.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ said Bruno, eyes still on The Book of Black & White. ‘Just stay here for another ten turns?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and the determination in her voice, the speed with which she spoke, left Bruno weak and trailing to catch up. ‘Have to keep going and keep the eyes open and the mind thinking and the heart tick-ticking, that’s what my da used to say. His name was Edgar Green, best sign-painter in Pitch End, always in demand, used to paint at home these amazing pictures! “Keep the heart tick-ticking.” Have ye ever heard that Tall Tale? It’s the best one!’ Before Bruno could reply she went on: ‘The Tall Tale of the Clockwork Boy. My da used to tell it to me. I can remember it word for word –

  ‘Not too many turns ago, on the narrowest street in Old Town, in the narrowest house with the narrowest rooms and the narrowest doors and the narrowest halls, there lived an old couple with the narrowest minds. This man and woman – narrow-shouldered, narrow-faced, narrow-eyed and narrow-mouthed – owned a clock-making business. One day, contemplating their oncoming age, and worrying for how they’d look after themselves (as they had no children and no family who liked them), they decided to build themselves a son. A clockwork boy.

  ‘Once completed, he was almost in every way like a usual boy, except for a dark, empty place in his chest – he had been denied a heart by the narrow-minded couple (they didn’t pay much attention to such a detail) and so every day he had to be wound tight to get him going.

  ‘Although he lived with the narrow man and woman in their narrow house, the clockwork boy did not have the same narrow mind. He was kept in the narrowest room at the narrowest part of the house, at the very, very tip, and the boy spent much time gazing through the tall, narrow window out over Pitch End, to sea and sky and mountains. The boy had an urge he couldn’t trace – a need, like breathing, for adventure. But his narrow old parents viewed him as more a servant than a son, always with demands and scolding, groaning like martyrs and weeping for endless cups of sugary tea or toast dripping with dripping.

  ‘Every morning he would be wound, wake with his chest crackling, arms and legs stirring and in his recorded voice he would say, all sprightly: “Good morning! Would you like some breakfast?”

  ‘The man and woman would order, “Yes! This very minute!”

  ‘“Right away!” the clockwork boy would reply.

  ‘His clockwork limbs sent him sprinting into the kitchen where his clockwork hands would set to work, cracking eggs, flipping bacon, churning butter, kneading bread, boiling water. The old couple would smile at one another, lazy and content. And every morning, they would sit down and eat their fill of a sumptuous breakfast.

  ‘The clockwork boy cooked and cleaned from morning till after dark. And the old, narrow couple would always retire to bed early, taking care to wind the boy up before they did so, or risk him running down and stopping before the day’s work was done.

  ‘For days, months, for many long turns, the clockwork boy continued without complaint, being wound so tight that he never stopped, day or night. Until one morning, his usual enquiry met with no response – the clockwork boy stood over the narrow bed of the narrow couple and asked: “Would you like some breakfast?” The couple’s lips did not part. They did not stir. The clockwork boy asked again, and again and again … He stood over them for the entire morning, asking and asking. But still they did not move, did not answer.

  ‘With no work to do, no order to follow, the clockwork boy had no clue how to pass time. But he quickly became aware that if he wasn’t being wound up, then very soon he would stop moving altogether. Would stop thinking, stop doing. He decided then that he would try and see as much as he could of the town before that happened.

  ‘He stepped out into Old Town, and had taken no more than a few steps along the cobbles when he saw a girl nearby. She had long, blond, curly hair that stood up like a brush, and a long emerald cloak around her shoulders. The girl was crying.

  ‘The clockwork boy approached her and asked, “Would you like some breakfast?” for these were all the words he knew.

  ‘The girl looked at him and said, “Ye can see me? Ye knew I was here?”

  ‘Small cogs in his head churning, the clockwork boy thought about the girl’s words. Her answer wasn’t something he recognised, it sounded more like a question, not the commands he was used to. He wanted to say one thing but ended up saying another – “Would you like milk in your tea?”

  ‘The girl laughed. She quickly forgot her tears and stood up.

  ‘“My name is the Emerald Ghost,” said the girl. “I’m called that coz not everyone wants to see me or listen to me.”

  ‘The clockwork boy didn’t reply, knowing he had no words to properly reply with. He settled for shaking a hand that the Emerald Ghost had offered.

  ‘“I’m trying to find my father,” said the girl. “Do ye want to help me look? He wears an emerald hat, same colour as my cloak.”

  ‘The clockwork boy nodded, saying, “I’m sure today’s weather is going to be grand indeed,” which (although still not what he wanted to say exactly) felt close enough to what he meant.

  ‘The girl laughed, took him by the hand and off they ran together, him clattering on his clockwork feet, her laughing to herself with delight.

  ‘They searched for the girl’s father. High and low, and then higher and lower – slopes and street corners, rooftops and mines … but he was nowhere to be found. The hours of the day grew shorter, darkness crept in and the clockwork boy felt sure he was going to soon wind down completely. Unable to find words to tell the girl what he needed though, he continued to follow her – from the fields of barley and corn on the east of Pitch End to the rocky head on the west.

  ‘In the end, even the girl lost hope, and on Diamond Beach she fell to her knees and began to weep anew, looking just as she had done that morning when the clockwork boy had first found her.

  ‘The clockwork boy looked out. The sea’s surface was scarlet, set alight by the slipping away of the sun. And then he saw a flash of emerald.

  ‘Without words he ran across the sand with his final energy, his feet sinking, his winding key spinning with the effort, and threw himself into the water. He didn’t know how to swim, so simply let the tide take him. But it carried him with great speed to a man with an emerald hat on his head who was struggling, was almost drowned. The clockwork boy grabbed hold of the man and, thrashing his metal arms, kicking his metal feet, he dragged him back towards shore.

  ‘It was hard work, hard going, and by the time he regained the beach he was all but wound down, ready to stop, cease moving and thinking and being forever.

  ‘“Thank you!” cried the girl, who had thrown herself on the man with the emerald hat. “It’s my da, ye found him!”

  ‘But the clockwork boy couldn’t reply – he was unable to speak, unable to move, had only moments left of life. He looked out over the sea, towards the sunset, and felt that even if this was to be his last sight, he would feel contented – he had experienced one day free of chores and orders, and in it he had made a friend and helped reunite her with her father, and surely that should be enough for anyone. What the clockwork boy didn’t know was that the man he had just saved was a skilled clockmaker.

  ‘“Any being” (he said) “that shows as much courage as this boy just has deserves better than to live with the constant threat of leaving. Ye need a way to exist on yer own, without having to be wound up by others.”

  ‘And from his waistcoat the man took a pocket watch and pressed it into the dark space that had always existed where the clockwork boy’s heart should’ve been.

  ‘The clockwork boy stood, knowing that so long as the pocket watch kept going – his new heart still ticking – then so would he. He would never have to rely on another to be wound. He found the right words then, words he’d learned from
the girl. “Thank you,” he said.

  ‘And the clockwork boy left them, his new heart tick-ticking with excitement and adventure, with thoughts of where he could go, what he could do alone or, if he became lonely, the people he might see, friends he might be destined to make.’

  XXVIII

  Wakening

  Bruno was on his feet, satchel in hand and moving fast for that opening like a long, jointed throat that would return him to the cavern of Sentries, to the statues of their fathers.

  ‘Where ye going?’ asked Louise, standing. ‘Come back! Didn’t ye recognise me in the story?’

  Bruno wriggled into the harness and found the lever that would lower him. He said nothing, couldn’t speak. More quickly down than they’d risen, with words in Dr Bloom’s hand repeating in his mind – ‘Pocket watch for a heart?’ – he landed, shook the harness off and stumbled into the cavern where their erstwhile army was still assembled. He stopped on the edge of things, hearing a voice – ‘Ye have to fight on, don’t be a coward! Always for acting like a child, Nicholas! Grow up, hold yer head high!’

  Bruno recognised it from the town hall – it was the voice the second Cat-Sentry had spoken in. Nic’s father. He looked to the platform and saw Nic seated on the ground, head down. Bruno moved more slowly, feeling like he had interrupted, was taking from Nic time that needed to be spent between father and son.

  Then he heard Nic speak – ‘I tried, Da, I really tried.’

  ‘No excuse! No excuse at all for cowardice. A Rebel is never afraid, not of anything!’

  Bruno lingered with so much to say.

  A rattle of clockwork behind and Louise was deposited too, unpicking her harness. ‘I just worked it out!’ she said, running to Bruno. ‘I worked it out too, from the Tall Tale!’

  ‘Worked what out?’ asked Nic, voice hollow.

  Bruno hesitated. What if I’m wrong? What if I’ve taken too much from a story? A story intended, as Nic had said, for ‘children’?