Serendipity smiled and nodded.
‘What’s your favourite thing to do?’ asked Sarah.
‘I like writing in the morning before breakfast when the whole house is quiet,’ said Serendipity.
‘I like writing,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s my favourite thing to do, too.’
‘Don’t stop,’ said Serendipity. Then she asked, ‘What’s your favourite noise?’
‘The sound of the breeze arriving in the garden when it’s been hot and still. The leaves always seem pleased to rustle around in it,’ said Sarah. ‘What’s your favourite smell?’
‘Oh,’ said Serendipity, ‘that would be the smell of my husband’s blueberry pancakes on a Sunday morning.’
‘I’ve never had pancakes,’ said Sarah.
‘You will,’ said Serendipity.
And so they went on as bright clouds gathered and dispersed, and the world made steady progress past the sun.
‘What’s your favourite idea?’ asked Serendipity.
‘That’s a hard one,’ said Sarah. She thought about this as she chewed a long piece of grass, and then she said, ‘I think it’s that there are other worlds where people are living and one day I’ll meet them.’
She seemed to dwell on this thought for a few moments and then asked Serendipity, ‘What’s your favourite word?’
‘Imagine,’ said Serendipity.
‘I like “imagine” too. You can ride anywhere on “imagine”,’ said Sarah. Then she added, ‘Loddon likes “imagine” too.’
‘Who?’
‘Loddon. I tell him all my stories. He’s safe now.’
‘Safe?’ asked Serendipity.
The girl was quiet for a little while. ‘He kept climbing in the window and waking me up. Once he tried to tie me up and drag me back to this tree. And once he tried to set fire to all my notebooks. So I gave him my pencil box from school.’
‘And you put him in it?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
Serendipity shrugged.
‘He’s all right,’ Sarah continued. ‘I tell him stories. If I don’t he gets hungry. But he mustn’t get out.’
‘Because he’s mean?’
Sarah nodded. ‘Mean is my least favourite thing.’
Without time seeming to pass, the shadows had grown long across the garden. Sarah jumped up.
‘I’d better go in,’ she said.
Serendipity took the notebook she had carried from the boatshed out of her pocket and handed it to Sarah.
‘Thank you!’ said Sarah. ‘I’m always running out of paper.’
‘I remember,’ said Serendipity.
‘Will you come back?’ asked Sarah.
‘Maybe. Or you might come forward,’ said Serendipity.
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll see you then.’
As Sarah ran towards the house, Serendipity had to stifle an urge to chase after her. But even as Sarah ran, she became hazy, indistinct, like a mirage. And then she vanished altogether. So too did the shabby white house. Then Serendipity was standing on a vacant city block. The ground was covered in gravel and weeds and the block was hemmed in by a paling fence that was marked, here and there, with bright splashes of graffiti.
Parked on the vacant block was a food van. There was a delicious smell in the air, and someone in the van was cooking. Serendipity moved closer.
‘Hello?’ she said.
The cook turned and as he did so, Serendipity lost the sense of solid ground beneath her feet.
‘Denis?’
He smiled at her, and something inside Serendipity broke. She felt as if whatever had been torn apart inside her when Denis died was breaking open again. The world beneath her shook and shattered, but he was reaching for her, and pulling her to safety.
Chapter Twenty–two
With Vivienne astride his shoulders, her wings injured and her body bruised, Baxterr flew, and flew, and flew. Seeming never to tire, he crossed the vast width of the Restless Sea from shore to shore, backwards and forwards, his nose searching on the breeze for any scent of Tuesday, his eyes combing the water for a glimpse of her, or any sign of the ship that Vivienne had described. Snow flurried around them, and a biting wing blew, laced with shards of ice. But still Baxterr searched.
Every now and then, he would let out a small bark or whimper, and fly lower to investigate something he had seen – or thought he had seen – among the endless waves. But it was usually just a derry bird, perched blithely upon the wild water, or else the rising flukes of a neverwhale. Mostly, though, it was only a shadow of his hopes and wishful thoughts.
From her place on Baxterr’s shoulders, Vivienne could see the world spread beneath her like a watery map, obscured from time to time by low fog. Dotted here and there were islands edged with cliffs, frozen white and black. As Baxterr flew west, she watched the snow-bound Mountains of Margalov rise up on the horizon, and realised, with a pang, just how long it had been since she had seen their lower slopes in their proper shades of purple, blue and forest green. All the land in sight was wintering and starving. She shuddered and her teeth chattered, but not only from the cold, and she burrowed deep into Baxterr’s fur, doing all she could to stay warm against the chill that was rippling through her from her injured wings. Her head throbbed and her thoughts swam, and although she was loath to admit it, she knew the wounds Loddon had inflicted were becoming infected.
‘Arroooo,’ howled Baxterr, and dived seawards.
Vivienne felt his ears and his spirits lift, and then droop as he realised that what he had seen was just another derry bird riding a wave, its spiky crest fluttering in the sharp breeze. Baxterr skimmed the waves, and then began to climb into the sky to continue his search.
As the day wore on, they found themselves approaching the southern shore of the Restless Sea, a remote and mostly uninhabited part of Vivienne Small’s world. The coastline was a series of high ragged cliffs, but Vivienne had rarely found any particular reason to scale them. Inland from the cliffs the coastal land with its small, thorny shrubs gave way gradually to sand. Here lay a wide, forbidding desert that in the past had glowed vividly with heat. Vivienne remembered several savage nights she had spent in that desert. She remembered the days of desperate thirst, grit blinding her eyes, death haunting every breath. She had hoped never to come here again.
Vivienne squinted down at that remote landscape. The Purple Desert no longer reflected its name. It was grey with cold and ice. But ripping across it, as if it had been hacked through with a badly wielded axe, was a vast rupture in the land. The world had split its very fabric in two, leaving a mark as far as her eye could see. She remembered well the earthquake that had shaken the forest, unsettled the sea and caused rocks to tumble and birds to cry strange songs for days afterwards. It had marked the coming of the deep and endless winter. Here in front of her was the epicentre of the great quake. But at the place where the rupture met the sea … what was that?
‘Doggo, look!’ Vivienne called, over the wind. ‘Over there in the shadow of that landslide. Is that a mast?’
Baxterr changed course and made directly for the shape in the distance.
The ship was aground. The yawning gap created by the earthquake opened behind it, dark and forbidding. The ship’s sails hung limply in wintry light.
Baxterr glided in and landed on the frozen shore. Vivienne slipped from his back and listened. Baxterr whined.
‘I know, doggo,’ Vivienne whispered. ‘This is the ship. She might still be here.’
Instinctively she spread her wings, planning to fly up onto the deck of Storm Rider and investigate. Too late, she remembered her stitched wings. The pain of trying to unfurl them was unbearable, and a wave of dizziness washed over her, scrambling her thoughts. She sat on the icy shore and breathed deeply, one hand seeking the reassurance of Baxterr’s warm fur.
Then Baxterr’s ears pricked up, and Vivienne heard it, too. It was a muffled voice, the grassboy’s voice, coming from below decks on S
torm Rider.
‘It’s him,’ Vivienne whispered to Baxterr. ‘Let me onto the ship, quietly.’
Cautiously, Vivienne scrambled up and Baxterr lifted his huge head over the deck railing, so she could tiptoe over the back of his head and down his snout onto the deck. With careful footsteps, Vivienne edged along the railing in the direction of a companionway that led to the ship’s fo’c’sle, forward cabins and galley. No sooner had she reached it when an object came flying out of the opening, right past her. It was the sole of a shoe. It landed on the deck with a flap, alongside a strange collection of other objects. There were some candles, a box of fishhooks, and a rather large neverwhale bone.
‘Eat, eat, eat. What does she want to eat for?’ Loddon was muttering to himself. ‘Can she eat this? Maybe. Here goes.’
And with that, he threw a tin of brass cleaner up onto the deck.
Silently, Vivienne climbed onto the low roof above the companionway. She had to breathe deeply and move slowly because every movement of her wings caused her vision to go a little wavery. Where was Tuesday? She peered up into the rigging, wondering if Ermengarde was still there, somewhere amid the spars and sails. But she could see no scurrying shape, hear no scuttling feet.
‘Da dee dum di naaa, hnnaaa, na,’ Loddon hummed. And then, half singing and half humming, ‘Well, giant, what would you eat if this was you? Whole cities, I expect. Ho, na na ni dum de dum, crunch crunch crunch, tear the doors of houses, chew the chimneys bare …’
Vivienne cast around for a weapon of some kind. There had to be something … it was the perfect opportunity to take him by surprise, now, while he was below decks and unawares.
‘Stove in the windows, break the balconies …’ The off-key voice was getting louder. Vivienne realised the grassboy was coming up the companionway. She pressed herself flat on the varnished timber, keeping out of sight. She tried to get Baxterr’s attention, wanting to tell him to stay below the deck railing, but he was busily sniffing at the sand beyond the prow of Storm Rider, having picked up a scent trail that led deeper into the crevasse.
‘Ho, ho!’ cried the boy, on deck by now. ‘What are you? A giant dog? No, that’s wrong! My writer promised me a giant, not a giant dog. Go away and come back when you’re a giant!’
And with that, Loddon picked up the neverwhale bone from the deck and threw it viciously at Baxterr. Baxterr rounded on Loddon, growling more ferociously than Vivienne Small had imagined possible. The growl echoed around the bay, filling the frozen space with menace. As Baxterr approached Loddon, his lips were curled back, top and bottom, and his white teeth gleamed in the darkness.
While Loddon laughed and scrabbled about for something else to throw at Baxterr, Vivienne slipped through the companionway roof and hurried below deck. She searched the galley for Tuesday, but there was no one there. She searched for knives, but found none of those either. She hurried through the saloon, searching for a weapon of any kind. And there it was, resting on hooks high on the wall. A crossbow, and a quiver of steel-tipped bolts. Vivienne reached up and brought down the crossbow. Compared with her light, timber recurve bow, this was a monstrous thing that required most of her strength merely to hold it. Her shoulders groaning with the weight, her body straining against the pain in her wings, she slid the quiver of bolts over her shoulder, selected one, and fitted it to the crossbow.
Step by step, Vivienne Small made her way up the companionway and onto the deck, where Loddon stood at the very prow of the ship taunting a snarling Baxterr. She lifted the crossbow and got the green boy squarely in her sights.
‘Where is Tuesday?’ Vivienne demanded.
‘Not telling,’ Loddon said.
Enraged, she loosed the bolt. It flew, fast and true, spearing a hole in Loddon’s grass shirt sleeve and pinning him to the ship’s railing.
‘That wasn’t very nice, Vivienne Small,’ Loddon cried out in a furious, petulant voice, ripping himself free.
But Vivienne only fitted another bolt to the crossbow and moved towards him.
‘Where is she?’ she asked.
‘One, two, three, four, five, once I caught a girl alive,’ he sang. ‘Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, I’ll never let her go again. You’ll never find her.’ Loddon glanced at the cliff beyond the boat where the chasm began.
‘She’s down there?’ Vivienne asked.
Baxterr snarled.
‘Take me to her,’ said Vivienne Small.
‘I don’t think so,’ Loddon said.
Vivienne stepped closer, and aimed the bolt right between his eyes.
He laughed. ‘Do you think I’m afraid of that little toy?’ And with that Loddon shrugged out of his torn shirt and, with his two hands, drew the strands of his woven body apart.
Vivienne saw he was entirely made of bright springtime grass.
Loddon reached up, buried his hands in hair and tore himself in half, from head to toe. The left side of him swept around one side of her, while the right side of him twirled around the other.
Vivienne was alarmed to see a little black shape drop from one half of Loddon and run across the deck towards her.
‘Ermengarde!’ she cried, but there was no time to collect up her little friend.
Vivienne spun around to see the two halves of Loddon meeting up and recombining, rather as if he were being zippered back together. She was aware of Baxterr barking in fury.
‘Rat!’ Loddon yelled. ‘Revolting creature.’
He leapt towards Ermengarde, slamming a foot down on the deck, trying to crush her.
Vivienne couldn’t bear it – she threw down the crossbow and hurled her own body over the top of Ermengarde’s scuttling black form. She was just in time. Loddon’s foot crashed beside Vivienne’s face.
‘I don’t think you’re going to be needing these anymore, do you?’ Loddon said, scooping up the quiver of crossbow bolts at Vivienne’s side, and retrieving the crossbow from the deck. He loaded it and pointed it at Baxterr.
‘No,’ Vivienne yelled. ‘No! Baxterr, get out of the way!’
Baxterr took flight. Loddon loosed a bolt.
Baxterr rolled sideways, then howled. The bolt had grazed his wing, sending shreds of loose fur flying into the sky.
Vivienne yelled, ‘Fly, Baxterr, fly!’
Baxterr flew up, then spun around and hovered above the ship. Loddon casually loaded another bolt and fired.
This one took Baxterr in his front leg. He howled and twisted away, soaring into the sky.
‘Dum dum de dum,’ Loddon hummed, watching and waiting for a third shot at Baxterr.
‘Ermengarde, my wings,’ Vivienne whispered.
With that, Ermengarde scampered out from underneath Vivienne’s hair and began to nibble. One two, three, four, five, six stitches …
‘Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. Catch a doggie by the toe. If he hollers … shoot him again!’ cried Loddon, but this time, his shot missed.
Nine, ten, eleven, twelve stitches …
Loddon reloaded and Baxterr wheeled away once more. Vivienne could see blood on his great foot and at the edge of his wing.
Fifteen stitches, sixteen, seventeen …
Loddon was prancing about the deck with the crossbow sight to his face. Each time Baxterr lunged, Loddon laughed and feinted.
‘I’ll get you in the head in a minute, and then D … E … D … spells out you go,’ Loddon sang.
Vivienne felt the last stitch come undone. She could see that Loddon had Baxterr in his sight.
‘Hold tight, Ermengarde,’ she whispered.
Just as Loddon fired, Vivienne spread her wings and leapt onto Loddon.
The bolt missed Baxterr, for it had shredded the flesh on Vivienne’s shoulder. She reeled with agony and dropped to the deck. Trying to regain her feet, she was straightaway knocked over by a force that, at first, she did not understand. She heard rumbling and cracking. Sections of cliff were breaking away and smashing around Storm Rider. Rocks fell on the deck and others broke masts and rigging.
‘Yes!’ roared Loddon in triumph. ‘It’s my giant! He’s come! He’s walking over the earth right now, Vivienne Small. I will feed you to him for his breakfast and I will give him that dog as a pet. My friend the giant will make that dog do as he’s told.’
‘You’re delusional,’ Vivienne gasped.
From where she clung to the deck, Vivienne could see the split in the earth widening beyond the ship. And then the air above her was full of golden brown fur. It was Baxterr, his eyes rolling with fear from the thunderous sounds all around. With all her courage, and in defiance of her pain, Vivienne sprang into the air landing awkwardly on Baxterr’s shoulders. Rocks continued to fall as the cliffs and shore crumbled, then Baxterr swept them upwards on a gust of bitterly cold wind. Vivienne could see Loddon standing tall and green on the deck of Storm Rider. He held his arms to the sky as the crevasse that had once ended at the broken cliffs tore its way into the sea.
‘Nothing can hurt me!’ Loddon roared.
But then the sea poured in and filled the split in the earth, turning it into a swirling morass of mud and rock and water. Storm Rider began spinning like a boat above a plughole, round and round and round. And then, with a fearful sucking noise, it was dragged down into the swirling flood, and was gone. The earth stilled. The rocks that were falling from the cliffs came to rest.
‘Tuesday,’ Vivienne Small whispered.
Baxterr flew low along the widening fracture as it deepened inland. It was sinking, section by section. Rock and earth were pouring, unstoppably, down into the abyss.
Baxterr flew the full long length of the split to where at last it ended in the icy sands of the Purple Desert. They came to ground, and Vivienne slid down from Baxterr’s shoulders. For a moment, Baxterr sat on his haunches staring disbelievingly at the crater of earth and the fracture leading away, back to the sea so far beyond. Vivienne placed a hand gently above his colossal, wounded paw. She felt his sorrow echo painfully through the rips in her wings.
Under the wintry sky, Baxterr the Winged Dog threw back his great head and began to howl. It was a howl of utter despair and it rang out, loud and deep and terrible, across the world of Vivienne Small. It reverberated through the skies and echoed deep into the mountains and forests. In the whole of the world, there was not a single creature that did not hear Baxterr’s cry, nor any who could keep from shuddering at the chilling, desperate sound of it.
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