Now the King laughed. ‘Didn’t I just say you had it wrong!’ he crowed. ‘I don’t know where Chyba and Tippett were, but that’s not where the Queen or Princess Jupiter were that night! That’s not how it was at all!’
Abruptly, the Jangling Violet grew so chaotic that nobody could speak. At the same time, maybe because of the pause, the stench of the Mustard Green intensified. Princess Ko pressed a cushion to her face.
5
‘Tell me what it is? What’s the matter?’
Holly was crouched beside Madeleine, holding out a towel. Madeleine ignored it. She was hunched over, watching the blood rain from her nose.
I can bake a dream, she thought, I can bake a poem.
She thought she should speak to Isaac Newton. He would make things clear. He was outside now, wandering the streets of Cambridge. He was buying gloves, stockings, a hatband, cherries. He was buying custard, herbs, beer, cake, milk.
Isaac Newton was watching a game of tennis. He considered how the ball spun and how it glanced. How it moved through the air, what the air was, why the ball moved and why it fell. He reflected on the curve and the trajectory.
Holly pressed the towel to Madeleine’s face and held it there, and Madeleine closed her eyes.
She was running on a twilight road, Elliot beside her.
The answers are inside the hat, she thought. Isaac Newton bought himself a hatband. A man left a party and picked up the wrong hat.
6
Petra was checking on the shutters.
The Jangling Violet faded, then started up again with renewed vigour.
Petra returned.
‘The shutters are doing the best they can,’ she shouted.
There was a sudden lull in jangling, and relief sighed through the room.
Everyone was looking at the King.
‘Well, where were the Queen and Princess Jupiter that night?’ Gabe asked at last. The Mustard Green throttled him suddenly. His face crumpled in despair.
Abel found matches inside a ceramic jug (‘I still recall where the matches are,’ he shot at Petra), and lit the candles Petra had forgotten.
‘Won’t make a whiff of difference,’ the Sheriff said. ‘Ha ha.’
‘Ah, shut your trap, Hector,’ Abel said, but mildly.
The King, meanwhile, was frowning. His triumph had slipped. He was thinking, head bent.
At last he looked up. ‘I see how it happened,’ he said cautiously. ‘We were in Ducale City: the Queen, Jupiter and I.’ His voice became formal. ‘We were supposed to attend a charity gala at the Convention Centre that evening. The Queen and I were getting dressed in our hotel room, when word came that Jupiter was at the railway station, buying a ticket to Tek, Jagged Edge.’ A touch of defiance crossed his face. ‘She did that sort of thing all the time.’ Nobody spoke. ‘At any rate, the Queen said we should skip the party and go and collect her. I felt we should leave her be, to learn her lesson. We quarrelled. The Queen went to the station. I went to the party.’
Outside, the noise started up again but with less enthusiasm.
The King continued, his voice even more regal. ‘Of course, I gave excuses for the absence of my wife and daughter. I said the Queen had gone to the Finance Department to deal with a minor emergency. This was accepted without comment. The Queen, as everybody knew, had recently assumed control of finances. I said that Princess Jupiter had taken ill and was sleeping in the penthouse suite.’
Again, there was quiet across the room. The Jangling Violet had settled into intermittent clanks and dings.
‘So what you’re saying,’ Jimmy ventured, ‘is that the Queen and Princess were actually taken from the railway station?’
‘Or maybe they were on their way back to the hotel,’ Petra put in. ‘Or to the Convention Centre. Or they were on the train, someplace between Ducale and Tek. Maybe together, maybe apart.’
The Sheriff grunted. ‘Hold your horses,’ he said to the King. ‘You said you got word that Princess Jupiter was buying a train ticket? So who gave word? Someone at the station recognised her? Security following her? So they must know what happened next?’
The King twitched. ‘Royal security, yes,’ he said. ‘They often kept an eye on Princess Jupiter for us. But that night I told them to come back to the gala. And when I saw them, I told them that Jupiter was back now and was ill in the penthouse suite, and to leave her be.’
‘Now, why would you have done that?’
The King crinkled his nose. He spoke petulantly. ‘The Queen was on her way to get Jupiter! And who knew what scenes there might be at the station? She’d caused enough bad press already! I wanted the scenes to go unnoticed. Security talk, you know. They gossip.’
‘Well, now,’ Petra murmured into the new quiet.
7
It was easier now.
Madeleine was deep inside a darkness. It was soft, the darkness, and curved. It was a sinking hammock, and she sank with it.
She was far from her mother, and far from the room, and the email and the photograph and scream.
Wake up. A voice smacked the side of her head. It was her own voice. She felt her lip tremble. She sank deeper.
Wake up, the voice commanded again. Or you will die.
You’re being melodramatic, she responded tartly, and she disappeared inside herself again.
In disappearance, there was beautiful wilderness. Some important tearing away, some detachment. She floated into it. This is the ether.
You will die, the voice intoned. So will your mother.
The voice multiplied itself, adding clangs and jangles, until it was a voice made of clamour. You’re a girl in a tower. You watch and wait and hope. You wait for letters from your father. You wait for notes from Elliot. You close yourself inside half-waking visions. The lights fizz through your flesh. The snakes weave their circles. Wake up.
She felt the first gust of uneasy. What if the voice was right? She should wake up.
But that was impossible. To return now from this depth would be like hauling herself out of a tunnel lined with nails.
To wake up now, she explained to her own voice, would be to rip myself to shreds, to tear my flesh on the walls of this tunnel, to shatter my bones, and worse.
Wake up anyway, the voice replied.
8
‘You know,’ Jimmy said at last. ‘I guess that fits?’
The King glanced at him irritably.
‘Way back, I read the missing persons reports on the Royal Family,’ Jimmy explained. ‘With both the Queen and Princess Jupiter, none of the witnesses had actually seen them. The Queen was supposedly in an office in a building that had closed for the day. Witnesses were cleaners. The Princess was apparently inside the suite. So I guess maybe they weren’t there, behind those closed doors.’
‘They weren’t,’ the King said sharply. ‘I just explained that.’
‘Well now,’ the Sheriff said. ‘We’re only just catching up to you, King Cetus. Give us a moment.’
‘Still,’ Jimmy mused. ‘Why was there a tremor in reality in both those cases? That’s why I figured they were taken to the World. Cleaners and chambermaids told stories of strange little things. There must have been some kind of cross-over right around that time.’ He looked at the non-queen and non-princess.
‘Is that where you two were taken?’ he said doubtfully. ‘From the Finance Department and the Harrington Hotel?’
‘I don’t know where I was,’ the woman whispered. ‘I’d left my husband. He’s a Ganglord of Golden Coast, but I will not and I have not told you his name nor his gang nor anything that could be construed as . . . Anyhow, yes, I was sleeping in an alcove outside a building. It had big sandstone bricks—I grazed my knuckle on them—so it might have been a government establishment of some kind . . . I don’t know!’
‘Big sandstone bricks,’ the King said. ‘Could be the Finance Department. When was this?’
‘I don’t know! Two years ago? Three? I don’t know. Leave me be!’
‘When was this?’
‘It was Elina’s birthday, so that’s what, April?’
‘We don’t know this Elina, nor her birthday,’ the King said grimly.
‘Last April?’ the Sheriff asked.
‘Nah, the April before that, I think.’
‘That’s not when the Royals disappeared,’ Jimmy said.
‘So I was with Elina and my friends,’ the girl continued. ‘We sort of broke in for a joke. And the food. So, we were busting our guts laughing, and I do not know how we thought we’d get away with it, it’s sorta kickin funny that we did. But we didn’t. I mean, we didn’t get away with it. Cos some guy in a suit takes my arm and says, Come this way, and I was, like, they got me, but I was trashed so I didn’t care, and then I was, whoah, WHAT?! Cos I’m suddenly standing outside in a whole other city. I remember that now. And then . . .’ She lit up. ‘I’m living in Berlin and I think my name is Ariel Peters and I keep getting ink! And eczema. Then someone tells me I’m Princess Jupiter of Cello, and I’m like, blitzkrieg!! Or whatever.’
‘That’s more or less how it happened with me,’ the woman spoke up. ‘Except nothing like it.’ She chuckled. ‘But some parts. I was sleeping, as I said, and a man in a suit told me to move along, and suddenly I was in Taipei. I thought I was from New Zealand.’ Her chuckle was upgraded to a chortle.
‘What’s New Zealand?’ Gabe asked.
‘It’s a country in the World. I was living in Taipei with these humourless kids, teaching dancing, and aching all the time with arthritis, and I started getting letters about the Kingdom of Cello, telling me that I was a queen.’
‘I don’t even look like Princess Jupiter,’ the girl said. ‘Why’d you bring me here?’
Keira sighed. ‘I had no real clue what Jupiter looked like except she’s skinny and she’s trouble, and you look like both to me. No offence. Besides, you guys were supposed to be disguised, so Shelby and I thought you were, you know . . . disguised.’
‘Well, I look a lot like the Queen,’ the non-queen put in. ‘So don’t blame yourself!’ Then she laughed hysterically.
9
The door swung open, and Belle and Jack followed it inside.
They were tripping over each other’s words, holding takeaway coffee cups. They stopped.
Blood was pouring in a line down Madeleine’s chin, staining her shirt and jeans. Spots on her shoelaces. The floor was blood-splattered. Holly crouched, a blood-soaked towel over her arm.
‘You need to make that stop,’ Jack said.
‘Ya think?’ Belle said, withering.
‘Look at her face. She’s whiter than the foam on this cappuccino. But without the chocolate powder.’
Exhaustion poured through Madeleine’s body to her feet. From her feet came a surge of energy. This shot up and out of her head.
‘I think I’m in shock,’ she said. Her voice surprised her. It was husky. Another wave fell, another rose.
‘You’ve had plenty of nose bleeds before, you tosser,’ Belle said. ‘What’s the big shock?’
Jack had disappeared into the bathroom. He came out with more towels.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her,’ Holly said.
Madeleine pointed to the computer monitor.
‘See that boy?’ she said, and again her voice sounded strange. It was the scream, she realised. She’d damaged her vocal chords. Weariness rushed down; energy shot up. ‘It’s like an elevator inside me,’ she told the room.
‘She keeps saying things like that,’ Holly said.
‘That boy is my brother. Chyba. And he’s dead.’
Holly kept her head turned away from the screen. ‘Madeleine’s lost her mind,’ she smiled.
‘Wait.’ Jack pressed the clean towel to Madeleine’s face. ‘You mean Prince Chyba of Cello? You think you’re related to him?’
‘We’re from the Kingdom of Cello.’ Madeleine pushed Jack away so the blood flowed again. ‘And we need to get back.’
Belle was tching like a squirrel. She looked from Holly to Madeleine and back again.
‘You know,’ she said slowly. ‘That would make sense.’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Madeleine said. ‘It’s all wrong. We’re wrong. This is wrong. That’s why we’re sick. And if we don’t get back to Cello now, I think we’re going to die.’
Holly laughed into the quiet of the room. ‘I’m the one with the brain tumour,’ she said.
Madeleine’s eyes closed with the next descent of fatigue. She was going to fall with it. The strength pushed up again but clumsily.
She half-opened her eyes.
‘You could squeeze lemon juice onto the inside of your elbow,’ Jack suggested. ‘Cause isn’t that the sign of a Cellian?’
‘I don’t need to,’ Madeleine said. She fell sideways onto the couch. ‘I remember everything. All I need to do is get to Cello.’
‘But how?’ Belle raised an eyebrow. ‘You need to go to one of the cracks and do the light and mirror thing, right? You should go to Berlin. Isn’t that where Abel and Elliot went through?’ She was frowning in concentration. ‘But you need someone on the other side to open the crack, right? Cause it’s sealed? I should’ve paid more attention when you talked about Cello.’
‘Now you’ve all gone mad.’ Holly’s voice turned paper thin and high. ‘I’m going to get angry!’ She tried to laugh.
Madeleine let her head fall forward. The blood poured from her nose to the couch now. Everybody watched.
‘There’s not enough time,’ she said to Belle. ‘We need to stumble.’
‘You need to stop your nose bleed,’ Jack said. She kept dodging him. ‘Hold still, Mads, seriously.’
‘What do you mean, stumble?’ Belle asked.
‘People sometimes stumble between Cello and the World,’ Madeleine explained. ‘It happens by accident. When there’s absence and emotion.’ She stood and stepped towards her mother. Everything was sapphire. The falls were coming faster and heavier, the surges lost interest at her ankles.
‘I need to stumble on purpose,’ she said.
She took her mother’s hand and clutched it hard.
‘You’re hurting me,’ her mother said.
‘I am going to stumble to Cello,’ she said.
Jack had his phone out.
‘Yeah, you go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’
‘If it just takes absence and emotion,’ Belle said, ‘you’ve got both.’
‘I know.’ Madeleine looked at the picture of her dead brother on the screen. Her mother stood beside her, dying.
She closed her eyes and tried to focus. She thought she should start small.
Absence. A chair missing a leg. A mug without a handle.
Emotion. A child threading a blankie through his fingers. A father clenching his fists and swinging them down through the air.
‘No, I mean you’ve got both right there,’ Belle said, ‘in your aura.’ She pointed with her finger. ‘Try to see them, Madeleine.’
Absence. A mirror.
Emotion. Piercing light.
Can you focus and stumble? She lost her grip on everything for a moment.
Her brother. Her mother.
Her brother. Her mother.
The plummet of fatigue, the surge of power. Fall and rise, now so rapid it was like a spinning wheel. Her body shook with it.
‘They’re both right there,’ Belle said again. ‘You freakin tosser. Absence and emotion. Right there in front of your face.’
Madeleine opened her eyes and there they were, etched in the air, squares of space, one empty, one full.
She grasped at them with her free hand. They misted sideways. She lunged. They slipped right through her fingers. Her heart seemed to tumble in its beating. They disappeared.
She took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes, and there they were
again. The empty space, the full space, marked out before her eyes. Now her hand moved slowly, more slowly, edging closer to the empty space and full. Closer, then closer. Her fingers trembled, her arm jerked a little and she stilled it. Closer still and then with a flick and a twist of her wrist her hand closed on them both. A searing pain shot through her body like the crack of a whip.
She tightened her grip on her mother. They stumbled into Cello.
1
Outside, snow fell. There appeared to be about thirty horses galloping across a field. The figure standing on the roof of the barn, waving his arms and shouting, was Gabe. Five or six farmhands were pelting towards the horses from the opposite direction. Snow began to mix with Spitting Fuchsia, and the farmhands stopped to slap their own cheeks.
Keira was watching this through the kitchen window. She looked towards Gabe on the roof of the barn. He was still gesticulating about the horses. Fuchsia was showering on him, but he seemed oblivious.
It was funny, Keira reflected, how she’d found the Farms too quiet when she first got here.
*
Two days before, Keira had rescued the Royal Family.
Only, she hadn’t.
Now and then she got a snapshot memory of herself, driving towards the Baranski farmhouse, a Queen and a Princess in the back. She’d been trying not to smile. Sure, she’d missed out on Prince Chyba, but two out of three was good! And what were the chances of the daughter of a Hostile, a girl from Jagged Edge, bringing two Royals back home?!
Zero, it turned out. She’d been bringing random strangers.
She was so embarrassed by the snapshot memory she wanted to cringe inside out.
Anyhow, the chaos at the Baranski farmhouse had calmed, and the Jangling Violet and Mustard had faded. Hector had offered to drive the non-queen and non-princess to the station so they could make their way home. Not that they had homes, everyone realised uncomfortably. Well, to their neighbourhoods. Their people. Petra had packed bags of pastries for their journey. The King had given them envelopes of cash. They seemed cheerful about both this and the pastries. He’d asked them not to tell anybody what they’d seen here, and they’d said they were too confused to know what he even meant by that. They’d left with the Sheriff.
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