The question roused Vivienne from her silent sorrow. Her eyes still wet with tears, she watched as Harlequin searched about for a small stick, and, finding one, drew in the earth a series of lines.
‘The place we have seen in the dog’s thoughts bears this sign, Vivienne Small. What does it say?’
Ι Π Λ C Ι Π Σ
Although Vivienne looked long and hard at the seven characters Tarquin had written upon the rock, they meant nothing whatsoever to her. She tried reading them upside down and backwards, to no avail.
‘This is not your language?’ Tarquin said.
Vivienne bristled. ‘It is not any language I know. And I know many, thank you very much.’
She was about to continue, and to suggest that Tarquin might have written the letters down incorrectly, but before she could say anything more, Harlequin’s voice broke into her thoughts.
‘Look to the dog, Vivienne Small!’
The dog was changing. No longer did its fur glow golden-brown; instead it shimmered in silvery grey. The animal’s great body was becoming less substantial, as though fading from being. It became less and less solid, until, at last, the sparkling particles that comprised the dog’s colossal shape collapsed onto the ground in a sudden shower of golden dust. There remained nothing of the great dog other than a faint sparkle to the leaf litter and moss of the forest floor, and a circlet of fine rope. Vivienne picked it up and examined it.
‘A collar!’ she said, cross with herself for failing to discover it when she had examined the dog. The rope had a silver medallion affixed to it. The medallion was the size of Vivienne’s palm. It was engraved on one side with an image of a dog in flight, but the other side was blank. Vivienne knew better than to expect the dog’s name to be etched upon its reverse side, for a Winged Dog’s name is always a secret part of its magic.
‘What is this collar, Vivienne Small?’ Harlequin asked.
‘It means that this dog has a companion. It means that somebody, somewhere, will be heartbroken.’
Running her fingers around the medallion’s rim, Vivienne found a tiny latch, and when she released it, the disc sprang open like a locket. Inside, lay a small scroll of paper.
‘A note,’ said Vivienne, unrolling it.
‘This is the thing she carries,’ Tarquin said.
‘What does it say, Vivienne Small?’ Harlequin asked.
Vivienne peered intently at the words; they were written with green ink in shaky, spidery handwriting.
‘It says: My great love.’ Vivienne grimaced. She didn’t have much time for things to do with love. ‘I cannot hold the worlds apart much longer. Have you found our answer? G.’
Harlequin whispered, ‘Cannot hold the worlds apart much longer …’
Vivienne wondered what would happen if worlds got too close. Might worlds crumple at their edges, pushing mountain ranges up into the fabric of the sky? Might dangerous beasts slip from one world to the next? And strangers too? Worlds were worlds for a reason, Vivienne thought.
‘Have you found our answer?’ she repeated.
‘This message must be delivered,’ Tarquin said.
‘Yes,’ Vivienne agreed. ‘But to whom?’
‘To this greatest love,’ Harlequin said. ‘Who dwells in the place of stone and mist, where the beasts guard the way.’
‘Yes. And this person will know who sent the dog,’ said Vivienne. ‘We must find them also. Tell them what has happened. You’ll come with me?’
‘No, Vivienne Small. We must hunt down the vercaka,’ Tarquin said. ‘We must find a poison so that these creatures cannot take hold in your world.’
Harlequin said, ‘And you will deliver this message, Vivienne Small. I know that you will. I see you have a great power of determination within you.’
Harlequin stared at her with steady eyes and Vivienne smelled something, then. Something sharp, like gunpowder and sea salt. It was the unmistakeable scent of adventure. And adventure, to Vivienne Small, was like a mosquito to a frog or an egg to a snake – it was the most delicious thing imaginable.
Have you ever noticed how smells can remind you of things? Even things you thought you’d forgotten? Well, when Vivienne Small caught that whiff of adventure, a memory came to her. It was the memory of a dog. A golden-brown dog. And of someone else – a girl or a ghost? Vivienne tried to make her mind grasp hold of this picture, but it was light and shadow like a dream. It drifted out of her mind’s eye and away. She scrunched her eyes tight and concentrated as hard as she could.
‘You are troubled, Vivienne Small,’ said Harlequin.
‘It’s a memory,’ Vivienne said. ‘I can’t quite … Oh!’ Vivienne, in frustration, smacked herself on the side of the head as if she might jolt it into place.
‘We could look to your thoughts, Vivienne Small,’ Harlequin said gently.
Vivienne took a step backwards, not quite liking the idea of two people poking around in her mind. But the memory she had glimpsed was such a tantalising mystery. She wanted it solved.
‘It would be as it was for the dog. There would be no pain,’ Harlequin offered.
Vivienne snorted. ‘Did you think I was afraid? Well, I’m not.’
‘Then will you sit?’ Tarquin said. ‘And close your eyes.’
Vivienne crossed her arms and scowled a little. And then, after a moment, she sat. The siblings’ hands on the centre of her forehead were gentle and soft. Her mind felt soothed. Vivienne became aware of a humming sound, and of a sound like distant bells chiming.
‘We see a dog,’ Tarquin said, after a time. ‘A dog very similar to this one who has fallen.’
‘There is a name, but your mind will not give it to us,’ Harlequin said.
‘There is a word that comes in its place. Not quite dog. More like dog-o,’ Tarquin said.
Dog-o. Doggo! Yes, this reminded Vivienne of something, of someone! And now, for no apparent reason, she sneezed violently, and that seemed important also. And then she thought of Vivacious, her little red sailing boat. She could picture it quite clearly, pulled up high out of the water upon a pebbled shore. And there! The dog, gambolling on the shore. And there had been somebody else, too. A girl. A girl with gingery blonde hair and sea-green eyes and freckles across her nose. But an odd, ghostly kind of girl, much less real than the dog that was rolling on its back on the scrunching pebbles. Even as Vivienne stared at the image that had settled into the centre of her mind, she could not tell if this was a real girl, or only an imagined one.
For this is how it is in the world of imagination: when a writer returns home, they take their characters with them and never forget them. But it is not the same for characters. Writers fade quickly from their minds. But every now and then, a writer is lodged so deeply within a character’s heart that they cannot be entirely forgotten.
That girl, Vivienne thought to herself, what had she been called?
‘Tuesday,’ said Harlequin.
The word fitted like a key into Vivienne’s mind, and all of a sudden, she remembered everything.
Tarquin and Harlequin removed their hands from Vivienne’s forehead and her eyes sprang open, shining with excitement and resolve.
‘I must find Tuesday and her dog. That’s what I have to do! They will help me to deliver this message,’ Vivienne said.
‘She is a friend to you, this Tuesday?’ Harlequin asked.
‘I think so,’ Vivienne said. And then, ‘Yes. Yes, she is. A very fine friend.’
‘She lives near here?’ Tarquin asked.
‘Not even close,’ Vivienne said. ‘But I shall find her.’
Vivienne caught another whiff of salt and gunfire. Finding things was an essential part of an adventure, which meant that Vivienne was very good at it. If there was someone she needed, Vivienne had an instinct for knowing on exactly which stretch of river, up which cobbled laneway or in which distant tavern she was likely to find them. When she had seen Tuesday and Baxterr last, they had been flying in the direction of the Hills of Mist, which lay beyon
d the eastern edge of the forest. Might these Hills even be the place of mist towards which the great dog had been travelling?
Vivienne leapt to her feet.
‘I must get going,’ she said.
‘We, too, must hurry, lest the vercaka travel too far beyond us,’ Tarquin said.
‘Once our task is accomplished, we will seek you, Vivienne Small,’ Harlequin said.
Vivienne watched as the two climbed astride their farouche and rose vertically from the ground, up through the forest to the beckoning sky. It was after the pair had left the treetops behind them and disappeared from sight that Vivienne heard Harlequin’s voice inside her head, chiming with delicate harmonies.
‘Go well, Vivienne Small,’ it said.
Chapter Four
Tuesday and Serendipity sat opposite each other at the kitchen table which Denis had swept clean of a half-finished game of Scrabble and several incomplete crossword puzzles. Both, he insisted, involved writing of a kind. Along with Tuesday’s small and relatively new typewriter, Denis had confiscated Serendipity’s big, antique one, and he’d collected up all the notebooks, exercise books, biros, felt-tipped pens and coloured pencils that he could find throughout the house.
Denis was whistling as he cooked pancakes, as if a cheerful enough whistle could somehow counteract the disconsolate moods of his wife and daughter, who couldn’t take their eyes off the newspaper that lay on the table between them. He slid a pancake onto Serendipity’s plate, and then – before she could crack pepper all over it – whipped the grinder out of her hand and replaced it with a bottle of maple syrup. The next pancake went to Tuesday and the third to Baxterr, who polished it off with his usual gusto, even though – if pushed – he would have had to admit that it was not up to Denis’s usual lofty standard.
Absentmindedly, Serendipity pulled a pencil out from behind her ear and began doodling in the margin of the newspaper, but before she could make more than a few curly lines, Denis snatched the pencil out of her grasp.
‘No writing,’ Denis said, gesturing at her with the pencil.
Serendipity and Tuesday gave a simultaneous sigh. Denis put Serendipity’s pencil into the bin, which was already full of writing implements he’d emptied from various pots and jars throughout the kitchen. He broke the cord that tied a white-board marker to the fridge.
‘Absolutely no writing. Promise me?’
Denis glared at his wife, then at his daughter. ‘What if … what if you went there and ended up in Antarctica, and you froze before anyone could help you? Or roasted to a crisp in Death Valley? I’m serious. What if you landed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? No writing, my loves. It’s not safe. Please?’
‘You realise, of course,’ said Serendipity, ‘that it may not be that simple.’
‘What do you mean?’ Denis asked.
‘I mean, think of Sleeping Beauty!’ said Serendipity. ‘Her parents banned spindles from the entire kingdom, but that didn’t stop her pricking her finger, did it?’
Serendipity waved her hands at the seven faces staring up at her from the newspaper.
‘Stories don’t happen only when you have a pen in your hand or a typewriter under your fingers. They can sneak up on you in the shower or when you’re climbing the stairs. They can come to you in dreams, and they can arrive while you’re pegging out the washing. Remember that time when I was stirring the soup? Completely ruined that pot! If you hadn’t come home and found it, the house might have burned down.’
Denis’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, but actually sitting down to write makes it more likely to happen, hmm? Sitting and staring out windows increases the chances, doesn’t it? It isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s the best we can do, until we find out what’s happening. Yes?’
‘Denis—’ began Serendipity.
‘No, no, no. I won’t hear a peep of protest. No writing. Not a word. From either of you. I want you to promise. Serendipity?’
‘Oh, all right then.’
‘Tuesday?’
Before Tuesday could say a word, Baxterr let out a growl that was not especially unfriendly, but meant that something was happening on his patch. Baxterr usually growled in this particular way about thirty seconds before the McGillycuddys’ doorbell rang. This time there was no doorbell. Instead, there was a sharp rap at the kitchen window, and they were all surprised to see Miss Digby, Serendipity’s long-serving assistant, peering in at them across the hydrangea bushes with the morning paper rolled into a tight scroll in her hand and a panicked look upon her face.
Miss Digby was neither old nor young. She was neither fair nor dark. She wasn’t tall, but neither was she short. Her nose wasn’t big or small. Her eyes weren’t blue, or green, and neither would you have said they were grey. Miss Digby had a way of dressing that made her almost entirely forgettable. She was a very mild woman who spoke precisely, who was never flustered or in a rush, and who, if you got close enough, always smelled of dried flowers. Today, as usual, Miss Digby was wearing clothes in shades so colourless they didn’t really even have names. Her shoes were flat, with laces, and her hair was caught back in the sort of arrangement that stayed neat yet showed no clips or pins.
Miss Digby was not married, had no children, and had been Serendipity’s assistant for as long as Tuesday could remember. Tuesday could not imagine Miss Digby as a girl, or what she might have done before she came into their lives. She was both as familiar and unknown to Tuesday as the moon. But one thing Tuesday did know was that Miss Digby never, ever, came to their house in Brown Street, and that was because Miss Digby was just about the only person, other than Denis, Tuesday, Baxterr and Serendipity, who knew the truth about Serendipity’s double life.
As Miss Digby was so often seen with the public Serendipity Smith – the famous writer who had long red hair and wore outlandish glasses, velvet coats and knee-high boots – it was very risky for her to be seen with the private Serendipity, the one who had short dark hair, wore comfortable black clothes and allowed people to think that her name was Sarah McGillycuddy. Tuesday knew that if anyone should put two and two together, it would ruin everything. If fame followed Serendipity to Brown Street, her family would never be able to go anywhere, or do anything normal, ever again.
This is why Tuesday scowled, just a little, at the sight of Miss Digby at the kitchen window. But Denis, being famously hospitable, leapt up to let Miss Digby in the through the back door. For a moment she stood with her hands clutched together in front of her chest as if she were about to sing. Instead she spoke at what was, for Miss Digby, an unusually fast pace.
‘I am so very sorry to intrude this way, and believe me, I did very carefully weigh up the potential risks against the likely benefits of coming here to your home, and after careful consideration decided that it was imperative we discuss the present state of emergency, especially after I heard the news about Dame Elizabeth Coventry. Hence my use of the rear entrance.’
Serendipity’s mouth fell open.
‘No! Not poor, dear Elizabeth?’
Tuesday pictured the Dame: a majestic woman with a large, square jaw and hair dyed to the colour of a red setter’s fur.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Miss Digby said, nodding earnestly.
‘She’s more than eighty years old!’ Serendipity protested.
‘And Flynn McMurtry, found nearly dead in the Mekong Delta, a million miles from where he lives. He’s not regained consciousness yet,’ Miss Digby said. Tuesday’s thoughts rushed to her friend, Blake Luckhurst, also a writer of adventure stories and almost as famous as Flynn McMurtry, though half his age. She would have to call Blake as soon as Miss Digby was gone.
Denis invited Miss Digby to breakfast, which she protested must surely be lunch, at this hour: it was one o’clock. Since the pancake mixture had been used up, he made for their guest his famous toasted ham-on-cheese-on-more-cheese sandwiches, and Miss Digby ate them with a knife and fork, cutting each mouthful into a perfect square before raising her fork delicately to her mouth.
Tuesday had never seen anyone eat a toasted sandwich with a knife and fork, and she found it hard not to stare.
‘I think we must thank our lucky stars that it hasn’t happened to you already,’ Miss Digby said to Serendipity.
‘Perhaps it’s because I’ve been on holidays,’ suggested Serendipity.
‘You were expecting, were you not, on Monday to resume your usual schedule?’ Miss Digby asked.
‘I was thinking I might stay home,’ said Serendipity.
‘But reporters will be all over the hotel trying to get interviews. How will I explain your absence if they’re all expecting you back? I simply won’t be able to reassure them that you’re not caught up in any of this unless they actually see you in person.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Serendipity.
‘Well, perhaps you could go to the hotel – but no writing,’ said Denis, eyeing his wife sternly.
‘Yes, Denis has made me promise not to write,’ said Serendipity.
‘Probably wise,’ said Miss Digby.
Denis and Serendipity exchanged a glance.
Although Serendipity knew that Miss Digby must have observed some strange things over the years, working so closely with a writer, she was certain Miss Digby did not know about there. Miss Digby, being entirely practical and pragmatic, would never have imagined, not even in her dreams, that while she sat in the McGillycuddys’ kitchen, there was – in another place entirely – Vivienne Small, the world-famous heroine of the Serendipity Smith books, hurrying along a narrow path through the Peppermint Forest, her mind on the business of finding Tuesday McGillycuddy and her dog Baxterr.
Chapter Five
The path Vivienne walked was narrow, its surface cabled with the twisted roots of trees and vines. It led to the eastern edge of the Peppermint Forest, and in turn, to the Hills of Mist. Vivienne almost never went this way, in part because the Hills of Mist held little interest for her. The hills were quite pretty with their gentle grassy slopes and occasional rocky banks of sparkling white stone, but nothing ever happened there (well, nothing of interest to Vivienne Small), and the persistent mists that clung about the hills had the effect of making Vivienne feel sleepy and distracted.
A Week without Tuesday Page 3