‘Hush, doggo, that’s not helping,’ Tuesday said.
Tuesday wondered how so much rain could fall so quickly, and make so much noise.
‘What is this?’ Tuesday yelled.
‘I have no idea,’ Vivienne yelled back. ‘One minute there were stars and the next they were gone. All the lights from the houses along the shore went dark. I can’t see a thing!’
The deluge went on and on and on. Tuesday found the bucket that Vivienne kept for bailing, and began scooping water out of the hull of the little dinghy. As fast as Tuesday bailed, or perhaps even faster, the water plummeted down.
Tuesday called to Vivienne, ‘We’re wetter out of the water than in it!’
Vivienne nodded. ‘I’m hoping we don’t run into a cliff or a jetty, or a rock. We’re picking up speed, which means it’s flooding. Watch out for debris in the water.’
They rushed faster and faster down the river.
‘At the rate we’re going,’ called Vivienne, ‘we’ll miss the City of Clocks and get dragged out to sea!’
‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’
‘Keep bailing!’
So Tuesday kept bailing, Vivienne kept helming, and from time to time Baxterr barked at something that only he could see out in the darkness. Quite where they were, or where they would be by daylight, was a mystery. Tuesday thought that she had never been so wet in her life, not even in the bath or a swimming pool.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, the deluge stopped. Bright stars reappeared in the sky, and the sparkling lights of the eastern and western shores of the river were once again visible. Still, Tuesday and Vivienne could hear the water behind them pouring down in a torrent from the sky into the river.
‘What was that?’ Tuesday asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Vivienne said. ‘But I’m glad we’re on the other side of it.’
At length, some light began to leak into the sky, but it was a strange light that came from high above. It was clearly not dawn, because the light did not emerge from behind hills, or gradually appear on the horizon. This pale light appeared as if someone far away was shining a torch through the top of the sky. Tuesday and Vivienne stared. Baxterr whined. All three of them gaped as if they were seeing the end of the world.
A sun coming up in a completely different world: a world that appeared to have run into theirs. Their own sky was like the bottom of a fish bowl, curved inwards as if it had been dented by the weight of the other world above it. As the sun rose in that world above, the girls could see the other world’s ocean tilted strangely towards them. Water from the ocean above was pouring like a waterfall through the sky and down into the Mabanquo River.
‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ Tuesday whispered loudly to Vivienne.
‘I am,’ said Vivienne. ‘If what you’re seeing is completely crazy and unbelievable.’
Tuesday nodded. Neither of the girls, nor Baxterr, could take their eyes off this extraordinary sight. It was both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Tuesday thought of the Gardener’s message to the Librarian. I cannot keep the worlds apart. Do you have our answer yet?
Who was this Gardener? Tuesday wondered. And what amazing powers must he have? Help him, the Librarian had said. But how? Tuesday wondered. If he were in charge of something as monumentally important as keeping the worlds apart, he must be a genius, or perhaps a creature of supernatural power. So what could she, Tuesday, possibly do to help him? Vivienne remained perched on her seat at the helm, marvelling at the scene in the sky, but Tuesday, with her feet deep in the water sloshing in the dinghy, felt overwhelmed. Baxterr, feeling her mood, licked her gently on the face.
‘Look,’ said Vivienne, pointing to the horizon. ‘Dawn!’
And indeed, morning was breaking in Vivienne’s world too. The Mabanquo River was suffused in pale pink light that gradually shaded to orange and gold and the world became incredibly beautiful in a watercolour sort of way.
The day’s light revealed how much the river had flooded. In every direction were boats: sailing boats of every size and colour and rigging, but also a great many houseboats, brightly painted in blue, green, yellow and red. And rushing past Vivacious in the current were all manner of things. Three goats and four chickens passed them on the roof of a barn. Along came a bicycle, a bed and a chair, and a damp cat on an upside-down wheelbarrow.
‘Oh!’ said Tuesday, as she saw a tall, conical hillside rising high above the floodwaters. It was glimmering with soaring, elegant golden spires.
‘The City of Clocks,’ Vivienne said, her voice hushed in awe. ‘Didn’t I tell you it was beautiful?’
Tuesday had travelled a great deal with Denis and Serendipity. She had seen wonderful places. But this was, without a doubt, the most mesmerising city Tuesday had ever seen in her life.
‘Oh no,’ said Vivienne, pointing. ‘Trouble.’
From beyond the city’s spires, there came a flock of birds. At first, to Tuesday’s eyes, they were only specks, but as the birds made their way towards the river, it became clear that they were larger than any bird Tuesday could think of. Even an ostrich on the wing would have been a quarter the size of these creatures.
‘What are they?’ Tuesday said.
‘Vercaka!’ Vivienne said, readying her bow and arrows. She was absolutely certain that these were the birds from the world of Tarquin and Harlequin. With their pear-shaped bodies, they flew like long-necked sheep.
The birds began to dive, spearing downwards towards sailing boats and houseboats. Suddenly the air was full of screaming and panic. One of the hideous birds came to rest on the roof of a nearby houseboat and deposited a deluge of oily, smelly bird-poo slime down its windows. Its beak was cruel-looking – metallic in colour, and serrated like a bread knife along its edges – but the bird’s dull eyes gave it a dim-witted look. Its feathers were dirty white and shabby, and its wingspan was enormous.
A shadow crossed over Vivacious. Vivienne swiftly loosed an arrow that glanced off the bird’s scaly belly and fell back into the water. The bird swooped down and lunged at the boat.
‘I think you made it angry!’ said Tuesday.
‘Get down,’ yelled Vivienne.
Tuesday flung herself into the bottom of Vivacious with Baxterr underneath her body. She was terrified. But it wasn’t the speed of the bird’s flight, nor the breadth of its wings that most frightened her. It was what she had heard the bird say as it swooped over the top of them.
‘Your father is dead,’ it shrieked in a ghastly, wheezy voice that Tuesday heard both through her ears, and inside of herself.
Was Denis dead? How could the bird know?
‘Dead, dead. Completely dead,’ the bird repeated, its voice echoing through the chambers of Tuesday’s skull and inside her ribs. ‘All your fault, too.’
‘Vivienne,’ Tuesday gasped. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Ignore them!’ she called back to Tuesday. ‘It’s how they hurt you. You have to ignore them.’
The bird turned its attention to Vivienne. ‘You’ve got spiders on your back. They’re crawling towards your neck.’
‘Won’t work on me,’ Vivienne cried, firing off another arrow. Tuesday was certain this bolt would strike the bird in the face, but the vercaka swiftly jerked its ugly head back into its woolly-feathered shoulders, and was unharmed.
‘And you,’ the bird said, stretching its naked neck out long again, and aiming its words at Tuesday, ‘you’ve gone blind.’
The words penetrated deep into her head. Tuesday’s eyes felt gluey, and the world buckled and blurred.
‘Vivienne!’ gulped Tuesday. ‘Am I okay?’
‘You are fine. Nothing they are saying is true. You have to ignore them. They’re just stupid, ugly, hateful birds.’
‘She doesn’t want you,’ the vercaka shrieked, zooming in close. ‘Never did.’
Beneath Tuesday, Baxterr whimpered and shook.
‘No, doggo, it’s not true,’ Tuesday cried.
Vivienne’s next arrow skewered the vercaka right through the greyish skin of its wrinkled neck. The bird, choking, flapped helplessly and plunged into the river, its wings beating the water into a froth.
‘Yeah!’ cheered Tuesday, leaping to the deck and throwing her arms in the air.
Then the shadow of a second bird fell across them. Tuesday didn’t even have time to look up before she felt its claws dig into her shoulders. It had hold of her and she was being lifted up and away. Baxterr barked and tried to lunge at the bird, but Vivienne grabbed him and pulled him back. Tuesday screamed as she was torn up into the sky.
‘Vivienne!’ she cried. ‘Vivienne!’
Chapter Fourteen
Vivienne’s arrow whistled past Tuesday’s ear. She couldn’t see where it struck, but she knew it changed nothing because the bird still had her firmly in its grasp. Vivienne was swift on the reload, and Tuesday watched as another arrow, and another, and another, came flying at the bird. With every one Tuesday grimaced, hoping it wouldn’t strike her, but each one hit the bird, and had no effect at all. In fact, it appeared to delight in teasing Vivienne. It swooped back over Vivacious.
Pulling against the talons that had closed, vice-like, around her shoulders, Tuesday wriggled and kicked in an attempt to get free. It was no use. The vercaka had her in its clutches. Its skin was leathery and tough and no arrow was going to pierce it. Beneath her, Tuesday could hear Baxterr barking. She watched, helplessly, as Baxterr, on the deck of Vivacious, flared his golden-brown wings and prepared to take flight. She knew that he wanted to protect her, but she could also see that his movements had attracted the attention of at least three vercaka nearby. They wheeled on their tatty wings and headed straight for him, their serrated beaks opening in anticipation.
‘Your little pet is dead meat,’ wheezed the vercaka that had hold of her, and Tuesday felt her blood turn icy.
‘No, doggo, no! You mustn’t!’ Tuesday yelled. ‘Vivienne, stop him!’
Down below, Vivienne hurled herself on top of Baxterr, pinning his wings with her arms.
‘Stay … with …Vivienne!’ Tuesday called to Baxterr. ‘Be a good dog. Stay. Stay!’
And Baxterr, hearing Tuesday even across the distance that separated them, retracted his wings, though he continued to bark and snarl, his lips drawn back angrily over his teeth.
‘We’ll get him anyway,’ said the vercaka, its voice echoing inside her head as well as grating on her ears.
Tuesday winced with the pain of the talons in her shoulders, and watched in terror as a vercaka shredded Vivacious’s sails with a single swipe of its talons.
On board, Vivienne reached for her Lucretian blowpipe with its poisoned darts that would instantly put to sleep any foe. With any luck, she thought, the birds would fall in the river and drown. One, two, three vercaka screeched as Vivienne’s needle-sharp darts struck them – up the nostril, in the gullet, in the softer skin beneath the wing – but the poison had no effect. The birds kept flying.
‘She’s lost,’ one cried to Baxterr.
‘Never coming back,’ said another.
‘You’re a coward,’ said another, and it took all Vivienne’s strength to stop Baxterr taking to the air.
With its sail in ribbons, Vivacious was caught in the swirling floodwaters and heading for the open sea. From high in the sky, Tuesday had a view of the ocean beyond, spotted here and there with sand-rimmed islands, but there was nothing she could do to help Vivienne and Baxterr, and nothing they could do to help her. To make matters worse, a pack of vercaka had spied her dangling in the vercaka’s claws.
‘Meat!’ screamed the vercaka as they came for her.
To them, she realised, she was nothing more than a morsel. She might easily have been a crust of white bread thrown by a small child to ducks on the lake at City Park. The vercaka that held her, sensing the threat from its companions, flapped its wings with all the energy it could muster. It rose up, and up, higher and higher. Tuesday shivered in a gust of freezing wind that was coming through the rip in the surface of the other world. The vercaka was making for the place where the ocean of that world continued to pour through into the Mabanquo River, and for a moment, Tuesday’s feet were dragging in the torrent of water.
In the other world she glimpsed a large, pale sun riding high in the sky and another smaller sun beyond it. She saw the strange angle of the watery horizon and the twin arcs of the two skies colliding. She realised that she was going to be dragged into another world entirely, one in which there were aqua-blue icebergs floating in a milky sea. No, thought Tuesday. Her heart hammered in her chest. I can’t go there. I’ll never get back. I can’t. It’s not where I’m meant to be.
‘Let me go!’ she screamed at the bird. Then, realising how high up she was, decided this wasn’t such a clever thing to suggest.
‘Take me back!’ she cried. ‘You have to take me back.’
‘You’ll be dead in a minute,’ hissed the bird, and its claws clenched her shoulders even harder.
At the sound of a sharp beak snapping right beneath her, Tuesday screamed. The other vercaka were upon them. The vercaka that held her in its grip barrel-rolled in an effort to lose its competitors, but was outnumbered. Whichever way the bird turned, the would-be thieves were there, jostling, squawking and hassling, coming at her with their terrible beaks. Tuesday’s bird, under immense pressure, could no longer keep hold of her. It loosened its grip ever so slightly, and as it did so, Tuesday felt herself slip. The vercaka had hold of her only by her jacket. She heard the sound of fabric tearing and saw her precious ball of silver thread, her only way of getting home, the one thing that a writer should never lose, fall.
‘No!’ she screamed. Then she was falling. Fast. Too fast. It was as if she were being sucked downwards.
‘No!’ she screamed again, though nobody was listening. Not even the vercaka. She was outpacing them. Somehow she was falling even faster than they were flying.
It was then that Tuesday realised she was falling not towards the thousand spires of the City of Clocks that glinted in the morning sun, nor towards the slanted icy ocean, although she could see into both worlds. She was falling into a wedge of a dark, starry sky in between them. She couldn’t hear anything but the strange effect of her falling, which sounded a little like the empty sound in an elevator going down.
Everything slowed. She was falling past a world of pink sand and towering pyramids. And then past another world of amber deserts and herds of painted horses. There was a world of gloomy streets and people scurrying away in cloaks. There was a world of high icy mountains and a cliff path, goats and girls with headscarfs. There was a world where people dressed in red and white were playing a game of croquet. There was a man in a boat with a school of flying fish fluttering past. She saw a cat walking on the skyline of a city, and a giant accompanied by a girl, and two children in a beautiful walled garden, and a wizard with a fire-breathing dragon. She saw a world like a jewellery box and another like a windmill.
Still Tuesday fell, and the worlds about her grew very big and very small all at once, so that she couldn’t tell if she was enormous, or actually quite tiny. She thought that she hadn’t breathed in a long time, which was absolutely true, and always led to trouble. Dots formed in front of her eyes, so she closed them. She wondered if she would ever land anywhere or if she would keep falling forever. She thought maybe she’d sleep, because this falling might take a very long time. She was, she thought, immensely tired.
Worlds continued to slide past her, and Tuesday past them, and she would have been fascinated by how familiar some of them were, but by then she had closed her eyes and fallen into a deep, quiet place that wasn’t sleeping nor was it dreaming, and from that place she saw nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing, as she continued to fall.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Mrs McGilly
cuddy,’ whispered the nurse with the purple-laced tennis shoes.
The nurse was standing beside the recliner chair in which Serendipity had spent a second, fitful, uncomfortable night at Denis’s bedside. He put a gentle hand on Serendipity’s shoulder, and whispered again.
‘Mrs McGillycuddy … it’s Tuesday.’
Serendipity sat bolt upright.
‘What? Where? Is she back? Is she all right?’
Serendipity’s eyes adjusted to the light in the hospital room, and she remembered where she was. Denis was unchanged. Her eyes scanned the room, but there was no sign of Tuesday.
‘Where is she?’ Serendipity asked the nurse. ‘Is she here?’
‘I meant it’s Tuesday morning and you’ve been here …’ explained the nurse.
‘Oh, I thought you meant my daughter,’ said Serendipity, sinking back into the chair. ‘I thought …’
‘Your girl is called Tuesday?’ the nurse asked. ‘Not the one that’s gone missing?’
Serendipity stared at him. ‘What do you know?’
‘I heard it on the news at midnight. There’s been a huge search going on through City Park all night. I didn’t realise … I thought McGillycuddy was a coincidence. I mean, you didn’t seem like a mother whose daughter was missing.’
With a groan Serendipity realised she hadn’t returned to Brown Street as she’d arranged with Miss Digby. She’d been so overwhelmed by all that had happened to Denis, she’d completely forgotten. She’d eaten a rather grim hospital meal and fallen asleep in the recliner chair, exhausted from the events of the previous night. Miss Digby must have been alone at Brown Street for hours. Miss Digby would have seen the notes Serendipity had left for Tuesday and Tuesday’s bed clearly not slept in.
‘I have to get home,’ said Serendipity, scrambling up and collecting her things.
‘Of course,’ the nurse was saying. ‘I promise the hospital will call the moment there is any change in Mr McGillycuddy’s condition. Any change at all. And I’m so sorry about your daughter … I had no idea …’
A Week without Tuesday Page 10