The Silver Child

by Cliff McNish

  ‘thought-provoking, heart-warming … It’s as much the way in which McNish tells the tale as the plot itself that makes reading The Silver Child such an enjoyable experience. Yes, it’s the first of a “sequence”, but it has a spectacular and satisfying conclusion. I was left feeling exhilarated and hungry for more.”

  Philip Ardagh, Guardian

  ‘a genuinely original piece of writing, strongly imagined and well written’

  Books for Keeps

  ‘A beguiling story’

  The Bookseller

  ‘Startling … the beginning of a great adventure’

  Dreamwatch

  ‘an amazing book, a completely original plot with some of the most intriguing characters I’ve ever come across’

  Amazon.co.uk

  ‘fabulously painted with awesome and very vivid characters’

  Birmingham Post

  ‘The characters grab your attention and the strange entity that threatens them is full of malevolence … children everywhere will be waiting for more!’

  Leicester Library Services for Education

  By Cliff McNish

  THE SILVER SEQUENCE

  The Silver Child

  Silver City

  Silver World

  THE DOOMSPELL TRILOGY

  The Doomspell

  The Scent of Magic

  The Wizard’s Promise

  FOR OLDER READERS

  The Hunting Ground

  Breathe: A Ghost Story

  Savannah Grey

  Angel

  FOR YOUNGER READERS

  Going Home

  My Friend Twigs

  The Winter Wolf

  CLIFF McNISH

  For my dad, Eric McNish,

  who really knew how to tell a story

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Dedication

  Praise

  Also by Cliff McNish

  1 feast

  2 coldharbour

  3 the coolness of water

  4 beauty

  5 the golden boy

  6 giant

  7 the skip

  8 the astounding call

  9 treasures

  10 the long inconsolable cry

  11 the hiss of rain

  12 storm

  13 monster

  14 abandonment

  15 the river

  16 the shack

  17 the clamour

  18 the silver child

  Copyright

  One

  feast

  MILO

  No one could have eaten as much as Milo ate that afternoon.

  It was Sunday lunch, and as usual the smells of cooking had given everyone an appetite – but surely nobody expected Milo to eat it all.

  He and his younger sister, Jenny, were sitting at the table. Jenny twiddled her doll, while their mum brought out the food. There was more than enough for everyone: a large chicken, potatoes, bread fresh from the oven, roasted vegetables. A cheer went up from Jenny as Mum, swaying slightly under the load, brought out bowls of green beans and sweet corn.

  It was a fantastic selection, almost a feast. A hungry man, if he had prepared himself, starved himself all day for just this one meal, might have been able to finish it off on his own. He might.

  Milo started eating as soon as the last plate was laid out. He began moderately enough, taking only a small piece of chicken and a couple of potatoes. ‘Mm,’ he said, grinning at Mum. He poured himself some water and took a sip. Reaching for a slice of bread, he put it neatly on the side of his plate for later.

  Jenny fixed her own napkin and did her best to serve herself using the heavy spoons. She asked her doll if it wanted anything to eat. Some gravy, perhaps? Reaching for the gravy jug, she accidentally spilled her orange drink. With a resigned sigh, Mum went to the kitchen for a cloth.

  When she came back, Milo’s plate was empty. During the few seconds she had been away he had sneaked his hand across the table to take the bowl of potatoes. Calmly he ate them all, then started on the bread. At first no one paid any attention. Mum was still busy cleaning up, while Jenny hadn’t yet decided what her doll wanted to eat. Meanwhile, Milo finished off the green beans, licked his fingertips and looked around for something else.

  Seeing that there was no more food within easy reach, he got up from his chair and went round to the other side of the table. He came back with the bowl of sweet corn. It was a big bowl; he had to use both hands to lift it.

  Mum glanced up. ‘And where do you think you’re taking that?’

  Milo didn’t answer. He ladled several spoonfuls of corn onto his plate. Then, to save time, he started putting the corn from the bowl directly into his mouth.

  ‘Milo!’ snapped Mum. ‘For goodness sake!’

  Jenny gave him a disgusted look, and laughed. ‘Pig!’

  ‘Put that down,’ Mum said.

  Milo ignored them both. The spoon had begun to irritate him. It was awkward, too slow. He threw it down and, lifting the bowl up to his mouth, used his fingers to shovel the tender corn past his lips.

  ‘Ugh!’ shouted Jenny. ‘Mum, look!’

  ‘Milo!’ Mum reached out for the bowl, attempting to take it out of his hands.

  Jenny said, ‘Who’s a greedy? Who’s a greedy pig-piggy?’

  Milo would not let go of the bowl. ‘Give that to me!’ Mum demanded, fighting him for it. ‘Really, Milo … what’s got into you? Put it down!’

  ‘Piggy!’ squealed Jenny.

  Milo finished the sweet corn, then released the bowl. Mum, who had been clutching it tightly, staggered and nearly fell. Milo did not notice. He only saw the food. He stared longingly at the end of the table, where the rest of the bread and vegetables were waiting. The most efficient way to get at them was to yank the tablecloth towards him, so he did. Plates, glass and cutlery went everywhere. During the uproar that followed, Milo rapidly drew all the remaining food towards him. Indiscriminately, using alternate hands, left and right, he reached out. Without looking at the food – without even attempting to taste it any longer – he stuffed whatever was nearest into his mouth.

  ‘Milo … Milo will you stop!’ shouted Mum. ‘What are you doing?’

  Jenny started to cry – orange fizz had spilt on her doll. When Milo snatched the doll and licked its cloth face experimentally, she shrieked and kicked him under the table.

  Milo threw the doll down. He was seeking a faster way to consume. His teeth felt suddenly in the way. His tongue was too thick, his jaw lacking the flexibility he wanted it to possess. He opened his mouth as wide as possible. Then, grunting with the effort, he forced it even wider, testing the limits of the jawbone. Did he have to chew? Did he have to waste time doing that? Thrusting his head back, Milo tried pouring the food down his throat, using his teeth as little as possible – just enough so that the food did not catch and make him gag as it made its way down.

  ‘Milo!’ gasped Mum. She tried to grasp both his hands, but with extraordinary energy he twisted away from her.

  There was no bread left, but the margarine was available. Milo dug his fingers into it. Avoiding his teeth, he pushed the margarine deep inside his throat. His breathing was heavy and he did not look up.

  Mum made another attempt to stop him. This time she wrapped both her arms around his body. ‘What are you doing?’ she sobbed, pulling him to the carpet. Milo screeched. He flailed his arms and broke free of Mum again.

  She lay on the floor, a hand across her chest, afraid of him.

  ‘Drink,’ Milo rasped. ‘Drink. Drink.’ He reached under the table, finding a half-spilled can of lemonade. Placing the can directly over his mouth, he squeezed hard. Most of the liquid fell down his chin and splashed onto the carpet. M
ilo didn’t care; it was quicker to drink this way than any other. As soon as the can was empty, he picked up another, finishing the entire contents without taking a breath. The only drink left belonged to Jenny.

  ‘No!’ His sister was too young to understand the full strangeness of what was taking place. She struggled with him for the drink. Milo ripped it away from her and swallowed as if his mouth was a desert.

  Mum, getting to her feet, knocked the can out of his hand. When he went to pick the can up, she held his wrists again. ‘What’s got into you?’ she shouted. ‘Stop … stop fighting me!’

  Milo freed himself, stood up and pushed the table over. The half-eaten chicken, the last item of food remaining, fell by his feet. He picked it up. It was an awkward shape to get into his mouth. He turned it this way and that, finding the best way to squeeze the flesh past his teeth.

  There were tears in Mum’s eyes. ‘What are you doing?’ she yelled. ‘Milo, look at me! Look at me!’

  Milo scuttled to a corner of the room. He still had the chicken. He sat in the corner, eating it steadily. Jenny ran across to Mum and hid against her dress. Milo warily watched them, as if at any moment they would attempt to steal the chicken. Mum approached him cautiously.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, in the softest of voices. ‘Milo, it’s all right. It’s all right. What’s wrong? Please tell me …’

  Milo glanced up. Just for a second he appeared to recognize her. He stopped chewing. He looked at his filthy hands. He felt the stickiness and mess over his face and neck. He saw his sister staring at him, terrified.

  Then something happened to his eyes. They changed. They bulged. A force behind the eye-balls distinctly squeezed them and made them push outward. It was such an abnormal movement that even his mum recoiled.

  Milo touched his eyelids. They were warm. His blue irises expanded and contracted under them. There was a rhythm to the motion, like a pulse, like an engine.

  Mum reached out her hand to him. For a moment Milo looked up at her and accepted that hand. He let her put it against his cheek. ‘Oh Milo …’ she murmured, ‘… what’s happening to you?’

  He trembled. ‘Mum, I… I don’t know.’

  Her hand reached his hair. She stroked it gently. As she did so a few of Milo’s blond curls fell onto her fingers and dropped to the floor. More hair followed, every part she touched. She withdrew her hand. A great tuft came away on her fingers, leaving the skin above Milo’s left temple exposed.

  Jenny screamed.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Mum said.

  ‘I don’t know what I need,’ Milo croaked.

  She moved towards him again, but Milo backed away. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said.

  Milo stood up unsteadily – as if he half-expected even this simple action to be suddenly beyond him. He lurched to the front door, all the while dragging his fingers across his scalp. By the time he had opened the door there was no hair remaining on the left side of his head.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ Mum pleaded. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I can’t stay,’ he said. ‘I think … I think this is only the beginning.’

  ‘The beginning of what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Jenny stared at Milo. She watched the strands of his hair drifting to the floor. Catching one, she turned it slowly in the light coming through the window.

  Milo stood at the front door, the sun warming the bald part of his head. He wiped his chicken-smeared hand on his shirt, quickly stepped outside and shut the door.

  Mum cut across the room, reaching for the handle. Wrenching it open, she ran outside. The street was empty. She shielded her eyes, dazzled by the afternoon sun. In the distance, she could just make out the estuary and the grim flatness of Coldharbour beyond.

  Milo was gone.

  Two

  coldharbour

  THOMAS

  ‘We always come here to play, Thomas.’

  A six-year-old girl told me that, the first morning I arrived in Coldharbour.

  Susie, her name was. I learned a lot from that wise little girl in the brief period she befriended me. She showed me around – took my arm in a protective, almost motherly way. Looking back, I think she just felt sorry for me. I’m not surprised. What a pathetic sight I must have been: a rich boy from the suburbs, holding a carrier bag of food, stumbling about in Coldharbour without a clue.

  Coldharbour! What a flat wilderness of derelict steel and muck! Susie told me that ships were built here once. I found that hard to believe. All you could see of the old shipyards by the time I arrived were a few girders and broken-into warehouses nobody had bothered to dismantle. Apart from that there was only mud, miles and miles of the stuff extending out to the sea.

  Kids got lost in Coldharbour. Susie told me that, and I believed her. It was such a vast, desolate place. And it stank, too! After the shipbuilders left, huge refuse tips had been constructed around its borders to take the rubbish from the nearest towns. Depending on the direction of the wind, all that rubbish came blowing across the flats, chasing off the seagulls and fouling up the air. Sometimes the smell was so bad that even the gangs covered their noses as they went about their business.

  If anyone ran Coldharbour now, it was the child-gangs. This was a good place for them to operate, I suppose: virtually deserted, and not too far from the nearest towns. Plenty of room, too, to set up territories, give chase, hide or hang out.

  But the gang kids just came for fun, didn’t they? They came for a lark about. And they were fairly safe because they moved around in big groups.

  I was on my own. What was I doing here? What on earth had driven me here and kept me in this frightening place? I had no idea. Not lack of love, certainly. My parents loved me. I knew that. Their love waited only a few days’ walk away. I could have left the muck of Coldharbour and been tucked up in my warm old bed in a twinkling.

  So why hadn’t I gone back? I had no idea. I didn’t even know why I’d left home in the first place. I remember this: waking at dawn, and staring out of my window. I was staring in the direction of Coldharbour, but I didn’t know that then. I couldn’t even see the place from my house; I’d barely heard of it. But as I gazed raptly out, I had no doubt. I knew that in Coldharbour something remarkable was waiting for me.

  It made no sense, but two minutes later I was closing the front door behind me. I didn’t even think to leave a note, or bring my mobile. With no idea what I was doing, I travelled vaguely south. I walked for days, eating from my carrier bag, avoiding all major roads and sleeping in quiet places in the countryside. Why? Because I knew my parents would be looking for me. Police search parties were bound to be everywhere. If they found me, they’d make me go back home. I couldn’t risk that. Whatever secret awaited me in Coldharbour was too important.

  Dumb rich boy. That’s what the gang kids called me, when I arrived in my give-away clothes. And those first kids I met scared me so much that almost every night I’d think of setting off back home. ‘Hi, Mum! Hi Dad!’ I’d picture myself saying, as my hand rapped on the door.

  I did start back too, several times, but never got far. Whatever drew me to Coldharbour, kept me here. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t leave my parents completely wondering what had happened to me, of course. I had a bit of change and phoned from the edge of Coldharbour to let them know I was OK. I didn’t say where I was, though. I couldn’t risk them finding me.

  Coldharbour! What a bleak setting! I’d expected whatever drew me here to show up the moment I arrived, but I was wrong. I’d walked all this way to be greeted only by dirty-looking seagulls and emptiness. As I stumbled nervously around, I couldn’t believe how barren and unwelcoming a place Coldharbour was. Find a way to survive if you can, it seemed to be saying. Make a home if you dare!

  Susie saved me, really. She taught me how to keep my head down, avoid the more dangerous gangs. When she wasn’t around, I didn’t have a clue. It was summer time, or I’d never have got through those first nights. Du
mb rich boy; the gangs were right about that, and initially I spent most of my time skulking in doorways at the outer limits of Coldharbour just trying to hide from the more scary-looking kids, and quietly starving.

  Food. Let me tell you about food. After I’d gone only one day without any, it was all I could think about. The carrier bag’s worth of stuff I’d taken with me from home didn’t even last the journey, and I’d been in too much of a rush to think of bringing more than a few coins. That left me in a nasty situation. There was only one source of nourishment in Coldharbour – the food tips. If I was going to stay, I had no choice other than to start looking for meals there. At first I couldn’t. The idea of digging around in someone’s old scraps was too disgusting. I refused to even consider it. But I learned something quickly in Coldharbour: hunger’s a funny old fellow; he’ll make you weep; he’ll drive you to do almost anything. After a couple of days with nothing to eat it was amazing how fast I changed my mind about visiting the refuse tips. Food scraps started looking much more palatable. The fresher stuff actually started looking good! Leftovers became my friend!

  I wasn’t the only kid scavenging here, either. There were some poor families living on the margins of Coldharbour who sent their kids daily to scrap on the tips. They didn’t come for food, of course – none of them were as desperate as me. They came for dumped household items: discarded fridges, radios, broken TVs, anything really that could be salvaged or traded. These kids were experts. It was almost a pleasure to watch them at work. Once I saw a girl pluck out a pair of nearly new suede boots from a grubby bag I’d never even have seen. A few had been coming here for years, and had perfected a peculiar crab-like way of scrambling over the tips, taking their time to avoid stepping on anything sharp. I followed them from a distance, learning the technique, and applying it to the food tips.