by Cliff McNish
Nothing.
Some time passed. Twilight, the sky deepened, and Milo hid from a group of girls wandering along the bank of the river. Later, when it was quiet again, he came back to the water and stared at his reflection.
A bald-headed boy stared back at him.
Milo smiled. He felt mysteriously unafraid of this new boy.
On impulse he dangled his hands in the river. His skin was unusually warm, and the cold water felt good. Kneeling, Milo slowly pushed his arms all the way under. His shoulders followed. He had an irresistible urge to go further – to lower his head. He did so. First his lips and nose. Then, holding his breath, his entire face. He kept his eyes open. The sensation of the water passing across them was pleasant, and he left them submerged in the river for several minutes.
Eventually, with water dripping from his chin, Milo lifted his face and gazed out over the town again. It was different. At first he could not understand in what way, until he saw the children. To Milo, each child now shone like a patch of light. They were a creamy white, while the everyday world around them was a duller grey. And there were thousands of them. Before he had only been able to pick out a few gang kids traipsing in and out of Coldharbour, but now Milo could see each child with absolute clarity for miles around. Even those inside their homes were visible – nothing, not even doors and walls could hide them from him.
A grey world shining with children. Each child vibrant, sharp-edged, glowing like a flare. Milo glanced up and the sun seemed pale beside them. It was as if from now on the only objects meaningful to his eyes would be those beating with a child’s fast heart.
He turned to survey all those in Coldharbour and the nearest towns. Then he drew himself to his full height and raised his arms. For some reason he wanted all the children to approach him. He expected them to. Couldn’t they see him? How could he make them see him?
He searched for his own home. It was a speck hidden behind hills in the far distance – but not to Milo’s eyes, because Jenny’s patch of light was there. He saw her. She was standing at her bedroom window, looking forlornly outward. There was a darker area in her left hand, the shape, he realized, of her doll.
That evening a strengthening breeze blew across the unprotected river flats, cooling Milo’s eyes further. He breathed deeply, watching the world.
Night arrived, and with it, on the other side of the river, a gang of menacing-looking kids emerged from Coldharbour. A couple of them noticed him and shouted loudly. When Milo did not reply, they started making their way towards the nearest bridge to get across to him.
Four
beauty
THOMAS
Me and the twins. One boy, two insect-girls: my wacky new family!
Emily and Freda looked so bizarre I thought I’d never feel at ease in their company, but I was wrong. They took one glance at the filthy shed I’d been staying in the last few nights and almost died with embarrassment for me.
‘C’mon,’ Freda said. ‘You ain’t much good at constructing stuff, Toms. Emms and me will ’ave to take you in hand.’
And they did. At incredible speed the twins fixed us up a sort of – well, home would be to dignify it. It was a shack, really, planks and sticks pinned down with rope, hung over with a piece of old tarpaulin they nicked and dragged from a building site a few miles west.
Our new home. It was such a nothing of a home really, but the twins were entirely happy when we were inside. It was as if their whole purpose in life was fulfilled by sharing this manky shack with me. I was amazed by how quickly we settled down together. The twins taught me how to stay clean in a world of muck. They proved companionable, too, with their wonky little rhymes, and hardly seemed to need a thing of their own.
When we required things, they foraged. There are no shops in Coldharbour, but the twins could sniff out food on a tip faster than any kid I’d seen. I was well fed, the twins saw to that. For the first time in weeks I even had some luxuries. The girls found extra clothes, so I could change sometimes. They discovered a soft, not-bad mattress. They got me a pillow and a couple of ropy old sheets. Somewhere they picked up a torch that actually worked, and at night we’d huddle together and read a magazine or newspaper that had blown off one of the dumps, or just sit in the dark listening to the unsettling winds of Coldharbour.
As for my beauty – my gift – I examined myself at quiet times for its purpose, but it never appeared to mean anything more than offering a bit of warmth to the twins. I continued to do that, giving them a flutter of beauty every now and again. And in return, I suppose, they fed me and kept me entertained. They also kept up their improvements to the shack, cosying things, fixing and tarting it up with plastic sheeting so that even when it rained heavily we barely felt a drip. And as they did so I kept thinking: where else except in Coldharbour could three children set up house together, and not be bothered by anyone? Was that why we had come here?
The shack wasn’t even cramped. I noticed that there was plenty of room in it for three more to fit snugly – or one giant. Initially I thought the twins had created all that space purely for my benefit, but later I wondered.
‘Why all this room?’ I asked Freda one morning. ‘You expecting guests?’
She just gave me an inscrutable look, saying nothing.
‘Dunno,’ she said, when I pressed her.
‘Maybe,’ Emily added. Both girls stayed silent after that, which was unusual for the twins; normally they never stopped chatting for a second.
Not for the first time, I wondered what had driven the girls away from their home. Had they just walked away like me? Perhaps they’d been thrown out by terrified parents who’d caught them scampering about. Or – could they have been born this way?
‘Were you … always like this?’ I asked. ‘Did you get thrown out because of …’ I indicated their hands and feet.
‘No, it’s recent,’ Freda said, glaring at me severely. ‘D’you think our mum would’ve chucked uz out for a little thing like this? You don’t know her! Mum was scared, but she never would’ve loved uz any less ’cause of this!’
Chastened, I said nothing for a while.
Emily gazed at me, filled with exasperation. ‘Don’t you know? Don’t you even know yet why we’re here? We came for you! We ’ad to find yer.’
‘We ’ad to treasure and mind yer,’ Freda said.
‘What?’ I frowned. ‘But I discovered you. On the tips, remember.’
Freda shook her head, clearly amused. ‘We’d been shivering, waiting for you to turn up on that flipping rubbish heap so long we was almost starving ourselves,’ she said. ‘Gawd, we’d been searching days.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno, Toms.’ She glanced thoughtfully at me. ‘We’re here to find ’em, we think – special ones like you. You’re the first. Emms reckons our noses need to improve before we’re ready to find the others.’
‘What others?’ I asked.
‘Dunno,’ Emily replied. ‘If we knew, there’d be no delay.’
‘If we knew, we’d be up and away,’ Freda said.
I stared uncertainly at them both. Then I looked up at the ceiling. As always, I could hear the ever-present noise of the sound I called the roar. It was like an endless wind brushing past our roof. I wondered if the girls could detect it, too. I’d been scared to ask them, it unnerved me so much.
‘Emily … Freda …’ I whispered, ‘… can you hear anything?’
I think it must have been the way I said it that made the twins react so strongly. Both sat upright. Then, urging each other on, neither wanting to be the first to start, they pursed their lips. The sound that emerged made me back away from them because it was a perfect rendition of the roar. I had once tried myself to imitate the sound when I was alone, but it took two voices working together to produce it accurately. It was terrifying. The girls stopped immediately, as fearful as me, overcome with emotion.
‘What is it?’ I rasped. ‘Do either of you understand?’
They shook their heads – but we all knew it was something dreadful.
‘Other kids aren’t able to hear it,’ I told them. ‘I’ve asked the gangs. They don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe … maybe only we can hear it.’
Emily stared at me. ‘What are we part of, Toms?’
I knew then that the girls had no more idea than me. They edged closer and for a while we just sat there, looking at each other, our faces lit by sunshine coming through the gaps in the piece of wood we called our front door.
We were too frightened to speak any more about the roar that day. Instead we busied ourselves with little tasks into the evening, and the next morning there was food to find as usual. A couple of days later the twins went out. They returned with pens, envelopes, stamps and a few sheets of paper between their teeth.
‘What’s this for?’ I asked.
‘Write a letter home,’ Freda explained. ‘Family’s important. Let ’em know you’re OK, Tommy.’
‘Oh. I see.’
The twins wrote their letters. It wasn’t easy for them. Their hands had hardened with all the running; they could no longer properly hold a pen. Seeing them concentrating so hard on writing legibly, I felt strangely moved. These girls were just like me. Somewhere else they had another home and family they had once called their own. It was pitiful to watch them clumsily signing their names on the letters, small tears in their eyes, putting numerous kisses at the bottom – and adding more around the edges of the paper.
I wrote a letter afterwards to my own parents. I felt awful about what I was putting them through – of course I did – but ever since I’d first heard the roar I felt more compelled than ever to stay in Coldharbour.
As soon as we finished writing, Emily and Freda stuffed the envelopes in their mouths and left to make the long journey to the nearest post box. When they returned they were subdued.
‘What are we doing here?’ I asked them. ‘It’s ludicrous! Eating rubbish! Sitting in a shack scribbling letters! Why aren’t we with our families? Shouldn’t we be at home with them?’
Both girls nodded, but they made no move to leave. None of us did and, looking at their determined expressions, I began for the first time to understand why. ‘It’s the roar, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘The reason we’re here has something to do with it. Whatever’s making that sound is … coming here.’ The girls stared fearfully at me, and I glanced up, listening. ‘It’s too big for us to stop,’ I whispered. ‘When you listen to it, you can tell that. You can tell –’
‘Shhh …’ Emily gave me a tight smile. ‘I’ve got itchy feet.’
‘We’re a family now,’ Freda added, ‘but we ain’t complete.’
‘There’s someone else coming to join us, you mean?’ I said. ‘Someone … strong enough to fight this thing?’
‘Dunno,’ Emily said, clutching hopefully at Freda’s hand. ‘Wait and see.’
*
The summer days moved on, and despite the spectre of the roar my main concern was that another kid would report seeing the twins. Then no doubt police – or maybe zoo keepers! Emily said – would take an interest in our lives. But we were lucky, and most of the time the twins were careful to stay off their hands when anyone else was nearby.
I thought the prospect of the roar would make me miserable, but the twins kept my spirits up, and their enthusiasm was contagious. After all the gloomy weeks of life on my own I felt almost secure with the girls. It was ridiculous because I even felt safe, and only a fool could feel truly safe in Coldharbour. Once our shack was homey enough, certain local gangs naturally started to take a keen interest in what we had, but Emily and Freda kept them away. People were scared of the twins – seeing a girl running on all fours faster than a dog can have that effect!
Midsummer arrived, and it was a peculiar time for me. Days passed, then weeks. We wrote letters, I ate like a king and slept peacefully for the first time in ages. And although we met no one who seemed to be the missing part of our crazy new family, we started looking. Every morning we’d get up and search for strange-looking kids. It was almost funny. Anyone with a tic, a limp, a dodgy stare or the slightest unusual way of doing anything, caught our attention. But the twins appeared to have a nose for what they were expecting, and we never came across anyone who interested them at all. The following weeks I reckon we must have explored all of Coldharbour, and while we saw some weird sights ourselves, maybe we were the weirdest item traipsing about in Coldharbour that summer.
Then one day, after having been so caring of me, the twins’ behaviour changed.
For no reason they could explain, they started making me leave the shack. They were insistent about it, too, half-kicking me out during the day to go on aimless wanders. I could put up with that, but when they expected me to go out at night as well I had to say no. I wouldn’t go out after dark, not in Coldharbour! The girls refused to leave me alone, though. Every evening they’d start up their heckling, trying to coax or shame me into a walkabout. After an hour or so they’d normally settle down and leave me in peace, but one evening they started up a great huffing and blowing and scratching. It went on without rest for several nights. I’d never heard such a racket! Then it got worse. They took to hissing in my ear – waiting until I fell asleep, then intentionally waking me up. Or, the next morning, they wouldn’t get any food for breakfast. I was always hungriest in the morning – they knew that – but they’d just lounge around all day, deliberately irritating me.
I tried giving them a dab more of my beauty, but they didn’t seem to need its comfort any longer. They wanted something else from it.
I didn’t discover what that meant until a few days later.
The heat of that late summer! It never abated. All that sweat and noise and irritation in the confines of the shack! The full extent of my beauty revealed itself one sweltering night in September. It was a bad night, the worst so far that year: boiling, humid, merciless. The twins had started up about midnight, nipping my toes.
‘Outside!’ I demanded, when they wouldn’t calm down. ‘Go on! Sleep outside! Get out. Now! I mean it!’
I nudged Emily with my foot. When she wouldn’t move, I nudged a bit harder.
Suddenly she was excited, as if she wanted me to do it. That made me more nervous than anything she’d done before. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I said. ‘Why are you acting so weird? I don’t like it!’
‘Poor Tommy,’ she pouted, glancing at Freda. ‘Don’t like it, eh?’
‘Ee’s a sweaty man,’ Freda said. ‘Just shut up, will ee? Ah, poor Tommy, go to sleep. Little baby.’
‘You be quiet!’ I said, trembling.
‘If I’d a hand, I’d smack it,’ Emily said.
‘If I’d a bone, I’d whack me with it!’ Freda said.
‘Whack you? What are you two on about?’ I said. ‘What is the flipping matter with the both of you these days?’
They just laughed at me, and turned over to cuddle each other. Then Freda flicked my ear with her finger.
‘I told you to get out of here!’ I shouted.
‘What’ll yer do if we don’t,’ she said, excited again, and sitting up. ‘What’ll yer do, Tommy boy? What’ll yer do?’
‘I’ll … I’ll …’
I threw the sheets off and stumbled outside. My mind was in turmoil. What was happening? Why were the twins being so horrible? I couldn’t stand it. Everything felt wild and scary to me that night. I didn’t go back inside for ages. About an hour later the twins came out, said they were sorry and gave me a sort of cuddle, but I could tell they only half meant it.
The full extent of my beauty might have come out that night. If there had been anyone in Coldharbour who needed it, I think it would have done. But it waited until the next. A weather-front came in, one of those freak summer cold snaps, and the night was chill.
A small girl was caught outside in it.
I don’t know how much time she’d spent stumbling about before I found her. It might only have been
hours; if you’re badly dressed, it doesn’t take long for a bitter night in Coldharbour to finish off your reserves of strength. Poor thing. She’d probably come in dressed for summer from one of the distant housing estates, maybe attached to a gang, and somehow got left behind. I found her on the far edge of the north-east tip, searching frantically for something to cover her arms.
Or, should I say, my beauty found her.
For it was my beauty itself that woke me. I sat up on my mattress with it simmering inside my mind. Without any hesitation I dressed in the dark. I could feel Emily and Freda next to me, silently excited.
‘I’m going out,’ I said.
‘Where to, Toms?’ Freda asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you want uz to come wiv you?’
I thought about that. ‘Yes.’
They put on coats, and scampered either side of me as I strode into the night. I had several layers of clothing on, but I was still shivering soon after leaving the shack. The state of the girl we found was awful. You couldn’t hear her. She was so cold she barely had a voice left. I would never have found her without my beauty. It led me, and as soon as it was close enough it acted.
From what depths, what part of me, did my beauty arise? I had no idea. All I knew was that its authority – its power – went in some way from me directly into her, into the frozen body of the girl. It was like a force, you could almost see it, a smack of warmth, something physical that entered her. It was a healing heat, yet at the same time it was an unbearable thrill that lit up every fibre of her, so intense that it frightened her.
Panting, she looked around – saw the twins on all fours – and started to run away.