The Silver Child

by Cliff McNish

  ‘I don’t think these protection drills are going to be much use against whatever’s making that sound,’ I said.

  Walter nodded his head dolefully. Then he opened his mouth.

  ‘Don’t,’ I cried, thinking he was going to imitate the roar again.

  ‘N-no,’ he said. He held me gently, stroking my face. ‘I won-won’t s-scare you again, Tommy. I w-won’t l-let anything h-hurt y-you. Listen.’ He took a deep breath; then, holding onto it, dragged his arms backwards and forwards through the air.

  I almost laughed. ‘What are you up to?’

  Walter kept going, and gradually his heavy arms produced a whooshing noise. I recognized it. Since yesterday the twins and I had been hearing it, too.

  It was a slow rhythm, like a massive wing beating against the sky.

  ‘What is it?’ I marvelled. ‘Do you know?’

  Walter shook his head, but his gigantic eyes lit up. ‘N-not the roar,’ he said. ‘I th-think … Tommy … it’s something … b-better.’

  ‘An enemy,’ I whispered. ‘An enemy of the roar.’

  As soon as I said it, I could see that Walter felt the same way. He continued to flap his arms. For a while he even managed to block out the sound of the roar altogether, and for a moment I had some peace at last from that endless cold shrieking. And I thought: perhaps there’ll be a weapon, after all. If anything can make a stand against the roar, I thought, it beats with the power of those wings.

  In the early afternoon the twins returned from a visit to the tips. They were carrying scraps of cotton, linen, denim, needles, thread and who knows what else. ‘Hey!’ I protested, as they grabbed Walter and hustled him inside the shack.

  ‘You shuts your moanin’, Walts,’ I heard Freda say firmly, closing the door. ‘You’ll get back out there when you got some decent stuff on yer. Now stay still!’ I waited outside, listening. Walter protested as they measured him up. He kept telling them to hurry up, that he didn’t need a hat. At one point it became suddenly silent. Then I heard Emily say, ‘Walts, you’re gonna ’ave to let that blanket go if we’re gonna fit these pants on yer.’

  About an hour later the door re-opened. There was a moment of hesitation. Then Walter emerged. I tried, not very hard, to keep a sober expression on my face. Walter staggered out, feeling his new clothes.

  ‘H-how do I look?’ he asked.

  ‘You look good,’ I said. ‘Real good.’

  His trousers were made from about a hundred separate bits of blue denim sewn roughly together. They had flares at the bottom, with little flowers around the hems – obviously from a girl’s old pair. For a shirt the twins had patched together a woolly brown jumper and a black leather jacket. I think there was a scarf sewn in there somewhere, too. The jacket only stretched down to Walter’s elbows, and Freda was hanging onto him like a monkey, trying to pull the sleeve further down with both her arms. No shoes, of course – even the twins couldn’t manage that. Walter’s feet stuck out like boats.

  ‘I’ve got a p-pocket,’ he told me, tapping at the left side of his chest. There was some kind of school badge there, with an opening underneath. The pocket was too small for Walter to get his fingers inside.

  The twins exchanged anxious glances.

  ‘Well, o’ course it needs improvement,’ Freda said contemplatively. ‘Not much light in the shack to see wiv, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ll make it better, definitely,’ Emily added. ‘Just takes time.’

  ‘Them underpants not too uncomfortable, Walts?’ Freda asked.

  ‘They’re f-f-f-f-fine,’ he replied – with real dignity, I thought.

  *

  After a late-afternoon snack and a few improvements from the twins on the trousers, Walter and I put on a bit of a show for the girls – a couple of defensive manoeuvres.

  ‘G-g-got a surprise!’ Walter said, when we were finished.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I replied. ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘You s-sneak up,’ Walter said. ‘You go off, away from the s-shack. Close y-your eyes.’

  Nonplussed, I did as he asked. A minute later the twins called me back. Walter was nowhere in sight. The twins shrugged extravagantly, as if they had absolutely no idea where he’d gone.

  ‘Sneaks up,’ Freda said.

  So I did. Where was Walter? How could he just disappear? When I was only a few feet from the shack, the earth erupted. I was flung into the air. As I fell the hand of Walter caught me. He had dug himself into the ground, and now my waist lay squeezed between the fingers of one of his hands.

  The twins raced between his legs, laughing away.

  ‘If I’d an arm, I’d chuck it!’ Freda squealed.

  ‘Go on, Walts! Go on, Walts!’ Emily encouraged him.

  Walter pulled back his arm like a slingshot.

  I said something like, ‘AAAAGGGHHHHH!’

  ‘No!’ screamed the twins. ‘Walts! Not really! Not really!’

  Walter gave me and the twins his best confused look. Then his eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘Ha Ha Ha Ha!’ he boomed. He let go of me and put me down as sweetly as a baby. I stumbled around for a minute, trying to recover.

  One of the twins whispered gleefully, ‘Tommy, ’ope yer didn’t wet yer pants.’

  I checked – just in case.

  That evening I worked out a little return joke to play on our Walter – just a bit of playfulness. When I told the twins, they were game for it.

  ‘One more protection situation,’ I said, striding out of the shack. Walter was up and ready at once. ‘The twins have been taken!’ I hollered. ‘Red alert! Red alert! You weren’t here! You didn’t get here in time! They’re gone!’ Walter shook his head emphatically. I laughed. ‘You screwed up!’ I yelled. ‘They’re hurt. You failed!’ No, no, Walter kept shaking his head, and opening out his arms at the twins, as if to say, ‘What? You’re all here. I have protected you.’

  ‘You haven’t protected us!’ I shouted. ‘The twins are dead. Look!’ At my signal the girls feigned death. Dropping to the ground, they closed their eyes.

  Walter exploded! He ran up to them, shrieking. He touched their faces, picking them up, in tears. I started laughing and so did the twins, both sitting up again. Suddenly Walter realized that it was a joke. For a moment he didn’t laugh, but then, hesitantly, he started chuckling – that big grin of his stretched across his face.

  But not really. He didn’t smile for long. He wasn’t really chuckling at all. As soon as we stopped, so did he. Then Walter sighed, a shudder of concern that racked his whole body. Shaking his head, he carried the twins reverentially over to me and put us into a neat pile. I laughed again, slightly embarrassed, but Walter just put his arms around the three of us and held us closely for a while. We looked up at him, and suddenly we felt humble. You could see it in his face: if anything bad happened to us, anything at all, it would just kill him.

  ‘We’re all right,’ I said hoarsely. ‘Walter – you can let go.’

  Who was this extraordinary boy? Only yesterday I’d rejected him, left him out in the rain, ordered him about, called him dumb, yet here he was holding us, with big tears brimming in his eyes, cradling and rocking us as if we were treasures.

  Ten

  the long inconsolable cry

  HELEN

  I woke that night to the sound of the boy again.

  But not the wonder-filled calls this time. Those had been replaced by a long inconsolable cry, like blood across the night. I leapt out of bed, tearing aside the curtains as if he might actually be there: clutching the window frame, his terrified face pressed against the glass.

  Instead, I saw the garden trees being thrashed by rain and wind.

  It was a storm and the boy, I suddenly knew, could not survive it. He had called out to me from the end of his endurance.

  Where are you? I thought.

  I had a murky picture, nothing more. But I knew this: he was crawling. He was crawling somewhere amid the filth of one of Coldharbour’s tips. He’d been dra
gging his body across the wet rubbish for hours.

  Shaking uncontrollably, I checked the clock: gone midnight. After the commotion I’d made scurrying to the window, I expected Dad to come rushing in – ready to fight, ready for anything – but the storm had masked any sounds from my room. Dad was awake, though.

  I wanted to explain to him what had happened, but I hesitated. Something in the boy’s cry told me that I must go on my own to find him. Dad wouldn’t accept that. He would never let me go out alone to find the boy.

  The guest room was open, the light on. To get to the staircase without being seen by Dad I would have to wait until he fell asleep. He didn’t even try to sleep, of course. Twice in the next hour he checked on me. Both times I shut my eyes while he stood silently at the door, watching my chest rise and fall. I realized then how far my dad would go to protect me. Wherever he had to. Over the edge of the world.

  I waited. I knew he wouldn’t truly sleep, but at last the patterns of his mind altered. Just for a moment, he dozed. I slipped straight out of bed, dressed in whatever was easiest to find and tiptoed along the corridor. The guestroom lamp shone at an angle on Dad’s face. He lay on the bed, shoes beside him, fully clothed. If the storm hadn’t been virtually blowing the house down, I would never have got past without waking him.

  All the while I sensed the boy. He was still moving, still slowly crawling across the rubbish and mud of Coldharbour. And then a dread ran through me as I realized: he wasn’t using his legs. He was crawling using only his arms; that’s all he had left to move with.

  I wasn’t thinking properly. To journey on foot through Coldharbour in a storm of this magnitude required heavy walking gear. It required boots, a compass, maps, weatherproof clothing, a strong torch, water and food. In my panic I didn’t consider any of those things. My light summer jacket was by the front door. I automatically reached for it. My trainers were still damp from earlier in the day – I put them on. I did think about taking an umbrella, but it meant rummaging under the stairs. That might wake Dad. His mind was already stirring again. I had to leave now, before he discovered me.

  Turning the key, I opened the back door as quietly as I could. The creak made almost no noise over the storm. Even so, it was enough to rouse Dad.

  ‘Helen?’

  I read his mind – and realized he would check my room before he came downstairs.

  That gave me the few extra seconds I needed.

  I love you, Dad, I thought. Don’t try to follow me.

  I ran outside. Utter darkness. Good – once I got away from the house, no one could find me. The dark also meant that every footstep would be treacherous until I reached a road. The nearest was more than a mile away, and I had no idea how to make my way from there to Coldharbour.

  Boy, I thought, I’m putting all my trust in you.

  The back door banging in the wind drew Dad downstairs. He fumbled for a light. ‘Helen?’ he cried, staggering outside. When I crouched out of sight, offering no answer, he went to find a torch.

  Dad’s mind. It was dreadful to be inside at that moment, because he had no idea what had happened, of course. He thought the boy might have forced his way into the house and taken me against my will. Idiot! Why hadn’t I left a note? I couldn’t leave him believing that.

  ‘No!’ I yelled over the wind. ‘I’m OK, Dad. It’s not that. Let me go.’

  ‘Helen?’ My words guided him towards me, but I had the advantage. Knowing what direction he would go next, I ran in another, hiding when I needed to from the torch. Finally I was too far away for him to pick me out against the darkness.

  ‘Helen! Come back!’ he shouted over and over. ‘What are you doing? Don’t run from me! Is it the boy again? I won’t stop you going to find him, if that’s what it is. Helen, did you hear? Just let me come with you! Helen!’

  He continued pleading with me long after I was out of earshot, but at some point he realized that there was a better way to reach me. He stopped shouting. He stopped uselessly flashing the torch around. He put it down. Standing there in the rain, fear and love choking out of him, Dad gathered his concentration and with all of his mind he reached out to me, promising anything, anything, if I would only return to the house. He was lying, of course. I knew that on a night like this he would never let me out. Until he believed it was safe he would lock me inside, stay on guard forever, bolt every door in the world if he had to.

  I’m sorry, Dad, I thought. I have to go. Stay where I know you’re safe!

  His anguished thoughts gradually faded as I travelled from the house.

  Where was I? Somewhere still north of the town, cutting across a field. Dad’s mind was no longer with me, but I was not alone, not quite – the animals were there, as always. Some, even in this storm, were burrowing eagerly upwards through the soil, hurrying to feed on whatever might be stranded in the downpour.

  And there was something else out there, too – something more distracting than the animals. There it was again, a roar, exactly the same sound that had disturbed me in my room when I lay in bed earlier. But it was clearer now, louder, more confident. This time I didn’t have to listen for it. This time it rose up above the storm, and it was like a shriek.

  It was like the shriek of a creature that was starving.

  I halted, so shocked by it that I nearly turned back.

  But the roar was still distant; the boy was closer, and his arms were now barely moving. I continued on, blundering through the darkness, trying to reach him on time. I’d heard nothing at all since his first scream for help sent me scuttling to the window. Why? Could he already be too weak even to cry out to me?

  Twice the ferocious wind knocked me down. Each time I picked myself up and ran on. The rain drove into me, so cold that at one point I pulled the collar of my jacket around my ears. Then I stopped pretending that anything could keep me warm. Ahead, the town lights were hardly visible through the rain.

  Beyond them, the bleakness of Coldharbour beckoned to me like a passion.

  Eleven

  the hiss of rain

  THOMAS

  ‘Will you two just shut up your racket!’

  The twins had been driving me crazy all evening, scratching the door, wanting to be let out – but I wasn’t about to go blundering around in Coldharbour during the middle of a storm. I couldn’t calm them down, though. Emily was tetchy; Freda simply would not shut up. Around midnight, both stopped arguing with me altogether and simply ran around the shack, going berserk, completely freaking out.

  ‘Just stop it!’ I said. ‘I know you want to go out, but not in this storm!’

  ‘Let uz go!’ Emily cried.

  ‘Open the door, Toms!’ Freda wailed, slapping my leg.

  ‘Don’t be crazy!’ I told her. ‘You’ll catch your deaths if you go out in this! Just calm down and tell me what’s wrong!’

  ‘There’s another special one of ’em out there!’

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Dunno. Dunno. Let’s see!’

  The wind hurled rain into the shack. There was no drainage in Coldharbour, nowhere for the water hitting the summer-baked soil to go. Looking through a crack in one of our walls, I could see puddles already turning into lakes big enough to drown in. The twins had given up trying to persuade me. They yanked at the door.

  ‘We’ll go out in the morning!’ I told them. ‘Be reasonable! Even if someone’s out there, we’ll never find them in this.’

  ‘Now! Now!’

  ‘The morning!’

  Then I heard Walter, banging on the roof. He’d never wanted to come in before, but I suppose even he needed to take shelter from a storm this bad. I held the twins back, but as soon as I opened the door they wriggled past and were out and running.

  ‘Catch hold, Walter!’ I yelled, but he simply fell in alongside them, his big arms swinging as the twins scuttled northwards.

  ‘Go on, then!’ I shouted. ‘If you’re mad enough to go out there …’ Cursing them, I went back inside. A moment
later Walter was knocking politely on the door. When I didn’t answer he pushed it open with his finger, reached in an arm and plucked me up.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I demanded, astonished.

  ‘W-w-w-w-we gotta g-go, Tommy,’ he said apologetically. ‘I g-got the car door!’ He held it over my head, as if that made everything OK.

  ‘Put me down!’ I growled. ‘You should be trying to stop the twins! Who knows what’ll happen if they go wandering about in this!’

  But something in Walter’s expression made me put on a jacket. It was one Emily had found a few weeks earlier. Meant to be waterproof, but it was obviously some cheap rubbish that would leak straight away.

  Walter smiled, very satisfied, helping with the hood.

  ‘You look g-good in that,’ he said, trying to get on the right side of me.

  ‘You great twerp,’ I said. ‘Get that door over my head!’

  Grinning, Walter plonked me onto his shoulders. He steadied me there with one hand and held the car door at a good angle to the wind. ‘P-perfect!’ he said.

  ‘I’ll give you perfect!’ I blasted – and then we were off.

  We were off!

  ‘Whoop! Whoop!’ the twins were going, yelping and singing their rhymes. Raindrops bounced off their faces like hail. I’d never seen them so excited, feet and hands racing over the slippery ground, with Walter taking broad strides to keep up.

  The girls led us north west, and after about ten minutes I thought, We can’t go on, we just can’t. Coldharbour in a downpour: what a mess, all those leftovers from the tips spilling out over the ground, chasing over your feet. I was quite impressed with Walter, though. He only slipped once, and caught me before I hit the ground. ‘Flipping idiot!’ I shouted, just to make sure he knew how precious his cargo was – not that I needed to.

  The conditions got worse, but if anything the twins speeded up. Walter had to leap over ditches and rivers of sludge just to stay with them. Finally we came to a stretch where the water was too deep for even the twins to go any further. They had a chat to Walter. He picked them up and kind of stuck them onto his left shoulder and arm. I was already perched on his right arm. With Walter’s hands occupied, we had to get rid of the car door, of course. Walter wasn’t happy about that. You should have seen the adoring look he gave that rusty old door. He actually tried putting it between his teeth, then realized it wouldn’t work.