The Silver Child

by Cliff McNish

  Freda scrambled across, took up a stance beside him. ‘Thomas!’ she said in a commanding voice. ‘Thomas, you will stop this! You will stop doing this at once, do yer hear me!’

  ‘For mercy’s sake, Toms! …’ Emily begged.

  But for once my beauty came to my aid. My terror was so great that it gave me the last shudders of its strength, enough to catch the twins and tie them up, enough at least to haul myself over to Milo and gaze into his eyes. His healthy, richly silver eyes. The lids had returned. It was only my lids that were missing now. He batted his own at me. I gripped his arm, wanting to hear it break. ‘So you’re trying to kill me, eh? You are trying to kill me, after all! We’ll see about that!’

  ‘Wait,’ Freda was saying. ‘Toms, listen to uz!’

  ‘No!’ I shouted back.

  I tested Milo’s heaviness. He weighed very little, and as I picked him up he made no attempt to resist me. Instead, raising his still-bandaged hands, he stroked my face.

  ‘More affection? Still pretending?’ I screamed at him. ‘A tiny bit more beauty to drain out, is there?’ His skin flashed urgently silver again, and I yelped in pain. ‘Trying to finish your transformation, eh? Why don’t you give me that saintly smile and bless you Tommy routine? It worked before! Go on!’

  Freda and Emily, cringing with terror, pleaded with me, but I’d stopped listening.

  Milo said nothing. Gritting my teeth, I put him over my shoulder like a sack and left the shack. Sunset. I had no clear idea what I was going to do with Milo until I saw the river. Then I knew. A few gang kids had heard the commotion, and come out to see what was going on, but I didn’t care. Let them watch! They wouldn’t stop me. Nothing would stop me.

  The twins’ hysterical voices trailed away behind.

  I made it at last to the river. As I put my bare foot in the water, steam hissed from my skin in the same way it had done from Milo when we first saw him. I heaved him round to face me. ‘I believed you!’ I shrieked. ‘Look what you’ve done to me!’

  I waded up to my knees, then a little further. How deep did I need to go? Milo didn’t resist me. He merely continued to stroke my face, the end of my beauty still shooting into him.

  ‘How dare you!’ I screamed.

  I dumped him into the river. Maybe if he’d stopped touching me, I might have had a change of heart. Maybe if he’d just put out his hands for help, or said something, especially if he’d said something, I might have. I don’t know. I might at least have listened. But Milo didn’t do any of those things. His mouth opened and closed hideously. His fingers slid from my face and he fell like a stone, sinking beneath the water. There were a few bubbles, then nothing from him. Briefly, further downstream, I saw his body surface, as the strong current of the river raised him up. Then he sank again, and didn’t reappear.

  I turned and walked out of the river shallows. For some reason I was crying. Ridiculous – wasn’t it good that I’d killed him? Milo. I hated that name! He didn’t deserve any name! He was a parasite – parasite boy! I’d trusted him, given him everything, and look what he’d done to me!

  I waited ten full minutes, to make sure that he was dead.

  Then I made my way back to the shack.

  Sixteen

  the shack

  HELEN

  With Dad alongside me, I ran across Coldharbour.

  It was a moonless night, dark. Somewhere in that darkness Milo was tumbling across the river bed, holding on to a final breath. From that breath he reached out to me. With all his mind Milo did it, and in that moment all I could do was clutch on to Dad because I wasn’t ready. I thought I would be. I’d prepared myself. All the way here I’d readied myself for more of Milo’s pain, but this was more than physical pain. It was anguish.

  And it was not for himself. It was for Thomas.

  Dad ran along the river bank, looking over the water for any sign of a struggling boy. Seeing nothing, he removed his jacket and shoes, trying to estimate how deep he would have to dive. ‘Is Milo here?’ he called out, taking lungfuls of air. ‘Helen, answer me!’

  I looked at the storm-swollen river. Dad was a good swimmer, but I doubted even he could take on a current this strong. ‘Wait,’ I said.

  Milo, I thought – where are you? And I felt him stir. From the murk of the river bottom, two fingers scrabbled, trying to get above the water. But he couldn’t reach high enough – and even if he had been able to, I would never have seen his fingers in the darkness.

  ‘Helen,’ Dad said, ‘who else knows where he is?’

  Of course. One person knew exactly where he had dumped Milo into the river. I focused my mind on Thomas, and found him. He was in the shack, lying on the floor between the twins. They were desperately trying to hold his body together, but Thomas was barely aware of their efforts because he was in torment.

  To kill someone. To have done that. To have had a life in your arms, one you nurtured for so long, and then to have let that life slip away. And then to have waited until you were certain that life was utterly extinguished. Thomas wasn’t a killer, but he’d left Milo to drown, and even now he was trying to make sense of what had happened in their final moments together.

  Dad and I followed the path of Thomas’s mind to the shack.

  ‘I’m going in first,’ Dad said. ‘Stay here.’

  The shack door was partially open. A tiny amount of starlight illuminated the scene.

  Thomas lay there. The state of him was so appalling that Dad instinctively tried to block the sight from me. I pushed past, ready at least for this. Apart from the gold, Thomas looked exactly like the version of Milo who had crawled out of the darkness. The twins were draped across him, Emily cradling his face as if she could hold it together by sheer willpower. She gazed up at me. ‘Helen, please help uz.’

  It was all in her mind, the way Thomas had stumbled back to the shack, forlornly calling out their names. Since then the twins had devoted themselves to him, but their care was not enough because in the end Emily and Freda only had hands, and even such skilful hands as theirs did not have the capacity to reach down inside Thomas’s failing lungs to repair them.

  ‘Drowned ’im,’ Emily murmured to me. ‘How could yer do it to ’im, Toms? Oh, how could yer?’ She glared down as if she was about to strike him, then sobbed instead, nestling her face against his shoulder.

  From the floor Thomas stared defiantly at me. That stare! Like Milo’s in the storm! He raised his lidless eyes.

  ‘See this!’ he screamed. ‘Do you see!’ The skin fell away from part of his face. He tore at another flap hanging from his cheek. ‘Look at what Milo’s done!’ He dragged himself across the floor. Dad came between us, but I said no, and allowed Thomas to come forward. Before he could reach me, though, I heard footsteps approaching the shack.

  There was no mistaking that great tread across the earth.

  ‘Walts!’ Freda wailed, glancing frantically at us. ‘Ee can’t see Thomas like this! What’ll it do to ’im?’

  She tried pushing the door shut with her foot. Walter, of course, would not allow that. He entered the shack, moving her leg gently aside. One by one Walter carefully checked us, his fingers running lightly over our bodies, convincing himself we were unharmed. Then he made himself look at Thomas – and I screamed, because it wasn’t possible to be in Walter’s mind at that moment without screaming.

  ‘It weren’t your fault!’ Freda cried out, pressing herself fiercely against him.

  ‘No, Walts!’ Emily said. ‘You weren’t to know, how could yer! Come here to me!’

  ‘Oh … oh …’ Walter’s face caved in. He couldn’t accept what he was seeing. Emily and Freda held him, trying to explain, but Walter kept just shaking his head and grinding his hands into the floor. ‘I w-w-was m-m-meant to p-protect …’ He kissed Thomas. ‘What good … what g-good am I if I c-c-can’t d-do, even d-do …’ He trailed off. He slumped to the floor, turning his face away from us in shame.

  Thomas reached out to me. He gripped
my ankle. He was trying to talk. There was really too much pain in his throat to talk, but Thomas had no choice. He had to ask, because surely if anyone could understand it was me. ‘Milo … didn’t he deserve what I did to him?’ he said. ‘I trusted him! A meal, that’s all I was! Just a thing to feed off, until he was ready. All of us – freaks for his needs! Tell the twins, Helen! They’re still convinced by Milo’s act! But you know! When you first saw him you ran! Tell—’

  I held his shoulders. ‘Thomas, stop. Listen to me –’

  ‘No! You listen!’ he cried, tears coursing down his face. ‘I couldn’t run like you! I wasn’t capable, was I? He –’

  ‘He’s alive,’ I said.

  The twins gazed at me. Thomas shook his head. ‘I made certain …’

  ‘He is still alive!’ I shouted.

  Thomas’s mouth twisted sideways.

  ‘I should have understood,’ I said. ‘That first time we saw him, I should. But I was too frightened to look properly. Like you, I was scared of him. Thomas, Milo never meant to harm you. He needed your beauty, that’s all. It was the only thing keeping him alive through all the changes. And he took so much pain on himself. He never passed the worst of it onto you, only a small part …’

  Thomas hauled himself away from me. After what he’d done, he was willing to accept almost anything except this. ‘Get out!’ he shrieked. ‘Did you hear me? Get out!’

  I followed him across the room, kneeling beside him. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I whispered. ‘All that pain, I know what it was like. When I saw Milo, I ran. Thomas, it was you who stayed!’

  Walter stirred. He gently folded Thomas’s face inside his hands. ‘Don’t y-you see?’ he cried. ‘You c-couldn’t bear it, that’s all. Of c-course not, Tommy! Are you 1-listening to H-Helen? You c-couldn’t b-bear it, but you did! All this t-time it was only you k-keeping Milo alive! Only you!’

  Thomas tried to get to his feet. ‘I’ll … I’ll …’ He broke down in tears, clutching at Freda. ‘Help me,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll … I’ll take you there … to the river …’ When his feet would not budge, he raised his arms for Walter to lift him.

  Walter started to do so, then stopped. He turned his head sharply, staring at the door of the shack. And then we all did the same, because something was coming. Even Dad felt it coming: a power, a force, a crescendo moving towards us at tremendous speed.

  Beauty.

  Like a fullness of wind all the beauty Thomas had given Milo swept past us. It sought out its owner and, in a single huge wave, swept inside him.

  Thomas lay there, panting in wonder, restored. His hands were his own again, his lungs at ease, his face cool, unblemished.

  But there was no time for us to dwell on this, because what followed the beauty was a scream. It came from the river. Milo, I knew, had held on for as long as he could, but now his mouth was opening in the water.

  Thomas shouted, ‘Walter!’

  Without hesitation Walter scooped Thomas up. He placed me and Dad onto his shoulders. Emily and Freda scrambled to find places on his legs. Thomas bent to whisper and, protecting our faces, Walter smashed his way out of the shack and ran.

  Seventeen

  the clamour

  MILO

  Milo lay on the river bed, waiting to drown.

  His lungs were larger than before, and the last snatch of air he had managed to take as Thomas dumped him under the water had sustained him for many minutes. But now that air was nearly gone. While he still could, Milo tried to crawl out. The current, too strong, bore his body up; the swell took him downstream.

  Eyes, he thought, guide me now.

  But the turbulent river threw up too much silt to find a way back to the bank.

  As he drifted, he thought about beauty. When Thomas had carried him to the water, Milo had tried to speak to him, but his throat had changed too much. He could only open and close his mouth, a sight that appalled Thomas. Now, distantly, Milo sensed the heavy tread of Walter. He heard the thoughts of Helen, imploring him to hold on.

  Too late, he thought. They could not arrive in time.

  In time for what?

  Milo looked down at himself. Even now, clinging to a final lung’s breath, his body continued to change. The tatters of golden skin were ripping away. The main muscles of his arms were fused like welded steel to his ribs. The bandages had fallen from his hands, and the bones of his fingers had lengthened.

  And his heart howled. It was a bigger heart, almost tearing from his chest.

  Milo stared at the river bottom, and saw the murk all lit up silver. Where before the silver had escaped only between the cracks of his skin, now it pushed adamantly through. His legs shone. Fish hid from the light of his face. His shoulders glowed – and split. Silver gushed out, and behind the light something else struggled out of his back to be born.

  Milo tried desperately to hold on to life. He clamped his mouth shut to avoid taking a breath. For a moment he stayed entirely still, lowering his head, attempting to survive on a last ebb of air. Every part of his will held back from taking that first gasp which would fill him with water.

  But his body knew it must breathe. Eventually it would take a breath.

  Just before it did, Milo heard a sound. It was not Walter or the others, not the sound of children at all. It was an immenseness, a depth, a roaring out of rage that represented the frenzied tearing up of the entire world.

  And Milo understood something at last: he understood that he was meant to lead the defence against the roarer. He was the first of the guardians. He was the forerunner, the outrider, the first. Like Thomas, like Helen, like Walter and the twins, he was the first to emerge and stand against it.

  Too late. He had understood too late. Could the others build a fortress on their own? No.

  I’m dying, he thought. He tried to calm himself so that he could perform one last duty. All this time he had held on to Thomas’s beauty, but now it was time to let it return. Since he would die anyway, he would at least do this one small thing.

  Like a caress Milo felt all the beauty rise out of his heart.

  And, afterwards, there was no dignified ending of life. There was only panic. Milo opened his mouth to take a breath – and the water entered. He screamed once, then even his screams were cut off as the river filled his throat. And filled his lungs. And filled his kidneys and his arms.

  All pain was gone. With the entry of the water it ended. His throat opened out. It made a final alteration and, as if his mouth were a hole in the world, the river rushed inside him. The final golden shreds of skin fell away. He was bright with silver.

  There was a clamour from his back, a rustle he could not see.

  Eighteen

  the silver child

  THOMAS

  Walter ran, and to anyone watching from the night gangs we must have been something to behold: me under his arm, Helen and her dad perched on his shoulders, with the twins clinging to the flares of Walter’s jeans. Not that any of us cared what we looked like.

  Milo alive – I shuddered to think of that.

  What kind of a boy could have survived what I’d done? And if we found him on time, what would I say? What words would I have?

  As we neared the river I tried to remember where I’d carried Milo in, but there was no need. Freda was pointing at the night sky. Above the river, it shimmered silver. The undersides of clouds were lit up. Seagulls, mistaking the silver for dawn, were flying sleepily out of the west. And then we heard more birds, whole families of them taking flight from the river itself, disturbed by a sound.

  A heartbeat.

  A single wild boom of heartbeat that stopped us cold.

  ‘Walter,’ I said, clutching him, ‘take us away from here!’

  ‘No, n-no,’ he said. ‘It’s—’

  A second boom. A third – faster, sending a spray off the river.

  The twins and I tried to scramble from Walter’s grasp, but he held us until we were calm enough to follow his instructions. Aft
er what had happened before, I thought Walter would never let me out of his arms again, but he told me to reposition myself on his back, so that at least his hands were free to defend us. The twins slid round to the back of his legs. Then, with all of us clinging on, Walter took a few more cautious strides towards the river bank.

  There we waited, while the heartbeat grew in volume.

  The reverberations of that heart! The passion of it!

  And with it kicking its life inside him, Milo emerged from the river.

  I had no measure for the nature of child arising from the darkness. Milo’s scalp alone, as he lifted it, covered a third of the river. Beneath it the waters had no choice other than to rise with him, rise upward on the dimensions of his features. The span of his face! The breadth of his shoulders! His neck rose like a tower. The proportions of his chest filled the river.

  In that first moment we were all scared, and I think we might have run, except that Milo himself seemed so perturbed by his own condition. He knelt timidly in the river, as if he did not trust his legs to carry him. He glanced uncertainly at his arms. They were now entirely attached to his chest – the bones fused against his ribs, like buttresses for a greater weight to come. Only his hands were still free to move. Each of the fingers was elongated, a thin bone without flesh. Unsure of himself, Milo moved with great care. He placed his finger-bones across both banks of the river, helping his legs take him to his full height.

  And now the river was not even deep enough to cover his ankles. When Milo turned his head, clouds broke against the resistance of his ears. He stood in profile to us, and we saw the pole star in the gap between his lips.

  Nevertheless he stood shakily, as if he still might fall.

  All this while Helen had been clinging to Walter, gazing up. ‘He looks like the wonder I expected to meet that first time,’ she said. ‘He’s the boy I wanted.’

  ‘A silver child,’ Freda murmured.