Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds

by Jeremy Lachlan

  ‘Calm down?’

  ‘And stop repeating everything I say. It’s irritating. I’ll explain everything soon enough, but right now I really think you should rest and –’

  ‘Don’t do that. Don’t be like Winifred bloody Robin. If you really are Violet then – then we’re friends, right? So please, tell me. What happened back home after I left?’

  Violet’s expression softens. ‘Strange to hear you call it home.’

  I sink back into the wall. ‘Yeah. I guess it is.’

  Violet huffs out one of those here-we-go-then breaths. ‘The quake that struck during the festival. The night you left. It brought down a lot of homes, Jane. The fire that spread across the island destroyed even more. Broken stoves, they figured. Scattered embers. Many lives were lost. If Winifred hadn’t taken control –’

  ‘You mean she stopped Atlas? She beat him?’

  Violet nods. ‘Right after you left, down in the catacombs. Then she came and found me. Rallied everyone to fight the fire. After we’d all got it under control, she told people they’d got it wrong all those years. Told them you were on our side. That you’d left the island to help us, and if we stuck together, if we trusted you, then everything would be okay.’

  ‘She tried to get them to trust me?’

  ‘Tried,’ Violet says, ‘and succeeded.’

  No way. ‘They believed her?’

  ‘Some, yes. It didn’t happen overnight. Atlas backed off for a few weeks, but when people realised the Manor wasn’t going to open again anytime soon, he started telling people you must have fled to an Otherworld and kept cursing the island from there. He passed around orders to execute you on sight if you ever returned. He even tried to arrest Winifred and take over the museum, but we stopped him. Winifred locked him up.’

  ‘Wish I’d been there to see that.’

  ‘People were sick of listening to him. With you and John gone – sorry, but I can’t call him Charleston –with the island still in danger, they found it harder and harder to blame you for everything. Winifred told us about her vision. Her instructions from Nabu-kai. With Atlas out of the picture, we came together and set about rebuilding the island.’

  ‘What about your parents? How are they?’

  A coldness passes over Violet now. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. ‘They kicked me out of home after you left.’

  ‘They what? Why? Because you stopped Atlas from killing me?’

  ‘That. And other reasons. I don’t care,’ Violet says, but any fool could see she does. ‘I moved into the museum with Winifred. I’m glad they kicked me out. They were horrible.’

  ‘Were? Oh no, Violet, you mean –’

  ‘No. They’re alive. I just haven’t spoken to them in years. Only seen them a couple of times from a distance. As you can imagine, they’ve never embraced the idea of believing in you. I bet they’re driving Atlas crazy as we speak.’

  ‘Atlas? But I thought –’

  ‘Winifred couldn’t keep him locked up forever. She banished him to the other side of the island along with Eric Junior, Peg and about a hundred others. Said if they were against you they were against everything the Manor stood for – even the Makers themselves. Didn’t take my parents long to join them. They stick to their side and we stick to ours. Crop yields are pretty much the only thing we share, and even that’s got tense. Landslides wiped out a lot of farms in the quake, but we managed to salvage some. Things were going okay, but’ – Violet pauses a moment, unsure how to proceed – ‘Bluehaven’s dying, Jane. A few years ago, the crops started to dry up. We can barely grow weeds let alone food, and the sea life’s all but vanished. People are starving. I don’t know how long Winifred will be able to keep the peace. I think whatever’s happening in here, whatever Roth’s doing to the Manor, it’s catching up with our home, our world. All these weakened gateways … ours has started rotting away, too. The gateway down in the catacombs is still sealed, but Winifred says it’d be starting to rot as well. I think the Manor’s trying to sustain itself by bleeding the Otherworlds dry.’

  I can’t believe all this. Yeah, I’ve kind of always hoped something bad would happen to Bluehaven one day, but to actually hear it – to know it’s been happening for so many years even though I’ve only been gone for, what, a few days? – it’s too surreal to take in.

  ‘Are you okay, Jane?’

  ‘No. I mean, yeah. I guess. I just – six years?’ I shake my head to scatter the questions cramming my brain. One refuses to budge. ‘Violet, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she says. ‘I’m here to help you.’

  BEST-LAID PLANS

  Turns out Winifred told Violet everything she told me the night I left, when they were heading off to fight the fire. Told her she’d need to help me one day, even gave her the exact date she would enter the Manor. She had seen it all in her vision. Sure enough, six years later, Winifred walked Violet to the Sacred Stairs and said goodbye. It was a perilous climb. Apparently the Stairs are in worse shape than ever these days.

  ‘I’ve spent the last six years training to be your protector, Jane. Winifred taught me how to fight, how to shoot, how to survive. She even taught me how to drive.’

  ‘Drive? As in a car? There aren’t any cars on Bluehaven. What’d she teach you in?’

  Violet shrugs. ‘Theory. Mainly, though, she drilled me on archery. I’m deadly with a crossbow. I wanted to bring one in here with me, but – well – the Second Law.’

  ‘And Winifred never mentioned the Cradle or the keys?’

  ‘First I heard about all that was from your dad,’ Violet says. ‘I’d heard the legend of the Makers, of course, but John was right. The version we tell on Bluehaven is incomplete. I had no idea they left three keys behind. I never would’ve connected your key to the Cradle. I mean, there must be billions of keys out there in the Otherworlds. And you can’t blame Winifred for missing the connection. The flashes she saw down in the catacombs showed her all the things she had to do. Her path alone. Setting your quest in motion, training me. If she does somehow know what’s going on in here, she never shared it with me.’

  ‘Did she say anything about other people coming inside? Is she coming to help us?’

  Violet shakes her head. ‘It was always going to be me. Only me.’

  Suddenly, she looks more grown-up than ever. It weirds me out, but it makes me sad more than anything. The girl who used to run around playing tricks and burning caterpillars has turned into a teenager, an almost-woman, and for me it’s been less than a week. I used to know everything about her. Now she’s a stranger. Has the girl I used to know gone for good?

  ‘I felt the Manor guiding me the moment I stepped inside,’ she says. ‘Guiding me to you. Only took me a few hours to catch up. All I had to do was cut ahead and wait.’

  ‘So you got caught on purpose?’

  ‘Easier than tracking you from a distance.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this stuff right away?’

  ‘It was obvious you didn’t trust Hickory. And I kept my face hidden because I figured you’d recognise me and freak out.’ Violet runs a hand through the sand, eyes shifting every way but mine. ‘Besides, it was strange. Seeing you again. I mean, I always knew I’d see you again, but when I finally did – I don’t know. It’s weird. Shut up.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘I know.’

  The mother of all awkward silences fills the room.

  ‘So,’ I finally say, ‘what now?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Violet says. ‘You’re the one with the key.’

  I’m the one with the key.

  ‘Okay.’ I ease myself up the wall and test my legs. So far, so good. ‘Okay.’ I pace around the room, the black sand soft between my toes. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Stop saying that.’

  ‘Okay.’ I swing by the candlelit archway beside Violet. ‘By the way, you didn’t accidentally kill Hickory, did you? He’s being awful quie
t down there.’

  ‘He’s fine. What’s the plan, Jane?’

  Yes. A plan.

  ‘All right. Dad said we need both keys to open the Cradle, so – so the plan’s simple. We find the second key, find and open the Cradle, get our hands on the third key, then somehow use the power of the Makers to kill Roth and his army. Or at least, you know, send them back to – what was it, Arakaan? – wherever the hell they came from. We save the Manor, save all the Otherworlds, get my dad and take him home. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ Violet says. ‘So how do we find the second key?’

  And then I say it, the most unbelievably strange, fantastic, terrifying-in-a-good-way sentence I’ve ever said in my whole life. ‘We find my mum.’ I start pacing again, getting the story straight. ‘Mum and Dad got separated after they found the Cradle, each carrying one of the keys. She was lost in the Manor, he was trapped on Bluehaven, but they found each other in the Grip. On the train, Dad said Mum was hiding somewhere. He said something about a river. I couldn’t catch it all. Something about waterfalls, too, and –’

  I stop in my tracks.

  ‘I think I’ve seen it. I think I know where she is.’

  ‘What?’ Violet stands up too. ‘How?’

  ‘In my nightmare. I’ve always had them, Violet. All sorts of bad dreams, but this one’s been changing ever since I stepped in here, as if I’m – I dunno – remembering more. My parents were in the water with me – in the Cradle Sea, I mean. We were being swept towards the foundation stone. It’s big, like an island. A small island, though. And there were all these monsters under the water – the Spectres, Cradle guardians. They were about to kill us.’

  ‘People don’t usually remember things from when they were a baby, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, well, people don’t usually cause quakes when they freak out, either. I’d never seen my parents in the water before. Or the foundation stone. Or the Spectres. It was all new. And then we were back outside the Cradle. Mum and Dad were running, being chased by the two Spectres that escaped, I guess. Or Roth. Maybe both. I saw them get separated, but then – then the dream changed again, and this new bit couldn’t have been a memory because I wasn’t with Dad or Mum.’

  I stare at the wall. Images from the dream tug at the backs of my eyes like pictures on strings. Spinning, slowing, slipping into place. ‘I was flying through the Manor. I saw the river. It isn’t connected to the Cradle Sea or anything. I think it’s water from an Otherworld, pouring through another weakened gateway.’ I turn to Violet. ‘I was flying down the river. I saw two big statues standing in the water. Then there were rapids and pillared halls filled like lakes, and a huge waterfall. And I flew down into this massive hall that had more waterfalls in it, and then’ – I shake my head, try to shuffle another picture into place – ‘that was it. I hit the water and everything just went black.’

  I don’t tell her about hearing Mum’s voice.

  That bit’s just for me.

  ‘And you’re sure it wasn’t just a dream dream,’ Violet says. ‘Made up.’

  ‘I know it sounds strange, but it felt – I dunno – different. It wasn’t nightmarish at all. I mean, it wasn’t nice – all that water, yuck – but now that I think about it … I reckon the Manor’s been showing it to me for a reason. It wanted me to see it.’

  Violet doesn’t look convinced.

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘everyone always talks about the Manor as if it’s this living, breathing thing. The Manor chooses who stays, who goes. Draws you in. Guides you. Is it so crazy to think it might want us to get to the Cradle before Roth? That it might give us a nudge in the right damn direction? Trust me, Violet, I know it’s a long shot, but I bet you my mum’s hiding in that hall of waterfalls with the second key. In a cave or – or a secret passage or something. The Manor could be keeping her alive, keeping her young like Hickory.’

  Suddenly I’m sure of it. My mum is alive.

  I reach out to hold Violet’s shoulder in a reassuring way, but it feels weird so I kind of shove her instead.

  She isn’t impressed.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘It’s something, right?’

  She folds her arms just like mini-Violet – the same old sign she doesn’t like what she’s hearing. But then she puffs a breath through her nostrils – the same old sign she’s giving in.

  ‘You’re right. Don’t suppose you know how to find this river, though?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘but I know someone who might.’

  I nod at the glowing corridor. Violet’s face falls. ‘You want to take Hickory?’

  ‘He’s been to the river before. Told me so before we wandered into the forest.’

  ‘But we can’t trust him. He’s –’

  ‘A lying, thieving jagweed, I know. And believe me, I’d rather ditch the jerk and never see him again for the rest of my life, but the fact remains –’

  ‘Jane, he isn’t who you think he is.’

  She’s baiting me with this. There’s something I’ve missed.

  ‘Wait a second, do – do you know him?’

  ‘Of course I know him. Everybody knows him. He really didn’t look familiar to you at all? There are statues of him all around Bluehaven, or at least there used to be. The school was even named after him.’ Violet watches me, waiting for that spark of recognition. ‘He’s Hickory Dawes, Jane. The first person to enter the Manor over two thousand years ago.’

  THE GREAT ADVENTURER

  ‘You’re from Bluehaven?’ Hickory bloody Dawes doesn’t answer me, so I turn to Violet instead. ‘He’s from Bluehaven? Our Bluehaven?’

  ‘No, the other Bluehaven,’ she says. ‘Of course our Bluehaven.’

  I splutter a few buts and hows before settling on a why. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ And back to Hickory. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He’s black-eyed and bruised, tied up between two man-sized statues in front of a locked door, knees planted in the sand, arms strung up and stretched out either side of him. He hocks a golly and spits.

  Violet clenches her fists. Restrains herself. ‘He was one of the first settlers of Bluehaven. Part of the first group anyway. Says he can’t remember the Dying Lands, and I believe him. He would’ve only been a small boy when the pilgrimage happened.’

  My mind flicks back to that classroom cupboard. My secret history lesson way back when. ‘They were fleeing some sort of sickness, right? A plague.’

  ‘The Unspeakable Plague,’ Violet says. ‘Not much is known about the sickness itself. Early Chronicle entries are light on detail, but we do know it killed millions of people. Cities and villages fell. Our world was wiped clean. Those who survived sought refuge across the ocean. Hickory’s people found Bluehaven after a long, dangerous voyage. It was deserted. No buildings, no Outset Square, no Sacred Stairs. But they knew people had been there before. They found cave paintings in the tunnels. Drawings of a lone door standing atop the cliffs.’

  ‘The gateway.’

  Violet nods. ‘They scaled the cliffs, found the door, touched the stone, but nothing happened. Remains of an ancient temple, they thought. Gradually, it was forgotten. They set about building the town. Carving terraces. Cultivating fields. Living their new lives.’

  ‘And this guy?’ I ask, nodding at Hickory.

  ‘Well, the settlers may have been vague about the Dying Lands, but they were clear on the date the gateway first opened. According to the Chronicles, it happened sixteen years after their arrival, which means he grew up on Bluehaven. You would have been – what, Hickory? Eighteen? Nineteen?’ Hickory doesn’t respond. ‘Anyway, one day he wandered up the hill and never returned. A search party was sent out. A woman, Arundhati Riggs, found his tracks and entered the Manor too. Journeyed to the Otherworlds and returned. Everybody marvelled at her tale. Over the years, more and more people were granted entry through the gateway. They built the Sacred Stairs. The temple around the gateway – the Manor as we see it from Bluehaven today. And they realised the honour that had be
en bestowed upon Hickory. He was the first of thousands. The fact that he never returned only fed the legend.’

  She kneels down in front of Hickory.

  ‘I always wondered what became of you,’ she says. ‘Even wrote a story about you once in school. And now I know. Hickory Dawes, the Great Adventurer. Liar. Thief. Traitor.’

  Hickory’s eyes twitch. ‘Got me all figured out, haven’t you, little girl?’

  ‘Don’t forget, this little girl beat you in a fair fight.’

  Hickory leans in towards Violet, straining against the ropes. ‘You call it an honour being trapped in here? Feeling every person you’ve ever known slip away from you. Forgetting faces. Voices. Simple things like the feel of the sun on your skin.’ He shakes his head. ‘That isn’t an honour.’ He looks up at me now. ‘That is a curse.’

  ‘You still could’ve told me,’ I say. ‘You could’ve helped me. After we found my dad I could’ve taken you back –’

  ‘To what? An island I don’t recognise full of strangers? That isn’t what I want.’

  ‘Then what do you want, Hickory? Huh? What exactly has been going through your head since you found out I had the key?’

  Silence now. Surprise, surprise, Hickory Dawes doesn’t feel like sharing.

  Violet stands again. ‘His plan – if you can call it that – was to hand you and the key over to Roth, somehow fool Roth into showing him the entrance to the Cradle, then steal back the key and claim the Cradle for himself.’

  ‘Good plan,’ Hickory says. ‘Up to a point.’

  Violet ignores him. ‘John’s story on the train changed everything, though. See, Roth let all the bounty hunters believe there was only one key, and that he knew the location of the Cradle already. I guess he figured it’d be easier to keep tabs on people that way. Didn’t want anyone else getting their hands on both keys and beating him to the prize. When John said there were three keys, Hickory realised he’d been duped. That’s why he didn’t turn you in after he picked the bounty hunter’s pocket – he knew he didn’t need Roth anymore.’