Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds

by Jeremy Lachlan

  I can tell Hickory’s watching me. Feel his cold gaze boring into the back of my head.

  ‘You’re wrong about me, you know,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, so you’re not a lying, conniving jerk? You don’t want the Cradle so you can tear the Manor apart? You didn’t kidnap a bunch of people and take them to Roth’s lair? By the way, how many people died because of you, do you reckon? Rough estimate, huh?’

  This shuts him up. I glance back, expecting another death stare, but he’s gazing down at the water instead, lost in the reflected candlelight. He actually looks sad, and I feel like I’m seeing the real Hickory again. The Hickory I haven’t seen since the shack, when I told him all about my life on Bluehaven. No lies. No glib remarks. Just a deflated, broken, lonely guy.

  ‘How, then?’ I ask him. ‘How am I wrong about you?’

  He snaps out of his daydream, shakes his head. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I want to hear it. I mean, it must be exhausting, Hickory, keeping up the whole Mystery Guy Act. Just tell me. What’s the big secret?’

  But I’ve lost him again. He just paddles, here but not here, eyes glazed in a thousand-yard stare. I wait. And I wait. Then I let it go, too tired to play these games.

  We paddle together in silence. Time slips away as swift and sure as the current. Violet sleeps.

  Then, after who-knows-how-long, Hickory starts humming something. Soft. Sad. Somehow familiar. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. I know he’ll stop if I turn around, so I sit tight, keep paddling, trying to figure out where the hell I could’ve heard the tune before. And it hits me. Suddenly, I’m skipping through the red-leafed forest again with Hickory by my side. I’m singing “The Coconut Song” – I still can’t believe Dad hates my voice, but what does he know about music anyway? – and Hickory’s singing about a girl.

  A girl called – what was it? Willow? No, F-something. Fi – Fo – Fa –

  Farrow.

  I stop paddling. Hickory stops humming. Maybe he figures I’m onto him. I consider asking about the song, about the girl. Who is she? Who was she? A childhood sweetheart from Bluehaven? A girlfriend? Obviously, he hasn’t forgotten every face from his old life, unless all he remembers is the name. I’m about to turn around, call him out, tell him I know something he doesn’t want me to know –

  But I miss my chance.

  The boat glides round a corner and shoots down a few short rapids. The corridor’s much wider now, and balconies dot the walls, streaming water. We pass under a rope bridge slung over the river. There’s a dark lump tangled in the ropes.

  A dead Leatherhead, caught like a bug in a web.

  ‘Next station’s coming up,’ Hickory says.

  We fly through an archway, and I see them, standing either side of the river up ahead. Two half-submerged statues with their swords held high over the water, tips touching.

  The statues from my dream.

  ‘This is it,’ I say. ‘I saw this. This is what the Manor showed me.’

  The corridor ahead forks into three smaller passages.

  I shake Violet awake. She sits up, alarmed. ‘What’s wrong? Are we there?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say. Don’t look at her, idiot, you told her she was pretty! ‘Um. You’d better take this.’ I hand her the oar. ‘We need to go left. And we better hold on tight.’

  OPEN NIGHT AT THE CASKET BUFFET

  This surging broth. These pummelling waves. The roar of wind and water. We splash around corners, scrape along walls and shoot over staircase waterfalls – always that moment of weightlessness, a turn in the stomach, a yelp and sudden drop as we slap back to the whitewash, only to be carried swiftly away again. I’m terrified, sure, but focused, too, the path to the hall of waterfalls unravelling so clearly in my mind it’s like I’m back in the dream.

  I know exactly where we have to go.

  I shout directions, guided by feeling as much as memory. Hard right. Left. Straight ahead, nice and easy. We’ve only got one shot at this. If we miss a turn, there’s no going back.

  Balcony waterfalls soak us to the bone. We duck under toppled columns and slip around broken statues. Stone heads like boulders. Giant hands reaching from the water. We splash into a lake, and it’s exactly how I remember it. An unseen ceiling. Pillars disappearing into darkness. A distant, gurgling roar, like a giant drain. There’s a whirlpool in here.

  ‘Head right,’ I shout. ‘Right, right, right.’

  The water’s choppy. The whirlpool tries to suck us in, but Hickory and Violet steer us clear. We join a new current and make it to the far side of the lake in no time.

  ‘That way.’ I point. ‘Third arch along.’

  And we’re back to the rapids of the hallways and corridors. We’re getting closer, I can feel it.

  ‘Left, left,’ I shout, ‘we’re nearly there,’ but as soon as the words leave my mouth we hit a stone head. The boat lurches. We spin, miss the turn and shoot off to the right instead.

  ‘Hold on,’ Violet screams.

  We soar over another waterfall and hit the rapids again two seconds later. The force of it bounces me backwards. I should land on Hickory, but Hickory isn’t there.

  I look back. He’s dangling from a chandelier above the falls – must’ve been flung up there as we shot over the edge. I can just hear him shout, ‘Wait!’ over the roar of the rapids, but then we round a corner and he’s gone.

  ‘Duck!’ Violet shouts.

  A low arch. We shoot through it into darkness. The boat drops out from under us. We hold on tight, spinning round and round, down and down, slamming and scraping against a wall. It’s a spiral staircase. We pop from the bottom like a cork from a bottle, skip along the surface like a stone. Shaken, drenched and gasping.

  This new corridor’s wider, lit by a few torches on the wall. The water’s calmer but just as swift. We call out to Hickory again and again. Scan the black water.

  He’s nowhere in sight.

  That’s when we notice the skins floating in the water. There’s more snagged on the torch brackets just above the surface. A little further on, the water’s thick with them.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ I say. ‘Not good.’

  Violet points her rifle downriver, at the wall of darkness fast approaching. The torches down there have been ripped from the walls or swept away by the water. ‘Keep your arms and legs inside the boat,’ she says quietly. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

  ‘But we have to head back somehow and pick up the trail to the –’

  ‘I said be quiet.’

  The darkness swallows us. The roar of the flushing stairwell fades to a growl, and I wonder why it is that whenever you need to be extra quiet your breathing gets extra loud.

  A tiny splash in the dark. Something knocks the boat.

  ‘They’re here,’ Violet whispers.

  Another two bumps rock the boat, and then we hear it. The soft chirrup-croaking all around us. Slippery, scraping sounds, too. I’d like to think we’re safe so long as we stay in the boat, but the creature back at the station shed its skin on dry land, which means we’re kids in an open casket. Snacks on a floating dinner plate. We spin round a corner in the dark. The current picks up again. A distant growl gets louder, probably another set of stairs ahead.

  But first, three dots of light. Candles on a chandelier drifting closer.

  Shapes emerge. Violet crouched up front. The empty candle brackets on the walls. And there, not far below them, the creatures. Dozens of them gliding through the water all around us, their tails like slithering snakes. We float under the chandelier and with the brighter glow comes the details I’d rather not see. Gills. A pinkish gleam. Swollen pouches of skin where their eyes should be. Flashes of teeth and claw and forked tongues flicking. Rings of strange frilly things around every neck. Webbed feathers made of skin that bristle and twitch.

  Why aren’t they attacking us? What are they waiting for?

  Violet goes to hand me the plank – a weapon now, not a paddle – but it
’s unwieldy with the rifle. She fumbles it at the last second. The plank knocks her seat. Not much of a noise but more than enough. A creature leaps from the water and smacks, full-bodied, into the side of the boat. Then another, and another. We rock and almost roll. I clench my eyes shut and think rocking chair, rocking chair but it doesn’t help one bit. Then the biggest splash and thud yet rocks the boat – not side to side like the others, but back to front, up and down.

  One of the creatures has leapt into the boat.

  It’s sitting right behind me.

  I can hear it breathing. Smell sour milk and rotting fish. I open my eyes and Violet’s staring back at me, holding a finger to her lips. She points at her eyes and shakes her head.

  It can hear us, but it can’t see us.

  She aims the rifle at the creature behind me. I lean forward, slowly, sticking a finger in each ear, getting ready for the blast. The creature’s tail hits my side, snakes round my stomach. The breathing becomes a hiss, a snarl, and I shout, ‘Now! Shoot!’ and Violet pulls the trigger.

  The creature’s blown from the boat along with my eardrums, but I can’t worry about that now. The creatures attack from all sides, leaping from the water, trying to scramble aboard. We’re surrounded by a frenzy of snarls and chirrup-croaks. Whipping tails and whitewash. Violet empties her rifle. I grab the plank and start swinging.

  Don’t notice the staircase until it’s too late.

  The boat drops away beneath me, dragging my guts down with it, but this time I’m not holding on. This time I go flying through the dark, about to take a swim with the creatures.

  THE NEST

  Staircase waterfalls are the worst, especially the several-tiered ones. I’m airborne. I hit the water. I’m airborne. I hit the water. Swept away, blasted out, dunked and tumbled again. I steal breaths when I can, but they’re shallow. Water. Air. Water. Air. Water. Water. Water. Where’s the air? The staircase must’ve ended. I’m being swept through a flooded corridor.

  I need air I need air I need –

  Air. Lots of it. I’ve been shot out into a pillared hall. I’m flying – flipping – falling down, down, down. I catch a glimpse of flaming torches. Wooden platforms. Another indoor lake rushing towards me. Where’s the boat? Where’s Violet? I’m screwed. All alone.

  I hit the surface hard and shoot under, bubble-washed and dazed. I’m sinking, suspended in the dark, just like in my dream, but there’s something different about this water, something strange. It’s thick, soupy and warm. My eyes sting when I open them.

  Something grabs my arm. I fight it, try to get away, but the grip tightens. Five fingers, not a claw. It’s Violet. Her arm wraps around my chest. I can feel her legs kicking so I kick too, and before I know it we’re half-sprawled over a low wooden platform, coughing and spluttering, wiping stringy bits of slime from our eyes.

  I feel in my pocket for the key. Still there. Still safe.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any point telling you to calm down,’ Violet says beside me.

  The jetty’s trembling. I’m causing another quake.

  ‘Uh-oh. Not now …’

  Gotta think happy thoughts, but I can hear the creatures all around us. Snarls and chirrup-croaks. They’re dropping down the waterfall behind us, spilling from an archway near the ceiling, an upstairs gallery that seems to wrap all the way around the hall. One of the creatures lands on the back of our upturned boat. The rest dive into the muck and disappear.

  We pull ourselves clear of the water, take in the scene.

  A forest of pillars and jetties. A network of tall ladders and wooden platforms fixed like treetop balconies, multiple levels of them, sagging rope bridges connecting them all. Rotten wood. Frayed rope. Clumps of skin. Chandeliers glimmer in the darkness above. Torches burn on every pillar. The hall’s enormous, but I can just make out a jumbled heap of cages, shacks and sheds built against the far wall, soaring right up to the gallery. We’re in an old Leatherhead stronghold. Another abandoned station.

  ‘Um.’ Violet’s lost her gun. ‘Any bright ideas?’

  ‘Head for the station,’ I say. ‘Don’t get eaten.’

  We run. Creatures leap from the rotten broth, landing on the jetties left and right, their pinkish skin so pale it’s almost see-through. They dart alongside us, behind us, tails stiff and pointed, webbed feathers bristling. Ten creatures. Twenty. A whole bloody pack on the hunt.

  The jetty splits into two paths. Violet takes the left. I want to follow, but a creature lunges from the water and snaps at my heels, so right it is. The jetty lurches. One of the pillars beside me cracks. A chunk of stone breaks free and splashes into the muck.

  Happy thoughts, Jane. Coconuts. Dad. Violet.

  Where is she?

  The jetty sways. I leap for a ladder and scramble up as fast as I can. A rung snaps. The bottom half of the ladder falls away beneath me, but it doesn’t stop the creatures. They leap from the collapsing jetty and climb the surrounding pillars like cats up a tree.

  There’s a platform above me. A rope bridge. I pull myself up and run. The bridge bounces beneath me, woven handrails swaying like skipping ropes. I find a long-dead Leatherhead slung over the platform on the other side. A machete still clutched in its hand. I pry it loose and hack at the ropes behind me till they snap. The bridge collapses, taking three creatures down with it.

  But I’m not out of this yet.

  The creatures keep on coming. Leaping from the water. Running along the other bridges. Climbing the other pillars. Streaming in from the arched gallery lining the walls.

  The place is overrun.

  I bounce and leap towards the station. Swinging the machete, cutting ropes. When I find myself cornered I climb another ladder to the next level up. A dizzying height. Catch a glimpse of Violet far below, swinging a torch, sprinting to the station. She’s nearly there. The water all around her is tinged with red. There’s something down there. Something in there.

  Three bridges later, I’m on the final stretch, sprinting towards a doorway at the top of the station, creatures snarling at my heels. I want to run faster but the bridge is too unstable. I’m halfway across when the ropes make whipping sounds.

  ‘Uh-oh.’

  I ditch the machete, hit the deck and hold tight. The bridge splits clean in half right beneath me and I swing – down, down, down – holding on tight. The creatures fall. My feet nearly hit the foul-smelling red slop, but a tangle of rope stops the bridge from swinging any further. I’m jerked back, dangling inches above the surface.

  Not slop.

  Eggs.

  Millions of them. A mass of creature-spawn clustered in the water, all around the station, up the walls.

  This is the creatures’ home, their nest.

  And we’ve run right into it.

  ‘Not good,’ I mutter. ‘Very gross.’

  Violet shouts my name, already inside. I climb the fallen bridge like a ladder. One storey, two storeys, three. Reaching for the platform now, I grunt, haul myself up –

  And come face to face with a set of snarling teeth.

  A forked tongue. A bristling ring of webbed feathers.

  The creature lunges. I drop back down and swing to the underside of the bridge. Some of the creatures below have sensed me again and they’re leaping from the egg muck, climbing the ladder-bridge. I’m trapped. I look around for something, anything to help me.

  There, a single rope dangling behind me.

  And over on the station, one level down. Second floor. A window.

  All I have to do is leap and swing.

  The creature on the platform smashes its head through the wooden planks right above me, gnashing its teeth. I launch myself backwards, twist mid-air, grab the rope and swing, soaring over the egg-slop and the creatures snapping at my heels. Honestly, it feels amazing.

  I miss the window, of course. Unfortunate miscalculation.

  Instead, I crash through the wooden wall beside it – ‘Crap!’ – and straight through the floor bey
ond – ‘Damn it!’ – before landing in a heap one storey below.

  Violet’s kneeling right in front of me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, rattled as hell. ‘Hey,’ I wheeze.

  ‘Hey,’ she replies. ‘Um. Perfect timing. Thanks.’ I stare blankly at her and she glances beneath me. ‘It was about to eat me.’

  I’ve landed on one of the creatures. Squashed it. Broken its neck. I yelp and scramble off it. ‘Well, that was …’ Lucky. Accidental. A fluke. ‘I mean, yeah, I meant to do that.’

  ‘Of course you did.’ Violet almost-smiles.

  A thump and chirrup-croak behind me. Violet’s eyes bulge wide and I spin round. Another creature’s standing in the doorway. Hissing, bristling, ready to strike. It leaps into the room and – THWACK. Hits the floor, dead. My machete’s lodged in its back.

  A second later, Hickory dives into the room. ‘Shut the door, shut the door!’

  Violet leaps forward and throws her weight against it, slamming it shut on two more creatures mid-pounce. I barricade it with a heavy metal crate.

  The creatures pound the door. The wood cracks. Won’t hold much longer.

  Wincing, puffing, I help Hickory to his feet. ‘Not bad for an old man.’

  He grimaces. ‘You’re welcome.’

  Violet wrenches the machete from the creature’s back. ‘Follow me.’ We weave across the room, under the me-shaped hole in the ceiling, around the piles of junk. ‘Have to get to the gallery.’ She scrambles up a ladder in the corner. ‘Find a door and hope the rooms shift.’

  And so begins our scramble upstairs. Climbing ladders, opening trapdoors, slamming them shut. Dashing across rooms and barricading doors with barrels and crates. Nothing holds the creatures back for long. We slip on bits of egg muck. Wade through clusters waist-deep. By the time we burst out of the station onto the arched gallery, the creatures have doubled in number. They crawl over the roof, around the walls, hissing their tongues.

  ‘There,’ I shout, pointing at the closest door. ‘Go, go, go!’