“Right. Well—whoop—we were climbin’, right, up to the crow’s nest, like you said, when some fellas—whoop—lots of ’em, just sort of appeared, yeah, and they turned this big light thing on, and they used it to—whoop—find us.”
“A light? What sort of light?” Edgar’s voice was calm, despite his obvious pain. He’d been slashed with a knife, and Sasha had done her best to patch him up, but there wasn’t time for a proper job. He glanced over at his companion, whose every muscle was tense, listening to Thing.
“Dunno—a searchlight, I s’pose. Big round thing. Swiveled.” Thing demonstrated swiveling with his free hand, just in case they hadn’t gotten the picture.
“Okay, that’s fine. So, then what happened? In your own time.” Sasha’s words were quiet and calm, but her eyes flashed and her lips were drawn thin.
“The blokes kept the light on Ems, yeah, and then they flung up some sort of—whoop—net or somethin’, and they, like, dragged her off the ladder.” Thing made a sucking sound with his mouth as he showed them, with a hand movement, exactly how Emmeline had fallen. “They caught her, and then they tied ’er up, and they took this away from ’er.” He gestured toward the satchel. “Then they carried ’er to the edge and just chucked ’er off.”
“Chuck—chucked her off?” repeated Sasha. “Are you sure?”
“Sure as I am that you’re all a bunch of—whoop—blockheads who can’t understand plain English,” muttered Thing.
“Did she scream? Cry out? Anything?”
“Nah. Tough as nails, is Ems.” Thing blinked hard, trying to focus on the battered leather satchel. A few loose threads were fraying around one of its corners, and he pulled at them until he was pretty sure his eyes weren’t going to leak and he could look up again. “So—what’s the story with all this?” He looked first at Edgar and then at Sasha. “I mean, why’s everyone after Emmeline? What’s she done? She’s only a kid, ain’t she?”
“It’s not really something we can share, Thing,” said Edgar in a low, dark voice. “She—or, rather, her parents are…well…” He paused, finding a new angle to begin from. “The men who took Emmeline have probably been paid to bring her somewhere.” Edgar’s words ended in a pained hiss. He clenched his teeth and grunted, his good hand flying up to the wound in his shoulder.
“You all right?” asked Thing.
“I’ll live. Now, can you tell us anything you remember about the men? What they looked like, sounded like, how many there were?”
“Right.” Thing closed his eyes and did his best to remember. A dim and indistinct picture started to form in his mind—men with bald heads, men with hats, stout and skinny men, all shouting. “There were a lot of ’em. I can’t say how many. It was hard to see from where I were perched, you know? With the light, an’ all?”
“Of course,” soothed Sasha. “But please—you must try.” Thing screwed his brain into a knot.
“There was one guy,” he said, a memory coming to the surface like a rising bubble. “Tall, skinny fella, hair all slicked to one side, an’ skin so pale he looked dead, y’know the sort. Either he was wearin’ dark glasses or he had the oddest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“Were they sort of sunken, would you say?” Edgar asked.
“Yeah,” Thing said. “Like they were sittin’ in two carved-out holes in ’is head or somethin’.” The memory made his head swim.
“No,” whispered Sasha. Thing was vaguely aware of her putting her hands to her face. He stopped talking, his throat suddenly dry as his mind began to spiral. He realized his heart was thudding inside his chest, and the dirty, greasy smell that sometimes haunted his nightmares slithered over him. A raspy, long-forgotten voice began to scratch at the edges of his hearing, its cruel words seeping into him like poison, but he gritted his teeth and shoved it firmly away.
“What is it?” he asked, trying to clear his thoughts and pay attention to Edgar and Sasha.
“It’s the worst we could’ve expected,” said Edgar.
Emmeline had never been so cold, or so cramped, in her life. As well as that, her stomach was churning inside her, both with queasiness and a deep, bone-grinding hunger. She thought longingly of the ice cream that Thing had brought to her window. It seemed like ten million years since she’d seen him, but in reality it could only have been a few hours.
I hope you’re all right, she told him inside her mind. I hope you found help, and that you’ve gone to the captain and that he turned the ship around to follow me….Hot tears bubbled up under her closed lids as she realized that whatever Thing had managed to do, it most certainly did not involve persuading the captain to pursue her. For a start, how would he know where to go? The ocean was vast, and the ship Emmeline was now being held captive in was tiny by comparison. It would be like looking for a teardrop in a lake.
“Well, well!” A voice burst into Emmeline’s thoughts as a trapdoor into her tiny, frozen prison was lifted. Outside she could see cold, sparkling stars and windblown spray, and the sound of raucous laughter trickled in through the gap. “Everythin’ all right in here with you, Your Ladyship?”
“I—please! I need…” But the man was already gone. The trapdoor clacked back into place, muffling his laughter as he replaced the padlock. They had been doing this at regular intervals, Emmeline realized—looking in to check whether she was alive, and conscious, but not actually giving her anything. She was desperately thirsty.
She tried to settle into a corner, doing her best to keep herself warm. Think of fires, and sunshine, and hot soup, she told herself. Think yourself warm! After a few minutes of this, however, she had to give up. Thinking about warm things was only making her feel colder—and she was starting to see her breath in the air like a tiny cloud, so she knew she wasn’t imagining it. Inside her prison she was freezing.
She hoped they’d get wherever they were going before she’d never be warm again.
“You ain’t leavin’ me behind!” Thing’s teeth were set, and his eyes glittered. He clutched Emmeline’s satchel to his skinny chest like it was a lump of gold. “I ain’t lettin’ ya!”
“Look, Thing, we can’t bring you with us. You have to understand.” Sasha was busily folding up some sort of map, so big that it would have covered a wall. Thing couldn’t read well enough to understand what was written on it, but a strange symbol near the top of the sheet caught his attention. It was like a large round eye with several wiggly lines that made him think of legs or tentacles coming out of it, and it was surrounded on all sides by a vast field of white. Something about it drew his gaze but made him want to look away at the same time.
“All I understand is that the only friend of the kid you’re tryin’ to save isn’t allowed to be part of rescuin’ her,” said Thing, dragging his eyes away from the map and renewing his grip on the satchel. “I can help, y’know! She trusts me!”
“She doesn’t trust anyone, Thing,” said Sasha, making one final fold in the map. She slid it off the table and into a large case, along with several others, then buckled the case closed. “She’s been raised not to trust anyone, not even her own parents. They thought—for better or worse—that bringing her up like that would keep her safe.” She shook her head and muttered something Thing couldn’t hear.
“But she—she saved me, from that man….”
Sasha turned to Thing, her eyes softening as she grasped him gently by the upper arms. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, you know. I’m sure Emmeline likes you well enough, but you’re not her friend. So why don’t you go home and forget about all this, and let us take care of it from here.”
Thing grimaced at Sasha’s words. “Well, if you can’t bring me with you, will you at least tell me where you’re goin’?”
“No. I can’t,” said Sasha, straightening up and releasing her grip on Thing’s arms.
“Does it ’ave anythin’ to do with that weird eye thing on the map?” said Thing, hazarding a guess.
“What do you know about that?” Sasha s
tood perfectly still, and Thing didn’t think he was imagining the look of fear in her eyes.
“Oh, you know,” Thing said, thinking as he spoke. “Only what Ems told me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sasha. “Emmeline is completely ignorant of anything to do with that map.”
“Sure about that, are ya?”
“Yes,” said Sasha, swallowing hard.
“Interestin’,” said Thing. Just then Edgar came back into the room. Sasha had cleaned and rebandaged his shoulder. His color was back, and there was a sparkle in his eye.
“Are you ready?” he asked Sasha. “We’ll be docking within the hour, and we won’t have time to waste. We’ll need to get to—oh. Hello,” he said, finally noticing Thing. “What are you still doing here?” He smiled down at him, and only his restless fingers gave away his impatience.
“I were just tellin’ Sasha ’ere about Emmeline and the wavy eye,” he said, straightening his back. “Nothin’ important.”
“Emmeline and the what?” Edgar said, glancing up at Sasha.
“The sun is warm,” said Sasha cryptically.
“But there is ice on the breeze,” Edgar finished, blinking.
“Er—right,” said Thing into the silence that followed this strange exchange. “Anyway. We was discussin’ my role in the rescuin’ of Emmeline, actually, just as you so rudely barged in.”
“Your role?” said Sasha, shaking herself out of whatever dream she’d been in. “You don’t have a role!”
“That’s not what this says.” Thing nodded down at the satchel in his hands.
“That’s nothing! That’s simply Emmeline’s bag—her tricks, her gimmicks, her…her little means of making herself feel safe!” Sasha frowned, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Yeah, that,” agreed Thing, remembering the vast sheet of white on the map. The odd words Sasha and Edgar had exchanged settled quietly into his brain too. “And also some very interestin’ stuff about…ice.” He felt his way into the next thought, very carefully. “Ice, and stuff what lives in it.” Sasha’s eyes opened wide, like someone had slapped her on the back.
“Are you—do you even—what are you talking about?”
“Guess you’ll have to bring me along. It’s far too much to explain here,” said Thing with a sniff.
“But—what about your parents? Your family?” asked Edgar. “Won’t they worry?”
Thing shrugged, shaking his head. “Shouldn’t think anyone’s worried about me for four, five years.”
Edgar blinked. “How old are you?”
“Not sure, exacly. ’Bout twelve, or thereabouts.” He saw Edgar and Sasha share a look.
“Well—all right. If we bring you—and it’s only an if—will you tell us everything that Emmeline discussed with you?” Edgar’s words had sharp edges.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Thing, his heart beginning to race again. Despite this, he kept his voice low and bored, and even chanced a yawn. “Whatever. Just let me come, yeah? I’ll be useful. Swear.”
“Fine,” said Sasha. “Come. But I’m not taking responsibility for you.”
“Suits me,” said Thing, who didn’t know what it felt like to have someone else take responsibility for him. “Now. Finally. Will someone tell me where we’re goin’?”
It seemed that hours were passing in Emmeline’s prison, but she had no way of knowing how many. All she knew was that the cold was growing stronger, like a wild animal getting more and more enraged. It had started nipping at her a long time ago, taking bites of her warmth away, devouring it until Emmeline was left with nothing but her bare bones. Beside her lay an empty dish, which had been half filled with warm, porridgy gruel a while back—Emmeline had eaten it, but it hadn’t helped to take away the gnawing inside. She was in a constant state of half sleep, never sure if what she was seeing or hearing was real, or dredged up out of the depths of her mind.
Vaguely she heard a clatter and felt a gust of bitter cold wind on her face.
“Girl! Look lively down there. The boss wants to speak to ya.” Emmeline didn’t reply because the words didn’t seem to make any sense. She was feeling tired and just wanted to sleep. If she could only sleep, everything would be all right….
“Woo-hoo! Girlie! Wakey, wakey!” Emmeline didn’t hear this, and so she didn’t move. “Here—she’s not doin’ anythin’. Give us a hand with this, will ya?” One of the men dropped down into Emmeline’s compartment, catching his breath at how cold it was. For a split second he gazed at Emmeline’s small form—her bare legs beneath her grubby dress, her light jacket that didn’t even fasten properly—and shivered inside his heavy winter coat.
“Get ’er up here!” called a voice from above, snapping the man out of his thoughts. Quickly he bent and picked Emmeline up, and within a few seconds she’d been handed out through the trapdoor. Her skin was ice-cold to the touch, and her eyes were firmly fixed shut. The bits of her skin that could be seen were a uniform gray, and her breathing was shallow.
“This is your fault, y’know,” one of the men barked at another. “If you hadn’t insisted on getting started with that card game, we’d never have forgotten to check on the kid.”
“My fault? That’s rich! Whose idea was it to put her in there in the first place? I believe—and correct me if I’m wrong—that it was yours!”
“Now look here—” began the other man, his face reddening, but he never got to finish his sentence.
“If one of you fools doesn’t get that child covered up and warm this instant, you’ll all be forcibly unshipped in Newfoundland without a stitch of clothing.” Nobody moved. “And I will not be paying any of you so much as a red cent.” Instantly someone grabbed a blanket and wrapped Emmeline snugly in it while someone else started warming up a pot of soup. A third dispatched himself to find warm clothing, and a fourth threw a few sticks into the furnace. Gradually the pink began to creep back into Emmeline’s face, and her eyes started to move, ever so slowly, behind her eyelids.
“Gentlemen. I want you all to feel for this child as though she were your own,” announced the pale-faced man, looking around at his tattooed, gap-toothed crew. “On second thought, actually, I will say this: I’d like you all to feel for this child as though she were the treasured only daughter of your employer—for that’s how precious she is to me, boys—and I want you all to know that whatever harm comes to her will be revisited upon your own persons, times ten. Am I clear?” The listening men stood to attention, each of them focused utterly on the weird, pale-skinned man who’d convinced them to come north. “At this time of year?” some of them had scoffed. “He must be mad!” But he’d shown them all the color of his money, and, one by one, they’d caved.
And now here they were.
“As ice, sir,” said one. “Clear as ice.”
“Wonderful,” he replied. “Don’t disturb me again until she wakes.”
Emmeline wondered why someone was squeezing her head. It seemed like a pair of iron-strong hands were wrapped right around her skull, and whoever owned those hands was taking great delight in prodding her, repeatedly, in the temples. A tiny crack of light was just seeping in between her closed eyelids, and her mouth felt like she’d swallowed a pint of liquid nitrogen.
“Aaargh,” she said.
“Quite,” came the slippery reply. “Glad to see you’re awake finally.” Emmeline’s tummy dropped down to her toes when she recognized the voice as that of the pale-faced man, and she concentrated on breathing, slowly and calmly, as her insides bobbed back up to their accustomed place.
“Where?” she croaked. “Who?”
“Excellent questions,” he replied. “To which we shall return later. But first I need to know one or two small details. I’m sure you understand.” Emmeline forced her eyes open, and a lancing pain howled through her head. She winced, and her eyes slid closed again as she tried not to cry out. “Don’t move, or do anything strenuous, just yet,” said the man. “You’ve been rather unwell for the last few
hours, and I’m sure it will take your body some time to recover fully. All right?” Emmeline said nothing in reply. She was too busy trying to force her brain to stop hurting.
“Want to go home,” she said, even though she didn’t really. In books that was usually what people said when they were kidnapped, so she felt she should stick with protocol.
“Well, I’m afraid that won’t be happening,” replied the man. “Now. Before we begin, is there anything you need?”
“To go home!” croaked Emmeline.
“And they said you were such an intelligent girl,” sighed Pale Face. “It appears to me as though you have a distinct difficulty in understanding what perfectly rational adults are saying to you.”
“Water,” said Emmeline eventually. She hated giving in, but her whole body was beginning to feel like she’d been placed in a tub of salt to dry out. Pale Face snapped his fingers, and Emmeline heard someone leaving the room.
“You will cooperate with me, young lady.” The words sounded uncomfortably close. Emmeline jerked away from the sudden warmth of Pale Face’s breath on her skin, her eyes flying open. She was finding it hard to focus still, but there he was, standing over her like a bad dream. She pulled the blanket she was wrapped in a little more tightly around herself. What a horrible man, she thought in a small, calm voice that came from deep inside her. Maybe when I get a chance, I can get to my satchel and…But then she remembered, and despite her best efforts, a tear broke loose.
Just then a sailor entered the room with a metal tankard in one hand and a deep bowl with a wide brim in the other, both of which he thrust at Emmeline. She stared up at him—his face was mostly beard.
“If ye don’t fancy self-service, I’ll happily pour it over yer head,” said the sailor after a second or two. Hastily Emmeline wriggled free of her blanket and took hold of the handle of the frigid tankard. She grabbed the lip of the bowl with her other hand and carefully settled it on the arm of her chair. The soup inside it was far too hot to eat; great gusts of steam rose from its surface. She gazed at the spoon that had been placed in it, marveling at how it was managing not to melt. The smell radiating from the bowl reminded her a little of wet wild boar, but anything was better than being too weak to run.
The Eye of the North Page 7