by Caro King
First, there was absolutely nothing there.
Second, she had a really bad feeling that, although there was nothing there, SOMETHING was staring in at her through the windscreen. Staring right into her eyes.
The car bounced. More scratches appeared in the bonnet and then all was still. Her heart thumping madly, Hilary threw open the door and scrambled out. Arguments were breaking out all over the place.
‘Parts from a passing plane,’ barked a large man with a purple face. ‘You hear it all the time on the TV.’
‘Meteorites,’ said a boy on a bicycle, staring enthusiastically at the sky. ‘Falling so fast that even a small one has enough impact to dent sheet metal. Then they just lie there, looking like ordinary stones …’ He switched his gaze to the ground.
Shivering, Hilary sat down by the road and waited for the mess to sort itself out. The sense that invisible eyes had been watching her still made her skin tingle with fright. She wished very much that her day had begun a little differently, because deep in her heart she knew that she would never feel really safe again.
Skerridge had been nipping between the cars, trying to keep the blue one in sight, but it was a tricky job. As soon as he realised that he had been following the wrong one for the last few miles he decided to go over instead of around.
Jumping, from one roof to the next and occasionally on to a bonnet if it was convenient, he went looking for the right blue car. He could feel roofs and bonnets buckling underneath him due to the weight of all the magic in his bones, but the yelling Quick didn’t cause him any bother so he ignored them and kept going.
A bunch of kids stared out of the windows of a bus. Their names tripped quickly through his head, but since he didn’t need to know who they were he ignored that too. He reached the bus and ran up the back of it on to the roof. Inside, the kids hit mass hysteria and the panic-stricken driver screeched to a halt, yelling into his radio for help.
At the front edge of the roof, Skerridge paused. He looked ahead. Away in front was a car of the right shade of blue. Right Madam and Obstacle were just getting out of it.
Swiftly, Skerridge leaped from the roof of the bus he was on to the roof of the one in front and then on to the roof of the blue car. His targets had just disappeared around a corner. Skerridge hopped down on to the bonnet and was about to hop off it again on to the road when he happened to glance in through the windscreen.
He stared for a long moment, his heartstrings pinging in his chest. He’d know that face anywhere, even diluted by several generations of Quick blood. He smiled right into the eyes that were just the colour of rainwashed skies. It was nice to know that Senta Melana’s offspring were still around.
Then he leaped on to the road and went to find Right Madam.
‘She was like, so BEAUTIFUL,’ said Nin for the umpteenth time.
‘Yep,’ agreed Jonas. ‘And nice with it. Didn’t complain about you staring at her, for a start. Look, this must be the station.’
It looked like a sort of glass and plastic ship and was bustling with people. Just outside was a flower seller and just inside was a kiosk selling coffee and doughnuts. Nin forgot about Hilary Jones and breathed in the aroma. She hadn’t had a doughnut in forever. Or coffee come to that.
‘No,’ said Jonas, before she could ask. ‘We need to get tickets first.’
They joined the queue. It was a short one and they were at the window in no time.
‘Two halves to Bury St Edmunds, please,’ said Jonas politely.
The ticket man, whose name badge said he was Rajinder Singh, looked back doubtfully.
Nin shuffled forward. ‘We’re going to see my auntie,’ she said brightly.
The man glanced at Nin, who looked him in the eyes and beamed. He relaxed slightly.
‘Two halves?’
‘Yep. I’m fourteen and my sister here is eleven, so that’s two halves.’
Nin kept smiling so as to distract the ticket man from the fact that Jonas looked at least sixteen.
Mr Singh sighed. ‘Got any ID?’
‘ID? No, sorry, should I have?’
Mr Singh considered things. The girl seemed all right, even if her brother was rather … well … rough looking.
‘I’d advise you to get some ID because the next person might not be such a soft touch, right? Sure you want singles, not returns?’ Mr Singh smiled at Nin, then tapped on his ticket machine, which spat out two oblongs of card. Jonas handed over the notes and got some change.
He dragged Nin over to one side and grinned at her. ‘You’re quite handy really, aren’t you?’
‘Oh thanks,’ Nin said mockingly. ‘Nice to know I’m some use!’
They hurried down an enclosed ramp on to the platform, and on to a train with Thameslink written on it. As soon as they had found a seat the doors whined shut and they were on their way around the heart of Celidon.
Raw filled the sky in front of Jik, the pallid disc of the sun gleaming like silver through its misty wall. It frightened him, but there was no choice save to go on. This was the quickest way to reach Nin and so he stepped forward into the Heart.
At once, curls of mist rose from his mud as the Raw began to unmake him. Everything in the Land was formed from raw magic, including its Fabulous, and right now, the raw magic that made up Jik was trying to become one with the raw magic swirling all around him, as a single drop becomes one with the ocean.
He couldn’t stop the Raw from unmaking him, but if he focused hard on who he was and what he was doing, Jik knew that he could slow the process down and maybe stay whole enough to reach the other side. His new outer layer meant there was more of him to last, but even so, if he made it through, he’d end up worn to a strip. And if he lost his focus for even a second, the Raw would take him apart.
Because this Raw was so old, the rock that was the centre of the Land, that lay beneath the grass and the earth like bones lay beneath flesh, had been unmaking itself for longer. Ahead of Jik lay a network of fog-filled chasms where the rocky skeleton had crumbled more quickly into the Raw, leaving behind ridges like raised pathways. Some of the ridges spiralling out from where he stood would lead nowhere, but Jik knew the lie of the Land, even the parts that weren’t there any more, and he chose the one ridge that went on and on, joining with others and branching off again, right across the Heart.
He ran on, following the last remaining ridge of Land, until he reached the centre of the Heart. There he stopped to stare, trying to make sense of it all.
Although the Raw still coiled its misty tentacles at his back, in front of him it had gone, leaving empty air. Here even the bones of Land had dissolved. Only his one ridge went on, a skeletal finger of rock like a bridge across the dark nothingness. He could sense that the empty space below had no bottom, nor was there any sky overhead. Just darkness everywhere.
And he’d never seen such DARK darkness before. It was not like the dark of night, because night is still full of things and this darkness was empty. Besides, all you needed to do with night-time was wait for the sun to come back. This dark was dark because everything had been taken away from it, even the possibility of light.
And then Jik’s inner fires chilled as he realised that this was the worst thing ever.
The plague had unmade the Fabulous, sending them back to the Raw. Now it was unmaking the Long Land, sending that back to the Raw too. But even when that was all over, the Raw would never again give birth to a new Land or a different kind of Fabulous. Because now the plague was going even further. It was killing the Raw. What Jik could see before him was the death of Magic itself.
In that moment he understood how late he was. Like turning up for a train just as the station was closing and the ticket office was pulling down the blinds. He was a new Fabulous, but he would never know what he could become. Long before he had time to find out, the Land would die and so would Magic and so would he. He would be dead forever before he had really lived.
The loss of all his possibilities hurt s
o much it nearly undid Jik on the spot. But then he remembered Nin and the pain began to recede. Nin was his friend and soon she was going to need him, and when she needed him Jik was determined to be there.
Trembling in every grain of his mud, Jik looked down.
It was strange that this one last ridge went on, stretching across the void. He wondered where it led. He would find out soon enough.
If mudmen had been built that way, he would have drawn a quivering breath, or swallowed hard. As it was, the flame in the hollows of his eyes wavered, like a candle in a draught.
Jik bunched up his fists and went on.
18
Nothing Really Bad Will Ever Happen
onas had to dump the remaining crowsmorte net in a litterbin on their way to the main King’s Cross station. The stalks had dried up, shrivelled into something like straw and begun to fall apart in clumps. It seemed that crowsmorte couldn’t survive away from the Land.
They found the train to Peterborough, where they would have to change for Bury St Edmunds, with ten minutes to spare before it left. Plenty of time to get a takeaway coffee and some doughnuts with the change from Grandad’s notes.
‘This is like, so Widdern!’ Nin said cheerfully. She was feeling oddly delicate, as if she were made of glass. Somehow, being in the Widdern was sharpening the realisation of what she had lost. It wasn’t that she had forgotten about her mother, but when she was in the Drift, the memory of the Widdern had an unreal quality about it. Now it was the reverse and the Hounds and Dandy Boneman and all the terrible and wonderful things of the Drift were like a dream exposed to sunshine, shrinking beneath the glare of normal things. Things like coffee and doughnuts.
They found a seat near the front of the train and settled down. Nin handed Jonas his doughnut, Jonas passed Nin her coffee. She settled back with a sigh.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘now I’m looking forward to a nice, peaceful journey!’
Skerridge picked the carriage next door. He settled into the nearest empty seat and gazed around. It was comfortable, even though there were sweet wrappers scattered round his feet and a sticky mark where someone had dropped their coffee. The Quick were never the cleanest of folk.
Occasionally Quick would wander up and down searching for a seat. If any of them looked like they were going to try and sit on his, Skerridge hissed faintly and they moved on in a hurried and confused way.
Finally the whistle blew and the train began to move. Skerridge watched the platform flick by and then they were out of the station. He stared blankly at the view for a while, but it was dull so he soon got bored and turned his attention to his neighbour.
He was sitting next to an elderly woman who was knitting something complicated in pink wool. It looked like a baby’s shawl. On the other side of the aisle was a woman and a small boy. The boy stared at Skerridge in dumb horror.
Skerridge ignored the kid and watched Knitting’s fingers twist the wool into lacy shapes. When she paused for a moment to gaze out of the window, he pulled out one of the needles and gave the wool a tug. Feeling the yarn unravel, she looked down.
‘Gaaah!’
Skerridge was surprised an old lady could yell that hard. Knitting looked wildly round the carriage and spotted the boy.
‘You! You horrible child. I suppose you think it’s funny, ruining an old woman’s hard work …!’
The boy watched her, frozen with shock. Skerridge grinned at him and he went as white as a sheet and burst into tears.
‘Now hang on a minute!’ The boy’s mother was on her feet. ‘My Sammy wouldn’t do a thing like that! He’s been sitting here quietly all this time. So just you apologise, you old …’
‘You need to discipline that child …’ yelled Knitting.
‘Don’t you hit my boy! I saw you! You were going to smack him, that’s assault that is –’
Knitting’s knitting went flying across the aisle. The boy ducked and slid under a seat.
Skerridge moved, it was getting dangerous back there. Heads were beginning to turn as the other passengers either watched or joined in.
Four seats up he found a packet of crisps, which was nice because he was feeling peckish. When he had finished them he put the empty packet back in their owner’s lap. She was too busy reading her book to notice, though how she could ignore the screaming from Boy’s Mum and Knitting he had no idea. Bookgirl reached for her crisps. Frowning she lowered her book.
‘Hey, Sue! You stole my crisps! Honestly. Can’t you leave anything alone! Just get your own and stop cadging off everyone else!’
‘What?’ murmured the girl opposite, lowering her own book. ‘Not me!’
‘Well, who was it then?’ snarled Bookgirl sarcastically. ‘Mr Nobody?’
Skerridge moved on. He had spotted a whole carton of orange juice further down the carriage. Which was nice because the crisps had made him thirsty.
‘So what now?’ asked Nin, following Jonas down on to the platform.
‘This is Cambridge, right. We change trains again, but the next one should be the last.’
‘Wow!’ Nin stared into the carriage they were passing, the one up from theirs. ‘What’s going on in there? Looks like a riot. That woman looks like she’s really going to hurt someone with that knitting needle. And …’
‘Come on! We’ve got to find the right platform.’
Nin shrugged and hurried after him.
Behind her a paperback whirled out of the window and hit a station guard.
On the concourse Jonas peered at the departures board and Nin watched three guards and a handful of policemen hurtle towards the train from King’s Cross.
Skerridge had a nasty moment when he couldn’t figure out which platform they had gone to next. He solved it by doing a superspeed tour of all the trains in the station. Fortunately for the Rail company and its passengers he found them on the third one he looked in.
Nin dozed for most of the second trip. When they arrived at Bury St Edmunds, they had to walk all the way from the station to the centre of the town to find the Abbey.
‘Problem is,’ Jonas said, ‘there’s supposed to be a gateway in the gardens of the Abbey, but I’ve no idea where exactly.’
Nin pointed to an extra shadowy place by the bridge where the sunlight didn’t quite reach, even though it should have.
‘What about that?’ she said, nervously.
Jonas studied it for a moment. ‘Well spotted, kid. Follow me, and stay close.’
On the Drift side the bridge looked much older, the wood was rotten, and dangling from one of its beams was a corpse.
Nin looked away quickly, just as its eyes sprang open. She hurried up the bank after Jonas, her feet slipping in the soft earth and covering the sound of something moving squishily behind her. A damp and foul-smelling hand touched her cheek and out of the corner of her eye she saw blackened fingertips and bone. She was so used to it all by now she didn’t bother to scream, she just focused on scrambling up the bank and the putrid thing soon slithered away behind her, its hand catching in her hair.
‘I wouldn’t hang about if I were you,’ said Jonas, grinning at her. ‘Things live in Quickmares, y’know.’
‘Yeah, like I kind of got that!’ grumbled Nin glancing over her shoulder. The bridge was eerily quiet. She scurried to keep up with Jonas. ‘So where next?’
‘East. We’re heading for the coast. We’ll walk the rest of today, then sleep. We should be there by lunchtime tomorrow.’
Nin felt a lurch in her middle. ‘At the House you mean?’
‘Uh-huh. Let’s just hope your plan works.’
‘What plan? I have a plan?’
‘Something about luck?’
‘That’s not a plan!’
Jonas grinned. ‘It’s as good a plan as any!’
‘What will you do?’ she asked nervously. It suddenly hit her that he might be going to leave her at the House and go back. ‘P’raps we can find your life too,’ she said hopefully.
Jon
as turned to face her. ‘It’s been four years since the BM got me,’ he said. ‘Far too long.’ He smiled. ‘Even so, I’m going with you, if that’s what you’re worried about. Got nothing better to do.’
The knot in Nin’s middle uncurled. ‘Thank you,’ she said meekly.
It was a nice day, by Drift standards. The sky was bright and full of cloudy castles. Ruined castles. Nin was beginning to see how much the Long Land was suffering. Its cry for help was everywhere. She felt sorry for it and wished there was something she could do. Even so, knowing that Jonas wasn’t going to leave her, she was beginning to feel very positive about things.
‘You know, you’re right,’ she said as they began to climb a low hill towards a ramshackle old hut with its door half off and a crumpled roof. ‘I mean, look how everything has worked out OK so far. I got away from Skerridge, Grandad gave us the money, bucketloads of bad guys have been after us, but we always escape. So why shouldn’t my luck hold, eh?’ Nin smiled. ‘My point is that however frightening things get, nothing really bad will ever happen.’
She looked up just as the sun disappeared and the dark clouds raced in with astonishing speed. Lightning cracked and the thunder was so loud and so sudden that she screamed.
‘Nin!’ Jonas yelled. ‘RUN! The hut. NOW!’
Rain came down in a sheet of liquid ice, the wind tore at her hair and made her gasp for breath. She ran, her lungs bursting with the effort. Jonas was a dark slash ahead of her and she followed him, unable to see through the rain pouring down her face. They were nearly at the hut, but it was going to be too late because she could hear them coming, baying like wolves only worse. She could feel the cold wind of their breath when Jonas got between her and them. He pushed her towards the broken doorway. She could see empty gloom behind it, but it was shelter.