The Book of Story Beginnings
Page 13
“I think this is where I landed in the rowboat,” said Oscar. “The King might be nearby. Come on!”
Lucy continued to plod after him. At last, however, when they had skirted yet another outcrop only to find another stretch of empty beach, she sank onto the sand. “I suppose we picked the wrong way to come around the island,” she said as Oscar sprawled next to her. “Who knows if we’ll ever get to the Queen’s palace? We’ll die of thirst before we do.”
“Maybe we could use magic to make ourselves a drink of water,” Oscar suggested.
Lucy was watching him reach into his pocket for the bottle of potion when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head in time to see three kittens — one black, one white, and one calico — come rolling out of the jungle onto the sand. She stared, mesmerized, thinking they looked like they belonged in front of a fireplace chasing a ball of yarn. The three kittens were joined by a big cat — their mother, Lucy thought — and another cat — their father, she decided — and then a crowd of aunts and uncles and cousins all popping out onto the sand.
“Oscar . . .” she said.
“Run, Lucy!” Oscar jumped up and jerked Lucy to her feet.
“Stop!” called a man’s voice as they stumbled across the sand.
“No!” Oscar pulled at Lucy.
“Stop! Please!” called the man again, in such a desperate voice that Lucy yanked her hand loose from Oscar’s and turned around.
It was the King. There could be no doubt about that, thought Lucy, though he looked even less regal than Oscar’s description. His battered crown was propped askew on dirty, tangled brown hair streaked with gray. A sleek black cat was rubbing against the King’s bare ankles and feet. The three kittens were crawling up the hem of his tattered purple robe.
“Please don’t run away.” The King sounded even more pathetic than he looked. “We haven’t had any company for a year.”
Lucy looked down at the hundreds of cats lolling and strolling about in the sand.
“Our loyal subjects. Alas — not the sort of company with which one can converse,” said the King.
“One could if one hadn’t changed them into cats!” Oscar muttered.
The King’s gaze narrowed on Oscar. “Have we perhaps had the pleasure of making your acquaintance in the past, sir?” he said.
“I don’t think so.” Oscar’s voice was steady.
“Quite right — unlikely that we have met.” The King shook his head. “So difficult for us to entertain these many years. Our wife, you see . . .” He paused to pick the kittens off his robe. “You would not guess it to look at us, but we are married to the most beautiful woman in the world.” More kittens were climbing up the King’s robe; the faster he picked them off, the more they swarmed.
“I thought you said he called the Queen a hag!” Lucy whispered to Oscar, perhaps more loudly than she should have, for the King looked up with a frown.
“We had a quarrel with the Queen some years ago,” said the King. “Since then, she has seen fit to call our home her home.”
“Don’t get him started talking about the Queen,” Oscar murmured.
“He seems harmless enough. Nothing like you described,” whispered Lucy.
The King’s frown curved into a tight smile. “Your companion does you a discourtesy, dear lady, in not presenting you to us,” he said, and it took Lucy a moment to realize that he was expecting Oscar to introduce her. It took her another moment to realize that Oscar wasn’t about to do any such thing.
“I’m Lucy!” She made a stab at a curtsey, bending her knees and bobbing her head.
The King looked pleased. “We welcome you, Lady Lucy, and would be delighted if you would consent to visit us at court — that is to say, if you are able to overlook the shortcomings of the rough setting which circumstances compel us to call our court.” He gestured toward a gap in the trees. “You must be fatigued — or thirsty perhaps.”
“No!” said Oscar. “Thank you, but we must be on our way —”
“Yes!” Lucy interrupted. “I mean, yes, please. We’re actually extremely thirsty.”
“Well, then — it would be cruel to allow you to suffer any longer. We may not be able to offer much, Lady Lucy, but we can give you water, if you will grant us your leave to guide you.” The King held out his hand to help Lucy navigate through the cats. He pushed aside a cluster of vines so she could follow him into the shadow of the trees.
Lucy knew Oscar was behind her because one of the cats shrieked.
“Watch your feet!” the King called. “Cats have tails!”
As she hurried after the King, Lucy could hear leaves rustling in the underbrush. Every so often, a cat would zip across the path in front of her or dash up the trunk of a tree. Lucy jumped every time, but the King and Oscar seemed unperturbed. They’re used to it, she thought.
The sunlight flickered green through the leaves of the trees. Heavy vines drooped and crisscrossed above Lucy’s head, so low that she had to duck at times. Once a cloud of tiny biting insects swarmed about her. She swatted at them until the King turned, waved his hand, and said something that made them fly off. A charm, thought Lucy, turning to look at Oscar. He gave her a pleading look.
“I just want to get a drink,” she whispered.
Meanwhile the King chattered away. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter what he was talking about — the merits of long-haired cats as opposed to short-haired, the typical number of kittens in a litter, and whether cats preferred mice to fish — somehow he always brought the Queen into the conversation. As a lecture on the qualities of a good mouser devolved into a rant against the Queen, Lucy could sense Oscar’s fear coiling up like a spring.
By the time they stepped out of the forest, the King was telling Lucy about his quarrel with the Queen. “So Tom eats her canary and she says to get that beast away from her sight or she’ll have him drowned. The next thing we know, we’re tossed out of our home and she gives orders for every bird on the island to be given safe haven within the walls of the palace! And now we are left with this!” The King swept his arm wide.
They were in an immense clearing filled with round wooden buildings — houses that might have been neat and pretty once upon a time, but were now falling apart from disrepair. The houses were so close together that neighbors could step from one doorstep onto the doorstep across the way or shake hands without ever leaving their doorsteps at all. Only there weren’t any neighbors. There were only cats — hundreds of them — passing in and out of the open, derelict doorways.
“On the bright side of things, Lady Lucy, the crystalline waters of the well in this village are unrivaled in the kingdom,” said the King.
“He’s not so bad,” Lucy murmured to Oscar.
“Just try not to say anything to upset him.”
The King led them to a round stone well with the tattered remains of a thatched roof above it. There was a crank with a rope for pulling up the water.
“There was a time when we should not have had to draw our own water,” the King lamented as he turned the crank. “And now we draw water not only for ourself but for our subjects as well.” A wooden bucket filled to the brim with bright, beautiful water rose out of the dark well. Lucy forgot everything but her thirst as she leaned forward. She held out her hands to bring the bucket to her lips.
“No! No! This won’t do!” snapped the King. He let go of the crank and it whipped around like an airplane propeller. Lucy grabbed at empty air. The bucket slapped the water below.
“It won’t do at all!” the King muttered as he stomped over to the edge of the clearing. He leaned over to pick something up from the ground. Then he broke off a tree branch, long and thin like a violin bow. He bent it and ran it through his fingers, as if he were testing its strength.
Lucy ignored Oscar’s frantic whispers. She watched as the King returned to the well. “Won’t do at all!” he said, and raised the tree branch up in the air.
“Run, Lucy!” whi
spered Oscar, pulling on her arm.
But before she could move, the King began:
“For ladies fair, we can’t have that
To drink from a bucket, one must be a cat!
The lady at the well
requires this spell:
Drip and droplet,
You’re a —”
“No!” Oscar shouted, so forcefully that the King looked up in astonishment.
“Not if I can help it!” Oscar raised his arm above Lucy’s head. When she looked up, she saw the potion bottle in his hand. A drop of blue liquid fell out and landed on her nose.
“Bird!” said Oscar.
Danger! Danger! Danger! Not as much a word repeating itself as a sensation, like the blood pumping rapidly through her heart, or the beat of her wings grabbing like hands at the air, as if she were scrabbling up a rock wall. The feeling of danger lessened the higher she rose, and that was good.
She pulled herself up and floated in a circle, her wings twisting, the tips of her feathers shifting slightly as they balanced her weight on a warm updraft of air. Her eyes scanned the crowd of cats below almost mechanically. Her vision was so acute that she could practically see their hungry eyes and sharp, eager teeth. Yet she wasn’t afraid now. Her strong wings pulled her in a straight line toward a high cliff that rose like a fist out of the forest. Its steep face rushed toward her as she approached, and she pulled herself even higher, exhilarated at the prospect of safety that the cliff offered. Then her bright red feet grasped the rough gray stone of a protruding ledge, her wings fluttered efficiently, and everything was still and peaceful.
But only for a moment, for she was thirsty. The word water did not come to mind, but the knowledge of water did. Her wings flapped, and she flew upward again, her eyes scanning the cliff until she saw a glint of bright silver — a puddle on one of the rock ledges. She dropped down with precision. The ledge was much larger than the last, and she took several steps toward the water. She bent her head and drank.
Her head came up with a quick jerk that surprised her. She wasn’t used to it moving so quickly. She turned from the puddle and found, somewhat to her annoyance, that she couldn’t take a step without her head jutting forward. She heard a soft cooing noise that was soothing to her nerves. She bobbed about and listened to it until she realized that it was coming from her own throat. Feeling that there was something not quite right about that, she ruffled her feathers and sat down like a stone to think. In fact, the word think popped into her head, shocking her with its power. I can think! These are words! said her thoughts, and she listened as hard as she could for more words to come because she knew that words were somehow very important.
Fighting back the desire to make the soothing noise in her throat, she studied a dusting of sand and gravel on the stony surface in front of her. Then her beak came down and snapped up a speck of gravel. She swallowed it, and it was almost a minute before more words came into her mind. When they did, they hit her like a slap. I don’t eat gravel! she thought. For one second, she thought she would be sick.
She clung to the feeling of revulsion because it helped her think. Using scraps of thought and emotion as guideposts, she began to work backward in her memory. She remembered all the cats, of course. But that memory brought out nothing more than a strong impulse to fly, so she veered away from it.
The word Lucy was important, she was sure, for many different voices seemed to be babbling it inside her head. Trying to pick out one voice from another was difficult, however — like trying to hear a whisper in the middle of a crowd.
Lucy — sweetie! said one voice, for one second louder than all the others, and she briefly recognized her mother’s voice. So Lucy was her name. She squeezed her eyes shut (an act that went completely against instinct) so that she could listen harder. Another voice said Lucy. It belonged to a boy with a long face and light brown hair. Then another voice said, It works, Lucy! It was her father, holding a little blue bottle in his hand.
She found that if she sat perfectly still, it was easier to listen to the voices. It was easier to keep her thoughts in line. She remembered her flight from terror to the safety of her rocky perch. She remembered the long-faced boy — Oscar was his name — holding a little blue bottle over her head and saying Bird! The blue bottle made her think of her father again, and in the excitement, she fluttered her wings and forgot everything she had just recalled. Gradually, however, she managed to piece together enough of what had happened to understand that she was Lucy. She wasn’t a bird, but a girl who was searching for her father.
Unfortunately, she kept forgetting important things almost as soon as she remembered them. Still, she found she could always start over by repeating the name Lucy in her mind. She must have reconstructed the story dozens of times, progressively padding it with more and more memories. One of these memories was her own voice saying to Oscar, Who knows if we’ll ever get to the Queen’s palace?
If I’d only been able to fly. There’s one advantage to being a bird, her mind thought. Just then, her head darted forward and her beak snatched up another bit of gravel. The movement sent her mind spinning, and she promptly forgot everything again. She had to sit perfectly still until her mind reasserted itself. Why don’t you fly to the Queen’s palace? it said.
In a moment, her wings were flapping and she was airborne, turning to follow the curve of the cliff. Another advantage of being a bird was a strong sense of direction. She knew she must not retrace the route she had already taken on foot. She must keep the cliff on her left and the glittering sea on her right. Then she would be going toward the Queen’s palace.
She dove down, swooping across the tops of trees until the seashore lay below her like a road. She watched her shadow flicker on the wet sand. The thrill of the cool sea air rushing past was almost enough to make her lose her sense of purpose. Lucy! Lucy! Lucy! she told herself.
The beach ended abruptly, cut off by a cliff that jutted into the water. Lucy flew straight up and over the cliff, only to see something on the other side that made her stop short and land on a point of rock. Below her, the shoreline tucked inward, forming a natural harbor bordered by cliffs. Nestled at the back of the harbor was a city. Row upon row of round houses gripped a hillside so steep it seemed ready to slide into the sea. The houses were built so close together that their gleaming slate roofs looked like scales on a fish. Towering above them was a magnificent building.
What sort of building was it? Lucy had to work hard to remember the word palace, and then had to work even harder to figure out why it was that she cared about a palace in the first place.
She dropped down from the cliff and headed across the water toward the city. As she drew near, she saw that the houses near the shore were in a ramshackle state, with windows knocked out, doors knocked in, and chimneys knocked down. The streets were filled with pieces of slate that had come off the roofs. The houses closer to the palace were in better repair, and she saw several men talking outside one of them. She landed on a nearby rooftop to rest, and one of the men pointed at her.
A second later, Lucy was flying away. Something of greater interest had caught her eye. A ship was bobbing in the water next to a long wooden dock. She circled downward and perched on the ship’s tall mast, nearly toppling over before she caught herself.
There was something familiar about the ship. But she immediately forgot to wonder what it was. Her attention was drawn to the ship’s deck, where a crowd of children was hard at work. Two of them were heaving large canvas bags out of an open hatch. Two more dragged the bags across the deck to the top of a narrow gangplank leading down to the dock. Two more — a boy and a big girl who looked older than the rest — were lugging the bags down to the dock.
“Can’t we take a rest, Auntie?” said the big girl, dropping a bag on the dock.
“Careful now, Millie, or you’ll spill the cargo!” scolded a short, stocky woman. “Go and get the next bag while Jarvis and I stack these. Jack’ll help you.”
“Confound it!” said the stocky woman. “Ain’t we had enough trouble this trip?” She strode toward the scene of the disaster, but Lucy got there first, causing the girl to leap to her feet with a squeal.
“I couldn’t help it, Auntie!” whined the boy named Jack. “Millie pulled so.”
“Shush!” the woman hissed. “All of you — quiet now and careful.”
Lucy could feel her head bobbing back and forth like a metronome as she gobbled up the contents of the torn bag. It wasn’t sand after all! It was edible, and it was good, and the more she gobbled, the less she thought about caution. In fact, she forgot everything but a need to grab every last bit of birdseed.
“Give me your apron, Millie,” said the woman’s voice, as soft as a creaking board. Lucy heard the words but couldn’t understand them.
“But Auntie —”
“Hush up and hand it over! Quick now!” Still soft, but urgent. Lucy felt a small stir of alarm.
Now the voice was gentle and soothing. “There now, pretty bird. Pretty, pretty bird.”
And then the world was gone, and Lucy was enveloped in a cloud of something scratchy and white and horrible. She shrieked and fought, tearing with her claws and biting with her beak. She felt herself bouncing through the air. Voices were swearing and shrieking, someone was laughing, and then Lucy was thumped down and something else was thumped down around her. The horrible, scratchy whiteness pulled at her. It fell off her body and slid away across a wooden surface. Lucy skittered to one side, crashing into a wooden wall. A shadow fell over her. Looking up, she saw eyes peering at her through wooden slats. There were wooden slats all around her.