Mitch had found a tunic that fitted him beside the road, and she’d splashed water across his face to ease away the mud. She glanced behind at him. Torzene bristled with locks, so she’d never manage alone, and he’d promised to follow if she darted beneath the trees.
‘Follow me, Mitch. Keep close.’
‘Is it Torzene we’re heading for?’
Phos nodded. Mitch’s heartbeat might hypnotise him; she tweaked her backpack straps and fiddled with a rip in her trousers before marching beside the boy. Pools of shadow grew over the broken road as the sun’s arch glided eveward, and Phos asked Mitch to keep watch behind; the boy stayed sure-footed even when walking backwards. Three horses without riders hurtled past, and she’d expected their riders to come chasing, but the path stayed empty in the fading light.
Each step brought her parents closer. Phos tried to recall Torzene’s layout to work out where to search, but memories of the mud and creaking huts left her twitching: images of Rastersen’s gash-like mouth reared up in her mind.
Night fell, and Phos led Mitch into the birch forest; a liss tree draped spindly branches across her face. The turf here was spongy and dry, and their backpacks made pillows as they camped. Owls punctured the silence with drawn-out hoots. She lay on the ground and yawned as she listened to their cries, but any pattern stayed buried.
Lantern light trickled over the trees as two horsemen cantered towards Leester, but Phos had hidden well, and night returned. They snatched four hours’ sleep to rise before dawn. Pale gold slashes streamed over the vault, and Mitch stood to scrape sleep from his eyes.
‘Do we have to visit Ferstus?’
‘Yes, unless you plan to wade through bogs. We sneak through before any guards wake.’
Ferstus’s rancid-fat stench had attacked her throat when she’d raced through on Rastersen’s horse, and now they had to scuttle through the reek. The first whiffs came when they were half a mile away; a faint touch of grease grew into a stink like boiling vomit.
Mitch’s eyes streamed as they entered the main street. Two-storey wattle-and-daub cottages slouched each side. Ahead, guards milled around a horse, and Phos hauled Mitch into a burnt cottage, where charred furniture sat on a puddled mud floor under a broken ceiling. Someone had wrestled a bed from the chaos. Had the guards carted Ferstus’s workers off to Torzene?
‘Move through, Mitch, and try the back door.’
Outside sat a scrap of rough turf. Ahead, the land sank into an immense bog. Flat islands of dark grass capped rippling brown water, but the smell had settled into a rotten-yeast flavour. A narrow path slid behind these cottages, and tinsel strings wormed where neighbours had seen boundaries. They sneaked past tens of silent shutters as daylight began to flow over the gardens. Phos expected their trespass to brew up shouts, but no one appeared.
Brick houses now, where short wooden fences claimed a slice of back garden. Easy to hop over, but ahead a six-foot blackwood fence stretched from house to bog, and the planks resisted Mitch’s kicks.
‘Some people never share,’ he said.
‘Here.’ Phos opened the back door of the house before the fence and stepped inside. Whitewashed walls stood behind polished wooden furniture, and an oil painting covered one wall, showing two young girls posing before smiling parents. Two baskets stuffed with lilies sat on a polished dresser; a petal had fallen from the baskets.
Phos held her breath. What would she tell the owners if they appeared? Daylight stroked through the shutters, but the living room stayed silent.
Mitch coughed. ‘Perhaps they have lanterns we can borrow.’
‘Let’s search.’
Stairs creaked as Mitch climbed and Phos followed. His body tensed as he reached the top, and she looked over his shoulder into a child’s bedroom. Faded blue rugs covered the floor, and a toy pram sat against a wall. On the far side, twin hammocks clasped two seven-year-old girls, and Phos slipped past Mitch – even youngsters knew stories.
Garlands of knitted dolls and animals surrounded the girls – twins, maybe, with silvery hair arranged into ringlets. Both wore pale blue dresses. Were they sleeping? Ribbons of daylight streamed through the bedroom shutters.
Phos touched the nearest girl’s sleeve, but neither girl moved. Their arms stayed folded over their chests, and Phos watched for signs of breathing or movement in the toys covering their bodies. Nothing. Mum had said you’d struggle to tell the difference between a sleeping child and one who had died.
Mitch rested his fingers on a girl’s neck, and he stooped to breathe air.
‘Hours old, but there’s lethewort.’
‘The sleeping draught?’ Phos shivered.
‘Enough helps you dream; too much makes a final gift. The toys and hair, it’s all arranged; you’ll not move for the love here, but what makes killing the kindest choice? Their parents must be in the other bedroom.’
‘Do we need to check?’
‘They’d learned something, and they couldn’t let their girls face the future,’ Mitch said.
Phos’s limbs wouldn’t shift; her gaze locked onto the nearest twin. What had the girl seen in her last moments? Had her parents’ faces given anything away?
Phos struggled back and glanced at the ballerina dolls balanced on a cabinet, then at a small wall mirror, everything free from dust.
They walked into a larger room, facing the street. Two slim, silver-haired adults lay face up on a spotless bed. The male’s cream waistcoat matched the woman’s tunic, and her crimson sash was tight and creaseless. A bedside table held a black flask and two elegant glasses. This couple would never stop holding hands.
Almost enough to explain the silence, but what sights lurked elsewhere? Had other deaths lacked this peace?
Mitch’s voice scratched out. ‘Still plan to visit Torzene?’
‘Sneak in, not visit.’
‘That’s our best option?’
‘Parents, Mitch; I told you.’
‘Didn’t your caning teach you? We need limits.’
‘I don’t.’ She paused. She’d never survive Torzene without Mitch’s talents. ‘The badness at Torzene will spread, and going there means we’ll see it early, so we can react.’
‘And we’ll get it worse. Best you travel alone.’
‘They’ll never expect us at Torzene, so it may be the safest place.’
‘Breaking into prison, that’s very Phos.’
‘We might find your dad.’
‘That’s what scares me – even in prison he’ll spend all day shouting. Best we split up.’
Phos faced him. ‘I won’t stop you running off, but the guards reach everywhere.’
Mitch glared.
‘Together we have a better chance: our skills fit and Torzene has locks,’ Phos said.
Mitch’s hand hovered an inch above the woman’s cheek. ‘Let’s not argue here. At least let’s leave Ferstus.’
‘I’ve always thought tomorrow should improve on today, so let’s start there. You’re right about leaving.’
Downstairs, Phos peered through the front door. The house looked over Ferstus’s main square and onto a line of thatched cottages, but men had ripped down houses to punch a hole in the village. An unfinished barn squatted where they’d been, a deformed wooden skeleton scorched on one side. Tools littered the barn’s base, saws, hammers, pots and pans scrambled together. Fire pans hid underneath sooty tarpaulins, and Mitch uncovered a cauldron.
‘They build and they cook; then they stop, so what happened?’
‘Keep moving, Mitch, or people will see.’ Phos guided him through a muck-filled alley winding between two cottages and out onto Ferstus’s north side. A patchwork of flower gardens ran out from the backs of the cottages; their splashes of red and blue made a barrier against the bog’s brown water. Mist still lingered, but they could skirt the houses here and travel dawnward.
Mitch stared back towards Leester.
‘We need to make sense, Mitch: if we know the church’s heart we might pre
dict their next move.’
‘Yes, being arrested will teach us loads.’
‘I’ve seen Torzene; there’s a huge courtyard at the back, and they’re still building its fence, so we’ll slip inside and listen.’
‘Listen to what?’ Mitch tugged at a mist-soaked frond.
‘Words about my parents or where Leester people have gone and what Torzene’s for, and most important, we find out why.’
‘Always with the questions, Phos, but you’ll never know which answers are right.’
‘It’s a start.’
‘It’s madness – you’ll stand out, and the guards will grab you. There’ll be no food at Torzene, but the Leester forest has blackberries and mushrooms.’
‘Not when winter comes.’
‘We split here. I’ll hole up in the forests; the guards will stop hunting soon.’
‘The trees are sick and getting worse, and what if fruit stops growing?’
‘Always this chatter about change, Phos.’
‘Everything changes if you wait long enough, and everything starts somewhere.’ Phos paused. ‘I kept running one idea past Dad. Trees and plants have seeds, so why not our world?’
Mitch’s hand stopped pulling at the frond. ‘Everything sprouted from a seed, did it? Everything we see and touch and eat?’
‘Has to come from somewhere.’
‘Everything? Flowers, bees, birds, rocks, air, leaves, houses, churches, caterpillars and carrots, more bees, cats and dogs and your scrawny arse all popped from this baby seed, did they? One the size of your brain?’
‘It’s a way of thinking, Mitch.’
‘You’re not safe, you’re half-mad. You look like a scarecrow, but you do entertain.’
‘Let’s stick together. I need you for lock picking and sneaking, and you need me for…well…you need me…end of sentence.’
‘A single seed for the whole world? Did your man Rastersen tell you this?’
‘Shut up, Mitch.’
‘What made your seed, and what plant spat it out?’
‘Shut up, will you?’
‘No, messing with your brain is fun. I’ll stick with you for a bit. Not long, mind.’
‘Just shut up.’
They walked eveward, and Ferstus’s houses gave way to cabbage fields. The dawnward road snaked onward, a muddy scar to pierce the fields and slide through the straggling grass and reach the moor beyond the village.
She’d keep the moor’s road on her right, keep it just visible. The damp fog brought extra cover, but she still felt Rastersen’s hands curling around her waist. Phos hefted two blankets from her backpack and handed one to Mitch.
Hours passed, and Mitch fell silent as their boots thudded over the soaking grass. They kept a steady rhythm as the day advanced, and Phos kept nudging Mitch away from the road.
Time to imagine Torzene’s purpose: did priests want loggers to keep carpenters busy and blacksmiths to forge horseshoes? Perhaps Dad was there to organise the money, but they’d tossed Dad’s ledgers over his floor and scattered coins everywhere.
Footsteps thudded through the fog, and Phos crouched before peeking at the road. Twenty people, a packed formation four abreast, and a cloaked priest at the head, with two club-waving guards behind. Dim shadows without faces and too distant to see her parents, but she stared.
‘Head down,’ hissed Mitch.
Words slid through the greasy air, and she caught the word ‘schedule’. The priest glanced her way, and a dim crimson flashed underneath his cloak. Phos froze, and Mitch gripped her waist to haul her onto the ground.
The group’s footsteps held their pace, and once they’d faded she raised her head. This mist might vanish in a heartbeat, so she should stay further from the road.
‘That was your man, wasn’t it? Your knees jammed.’
Three, four breaths, and she sat up and looked around. Phos squinted as a flurry of wind uncovered a tooth-like silhouette ahead: the squared blocks of Torzene’s lashed-together timberwork scratched the foggy sky.
‘Swing north, and we’ll circle towards the rear courtyard.’
‘That’s best, is it?’
‘Easiest way in: the back courtyard is huge, and the fence is all gaps.’ Teachers said trees took decades to grow, so you could only cut down a handful each year, and there sat another rule the priests had shattered.
Phos stopped. They’d heard nothing since the prisoners had vanished, but now several sharp cracks rang through the chilled air. Torzene’s battlements appeared ahead but quivered before sliding forward and shattering to scatter a framework of beams into the air. Two spars snapped, and a section of wall drooped and collapsed. A corner tower sank and vomited out timbers and sheets of plaster, and the whole front tipped forward and dissolved into billowing clouds of dust. Roaring filled her ears as Torzene crumbled.
Change had touched this place as it had touched her and her parents; violence threatened every corner of her world. A single falling beam would shatter her body, would shatter her parents’ skulls.
***
The grey mist enveloping Caliper faded, and more grass showed every moment. He crouched beside the standing stone and stared forward with one hand pressed into the waterlogged turf.
Christina had tricked agreement from his lips; she’d read him like a book and scribbled in his margins. Why had she asked him to bring others? Why hadn’t he thought of Torzene’s prisoners? Was he cider in her glass?
A tooth-like pattern formed in the air ahead where the church had rammed a vast wooden cap onto the ancient monastery of Torzene, and boxy pillars and rooms stood to shape a wall facing him like a fist. The stone foundation sat on a shallow hill, and guards loitered by the front entrance.
Caliper hid behind the stone and screwed up his eyes, trying to remember Christina’s words and the shapes her lips had created. She was right: this ramshackle fortress wasn’t her home. He’d have questions for her, but her words had stopped him rotting with the wheat at his windmill, so her thoughts should still live in his heart, and he’d skulk back to her henge before heading dawnward.
Splintering timber noises crunched through the air, and Caliper peeked around the stone. The fortress reared into view as mist faded, a vast wolf jaw shaking with fury. The leftmost wooden tower twisted and collapsed to spill out timbers as the decay spread, and those topmost cubicles slid forward as the front sagged to drag the timberwork down.
Was his mind adding sound, or did he hear screaming? Christina’s work, beautiful and dreadful all at once. He’d not forget his labouring over the windmill’s sails, but Christina’s power made him feel like a child waving a toy hammer at a blacksmith.
Torzene had become a rolling bank of filth that spat splintered planks and dust over the slope below. A single wooden block of a room burst from the cloud before tumbling over the ground, and plasterboard sheets surged out as dust seethed. Two bodies like floppy dolls smacked over the wreckage while broken tables and rugs cascaded over the earth.
High officers always grabbed the high-up offices, and he’d never regret any levelling, but if they’d dragged Leester families here there’d be more than upper-class bruises. Shouts and screams scraped through the haze. His blurted words, his permission – his fault.
Caliper ran forward: the few scraps of medicine he’d stolen might ease these pains. At least he’d search the old monastery stones for the injured and undo a crumb of the pain he’d caused.
Chapter 9: destruction breeds change
Mitch’s hands clasped Phos’s waist and dragged her back into the long grass. The impact winded her, but she raised her head and gazed at the destruction ripping through Torzene. Dust heaved out as screams curdled the air. Damage spread into the fence running behind; the barrier collapsed inwards, and its posts pointed at the fake village.
‘We’ll explore,’ Phos said.
‘Will we? Can’t we let this settle?’
‘Chaos, Mitch; no one will expect trespassers.’
The
y skirted the wreckage to reach the fence, and the screams died into a burbled wail as the dust cleared. Leaden clouds loitered above. Spars had tumbled like kindling over the older stone base, and ripped shreds of tarpaulin flapped through the air as two wiry guards hauled a body from beneath a beam.
The fence had collapsed into a shifting pile of broken stakes and planks. Mitch helped her climb. Inside, a fringe of trampled moor grass surrounded a sea of crude huts. A gaggle of ten-year-old boys ran towards them and yelled but veered away to scramble over the fence’s wreckage.
Acrid smoke clawed coughs from Phos’s chest, but she strode on and peered inside the nearest windowless shack, six feet high with a flat roof and bare earth floor. The rough-cut timber smelt fresh. An elderly couple sheltered in the next doorway and held hands while staring at her. Ahead, tens of similar shoddy huts pocked the mud.
Mitch glanced back. ‘How do we find your parents?’
‘Search the old part: it’s made of stone, so priests will stuff paperwork there.’
‘It’ll be full of guards.’
‘There’s children everywhere, and we’ll blend in so long as we act like we belong.’
Their path wound past a trio of bruised labourers squatting on the grass while holding their heads; one peeled a jerkin from a body. White sheets danced through the air, pages of escaping words. One flittered past, and her hand reached up, but she stepped back: she’d collect pages later with Dad.
Four guards raced past her and hauled a workman to his feet before shunting him against a hut. Their barked questions cowed the labourer into a closed-eyed panic, but the guards ran out of questions and let the labourer fall to his knees.
Mitch tapped her shoulder. ‘Stop staring. Shouldn’t we hunt for your parents?’
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