Deeplight

  The stories tumbled out.

  Hark heard about the time Entreater-of-the-Torrent prevented Kalmaddoth devouring everyone on Maddothmain by talking to it non-stop for nearly two days, finally persuading it to swim off in pursuit of the moon’s reflection.

  He heard about the youthful, passionate affair between Call-of-the-Air and Fifth Lament. Once, they had even smuggled wine and sweetmeats down in a bathysphere with them and enjoyed a romantic interlude, fairy-lit by phosphorescent creatures of the deep.

  Wailwind turned out to have a daughter, whom he had kept at a distance so that he would betray none of the priesthood’s secrets to her as his wits faded. Now Hark saw them together, rebuilding their bridges one invisible brick at a time.

  Moonmaid was the real revelation. She was enraged by Quest’s treachery, and even more furious that his accounts might shape forever how people saw the priests. She was determined to set the record straight, so she kept cornering Hark to pelt him with jagged anecdotes. Her personality still struck Hark as cold, but he learned that she could also be interesting and clever, with a ruthless eye for character.

  Best of all, the priests felt free to talk and reminisce together, now that they were less fearful of being overheard. Once, to his astonishment, Hark saw Moonmaid and tiny Seamist both laughing so hard at some shared memory that he feared for their health.

  One evening, Hark went to Lady’s Crave. He headed to one of the old taverns where the salvage crews and submariners drank, the sort where storytelling always started by moonrise. It was an inn where Hark had gone as a little kid to hear stories of the gods, and smuggling runs, and missions to the deep, and faraway lands. He would hang around on the edge of the crowd or wriggle in under a table, straining to hear some of the story, like a stray cat prowling for scraps.

  This time, he didn’t have to elbow a space in the tavern. The crowd shifted and made room for him, the way they did for friends and dangerous people. They no longer saw him as a skinny Shelter kid or Jelt’s sidekick. They saw a teller of stories strange and true, with his adventures written across his scalp. A space was cleared for him on a bench.

  Hark had arrived halfway through the telling of a tale, as he had so many times before. This time, however, he didn’t feel confused or left out. No stories were complete anyway. They were all really just parts of a bigger tale that could only be told by many different voices, and seen through many different eyes. There was always more of the story to learn.

  The story was being told through a sea-kissed song. The ‘singer’ was magnificent, creating silent music through her swaying as she signed, the expressions of her face ever shifting and expressive as the sky. A drummer held the beat, but everyone in the tavern matched it by stamping on the floor in time, sending an ever stronger vibration through the timbers. It was the heartbeat of the story, and everyone could feel it through body and soul. It filled Hark with a feeling of kinship and strength.

  It was a story of doomed lovers on a salvage mission to the Undersea, and Hark could tell that the singer had really been to those deeps. She showed him anguish, beauty and terror, and every moment was mesmerizing.

  Stories, stories. He had always been a storyteller, of sorts – eager to entertain, or win people over, or get something he wanted, or play the hero for a bit. Now other people’s stories were the treasures he prized. He was a storykeeper for gods and heroes.

  Once he could read and write, he would travel, he realized. He would leave Sanctuary and sail all over the Myriad. He would collect stories everywhere, and save them before they could fade away from everyone’s memory. You could keep people alive forever through stories.

  ‘What about you?’ someone called to Hark, after the sea-kissed song ended. ‘Are you telling us one tonight?’

  They wanted to hear the true story of the Cataclysm, or the Gathergeist’s strange dealings with the lantern wraiths of the deep, or the priests’ daring theft of the Dawn Sister’s gelatinous tresses while she slept. Of course he would tell one of those true tales tonight, while the audience listened, spellbound.

  For now, however, he was aware of others in the crowd, still mustering the courage to raise their voices. The old woman with tattoos from three submarines along her thin arm. A polite middle-aged man with a continenter medal pinned discreetly under his collar. A young man Hark recognized, looking nervous and rueful without his Leaguer uniform.

  Hark could see the stories they yearned to tell, glimmering in their eyes. They could be coaxed out, with a little effort.

  ‘In a while,’ Hark answered. ‘I’m listening for now.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank: Ella, a young reader who contacted me to ask whether I would ever consider including a deaf character in one of my books, triggering a small avalanche in my brain that resulted in the invention of the sea-kissed, after which she generously became my expert consultant; the other members of the Young People’s Advisory Board of the National Deaf Children’s Society (Amber, Adam, Cam, Esther, Francesca, Ida, Jayden, Jovita, Lily, Lucy, Molly, Mollie, Lucy, Reuben, Rhodri, Sam, Sarah and Zain) for all their incredibly useful input; My sensitivity readers (Jane Newman, Judith Tarr and Kayleigh Goacher, plus Ella, Jovita, Francesca and Ida from the YAB); Rosie Eggleston; my editor Rachel Petty for not screaming when I handed her a first draft slightly bigger than the moon, and for helping me hack it down to something book-sized; my agent Nancy Miles; Martin for putting up with a crazed, feral, semi-nocturnal author-girlfriend in deadline crisis for months; Rhiannon Lassiter for preternaturally clear-sighted feedback; Ships Beneath the Sea: A History of Subs and Submersibles by Robert F Burgess; Half Mile Down by William Beebe; The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss; The Incredible Record-Setting Deep-Sea Dive of the Bathysphere; Being Deaf: The Experience of Deafness, edited by George Taylor and Juliet Bishop; Inside Deaf Culture by Carol Padden and Tom Humphries; Deaf Culture Our Way: Anecdotes from the Deaf Community by Ry K Holcomb, Samuel K Holcomb and Thomas K Holcomb; and last of all, every scuba instructor and dive leader who has shown me the strange glories of the deep.

  WE SEE GHOSTS. AND THEY ARE DRAWN TO US.

  Sometimes, when a person dies, their spirit goes looking for somewhere to hide. Some people have space within them, perfect for hiding.

  Makepeace has learned to defend herself from the ghosts that try to possess her in the night, desperate for refuge – but one day a dreadful event causes her to drop her guard.

  Now she has a spirit inside her. The spirit is wild, angry and strong, and it may be her only defence when she is sent to live with her father’s cruel and powerful ancestors. But as she plans her escape to a country torn apart by civil war, Makepeace must decide which is worse: possession – or death.

  IT WAS NOT ENOUGH. ALL KNOWLEDGE – ANY KNOWLEDGE – CALLED TO FAITH, AND THERE WAS A DELICIOUS, POISONOUS PLEASURE IN STEALING IT UNSEEN.

  Faith has a thirst for science and a knack for uncovering secrets that the rigid confines of her upbringing cannot suppress. When she finds her disgraced father’s journals, filled with the notes and theories of a man driven close to madness, she’s finally discovered a secret that might be too big even for her.

  Because before her are tales of a strange tree which, when told a lie, will unveil a truth: the greater the lie, the greater the truth it reveals. Faith’s search for the tree leads her into great danger – for where lies seduce, truths shatter . . .

  THE FIRST THINGS TO SHIFT WERE THE DOLL’S EYES, THE BEAUTIFUL GREY-GREEN GLASS EYES. SLOWLY THEY SWIVELLED, UNTIL THEIR GAZE WAS RESTING ON TRISS’S FACE. THEN THE TINY MOUTH MOVED, OPENED TO SPEAK . . . ‘WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? THIS IS MY FAMILY.’

  When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong – she doesn’t feel like herself at all. She is insatiably hungry; she keeps waking up with leaves in her hair, and her tears are like cobwebs . . .

  Soon Triss suspects that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she cou
ld ever imagine. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the unknown before it’s too late, to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family . . .

  Also by Frances Hardinge

  Fly By Night

  Verdigris Deep

  Gullstruck Island

  Twilight Robbery

  A Face Like Glass

  Cuckoo Song

  The Lie Tree

  A Skinful of Shadows

  First published 2019 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2019 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  The Smithson, 6 Briset Street London, EC1M 5NR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5098-3696-3

  Copyright © Frances Hardinge 2019

  Illustrations by Aitch

  The right of Frances Hardinge to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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