The Cradle of All Worlds. Jeremy Lachlan

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СКАЧАТЬ woke at dawn to a quick ratta-tat. Wiped the drool from my chin and the sleep from my eyes just in time to see a note slip through the crack in the tiny basement window. Not just any note, though. An old photograph. A picture of Dad, sleeping in a chair in a grand, sepia-toned study: still sick, I think, but slightly younger, his face less lined. I felt like I’d swallowed an anvil. I’d never seen a photo of him before. I dragged a crate under the window and stood on my tiptoes, desperate to see who left it, but they’d gone. I held up the photo to the milky light and that’s when I noticed the message on the other side.

       My place. White Rock Cove. 10 a.m. Come alone if you want answers – E. Atlas

      Eric Atlas. It didn’t make any sense. Still doesn’t. Bluehaven’s illustrious new mayor skulking around town at dawn, sneaking messages through windows? The guy was here in the house just a few weeks ago. I didn’t see him, of course, but I could hear him through the basement door. The heavy boots. The gravelly voice. He said he was checking up on the Hollows, sat in the kitchen for an hour while they listed their grievances, so why all the secrecy now? Why today? I paced and pondered, scratched my head. Debriefed, plotted and planned with Violet when she snuck down to say hi before her parents woke up.

      You have to go, she said. It could be a trick, but you have to go.

      And she was right. It probably is a trick. A ploy to lure me out into the open. Festival shenanigans or something, I dunno. But I have to go. I have to risk it, have to know.

      This feeling doesn’t come along every day, the feeling that everything could change.

      I pluck the crumpled photo from under Dad’s pillow. Best hiding place in the basement. Dad has a blanket tucked over his legs in the photo, and there’s a desk beside him. A fireplace, too. Behind him, a cabinet stocked with books, weapons and vases. It sure as hell wasn’t taken in the Hollows’ place, so where was it taken? And when?

      Dad’s breath quickens. I hold his hand, give it a squeeze.

      ‘Don’t sweat it, Johnny-boy. I’ll be back before you know it.’

      I need to hurry. The old clock on the wall says it’s almost nine-thirty, which means Violet’s signal should come any moment. Just a diversion, I told her. Nothing crazy. Don’t blow anything up. She promised, crossed her heart and all, but I saw the glint in her eyes.

      I tie my hair back – long, dark, so knotted I swear it’d snap a comb – then shove the photo into my pocket and kiss Dad on the cheek. ‘I’ll fix you something to eat later on, okay?’

      I turn away, don’t look back. Leaving him alone is hard enough as it is.

      There was a time when I could squeeze through the basement window, but those days are long gone, so I grab my cloak and creep up the basement stairs. The Hollows won’t lock the door till they leave, so getting out’s no problem. Even so, I sit tight a moment, breath held.

      Then it happens.

      There’s a sharp crack. Somewhere out back, I think. Mrs Hollow yells, ‘Not again! The bucket, Bertram, where’s the bucket? Violet! You get back here now!’

      I smile.

      The girl’s incorrigible. Eight years old and already a pyromaniac.

      The back door screeches open, which means it’s time to move. I step out into the hallway, ease the basement door shut, and sneak down to the front door as quickly and quietly as I can, doing my best, as always, to ignore the Three Laws hanging above it, framed and embroidered, covered in a fine film of dust. Standard in every house on Bluehaven.

       We enter the Manor at will

       We enter the Manor unarmed

       We enter the Manor alone

OUTSET SQUARE

      Bluehaven’s a hole. A crumbling mess of ramshackle houses and dead-end alleyways sandwiched together all the way around the rocky shore of the island. Wooden beams support bulging walls and sagging eaves. Potholes mar the narrow streets. The quakes have taken their toll. I doubt there’s a single surface in town without a crack in it – one of the main reasons the townsfolk make me feel as welcome as a fart in a bathtub on the rare occasions I step outside. So even though the sun’s shining, even though it’s hot as hell and I haven’t breathed fresh air in three days, I pull the hood of my cloak forward the moment I set off down the street. I can’t take any chances. Gotta keep my head down, walk fast, look out for the usual suspects.

      Old Mrs Jones, who wails whenever she sees me pass by. Mr Annan, who shutters every window and sobs in the dark. The old woman in red, Winifred goddamn Robin, who stalks me from the shadows nearly every time, walking when I walk, stopping when I stop, vanishing the few times I’ve doubled back to tell her off. Creepy, sure, but I’m used to it. All of it. Kids usually run the other way when they see me, like I’m carrying an infectious disease. Doors are slammed shut, locks click. Old folks whisper prayers.

      This morning, though, it’s a ghost town. There’s no one in sight.

      ‘Oi, wait up!’ Violet darts round the corner behind me in her little red boots, beaming like a thousand suns. ‘Before you start, I didn’t blow anything up. I just set fire to the trash.’ She falls into step beside me. ‘Something inside the bin exploded, but that isn’t my fault.’

      ‘You do realise you could’ve just called your mum upstairs or something, right?’

      Violet scrunches up her nose. ‘Where’s the fun in that? Besides, I can’t help you if I’m stuck at home, can I?’ She claps her hands. ‘So, what’s the plan?’

      ‘I’m heading to White Rock. You’re going home.’

      ‘Uh-uh. If you’re caught breaking curfew, you’ll be locked in the basement for a month. Or worse. They could banish you. Stab you. Oh! Oh! They could stab you and then banish you!’

      ‘Wow. Try not to sound too upset about it, Violet.’

      ‘Obviously, I don’t want any of that to happen. But let’s face it, you’re stuck in the basement with John every day, which means I’m your only friend; you’re not allowed to go to school, which means you’re not the smartest kid around; and now you’re going for a walk on a day when people literally gather round to burn effigies of you in Outset Square.’

      The fact that kids on Bluehaven know effigy-burning is a thing can’t be normal, can it? This place, I swear. ‘You’re saying I need all the help I can get?’

      ‘I’m saying you need me.’

      ‘Fine,’ I sigh. ‘You can walk with me to the edge of the cove, but then you have to go. The message said “come alone”. If we spook Atlas, this could all be for nothing. And if anything happens before then, you run home. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Deal?’

      It doesn’t seem to bother her, but Violet gets teased enough for living under the same roof as me. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if people found out we’re friends.

      ‘Deal,’ she says.

СКАЧАТЬ