The Cradle of All Worlds. Jeremy Lachlan

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СКАЧАТЬ even swim, let alone curse an entire island. And yeah, your eyes are kinda creepy, but you’re not an aboma– I mean, abomo–’

      ‘Abomination.’

      ‘Yeah, that. Point is, nobody knows where you and John came from. Or what really happened inside the Manor that night. Miss Bolin reckons you cursed your home-world. Ruined everything. She told the whole class yesterday that John must’ve been trying to dump you in a different world, coz he was so ashamed and all, so you cursed him, too, like some sort of evil baby mastermind, and that’s why he’s sick.’ She shakes her head. ‘Rubbish.’

      ‘It’s actually a pretty popular theory, but still. Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

      Violet squints up at the Manor. ‘At least you can say you’ve been inside it. You’re pretty lucky, if you think about it.’

      ‘You there! Hey! ’

      Damn it. Old Barnaby Twigg just spotted me through the crowd.

      ‘Alaaaarm! Devil in our midst! Be gone, despoiler!’

      ‘Get down.’ I pull Violet behind a crate of bananas.

      Barnaby’s obsession with the Manor is on a whole other level. Determined to witness the re-awakening first-hand, the pot-bellied maniac sleeps, eats, sometimes even bathes beside the well in the centre of the square, just so he can be first up the Stairs every morning and the last at night. He’s dressed in his best safari suit today. Thankfully, everyone’s so used to his rambling that they completely ignore him.

      ‘Leave now or I’ll destroy you,’ he bellows, clambering atop the well, ‘just like the demon soldiers of Yan! Killed ’em all, I did. With a slice, boom, cha, huzzah! True story.’

      ‘Yep,’ I mutter. ‘I’m the luckiest girl around.’

      Violet grabs my arm. ‘Jane,’ she whispers, and points at a pocket-watch dangling from the hand of a stranger nearby. I lean in, can only just tell the time from here. My gut twists.

      It’s already a minute past ten.

      ‘Uh-oh . . .’

      We leave Barnaby to his theatrics and scoot back into the crowd, heading for the road that leads down to White Rock Cove. Violet tries to convince me to let her come.

      ‘No way,’ I say. ‘Skirt round and wait for me on the western side of the cove. If I’m not there in, I dunno, fifteen minutes, head home, check on Dad for me, and sit tight. Don’t come looking for me. Got it?’

      ‘But I can just hang back and –’

      ‘No time to argue, Violet. You go. I’ll be fine.’

      ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘okay, okay, okay.’ She’s pacing on the spot like she needs to pee, but fixing me with a Super Serious Stare. ‘Good luck, Jane. I’ll see you on the other side.’

      And she dashes off into the crowd.

CATCH OF THE DAY

      The streets of Bluehaven might be fair game for me on the odd occasion, but I’m banned from entering all public buildings. Never really cared, either. The museum? The Town Hall? Boring-with-a-capital-Ugh. But as far as school goes, curiosity got the better of me years ago. Trying to resist this colourful place where kids gathered every day to learn, read, laugh and play was like resisting the urge to pee. The longer I held it in, the more I had to go.

      I used to sneak down a few days a week. I learned my times tables crouched beneath an open window. Learned the names of clouds hiding in an alleyway outside a science lab. When I was nine, I snuck into an actual classroom and spent most of the day stowed away in a cupboard. Peering at the class through a chink in the doors, I learned how their ancestors came from across the seas, having fled the Dying Lands. I learned the difference between a labyrinth and a maze. I even learned that booby traps have nothing to do with actual boobies. Unfortunately, the cupboard I’d chosen was filled with art supplies, so when the time came for the students to paint their favourite Otherworld, the teacher found me and threw me out the window. Security was tightened, the school scrubbed clean, cleansed with incense and all.

      I’ve had to borrow books from Violet ever since.

      So I’m no genius. Maths, science, history? Forget it. What I do have is a noggin-load of street smarts. Survival skills honed from a lifetime of living in a place I’m not wanted. I know when to run, when to hide, when to lie. I know I have to stick to the shadows whenever I step into White Rock Cove because, like Mayor Atlas, the fisherfolk got over their fear of me a long time ago. Hell, over the years I’ve been pelted with fish guts, threatened with hooks and chased with knives up the road. I’m pretty sure it’s an act. I doubt they’d do anything if they actually caught me – one guy nearly did but he backed off right away, all shifty-eyed and awkward, as if someone or something was gonna jump out from behind me and tear his head off – but I’d rather not test that particular theory.

      I creep behind the lobster traps and trays of dried kelp, take in the scene. Luck’s on my side today. A new catch has just come in, fresh for the festival. The fisherfolk are busy unloading their sailboats, hauling buckets down the jetties, gutting their catches on these big stone tables, and flinging the scraps to the army of cats prowling around their ankles. The cove’s namesake sits out a ways in the water, beyond the boats, a pale rock poking from the swell. Atlas lives down the far side of the cove, but there’s so much junk scattered around the place I can pretty much crawl, dart and creep my way there, under a sheet of canvas, behind crates and piles of netting.

      I’m knocking on Atlas’s front door in no time. Late, but only just.

      I pull back my hood. The mayor’s residence is huge. Four storeys, arched balconies, window boxes weeping jasmine. Old Mayor Obi carked it a month or two back. Nice enough guy, I guess, in that his preferred method of dealing with me and Dad was pretending we don’t exist. Never gave us much trouble. The man’s ashes had barely cooled before a snap election was called. Atlas won in a landslide, and wasted no time moving into his new digs.

      I knock again, but still, nobody answers.

      ‘What the hell are you doing here, Doe?’

      Joy of all joys. Not Atlas, but his dropkick of a son, standing right behind me. The kid’s a few years younger than me, but already nearly as tall. A real meat-safe in the making.

      ‘Eric Junior,’ I say. ‘Yeah. Um. I’m just . . . here to see your dad.’

      He doesn’t raise the alarm or shout for help. What he does is look me up and down, like he’s trying to work out if I’m really here and not just some horrid figment of his imagination.

      ‘Why would my father want to see you?’

      ‘Oh, you know.’ I shove my hand in my pocket, hold the photo tight. ‘Catch up on old times, play some backgammon. Discuss plans for a statue of me and Dad in Outset Square.’

      Eric Junior frowns at me. I clear my throat, tell him I was joking, and miraculously I get a smile. One of those practised, winning smiles. The kind of smile that’s supposed to make me swoon and drool, quiver at the knees. And who knows? If I was into guys, maybe it would, but I don’t think I am. Into guys, I mean.

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