Worlds Explode. Shane Hegarty

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      It was the wrong alley.

      A dead end.

      “They must have put this in after making the map,” said Steve, coughing to hide his embarrassment. Finn and Emmie’s silent response said it all. Steve eventually cracked.

      “OK, let’s go the way Finn thinks we should,” said Emmie’s dad and the three of them moved back towards the other laneway. “And let’s hope he’s not wrong.”

      Finn felt his frustration rise sharply, but kept it to himself.

      They moved through the jagged shadows of the laneway’s cobbled defences, past houses of chipped paint and gouged windowsills. They ducked past old, dirtied walls dotted with fresh brick, like fillings in a tooth.

      It eventually led them to a wooden door, the entrance to a backyard. As was standard in Darkmouth, its wall was ringed by broken glass, nails, tacks, sharp stones, anything that might keep a Legend out. Softened by decades of rain, though, the splintered door pushed open easily, revealing a yard half filled with blue plastic barrels and large bins.

      Finn felt a jolt of uncertainty: this wasn’t right at all.

      Before he could speak, Steve held up his hand and began counting down with his fingers. Finn drew his Desiccator to his shoulder and followed him. Emmie stood behind them and tried to look as tough as she could before remembering to snap shut her helmet’s visor.

      They edged forward, between bins and barrels and the occasional waft of something rotting, until they reached the back door.

      Steve placed his hand on the handle.

      “This is ridiculous,” Finn’s mother, Clara, said from the yard behind them, causing each of them to almost jump clean out of their fighting suits. They spun round. “What do you think you’re going to find here?” she asked.

      “We were just about to discover that before you interrupted,” answered Steve, deeply frustrated by this disturbance.

      “Give me the map,” demanded Clara, hand out.

      “Keep your voice down,” Steve hissed.

      Finn snatched the map from where it was tucked into the utility belt on Steve’s fighting suit and, despite the man’s protests, handed it quickly to his mother.

      Clara held it up. “Do you really think it would be on a beer mat? You don’t think that just maybe Hugo would have told Finn to ‘look for the map on the beer mat’ if he wanted you to find it on an actual beer mat?”

      She turned it over in her fingers. On one side was an image of a full and frothy glass (Widow Maker – as refreshing as a kick from an eight-hooved Sleipnir). On the other, the print had been picked clean off and on the soft white cardboard a pen had been used to scribble what seemed to be a criss-cross of laneways, with an X at one corner.

      “It’s the best map we’ve come up with,” said Steve, his Desiccator wilting somewhat.

      “Better than when you thought you’d found the right one, but ended up bursting into Mrs Kelly’s crèche at nap time?”

      “The mark on that map seemed legitimate,” said Steve, flipping open his visor.

      “It was a coffee stain. And you set a dozen toddlers’ toilet training back a month.”

      “We’re trying our best, Mam,” said Finn.

      “I know you are, Finn. This isn’t your fault. I just don’t like to see you being led around blindly while carrying a dangerous weapon.”

      “Oh, that thing’s not even loaded,” said Steve, motioning at Finn’s Desiccator. Registering the shock crossing Finn’s face, he added, “Come on now, if you had to use it, you’d probably do more damage to yourself than anything else. But it kept you quiet to think it was working.”

      The door behind them swung open with a clang.

      Finn and Steve spun round, their raised Desiccators almost scratching the nose of the man who stood in the doorway, wearing a white apron and holding an open-topped blue barrel. He thrust his hands in the air, dropping the barrel so that everyone had to leap out of the way while water and slices of potato washed across the concrete.

      As he turned and stumbled back into the building, Clara crouched down and picked up one of the raw chips. “It didn’t occur to you that maybe Hugo had just doodled a map to the nearest takeaway on a beer mat?”

      “But our files say Hugo doesn’t drink alcohol,” said Steve.

      “No, but he eats food,” she said sternly. “Especially fish and chips. He loves fish and chips.”

      Steve and Finn both slumped, almost simultaneously. Steve rubbed his eyes with his gloved hand. Finn hung his head and sagged against the wall. Emmie hovered, toeing the ground. Clara stood between them all, arms folded, head tilted back towards the orange sky.

      “I’m sorry, Mam,” said Finn.

      “It’s not you who should be sorry,” she said. “Steve’s supposed to be the grown-up here. Honestly. We need to find whatever Hugo wanted us to, but this carry-on has to stop.”

      “You don’t think I’d rather be anywhere else but in this place, sorting out your mess?” said Steve.

      “No, I don’t. A Blighted Village of your own? It’s clearly your dream come true.”

      “I’m getting out of here at the first opportunity,” insisted Steve. “It’s pretty much all I talk about at this stage. Even Finn will confirm that.”

      “I …” hesitated Finn.

      “You don’t need to say anything, Finn,” said Clara.

      “Tell her, Finn.”

      “Ignore him, Finn.”

      “I …” stuttered Finn.

      “Ahem,” said a strange voice.

      A young man stood at the entrance to the laneway. So tall and lanky that he seemed almost to stoop in case his head bumped the sky, he was dressed in a shiny grey business suit, a crisp pink shirt and a lime-green tie that knotted tightly at his neck. A briefcase sat on the ground beside him.

      Everyone looked at him and, after a few seconds, the man seemed to finally remember why he was there. “Ah yes, hello there. My name is Estravon Oakbound, Assessor to the Subcommittee on Lost Hunters, as appointed by the Council of Twelve. And, under section 41, clause 9 of the 1265 Act of Disappearance, I am here to assess and ultimately assist in the case of the missing Legend Hunter of Darkmouth, Hugo the Great.”

      He held out a greasy, fat, brown paper bag. “Excuse my manners. Would anyone like a chip?”

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