by Vashti Hardy
The man had said Erythea!
And a thought struck Arthur that felt as though an ice cube had slid down his spine. What if Wigglesworth wasn’t dead? What if there was a fourth continent and he’d made it there? What if these people were purposefully hiding something?
He ran back through the palms to the Aurora to tell Maudie and Harriet, but when he got there, he saw that the Victorious had already landed further up the beach and Harriet and Welby were walking towards it.
Maudie stood on the beach like a statue, watching. “Eudora will probably want to take credit for finding out Wrigglesworth’s fate,” she said.
He pulled her to one side, away from a couple of villagers close by. “There’s something not right about some of the people on this island,” he whispered.
“Oh-kaaay … and by that you mean?”
“The ring on a chain around Gallus’s neck – it’s the same as Octavie’s.”
She frowned disbelievingly.
“Well, I think it was. It was hard to see clearly.”
Maudie shrugged. “It’s highly unlikely. You’re just tired; it’s been a long journey.”
“All right, then, how about this creature that I just spotted in one of the houses? One of the men kept it in a cage. He only let it out once we’d gone! I’ve never seen anything like it before, not in any of the Natural Fauna of the Great Wide – and I’ve read that cover to cover several times.”
“We’re at the furthest reaches of the eastern Wide. There’s bound to be a few creatures we don’t know about. We can’t know everything.”
Frustration bubbled in his throat. “It was a land mammal.”
“A mammal?”
“A land mammal with webbed toes and what looked like gills.”
She heaved a sigh. “Gills? Arthur, you need to lie down. It’s the heat. Dr Quirke says it can play games with your mind. I’m going to get ready for the celebration. I suggest you have a nap.” She turned on her heels and went back to the sky-ship.
Instead, Arthur went back to the library and checked Natural Fauna of the Great Wide. There was nothing there that looked remotely like the creature he’d seen.
After a while, Maudie came into the library, her hair tied up neatly and a clean white shirt on. “Harriet’s gone ahead, and the crew have gathered on the beach and are making their way back to the village now. Are you coming?”
He nodded and shut the book. He’d just have to find a way to prove that something was up in the village.
The last of the Culpepper crew disappeared up the path, and Maudie hurried after them. “Come on!”
He jogged after her, his thoughts like a raging river. “I mean, why would a land-breathing animal need webbed toes and gills? And they speak remarkably good Lontonian, which is curious for such a remote island, don’t you think? There’s something not right. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s lots of little things that don’t add up.”
She stopped and turned. “Arty, we’re going home tomorrow. Ermitage Wrigglesworth is dead and our mission is over. There’s nothing more to discover, no mystery. Just sea and mist and death for those who try. Yes, I read Octavie’s book too out of curiosity. I found it on your bed. But it’s concluded; we know the symbols are meaningless now.” She sighed. “It was too much seeing that grave, remembering what happened to Dad. Now I just want to go home. Don’t you?”
“Dad always taught us to trust our instincts.”
“Instincts on what? There’s a grave, and witnesses to what happened.”
A gust of warm wind loosened Maudie’s ribbon. Arthur’s hand twitched as he moved to help retie it, but he stopped himself. He had to make her see. “Did you learn nothing about truth and lies in South Polaris?” he said.
“Arthur, the crew is going home. We did what we came to do. We found Wrigglesworth. I know it wasn’t the outcome you were looking for, and I know…” She paused and looked down at the sand.
“What?” he said indignantly.
“I know that seeing Wigglesworth’s grave is bringing back awful memories.”
“It’s not that!”
“Arthur. I understand; the crew understands. We’re all here for you.”
He huffed, took the ring from his pocket and held it out. “Why won’t you listen! This means something.”
She snatched it. “Arty, it’s just a ring!”
“Something is wrong here, just like in South Polaris when we knew that there was a huge lie surrounding what had happened.”
Maudie glared. “Don’t try and use that situation to further your case!” She stuffed the ring into a pouch on her toolbelt.
He threw his hand up in frustration. He couldn’t understand why Maudie didn’t get it. It was so obvious, so clear to Arthur: everything fitted, everything … the symbols, the map, the ring. Yes, it was random pieces that may not add up to something conclusive at the moment, but… He could feel his temper rising like the tropical heat, the blood roaring in his head. “You just want to hurry back to Lontown so that you can show off your sky-ak and get into universitas!” he snapped.
She put her hands firmly on her hips. “And you’re just trying to unexplain what’s been explained! Things happen, Arthur; nothing can change the path of what’s done. Let it LIE!” she shouted with frustrated ferocity.
Then Maudie’s mouth clamped shut… So did Arthur’s.
After a moment when they just stared at each other incredulously, cheeks hot with anger, Maudie turned to follow the others up the path to the village.
“Are you coming or not?” she called without turning around, her loose ribbon trailing behind her.
“Not!”
“Fine!”
“Fine!”
CHAPTER 12
SEPARATED
Arthur sat on the Aurora’s deck with his back against the wheel column, stroking Parthena and listening to the fading songs of the crew in the distance. Even Queenie had gone. Several times he almost ran after them, but each time the stubborn knot inside him held him to the spot. After a long period of debate with himself, he was about to stand up when he heard talking. They were voices he didn’t know.
“Hurry. Check the rooms and make sure no one has been left on guard.”
Arthur’s heart jumped. They were approaching the Aurora. He heard footsteps on the gangplank. Panicked, he assessed the situation. Should he confront them? Hide? He couldn’t make it to the hatch, and, besides, they were going to search the rooms. Over the side would hurt, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be spotted. His frantic fingers felt the small gap in the deck and instinctively, he lifted the weather shield panel in the floor, jumped inside, and beckoned Parthena to follow, just pulling the hatch back down as the sound of footsteps echoed above.
“There’s no sign of anyone on deck,” someone called.
“Search every room.” Arthur recognized the cold drawl of Smethwyck.
More footsteps sounded, lighter, more drifting. “Hide and have your guns ready.” It was Eudora.
Guns ready? Arthur couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Why did they have guns? Then Eudora’s honeyed voice spoke again. “Don’t forget to weight their bodies before you cast them to sea. We don’t want them to be found this time.”
Terror and questions erupted inside him. They were going to kill the crew of the Aurora! Harriet, Felicity, Welby, Gilly, all the others and … Maudie! He clamped his hand over his mouth in an attempt not to cry out with the absolute anguish of the moment. How long had they been gone? When were they due back? What could he do?
Moments passed as he crouched in the small cavity, frozen by panic. Perhaps he could send Parthena to warn them? But at the moment she was just as stuck as he was.
Arthur’s heart hammered. Why was this happening? Why kill the crew of the Aurora? He had to do something. But his mind was racing, and he couldn’t think. He remembered Maudie saying that there was a small passage to the engine room. He felt around with his hand and found the opening, just big enough to crawl
through. But there was no way out from the engine room without going back on deck. He thought frantically – the solution had to lie in the engine room itself. He could fire the engines. If he did that, it would be a warning to the others – they would know that something was wrong and could get away. “Parthena, don’t make a sound. Wait here,” he whispered.
“Let’s hope they won’t be long,” someone said above.
He scurried on his knees as quietly as he could along the passage. The engine room was less familiar to Arthur. He looked around at the levers, cogs and cranks, trying to follow the pipes back to anything that made sense. Then he found a crank with one mechanism going out, it looked big, like the start of something. He turned the handle and it juddered in his hand. Things began clunking and whirring and grinding. Steam hissed and the floor beneath him shuddered. Perhaps it would be enough to warn the others … or would they rush to see? Had he drawn them in? He suddenly panicked he’d done the wrong thing!
Then voices came from nearby in the engine room.
He squatted behind the engine and froze.
“What did you touch, Banks?” said a woman.
“Nothing! It must’ve been you. You had your hand on that handle!”
“Well, pull it up again!”
A stiff clonk sounded.
“Nothing’s changed! I don’t know this engine; I just came to work it out!
Shouts sounded above.
“Come on, we’d better get help, Smethers will know what to do.”
Arthur thought that perhaps he could escape the ship in the confusion and get back to the others to make sure they were safe. But the loud voices were coming from everywhere; it was too risky, so he scurried back into the vent.
The sound of gunshots rang out from the deck. Arthur bit down on his lip and breathed heavily through his nose as he hurried back to the space beneath the wheel. He braced and put his eye to the gap in the deck; it was only half an inch, but he could see flashes of what was going on above.
“The engines are fired; there’s no going back. They’ve heard us!”
“What fool started the engine?”
“Get the wings open – we’re going up!”
Arthur’s stomach lurched as the Aurora lifted suddenly. This couldn’t be happening! He could hear more shouting – gunfire, screams.
“Stop shooting, retract the gangplank and get to the cogs!”
Arthur heard the rumble of the wings extending and there was another surge as they lifted again. The shouts faded into the distance.
They were well and truly in flight.
Parthena’s eyes glistened in the darkness, but she didn’t make a sound; she just shook. Arthur scooped his arm around her and pulled her on to his lap, trying but failing to hold in great gulps of fear.
Footsteps echoed above as someone took the wheel.
“Did we get any of them?”
“It was hard to see in the dusk.”
It was Eudora Vane and Smethwyck.
“No matter. We are in flight now and they have no way of pursuing us.”
“The Victorious?”
“Has virtually no pitch left in the store and there’s none on the island.”
“But…”
“We will deal with them on our return; no other explorers were sent within one hundred miles of that island. The Fourth Continent will come to us sooner than expected, but no matter.”
Fourth Continent? Arthur’s eyes were wide in the dark. So it was true: the Votary of Four had been right!
“How many days’ travel did the journal estimate?”
“Three to five, which will be easy now that we have this water-engine and we don’t have to worry about pitch. It’s open ocean ahead, then we negotiate the mists and those creatures.”
After a while, the engine noise settled to almost nothing and they were gliding somewhere high, the odd pinprick of light indicating the night sky through the small gap above. Arthur held on tight to Parthena, her head tucked into his neck.
“Arthur’s on the Aurora!” Maudie yelled, panic choking her voice. How could this be happening? Tears welled, stinging her eyes.
Harriet sprang into action with a stream of orders. “Forbes and Cranken, go to the Victorious and check their fuel supply – I’m suspecting they’ve run it dry, but if not, we’ll pursue them as far as is safe.”
“Perhaps he got off in time; he’s a clever boy,” Felicity said frantically.
“Extend the search area,” Harriet ordered the remaining crew.
Welby ran from the treeline. “There’s no sign of him.”
Harriet put her hands to her head. “Keep looking.”
“Where are they going? Why did they shoot at us?” said Felicity, waving her spoon in agitation.
“I don’t know, but they’re not heading back in the direction of Lontown,” said Harriet.
“Then where are they going?”
Thoughts rushed Maudie – what if Arthur had been right? There was more to all this. She suddenly felt alarmed in the certainty of it all. In between sobs she blurted out everything that Arthur had told her he’d suspected.
Harriet and Felicity exchanged dark looks, then Harriet called to Gilly. “Send a messenger bird to the Acquafreedas. I convinced them to stay close to us at the gathering on Ephemeral as a precaution, so they shouldn’t be too far and we have a better chance over distance pursuing the Aurora in a sea-ship. Felicity, get Maudie some sweet tea from somewhere; she can barely breathe. Dr Quirke and Meriwether, I want you to go to Wrigglesworth’s grave. I’m very much suspecting it’s empty.”
Maudie remained rooted to the spot while the crew hurried away. Harriet turned to Welby. “The Aurora was the only water-engine-powered sky-ship in the Wide. It can go further than any pitch-reliant vessel. Eudora must have stolen it because she needs to go further, and the only possible explanation is that she believed or had some sort of evidence that there really was something further to be discovered. And Arthur saw the signs all along.” She shook her head. “Welby, fetch Gallus and insist he come here immediately – drag him down by his ears, if necessary.”
As Harriet hurried away, Maudie heard her curse under her breath and mutter, “How could I have let this happen?”
“There’s hardly any pitch,” Forbes called from the Victorious’s deck.
Maudie looked to the darkening sky, every inch of her taut and a savage ache gnawing inside. She clenched her fists and prayed that the Acquafreedas weren’t too far away.
CHAPTER 13
THE DARKWHISPERS
Two days dragged by for Arthur on the Aurora. At night-time, only one person was left on duty and they remained at the wheel, so Arthur had found that he could crawl through to the engine room then sneak to food and drink from the stores and use the lavatory. Poor Parthena was getting more agitated with not being able to fly, and Arthur hoped that they would get wherever they were going soon, no matter what the consequences were. On the third night, he managed to make it to the library to get a book, but the light was too dim to read in the hold and he couldn’t risk a candle. But it gave him comfort just to hold it. It was one of Maudie’s engineering books. Several times he’d almost given himself up, but the sheer fear of knowing what Eudora Vane and her crew were capable of kept him hidden.
On day four, as Arthur drifted in and out of the irregular slumber pattern he’d fallen into, it seemed to get dark very quickly even when he was certain it had only been light for three of four chimes. Arthur would have thought that he was losing all sense of time, were it not for the hushed voices above. Something was going on.
The engines became silent as the sky-ship went into cruising mode.
A strange whispering sound filled the air, a soft, hushed murmur.
“What are they?”
“I can’t see?”
“They’re everywhere!”
“Look! Did you see the size of their claws?”
There was the shriek of wind, as though something sliced
through it at great speed. Arthur pressed his eye to the gap where he could see a narrow section of the scene above. A dark shape circled them, too fast to see. Heads whipped around in all directions, searching frantically.
“There’s something out there!”
Then he saw it again … then another … and another. Some sort of flying creatures circled them, their wings slapping through the air like sodden leather. It was too difficult to see in the thick gloom of cloud, but they were getting closer… Three, no, five … no, there were at least ten.
“Get below deck!” someone yelled.
They all ran for the hatch.
“Not you, Smethwyk, you idiot. Someone has to remain at the helm!” That voice he recognized as Eudora Vane’s. So much for the captain putting the crew before themselves.
Below deck in his hiding place, all Arthur could see was the rush of shadowy creatures above. He pressed his eye close to the gap, half too terrified to watch, half needing to see more.
A thud, heavy as a huge bag of grain, sounded as something landed on the deck, followed by the scratch of claws on wood. The strange whispering sound was closer now. Arthur’s heart raced. A section of extended leathery wing, then an area of tentacled head and a smoky eye came into his narrow field of vision. It was one of the creatures from Ermitage Wrigglesworth’s journal.
The darkwhispers.
He glimpsed Eudora, still on deck, almost frozen between the wheel and the hatch. The darkwhisper was fixed on her. There was a flash of silver as Miptera flew for the hatch, but Eudora remained.
Eudora wanted to move, yet somehow, she couldn’t. She was back in Lontown, in Vane Manor.
Why was she holding a small sky-ship? That’s right – it was a toy. Mother had made it for them, for her and Violetta. Eudora’s heart burned with the fire of loss and longing – dear sweet Violetta, her sister. She heard a laugh, close by. A laugh that was contagious, the sort that you couldn’t help but get sucked into; a laugh she knew like her own distant happiness. She looked to her side. There was young Violetta, freckled, a ribbon hanging across her forehead as she sat with paintbrush in hand.
