The Cracks in the Kingdom

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  Olaf might be sad, though. He’d miss his bees. They’d come back, sure, once they’d done the job, but their honey would taste weird. From the stress.

  Ah, it wouldn’t work anyway. The choppers were swinging in closer now, growing bigger, louder, angrier. There were six of them, in fact, and already they were stirring up a wind at the tops of the trees.

  The bees would just get blown away.

  Elliot kept walking. It had occurred to him that he couldn’t stay in a friend’s barn, after all. Six WSU choppers — seven if you counted the one that had landed at his place — meant a whole bunch of WSU officers. They’d swarm out across the town like bees themselves, searching everyplace. He’d get his friends arrested.

  No. He’d have to go back to Jimmy’s idea. Woods. Sugarloaf. Train.

  His feet took their steps, one after the other. Woods. Sugarloaf. Train.

  Woods. Sugarloaf. Train.

  A chopper flew right over his head, and blew his hair about a little.

  Woods. He needed to get into the woods.

  He had a feeling that he was standing at a ticket machine at a train station, say, and reading the instructions, slowly and methodically. Running his finger along the words, then turning to the buttons to figure out each step. While, at the same time, another Elliot was waiting in line just behind him, impatient, frustrated, jiggling on the spot, cursing under his breath, wanting to give the guy at the machine some kind of push or shove, wanting to lean over his shoulder and press the buttons himself.

  But the Elliot at the machine was implacable. He kept right on taking his steps one at a time. Slow and careful.

  There was that buckle in the road. His eyes swung left.

  This was the spot where he’d found his uncle’s body. Over a year ago. He’d been out running in the dawn light. He’d had that jogging high, the sweat on his back and running down his chest, a good ache in his arms and legs, his body strong and loose. The surprise of his father’s truck on the side of the road, door open, lights on. Blood in the grass. Uncle Jon, the color of his skin, the color of his blood, his eyelids —

  Another chopper swung low above him.

  Elliot looked up. He saw an open door. Faces looking down. Two different people swinging their arms to point directly at him.

  He turned into the woods, and started running.

  The noise was ferocious. It set up a clamor in that line behind the Elliot at the ticket machine. There were a whole bunch of Elliots waiting now, and all of them shouting that he had to get a move on. He had a rising feeling that they were right, but now that he wanted to rush, he couldn’t do it. His body had a big, clumsy feel — his hands couldn’t work the ticket machine — no, he had to let go of that ticket machine idea and catch up with himself. His actual self. Here. Running in the woods, except that he couldn’t run.

  Of course you can run, he told himself. You run all the time. You leap over furrows. You sprint. You fly. You’re a deftball champion. You’re a hero.

  Hero. The word slipped down his throat, as small as words can be. It was like a piece of candy he’d been sucking on so long that it was just a touch of nothing now — used to be big and sweet and round, now it was just stale old sugar. Wafer-thin, soft-edged.

  He was no hero. His father was dead, his mother alone, and he’d done nothing. He’d been nothing. Running around the Kingdom searching Purple caverns for his dad, chasing nothing. Those days in the front room of the Watermelon Inn watching Tovey and Kim eat their waffles, watching nothing.

  The ground here was slick with mud and damp. He kept tripping, catching at trees, the bark slippery or tearing away in his hands. Wet leaves slapped against his face, and got themselves caught up in the cuffs of his jeans. His jeans were getting stiff and heavy.

  He couldn’t even remember which direction he should run. They knew where he was, the choppers, he could feel them, taste them, all around him. They must have called one another, there was such a roar and bellow of them. Sending trees and branches sideways, lifting the leaves in damp flurries. He’d been thinking of the woods as safe, but they were much more sparse than he remembered. Great gaps and clearings between little clumps of trees.

  He looked up as he ran through one clearing, and the choppers were dancing away up there, leaning in, moving back. Faces and guns. A cracking sound, then another, and he thought maybe there was a problem with a chopper’s engine, and hoped it wouldn’t crash into the woods, then he ran a little farther and there were another two cracks. Gunshots.

  That looked like an old shed in a clearing up ahead. He could take shelter in that. But he got closer and saw it had caved in on itself, nothing but a rotting pile of mulch.

  Seven choppers. He skidded, nearly tripping over a tree root, and stopped to catch his breath. That’s a serious waste of resources. Seven choppers, one boy.

  The crack sounded again.

  He remembered himself standing on the hill above his house just half an hour back. Very, very good news, and very, very bad news put you outside of the rules, he’d been thinking. They make you indestructible.

  Now clarity came slicing through his mind.

  They don’t really make you indestructible. They give you that illusion, but they don’t. Even if your father’s been dead for more than a year — even if you’ve wasted that time searching for him — a sky full of choppers will still kill you.

  He had no idea where he was.

  This part of the woods, he didn’t know.

  He stopped, pressed himself against a tree trunk, and checked the sky. They were hovering now, quivering in the air. Four choppers in a careful circle. Strange how silent those faces were in all the noise. Strange how he could see them behind their weapons, those silent faces watching him.

  They could get him right now, against this tree.

  Beyond him was another clearing, but past that thicker woods, trees pressed closer together. The ground there seemed to slope down a little, as if it might slip into a valley.

  He took a chance, and ran.

  The air cracked once, a pause, and then again.

  He reached the trees, pressed through them — and swung both arms in circles, around and around, his body blazing hot and cold, hot and cold.

  He’d hit a cliff edge.

  A narrow ravine, sheer-edged, tumbled below him, directly beneath him, plummeting down into a deep, cavernous darkness.

  The choppers waited. Clearing behind him, cliff edge before him.

  One more step and he’d be over it, falling to his death.

  Keira’s voice spoke round and clear, sensible in his head: Sometimes you have to let go. Let yourself fall. Give up.

  His mother was crawling on the floor of a Big Wheel carriage. His father was immobile in darkness.

  There was nothing left except to let go. He felt the arms of that idea curling around him. Right here, on this muddy edge. He didn’t even need to take a step, he just needed to shift his weight a little.

  One of the choppers adjusted its position, inching closer, engine changing key.

  It sent arrows of light though his body, that change. A rush of defiance. He swiveled, ready to face them, fight them, and that swivel was enough to break the edge. The ground crumbled beneath him.

  His shout swept up behind him, became a scream of horror and of pure revelation: the enormity of falling.

  4.

  They found Belle leaning against the Delectable Bakery and Pie Shop.

  She was facing the street, her elbows pressed back against the glass. She wore sunglasses they’d never seen before.

  “Nice shades,” said Jack.

  Belle regarded him. She looked past his shoulder at Madeleine.

  “Hiya,” she said. There was a long pause, then she pushed herself off the glass and straightened up. In her hand was a glossy tourist brochure.

  “Thought you were going to off yourself,” Jack said.

  Belle chuckled. “Just messing with my mum. How’d you find me?”

&
nbsp; Paper bag on the floor of Belle’s bedroom, they told her, pastry crumbs still inside, the bakery’s name and address printed down the bottom.

  Belle’s mother had thrown back her head and laughed when they showed her the bag. “No wonder she is getting those plump cheeks!” she had chortled. “Those plump arms! No, no, you surely do not plan to take a train to Norwich now? At this moment? In this day? But it will take you an hour and a half to get there!”

  They didn’t tell Belle that part.

  The Delectable Bakery and Pie Shop was on London Street, a busy pedestrian shopping street, between the River Island Clothing Co. and Russell Bromley Shoes.

  “Is he in there now?” Madeleine asked. “Your baker?”

  “Yeah. Can’t see him from here, though. He’s out the back. It’s his lunch break soon, that’s why I’m waiting here.”

  “Have you just come for the day,” Jack asked. “Or are you planning on living in Norwich now? With the baker?”

  Belle shrugged. “Staying, I guess.”

  “Didn’t pack much,” Jack said. “All your stuff was still in your room.”

  “Couldn’t pack, could I? That would have undermined the messing with my mum.”

  Jack and Madeleine nodded, seeing her point.

  “It was a cry for help,” Jack suggested.

  “No, you tosser, if I’d wanted help I’d have asked for it.”

  They looked in through the bakery window, watching customers’ mouths move and hands point, while the people behind the counter shifted around one another, held tongs over cakes, hovered, selected, packed paper bags.

  “Well,” said Jack. “Let’s get you out of Norwich.”

  “Nothing wrong with Norwich,” Belle said. She held up the brochure. “It’s loaded with medieval charm. The Norwich Cathedral boasts the second-tallest spire in England, which I admit I’m a bit bothered by. I mean, if it had the tallest spire, all right, go ahead and boast. But second. Not sure boasting’s called for.”

  “You’ve been reading tourist literature,” Jack said, impressed.

  “Been waiting here awhile. I thought his lunch break was twelve but it’s one. The most impressive thing about Norwich, though, as I see it, is they’ve got a museum of mustard.”

  “You haven’t lived,” Madeleine agreed, “until you’ve seen a mustard museum.”

  “And there’s the Cow Tower,” Belle added.

  “What’s a cow tower?” Jack asked.

  “No idea. Sounds brilliant, though, doesn’t it. Cow Tower.”

  “It does.”

  “It got three out of five stars on TripAdvisor. As a tourist destination. The Cow Tower.”

  There was a thoughtful pause.

  “That’s not that good actually,” Madeleine said.

  Belle nodded. “No. Might give it a miss.”

  Another silence.

  “Come on, then,” Belle said. She stepped into the crowd of pedestrians.

  “Don’t you want to tell the baker you’re leaving?” Jack called.

  Belle turned back, and considered the question.

  “Better to stay mysterious,” she decided. “It’ll keep what’s-his-name interested.”

  “Have you forgotten his name?” Madeleine asked.

  “Not a good sign, is it?” Belle agreed.

  She started off again.

  Jack and Madeleine looked at each other.

  “I think I should call my mum and let her know Belle’s okay,” Madeleine said. “She was worried. Can I borrow your phone?”

  Jack handed his phone to Madeleine.

  They walked slowly into the crowd, keeping Belle in sight ahead of them.

  Belle’s shoulders were back, her head was high and she moved quickly. People walked towards her and away from her. A man in a business suit peeled a banana. They watched Belle see this, and look away again. A woman reached into her handbag, rummaged around, and spilled tissues to the ground. Again, they watched as Belle glanced down at the tissues and then carried on.

  Madeleine held the phone in her hand, but didn’t use it.

  Belle was striding, her head turning this way and that, and then she was crumpling. It was so smooth a transition from striding to falling that it didn’t register with Madeleine and Jack at first. They were walking and they were watching Belle as she folded quietly downward. People glanced towards her and away. People stepped around her. A man turned to look, his spectacles catching the sun. Belle’s hands flew up and around her head, but the rest of her collapsed to the ground.

  5.

  Elliot fell with such speed that the fall became its own force, became everything: his scream, the chopper roar, the brutal wind, his flailing arms, this blackness, that jagged streak —

  Then his feet hit the ground at a run.

  He skidded, nearly colliding with a bald man in jeans and a red sweater.

  “Where’d you come from?” said the man.

  Elliot looked up. The sky was placid and dim blue.

  There was a faint sun.

  No cliff edge. No ravine. No woods. No choppers.

  He looked around. He was at a gas station, only not a familiar chain. This one was done up in greens and golds, and called itself BP. Under the BP there was the word Shop with a swirl as if the “shop” wanted to run somewhere. Beneath that, in red, Off-Licence, and under that, emphatic with diagonal blue stripes, BP Ultimate.

  Cars moved or stood about. They had a small, busy look to them, the cars, and neat little black-and-white licence plates. A handful of people also moved about and they had a neat, busy look to them too. Their eyes were all on their own thoughts, rather than on other people.

  The man in the jeans carried on walking. He stopped at a car just beyond Elliot, and fumbled with keys. He had a newspaper pressed under one arm and a can in the other hand.

  Elliot tried to read the newspaper sideways.

  Daily Mail, it said, in an elaborate print that made Elliot think of Olde Quainte. But they didn’t have cars in Olde Quainte. Didn’t have cans of drink like that either. This one was green and said 7UP.

  “Excuse me,” Elliot said to the man. “What province am I in?”

  “Province?” The man squinted.

  Elliot paused.

  “I’m not in Cello anymore, am I?” he said.

  “Kansas.” The man chuckled. “Not in Kansas. That’s what you meant to say, yeah?” He looked at Elliot, suddenly intent and wary.

  Elliot tried again. “What — Kingdom am I in?”

  Now the man nodded sharply. “The United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, or whichever bits haven’t absconded on us yet. Ha-ha.” He pressed his car keys and there was a beep sound.

  “England,” Elliot repeated. “Are you saying I’m in the World?”

  “Now there’s a question.” The man laughed again, but looked a little annoyed at the same time. He climbed into the car and slammed the door.

  6.

  They pushed through the crowds to Belle, and crouched beside her.

  “I’m okay,” she murmured into the path. “Just. Couldn’t seem to stay upright anymore.”

  “That’s all right,” Jack said. “We’ll carry you.”

  Belle laughed, but stayed where she was.

  “You will not,” she said.

  “Of course we will,” said Madeleine. “What do you think we’re doing here in Norwich?”

  “Here,” said Jack. “You take her legs, I’ll get the top bit.”

  “I don’t come in bits,” Belle said to the path.

  Maximillian Reisman should be feeling cheerful.

  He is walking to Schwartz’s for a smoked meat sandwich with fries, coleslaw, and pickles. This is his Friday treat. Celebrating the impending arrival of the weekend and so on.

  But he can feel himself scowling at other pedestrians, especially at people who walk slowly, or stop to pick up something they’ve dropped. He glowers at anyone who laughs with friends, or who smiles at some secret
thought.

  The buzzer had woken him early the day before: a courier with an overnight letter from the UK. Those “kingdom-of-cello” people again. This time they were instructing him to be at the corner of St-Catherine and St-Denis on Saturday at 2 P.M., ready for his “transfer” home. He was to pack a small overnight bag, bringing any personal possessions he didn’t want left behind “in the World.”

  In addition, they suggested he start “preparing himself” for his role as “Candlemaker” at the “Namesaking Ceremony” in Aldhibah, as he’d have to travel there as soon as the “transfer” was complete. It might even be a good idea to write a draft of his speech now, although, of course, his speech writers were working on it around the clock.

  Of course they were. His speech writers.

  There was also a P.S., scrawled in blue ink.

  P.S. Listen, if you’re still not sure that you’re really from the Kingdom of Cello, you should squeeze some lemon juice onto your inner elbow. If you see something unexpected, you’ll know it’s true.

  The whole thing has stopped being funny. It stopped when they referred to his wife’s singing. It’s not an advertising campaign after all: It’s somebody who knows him, and his wife’s beautiful voice, and possibly knows how much he, Maximillian, regrets the fight he had with her the night he left. Maybe even knows that he gets migraines almost every night now, thinking of the cruel things they both said in that fight, remembering the kinder, sweeter, comical things they’d said in all their years together — not to mention the memories of their children.

  Maximillian assumes it’s a former band member who has finally fried his or her brains. Drugs. But did the frying have to take on this bizarre “kingdom” angle?

  Across the road, a boy with dreadlocks is leaning on the railing of a balcony, smoking a cigarette. The boy’s pants are splattered with white paint.

  As Maximillian watches, the boy stubs out the cigarette, grabs a broom and begins sweeping the balcony: fast and furious, clang! clang! against the rails.