The Book of Dead Days

by Marcus Sedgwick

  “Please, Valerian,” Boy begged. “It wasn’t my fault he wouldn’t talk to me.”

  Valerian considered them both.

  “All right then,” he said. “I suppose so.”

  He looked at Boy.

  “Well, Boy, it’s time you learnt the secret of the Fairyland Vanishing Illusion.”

  “But that’s just a trick,” said Boy.

  “Ah!” said Valerian. “No. In fact, the secret of the Fairyland Vanishing Illusion is that it is not an illusion at all.”

  Boy stared at him. Willow stared at Boy.

  Keys rattled in the lock again.

  “Quick!” commanded Valerian. “Hold close to me.”

  He grabbed them both and pressed them to his side.

  Boy heard him muttering in some unknown language, and saw him pull something from one of his many pockets.

  The door opened and Pink-plume stood in the doorway.

  Valerian’s arm swung through the air, throwing something.

  “Ho!” he cried. “Ho! And away to fairyland!”

  There was a huge rush of smoke and Boy lost all sense of where he was. He felt himself lurch upward for a moment, as if flying.

  Then the smoke began to clear.

  “Run!” cried Valerian.

  Boy ran, pulled along by his master. Valerian held Willow’s hand too.

  They were in a stone corridor, somewhere in the Citadel. In a few seconds they burst out onto a roof high above the City.

  “Come on!” Valerian hurtled to the edge, pulling them off after him.

  “No!” screamed Boy as they flew into the air.

  They fell for what seemed like ages—a heartbeat and a half—to hit the foul and freezing water of the river.

  They surfaced, spluttering and coughing, quite near the bank.

  “Come on!” Valerian clambered out of the water by a small wooden jetty to which ferryboats were moored. “Time we were gone. Besides,” he added, “I hate daylight.”

  Rolling them both into a ferry, he climbed after them and pulled a dirty piece of canvas across them all. He set them adrift and they floated away downstream in the brisk current, heading for home.

  “Are they following us?” Willow finally managed to splutter.

  “No! They won’t even know we’re gone until the fool with the pink feather wakes up.”

  Boy shook his head. He was used to not knowing what was going on, but this was worse than usual. “Valerian, was that really magic?”

  Boy had never believed that Valerian could actually do magic. Real magic. He was not sure he had changed his mind.

  “Well, I got you out of the Citadel, didn’t I? It must take real magic to do a thing like that, mustn’t it?”

  Boy lay shivering under the canvas. If it was magic, couldn’t Valerian have got them straight home without having to swim in the freezing river?

  He was soaked with stinking river water. At least he was back in a nice small dark space. He could cope with that. He decided to let the subject of magic drop. Let Valerian play his games. Boy had other things on his mind, like smoke. As they’d burst from the cell, there had been an awful lot of smoke. Purple smoke. It was the second time in a few hours that Boy had seen purple smoke, and the first time had left Green with his throat cut and his neck broken.

  What had Valerian said?

  You don’t think I’d trust you to get it right by yourself, do you?

  Had Valerian been there all along, at the Trumpet? And Green—had Valerian seen to him too? No, he had wanted the precious information from Green. He wouldn’t have killed him.

  And Korp? Korp must have been killed about the same time that Green was, but the Phantom couldn’t have been responsible for both. Unless . . . unless the Phantom was more powerful than any magician he’d ever heard of.

  The boat drifted downriver, back toward the Old Quarter, toward Valerian’s magnificent crumbling mansion.

  16

  By the time they made it back to the Yellow House, it was nearly midday.

  Valerian slammed the door behind them.

  Immediately he took the music box out of his pocket and glared at it.

  “Kepler, where are you?” he said to himself. “Where are you when I need you?”

  Then he looked at Boy and Willow.

  “Go and get cleaned up, Boy,” he said. “I seem to say that a lot at the moment, don’t I?”

  “What are you doing here, girl?” he asked Willow. “You can get cleaned up too, and then leave.”

  Valerian started up the stairs. “I think I had better get changed myself.”

  Boy looked at Willow, then called after Valerian, “But where can she go? The theater will probably have to shut. Korp’s dead.”

  “I know,” Valerian called back, “but this is not a doss-house.”

  And he disappeared out of sight.

  By the time Boy had washed his smelly clothes from the night before, and Willow’s, and scrubbed his coat and boots again, it was getting dark.

  Boy made a fire in the kitchen to dry their wet things. They sat in front of it wrapped in blankets from Boy’s bed, and shivered.

  All afternoon they had been listening to Valerian’s curses and threats come floating down through the house.

  “You live here?” asked Willow, looking around her in wonder. The kitchen alone was vast, with unused implements and pots and pans hanging everywhere. It must once have fed at least a dozen people every single day. “Just you and him in this huge house?”

  Boy nodded.

  “But what are you? His slave?”

  “No!” he said fiercely.

  “Then he pays you?”

  He hesitated. “No, but—”

  “So you are his slave!”

  “I am his famulus,” Boy cried.

  Willow stopped. “His what?”

  “Famulus,” said Boy. “His famulus. It means I attend him in his studies and investigations.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  Boy said nothing.

  “Isn’t there anyone else?” Willow pressed. “Who does the cooking? The cleaning?”

  “I cook when he tells me to. No one does any cleaning.”

  “But who taught you to wash clothes? To make fires? Someone must have shown you.”

  “He teaches me things, but not everyday things. I worked those out for myself.”

  “And before you came here? Who are your parents?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Neither do I, anymore.”

  “What happened to them?” he asked, wondering as he did so why he was bothering.

  “They were killed,” Willow said. “I was four.”

  Boy was about to ask how they were killed, but Willow carried on, “My aunt put me in the orphanage.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  “She wasn’t really my aunt. She was some old relative. I’m not sure what, exactly. But she couldn’t look after me, and she died not long after that. I lived in an orphanage near the Palace walls until I got a job with the Liverymen. I was eleven then, four years ago. How old are you?”

  “I don’t know,” Boy said.

  Willow looked at him, cocking her head. She waited for some kind of explanation. Finally she went on with her own story.

  “Then I came to the theater, but you know that,” she said. She looked hard at Boy. “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your parents, Boy, your parents.”

  “I said, I haven’t got any.”

  “I know that,” Willow said, “but who were they?”

  Boy shrugged. He knew she was only interested, but really, he wished she’d shut up.

  “Look, I don’t know. Since I can remember I just lived in the streets, freezing and starving in the winter, all right more or less in the summer. That’s all there’s ever been. Then he found me.”

  “He treats you like rubbish,” she said.

  “At least I have a room and f
ood and something to do.”

  “That’s not a room,” said Willow, remembering the boxlike space at the end of the tunnel where Boy had fetched the blankets.

  “So who taught you to speak, then?” she asked.

  Boy felt the clothes.

  “They’re dry, more or less,” he said, and Willow gave up.

  They turned their backs to each other and dressed quickly. The clothes were warm from the fire and Boy began to feel better than he had for what seemed like a very long time.

  “I’m hungry,” said Willow. “Starving.”

  “Let’s see if there’s some food here,” Boy said, but not very hopefully.

  He was right to be pessimistic. He found some dried biscuits, and they ate them slowly.

  “Boy,” said Willow suddenly, “what about me?”

  “You’ll have to go back to the singer,” he said. “You’re not short of food there, at least.”

  “But I can’t!” Willow cried. “I’m a wanted criminal! So are you, come to that.”

  He stared at the fire. “I know,” he said, “I know. Look, I’ll try and talk to Valerian again and see if you can stay. Then maybe you’ll be safe from the Watch.”

  “Would you?” asked Willow. “Would you really?”

  Boy looked at the hope in her face and felt himself shiver. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea, for lots of reasons. And wasn’t it like admitting she was guilty if she didn’t return to Madame Beauchance? But something in him wanted her to stay.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ll try. That’s all.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Boy hesitated. He didn’t know that he did.

  He didn’t answer.

  They sat and watched the fire for a while, warming themselves while it lasted. Boy felt exhausted, as much by Willow’s questions as anything. For the first time in years all sorts of thoughts crowded into his head. He pushed them away. He didn’t need to know who his parents were. It wasn’t important, no matter what Willow thought. Boy’s thoughts became hazier.

  Before they knew it, they had fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders, and for a short time their weary bodies rested.

  17

  Darkness had fallen.

  Boy and Willow woke up within moments of each other. They both got to their feet, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  “Well,” said Boy, looking at the floor.

  “Yes,” said Willow. “What do you think? Have you changed your mind?”

  “No,” said Boy, looking up and into Willow’s eyes. “Let’s get it over with.”

  They made their way up to the Tower room. After hours of hearing Valerian’s rage and curses earlier in the day, it was quiet. It seemed as good a time as any to dare to ask him for favors.

  Boy knocked on the door. That in itself was strange. Normally he waited to be summoned.

  “What is it?” came the voice from within.

  “Valerian,” called Boy, “can we come in?”

  There was a pause.

  “We? Oh, very well.”

  Inside Boy looked at Valerian, but not directly into his eyes. That was usually too much to take. Willow just stared openmouthed at what filled the room: the vials, the jars, the machines, the devices, the equipment, the drawings, the books, the glass things, the brass things, the wooden things. The camera obscura.

  “Why is she still here?” Valerian asked.

  “Please, Valerian, can she stay? The Watchmen will be after her.”

  And me too, he thought.

  Valerian said nothing.

  “And she can’t go back to Madame, because the theater will be shut and—Oh!”

  Boy stopped. The theater.

  “Yes,” said Valerian, “I expect it will.”

  “But that means we’ll be out of work and—”

  “I could not, at this moment, possibly care less,” said Valerian. “And the girl cannot stay here. We have too much to do. That is an end to it.”

  “But Korp is dead,” Willow protested. “You’ll have nowhere for your act!”

  Valerian stood up, and Boy and Willow cowered where they stood. He seemed to tower above them, taller than ever.

  “Listen to me. I do not care about the theater, or the act. The only thing that concerns me at the moment is time. Do you see?”

  They both shook their heads. Boy shrank back against the wall as Valerian leaned close.

  “Listen to me! I am in trouble. Bigger trouble than failing theaters or dead directors. I now have four days left to save my life, and the only way I can do it is hidden from me! Green”—he waved the music box—“was supposed to give me a name—a name that could just possibly save my wretched, cursed skin, and yet I have been tricked! All I have is this worthless gimmick! How can this fairground rubbish give me a name?”

  He threw it to the floor.

  Willow stepped forward and picked it up. She held it to the light of the single lamp in the room and smiled. She turned the little metal crank and tinny notes rang out across the room.

  “I know it does that,” snapped Valerian.

  Willow ignored him, and played the music again. And again.

  The tune was very simple, with only eight notes. A haunting refrain, and if Valerian had listened he might have heard in it the tone of hope. Willow played it a few times, then a few more.

  “Valerian,” she said, “this is a name. This tune is a name, and the name you have been searching for is Gad Beebe.”

  December 28

  The Day of Worst Fortune

  1

  After Willow had explained for the fourth time how she knew what the name was, Valerian began to believe it himself.

  “Music!” he exclaimed. “Hidden in the music! Before my very ears!”

  He laughed.

  “Kepler knew what he was doing after all—he must have sent this thing for me. Green decided to play difficult and then . . .” He laughed again.

  This worried Boy. He had never heard Valerian laugh before. It worried him a lot.

  “And you learned this from Madame?” Valerian asked Willow.

  She nodded. “Yes, she taught me musical notation.” And more than that, Madame had grudgingly told Willow that she had “perfect pitch.” Willow could identify any note in isolation of any other note that might be used as a reference point—an ability Madame herself did not possess.

  “And these notes—each one is a letter?”

  Willow nodded again. “G—A—D—B—E—E—B—E.”

  “By chance the name uses only letters from the first seven of the alphabet,” said Valerian. “Whoever made this thing, or had it made, was not only musical, but had spotted this curious fact about Mr. Beebe. Beebe . . . ,” wondered Valerian aloud. “I’m sure I know the name.”

  “So,” ventured Willow, “about me staying . . . just for a while . . .”

  “Hmm?” said Valerian, his mind elsewhere. “Hmm? Yes, that’s—you might even be useful, unlike Boy.”

  He held the music box mechanism in his hand, turning the handle, listening to the vital tune over and over again.

  The many clocks in the house began to strike midnight.

  It was December 28.

  As the last chime died away, Valerian’s mood grew somber again.

  “Come,” he said, gruffly. “We have much to do and time is shortening.”

  Boy smiled a little. He knew where he was with this Valerian.

  2

  The three figures stole through the unusually silent city streets. It had not snowed, as Willow had thought it might. It was cold, however, and Boy was glad he had all his clothes on. Yet again he was out traipsing after Valerian. The only difference was that Willow was with him this time.

  Willow and Boy lagged behind as Valerian strode rapidly down dark paths. The City was quiet, partly due to the sudden cold snap that had sent people to their beds early, but mostly because Valerian was heading into one of the few pockets of the City that were somewhat deserted: the Black Quarter, w
here the last outbreaks of plague had hit the City. As its inhabitants had fled the quarter it had been sealed off by a ring of burning buildings until everyone left inside had survived or died. Although that was many years ago, people had been slow to move back, and only a few of the very poorest citizens lived there now. The buildings were dark, convoluted, tangled mazes thrown together over the years—crooked houses with slanted windows and warped frames. Between them ran the usual gutterlike streets, reeking and heaving with piles of filth. The three hurried on.

  “What are we doing?” Willow panted to Boy, struggling to keep up.

  “It’s always like this,” Boy said. “I never know anything. You’d better get used to it.”

  But it wasn’t always like this, Boy realized as soon as he said it. He was too out of breath to explain, but Valerian was different. Worse.

  Boy was used to his moods, used to getting beaten, used to being ignored—but Valerian had definitely changed. Over the last few months he had become distracted. And now Boy knew why.

  Four days to live.

  Could that be true?

  Why?

  Boy wondered if Valerian was deluding himself. How could he know he had only four days to live? Maybe Valerian had gone a little crazy and was convinced by some make-believe of his own invention.

  But no. That would not be like Valerian.

  Four days . . . That would take him to New Year’s Eve, Boy realized. What could happen that Valerian could be so possessed by?

  And what, then, would happen to Boy?

  It was still the first hour of December 28. Valerian turned to wait. “Childermass,” he said quietly, when they reached him.

  “Sorry?” Boy said.

  Valerian glowered at them both.

  “Childermass.” Valerian began to walk. He called over his shoulder without looking back, “Today is Childermass. The unluckiest day of the year.”

  Boy looked at Willow, who opened her mouth to speak but said nothing.

  They trotted after Valerian, who was twenty long paces away already.

  “Where do you think we’re going?” Willow asked. Boy began to scratch his nose.

  “Valerian!” she called.

  Boy looked at her in alarm, for she still did not understand how to wait until Valerian spoke to you.