A Whisper of Horses

by Zillah Bethell

  “But it’s poisonous! Back in Lahn Dan they sound a siren whenever it rains so that people have time to get inside before it starts.”

  “Whoa…” Tab took his hands off the handlebar and held them up, palms towards me. “Slow down, will yer. The rains haven’t been poisonous for years. Loads and loads of years.”

  “Rubbish!” My eyes were scanning about for somewhere we could protect ourselves. “If we don’t get out of the rain, our skin will start to blister and bleed and before we know it we’ll be dead. Come on! We need to get to safety.”

  “Dint you hear me? I said the rains stopped being poisonous a long time ago.” Tab’s hand reached out and grabbed my wrist. “I’ve been out in the rain undreds an undreds of times. Thousands of times.” He spoke in a soothing, quiet way that made me listen to him. “I ain’t never come out in blisters or nuthin. The rain is safe.”

  “How can I trust you?” I wanted to pull my arm away from him, but I didn’t.

  He snorted. “Blimey, if I thought I was goin to come over all bubbly-skinned and sore, I wouldn’t be hanging around ere now, would I?”

  A drop of rain splashed onto my forehead and I flinched. Then more drops. They came suddenly, heavily, hitting the ground and my head and my arms and my face. And Tab’s too. And we both just stood there and let it happen.

  “Remember all the lies the Minister told you?” He grinned. “Well, that rubbish about the rain—it’s just another one of them. Just another one of his stupid, sorry lies to keep everyone in their place. The rain is safe. Trust me.”

  The heavy clouds above unleashed themselves, and for the first time in my life, I let myself get soaked. It was a strange feeling. All those years in Lahn Dan, avoiding rain like madness and then … this. My clothes got drenched and heavy and started to stick to me, but the rain didn’t care. It kept on pouring out of the sky and covering the whole world in water. And it really didn’t matter. Not one tiny bit.

  The rain wasn’t dangerous.

  I looked at Tab and he was laughing. “What?” I smiled back.

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “Oh. Yer know. Just you. You and yer funny little ways.”

  I nodded, holding my arms out to catch the rain and wondering what other things about this world I’d always got wrong.

  * * *

  The following morning, we had our first sight of the Emm Four. We rounded a corner and swooped over a small hill and there it was. A line of old concrete, lifted above the ground on pillars, as though it felt too special to be on the ground with the rest of the roads.

  We slipped down the hill and rode straight under it, coming out on its other side.

  “So,” I said. “You’ve got me to the Emm Four. I suppose this is where we say our good-byes, is it?”

  He looked down at his feet, where Mouse was panting, and did a sort of shuffling back and forth on his bike. “Thought I might come with you a bit farther. Just for a while, anyhows.”

  I had a bit of a secret smile inside. “Okay, if you like.”

  “I ain’t asking permission.” He scowled and pedaled off like a scolded rat.

  * * *

  At lunchtime we pulled off the road and onto a sort of embankment, valleying down to some old metal tracks buried in grass and weeds. Mouse was finding the traveling hard going, collapsing next to us, his little sides going in and out and up and down as he struggled to regain his breath. He didn’t even lift his head as Tab dug out the slices of ham and hunks of bread that we were going to devour for our lunch.

  “Apple juice?” Tab asked, pulling a plastic container from the sack.

  I took the bottle from him and, popping open the top, put it to my lips. It tasted like a perfect sweetness as I gulped it down.

  “Hold on,” Tab croaked as he tried to snatch the bottle back off me. “There might be a load of it left but we’d better try an save it. Won’t do to go wasting our supplies.” He took the bottle and just let his lips be rinsed by the liquid.

  Some picky rain had sputtered out hours before, and my clothes were starting to dry in the midday warmth. The purple clouds looked ever so slightly less purple here, and the grass on the slopes of the embankment was the teeniest bit greener than it had been just a few miles farther back. If I wasn’t very much mistaken, the sunshine felt a tiny bit warmer too.

  I ripped apart a roll with my fingers and shoved a slice of ham inside it before taking an enormous bite. After a busy morning pedaling, my stomach was grumbling like a bad dream, and all I could think of was filling it up as much as possible to keep it happy.

  “I don’t fink,” Tab mumbled with a mouthful of bread.

  “I know you don’t. That’s your problem.”

  “Seriously, though, I don’t fink Mordecai and his men are gonna stop lookin for you yet.”

  “Really?” My heart did a nosedive.

  “You’re like a bird what flew the cage and they’re scared you’re gonna start singing about it. Stands to reason they’ll wanna put you back as fast as they can.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know anything. That had been made startlingly clear over the last few days. Everything I had assumed to be the truth had been stripped away to be nothing of the sort. Only the memory of Mama stayed true. So it struck me as pointless to guess anything about the Minister’s men and their ways.

  “We’ll see,” was all I could think of saying in between bites of ham roll.

  I finished the sandwich, dusting crumbs off my hands, before breaking off pieces of biscuit with chunks of chocolate sticking out and lying back on the grass, watching the clouds softly pass by.

  “I hope the Professor’s okay,” I half murmured to myself. “I wonder what he’s up to right now.”

  “Probly doing sums or summat.” Tab leaned back onto his elbows. “Seemed the sort. All specs and clumsiness. Ancient. Had it.”

  The countryside undulated away in all directions and we both just lay still for a few minutes, letting the turn of the world hold us in place with our thoughts.

  Then we heard the noise.

  A long screech. High-pitched and glass-smashingly scary.

  “What was that?” Images of wolves and modpods flooded my brain. I sat upright. Whatever it was, it was far off to our right.

  Mouse straightened up, ears pricked. Tab eased himself slowly into a crouching position, his hands automatically slipping things back into the sack.

  The noise sounded again. Nearer this time.

  “What is it?” I asked once more.

  But Tab wasn’t looking at me. He was staring into the distance beyond me. “Look,” he said, his face like a slapped haddock.

  I turned to see where he was pointing. Some way off, over a number of hills and rooftops, came a billowing cloud of smoke. And it was moving in our direction.

  “I don’t understand,” I quaked.

  “It’s … it’s a…” His hand shivered as he pointed. “It’s a … dragon.”

  “What?”

  “A dragon! It’s coming this way.”

  “But dragons … They don’t exist anymore. Do they? The Gases would’ve killed them off. Yes?”

  Tab’s eyes met mine. “You’ve got a map showing where horses are. You’re looking for horses even though they’re supposed to have died out. The wolves are still as alive as they ever were. So why not dragons? Perhaps they still exist too.”

  “But … were dragons even really real? I’m not sure they were even real in the first place.”

  “I don’t know what’s real or not. All I do know is that there seems to be a dragon flying over the ground towards us.” He gulped. “And it’s going to be here soon.”

  It was true. Smoke was still streaking away in the distance and the rumble that went with it was getting louder.

  “Let’s hide.” I scrambled up but Tab pulled me back down to the ground.

  “No. Too late for that. It’ll see us moving off. Better to stay still and hope it flies by without even no
ticing us.” Tab grabbed hold of Mouse and clung on to him like his life depended on it. “Come here, boy. Stop strugglin.”

  The smoke moved smoothly along and above a nearby slope. The sound of the dragon puffing and panting got louder and louder and then it came into sight. A dark blue, sleek metallic-sided creature, scraping along the bottom of the ridge, its tail a long, brown squarish tube with glassy scales.

  I stared harder at the dragon. No, they weren’t glassy scales. They were windows.

  Windows?

  Suddenly the creature squealed a terrifying squeal, its whole body slowing, fighting against its own momentum.

  “It’s seen us!” Tab whimpered. “It’s spotted us! Run!” He dropped Mouse and scooped up the bag, stuttering to his feet before launching himself away from the monster below.

  The dragon screeched and jolted to a stop just as I, half sprinting myself, noticed the wheels. Wheels beneath its torso, sitting on the tracks. Metal wheels.

  “Wait!” I stopped and turned back. “Tab, wait!”

  “Come on!” I could hear him behind me getting farther and farther up the bank.

  “No, stop!” I shouted. “It’s not a dragon. It’s a train.”

  “I said come on!”

  “It’s a train!”

  He twisted around to see. “Hold on. That’s a train.”

  “I know.” We both stood still and watched as the “dragon” hissed, the smoke from the funnel now fluffing out and floating haphazardly about the ridge. “I said that.”

  Then a man jumped out of a little black opening in the front half of the train.

  “Hello!” He was waving towards us whilst behind him another man—older than the first, judging by his movements—climbed gently down the ladder and onto the side of the track. “Hello!” the first man called again.

  “Should we scarper or should we stay put?” Tab muttered out of the side of his mouth, his eyes upon me.

  “Er…”

  “Hello there!” The men started to walk up the ridge towards us.

  “Stay put. I think.”

  As they got closer I could see that the first man was young and slight with a brush-like mustache perched under his nose and black hair swept back over his head. The second man was thicker set and a bit rougher-looking, with a rug of curly gray hair under which sat tiny eyes. Both were wearing soot-covered overalls that reminded me of Pb clothes back in Lahn Dan, and, for the splittiest of split-pea seconds, my heart ached to see Gry and Bracken again. Even just to hear them arguing.

  “Good afternoon! It’s not very often that we see anybody this far out east. Very rare actually. Very rare indeed. Not common at all. Especially youngsters like yourselves. You heading somewhere?” It was the younger man who did all the talking.

  “West,” I said. “We’re going west.”

  “West, eh?” Mouse had pattered up to the man and was sniffing about his feet. “Hello, little chap. You heading west too?” He bent over and gave Mouse a tap on the head.

  “Where you from?” It was the second man who spoke with a voice that sounded much the same as he looked. Gruff and gargly, thick with clotted cream and rolley-hilled syllables. His tiny eyes seemed suspicious and his brow furrowed with doubt. “Ain’t no settlements out this way as I know of. So where’d you come from?”

  “Lahn Dan,” I replied. “We’ve both come from Lahn Dan.” I cast Tab a look.

  The first man pulled himself back up as Mouse moved over to sniff the feet of the second man, who promptly ignored him. “From London, eh? Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Tell me, who rules London nowadays?” He said Lahn Dan the weird way that King Billy did. “Is there a King or a Queen? We don’t get much news out of London nowadays. What about your parents? Have they come with you?”

  I shook my head. “The Minister rules Lahn Dan. He’s not very nice.” I could feel Tab’s eyes burning into me. “And no. Our parents aren’t with us. My mama’s dead and Tab’s never even met his mother or father.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.” An awkward silence. Suddenly the young man lurched forward, his hand extended. “Sorry, I’ve not introduced myself. My name’s Wessex. And this is Mr. Trott.” The older man grunted and frowned even harder.

  I reached up and lightly touched the younger man’s hand. “Serendipity,” I mumbled. “Serendipity Goudge.”

  “Delighted to meet you, Serendipity.” He turned to face Tab. “And your name is Tab, I take it?” Tab nodded but either refused to shake the man’s hand or just didn’t realize that that was what he was meant to do. Either way, Wessex’s hand dropped to his side pretty quickly. “So, how far west are you traveling?”

  I fiddled awkwardly with the buttons on my jacket. “As far west as we can.”

  “Oh?”

  “To Whales.”

  “Wales, eh? Long way to go, isn’t it? What’s in Wales? Family?”

  “No, sir.” I cast another look towards Tab. “Horses, sir.”

  The older man gave a critical little sniff, but the eyes of the younger man lit up. “Horses? In Wales? Really? How do you know?”

  “I was told, sir. Someone in Lahn Dan.” I thought it best not to mention the map quite yet. It didn’t seem right.

  “Well, well.” Wessex stroked his chin. “Horses, eh? I can show you a horse if you like.”

  My heart shot up. Had I heard him right? “Sir?”

  “It’s not real,” he quickly added, and my heart shot back down. “Goodness, no. Not real. But it is very interesting. I think you’ll like it. The railway line runs straight past it—we always see it from the train, don’t we, Trott? Ever ridden on a train before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then you’re in for a treat. Grab your things and we’ll stuff them in the coach.”

  * * *

  The two men lifted the bikes into the coach behind the steam engine and propped our bags onto velvety red seats. Peering down the carriage I noticed boxes of old tins and tubs, some types of food that I recognized—like tinned potatoes and rubbery red beans—and others that I didn’t. There were other more industrial-looking things too—rotary blades and long metal arms and big shiny scoops for machines of some sort.

  “Been stocking up,” Wessex said when he spotted me staring. “Essentials for back home.”

  It was decided that Mouse would be safest shut inside the coach. The engine itself had no doors and Mouse could easily have skittered out which, when the train was moving, Wessex explained, would not be a good thing. Tab reluctantly agreed and the scruffy mutt was locked inside. I half expected to hear him whine and bark, desperate to get back to his master. But instead I saw him bounce onto the soft scarlet seats and curl himself into a sleepy ball. I think all that keeping up with the bikes had finished him off.

  We climbed the ladder into the cabin of the engine, Trott’s untrusting eye watching us all the while. The first thing that struck me was how unbearably hot it was—hot like a swoop past the sun. I felt like dropping on the floor. Tab noticed it too and he huffed and puffled and rubbed the sleeve of his shirt over his head.

  “Yes. It is a bit hot. Takes some getting used to, I’m afraid.”

  Behind us, coal was spilling out all over the floor. Lots of it. Lots and lots and lots of it. I thought back to the Professor’s sorry hearth with its meager lumps sparingly used on the halfhearted flames. What he would give for such a hoard.

  “Steam up yet, Trott?”

  “Not yet, sir. Lost some power when we stopped.” His eyes darted back accusingly at me and Tab. “Need to build it up.”

  The two men reached around, picked up scruffy shovels and starting throwing coal through a small hole, beyond which a fire was roaring away like the end of the world. They twisted from left to right, their tops swiveling back and forth as they scooped up the coal and threw it into the stove before going back for more. The fire grew brighter and angrier.

  “Want a go?” Wessex held up his spade to Tab, who gingerly took it from him and attempted to take o
ver where the young man had left off. Unfortunately Tab stabbed hopelessly away at the coal, making far too much of it spill out onto the floor and getting very little of it onto the spade.

  “Not like that. Like this,” Trott growled. “Get more on your shovel, boy. Get a real great load of it in at once.” Trott demonstrated. “We’ll never get moving again if we leave it to you.”

  Tab handed the spade back to Wessex, who smiled warmly at him before filling the firebox with even more fire.

  After a few minutes, they threw the shovels aside and Wessex pulled onto a lever. “Here we go.”

  Slowly—inchingly slowly—the train eased forward and then, a jerk as the engine tugged on the carriage behind. I thought I could hear Mouse bark but quickly forgot as the train gathered speed. Hissing and puffing, you could barely hear yourself sneeze, and the wheels beneath turned quicker and quicker, the rat-a-tat rat-a-tat rhythm getting faster and faster.

  “Good, eh?” Wessex shouted, looking like a little boy who’d just found a ball.

  And it was. I’d never stood anywhere quite so filthy and noisy and hot and airless before, and the countryside rolled past like a smudge and the train itself felt like it could rattle itself to pieces at any moment. But it was fantastic. Exciting. Exhilarating. The thought that we were moving faster than I’d ever moved before—even faster than the modpod out of Lahn Dan—made me oddly light-headed.

  “How fast are we going?” I eventually barked at Wessex as Trott fed the train’s glaring red mouth with more coal.

  “What?”

  “How … fast … are … we … going?”

  He leaned across me and tapped a little dial. The pointy hand inside quivered a bit. “Sixty. Sixty-two. That kind of thing.”

  “Sixty?”

  “Miles per hour, yes. Good, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and turned to look at Tab, expecting to see my excitement mirrored on his face. But instead he looked pale and petrified, his arms clinging desperately to a pole running from the floor to the ceiling.

  “You alright?” I mouthed. He shook his head and shut his eyes tight as though hoping to make everything go away.

  * * *

  The train slowed to little more than a roll.