by Angie Sage
It was the Xin.
Alex hurled herself through the gate, only to find a cascade of pinprick lights blocking her path. She hesitated a moment, but then pushed forward, knowing that she had no choice but to break through and get to the safety of the cove. Alex knew that the Xin were—like all Hauntings except for the Hawke—what her father called “hefted”: they had strict boundaries over which they could not stray. Hands over her head, eyes half closed, she pushed her way through the stinging lights, dancing like fireflies, strands of them joining together to form the dreaded Net of Xin. Alex stumbled on, trying to reach the path to Netters Cove, but the net of dancing lights blocked her way, and then, looping around her like a lasso of broken glass, it edged her along the cliff top. Desperately, Alex tried to pull away, but the Xin only tightened their hold, pulling her ever closer to the edge of the cliff, sending stinging shocks through her skin.
Teetering on the cliff edge, Alex looked down at the deep water below. Its dark-green depths looked calm and inviting, and the thought of sinking down into them and soothing the stings was irresistible. With the plinking, clinking song of the Xin needling into her brain, and the painful pricking of the shards of light pushing her forward, Alex held out her arms like the wings of a bird.
And then, she flew.
A piercing scream rapidly followed by a distant splash echoed outside. Ma Ratchet jumped to her feet. “Oh my days, what was that?”
Ratchet peered out of the window. “Dunno. Some dimwit fallen in the water, I suppose.”
“Go and have a look, Nigel, there’s a good boy.”
Ratchet sighed and got up. “I’m forty-two years old, Ma,” he said as he wandered out of the little cottage on the quay and went to see what was happening.
A small knot of people were gathered on the harbor steps, many of them pointing to the base of the sheer cliffs that rose up on the eastern side of the village. Two men rowing a sleek boat with a young woman standing holding a lantern were heading fast out of the harbor in the direction of the pointing fingers. Ratchet watched with interest—it looked like someone had fallen off the cliff.
The light from the rowboat cut through the rapidly falling darkness, showing a small white sailboat already at the foot of the cliff. It looked empty. But there was someone in the water struggling, and Ratchet could hear faint cries for help. He watched the rowboat draw alongside the white sailboat, saw the young woman give the lantern to the first rower and then, clutching a large cork float, jump overboard to join whoever was in the water. There was silence on the harbor as everyone waited. Her shout of “Haul in!” was greeted with relief. To Ratchet’s surprise, there was not one but two people rescued—kids both of them, he thought. No doubt they’d been showing off and jumping off the cliff. Tombstoning, they called it in Netters Cove—and for good reason.
Ratchet stalked off in disgust. He’d come home to escape annoying kids and the trouble they caused, only to have two half-drowned brats mess up his suppertime. He stomped back to Ma Ratchet’s and continued eating his fruitcake in silence. All his mother could get out of him about what had happened was “Darned kids.” So she left Ratchet and Merle to their digestion and went to see for herself.
There was a huddle of people on the dockside at the top of the steps. Ma elbowed forward until she had a ringside view. A girl, aged about twelve, she guessed, lay on the cobbles, saturated with water, which was leaking out of her ears, mouth and nose in a rather revolting manner. A boy, taller and a little older but equally soaked, was kneeling beside the girl. Ma thought he was crying, but she couldn’t tell because he too looked full of salt water. And then, straddling the girl, with her hands pushing firmly down upon her chest, was their new harbormaster, a young woman called Kirrin. With each chest compression, water gushed from the mouth of the young girl, and every time it did so, people around her gave a gasp. But it would be no good, Ma Ratchet knew very well. She’d seen her husband after he’d drowned, and it had not worked for him.
But Kirrin was not giving up. She rocked forward and back, pushing the water out of the girl’s lungs like she was squeezing out a sponge. “Please . . . please . . . ,” the boy was murmuring.
Ma Ratchet was getting bored and had just decided to go and finish her cake when the drowned girl suddenly coughed and a fountain of water spurted from her mouth. “Help me sit her up,” Kirrin told the boy. He needed no asking. Already his arm was around the girl, gently lifting her forward. Suddenly, the girl gave a great sigh and began to gasp for breath.
A murmur of relief ran through the huddle of people.
“It’s all right, Alex,” the boy was telling her. “Just breathe. Take it slow.”
“Let her cough,” Kirrin told him. “Let her get the stuff out of her lungs.”
Ma Ratchet felt cheated. Why hadn’t her Albert survived too? It wasn’t fair.
She was about to go home when Kirrin said to the boy, “I’ve never seen so much seawater come out. How high did you say she jumped from?”
“She didn’t jump, she was pushed,” the boy replied.
There was a small gasp from those watching.
“Pushed?” Kirrin sat back on her heels. “But who would do that?”
“Not ‘who,’” said the boy. “‘What.’ The Xin.”
An exclamation of horror ran through the watchers and a murmuring of Xin . . . Xin . . . Xin began.
Kirrin, who had been rubbing the girl’s back, snatched her hands away like she had been burned. She stood up and wiped her hands on her wet trousers as though they were sullied by touching the girl. “Is she . . . a Beguiler child?”
The boy stood up too and met Kirrin’s gaze. He seemed angry. “She—I mean Alex—is a human being like you and me. That’s all that matters.”
“That sounds like a yes to me,” Kirrin said. She addressed the villagers gathered around her. “We can’t have a Beguiler here. She’ll draw the Xin down. She’ll have to go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” the boy said heatedly. “Alex can’t go anywhere right now.”
Kirrin took no notice of him. “The girl has to go,” she told the gathering crowd. “Agreed?”
There were mutterings both of agreement and disagreement, but Ma Ratchet had seen enough. Her little cottage backed onto the cliffs and she wanted to be safely inside before the Xin got any closer. She headed back home, slammed the door shut and threw the bolts across.
“What’s up, Ma?” Ratchet asked.
“Bloomin’ Beguiler kids out there. Kirrin’s told them they have to go. Right now.” Ma Ratchet peered out of the window. “Wish they’d get a move on. We’ll have the Xin down here any minute.”
“Now, now, Ma, you know those Xin are hefted to the cliff tops. They don’t come down here, do they?”
“Don’t you now-now me, Nigel. The last two nights those Xin have been coming nearer. I hear them zinging and pinging and clinking and plinking all night long. Sets your teeth on edge something horrible. We had a meeting about it earlier. We reckon something’s been here that’s drawn them down.”
“Oh?” said Ratchet.
“There were two kids here a few nights back. Turned up out of nowhere in a little white boat. Maddie next door sold them some food, silly woman. Anyway, we reckon it was them that drew the Xin down.”
“White boat?” asked Ratchet, thinking of the little white boat he’d seen at the foot of the cliffs. “Two kids? Well, well. I wonder . . .”
“No ‘I wonder’ about it, Nigel. Of course they’re Beguiler kids. Why else would the Xin have pushed one of them off the cliff, huh?”
Ratchet looked at his mother thoughtfully. “Why else indeed?” he murmured. He got up, scraping his chair back, and strode to the door. From his perch Merle watched him sleepily with one open eye. Ratchet shot back the bolts on the door.
“Nigel! What are you doing?” Ma yelled.
Ratchet turned around. “I’m going to get those Beguiler kids and bring them here.”
“You most c
ertainly are not! Nigel, stop it. Stop it right now, I say!” But even Ma Ratchet’s sternest tones had no effect. Ratchet flung the door open and strode out of the cottage.
Ma watched him go with a sense of foreboding. Everyone knew no good ever came of mixing with Beguilers. And she just knew that no good would come of this either.
Chapter 25
Unwanted Guests
BENN WAS CROUCHING BESIDE ALEX in the middle of a circle of hostile villagers. Alex was still spluttering and spitting out water, which Benn took to be a good sign—the less water inside Alex the better. But she had also started to shiver uncontrollably, which Benn thought was not good at all. She desperately needed to be somewhere warm, not out on a harbor wall with the wind beginning to get up. But it was not looking good. The young woman who had rescued them—Kirrin, he thought her name was—wanted them gone. And it seemed she was in charge.
Kirrin looked down at Benn, her eyes narrowed with mistrust. “The rowers have gone to fetch your boat. You must leave at once.”
Benn stood up and faced Kirrin. “But Alex just nearly drowned. She’s freezing cold. Look how she’s shaking. She needs to get warm again. And dry. You can’t send us out to sea now. She’s too cold. She . . . she won’t make it.” Benn’s voiced faltered as the truth of what he was saying sunk in. Alex would not survive a night in an open boat.
But Kirrin was determined. “You’re not welcome here. You’re bringing the Xin down among us. You are both going right now. Your only choice is whether you get in your boat or we chuck you off the harbor wall.”
“But they’re just kids. Same age as my grandkids,” one old fisherman protested.
Kirrin rounded on the dissenter. “Okay then. You take them in. And if Netters Cove gets infested with Xin tonight we’ll all know who to blame, won’t we?”
The old fisherman mumbled awkwardly and looked at his boots. But others in the crowd took over. We’d be as bad as the Xin if we turn them out to sea tonight . . . Brr, it’s bitter out there. . . . Wind’s getting up now . . . Do we want Netters Cove to be known as the place that sent two defenseless kids out into the night in a leaky old boat?
Benn wanted to protest that Merry was neither leaky nor old, but he thought better of it.
“You’re putting us all at risk,” Kirrin said.
“Vote!” said a voice, and a chant was taken up. “Vote! Vote! Vote!”
“Very well,” Kirrin said. “As harbormaster I declare an impromptu vote. Those in favor of keeping Netters Cove safe—”
“Shame on you, Master!” a young man called out. “That’s a loaded question. We all want our village safe. Just not at the price of the lives of two innocent kids.”
“You propose the vote then,” Kirrin retorted, annoyed.
All eyes turned to the young man and his face reddened. But he stood his ground. “All those in favor of letting the kids stay tonight, raise your hands.” All hands were raised but Kirrin’s.
“Those against.”
Kirrin raised her hand.
“Sorry, Harbormaster,” the young man said. “The kids stay tonight.”
“Who with?” asked Kirrin. “So who wants the Xin tapping on their windows tonight?”
Benn looked at the sea of faces, suddenly thoughtful in the lantern light.
A rasping voice, which Benn thought he recognized, came from the back of the crowd. “Ma will take them. She’s got a spare room. And shutters on the windows too.”
“Nigel Ratchet?” Kirrin sounded surprised. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. It’s me. Like I said. Ma will take them in for tonight.”
“Very well.” Kirrin turned to Benn and Alex. “This gentleman will take you to his mother’s cottage. You will leave at first light.” With that she turned abruptly on her heel and strode away.
Silently, the group of villagers drifted away, leaving Ratchet with Benn and Alex. Ratchet eyed his guests happily. It was as he’d expected, these were the same two Beguiler kids he had seen arriving in Rekadom with the Jackal. The Beguiler kids who had then made themselves invisible and escaped. He grinned. He’d hit the jackpot with these two. “Come on now,” he said to Benn. “Let’s get you back to Ma’s.”
Benn would have been relieved that they weren’t being sent out in Merry on a cold and windy night, if he had not recognized their host. This was the man who’d been yelling, “Dark! Dark!” in Rekadom, and Benn was very wary of anyone from Rekadom. But what could he do? Alex was shivering uncontrollably now—she had to get warm. It would be fine, Benn told himself. They just had to get through tonight.
Benn took Alex’s arm, and slowly they followed Ratchet across the dockside to the very last cottage of a row set back against the foot of the cliff. Ratchet pushed open the door, calling, “Ma! Got some visitors for you.”
Ma Ratchet regarded Benn and Alex with deep suspicion. “So I see, Nigel. So I see.”
Ratchet flinched. He wished his mother wouldn’t call him “Nigel” in front of people from Rekadom. “So, Ma,” he said very loudly, “can you get them settled out the back? Light the stove. The girl’s frozen.”
“If you say so, Nigel,” Ma Ratchet said coolly. She turned to Benn and Alex. “Follow me.”
“Thanks,” Benn mumbled.
They followed Ma Ratchet through a small kitchen into a poky storeroom at the back of the house. There were two wide, low shelves, a pile of old crab pots with dried seaweed stuck on them and a small potbellied stove. The back of the storeroom was bare rock with a film of damp on it, and Benn noticed that the only window was a small shuttered opening well out of reach. The place felt cold, damp and oppressive. “Sit yourselves down on a shelf,” Ma Ratchet said. “I’ll get some blankets and pillows. I suppose you’ll want some dry clothes too.”
“Thanks,” Benn said once again.
Ma Ratchet went out and they heard her yelling, “Nigel! Fetch some logs, will you?”
Shuddering with cold, Alex collapsed on the nearest shelf. Benn sat next to her and put his arm around her, rubbing her shoulders to try to get some warmth into her. She felt cold as ice. “You okay?” he asked.
Teeth chattering so violently that she could not speak, Alex nodded.
Ma Ratchet returned with a pile of musty blankets and old clothes. Wordlessly, Benn helped get the room ready. He piled the logs into the stove and lit them, he helped make up beds on the shelves, and then he allowed himself to be shooed out into the kitchen while Ma Ratchet helped Alex into a long woolly nightdress about ten sizes too big for her. Ma Ratchet put all the wet clothes over a rail by the stove, apart from the green silk sash, which Alex refused to let go.
The kitchen, like the whole house, smelled of old fish, but Benn was too tired to care. He sat on a stool by the cooking range and let the day’s events sink in. The terror of seeing Alex fall from the cliff had not left him, but it was overlaid by the joy of finding her when he had thought he never would set eyes on her again. He was lost in his thoughts when the door from the sitting room opened and the Ratchet man from Rekadom walked in. He closed the sitting room door behind him and leaned back against it, as if trying to stop Benn from leaving. “So,” he said, making that little word sound like an accusation.
Benn said nothing.
“Your friend got attacked by Xin, did she?”
Benn gulped. This did not feel good.
“You know that Xin only do that to Beguilers,” Ratchet said. “They don’t touch normal people.”
That stung. “Alex is normal,” Benn retorted.
“Oh, Alex, is it? And what is her last name, huh?”
Benn knew better than to fall into that trap. “None of your business,” he muttered.
“Funny name—Alex Noneofyourbusiness,” Ratchet mused. “Ah well. Sleep tight.” With that he was out of the kitchen, the door clicking shut behind him.
Ma Ratchet emerged from the storeroom. “Your friend’s asleep,” she told Benn. “Time you were in bed too. You’ll need to be off first thing tomo
rrow.”
Benn nodded. “Yeah. We will.”
Ma Ratchet caught herself feeling sorry for Benn. He looked worn-out, she thought. She cut a chunk of bread and spread it thick with butter. “Take that to bed with you. Looks like you could do with something.”
Benn smiled with surprise. “Oh! Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You heading home tomorrow?”
Benn nodded.
“Got a long way to go?” asked Ma.
“Lemon Valley. All the way up the river to the roundhouse.”
“My, my, that is a long way. Sleep well now.”
Benn retreated into the storeroom and quietly closed the door behind him so he didn’t wake Alex. As he sat on his shelf in the gloom—lit only by a bar of light from the kitchen creeping underneath the door—and ate his buttered bread, he heard the quiet, slow sound of a key being turned in the lock. He waited a few minutes and then very gingerly got up, tiptoed across the room and tried the door. It was as he expected—locked. He walked quietly back to his shelf, which was covered with rough blankets and an old—but thankfully clean—shirt. He hung his wet clothes over the chair in front of the stove beside Alex’s, put on the shirt and then, feeling icy cold himself now, he burrowed under the covers and lay still, listening.
Benn could not get rid of an increasing sense of dread. There was no doubt in his mind now, this house was a dangerous place to be—the red-faced man from Rekadom had made that clear enough. Benn heard heavy footsteps cross the kitchen; he dived beneath the covers and pretended to be asleep. He heard the sound of the door being tried and then Ma Ratchet’s annoyed voice, “I told you I locked it, Nigel.”
“Just checking,” was the response. “I’m not letting this opportunity slip away, Ma.”
“I don’t see how bringing Beguiler kids back to Rekadom is going to do you any good at all, Nigel,” came Ma’s voice. “I thought the king wanted Beguilers gone from Rekadom. What good is bringing them back going to do you?”
“I told you, Ma. Bartlett is going around telling people my new Flyer is a Beguiler. It makes me look bad. And it’s dangerous too, to be accused of being a Harborer of Beguilers. But if I bring two real Beguiler kids back, then that proves I’m no Harborer. And it makes Bartlett look like an idiot. Right?”
