Leetha was sorry for the woman and wondered who she was and what she had done to bring her to the attention of the Immortals. Soon, though, her heart was hurting even more. The cries of children echoed from the farmhouse. The pain and loss in those voices made her wrap her arms around her head, but the cries still came to her, full of loneliness and fear.
Later, Leetha was woken by shouts from the farmhouse. At first, she was surprised at having managed to fall asleep, then light flared – light that was fierce and orange, an unnatural and hard shining. It was followed by a great crashing noise, as if a hundred cooking pots had been hurled from a cliff to fall on rocks. More shouts, more panic, more rushing about in the night.
Leetha was half-afraid and half-welcoming, and nearly overcome with curiosity. What was happening? Nothing the Immortals and their guards were happy with, that was certain.
She hoped the children were safe.
Big people rushed about. They were green and blue in the light coming from the windows of the farmhouse. Some of the frightful Spawn creatures shambled around as well.
Leetha still had no idea what was going on. She bit her lip. Could this be a chance to explore, while the place was in uproar? Not to escape – they had to wait for their young champions for that – but finding out what lay where was always a good idea.
She sat up and saw Calli looking at her. ‘I can open the lock,’ Calli whispered.
‘Good. Then you stay here.’
‘No. I shall go with you.’
Danger was out there, but Calli was brave. ‘I hoped you would say that,’ Leetha said.
Hand in hand, they crept along the side of their sleeping quarters. Big people were still blundering about. Some were wild-eyed and babbling about the unnatural lights. Others had weapons, but did not seem to know where to point them. Great groans came from under the earth, as if the world itself were in pain. The windows of the farmhouse showed colours that Leetha had never seen before, then came a tugging, deep inside, a yearning that frightened her.
Calli pointed in the other direction, at a big building opposite the farmhouse. Even at this distance, the smell of animals was strong. Big animals, grass eaters. Cattle? The strong, fast ones – horses?
A figure emerged from the darkness of the open doorway. Leetha was startled to see it was Gompers, his hair and his clothing awry. He barked orders at the guards. Soon, the guards were calm and orderly instead of running about and shouting.
Leetha saw then that Gompers was the most important person here. He was in charge and all the guards looked to him.
‘Quickly now,’ Gompers was saying. ‘This barn is a satisfactory place. Bring the boxes from the rooms beneath the farmhouse before that woman’s magic ruins everything. I won’t have my work destroyed in a magical battle.’
A squad of guards trotted over to the farmhouse just as the ground shook beneath their feet. They hesitated, but Gompers shouted, ‘Hurry!’ and they plunged through the door. A few minutes later they came out carrying boxes, the larger needing two guards, one at each end.
They took the boxes into the animal building and returned empty-handed. Gompers immediately pointed at the farmhouse. With reluctance, the guards jogged back to the farmhouse, which had quietened but still showed dim violet light through the windows.
Gompers crossed his arms and waited.
‘We should go back,’ Calli whispered in Leetha’s ear.
‘No,’ Leetha whispered. ‘I want to see what is so worth rescuing.’
Calli winced as a high-pitched whistle came from the farmhouse. It made Leetha’s skin prickle and, for a short moment, she was a child again, listening to the monsoon winds and hearing demons and sky-trolls arguing over the dead.
Two guards staggered out of the farmhouse with a large crate.
‘Follow me,’ Leetha said to Calli.
They kept to the shadows, hardly having to draw on their skills to remain unnoticed, such was the confusion. Many of the guards had assembled around the farmhouse, ringing it as her people would circle a balky pig. A gap was left for those carrying crates out of the building.
Calli found the side door to the animal building. Leetha grimaced when the rusty hinges creaked, but a noise boomed from the farmhouse – a vast, windy outpouring like the sigh of a mountain. Leetha rocked as it tumbled over her, and found it hard to keep her footing. Calli closed her eyes and groped for Leetha’s hand. They stood shivering for a moment, then, together, they inched into the darkness.
The boxes had been stacked hastily. Some were made of metal, unlocked, but most were wooden with covers that were not nailed down. Gompers still stood at the entrance of the animal building, his back to them, a black figure outlined against the changing glow of the farmhouse. Leetha stared at him, for the shifting light made it appear as if Gompers were shifting, wavering, a little at a time, back and forth, not quite sure what his real shape was. She shivered and turned away. The man was a mystery, but for once her curiosity did not demand an answer.
Leetha and Calli climbed a ladder. They hid in the straw above the floor of the building, where they could peer through the cracks between the boards. The guards working below muttered under their breath as they stacked their prizes, but no-one protested aloud. Gradually, the flow of boxes slowed until, finally, Gompers dismissed the guards who went to join their fellows in the cordon around the farmhouse.
Gompers strode to the boxes. He unlatched one and withdrew a notebook. Leetha and Calli shared a look. It was one of the notebooks from the tests.
Gompers replaced the notebook and inspected the rest of the boxes, hands clasped behind his back. Leetha was startled to realise that he was humming.
At first she was not sure, but as the noise from the farmhouse died down she was left in no doubt. Gompers was humming some of the songs he had played her. Not the ones he had called ‘opera’. He was humming the ones he had called ‘popular songs’. The one on his lips had puzzled Leetha, for she did not know what a bicycle was, nor why it would be built for two.
Leetha had liked the song when she first heard it. It was happy, playful, light and loving. When Gompers hummed it, though, it became dreadful. He beat time with his fist against his thigh as if he were breaking rocks with a hammer. He had the rhythm perfectly but all joy was stripped from the song by his doggedness. He was nowhere near the heart of the song and it became a bleak thing.
Gompers finished his inspection. He had just dusted his hands together when Glass Face the guard appeared at the entrance.
‘Mr Gompers? Sir? It’s the Immortals. They’ve subdued the woman and they’re calling for you.’
Gompers grunted and marched after the guard.
Leetha and Calli waited before they climbed down the ladder. Calli led the way and hid near the entrance, ready to give warning. Leetha busied herself looking through the chests and crates at the dozens and dozens of books, photographs and sketches. She could not read much of the writing, but the photographs and sketches made her tremble. Many were of her people, suffering, and not always because of hurt done to them. Sometimes they were sitting, crying, lost and alone, with no sign of being hit, or prodded or made to stand.
Then she found it. A small, black metal box. Leetha had long ago lost the paper that the young man had given her, but she recognised one of the words on the top: ‘Sanderson’.
She took the box under her arm and waved to Calli. ‘You can open this? Not now, later.’
Her cousin nodded. ‘I hear children,’ she whispered.
‘I know.’ Leetha shuddered. ‘The sorcerers have them.’
The next day. Leetha watched through her barred window and saw big people working hard in the new buildings and in the old farmhouse.
Eventually, her people were taken out to one of the other new buildings. It was as Leetha feared: another workplace. This one had large doors that opened onto a wide, flat plain that extended to heavy woods beyond. While they stood in front of these doors, Gompers explained their tasks. He w
ore thick, uncomfortable garments again, but his hat was flat and brown instead of the tall black one he had worn in the city, the hat that meant he was important.
Gompers told them what was to be done and how they would be vital in constructing the tower the Immortals needed, but Leetha did not listen. She was looking at the world.
How far was it to the trees that ringed the grassy land? If her people could reach the woods, no-one would catch them. They would not be seen among the bushes and the leaves and the animals that must live there. Her people could live there, find things to eat. They would be free and safe.
She sighed. No, this was not their home and never would be. They could survive, for a time, but their home would be as far away as ever. They still needed help. Her job now was to help her people endure until it came.
She closed her eyes. They would come. She was sure of it.
Leetha opened her eyes. Gompers was still talking, still pointing past the farmhouse, still explaining about his concrete and steel.
From his face, she could tell that Gompers could see it already, the tower rising from its concrete base, higher than anything around it, reaching for the sky and then talking to the heavens.
Mannor would know. He would tell her. She would do what she had to. She would wind the wires. She would pack the hair. She would scramble around the metal tower and tighten the bolts and nuts. If she did, she would stay alive, and if she stayed alive she would lead her people home, when the ghost girl and the wild boy came.
TWENTY-NINE
Kingsley pushed back his cap and pointed with his cane. ‘I think it wants us to go up the stairs.’
The myrmidon had led them out of the workshop and down the deserted street. Now it was now pointing with its nose at stairs that led up the side of the last building on the block. A little drizzle was falling and Kingsley began to regret his choice of walking stick over umbrella. He arranged his scarf around his collar to keep the worst of the damp away.
Evadne had changed into what she called her travelling outfit: a navy-blue sort of half-coat, half-dress with a few tassels that made Kingsley think of a uniform. With the narrow peaked hat she wore, it made her look formidable.
They had set off well-armed. Evadne had her Malefactor’s Lament – a replacement for the Swingeing Blow that had been lost when they were captured by the Immortals. Kingsley had a neat little electrical device she called the Shocking Pinch.
The rooftop provided a fine vista over this patch of the Demimonde and away to Southwark Bridge and the river, but the myrmidon left little time to admire the view. It hurried to the western edge of the building.
‘Are you sure it knows where it’s going?’ Kingsley asked Evadne.
‘Beanie might take a roundabout route, but he will get us there.’
Roundabout it was, and they needed a stop for a sandwich before they ended up on Drummond Street, facing the monumental and unmistakeable Euston Arch.
‘So Beanie wants us to take a train, then,’ Kingsley surmised. Crowds were entering the Euston Underground on their way home. This had forced Evadne to hide Beanie under her coat – a demure but practical black gabardine of Mr Burberry’s. Kingsley was intensely uneasy about this, seeing it as akin to stuffing ferrets down one’s trousers, but he restrained himself from commenting. ‘How is he going to let us know exactly which train we should be on? Can he hold a pin in his mouth and jab it at a timetable?’
‘Hardly.’ Evadne she set off across the street and through the arch, leaving Kingsley to clutch his cap and hurry after her.
In the Great Hall, while Evadne read the destinations and departures aloud from the boards, Kingsley admired the allegorical statues. He divided them into those who looked as if they had forgotten something important and those who had slight headaches. A furious squirming under Evadne’s armpit announced when she’d hit upon the correct train. ‘Atherstone. A change or two along the way, but it’s Atherstone we want.’
‘Atherstone? North of Coventry?’
‘Unless you know of another Atherstone, that’s the one.’
‘I’ll buy us tickets. “Two and a rat, please, Mr Stationmaster”, correct?’
‘I hope you can overcome your antipathy towards myrmidons, Kingsley, really I do.’
Alone in their first class compartment, Kingsley practised with the pack of cards he’d slipped into his inner pocket before leaving the workshop – only fifty-one cards since he’d spun one to Christabel, but enough to go on with. Evadne patiently chose cards, reinserted them and then provided critiques that were detailed and, once he’d stopped wincing at how accurate they were, useful. After the first hour, she begged off and he was reduced to practising springing the deck from hand to hand, something that always benefited from drilling.
Evadne sat and juggled marbles with relentless rhythm, hardly even looking at them. Behind her pale blue spectacles, her eyes were distant and unfocused. Kingsley wondered what she was seeing.
Beanie the myrmidon sat on the seat between Evadne and the window. Occasionally he snuffled, but otherwise he could have been a rather tatty muff.
It was eight o’clock and well dark by the time they reached Atherstone Station. Kingsley purchased two chocolate bars and an apple, which he shared with Evadne, who nibbled distractedly as they followed Beanie. Wriggling with excitement, the myrmidon scuttled out of the station, past a signpost pointing to Fenny Drayton, and led them out of town and into the great and dark countryside beyond.
THIRTY
Kingsley trusted to the darkness. He ran through the woods, keeping an eye on the lights of the farmhouse a mile or so in the distance, and then crouched low. He was almost unbearably aware of the surroundings; the smell of the leaf mould underfoot was rich enough to make him dizzy while the cry of a fox, miles away, sent him spinning until he threw himself face-down near the trunk of an ancient chestnut tree. His heart was painful in his chest, thumping wildly.
Two thoughts came to him while he lay there panting: I’ve ruined my jacket! and I must keep going before I lose the trail!
Kingsley clutched his head in both hands. His civilised self and his wild self were pulling in different directions. The struggle hadn’t been apparent in the headlong pursuit through the woods. He’d abandoned his civilised self in the thrill of the chase. He had prey ahead and he needed to chase it down. Now, though, his civilised self intruded: And when I catch him, what then?
Kingsley shivered, a spasm that took his whole body and racked it with shame and horror. He couldn’t allow his wildness free rein like that. After all, his last lapse had resulted in his being beaten, chained and endangering both Evadne and himself.
His wildness had advantages. If not for it, he would never have been able to keep up with the faint trail through the woods. Its wariness, too, was useful – and he couldn’t deny that his senses had improved since he’d acknowledged that his wildness was part of him. The world was richer when it was in the ascendant: everything was more alive, more imminent, more vital. It was easy to imagine abandoning the world of people, with its noise and stink, and fleeing to the wilderness. Even thinking of such freedom was thrilling. Losing himself in the forest or jungle, running wild and revelling in the touch of the world on his skin had an appeal that spoke to the deepest and rawest parts of him.
He buried his face in the leaf mould and was intoxicated by its earthiness. He filled his hands with it and felt tiny insects scurry across his skin, fleeing his disruption. The wild sang to him and he wanted to join it.
He lifted his head. I can’t.
He couldn’t desert Evadne, or his father, or his dreams of a life on the stage. He had a responsibility to see things through.
That’s your civilised self talking. Surrender to the wild and you’ll be free of such weakness. Surrender and we will find a place of freedom for us to roam.
Kingsley groaned. He rested his head against the roots of the old tree so that his nostrils were full of the earthy smell of damp bark. I’ve given my
wildness a voice and it’s arguing with me!
He made a fist and pounded the soft ground. It was more than stupid. The more he thought about it, the more he realised it was wrong. He wasn’t two people. He was Kingsley Ward, who just happened to have a number of conflicting sides.
And doesn’t everyone?
Evadne, he knew, struggled with her crusading spirit, the one that threatened to burst out at inopportune moments. Sometimes, a cool head was needed instead of an avenging fury. Mostly, she managed. Her crusading spirit never disappeared, though. It, in part, was what drove her. The inventive, capricious Evadne needed that zeal to help shape her life.
And then there was his foster father. Dr Ward’s interests were many. If it weren’t for his need for answers, he could have become a mere ditherer. He was never content to dip into a subject. He burned to wrestle with its implications and what they could mean for humanity.
Kingsley lifted his head. He licked his lips, then winced. He’d collected more bruises to add to what was already an outstanding assortment.
He was resolved, or at least as resolved as he could be, flat on his stomach in the darkness far from home. He would no longer deny his Inner Animal. It was part of him and he would welcome it – but he wouldn’t let it dominate. Kingsley Ward wanted to be more than wild. He was a civilised being, but one who remembered the wild and what it meant.
Cautiously, he picked himself up. Evadne was bound to be worried. He brushed himself off absently and then crept around the trunk of the chestnut. He cast about for a moment, then sniffed. The trail led east, towards the remnants of an old hedgerow. He trotted in that direction, hands outstretched. He felt the breeze on his face, cool rather than chill. It brought the smell of Mallowside Farm to him – animal stables and dung – still strong despite being a mile or two away.
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