The Prince of Neither Here Nor There mp-1

by Sean Cullen

  The Prince of Neither Here Nor There

  ( Misplaced Prince - 1 )

  Sean Cullen

  The Prince of Neither Here Nor There

  Sean Cullen

  PUFFIN CANADA

  An Introductory Note from the Narrator

  Hello, Person. Welcome to the book. I have been chosen to be your narrator for as long as this story lasts. I can’t help pointing out that you are especially lucky. I am the best.

  Narration is a serious business to be taken seriously by serious people. Fortunately for you, I am an extremely serious person. I rarely smile and I am very careful about personal hygiene. Not that people who are clean don’t smile… I am however very clean and I rarely do smile.

  As always in the books I narrate, there are numerous footnotes, those little tiny numbers throughout the text that direct a reader to the corresponding number at the bottom of the page where an explanation of a difficult term or perhaps a clarification of a plot point will be found. Be sure to read these footnotes. I take a lot of time preparing them and, indeed, I was given several awards for best footnoting at the Institute for Advanced Narration in Helsinki, Finland. 1 I also received the Footnoter of the Year Award three years in a row. The award comes with a tiny trophy that I have placed on a tiny shelf just below and to one side of the large shelf where I keep my large trophies.

  The beginning of a series of books is always a momentous time. We are about to embark on a journey together into realms unknown. We will meet characters of many stripes. 2 We will delve into dark places and find great joy and sorrow. Therefore, I suggest that you examine your intentions and be sure you are ready to make the commitment to finish this tale once you have started. 3

  I always take precautions when starting a new story. I make sure I have plenty of hand lotion to keep my fingertips moist as I peck away at my keyboard. It wouldn’t do to get chapped tips! With each keystroke, the pain would become more and more intense, and unconsciously I would tend to make the story more and more bitter. I also try to have several extra pairs of fresh underpants handy. When I get involved in my writing I often lose track of time. In addition, I have a specially designed chair that massages my lower back at the touch of a button.

  Perhaps you have enjoyed some of my earlier work. I narrated Langar the Electric Donkey: Parts One Through Seventeen. 4 I also won several awards for my narration of The Secret Life of Soap, a work of non-fiction that was praised as “a foamy and delightful odyssey through the life of a bar of soap” by The New York Times Book Review. Most recently, I narrated the very popular Hamish X series, which received several accolades, including Best Use of Cheese and Pirates. My point is that I know what I’m doing, so you can relax and just enjoy the book you are about to read.

  The Prince of Neither Here Nor There is the first in a series of books about a boy named Brendan who doesn’t realize his true nature. Certainly, sometimes we are all confused about who we are. For several days last month I was convinced I was a little French girl named Collette, but that was after a sharp blow to the head I received during a bank robbery. 5 The boy in The Prince of Neither Here Nor There, Brendan, finds himself caught in a struggle between two worlds as he tries to find out where he fits into both. During the course of the story he will face strange and unknown dangers, discover new and amazing powers, and meet friends and family he never knew existed. I don’t want to give too much away so I’ll leave it at that. Suffice it to say that you will like this story: it will be exciting and fun! So keep reading!

  This is also a story about Faeries. Not Fairies. There’s a big difference, and it isn’t just that one is spelled with an “e.” Fairies are ineffectual little things that flit about in children’s stories, shoot magic dust into people’s faces, and dress up in flower petals and all that hooey. Insipid little things! No. No. No! The Faeries we will be dealing with are something different altogether! They are a noble race, an ancient race, often marvellous and magical but just as often deadly and dangerous. I hope you are up to this. If not, put down this book and back away carefully.

  If you haven’t backed away, I assume that you are going to continue reading. Good! You’re just the sort of reader I admire. Let’s get down to it! How shall I start? Hmmmm. I know. How about a prologue? Sounds like a plan…

  Now, let’s begin. Since this is technically a Faerie Tale we should start with a suitable phrase. Are there any four words more filled with excitement and anticipation than…

  Once upon a time…

  ^1 Good. You read this footnote. I think we’re going to get along just fine.

  ^2 By “characters of many stripes” I do not mean that the people will literally be striped. I mean that they will be quite different from one another. If this were to be a story about a group of zebras, then, most certainly, the characters involved would have a stripy tendency.

  ^3 In ancient China, during the Han Dynasty, anyone who started reading a book but didn’t finish it was thrown in prison and had to stay there for as long as it took for the warden to read the book in question. One would always hope that the warden was a speed-reader.

  ^4 Langar the Electric Donkey is now sadly out of print in the English language but is still available in

  ^5 I was not robbing the bank! Get that thought out of your mind. I was waiting in line to obtain a money order when bank robbers entered the establishment. I objected to their butting in front of me in line and was pistol-whipped for my pains. Pistol-whipping is painful but never as painful as being shot with a pistol. I suggest that you try to avoid both options if at all possible.

  Prologue

  … A storm lashed Saint Bartholomew’s Orphanage as though intent on peeling the slate roof away to gain entry to the old redbrick building on Liberty Street. 6 St. Bart’s stoically withstood the howl of the wind and the torrents of rain as it had for over a century. Water gushed from its leaky gutters, pooling in the asphalt courtyard and overflowing the sewer grate, creating a small lake at the bottom of the cracked stone steps leading up to the front door. In the flashes of lightning the slate roof tiles glistened like molten lead traced with silver. The building seemed to cringe as the thunder rolled across the purple night sky. 7

  St. Bart’s had begun its life as the chapel of Toronto Central Prison in the late nineteenth century. 8 The prison, now long since demolished, was located on what was then the outskirts of the young city of Toronto. Farther west, along the waterfront, was the small affluent village of Parkdale, home to the rich burghers 9 who could afford to be away from the soot and train yards of the growing metropolis. The prison was built on land that was surrounded by warehouses, rail yards, and the pungent hog slaughter yards that gave Toronto its nickname “Hogtown.” 10

  When it was built, the prison was hardly in a coveted location. No respectable person would want to live next to a slaughter yard on a rail line. But the reek of pig manure and the clatter of freight trains were thought to be a fitting addition to the misery of those incarcerated for their crimes. Decades later the prison was shut down as the city swelled westward to encompass its grounds. The only vestige of the correctional facility was the grimy chapel and the name of the road that ran before it, Liberty Street.

  The chapel escaped destruction only because a Catholic charity that cared for orphans was willing to take on the task of renovating the building for their needs. The nuns of St. Bartholomew raised the money from wealthy, guilty Catholics to turn the chapel into a dormitory for children made bereft of parents by accident or neglect. Their young charges slept in rows of cots by night and learned their letters by day in a schoolroom overlooking the bleak asphalt playground that had once been the convicts
’ exercise yard.

  St. Bart’s had endured much over the decades, but slowly the district around it slid further into decline. Industry moved to cheaper locations outside the city, and the orphanage gradually crumbled despite the sisters’ best efforts. St. Bart’s was teetering on the brink of a precipice of debt.

  On this night, the sisters convened in the kitchen after all the children were tucked safely in bed. They were discussing the future of their enterprise. A tray of biscuits and pot of tea on the table were largely ignored.

  “Bleak!” Sister Anna Grace announced. Spread before her on the table’s scarred surface were the orphanage’s ledgers, displaying an alarming amount of red ink. 11 “We are in a very desperate situation, sisters. Our creditors have been quite patient with us up to now, but we can’t hope to rely on their patience much longer. They will not wait forever to be paid.”

  “Why shouldn’t they wait?” Sister Hildegard grumped, her normally sour expression deepening, lips twisting, and nose wrinkling as if the air itself offended her. “We do the Lord’s work here!”

  “Indeed, Sister Hildegard.” Sister Cecilia, the Mother Superior, raised a hand in gentle entreaty. She was tired and had no stomach for Sister Hildegard’s belligerence, even when it was aimed at others. “We must thank them for their generosity. They have done so much for us up to now, extending our lines of credit and donating all they can, but one must remember that they have families of their own and businesses to run. They have been kind, but we must face the possibility that St. Bartholomew’s may be forced to close its doors.”

  The announcement silenced the nuns. For a long moment the kitchen was filled with the sound of rain lashing against the windows and water dripping from the leaking roof into a metal bucket placed in the middle of the table. Sister Cecilia looked at each of the sisters in turn, her watery blue eyes taking in the defeat on her colleagues’ faces. She sighed inwardly.

  Motivating the staff was becoming more and more difficult. The sisters worked so hard in the face of so many difficulties. And who was going to shore up her own flagging spirits? No, she chastised herself. You are the Mother Superior! No time for self-pity.

  “Sisters,” she said, masking her worry with a smile, “let us not be so downcast. We still have a little time. I suggest we all get some rest and perhaps the Lord will send us some inspiration. Say an extra prayer tonight. Remember: miracles do happen. The Lord will provide.”

  “Sister.” The heavy male voice made all the nuns startle. They turned toward the doorway and saw Finbar, the groundskeeper and general handyman, looming there, his flat woollen cap in his thick, scarred fingers. Finbar had served in his post for many years, coming to work at St. Bart’s after his sentence at the old prison was finished. His large ruddy face and pale blue eyes spoke of his Irish origins, and broken veins on his florid cheeks spoke of his fondness for whisky, a failing that the sisters chose to overlook. He had a full head of thick white hair. He was tall and solid, filling the doorframe with shoulders that were still wide and sturdy despite the fact that he was well into middle age. A career as a petty thief and housebreaker had landed him in jail many times. When the Toronto Central Prison finally closed in 1915, the then Mother Superior, despite the other sisters’ objections, had decided to take a chance on him. Finbar had been with them ever since. He was good with his hands and could fix almost anything. He also seemed to have a soft spot for the young children, teaching those who were so inclined woodwork-ing and basic mechanics in his workshop across the yard. In a nightly ritual, he informed the sisters, “The windows is all latched and the shutters closed. If there be nothin’ else, it’s me for bed.”

  “Thank you, Finbar. Good night.”

  The big man nodded and clomped off to the cellar, where his bed was nestled in a cozy nook, up against the warmth of the ancient furnace.

  “As I was saying, sisters, a fervent prayer would not be out of place tonight,” Sister Cecilia suggested with a confidence she didn’t really feel.

  “Humph,” huffed Hildegard, pushing her chair back from the table. “It’s a miracle we’re hoping for, is it? Well, they’re few and far between these days. And the Lord didn’t have a mortgage.” 12 With that, Hildegard tramped out of the kitchen. Sister Cecilia and Sister Anna Grace listened to the tread of Hildegard’s feet on the stairs as she ascended to the nuns’ sleeping quarters on the third floor beneath the rafters.

  “I’m sorry, Mother Superior. I wish the news was better, but we’re just running out of money.”

  “I know, my dear,” Sister Cecilia said. “Don’t worry. You’ve done an excellent job. There’s only so much any of us can do. Never mind Sister Hildegard. No one likes to hear bad news. You gather up your things and go to bed now. Those children will be up early tomorrow as they are every morning. You need your rest.”

  Sister Anna Grace gathered up her ledger books. “What about you, Mother Superior? You should get some sleep. You look tired.”

  “Oh, I’m fine, dear. One always looks tired when one gets to be my age,” Sister Cecilia said with a rueful sigh. “I’ll just clear away these tea things and I’ll be right up.”

  Left alone in the kitchen, Sister Cecilia cleared away the remnants of the sisters’ meeting. Placing pot and cups, creamer and sugar bowl, and crumb-laden plates onto the tray, she carried it to the counter and set it down by the sink. The window over the kitchen sink gave her a view of the rain-lashed waste ground across Liberty Street and farther on to the lights of cars crawling along the expressway. The grey bulk of the buildings that made up the Exhibition Grounds rose in a dark silhouette, backlit by flashes of lightning. In years past the great lake beyond had spread out as far as the eye could see, but the concrete span of the highway now blocked it from view.

  “Not that I could see that far these days,” Sister Cecilia mumbled ruefully to herself. She was getting old. Her seventieth birthday was approaching, and in the damp early mornings she felt every year in her bones, the dull ache lingering longer and longer into the daylight hours.

  Sister Cecilia had been born Nuala Callahan in the County of Cork, Ireland, far across a sea of water and years. She’d gone to teachers’ college and graduated high in her class, applying for missionary work overseas and dreaming of a posting in remote African climes or South American jungles. She was shocked and slightly disheartened to find herself appointed as a teacher in Canada at the orphanage of St. Bartholomew’s in the burgeoning city of Toronto.

  She’d found herself shuddering west along King Street in a rackety red and yellow streetcar, crushed against the window by a grimy worker who was eating an enormous sandwich. Past warehouses, past a hospital, past some small shops, she watched the city go by. She was so engrossed she almost missed her stop. If she hadn’t asked the driver to alert her when Strachan Avenue came up, she would have ridden to the end of the line.

  “Strachan,” the streetcar driver announced, drawling the name over the loudspeaker, missing the “ch” in the middle completely and saying it “Straaaaawn.” By the exasperated tone of his voice, he must have had to repeat himself to get Sister Cecilia’s attention. Flustered, the nun hauled her suitcase out from under the seat and made her way through the car and stepped down onto the street. The doors clattered shut and the streetcar pulled away.

  Sister Cecilia stood on the side of the road looking around in bewilderment. She fished out of her pocket the directions she had written down on a scrap of paper. Before she could even look at them, a gust of wind plucked the paper from her hand and sent it sailing high into the air.

  “Oh, Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Sister Cecilia shouted. She watched the scrap of paper disappear over the roof of a house.

  “Strong language from a nun.” The deep voice startled her. She spun around to see a tall man in overalls and a flat cap. His blue eyes were smiling.

  “Oh, yes. Well… I lost my directions.”

  The man nodded slowly. He swept the hat off his head, revealing dark hair heavil
y salted with grey. “Aye. That can certainly happen.”

  “You’re Irish?” Sister Cecilia asked.

  “I am.” He smiled again. Before she could ask more, he picked up her suitcase. “What’re ye lookin’ fer? Reckon I can guide ya.”

  Sister Cecilia bit her lip. A strange man, albeit someone from the home country, was holding everything she owned. He could just walk away and leave her there with nothing in this strange new city.

  “Don’t worry,” the man said. “I’ll not walk off with yer valuables, Sister. We bog-trotters 13 have to stick together.” He grinned again.

  Sister Cecilia couldn’t help smiling back. “Saint Bartholomew’s Orphanage. Do you know it?”

  The man nodded once. “Well, isn’t that a happy turn of events. Amn’t I goin’ that very way meself.” He turned and headed south down Strachan toward the lake. Sister Cecilia had to trot to catch up with him.

  They walked down the road, passing crumbling brick warehouses. The road was potholed and rough. Trucks passing by kicked up clouds of dust.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” Sister Cecilia asked.

  “Have no fear,” the man rumbled. “I wouldn’t steer ye wrong.” A foul stench filled the sister’s nostrils. Noticing the look on her face, he chuckled. “Aye, the pigs are being slaughtered over yonder today. It’s a fine neighbourhood. This way!”

  A wide swath of waste ground stretched away to their left. Brick warehouses rose on the right. “Liberty Street. Aptly named. All the lads fresh out of prison would walk this road on their first day of liberty. Mind you, most would be returning in a paddy wagon 14 in short order.”

  “There’s a prison?” Sister Cecilia’s voice was tinged with alarm.

  “Was. The worst characters ended up in Toronto Central Prison. Murderers. Thieves. Arsonists. Evil fellows all.” He turned his head and winked at her. “Don’t worry. The prison’s long been closed. The blackguards are all gone. Well, most of ‘em, anyway.” He chuckled again. Sister Cecilia suddenly regretted wandering off with this strange man.