Alice, now that the buffeting had stopped, felt well enough to stand again.
But her momentary lifting of spirits was dampened as the dirigible hove into view, a dark forbidding mass made visible by the moon rising in the east.
The balloon floated toward land—agonizingly slowly it seemed to Alice—and they were gradually losing altitude. Were they losing power? Looking at the set of Claudia’s face, she didn’t dare ask. Down they drifted, down . . . down . . . until the smell of salt was strong and Alice could hear the churn and suck of waves below. Then suddenly they stopped. Alice couldn’t help but cry out as they seemed to hover in the air, right in the path of the Sourian airship. Couldn’t Claudia see the dirigible? It was coming straight for them, looming big and black, closer . . . closer . . . It was almost smothering them. They were going to collide!
“No!” Alice screamed, then whoosh! The balloon shot into the air at the last possible moment while the dirigible, with no time to correct its course, plunged into the ocean.
“Cool!” yelled Alex. “Way to go, Claudia!”
“Yeah,” said Alice, when her heart had started beating again.
“That should slow them down for a while,” Claudia said. “I don’t know how long, though, so we’re going to have to make it a quick landing. I won’t have time to tie down: when I give the word, you get out fast. Got it?”
“Got it,” the two young mice chorused.
“And it could get bumpy,” she warned, “so grab hold of those ropes.”
Alice obediently hooked her arms through the basket’s ropes again as the balloon sailed inland. They tacked to the south—“Best to avoid flying directly over Cornoliana,” Claudia murmured, gesturing at a constellation of lights twinkling in the distance—before swinging northeast to descend gradually over a line of treetops toward a large moonlit field.
“Safe travels. I’ll see you at sunset.”
And then the basket dipped and they were racing toward the ground, the basket hitting at a forty-five-degree angle so that they bunny-hopped along the mown grass before finally coming to rest.
“Go!” ordered Claudia, and Alice and Alex scrambled out.
Claudia released a burst of flame from the valve and the envelope and basket righted themselves. Within seconds the balloon was aloft again, lifting above the trees and catching an easterly current.
They watched in silence until the balloon was no longer in sight. As she gazed into the empty sky it felt to Alice that she and Alex were adrift, and not the balloon: in a strange country with a forged letter, fake identities, and a hastily concocted story. In a bid to dispel the sudden feeling of despair, she stood up and began to brush the grass and twigs from her fur. She didn’t know they weren’t alone until a prickling between her shoulder blades prompted her to whirl around.
There, spears thrust out, were three Queen’s Guards.
“Well, well, well,” drawled the tallest, holding the point of his spear at Alice’s throat. “What have we here?”
11
The Secret Paths
Alistair’s first sensation as they entered the tunnel the next morning, Slippers holding the candlestick aloft, was one of excitement. Here they were, traveling undetected through Gerander—perhaps under the very feet of the Sourian army! But as they moved further and further into the close confines of the tunnel, Alistair couldn’t help but feel an invisible weight pressing down on him. Even though he was able to stand without difficulty, and the tunnel was wide enough for them to walk two abreast, the knowledge that they were traveling under who knew how many tons of earth and rock made his chest feel strangely tight, as if the air was thin, though the occasional flickering of the candle told him there must be vents through which drafts were flowing. Here and there the knobs of tree roots protruded from the roof or ran like veins along the wall, usually accompanied by a sharp bend in the tunnel, as if it was skirting an obstacle. These unexpected bends could be alarming, for if he had fallen too far behind Slippers and the candle, the tunnel would suddenly be plunged into darkness and he would have to feel his way around the corner with one hand brushing along the rough dirt wall.
Although they found niches stocked with candles at regular intervals, Slippers was concerned to conserve them as much as they could. “We’ll need light when we’re traveling back through the tunnel,” she reasoned. “And who knows how many other mice travel these paths and expect to use the candles stored here?”
Other mice traveling the paths? It hadn’t occurred to Alistair before, but of course Slippers Pink was right: although the paths weren’t known to many, a few families did still retain the knowledge. It was possible they would encounter others in this tunnel. For the first time Alistair wondered why there were secret paths through Gerander, and who had constructed them. He asked Slippers.
“No one knows for sure,” she said. “Historians have discovered that before Greater Gerander was united into a single kingdom, the population was split into a number of warring tribes. Perhaps each tribe devised its own way of moving around secretly, and the families who still know of the existence of these paths are descended from those tribes? Or maybe these tunnels are even older,” she mused. “Maybe there was an ancient race of mice who lived underground.”
Alistair had to admit that the tunnel, cool and dry with a musty earthen smell, did indeed seem timeless. But he couldn’t bear the thought of living permanently underground and was relieved when, not long after this discussion, they saw light seeping into the main tunnel from a narrow branch to the left. That smaller tunnel must lead to the world above ground, he surmised.
The excitement and tension of traveling by secret tunnel wore off quite quickly. There was nothing to look at, just the same unending dirt-packed walls. To pass the time, they told stories: Slippers Pink and Feast Thompson described some of their most hair-raising missions for FIG; Tibby Rose recounted the adventures of Charlotte Tibby; and Alistair recalled the plots of some of his favorite books. They had no way of telling whether it was night or day, so they ate when they were hungry and eventually, when their steps began to drag, they slept. Their pace gradually increased as Feast’s ankle mended and, when Alistair and Tibby Rose checked how far they’d gone on the scarf’s map, counting off the forks in the path they had passed, they could see that they were making good progress.
They had just stopped by one such fork for lunch on their second day in the tunnel when a shuffling sound in the adjoining tunnel made them pause in their eating. They hurriedly gathered up their things, blew out the candle, and retreated to the far side of the tunnel, where they crouched with their backs against the cool dirt of the wall.
Huddling in the dark, a dark as complete and black as any he had ever known, Alistair tried to stay calm even as his mind threw up frightening scenarios. Had the Sourians inadvertently stumbled across an entrance to the tunnel? Or maybe . . . maybe they had tortured his mother into revealing the secret!
After a few minutes they saw the glow of a flame approaching, and Alistair’s heart began to knock alarmingly against his ribs. Then an elderly mouse with curly gray fur, leaning heavily on a knobbly walking stick, appeared. She stopped dead when the pool of candlelight edged toward the four figures crouched against the tunnel wall. The hand holding the walking stick flew to her chest, and the flame of the candle trembled in the other.
“Mercy me,” she gasped. “Who’s that there in the shadows?”
Slippers Pink moved forward into the glow of the elderly mouse’s candle, her almond fur gleaming. “I’m sorry if we’ve startled you,” she said.
“What are you doing in here?” the elderly mouse asked, her voice quavering slightly.
Feast assured her, “We mean no harm.”
“We’re just travelers,” Slippers added. “Alistair, Tibby Rose,” she said, beckoning.
The two young mice stepped out of the shadows to join her and Feast. The elderly mouse held her candle higher and peered at them. “What beautiful ginger fur,” she remarked, looking
from Alistair to Tibby Rose with bright, birdlike eyes. “You’re Gerandan, that’s for sure. But still, I think you’d better tell me how you came to be in here. I haven’t seen anyone in these tunnels for years. Who told you about them?”
“My mother . . . ,” Alistair began, then hesitated. His mother hadn’t told him about the tunnels, not exactly. Quickly he unwound the scarf from around his neck and held it up. The colors were muted in the light of the candle, but the pattern was obviously visible because the elderly mouse gave a cry of recognition. “My mother gave me this,” he said.
The elderly mouse looked at Alistair for a long moment, then Tibby Rose, then back at the scarf. “And did she tell you what it means?”
“She went away the next day, and I haven’t seen her since,” Alistair explained. “But she sang a song that helped me to find the tunnel.”
“Ah, if she knows the song about the tunnels, your mother was from the north,” said the elderly mouse. “A special place, the north. The source of the Winns, you know.”
“Are you from the north too?” Alistair asked eagerly. Perhaps this elderly mouse knew his mother.
“Oh, no,” said the elderly mouse. “I’m from east of the Winns; our paths are quite different from these tunnels. I’m from another branch of the Winns family, you could say.” She laughed softly to herself. “But my grandfather was from the north, and he told me of the tunnels. Not many know the old paths these days. They can only be passed down within families, you see, and so many families have fled—or worse.” Her voice had dropped to an ominous whisper. “I dread the day the paths are discovered by the Sourians. To me, that will be the day when Gerander is truly lost.”
“We were hoping that perhaps the paths could be used to free Gerander,” Alistair said tentatively.
“Use the paths to free Gerander?” the elderly mouse repeated, tilting her head inquisitively.
“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves properly,” Slippers Pink interjected. “I’m Slippers Pink, and this is Feast Thompson, Alistair, and Tibby Rose.” She pointed to each of them in turn. “We’re members of FIG.”
“FIG? But that’s Zanzibar’s resistance group, is it not?” Before anyone could answer her, the elderly mouse slapped her own wrist and said, “You must excuse me, I’ve completely forgotten my manners. I’m Althea.”
“Yes,” Slippers said with a smile. “We are led by Zanzibar.”
“Poor Zanzibar,” said Althea, the light in her eyes dimming. “In prison these many years.”
“No he’s not,” Tibby Rose interrupted. “He’s free!”
“Free?” Althea stamped her walking stick once on the ground and thrust her face close to Tibby’s. “Did you say ‘free,’ Miss Tibby Rose?”
“It’s true,” Alistair chimed in. “Isn’t it, Slippers?”
“It is,” Slippers Pink confirmed. “He’s in hiding, but he’s free.”
“Well, mercy me. Why hadn’t I heard? I may be old, but I’m not so forgetful that I wouldn’t remember a thing like that.”
“I suspect the Sourians haven’t exactly been advertising the fact that Zanzibar escaped from them,” Feast said wryly. “And that’s why FIG wants to use the secret paths: so that information like this can be spread among Gerandans.”
“I see, I see.” Althea was nodding rapidly. “That’s a very good idea. Yes, a very good idea. Why, if everyone knew about Zanzibar being free, it would give them great hope and courage. So is that why you are here? To spread this news?”
“Not exactly,” said Slippers. “We’ve only recently arrived in Gerander from Shetlock. Our first goal was to find the secret paths, and now that we have done that—”
“We’re going to Atticus Island,” Alistair interrupted. “To rescue my parents.”
“Your parents are on Atticus Island?” said the elderly mouse. “Oh dear.” Alistair could hear the weight of sorrow in the words. “Oh dear.”
“And we must be getting close to the tunnel which will take us to that stretch of coast, wouldn’t you say, Tibby Rose?” Feast asked. Alistair could tell he was trying to inject a note of optimism into his voice to counter the dark foreboding in Althea’s. “We’ll be with Emmeline and Rebus soon.”
“What’s that? Emmeline?” Althea said.
“That’s my mother’s name,” said Alistair. “Do you—?”
But Althea was already shaking her head. “No, no. I don’t know your mother. I did know of a mouse called Emmeline once, but surely it couldn’t be. . . .” She fixed her birdlike eyes on Alistair for a few seconds, then said, “No, I’m sorry, Alistair. Atticus Island . . .” She pressed her lips together. “You’ll be needing help to get to the island, and I have a cousin living very close by, as it happens. William Mackerel. He’s a fisherman, living in Cobb, which is the nearest town to that despicable place.” She tapped her walking stick on the earthen floor thoughtfully, then said, “I’ll walk with you as far as the tunnel leading to Cobb.”
“We’d be much obliged,” said Slippers Pink.
“You two young ones walk up here with me,” said Althea, directing her gaze at Alistair and Tibby Rose. “You can carry my candlestick, Miss Tibby Rose, and I’ll lean on your shoulder if I may, Master Alistair.”
“So the secret paths you use in the east aren’t tunnels?” Alistair asked as they set off at a surprisingly fast stride, leaving Slippers Pink and Feast Thompson to follow at a more sedate pace.
“No,” said Althea. “They’re not.” She tipped her head consideringly. “Or perhaps they are. But not in the way of these tunnels.”
“Have you taught your family about the secret paths that you know?”
“Alas, no. I’m still waiting for the right one. I’ll know when he or she comes along. You always do. But sometimes you have to wait a generation or two. Your mother was lucky to recognize you so early.”
“I’ve never understood why my mother gave the scarf to me and not my brother or sister,” Alistair confessed.
“It’s like I said,” Althea replied. “You just know who the right one is. I was taught by my aunt, and she was taught by her great-grandfather. Who knows who you’ll teach? Maybe you’ll have to wait for generations too.”
Alistair had to laugh at the thought of himself as a great-grandfather.
“But the times are changing,” Althea continued. “You’ve told your friends about the tunnels, after all.”
Alistair nodded guiltily, even though he knew he never could have found the tunnels, let alone reached them, without the help of Tibby Rose, Slippers Pink, and Feast Thompson. Or Oswald, he added to himself, feeling another stab of guilt.
“And perhaps that’s as it should be,” the elderly mouse mused. “For if the secret of the paths can help to free Gerander from tyranny, what greater purpose could they serve?” She stumped along in silence for a few minutes, then said, “But I’m an old mouse, and it’s too late for me to change my ways. The old traditions still live strong in me. I could only ever share the secret within my family. What they choose to do with it”—she lifted her shoulders—“is up to them.”
Only by his disappointment did Alistair realize that he had been hoping they would learn more of the secret paths from Althea.
“We’re getting close now,” Althea said. “I can smell the sea. Do you smell it?”
Alistair lifted his nose and sniffed. The dusty, earthy smell of the tunnel was slowly but surely giving way to the salty tang of sea air. “Yes,” he said.
“I never understood why William Mackerel preferred to live here by the sea,” Althea said. “Every day the pounding of waves against the shore. Me, I like the whisper of the trees that grow alongside the Winns.” She gave a peculiar flutelike sigh. “As much a whistle as a whisper, I suppose. Not everyone can hear it, but to me it’s the most beautiful music.”
She released her grip on Alistair’s shoulder and danced a few steps, gliding and weaving with her feet never leaving the ground, so that an intricate pattern was traced into the
earth behind her.
“Wow, where did you learn to dance like that?” Tibby asked. “It leaves such a pretty pattern on the ground.”
“I’ve been doing it since I was a girl,” said Althea. “Come on, I’ll show you.” She handed Alistair her walking stick and took Tibby Rose by the arm. “Now glide out and round with the left foot, straight through with the right . . . that’s the way.” Alistair, chuckling to himself, followed their braided steps as the old mouse and the younger one danced through the tunnel.
“Don’t just laugh away back there, Master Alistair,” Althea called over her shoulder. “Make yourself useful and give us some accompaniment. Like this.” And she began to breathe and sigh her strange whistle. At first all Alistair could produce was a hissing sound, and it was Tibby’s turn to laugh, but with Althea’s encouragement—“Inhale between your teeth, that’s right, now exhale . . . ah, you’ve got it”—he was whistling and sighing along behind them in no time.
When Tibby had mastered the complicated steps, Althea patted the younger mouse’s arm then released it. “You dance very nicely, Miss Tibby Rose,” she said approvingly. “But that’s enough for an old mouse like me. Besides, we’re almost at Cobb, so if Master Alistair would be so good as to give me my stick and his shoulder . . .”
Alistair gave Althea her walking stick and she put her hand on his shoulder as before. She seemed to be leaning on him more heavily now, as if the dancing had worn her out, and the trio slowed their pace.
“Your turning is just up ahead,” the old mouse said as Slippers and Feast came up behind them. “It’s been many years since William Mackerel and I last spoke, and I’m afraid I can’t recall where in the village he lives. But if you should find him, mention I sent you.” She shrugged. “He might help you or he might not. There’s no telling with William Mackerel. The only thing he really cares for is pigeons. One pigeon, that is—and dead now, I’m sorry to say.” Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper. “I’ll take my leave of you now. My family worry if I’m away too long.”
The Song of the Winns Page 11
