Alice closed her eyes. “Me either,” she said.
15
Atticus Island
For the next three days, Alistair, Tibby Rose, Slippers Pink, and Feast Thompson waited for Billy Mac’s return. Their situation was far from comfortable. The cave, in a small cove to the south of Cobb, was dark and damp and barely large enough for the four of them to squeeze into. When it wasn’t raining—which was rare—Alistair sat on the rocks near the cave and stared across the choppy gray water at Atticus Island. Though, as Billy Mac had said, it was hardly an island; it looked like nothing more than a chain of dark, jagged rocks. He thought of the years his parents had spent in this desolate place, years in which they must have long ago ceased to hope for a reprieve, and he longed to embark on the rescue immediately. The waves that crashed relentlessly on the shore only increased his restlessness.
The others seemed to adjust better to the period of waiting. Feast worked out a timetable of shifts, so that they each took a turn keeping watch for movement on the path at the far end of the beach. When they weren’t on watch, Feast and Slippers slept or studied the sketched map of Atticus Island that Tobias had given Slippers, or played cards with a tattered deck they kept in the front pocket of their rucksack. Tibby Rose, who was used to amusing herself after her solitary upbringing, used the nylon twine from Billy Mac to fashion a net, knotting strands of the twine at regular intervals lengthways and crossways, then tying rocks to one end for what she called the lead line, which sank. She spent hours of each day wading through the shallows, dragging the net. By evening she had usually caught enough tiny fish to add flavor and substance to the soup they made by boiling water they fetched from a freshwater spring at the base of the cliff, seasoning it with wild herbs.
Finally, just before dawn on the fourth day, Slippers, who was on watch, hurried into the cave.
“There’s a boat coming,” she said.
“Is it Billy Mac?” Alistair asked, hope rising in his chest.
Slippers shrugged. “Can’t tell. Let’s stay out of sight till we know for sure.”
They huddled in the cave as a pale blue boat, bobbing in the swell, neared their hiding place. It wasn’t till it drew alongside the rocks that they were able to recognize the coppery figure of Billy Mac on the deck.
“Right,” he said, as they gathered on the rocks, “which of you is doing this daft thing?”
Slippers and Feast exchanged a look. “It had better be me,” she said. “You’ve got to watch your ankle, Feast.”
Feast nodded.
“And me,” said Alistair, adding, “Tibby can’t swim.”
Slippers shook her head. “I don’t think so, Alistair,” she said. “It’s too risky.”
“If anyone should be taking the risk it’s me,” Alistair argued. “They’re my parents.”
Slippers looked pained, as if she wanted to forbid him, but Alistair just stared at her resolutely.
Finally she lifted her shoulders in surrender. “Short of tying you up, I don’t think I can stop you,” she said. “But, Alistair, I am in charge of this rescue, okay? I give the orders.” She looked at him steadily until Alistair nodded his agreement.
Slippers sat on a rock and pulled off her long black boots. If Billy Mac was surprised to see that the almond mouse had gingery pink feet he didn’t let on; he just extended a coppery arm to help her onto the boat. Alistair clambered after her.
He stood for a moment, accustoming himself to the roll of the deck, then turned to look at Tibby Rose, who was watching him calmly, though the twitching of her tail betrayed her nervousness. “Good luck,” she said.
“Thanks,” said Alistair. And then the boat was moving away, and he turned to face the forbidding silhouette of Atticus Island.
The journey was a quick one—the outgoing tide was running in their favor—and soon the chain of rocks Alistair had been staring at for days loomed ominously above them. But there was no sign of the infamous prison, no tower was suddenly revealed as they approached the dark, jagged teeth protruding above the waves.
As they neared the third rock from the left, Billy Mac slowed the boat and pointed.
“It be down there,” he said. “About a meter under.”
Alistair looked, but he couldn’t see anything beneath the churning water.
“In that case,” said Slippers Pink, “I guess this is our stop. Thank you, Billy Mac. Coming, Alistair?” And she leaped nimbly onto the railing of the deck, balanced precariously for a few seconds, then dived cleanly into the sea.
Alistair’s own entry into the water was more of a belly flop, and he flailed in the heavy swell for a moment, gasping and winded, before settling into a rhythm and treading water.
Slippers resurfaced, her almond fur sleek and wet against her head, and said, “There does seem to be a tunnel. Take a look.”
Ducking his head under the water, Alistair kicked down until he saw a fissure in the rock. It was smaller than he’d expected, about as wide and high as his outstretched arms.
As he kicked toward the surface, he was starting to comprehend just how dangerous their swim was going to be. Once they entered that tunnel, there’d be no turning back. And how did they know it really was a tunnel and not just a dead end? Just from a stupid song and a story of Other Bill’s? Was he really going to risk his life, and Slippers Pink’s, on such flimsy evidence? Then he thought of his parents, of four long years in a prison cell. He looked at Slippers Pink, at the trepidation on her face. Was she having second thoughts? But Slippers just said, “Billy Mac’s moved off pretty smartly.” Turning, Alistair saw the little fishing boat had already departed, leaving them stranded by the rock, a long way from shore. “So either way we’ve got a swim ahead of us,” Slippers continued. “Shall we give this tunnel a try?”
Alistair was by now so apprehensive he couldn’t even speak, just nodded once.
“Take a deep breath,” Slippers advised, “and hold it for as long as you can before letting it out very slowly. Try to make that breath last. And stay close.” She looked both determined and resigned as she inhaled slowly and deeply, then slid beneath the surface.
Alistair breathed in, feeling his lungs expand, then dived down.
The first thing Alistair noticed as he followed Slippers Pink into the tunnel was the silence. The roar of the waves, which had been a constant soundtrack the last few days, abruptly ceased. The second thing he noticed was that visibility was limited in the murky light; he could only just make out the indistinct form of Slippers Pink swimming ahead of him.
He moved his arms and legs in a steady rhythm, and when he felt his lungs start to burn he let out a trickle of air, trying to ignore how his heart was beginning to knock in his chest. The tunnel was longer than he’d expected, and he started to grow anxious. How much farther could it be? As he became aware of the air pushing out of his lungs he simultaneously became aware of the heaviness of his limbs in the water, which felt thick now, as if it was resisting his effort to move through it. The walls of the tunnel seemed to be closing in, to be physically squeezing the air out of him, and he thought the murky light was dimming. He tried to keep panic at bay, tried to keep swimming steadily, tried to hold on to the last of the oxygen in his lungs, fixed his eyes on Slippers Pink. . . . But where was she? For through the gloom Alistair saw that the tunnel forked—and he had no idea which way Slippers Pink had gone! But there was no time to think, he had to keep moving, he was out of air, desperate to breathe, and he thought he saw a glow in the left-hand fork, perhaps it was the surface, air, he needed air. There was nothing steady about his movements now; Alistair was frantic, hands clawing at the water. Why wasn’t the tunnel ending? What if he had taken the wrong fork and the tunnel didn’t end? Several times he jerked his head up convulsively, as if to surface, only to hit the roof of the tunnel and be reminded that there was no way out but forward. If there was a way out. The salt water was stinging his eyes, his chest was aching with pressure, heart pounding, pulse racing, head feelin
g light, eyes filled with light. . . .
As his head broke the surface, Alistair drew a huge breath, and was almost overwhelmed by dizziness from the rush of oxygen into his bursting lungs. For a few seconds he thought of nothing but his next breath, gulping at the air gratefully as if each inhalation might be his last. His limbs were trembling, though whether from exertion or relief he couldn’t tell. The panic he had felt in the tunnel still felt very fresh—but he was alive!
Treading water as his breathing steadied, he looked around. He was in the center of a small pool, one of a series of pools strung together like pearls across an expanse of dark, slippery rock. Blocking his view of the shore was an uneven jumble of rocky peaks and crumbling cliffs, silhouetted against the sky like a ragged row of teeth. He’d made it! He was on the far side of Atticus Island! He looked around for Slippers. At first he couldn’t see her, and his heart began to beat quickly again. What if she had taken the wrong tunnel? Then he spotted her several meters away, standing with her hands on her hips in shallow water in the shadow of an overhanging rock. Her almond fur was all slick from the water, but her brow was furrowed with anxiety as she gazed intently into the rock pool in front of her.
“Slippers,” he called.
She looked up, and a huge smile spread across her face. Alistair couldn’t help smiling back.
“Did you take the left fork?” she asked, hurrying over, and when Alistair nodded she said, “I took the right fork. That explains why you’ve come up in a different place to me.”
“I didn’t know which way you’d gone,” he told her, saying nothing of the terror he had experienced.
But she must have understood something of what he had gone through, because her face clouded over. “I’ve cursed myself a thousand times in the last couple of minutes,” she confessed. “When I got to the fork I could see a faint glow from the right-hand tunnel and presumed that must be the one to take—and it wasn’t till I’d entered it that I realized you mightn’t have seen which way I’d gone, because I’d be blocking the light. But there was no room to turn back, I had to go on, not knowing if you were still behind me or if. . . .” She broke off, and Alistair realized that she had been no less terrified than he. Imagine if she had reached his parents only to have to tell them that their son had . . . Alistair shook his head to dispel the image of himself drowning in the tunnel.
“Well, we made it,” he said. “Just don’t tell me that was the easy bit!”
Slippers Pink bit her lip and glanced up at the rocky peaks. “I guess we’ll find out,” she said.
As he gazed along the chain of rocks, Alistair could discern the outline of a tower on one of the cliffs.
“There,” he said.
Slippers peered in the direction he was pointing. “Ah yes,” she said.
“What a horrible place to put prisoners,” Alistair burst out. “There’s no food, no source of fresh water. It would be almost impossible for a boat to land except in perfect weather conditions. What if they run out of supplies?”
“The prisoners don’t eat,” Slippers surmised grimly.
Alistair couldn’t help wondering how his parents would be changed by their years in this terrible place.
They picked their way carefully across rocks coated in slippery seaweed, trying to stay low, but Alistair knew it was impossible that they could approach the tower undetected; there was nowhere to hide, and his ginger fur was bound to make him conspicuous. Still, though Alistair watched nervously for the telltale flash of red that signified the presence of the Queen’s Guards, he saw nothing, just the sparsely vegetated cliffs, the black slivers of rock, the deep blue sea and white foam of crashing waves. Gulls wheeled overhead—perhaps they were the lookouts? But they seemed immersed in their own business, and didn’t show any apparent interest in the mice who warily approached a path cut into the cliff.
“This looks like the only way up,” Slippers observed as they stepped onto the narrow trail. “Which means it’s likely to be the only way down, too.”
The path was so steep and winding that it was impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. Anyone waiting above them would have a clear advantage: one push and they would be plunged off the edge onto the rocks below. It was more than exertion from the climb that was making Alistair’s breathing speed up as the path wound higher and higher.
About a quarter of the way up, Slippers called in a low voice, “There’s another path joining this one. It looks like it goes back down to the rocks. You wait here, I’m going to see where it leads.” She disappeared down the second path, only to reappear a few minutes later. “The good news is, there’s a boat tied up down there,” she said. “Which gives us a way out of here.”
“What’s the bad news?” said Alistair.
“There’s a boat tied up down there,” she said. “Which means that even though we can’t see them, there are definitely guards around here somewhere.”
But they’d seen no guards by the time they reached the top of the path, no guards yelled at them to halt as they ran across the small patch of grass between the path and the tower, and there were no guards blocking the prison’s entrance.
Alistair was panting slightly as he began to climb the stairs behind Slippers Pink, but he barely noticed. His senses were on full alert, expecting to hear a cry of alarm at any moment as their presence was discovered. He tugged the ends of his scarf nervously, but all was silent as they passed the first-floor landing, and when they reached the second-floor landing too. Slippers held out a hand to stop him, then peeked cautiously around the edge of the doorway.
“Quiet as the grave,” she said when she drew her head back. Her whisper sounded loud in the stone chamber. “No sign of the Queen’s Guards—or anyone else for that matter. This is strange,” she murmured uneasily. She reached behind her absently to smooth the fur on the back of her neck, then stepped through the doorway, beckoning to Alistair to follow.
They were standing at the end of a long corridor. One side was lined with heavy wooden doors, each with a small barred window at about head height. The other side was a wall of rough-hewn stone with tiny openings every few paces to let light in. Even so, there was barely enough light to see by as they started down the corridor.
“Emmeline and Rebus should be in the seventh cell along,” Slippers said.
Alistair’s pulse was racing now, and he wished that Slippers Pink would move faster. They were almost there! He was about to see his parents for the first time in four years!
“Even if they were being kept apart from other prisoners, you’d expect to at least see some of those other prisoners,” Slippers Pink muttered, almost to herself. She stopped at the door of the third cell, which was ajar. There was no one inside.
“Come on,” said Alistair impatiently. “They’re just up here.”
He moved briskly up the corridor ahead of Slippers Pink. “Four . . . five . . .”
“Alistair,” Slippers called sharply, “wait for me.”
“Six . . . seven!”
The door to the seventh cell was closed, but when Alistair pushed at in frustration, it swung open. He darted inside, his whiskers trembling in anticipation.
The cell was empty. A square of light from a small barred window set high in the opposite wall fell on the bare stone floor, dimly illuminating the bare stone walls. A single metal cot was pushed against one wall. There was no sign of his parents, no sign of anyone. At first Alistair simply stared in disbelief. His disappointment was like a great weight lodged in his chest, stopping him from breathing. He swallowed hard, feeling a lump rising in his throat. “Slippers,” he said in a small voice. He took a couple of steps backward. “Slip—”
There was a clang of metal and he spun around just as the cell door slammed shut.
16
Trouble in the Tulips
Five a.m. found Alice and Alex at Fiercely Jones’s shed, bleary-eyed.
“Sleep well, did you? Straw pallets cozy enough for you, were they? Heh heh heh.�
� The gardener’s mirthless chuckle suggested that he was not displeased at the notion of their discomfort. “I’ve got a job that will wake you right up, don’t you worry.”
He led them ’round to the back of the shed, where they were greeted by the foulest stench ever to assault Alice’s nose. Whatever it was, there was a pile of it that looked almost equal to the shed itself in size.
“What—what is it?” she choked out, after she regained her breath.
“Fertilizer,” said Fiercely Jones.
“Fertilizer?”
“Manure. And you’re going to shovel it.” He pointed to two shovels. “Shift it.” He pointed to a wheelbarrow. “Then spread it.” He flicked a thumb over his shoulder.
“Spread it where?” Alex gasped, holding his nose.
“On the two hundred and thirty-eight garden beds we’ll be replanting.”
“Two hundred and thirty-eight garden beds?” Alex wheezed in disbelief.
“You can start on the tulips.”
A week passed, the days blurring into one another as each morning Alex and Alice rose just before dawn, spent a long day shoveling, shifting, and spreading manure, washed themselves under the cold-water pump in the courtyard, then presented themselves in the kitchen for a meager supper. Then, still hungry, they climbed the stairs to their sweltering attic room and fell onto the hard straw pallets. Alice usually slipped into a light doze until she heard the rustle of straw that meant her brother was about to go off on one of his raiding expeditions to the kitchen—often via some other part of the palace in search of information for FIG. Alice was too frightened to go exploring herself, though she did wonder whether it might in fact be less terrifying than lying awake, imagining scenarios in which Alex was discovered roaming by Lester, and imprisoned, or tortured . . . or worse. By the time he returned she was always a nervous wreck, too wound up to eat much, too tense to sleep.
On their eighth evening as servants of the palace, Alex returned to the attic with two hard-boiled eggs—he’d heard someone approaching the kitchen and had had to leave before gathering anymore food. He also had some disturbing news.
The Song of the Winns Page 15
