Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds

by Jeremy Lachlan

  ‘Come,’ Winifred says, striding across the room to the cabinet. ‘It is time to leave.’

  ‘Oh, now it’s time? Right after you tell me I have the future of a bloody island resting on my shoulders? An island filled with people who hate my guts?’

  ‘In a word? Yes.’

  I plunge my bare feet back into my squelchy boots. ‘Okay. But you better tell me the rest of the story before we get back to the square. You say the Hollows took us in because they owed you – fine – but that doesn’t explain why you handed us over.’

  ‘We’re not going back to the square.’ Winifred opens a small cupboard set into the base of the cabinet. Pulls out a brick-sized bundle of black cloth and stuffs it into her cloak. ‘Eric came to several minutes ago. At this very moment, he is breaking into the museum with seven armed and very dangerous men.’

  ‘How can you possibly know that? And what was that thing? What’d you just put in your –’ I’m cut off by a distant crack, a gunshot, far away but close enough to fill my stomach with butterflies. No, bees. Wasps. Horned wasps with dirty great stingers. ‘Uh-oh.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Winifred says. ‘Everything is proceeding as planned.’

  She heads for the study door. Closes it. Locks us inside.

  ‘Wait, I thought you said we were leaving.’

  ‘We are.’ Back to the cabinet now. Winifred leans a ceramic vase to the side and – click – the massive painting of the cave-riddled canyon swings open. There’s a set of spiral stairs behind it. A secret passage. ‘Now, put the key in your pocket and don’t forget the snacks. You must be famished.’ She picks up a lantern. ‘You may leave the dirty clothes.’

  I take the key from the desk and tuck it into one of my pockets, then stuff the dates and chunk of bread from the rucksack into another. ‘What about weapons?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You’ve got one, right? That black bundle you pulled from the cupboard? I should get one too. I could take that sword there. Or the crossbow.’

  ‘You know the laws,’ Winifred says. ‘You enter the Manor at will. You enter the Manor unarmed. You enter the Manor alone.’

  ‘I don’t even get a knife?’

  I don’t even get an answer. She just holds open the painting and nods at the stairwell beyond.

  ‘Where does it lead anyway?’ I ask, ducking inside.

  ‘Down to the catacombs. Trust me, Jane. Move quickly, move quietly.’

  Winifred carefully pulls the painting shut behind us. Her lantern fills the cramped stairwell with a golden glow. The steps are old, the stone worn smooth. We move single-file, Winifred taking the lead, twisting down, down, down.

  ‘So,’ I almost-whisper, ‘the future of Bluehaven’s resting on my shoulders, huh? That was just an expression, right? Like “the world is your clam” or whatever.’

  ‘The world is your oyster, Jane, and no, it was not an expression. I told you earlier today that every person on this island was in danger. That danger has not yet passed.’

  ‘Of course it hasn’t,’ I mumble. The wasps swarm and sting.

  ‘Two years after you and John came to Bluehaven – two years to the day – I discovered a chamber hidden beneath the catacombs. In this chamber I found an ancient hieroglyph painted onto the wall. The symbol from the key.’

  I take the key from my pocket, turn it over in my hand.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Winifred continues. ‘After all my years of fruitless research there it was, right beneath my feet. It had been down there, lying in wait, in secret, since the Beginning, long before my ancestors came to the island.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘Again, the only person who can answer that is your father. But I was drawn to the symbol on the wall, Jane. I touched it, and was granted a vision. Images flashed before my eyes. I saw every event leading to this day, this very moment. Me, delivering you and John to the Hollows’ the next morning. The attempts made on your lives thereafter. The fisherfolk chasing you around White Rock Cove this morning. The cage. Eric raising that infernal knife on the Sacred Stairs. Violet coming to your rescue. Your father dashing up the Stairs, cloaked in red. You, setting off for the hidden gateway, a second entrance to the Manor. It is down there, Jane, in the chamber, waiting for you. The quake tonight has cleared the way.’

  ‘Wait a second. You’re saying you handed us over to the Hollows because a creepy symbol on the wall told you to? You sound like a crazy person. You know that, right?’

  ‘I’ve been called worse.’

  ‘I mean, a vision? How is that even possible?’

  ‘The Makers,’ Winifred says, a hush of reverence in her voice.

  I should’ve known she’d say that. Po, Aris, Nabu-kai. The Gatekeeper, the Builder and the Scribe. The three gods who supposedly built the Manor. ‘I still don’t get how –’

  ‘Nabu-kai. The Scribe. Seer of All Things. The symbol was painted in his blood.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ I say. ‘Seer’s blood. Well, that makes perfect sense.’

  ‘How else could I have known to lay the fishing net in that precise spot along White Rock today? That Eric would try to sacrifice you? That witnessing your father in such mortal danger would make you cause the greatest quake Bluehaven has ever seen?’

  I freeze. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’

  Winifred stops a few steps down, turns around. Her scars and wrinkles look garish in the shifting lantern light.

  ‘When I caused the quake? You said I wasn’t cursed.’

  ‘I don’t think you are. But you clearly share a connection with the quakes.’

  My bloody handprint on the Sacred Stairs. The stone like shattered glass.

  ‘The first quake struck when you fell through the gateway, Jane. It stopped when you stopped crying. This afternoon, there was a tremor when you fell into the water. It subsided when you drew your first breath. The quake that occurred during the festival –’

  ‘Started when I saw Dad in trouble.’

  ‘And turned positively chaotic the moment your blood hit the Sacred Stairs. It only stopped when I reunited you with the key.’

  ‘But why? What’s the key got to do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jane. The point is, I believe the quakes occur whenever you are frightened. Whenever you truly fear for your life or the lives of those you love.’

  ‘But most of the quakes happen at night.’

  ‘And how do you sleep, Jane? Peacefully? You rarely did as a baby.’

  The wasps drop dead. ‘Okay, so I – I have nightmares. A lot of them. But that’s normal, right? Everyone gets them. And anyway, I’ve been in danger plenty of times and nothing’s happened. Today wasn’t exactly my first run-in with the fisherfolk.’

  ‘Because fear has become second nature to you, Jane. With all the torment you have endured on this island, fearing for your life has become commonplace. You feel fear, yes, but I believe quakes do not occur in these moments because you have learned to manage it. It is only when you lose control, when you are at your most vulnerable, that something snaps.’

  A second gunshot rumbles through the stairwell like rolling thunder, closer than before. The study door’s been blasted open. I can hear Atlas shouting orders. A flurry of footsteps and other, muffled voices. Winifred just raises her eyebrows. Told you so.

  ‘Okay,’ I whisper. ‘Let’s say your creepy visions were real and I really do have crazy quake powers. Why would you want to trigger them? If everything you’re saying is true then you still had a choice, right? You could’ve ignored the visions. You could’ve let us stay here with you twelve years ago. You could’ve not slipped the photo through my window this morning.’

  ‘And leave you to the half-life you have been stuck in all these years?’

  ‘If it means my dad stayed safe, then yes. None of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have been paraded through the festival, Bluehaven wouldn’t be, like, broken, and Dad –’

  My throat tightens. Dad would still
be here.

  ‘I had no choice,’ Winifred says, placing a steady hand on my shoulder. ‘Terrible but necessary, remember? I haven’t been shown every piece of the puzzle – far from it – but I have seen enough. The symbol was a message from the Makers, Jane. A warning from the gods themselves. Something happened to you and John inside the Manor – what, I do not know – but the key, the quakes, the Manor’s reawakening, these things are all connected.’

  ‘How? Why?’

  ‘That is precisely what you must find out.’ Winifred’s grip tightens on my shoulder. ‘This is your story. Your adventure. You must enter the Manor and find your father. Only then will the mysteries unravel. Only then will your destiny become clear.’

  I wish I could say Winifred’s words are bouncing right off me, but I can already feel that invisible thread – still severed from Dad – beginning to change. It’s fraying, multiplying, morphing into something else. A tangle of puppet strings knotting around my ankles and wrists, tying a noose around my neck. If what she says is true, though, maybe the puppet strings have been there all along. Maybe everything really has been building to this.

  THE CATACOMBS

  It’s cramped and musty in the catacombs. The ceiling’s so low Winifred almost has to duck when we step out from behind a heavy tapestry hiding a secret passage door. To our left, a wall lined with flickering torches. To our right, dozens of shadowy archways. Tombs filled with stone-carved coffins and statues of strange winged creatures. I shudder.

  ‘Do not fear death, Jane,’ Winifred says. ‘The dead have their secrets, but they are at peace.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I mutter, ‘sure.’

  Every step I take feels harder than the last, like I’m wading through invisible water. It rises to my belly button, my chest, my shoulders, pressing in from all sides, making it hard to breathe. Because I’m surrounded by dead people. Because I have no idea what I’m doing. Because Dad’s gone, and all my unanswered questions are still playing chasey in my head.

  What happened to us inside the Manor? What happened to my mum? Where did we come from? What about the key? What’s the deal with the goddamn quakes?

  ‘This way.’ Winifred leads me past the main, public stairwell. Angry voices and footsteps echo down towards us. ‘Quickly now.’ She turns down a skinny passageway. Tiny alcoves dot the walls, housing hundreds of ancient scrolls and half-melted candles. ‘The Scrolls of the Dead,’ Winifred says. ‘A record of every soul laid to rest both here and in the graveyard.’

  ‘Awesome,’ I say. ‘Um. Why is the second gateway all the way down here?’

  ‘Because I was meant to find it,’ she says. ‘Just as you are meant to walk through it.’

  We take a left and a right and then we come to a dead end. Or at least it would be if there wasn’t a dirty great hole in the ground. ‘This is it? I’m going down there?’

  A pickaxe wedged into the stone. A knotted bundle of rope. Winifred picks up the tail end and ties it around my waist. I can smell the whiskey on her breath.

  ‘I shall lower you down as gently as I can. There is a chasm a hundred metres or so down the tunnel. You will have no trouble climbing around it. Oh, but do mind the spiders. The chamber is on the other side. All you need to do is touch the gateway and it will open.’

  ‘And once I’m inside? What if Dad’s already gone to a different world? How do I find him?’

  ‘That is something you must figure out,’ Winifred says. ‘The gateway could take you anywhere within the Manor. Nobody has even come close to exploring it all – to do so would be impossible, for it simply has no end – but I have seen more than most.’ Winifred gazes down at the hole, gets all nostalgic on me. ‘You will see, Jane. An infinite number of corridors and chambers intertwined. The walls themselves buzzing, so vibrant, as if the stone itself were alive. In each new room, a mystery. A surprise around every corner. So many secrets waiting to be uncovered. So many new worlds to find.’ She zeroes in on me now. ‘But you must take care. Believe me when I say it is not to be ventured into lightly. The Manor is a place full of wonder, oh yes, but danger also. And a great deal of it at that.’

  I remember some of the stories I used to hear in the Golden Horn. ‘You mean booby traps and stuff? Pits, spikes, swinging blades?’

  ‘Ancient devices with one purpose only.’

  ‘To kill people.’

  ‘To ensure that only the worthy pass between worlds.’

  Winifred hooks the lantern to my pants and rattles off a few abseiling tips, but I just can’t pay attention. A stale breeze brushes my cheeks, as if the hole’s breathing. I can’t see anything down there. It’s pitch black. I bet Violet would jump in without thinking twice, but –

  ‘Wait. Violet. Do you reckon she’s okay?’

  ‘She is fine,’ Winifred says.

  ‘I should’ve said goodbye. I mean … how long do you reckon I’ll be gone?’

  ‘Time is a fickle thing, Jane. The Manor is a bridge to the Otherworlds. Each world operates on its own timeline, so one day on Bluehaven could equal one week, one year, maybe even one lifetime somewhere else. As for the Manor itself, time can do strange things in there. Strange things indeed.’ She nods at the hole. ‘No more questions. Forward is the only way.’

  My throat catches. The invisible water rises to my neck, my chin, threatening to drown me on dry land. I step right up to the hole. ‘Okay, but you’re sure Violet’s okay?’

  Winifred nods. I suppose I just have to trust her.

  ‘Good. Can you tell her … tell her I said thanks. For saving me on the Stairs and all.’ My head’s buzzing, my hands clammier than a couple of dishrags. ‘And tell her – tell her –’

  ‘I shall think of something appropriate,’ Winifred says.

  I turn to her now, unsure what to say. Yeah, she kind of ditched me and Dad because a possessed scribble on a wall told her to, but she saved our lives, more than once. Sacrificed her reputation, her whole life here on Bluehaven. All those times she followed me around the island, she was protecting me, watching over me, warding off threats. I should thank her. Hell, I should get real cheesy and give her a hug, too, but I’m simply not used to thanking grown-ups.

  I’m chewing on the words but I can’t spit them out.

  ‘I know, Jane,’ Winifred says, placing a hand on my shoulder. Before things get too corny, though, Atlas’s voice echoes down the passageway, screaming bloody murder, shouting my name, and Winifred sighs. ‘However, I would not thank me just yet if I were you.’

  And she pushes me.

  THE WORK OF WINIFRED ROBIN

  Atlas and his men storm past the Scrolls of the Dead, weapons raised.

  ‘Drop the rope, Robin,’ he says. ‘It’s over. You can’t hide the girl down there forever. Let’s put an end to this madness once and for all.’

  The rope stops spooling. Jane has made it. A quick descent, but safe.

  Winifred smiles.

  Facing the men now, she tells them the truth. They are too late. Their lives now rest in the hands of Jane Doe. They do not believe her. They scoff, shake their heads. Atlas points the Manuvian knife at her chest and she decides she will claim that too before the end.

  Ancient relics deserve more respect. ‘You’re lying, old woman. Now step aside.’

  Winifred gives the men a chance to walk away, return to the surface, help their families. She tells them the hunt is over and pulls the bomb wrapped in black cloth from her cloak to prove it.

  Five sticks of dynamite. More than enough to seal the tunnel below.

  She quickly lights the fuse on a nearby candle. The bomb sparks and hisses.

  Every man bar Atlas takes a step back.

  ‘Easy now,’ he says. ‘Stand your ground, men. She’s bluffing. She wouldn’t dare.’

  But Winifred can sense his doubt, his fear. She can feel it, smell it, see it in his eyes.

  Forward is the only way, she told Jane, and that is the way Jane is going right now. Winifred is sure of it. She knows
Jane is running through the tunnel as quickly as she can – swiping away spiders, tripping over rocks, grazing her hands and knees – because Winifred left a warning down there this morning. One simple, well-chosen word traced into the dust on the floor so that Jane will know exactly what is about to happen.

  May Po, Aris and Nabu-kai protect her.

  ‘Put it out, Robin,’ Atlas says. ‘It’s over.’

  The fuse is getting low. Winifred must time the drop perfectly. The men will fire their weapons the moment she lets it go, but she has dodged bullets before. It will only take her ten seconds to subdue them. The bomb will explode and Atlas will surrender at once. She will give him no other choice. And when all is said and done, when Jane is safe from pursuit, Winifred will go and find young Violet outside. She will tell the girl she will not see Jane for a very long time, but her role in this tale is far from over. Her training shall begin at once.

  But first, the bomb.

  She raises her hand, holds the sputtering dynamite over the hole. The fuse has almost burned through. Seconds remain. Once more, Atlas tells her to cut it out and step aside. She says she heard him the first time, but in her mind she is thinking three, two, one …

  THE WONDER BEYOND THE WALL

  ‘Jane, I’m gonna blow up the bloody tunnel after I push you down it.’

  That’s all Winifred had to say. It isn’t exactly a tongue-twister. But no, that would’ve made things too easy. All I got was one measly, four-letter warning scrawled in the dirt.

  Bang.

  No exclamation point, no underline, no apology. I wondered for a second what the hell it meant, but then I remembered the black bundle she pulled from the cabinet, figured it had to be a bomb. All I could do was scramble, sprint and climb. I dived into this crummy old chamber just in time. The bomb triggered a cave-in, of course. That was the whole damn point.

  The tunnel is sealed. Atlas and his goons can’t stop me now.

  I’m lucky I didn’t lose the lantern. Had to hook it to my pants again while I climbed around the chasm. Now it’s back in my hand, lighting up the second gateway, which kinda looks like a giant tooth set into the wall. The stone of the gateway’s pale and smooth, but there’s a pile of darker stone heaped around its base. Remnants of the rock wall that’s been blocking it all these years, I suppose. There’s no sign of Winifred’s creepy symbol.