The Lie Tree

by Frances Hardinge

  Lambent strode over to the two Vane men, who were loading rubble into their barrow, in order to have his ‘discreet word’. As it turned out his ‘word’ was neither discreet nor singular. There were many words, some of which echoed back down the gorge.

  ‘. . . criminals . . . see you in jail if you do not leave my sight right now!’

  Both the local men departed, casting alarmed and resentful looks over their shoulders as they did so.

  Lambent strode back to join his friends. ‘Crock, I believe we shall need to hire two more of your navvy friends,’ was all he said.

  This was not the end of the matter. Trouble waited its moment and struck in the early afternoon. Faith was examining one of her sketches when she happened to look up out of the little gorge towards the top of the nearby ridge.

  ‘Who is that?’ she asked reflexively.

  It was just a human head and shoulders, silhouetted against the sun, peering down into the gorge.

  Crock, who was standing within earshot, looked up and was just in time to see the silhouette before it ducked out of sight again. He said nothing but broke into a sprint and started scrambling up the side of the gorge, ignoring the zigzag path.

  There was a cra-thock noise. It seemed to Faith that a rock some ten yards away suddenly jumped in the air, then landed and rolled around. Then she looked at it, and saw that it had cracked in half. It had not ‘jumped’; it had been thrown down from a height.

  Faith jumped to her feet and sprinted for the tunnel. Canvas tents might slow a thrown rock, but she would be safer in the tunnel.

  On the ridge above she could hear a lot of confused shouting. One of the voices belonged to Crock. There followed sounds of a very brief scuffle, more shouting, then quiet.

  After a little while, Uncle Miles appeared at the entrance to the tunnel.

  ‘Faith, I am afraid we must cut our day short. There has been some trouble, and there may be more. A handful of local men have been causing a ruckus, talking about navvies taking local men’s jobs – some confused talk about gold too. Lambent has advised us to leave in case they come back.’

  ‘Was anybody hurt?’ asked Faith.

  ‘Nobody on our side,’ answered her uncle. ‘On that subject, remind me never to pick a fight with Ben Crock. I would sooner go fisticuffs with a locomotive.’

  It was enough. It had to be enough. There were people in Vane who believed in the smuggler’s gold sufficiently to sneak into the site, search the rubble and throw vengeful rocks. It was time for Faith to visit the Lie Tree again and discover whether her efforts had borne fruit.

  When dusk came, Faith slipped out through the roof garden in her funeral clothes once again. This time she wore the cloak Mrs Vellet had recommended. The housekeeper had been right; it did make her much warmer.

  The rowing seemed easier this time. Her back muscles were growing accustomed to the strain, and her mind was too busy to panic about the rearing of the waves. The sea cave sucked her in, and she beached in the cavern full of bellow and roar.

  Faith braced herself, cloaked her lantern, then clambered into the Lie Tree’s cavern.

  At a glance she could see that the dark mass of the Tree had grown larger once again. The pot was no longer visible, lost in the mound of black foliage. The tendrils that spilt on to the stone shelf now almost hid it, trailing down the pale stone sides. As she drew closer, her foot hooked in something. Looking down, she realized that there were now dark, weaving vines splaying outwards, as if a giant, many-legged spider had been swatted against the floor.

  Faith continued to approach, stepping carefully in the spaces between the vines, anxious to avoid crushing a fruit by accident. Again she heard the cacophony of little breaths in the air around her, molten words, untethered sounds.

  ‘Why do you grow this way for my lies?’ she asked aloud. ‘My father’s were more important, and believed by many more people.’

  Maybe it’s because it likes me. It was an idiot thought, and yet Faith could not quite push it away. Or maybe it’s because I like it.

  She found the fruit with its frill of dead petal nestled in the great central cluster of leaves. It was larger than the last, almost an inch in breadth. This time she had brought a rug to lay under her, a cushion to support her head and neck while she was unconscious, and a water flask.

  I know that this will be unpleasant, she told herself as she cut open the fruit, but I know that it will probably not kill me.

  She quickly crammed the fruit pulp into her mouth, choked, grimaced and washed it down with water. The darkness came for her and beat her like a drum until all the light was gone.

  Faith knew, even as she stood there on the grass, that she was slipping on an old memory like a shoe.

  She was nine years old, and the whole family were visiting London, and as a special treat they had gone to see the Crystal Palace. She had been dazzled by the palace’s glassy vastness and had been a little frightened in the Great Maze.

  And then, of course, they had gone to see the dinosaurs.

  The great beasts had been given their own landscape. It made them look at home, alive, as though one had discovered them in a chance moment of stillness. They had been caught basking on the little islands, strolling between the trees and luxuriating in their private lake.

  Some crouched frog-like, reptilian mouths so broad they seemed to grin. Slender Plesiosaur necks snaked up from the water. Ichthyosaurs lay half beached, raising their heads into the air to gape their tapering toothed snouts, their eyes eerily segmented like oranges. The huge, humpbacked Megalosaurus seemed about to turn its vast, reptilian bulk around and sway off between the trees.

  Faith held Nurse’s hand and How slept in his green perambulator. Mama was beautiful in the blue-tinted shade of her parasol. Papa, who knew everything, was talking about how the models were made, and about the scientists who had thrown a dinner party inside one of the Iguanodons. The sun was bright, and there were white, fluffy goose-feather clouds. The strolling crowds were loud and laughing and all the ladies were pretty.

  And then the Megalosaurus slowly blinked its dull, sorrowful eye, shifted its low-slung weight and started to move.

  Suddenly Faith was holding nobody’s hand. She was no longer nine years old. Nurse, Papa, Mama and How were all gone. The sky was grey, and the dinosaurs were stalking, slithering and swimming towards the crowds.

  It could not be happening, so nobody ran. An Ichthyosaur grabbed a lady by her narrow waist and dragged her into the water. The two big, swollen Iguanodons bit off heads without malice or passion. Needle-snouted crocodiles slithered over the grass with blinding speed, lunging for children.

  None of them attacked Faith. They lurched and lunged past her on either side. She reached out one hand and felt leathery, reptilian scales slide past her fingertips. When the great Megalosaurus halted before her and laid itself flat on the ground, she clambered up its foot and shoulder to sit side saddle on its rugged hump.

  The Megalosaurus rose to its feet again, and she was high, high enough to look out across the park and see another large dinosaur, with spikes down its back and a single rider perched on its head. As she watched, the other dinosaur broke its way out of the park, railings tumbling as easily as cricket stumps.

  Seeing the other rider, she felt the strangest sense of recognition, like a glimmer of motion in an old spotted mirror.

  There you are.

  She could not remember who the other rider was, but she knew it was somebody like herself. She also knew that they were her enemy. They had taken someone precious from her, and she was there to pursue them.

  Sensing her wishes, the Megalosaurus set off in pursuit, swaying out through the break in the fence and on to the thoroughfare, followed by a rampage of other dinosaurs. Faith kept her eye on the other rider while the Iguanodons overturned omnibuses and ate the horses. Carts cracked and crunched under the Megalosaurus’s broad feet. It roared, parasol spokes caught between its teeth.

  Faith was ga
ining on her quarry. Soon she would be able to see the other rider’s face. Soon her steed would be close enough to lunge for the rear haunches of theirs.

  A steely shriek split the air above her. She looked up, just in time to see a winged shape scythe down from the sky towards her, a human silhouette just visible on its back. A toothed beak gaped. Then there was blackness, and the painless, soul-sickening click of her own neck breaking.

  CHAPTER 26:

  TEETH

  It was good to feel the grass under her hands, under her head. Faith breathed deeply. She was not dead then. That knowledge was luxurious. She opened her eyes and looked up at the night sky. It was so clear that she could just make out the colours of the brightest stars and the faint, smoky glow of impossibly distant clusters.

  I am alive, she told herself. I did not have my neck broken by a Pterodactyl. The model dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park did not come to life and eat London.

  And then, with a little more puzzlement:

  I am outdoors.

  Faith sat up with a jerk, then had to support herself as the world spun and tilted. It was true. She was no longer in the cave.

  She looked around, and found that she was sitting on a grassy headland. Her legs below the knee were dangling into a hole, half hidden by a thick tangle of low bushes. Peering down into the hole, she could make out the faintest glimmer of yellowish light.

  ‘That must be my lantern,’ she said aloud. Now that she thought about it, it seemed that she did remember untying her own ropes. Her fingernails were chipped and broken. She turned over her hands, and looked at their grime and grazes. Yes, there had been climbing. Squeezing and clambering. She had delved through the cave network and found another way out.

  ‘I have woken much sooner this time,’ she whispered to herself. She stood up and swayed. ‘And my head is clearer,’ she added, as the stars prickled and pulsed.

  Faith looked around, trying to recognize the shapes of the headlands and fit them into her mind’s map. She edged close to the precipice and peered down, feeling a tremble in the backs of her knees.

  She knew where she was! She was not far from the ‘high road that ran between Bull Cove and the town, close by the lookout hut where she had been abandoned in favour of ‘miscellaneous cuttings’.

  There is a ratting at the lookout hut on the coast road every Monday night, Paul Clay had said. Come and find me there – we can talk about your precious murder.

  It was Monday night, and she was close to the hut. Attending the ratting had once seemed unthinkable, but now Faith could not remember why. She wanted to talk to Paul Clay.

  He had dared her to come. It had been a dare he did not expect her to accept, a way of slapping her in the face with her own squeamishness and powerlessness. Now, however, she felt neither squeamish nor powerless. She could still remember the texture of dinosaur hide against her skin.

  A patient, insistent wind tugged at her clothes as she walked along the road. The stars blazed with cold patience. Low trees quivered and skulked.

  At last she recognized the fork in the road where she had been unloaded from the Lambents’ carriage. She found the twisting path she had used before, until she saw the lumpish silhouette of the hut jutting from the rocky slope. This time its outline was complicated by a small throng of figures, and she could hear voices. An orange glow spilt from the open door.

  They were men, all men. What are you doing? screamed a part of her mind. Why are you here? Panic was beating its wings somewhere in her head, but for now it was muffled. She pulled forward the hood of her cape to hide her face. She waited, just on the very edge of the halo of lantern-light.

  There were three boys talking by the door. As she watched, the youngest turned his head and saw her. As he did so, the light from the doorway fell upon his face. It was Paul Clay.

  He stared, and the others with him turned to peer in Faith’s direction. Paul whispered something hastily to his companions, then walked quickly over to Faith.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘You dared me, remember?’ It suddenly occurred to Faith to wonder how she had looked, cowled and black clad, lurking among the shadows and furze. ‘I thought I was supposed to be frightened, not you.’

  ‘I never thought you would come!’ he hissed. ‘Are you mad? Do you want people to see you here?’

  ‘Did you tell them who I am?’ demanded Faith.

  ‘Do you think you’re in disguise?’ Paul rolled his eyes. ‘There are scarce a dozen folk our age on the whole island. Anybody who sees you knows who you are.’ He cast a glance over his shoulder. ‘Just now, I had to tell my friends you were touched. Struck to the brain with grief. Harmless but given to wandering. How else could I explain you turning up here?’

  Faith glanced across at the hut and realized that the pair of them were drawing some surreptitious gazes.

  ‘How else was I supposed to talk to you?’ she whispered. ‘You never came to see me!’

  ‘What do you expect?’ Paul narrowed his eyes. ‘You stole our photography commissions, up at the dig! Why? Was that one of your spiteful games?’

  Faith fought a mad temptation to tell him that it was, just to see if she could make him flare up.

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I needed to get on to the site, to investigate. Did your father tell you about the chain that broke on the mining basket?’

  Paul nodded. ‘You were in the basket with your brother, he said. It wasn’t dangerous though, was it? The guy ropes saved the basket from falling.’

  ‘Letting us ride in the basket was only decided at the last minute,’ whispered Faith. ‘It changed everything, because we were children. Everything was checked and tightened up again – and that was when the guy ropes were attached. If an adult had ridden down instead, or maybe two adults, like my father and the foreman . . .’

  ‘No checks,’ said Paul thoughtfully. ‘No guy ropes.’

  ‘Smash,’ said Faith.

  You think it was meant to kill your father,’ said Paul, not bothering to make it a question.

  ‘I think someone weakened a link,’ Faith agreed, ‘and it must be somebody allowed on the site.’ She did not want to mention the Lie Tree, her visions, or the fact that Paul’s own father was one of her three main suspects.

  Paul considered with his usual cliff-like inscrutability, and gave a tilt of his head that might have been first cousin to a nod.

  ‘It fits,’ he murmured quietly. ‘I talked to people – found out about folks in town that might have wanted your father dead, like the family of my friend Toby who got caught in the trap. They were all home that night.

  ‘The dig then.’ He frowned. ‘Mr Lambent. Dr Jacklers. The foreman Crock. Stoke and Carrol. The navvies.’ He gave Faith a small, dark smile. ‘Me and my father.’

  ‘Uncle Miles,’ added Faith. ‘Mrs Lambent. Miss Hunter.’

  ‘Not all of those would be strong enough,’ Paul said thoughtfully.

  ‘It might not matter,’ said Faith. ‘I think I know why my father never fired his pistol at the murderer.’ She remembered her recent vision, the spined dinosaur receding into the distance, and the sudden ambush from the Pterodactyl rider. That was the message of the vision, she realized. Not a solitary enemy, but a pair. ‘I think there were two killers. One to meet with him and distract him, the other to strike from behind. A pistol wasn’t enough – he needed eyes in the back of his head.’

  Paul thought about this, then nodded slowly.

  ‘Bodies are heavy,’ he said, with the confidence of experience. ‘Until you move a few, you don’t realize how heavy. If he was put in the barrow and taken up to the cliff, that would be a lot easier with two.’

  ‘Paul!’

  Looking up, Faith found that most of the milling figures had vanished into the hut. Only a ginger-haired boy of about sixteen remained peering out through the door.

  ‘They’re ready for the next dog!’ he called to Paul. ‘Hurry up!’ He gave Faith a br
ief, inquisitive glance. ‘While you’re about it, be a gentleman and bring your lady friend in from the cold!’

  A ‘no’ would have been the easy and right answer, but it was not the one that Faith gave.

  The hut was ill-lit and looked larger now that it was full of people. The closeness of bodies, male bodies, felt hostile and other. Their heavy boots made Faith feel fragile and pointless. Most people were looking towards the centre of the room and did not notice her slipping in with Paul and the ginger-haired boy.

  As she moved into the light, Paul peered at her, then frowned slightly. ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’ he whispered.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Faith, looking away from him. Paul’s other friends had drawn closer as well, watching her with wary eagerness. Occasionally they darted impressed glances at Paul. It was not surprising, she supposed. They had sent him out for a mere lock of the Reverend’s hair, and he had come back with the Reverend’s entire crazy daughter. Fortunately, nobody else in the hut seemed to have any attention free for her.

  Even from her position by the door, Faith could see that in the centre of the hut wooden boards had been set up edge to edge to make a rectangular pen, about six feet by eight.

  ‘Bessie!’ announced somebody on the far side of the pen. The bellowing on all sides sounded affectionate.

  Next to the pen, a man was holding up a dog. It was a bright-eyed Jack Russell terrier, and Faith was startled by how small and ordinary it looked. Somehow she had been expecting some wrinkle-faced, loose-jowled monstrosity, four feet at the shoulder.

  ‘How much does she weigh?’ shouted a man in the crowd, holding a watch in his hand.

  ‘Fourteen pounds!’ called her owner.

  Men were handling bags that bulged and writhed, and emptying them into the pen. The crowd was counting to fourteen in unison, and now there were rats in the pit, skulking and scooting, finding corners and trying to climb them, boiling and tumbling over each other in their attempts to get out. Calls of Bessie’s name rose to a roar of excitement.