Perijee and Me

by Ross Montgomery

  ‘But … how?’ I said. ‘He doesn’t have any strings!’

  Mother smiled. ‘He doesn’t need them, child.’

  She pointed to the water. You could just glimpse a metal pole beneath the puppet’s feet, moving him up and down.

  ‘The poles are hidden in the water,’ said Mother. ‘The puppeteers control him from behind the curtain.’ She nodded. ‘A simple trick – but with an important message. The answer is not always where you expect it to be.’

  The puppet started dancing across the stage, spreading ripples wherever he went. Mother watched him, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘I was your age when I left home, Caitlin,’ she said. ‘I went searching for answers – no, more than that. For love. I searched for years – far from my friends and family, far from everyone I had ever known … and found nothing.’

  The puppet suddenly stopped dead.

  ‘So I gave up,’ said Mother. ‘I found myself alone in a destroyed temple at the furthest edge of the world. And I promised myself that when I reached the top of the tallest tower, I would throw myself off it.’

  The lights in the room began to turn red. The puppet slowly sank back under water.

  ‘That’s where I found the Prophecy,’ Mother whispered. ‘Carved into the walls at the very top. It hadn’t been seen in a thousand years. The words had almost crumbled to dust.’

  The water on stage started trembling. I shifted in my seat nervously.

  ‘And below them,’ said Mother, ‘I found something else. Symbols.’

  The water started to roll and boil across the stage. I felt like something terrible was about to happen – but Mother just kept staring ahead, lost in her story.

  ‘I’ve devoted my whole life to him, Caitlin,’ she said. ‘To the creature from the Prophecy. The one who will take us all to a better place.’ She turned to me. ‘I love him even more than you do. He is my god.’

  I frowned. How could Perijee be a god? I thought of all the times I’d watched him hold tiny bugs in his hands, and the first time he swam.

  ‘Are you sure it’s Perijee?’ I said. ‘I mean, those symbols carved on your door – they’re not even the same ones on his body.’

  Mother gazed down at me. I could see her trying to make a decision, right at the back of her eyes. Then she leaned forwards and slowly opened her mouth. Soon it lay wide open in the darkness – so wide I could see all the way to the back. I gasped.

  ‘… Your teeth,’ I whispered.

  Every one of them had been carved with symbols. On the inside, where they couldn’t be seen – not unless you were right up close. The stage lights glowed through them like lanterns.

  ‘Who did that to you?’

  ‘I did, child.’

  A dragon suddenly exploded out of the water on stage. It was a huge puppet, his body held up by a dozen poles that swirled and twisted him through the air. His mouth was filled with fireworks that roared and whistled out of him, bursting across the water in a coil of stars.

  ‘I did it to prove my love,’ said Mother. ‘My devotion. I did it all for him. I’ve been waiting to meet him my whole life, Caitlin. It has to be him.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘But … didn’t it hurt?’

  Mother smiled. ‘It was agony, child.’

  There was a sudden scream beside us. The audience were on their feet, pointing at the stage. The dragon had caught fire. He was writhing and swinging his head across the water. Rockets were exploding out his mouth at random, bouncing off the rafters and whizzing over the balcony. Suddenly the puppet had turned to face right where I was sitting …

  ‘Get down!’ Mother cried, jumping out of her seat.

  … as a rocket flared out his mouth and came roaring across the theatre towards me …

  I covered my head just as the rocket slammed into Mother’s back, sending a net of sparks around us. I looked up, my heart pounding. The seats either side of us were on fire. Mother was hunched before me, her back smoking.

  ‘Mother!’ I said. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Before I knew what was happening she had pulled me out of my chair and wrapped her tree-trunk arms around me, so tight I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Oh, my child!’ she sobbed. ‘I thought I was too late! I thought I’d lost you!’

  I didn’t stop her – I didn’t want to. I’d never been hugged like that. The whole room exploded in smoke and colour around us, but it might as well have been a thousand miles away. It was like nothing mattered in the world except me and Mother.

  ‘My wonderful girl! My star!’

  Because – for the first time since Perijee had reached out and taken my hand – I felt like someone really needed me.

  The water glistened like foil under the morning sun.

  There it was, ahead of us – the city.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Mother.

  I shook my head. ‘It … it’s like another planet.’

  The last stretch of the river had been as empty as a desert. But now a maze of chimneys and skyscrapers jutted out of the water ahead of us, each one wrapped in tentacles that slithered up from the city below. It was beautiful.

  I wished Fi had been there to see it with me.

  ‘Look, child,’ said Mother, pointing past the warships. ‘There he is.’

  Far ahead of us lay the blockade of warships, linked by metal chains. And beyond them … the Monster.

  He was more like a mountain now. He stretched across the horizon from end to end, the symbols carved into him maybe fifty storeys high. Huge long tentacles draped down his sides, searching tirelessly through the water around us. His mouth gaped open so wide that the top of his head nearly touched the clouds.

  I shaded my eyes from the sun. Somewhere up there was Perijee. But I had no idea how we were going to get to him – let alone past the blockade. He seemed so far away.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t he?’

  Mother was gazing ahead with a faint smile on her lips. I was surprised.

  ‘You can see him?’ I said. ‘I can’t. All I can see up there is that … well, it looks like a house.’

  Mother just smiled.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she whispered.

  I stared at her in confusion. I realised she wasn’t talking about Perijee.

  She was talking about the Monster.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘He’s horrible.’

  I glanced at the other old ladies. They all stood in silence behind Mother, gazing at the black mouth on the horizon. Suddenly everything seemed wrong.

  ‘… Who’s driving the boat?’ I said.

  The edge of a sunken building swung past us, missing by inches. I cried out, but the women didn’t even flinch. Their eyes were all fixed on the Monster. A ball of fear started growing in my chest. The army blockade was getting closer.

  ‘We have to stop the boat,’ I said. ‘They’re going to see us.’

  But the women didn’t listen. The boat kept going, pushing past the last of the skyscrapers until there was nothing between us and the warships but open water. I could see the soldiers pointing down at us, and the guns mounted on their decks. I grabbed Mother by the sleeve.

  ‘Why aren’t we stopping?’ I cried. ‘They’re going to shoot!’

  ‘At long last,’ Mother said calmly, ‘the final part of the Prophecy has come to pass.’

  All the women bowed their heads. My skin prickled in horror.

  ‘But … there’s no way we can get past them now,’ I said. ‘They’ve seen us.’

  Mother looked up at the warships. The soldiers on deck were aiming their guns at us. But Mother wasn’t frightened. She was smiling.

  ‘They were going to kill him, Caitlin,’ she said. ‘I want you to remember that.’

  Her voice sounded different – like a stranger. I let go of her sleeve.

  ‘Remember wh—’

  BOOM.

  The warship ahead exploded like a sun – then the next one along, and the next, and the next
. The sound was so loud it was like being in a different world. A wall of air threw me back across the deck and smashed me into a door.

  The last thing I saw before everything turned black was Mother’s shadow as explosion after explosion tore through the army blockade behind it – like it was cut out of fire.

  *

  ‘Careful with her.’

  My ears were ringing.

  ‘Quick.’

  I opened my eyes. I was being carried to the front of the boat. The warships lay in a ring of twisted metal behind us, pouring black smoke into the sky. There was fire everywhere you looked.

  ‘I’m sorry, child,’ came Mother’s voice. ‘I know you asked for no one to be hurt.’

  She stood calmly beside me, her gaze fixed on the horizon. The boat was ploughing through the water at top speed, thundering over the tentacles.

  ‘But we could not risk them stopping us,’ she said. ‘Not now we’re so close.’

  The truth hit me like a belt across the face.

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  Mother had blown up the ships. She had only taken me to the theatre so the bombs could be planted without me knowing. She had been lying to me all along.

  ‘You see, Caitlin,’ said Mother, ‘there is so much about the Prophecy I didn’t tell you.’

  Both my wrists suddenly stung with pain. Two women were tying my hands hard to the railings.

  ‘It says a powerful creature will lead us to paradise,’ said Mother. ‘But it is the Monster who holds the power. Perijee is simply one stage in his life: the child before the man. And now it is time for his final transformation.’

  I pulled desperately at the ropes. ‘Fi was right about you – you’re mad! Let me go!’

  Mother shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Caitlin. We must begin the last stage of the Prophecy, before the army sends its planes.’

  The women knelt on deck and closed their eyes. The Monster’s mouth lay ahead of us, his fifty rows of teeth towering up like a tidal wave.

  ‘The last stage,’ said Mother. ‘When he finally becomes a god. When he destroys this world and makes a new one in its place – a paradise right here on Earth.’ She sighed. ‘But he cannot do it on his own, Caitlin. No – he needs a gift first. A special gift.’

  She reached over and held my face.

  ‘He needs a sacrifice.’

  Her words were like needles being pushed through my skin.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘You … you can’t!’

  Mother nodded. ‘Love, Caitlin. I could see it in you the first time we met – pure, perfect love for Perijee.’ She gazed up at the Monster. ‘You will be the greatest gift I could ever offer him.’

  The inside of the Monster’s mouth finally came into view. It was like a cathedral.

  ‘If you can kill the thing you love …’ said Mother. ‘Well, you can do anything, can’t you?’

  The top of the Monster’s mouth appeared overhead, cutting across the sun. I heaved and pulled against the ropes, but it was no use – I was stuck fast. Darkness began to close around us.

  ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘just let me go! I won’t tell anyone about what you’ve done – I’ll take Perijee and you can have the Monster all to yourself, I won’t try to stop you …’

  ‘No, Caitlin,’ said Mother, shaking her head. ‘It’s too late for that now. The final stage has already begun.’

  The Monster’s throat emerged from the darkness in front of us. I screamed. It was a long, deep tunnel made of twisting fangs. Mother rested her hands gently on my shoulders.

  ‘It will be over so quickly, child,’ she said. ‘Don’t fight it.’

  There was a noise, like the first rumble of thunder. The air began to turn hot and damp around us.

  And then the teeth began to move.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Mother.

  And all of a sudden, the strangest thing happened.

  I wasn’t afraid.

  When you know you’re about to die, you can think clearly again. I realised how sorry I was for leaving Mum and Frank behind. I realised I should have believed in Fi. And more than anything, I realised that I didn’t want to spend the last moment of my life screaming and crying in the darkness.

  So instead I closed my eyes and I thought about the most wonderful thing I could think of.

  I thought about Perijee.

  BAM.

  The hit was so sudden that for a second I thought, that’s it – I’m dead. But when I opened my eyes, I saw that the darkness had gone. We weren’t even in the mouth any more. We’d been knocked back outside. The boat was spinning around in circles and Mother was reeling beside me.

  ‘WHAT WAS—’

  CRUNCH.

  Something hit the deck, splintering the wood. It was an anchor.

  I looked across the water. Another boat had appeared out of nowhere and driven straight into us, and was now dragging us towards itself like a fish on a line. A man stood at the front. He had a beard and a paunch, and he had his hands on his hips like a rubbish action figure.

  ‘Frank!’

  He gave me a nod.

  ‘All right, sprat.’

  Frank looked like he’d been living on a boat for days. His beard was longer and his trousers were even more stained than usual, but it was him.

  And standing right beside him …

  ‘Fi!’ I cried.

  ‘Oh, don’t look so surprised,’ she muttered.

  She reeled in the anchor and the two boats crashed into each other. Frank leapt onto the deck and started cutting at my ropes. Mother and the old ladies were too horrified to try to stop him.

  ‘WHAT … WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’ Mother bellowed, shaking with rage. ‘YOU HAVE DESTROYED THE FINAL COMING OF THE—’

  ‘Sod off,’ said Frank firmly. ‘I’m taking Caitlin and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  Mother stopped. A horrible smile spread across her face.

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said. ‘Is that so?’

  She gave a nod to the women beside her. They immediately stepped forwards, cracking their knuckles. Frank rolled his eyes.

  ‘Oh, come off it – if you think I’m going to lay a finger on some old biddy, then you’re …’

  Without a word the women swooped on top of him, shrieking and pummelling him to the ground.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘FRANK …!’

  I stopped. Actually, Frank was doing OK. He was fighting back – and I mean, really fighting back. He might have had problems with laying a finger on old ladies, but he didn’t seem to have any problems with laying a foot on them, or a fist, or with tombstoning them, or with throwing them overboard like frisbees.

  ‘Wow, Frank!’ I said. ‘Look at you go!’

  ‘Shut up and help me,’ he shouted, wrestling Margaret into a headlock.

  Suddenly Fi was beside me too, frantically hacking away at the ropes.

  ‘Fi!’ I cried. ‘I can’t believe it – you came back!’

  She snorted. ‘I never left, Caitlin. I was behind you the whole time! I could sense those women were up to something the moment we stepped on board – but when they confessed to being Obsidian Blade, I knew I wouldn’t last the night. I got out as quick as I could and went back to Wanderly for a proper boat – and found that one looking for you when I got there.’

  She nodded at Frank, who was swinging an old lady round his head by her ankles.

  ‘It’s been interesting,’ said Fi, breaking the last rope. ‘Now, come on! We’ve got to get out of here, before the planes—’

  A hand slammed over her mouth.

  ‘STOP OR SHE DIES.’

  Everyone swung around. Mother was clutching Fi against her chest, a knife pressed to her neck.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Mother, glaring at me. ‘Lie on the floor right now or I’ll cut her throat.’

  I looked at the knife and Fi and Frank. There was nothing I could do. The boat was spinning around in circles. There was no way out without Fi gettin
g hurt. We were trapped …

  *

  … And then I saw it.

  ‘Frank, give up!’ I said quickly. ‘Just do what she says!’

  Frank opened his mouth to argue, and then he saw what I’d seen. Without another word he threw himself to the ground and covered his head. Mother laughed and shoved Fi towards me.

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘was a very stupid thing to do.’

  I grinned. ‘You’re telling me.’

  I hit the ground and took Fi with me.

  BAM.

  The boat smashed into the Monster’s teeth at full speed, so hard that they ripped clean through the hull. Mother flew back, her feet stumbling, her arms pinwheeling …

  ‘NO!’ she cried.

  She managed two more steps before pitching overboard and hitting the sea like a meteor dropped from the sky. I leapt to my feet – there was no time to lose. The anchor holding the two boats together had almost pulled free. The deck was being prised apart beneath us like chicken bones.

  ‘Jump!’ I shouted, grabbing Frank and Fi. ‘Now!’

  We leapt through the air and into Frank’s boat just as the anchor ripped through the deck and sent us careering across the water. Frank grabbed the wheel.

  ‘Look back, Caitlin!’ he shouted. ‘Are they following us?’

  I spun round, my heart pounding. There was no way the other boat could follow us now – what hadn’t been torn to pieces against the Monster’s teeth was sinking fast. The old women were floundering into the water, their nightgowns billowing around them like jellyfish.

  ‘No, they’re not!’ I said. ‘We made it! They’re all …’

  I stopped. Someone was heaving herself up onto the Monster’s teeth behind us, stumbling to her feet.

  ‘No … no, please!’

  It was Mother. I could only just hear her over the noise of the engine.

  ‘Come back! Don’t go, please! Don’t leave me!’

  She was crying like a child, holding her arms out across the water – like she could pick me up and take me back somehow. She didn’t look so frightening any more.