The Girl of Ink & Stars

by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

  ‘... a mesmerizing, enchanting debut, full of adventure and fire and heart. It reads like a fairy tale that’s a thousand years old, so accomplished and rich and yet brand new and startling all at once. It’s an absolute jewel of a book, as vivid and real as the maps inside it. It’s a classic in the making and I know I’ll be re-reading it again and again.’

  MELINDA SALISBURY, author of The Sin Eater’s Daughter

  ‘Kiran Millwood Hargrave creates a spellbinding world of magic, myth and adventure. The story holds you like a labyrinth and won’t let you go.’

  EMMA CARROLL, author of In Darkling Wood

  ‘A spellbinding adventure from a wonderful new voice in children’s fiction. Beautiful storytelling.’

  ABI ELPHINSTONE, author of The Dreamsnatcher

  A fine mix of magic and adventure with a captivating heroine – enthralling and engrossing by turns.’

  CELIA REES, author of Witch Child

  ‘... loved every second. Myth, magic, monsters, what more could you want?’

  LUCY SAXON, author of Take Back the Skies

  ‘Truly beautiful writing, within a magical world. I loved it!’

  LISA HEATHFIELD, author of Seed

  ‘Set in a vividly realized parallel world laced with magical realism, this is a mesmerizing debut of maps, myths and girls of enormous courage.’

  FIONA NOBLE, The Bookseller

  A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

  The Girl of Ink & Stars is a simply told, deeply magical tale about an island, the girl who travels to the heart of its story, and the myth that guides her path. On our heroine’s journey, you’ll encounter danger and fear – but also heart-warming courage, love and friendship. Can Isabella map out a new future for her island?

  Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s debut is full of startling ideas and wonderful invention. It’s really rather fiercely beautiful too.

  Barry Cunningham

  Publisher, Chicken House

  CONTENTS

  The Isle of Joya

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  The Forgotten Territories

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Labyrinth

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty~One

  Chapter Twenty~Two

  Chapter Twenty~Three

  Chapter Twenty~Four

  Somewhere on the Western Sea

  Chapter Twenty~Five

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright Page

  For a star, Sabine Karer at 28.6139° N, 77.2090° E

  and for those who helped me put ink to paper at 51.7519° N, 1.2578° W

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  They say the day the Governor arrived, the ravens did too. All the smaller birds flew backwards into the sea, and that is why there are no songbirds on Joya. Only huge, ragged ravens. I’d watch them perch on the rooftops like omens, and try to squint them into the chaffinches and goldcrests Da drew from memory. If I imagined hard enough, I could almost hear them singing.

  ‘Why did the songbirds leave, Da?’ I’d ask.

  ‘Because they could, Isabella.’

  ‘And the wolves? The deer?’

  Da’s face would darken. ‘Seems the sea was better than what they were running from.’

  Da would tell me another story then, about the girl-warrior Arinta, or about Joya’s mythical past as a floating island, and refuse to say more about the wolves and the backwards birds. But I kept asking, until the day came when I found my own answers.

  The morning it began was like any other.

  I woke in my narrow bed, sunrise just starting to brighten the mud walls of my room. The smell of burnt porridge hung on the air. Da must have been up for hours, as it took a long time for the fire to heat the heavy clay pot. I could hear Miss La, our hen, scratching about outside my room, seeking out crumbs. She was thirteen years old, same as me, but even though it’s young for a person, it’s very, very old for a chicken. Her feathers were grey, her mood was black and even our cat Pep was scared of her.

  My tummy rumbled as I stretched my arms. Pep was sprawled across my legs, and he yowled loudly as I sat up.

  ‘You awake, Isabella?’ Da called from the kitchen.

  ‘Morning, Da.’

  ‘Porridge is ready. A little over-ready, in fact…’

  ‘Coming!’ I eased my legs out and smoothed the cat’s rough fur where it had ruffled in the night. ‘Sorry, Pep.’

  He purred and closed his green eyes.

  I washed my face in the basin by the window, and stuck a tongue out at the reflection in the polished metal above Gabo’s bed, straightening his sheets, dustier every day, but still made. The voice line arched next to his pillow – a long, thin hollow Da had etched for us up the walls and over the ceiling. When we pressed our lips to it and whispered, it carried our voices so we could talk even when we were at each end of the room in our separate beds.

  Three years now. Three years since I sat there, my twin’s hand fire in mine as he faded in the night, fast as a blown-out match.

  But still I could conjure him. Easy as breathing.

  It would not do to start the day sad. Shaking the thoughts out of my head, I pulled on my school dress. It was as big as it had been six weeks before. My best friend Lupe would laugh. Still the shortest in the class! she’d say.

  I quickly braided my unbrushed hair and hoped Da wouldn’t notice I hadn’t untangled it all summer. Pep was rolling on the bed but I wasn’t allowed to stroke him with my uniform on. My teacher, Señora Feliz, was always picking ginger hairs off my dress with irritated fingers.

  I pulled aside the curtain that served as my bedroom door, and carefully stepped over Miss La, who squawked as I scattered her small pile of crumbs. She narrowed her misty eyes and pecked at my ankles, chasing me further into the main room where we ate, talked and planned adventures.

  A big bowl of blackened porridge sat on our large pine-plank table, marooned among a sea of maps. More of Da’s maps were stuck to the walls, and they rustled as I passed, like a talking breeze.

  I traced the papers with my finger as I did every morning, watching how the silver pigment of Afrik’s rivers met those of Æygpt; how Æygpt clung to the curve of Europa Bay like one hand grasping another across the sea. On the opposite wall hung the sketchy coast of Amrica and its dragging ocean currents, labelled with strange, wondrous names: the Frozen Circle, the Vanishing Triangle, the Cerulean Sea. The paper was dyed a beautiful deep blue, and the currents were picked out in thread against it. Da had used a needle thin as a hair for these – gold for Cerulean, black for the Triangle, white for the Frozen Circle. But past the eastern coast, everything stopped. Only one word broke the blankness.

  Incognito. Unknown.

  I could almost feel Da’s disappointment in the long-dried ink of the word. Unfavourable tides on his last trip meant an early return to Joya, and Da never again made it across that wild expanse before the Governor arrived on our island. Governor Adori closed the ports and made the forest that stretched coast-to-coast between our village of Gromera and the rest of the island into a border, banishing anyone who resisted his rule to the other side. Gromera was cut off from the rest of Joya, and the forest was strung with t
hick thorns and enormous bells to warn the Governor’s guards if anyone came through. I had never heard the bells ring.

  Da dreamt of filling in the gaps on his Amrica maps, whereas what I wanted, more than anything else, was to cross the forest border and chart the Forgotten Territories which lay beyond, though I had never told him so.

  There was only one map that showed the whole of our island, and it hung in Da’s study. I called it Ma’s map because it had been passed down through her family for generations, maybe ever since Arinta’s time, a thousand years ago. It had always felt like a sign that Ma and Da were meant for each other, that he was a cartographer and her only heirloom was a map.

  Each of us carries the map of our lives on our skin, in the way we walk, even in the way we grow, Da would often say. See here, how my blood runs not blue at my wrist, but black? Your mother always said it was ink. I am a cartographer through to my heart.

  ‘Fetch the jug, would you?’ Da’s voice made me jump, pulling me back into the room.

  I dragged a chair to the shelves, carefully taking the jug from high up, and put it on the table next to the porridge. It was forest green and special, because it was the last thing Ma made. We used it only on the first day of school, and on birthdays and feast days. Da kept it out of reach and washed it with great care.

  I could remember Ma, sometimes – dark-eyed and mostly smiling, smelling of the black clay she worked with, making pots for the villagers and delicate pieces for the Governor. Or maybe I imagined her, like the songbirds.

  ‘Good morning, little one.’ Da limped from the kitchen. I rushed to take the milk pail and cups he was carrying.

  ‘You shouldn’t walk without your stick,’ I scolded.

  Da had broken his leg as a young man, leaping from the jetty of an Æygptian port on to a moving ship, and now used a walking stick carved from a fragment of his great-grand-father’s fishing boat. It was my favourite thing out of the many favourite things in the room. Light as paper, it floated in even the thinnest skim of water, but most miraculously of all it glowed in the dark. Da said it was because of the sap, but I knew it was magic.

  I hurried to clear a space on the table, shifting the Himalay Mountains on to a shelf.

  Da poured the milk into Ma’s jug, then settled down on the bench next to me and grinned. ‘Pick a pocket.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Left.’

  He wiggled his eyebrows like two black caterpillars. ‘Right answer.’ He pulled a small jar from his pocket.

  ‘Pine honey!’ I unscrewed the lid and the smell filled my nostrils, making my mouth water. ‘Thank you, Da.’

  ‘Nothing but the best for your first day back at school.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s only school…’

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose I’ll just have to eat all of this myself, then…’ He took the open jar and mimed pouring the honey into his mouth.

  ‘No!’ I grabbed it back. ‘You’re right, it’s a very important day. I’m only surprised you didn’t get two jars.’

  The honey was so good I hardly noticed the porridge was burnt, but when I looked up Da’s food was untouched. He was sitting in that hunched way that meant he was thinking. His hand rested on the milk jug and I could see the pulse in his wrist. His eyes had a faraway look.

  First days of school were hard for both of us.

  I cleared away my bowl as quietly as possible and pushed his closer to his hand. ‘I’ll see you later, Da.’

  When he didn’t answer I picked up my satchel and left the house, closing the peeling green door gently behind me.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Our street ran in a straight, steep line down to the Western Sea, and all the houses were built the same: a long row of mud huts with straw roofs that Lupe thought looked sweet. I thought that they looked as if one good gust of wind would send them all tumbling into the water.

  I normally ran to the market square, skidding downhill on my heels, because the ravens liked to fly low and running put them off. Today, though, I settled for a fast walk – after all, I was almost at the top of the school now. It didn’t seem right to run like a little child.

  Masha, who lived across the street, was standing in her doorway. I waved, trying to see past her into the house.

  ‘Looking for someone?’ She smiled, her lined face crinkling like old paper. ‘Pablo’s already left. You know the Governor likes them to be at work before dawn.’

  Masha’s son Pablo had been born when she was already old, her belly swelling even as her hair turned grey and her face creased with age. Masha called it a miracle, and Pablo was miraculous. Gabo and I had always been in awe of him, as all the villagers were, because of his strength. Aged ten, he could lift his parents, one over each shoulder. Having a piggyback from Pablo felt like flying, but it had been a long time since I’d seen him.

  Two years ago, when his mother’s back got too bad, Pablo left school and took her place as a labourer, although Masha pleaded with him not to. Now fifteen, he pulled carts as if they were paper, and cared for the Governor’s horses too.

  ‘He took the present for Lupe,’ Masha added, wrinkling her nose. I knew she didn’t understand why I chose to be friends with the Governor’s daughter. ‘I told him to hide it like you asked.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll see him tomorrow?’

  ‘Maybe.’ But her voice was not hopeful. He was always up before sunrise, home after dark.

  I waved goodbye, shouldered my satchel and started down the hill.

  From this high up Gromera looked like a wheel, or a starburst, with the market square at its centre and streets like spokes spiking outwards, some ending at the wide, calm harbour that bottlenecked into the sea, ripe with fish. On a clear night, the stars settled on its surface like water lilies.

  The Governor’s ship was moored there, as always. Da said it was carved from a single Afrik baobab trunk. The baobab must be an enormous tree, because the hull nearly spanned the width of the port, the mast arrowing towards the sky, the sails stowed. It crouched over the fishing fleet like a mountain, huge and unmoving. Like everything the Governor had, it took up far more space than it ought to.

  To the east, his house glinted in the sunrise. Built from black basalt and big as five ships, the mansion sat between the blue sea and the green forest, spreading out over the fields like a storm cloud. From here, though, it looked small enough to squash between my forefinger and thumb. Below it was the village, with the school halfway between.

  The old school building had been small but bright, and we had painted the walls rainbow colours with whatever dyes Da could spare. But then the Governor had knocked it down – Lupe had decided she’d had enough of being taught alone at home and demanded to be sent to the local school like the rest of us.

  Governor Adori had rebuilt it from stone, twice as big, because if his daughter was going, it had to look grander.

  ‘Not for me, you understand,’ Lupe had said with a sad smile. She adopted an even posher voice to add, ‘To uphold the family honour.’

  We weren’t allowed to paint the walls of the new school. A lot of children were unkind to Lupe because of that, but I knew it wasn’t her fault.

  Behind the Governor’s house, closest to the forest, was the orchard, where I had never been. I squinted at the ant-like specks of the labourers there, and wondered which one was Pablo. To the west, the black sand of the beaches was almost covered by the incoming tide. We were not allowed to be on the beaches at high tide, and no one was allowed in the water unless they were launching one of the Governor’s boats. My toes itched. Da had described being in the sea but it was not the same as trying it for myself.

  Above the beaches were the clay mines, which I tried not to look at because it brought back one of the few clear memories I had of Ma – the day she took Gabo and me to the mines. She taught us how to tie ourselves with vines to a dragon tree – You knot like this, and then rub the sap into your hands for grip – and lowered us one by on
e into the gorge. Gabo got scared and wriggled so much the knot broke. When he landed on the soft mud at the bottom it made a very rude noise, and he was filthy when Ma climbed up with him from the darkness. I laughed so hard it hurt.

  I remembered that, that ache in my belly. How it came back two months later, when Ma died. Only then it was sharper, and there was no one carrying anyone out of that darkness. Three years on the same sweating sickness took Gabo. Three years after that, the clay mine memory still made my throat feel tight.

  Lupe always met me by a barrel at the edge of the market square so we could walk to school together, even though it meant she had to get up almost as early as the labourers. When I got to the square a queue was already forming for the well. More and more people used it since the River Arintara began drying up.

  All the stalls were open, selling fish and grain and leather. Most of the stalls belonged to the Governor, their cool blue awnings like a patch of sky, with the honey stall a bright sun-yellow in the middle.

  As I made my way towards the barrel someone grasped my wrist. I jumped, stumbling against a nearby stall, and vegetables tumbled to the dusty ground.

  ‘Hey!’ the stall keeper growled. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  I turned to see who was gripping me. It was a woman dressed in green robes, which meant she worked in the orchards. She should already be there – latecomers were sometimes whipped.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said to the stall keeper, without taking her eyes from my face. ‘Isabella Riosse?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Who—’

  ‘Something has happened.’ She clutched my wrist harder. She was so small, her face almost level with mine.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ the stall keeper repeated, stepping out from behind his piles of potatoes.

  ‘Cata,’ hissed the woman, ignoring him. ‘Have you seen her?’

  I frowned. ‘Cata Rodriguez?’ Cata was in my class at school, but we had only spoken a couple of times before.

  The woman nodded fiercely. ‘I’m her mother. She said you were friends. I thought maybe you knew where she was.’