The Starspun Web

by Sinéad O'Hart

  “Ladies and gentlemen—and the rest of you!” came Mr. Cleat’s voice, sudden enough to make Tess jump again. Mrs. Thistleton tightened her grip on her arm but Tess ignored the pain and flicked her gaze around, searching for him as a ripple of laughter rolled through the crowd.

  Another light popped on and there he was—standing on the nose of one of the planes, appearing to lean nonchalantly on the nearest propeller blade. In his hand he held a bullhorn, into which he was speaking. The music faded completely. “It’s my honor to welcome you all here to my humble abode this evening. Most of you will know me, Norton Cleat; those who don’t, well—it’s a pleasure. Thank you all for being here. Tonight, my friends, we’re going to witness the impossible.”

  As the applause sputtered to renewed life all around him, soon growing to a crescendo, Mr. Cleat dropped the bullhorn and jumped down, landing with fluid grace. He began to walk toward Tess, his wide smile not echoed in his hard, angry eyes.

  Tess was cornered. Mr. Cleat was coming in one direction and Mrs. Thistleton held her in an unbreakable grip and everywhere around her were tables full of people oblivious to any of it. She had nowhere to run.

  Mr. Cleat reached her and clamped his hand down on her shoulder, heavy and unmoving as an iron rod. She had no choice but to walk alongside him with Mrs. Thistleton until finally the three of them stood beneath the shadow of the planes. Tess tried not to tremble as she looked around; it was hard to see faces in the strange light but she knew for certain she was alone here. Nobody would help. Nobody could help.

  “Now!” Mr. Cleat announced as a man in uniform bustled forward out of the shadows holding a large tray. On it was a cloth covering something that looked like a storm lantern. “This evening, ladies and gents, we’re here to witness a miracle. A real, true, honest-to-Faraday miracle. What we’re going to do here this evening has never been done before. Never, ladies and gents! Not only will it demonstrate the absolute proof that we in the Interdimensional Harmonics Society have been seeking for over thirty years—the proof, my friends, that worlds exist beyond our own and that those worlds can be opened up to us—but we will show you all how it can be done.”

  He paused to catch his breath, staring out at the crowd, a fervent light shining in his eyes. “I know there are believers among you; I know too that there are doubters. You will all leave here tonight with one solid fact lodged in your skulls: there are worlds, who knows how many, that we can gain access to with the right knowledge and skill—and the power to do it is in our grasp!”

  Mr. Cleat raised his free hand in the air, his fist clenched, and after a second or two the cheer he was evidently expecting began to rise from his assembled guests. Tess felt him relax a fraction but then his grip on her regained its strength. He shoved her forward to stand in front of him, and he placed one heavy hand on each of her shoulders. She blinked, the bright lights making her feel dizzy.

  “This young lady is Tess de Sousa. Yes, my friends: one of those de Sousas.” A murmur began and Tess felt the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes as they strained to see her. “This is the girl with the key to the universe—the wielder of the Star-spinner!” A furious wave of chatter followed this, with people turning to one another in disbelief and a few even making notes.

  “Poppycock, Cleat!” came a shout. A man got to his feet at a table a few rows back. “That’s just a fable! There’s no such thing. Whoever this poor urchin is, send her back to her gutter and leave us all to have a pleasant evening.” This was greeted by a gale of laughter interspersed with booing.

  “I admit, my dear Mr. Henderson, that the child is a little less—how can I say it?—presentable than I would have wished, but such is the nature of youth. Am I right?” More laughter greeted this and Mr. Henderson took his seat once again, shaking his head. “However, I assure you, Cornelius, that I am telling the truth. And for those who still find it hard to believe, all I can say is, Watch and wait.”

  He released Tess’s right shoulder and raised his hand again. Instantly the planes’ engines roared to life. They began to taxi backward, rolling over the lawn in perfect formation as they prepared to take to the air.

  Mr. Cleat leaned down to murmur into Tess’s ear. He reached into his waistcoat pocket and from it took the Star-spinner, which he held in his fingers like a pocket watch as he spoke. “If you want to save the lives of everyone you love—right down to your eight-legged friend—then you’ll start doing exactly what I say from this point on, young lady. The choice”—he paused, making Tess swallow hard—“is yours.”

  * * *

  Millie led the way through the tunnel, a lit candle held in one hand. Wilf followed close behind. Prissy and Eunice huddled together, neither of them willing to admit how scared they were, and Prossy guarded the rear with Hortense the hockey stick held high.

  “How much further is it?” she asked, adjusting her grip on Hortense.

  “It can’t be too much longer now,” Millie said. “I wasn’t really paying attention last time, what with being afraid for my life and all.” She shivered and quickened her pace.

  “You might have let us know that before we clambered into a hole in the ground,” Prossy muttered.

  “Look!” Millie called, hurrying forward. “Steps. Going upward.”

  “Thank goodness,” Wilf muttered. Millie handed her the candle, climbed the steps and pushed hard at the trapdoor set above them. After a second or two, in a cloud of dust that made Millie turn away and sneeze, the door opened into the vestry.

  Moments later, all five girls—plus Hortense—stood in the center aisle of the deserted old chapel.

  “She’s not here,” Wilf said, searching the darkness.

  “I don’t understand,” Millie whispered, her confusion clear. “I was sure she’d have hidden out here.”

  “Tess!” Eunice called. “Tess, it’s us!”

  Prissy walked to the back of the chapel and peered up at the ceiling. “She can’t have gone up there. I wonder if—” She stopped short as something caught her ear.

  “What is it, Priss?” Prossy asked, but Prissy shushed her with a gesture as she tried to listen.

  “Can you hear that?” Prissy said. “It’s like—engines?”

  The girls stood still and strained their ears, and then they heard it: the deep thrumming roar of petroleum engines, carried on the breeze.

  Millie’s eyes opened wide. “It’s starting,” she said, running for the chapel door. “Come on!”

  “You’re not getting me down that tunnel again,” Prossy muttered.

  “No need for that now,” Millie said, hurrying out into the night. “We’ve got to hurry! Whatever Mr. Cleat’s been planning, it’s happening. And if he’s got Tess, she needs us—come on!”

  With that the girls charged across the starlit field toward Roedeer Lodge, hoping with everything they had that they’d get there in time to help their friend.

  Mr. Cleat got down on one knee beside Tess so that their eyes were level. He pointed up at the sky, which was already speckled with stars and hung with a thin rind of moon. Somewhere the planes’ engines roared and Tess imagined them circling the park, waiting for their moment.

  “Now,” Mr. Cleat began, as though they were out on an evening stroll, “do you see that constellation right above the house? It looks a little like a cup with a long handle.”

  Tess blinked at it. “No,” she said as disagreeably as she could, but the pattern in the stars was quite clear.

  “Very good, Tess.” Mr. Cleat chuckled. Then he put one arm round her shoulders and with his other hand held the Star-spinner loosely. “You need to find the bright star just above the cup of the constellation you seem unable to see. Can you do that?” He pointed and Tess saw the star he meant. It was brighter than those around it, like a diamond among shards of glass.

  She nodded. “I see it.”

 
“How wonderful,” Mr. Cleat said. “Now, you’ll recall I spoke to you some time ago about the materials your father used to build the Star-spinner, and how he found them at the site of the meteorite crash in his own world. Well, that star—Polaris, Tess, the North Star—contains some of the same material as the meteorite that dealt a deathblow to your home. Your device is made from part of that star. Like calls to like.” He placed the Star-spinner in her hand. “As above, so below.”

  “What are you saying?” Tess blinked at him.

  “Lift the device, Tess.” His voice was low, even gentle.

  Tess choked back a sob. “I don’t want to.”

  “Do as I ask and you’ll see why your little trinket is called the Star-spinner, child. And do it quickly or you can kiss everyone and everything you love goodbye.”

  Tess shook her head, hating what she was being forced to do, and opened the Star-spinner’s eye. Beside her, Mr. Cleat held his breath as he watched, his face bathed in the light of the void.

  “Now,” he told her, lifting his eyes to the sky again. “Focus it on the North Star. Do it, Tess.”

  She did as he asked, her fingers shaking. In the void, the star looked even more beautiful, but Tess could barely see it through her tears.

  “Set the stars spinning, Tess,” Mr. Cleat said. “Turn it.”

  “I won’t do it,” Tess said, gritting her teeth. She tensed, preparing to fling the Star-spinner away, and Mr. Cleat grabbed her, hard. He held her still, crushing her fingers around the Star-spinner and making her gasp with pain.

  “You!” he barked at the man holding the tray and its strange contents on one outstretched hand. The man nodded, whisking the cloth away—and Tess saw the lantern with Violet still inside. The spider jerked in fright, her limbs spreading over the glass like an outstretched hand, and Tess sobbed. She looked up at the man pleadingly but his eyes were shadowed. He didn’t move an inch.

  Mrs. Thistleton stepped forward, lifting the lantern as she went, and held it in Tess’s sight line. “A reminder,” she said, “of what’s at stake here.”

  “Don’t hurt her,” Tess begged.

  “Do what we’re asking,” said Mr. Cleat in a soft voice, “and she’ll be fine. I promise.”

  He relaxed his grip a little on Tess’s fingers and Mrs. Thistleton stepped out of the way, holding Violet in her lantern high. Tess, knowing she had no choice, raised the Star-spinner again and focused it on the North Star. Then, her eyes streaming with tears, she began to turn the upper half, the markers clicking into place as it moved. The device hummed with power, which seemed to increase as it notched up a gear.

  Suddenly a circle of the Star-spinner’s light burst forth from the mechanism, making Tess’s hands jerk with the power of its movement, and was gone into the sky in a blink. As it rose, it began to grow, getting bluer and brighter with every second. The circle was centered on the North Star, held at its heart like a jewel on a neck, and inside the circle, around the fixed point that was Polaris, the stars were spinning, growing faster until they were curves of light like comets trapped in a tight orbit.

  The roaring of the bombers’ engines tore the air overhead. Chairs overturned as people scrambled to get out of them; screams were lost in the chaos. Guests stood on the lawn, unsure where to look—at the wildly whirling stars overhead, or the huge airplanes making straight for them, looking like they were on a collision course with one another.

  But they didn’t collide. The moment the planes reached the edge of the starfire ring, they vanished, swallowed into another world, a world full of innocent people who had no idea they were coming.

  A world where the only family Tess had left was right in their path.

  * * *

  Thomas was startled by a bright blue flash, like lightning. He cowered in the observatory as he waited for the thunder—but all he heard was silence. After a few moments he sat up, confused.

  “I’d better close the roof, Moose,” he said, shifting the mouse onto the floor as he got to his feet. “Just in case it rains.”

  He climbed to the opening in the dome, and what he saw almost made him fall back down the ladder. He clung to the edge, his teeth chattering, as he looked at the hole that had torn open in the sky right above his house, trying desperately to understand. It was surrounded by a ring of bright blue fire, which looked like the light in Tess’s device. A single star burned at its heart like a glittering eye and all around it other stars whirled faster than Thomas could imagine, so fast they became a streaked blur.

  Then the spinning circle of stars was sucked outward, becoming something that looked like a tunnel. Thomas couldn’t tear his eyes away from it, despite it being—by quite some measure—the most frightening thing he’d ever seen.

  That was, until five bombers—like Messerschmitts, Thomas thought, only bigger—screamed out of the tunnel, without identifying markings of any sort and looking far more brutal than any plane he knew of. Thomas knew their bellies were filled with explosives—and then, as if to prove it, the final plane released a bomb as it roared over his parents’ house.

  Thomas ducked, clutching the rungs of the ladder, and waited for the boom. When he could look out again, half his house was in flames. Thomas slumped against the observatory roof and turned his head. Dublin lay there, twinkling in the darkness, filled with thousands of sleeping people, and there was nothing he could do. In a heartbeat, the planes had disappeared, ready to lay waste, and Thomas stood on his ladder with his fingers digging into the metal of the conservatory roof and despaired.

  He pulled his head back inside and climbed down. Collapsing onto his sleeping mat, he pulled out his mother’s notebook. As quickly as he could, he flipped to the page with his father’s portrait on it, and Moose clambered up onto his shoulder as Thomas sat staring at it, wrapped in his blanket.

  His mind was filled with Tess and thoughts of what was happening to her a world away, and then all he knew was the shrieking of the engines.

  * * *

  As the planes disappeared, along with the sound of their engines, the crowd reacted with uproar. People got to their feet, knocking over chairs and pulling tablecloths askew, upturning glasses and sending tableware flying into the grass. Most of the guests started running. Those that remained were wide-eyed and gape-mouthed, fixated on the gap in the stars. Mr. Cleat stared at it too, a wild grin on his face.

  Of the airplanes, there wasn’t a single trace.

  Mrs. Thistleton was also looking at the sky, but her expression was different from Mr. Cleat’s. Where he was examining the scene with rapturous disbelief, Mrs. Thistleton looked somehow disappointed, as though she’d expected more.

  Tess took advantage of her distraction and made a lunge for the lantern in her hand—but the woman was too quick. She snapped back to attention, holding Violet out of Tess’s reach.

  “Give her back!” Tess shouted. “I did what you wanted!”

  “I don’t think we’re through with you just yet,” Mrs. Thistleton answered. “Now, Tess. Give me the Star-spinner.”

  Mr. Cleat looked away from the scene in the sky and turned to Mrs. Thistleton. “What?” he asked, confused. “Pauline? What do you want the Star-spinner for?”

  Mrs. Thistleton grimaced and flung Violet’s glass cage away, sending it spinning into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance it crashed to the ground, shattering Tess’s heart. She screamed, desperately trying to see where it had landed, but in the same second Mr. Cleat stumbled back against her, treading heavily on her foot.

  “The only thing that can truly destroy the Star-spinner is a weapon made of the same ores that were used to fashion it,” Mrs. Thistleton said, glancing from Mr. Cleat to Tess and back again. “I searched for years, using every contact I had, spending every penny I had, until I had enough metal to have this forged.”

  She slid her hand into her coat and withdrew
a long, thin dagger with a blade that tapered to a point so fine you could hardly see it. Mrs. Thistleton held it up, turning it this way and that, and Mr. Cleat and Tess couldn’t take their eyes off it. “Beautiful, isn’t it? And when I drive it through the center of the Star-spinner, this portal you’ve opened will remain for long enough to start a chain reaction that will tear through all the worlds.”

  She ran a finger up the blade before piercing Mr. Cleat with her stare again. “What’s the point, Norton, of accessing realities only a few yards from our own when we could open a rift that would give us access to realities at the furthest edges of our imaginations?” She took a step toward him and he involuntarily stepped back, stumbling against Tess once more. She fought to hold him up as Mrs. Thistleton kept talking. “You and your foolish notions about interfering with a war the next world over. That’s beginners’ stuff! Think beyond your bank balance. Imagine what we will learn! How closely we’ll be able to examine the structures of reality! They’ll be talking about us for centuries, in worlds unnumbered!”

  Mr. Cleat struggled to understand. “How much we’ll learn about reality by destroying it?”

  “It’s for the greater good,” she said, lunging at him with the dagger in her hand. Tess saw Mr. Cleat’s arms go up in self-defense but it was too late. With a groan of pain, he fell to the ground. Mrs. Thistleton stood over him, shaking out her dagger hand, and then she turned to Tess. Her face was pinched and cruel, her eyes sparkling with malice. “Give me the Star-spinner, Tess,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “I’m not letting you destroy anything!” Tess cried. “Get away from me!”