The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn

by Kate Gordon

  ‘That’s not beauty,’ Wonder argued. ‘That’s tragedy.’

  That’s life, said Hollowbeak, simply. All the beauty and all the tragedy … so enormous when we’re in it and when we’re not …

  ‘I still feel her,’ Wonder whispered. ‘I still feel her on my skin. So, you are wrong. We are enormous, always.’

  Wonder Quinn sat in Ms Gallow’s classroom. In front of her, the badger in the wood did not look quite so judgemental as it usually did. In fact, it looked quite sympathetic and sad. Wonder stroked its head. Funny old badger.

  The lesson was about fairytales. She watched the chalk dance across the blackboard:

  Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

  Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

  Her eyes left the board and wandered to the desk beside her.

  And it was the absence of her that did it. The absence where once there had been so much. So much infinite life. And now there was nothing but air.

  The absence of Mabel.

  Now, that was a thing.

  That was a thing so huge it felt like a universe, imploding.

  It felt like Wonder’s soul, imploding.

  It felt like the last pieces of her heart, shattering.

  After all this time.

  Finally.

  She breathed in.

  She breathed out.

  And then she left the classroom and walked up the stairs of Direleafe Hall.

  She opened the door to the archives room and found her rough woollen blanket and the pile of books that sat beside it.

  The Silver-eyed Girl

  The Winged Heart

  Ink and Bones

  The Tale of Boundless Joy

  And the one about the girl who was a warrior who roared, who saved the entire world.

  She lit her candle and she read. She read and she read and, above her, though she did not glance up, in the middle of the shadow-maze, her mother waited with a crow on her shoulder.

  And the candle flickered.

  She let herself read all those beautiful words and she was filled with all the miracles and all the sadness of the universe and tears spilled from her eyes.

  And, after many hours and many tears, her eyelids fluttered and her book fell with a thud to the dusty floorboards, still dry, as if Wonder’s tears had never fallen, as if Wonder had never been.

  But she had.

  She had been and she had lived, and she was golden and so light.

  So beautifully light.

  And she whispered to Hollowbeak and to the night, before she fell asleep: ‘I am glad, in the end, that my heart broke, even though it was the worst thing in the world.’

  And she dreamed of her mother, beckoning.

  And she dreamed of Mabel, beckoning.

  And she walked into their warm arms.

  And that was a thing.

  But the candle was still lit because she forgot to snuff it out, and it burned down and down and down. And then the very edge of one of the pages of the book that Wonder had dropped began to glow, and then to flame.

  But that was all right. That was just as it should have been, really, when you think about it.

  And the flames began to dance, as Wonder and Mabel had danced, as Wonder and her mother had danced, and they danced all the way across the floor, where they found Mabel’s list turning into ash and nothing, as if it never was. As if it was never the most important thing, after all. Because the list had been the story, for a while, but it wasn’t the story any longer.

  Now, the story was about Wonder Quinn, only. And what happened to her next, when the candle stopped burning and the attic stopped burning and the lights all went out.

  What happened to Wonder Quinn, then?

  Wonder Quinn sat on the roof of Direleafe Hall. She looked up, towards the stars, to see a familiar shape floating down towards her.

  ‘Hello, Hollowbeak,’ she said.

  She ran her hand along the shiny new roof tiles. She missed the old shingles. But the fire had eaten them. She supposed, in a way, it was right. It made sense. A new roof for a new year and a new life, without Mabel.

  Do you wish you’d never met her? asked Hollowbeak. Because I warned you. I warned you it would hurt.

  ‘How did you know?’ asked Wonder.

  Because she saw you. None of the others saw you. She saw you because she was like you, in a way. Or very nearly. She was close to becoming what you are.

  Wonder leaned her chin on her knees. ‘It does hurt,’ she said. ‘But it is a good sort of hurting. It set me free. I always wondered why I was here and my mother was not. It’s because I was weighed down. I wish Mabel never died. But I’m not sad that I cried. It broke me, but it broke the strings, too. The ones that held me here. Is that strange?’

  Hollowbeak shook his head. He hopped onto Wonder’s knee. She stroked his feathers.

  Would you do it again? he asked.

  Wonder looked below her. She watched as students tumbled out of the high iron gates, like a school of blue-and-grey-scaled fish, made shining by the sea, swimming away from the mouth of a whale. From where she sat, it was tricky to see who was who.

  And, of course, some of them she wouldn’t know. There would be newlings in first form.

  There might even be another one as magical as Mabel.

  But it wasn’t that girl she was looking for. It wasn’t a student at all.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I only want her.’

  She closed her eyes and began to hum.

  ‘My small, precious hatchling,

  In your nest, tucked in tight,

  Flutter down your eyelids

  And bid the stars goodnight …’

  Down from the stars, the music drifted. Another one humming. Another voice. Wonder remembered it.

  She looked up at the stars. She knew it was where she came from and where she belonged.

  ‘I could fly,’ she said. ‘All the way up there. I could.’

  Hollowbeak gave a small, sharp nod. You could, was all he said.

  ‘Is my mother up there?’ asked Wonder. ‘Is Mabel?’

  Hollowbeak didn’t reply for a very long time. Finally, he said, Perhaps.

  Wonder looked down again. At the girls. At life. It was so noisy and chaotic and beautiful. But it didn’t sing to her like the stars did.

  ‘I could fly all the way up there and they wouldn’t be there,’ she murmured. ‘What if they are somewhere else? Somewhere that people go, when they leave straight away? What if I go somewhere different, because it took me longer? I’m afraid, Hollowbeak.’

  Hollowbeak leaned his head on her chest. So am I. But I’ll go if you will.

  ‘I always wanted to go across the seas,’ Wonder said, idly. ‘To a far-off distant land. I wonder if the stars are like a distant land. Like Abyssinia or Prussia or Siam. I wonder if the stars are like the whole universe, and you can travel through it in the blink of an eye.’

  Yes, said Hollowbeak. He seemed to smile. I imagine that’s how they are. I imagine you’re free as a bird.

  ‘She’ll be there somewhere,’ said Wonder. ‘I’ll find where she’s gone to. And we can be properly friends. Forever. And I will find my mother, too. And we will be a family and nothing will ever break us and my heart will never break again. Or maybe it will break a million times, but it won’t matter. All that will matter is that I have them and they have me and I won’t be alone. All of us, Hollowbeak. Together.’

  She looked at her bird friend. The one who had been there all along.

  ‘You too, Hollowbeak. All of us together.’

  Well, said Hollowbeak, softly. That would be a thing.

  And then they sat together in silence, watching down below as all the small living things kept on dancin
g.

  And above them the stars danced, too.

  And Wonder Quinn and Hollowbeak opened their wings. And flew up. To the stars. To a far-off distant land. Which was a bit like Abyssinia, a bit like Prussia and a bit like Siam.

  And nothing like anything you could possibly imagine.

  The firemen who came to put out the fire in the old archives room told Ms Gallow that a candle had caused it. And she couldn’t believe them because nobody had been up there for years.

  She couldn’t explain the charred books they found, scattered on the floor.

  But she was glad that the old filing cabinet was made from steel and that the records inside it were saved. There was a new cabinet in her office, of course, with the files inside of every student who had lived at Direleafe Hall these past fifty years.

  But this old cabinet had been forgotten. Because the stories in the new cabinet were now, and they were happening, and all the stories in the old cabinet were long ago and dust-covered and unimportant.

  But as Ms Gallow looked at the old cabinet, she couldn’t help thinking about the howling she had heard, the night when Mabel Clattersham died.

  And suddenly she knew, it hadn’t been Mabel howling.

  And there was something else.

  Sometimes – just sometimes – when she was in the library alone at night, she could almost swear she heard pages turning. And – only once or twice – when she had gone to tidy her classroom, after the girls had left, she noticed thatthe chair behind the empty desk was slightly askew. And there was just a … feeling in the air. A smell that felt like memory. As if the room was remembering.

  As if someone had been there.

  And Ms Gallow had a strange sense, now, that perhaps the stories in this cabinet were not long ago and unimportant. Not at all. She had a feeling – in the corner of her brain or in the hairs on the back of her neck – that these stories were now.

  They were happening.

  And they were important.

  This cabinet was still important.

  It contained the files of every girl who had lived at Direleafe Hall in the fifty years before the new cabinets were bought. It told how they lived. It told their stories. For one or two children, it even told how they died.

  The first file Ms Gallow came to had a stamp on it that told her that the girl had died while she lived at Direleafe Hall.

  She died in a fire, just like the one that had eaten the archives room.

  A candle, tipped over. So much golden light, burning everything. Eating everything.

  So much light that led to so much darkness.

  And to the death of a small girl called Wonder.

  But that was less important than all that had come before. The life was what was important. The life was what was golden.

  ‘Wonder Quinn,’ Ms Gallow mouthed. ‘Let’s see how you lived.’

  And she read all about the life of Wonder Quinn, who was the daughter of a teacher called Constance Quinn. She read about the bright-eyed, dimple-cheeked girl and her beautiful mother and how they were both so clever and how they both loved each other to the moon … to the stars.

  And, when she was finished, Ms Gallow did not file the story away. She put it beside her, and she retrieved the next story and the next. And she read them all, and then she added them to the pile.

  And the pile grew, higher and higher.

  So many stories.

  And she did not know what she would do with the stories, with the growing pile. She only knew that they would not be locked away, ever again.

  And around her there gathered the shadows of all the girls whose stories she read.

  And they watched, as Ms Gallow kept reading, on and on, until nightfall.

  They watched as she lit a candle, and she read some more.

  And outside the window, the silver birch tree swayed in the wind, and the rain fell on the roof of Direleafe Hall.

  It’s a cliché because it’s true – no book is created by one person only. Wonder had Mabel and Hollowbeak. I had a whole team of people around me, making this book possible.

  Firstly, to Brian, my actual superhero of an agent, who puts up with my neurosis with so much kindness and patience. I don’t have adequate words for how irreplaceable he is.

  To Kristina, who noticed Wonder and championed her. I am so lucky to have had her on my side from the beginning.

  To Cathy and Clair, who have been my cheer squad, wise sages, smile-makers and solvers of all problems. I told them early on that it had been a dream since I was a teenager to be published by UQP. They have made that dream come true and more.

  To Kristy, for her astonishingly insightful editing. I felt like she knew and understood Wonder almost better than I did. This book is half hers.

  To Rachel, for her incredible illustrations. I’ve been a fan of Rachel’s for years and was beyond excited to hear she would be illustrating Wonder Quinn. I am still pinching myself.

  Finally, and most importantly, to my family. My dad, Steve, who is my constant source of reinforcement, support, kindness and a soft place to fall whenever I need one. His Leigh, who makes me laugh at the right moment, always. And, most importantly, my Leigh, for his eternal patience and support. And my little Tiger, who inspires me every single day with her bravery, wisdom, vibrancy and wicked humour. I would fly to the moon for you, kid. I would fly to the stars.

  Thank you to everyone who reads The Heartsong of Wonder Quinn; to everyone who sees her.

  I hope you all love it. That would be a thing.

  Kate Gordon grew up in a very bookish house, in a small town by the sea in Tasmania. After studying performing arts and realising she was a terrible actor, Kate decided to become a librarian. She never stopped writing and, in 2009, she won a Varuna fellowship.

  Kate’s first book, Three Things About Daisy Blue, was published in 2010. Since then she has written a number of books. Her most recent publications are the young adult novel Girl Running, Boy Falling and the younger reader series Juno Jones: Word Ninja.

  First published 2020 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  uqp.com.au

  reception@uqp.uq.edu.au

  Copyright © Kate Gordon 2020The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover design and illustration by Rachel Tribout

  Author photograph by Stephen Lovell

  Typeset in 14/22 pt Adobe Text Pro by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  The University of Queensland Press is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6282 1 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6411 5 (epdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6412 2 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7022 6413 9 (kindle)

  University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests and other controlled sources. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

 

 

 
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