Lina tried to speak. To shout, ‘Harpies!’ To point at the pond. To let them know the harpies were already here – far too early and looking far too fierce. But panic whipped the noise away, and her arms were dead weights.
One of the tiny flower fairies cleared her throat with a delicate cough and helpfully shouted, ‘QUIET, YOU RATBAGS! THE HUMAN GIRL IS TRYING TO SPEAK!’
They all turned to Lina. ‘Harpies,’ she managed, her voice shaking. ‘Coming right for us.’
‘Impossible! How could they possibly know?’ Odge cried.
Ben turned slowly to Netty. ‘Did the harpies follow you?’
Netty began to sweat. ‘They said I could have the rest of the day off.’
‘Harpies don’t believe in days off for anyone but themselves!’ Odge cried.
Netty’s eyes grew wide when she spotted Lina’s backpack. ‘THEY KNOW ABOUT THE LITTLE HUMAN! THEY’VE COME FOR HER!’
It was the last thing Lina heard before the roof above them exploded.
Mud and rock pummelled her as she grabbed Ray and desperately clawed her way along the crumbling corridors. She could just make out one of the flower fairies ahead of her.
‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘Please wait!’ But the glowing light of the flower fairy grew weaker and disappeared from view. Lina stopped and stood there, trembling in the dark.
Screams pierced her ears, but the air was too filled with dust to work out where they were coming from. Every so often, the cloak of a wizard or the wing of a fairy would whip past. She fought through the rubble and dust, pulling herself to her feet. Harpy cackles rang out around her.
‘Odge?’ she called. ‘Ben?’
She stumbled down the tunnel. Where once there had been witches and trolls and little wizards with braided beards, now there was no one. Not a single creature.
‘It’s all right. It’s going to be all right,’ she whispered to Ray, though it was really to calm herself.
She slowly navigated her way over and around the rocks. Light flooded in from a hole in the ceiling, along with snow and spray from the waves. She wanted to stay put in the light and wait for Odge, but that’s when she heard her—
‘Over here!’ came Odge’s cry.
Only it wasn’t Odge at all. The thing about harpies is they are incredibly skilled at imitating people’s voices. They can also do some good animal noises, apart from cows. There’s something about a moo that’s beyond them.
Lina charged on until she reached the dark and dingy cave room they had been in earlier. Squinting, she could just make out the witches’ cauldrons still bubbling away, but the witches themselves were long gone.
She walked slowly, whispering Odge’s name. She was sure she had heard her voice coming from this very room.
The cauldrons creaked behind her, and a sinister shadow danced across the wall.
‘Odge?’ Lina whispered again, unaware of what was behind her.
She heard a scratching noise. It was a noise she’d heard before, when she’d first arrived in Mist. The noise that had echoed through the tunnel. The noise of a creature who wasn’t flying but clawing. The noise of—
‘A HARPY!’ Lina screamed in fear as she whipped round.
But it was too late – all she saw was talons and then nothing at all.
The rebellion was a sorry sight. Witches were tied to emptied cauldrons, wizards were trying to hide in their beards, the flower fairies were trapped in glass jars, because everyone knows how vicious they can be, and poor Odge was being dragged by the ears by Miss Witherspoon and a backwards-flying Miss Green. Next to her, Miss Brown and Mrs Smith had a hold on Lina.
‘She should’ve been wearing her rock monster disguise,’ Lina heard a witch whisper to another. ‘She took it off to dip her legs in the fairy pool, silly human.’
Lina could feel her feet dragging along the ground, but the upper part of her body felt weightless. They were flying her somewhere, but had obviously decided it was more appropriately traumatic if they dragged her a bit too.
Her head was pounding, and her stomach was turning, but it was when it dawned on her that her arms were empty that she truly felt sick.
‘Ray?’ she tried to say, but it came out in a wobbled mumble.
‘The child is speaking,’ Miss Witherspoon whispered to Miss Green. ‘Shall I offer to cut off its tongue?’
‘No,’ Miss Green whispered back. ‘We need it to speak later. Mrs Smith is very curious about why it is here. She fears it’s a strange plan from Odge the hag. Humans are the worst of all.’
‘Even the small ones?’
‘Especially the small ones, Miss Witherspoon.’
Mrs Smith and Miss Brown stopped and dropped Lina on a rock next to Odge. Miss Brown landed on Lina’s head, digging her claws in, and Miss Green did the same to Odge, only backwards. They were well and truly trapped – any escape would mean leaving without a head.
‘I don’t know where Ray is,’ Lina whispered desperately to Odge.
‘It’s talking again,’ Miss Witherspoon groaned. ‘I wonder if you cut off a tongue and sew it back on again later, does it still work?’
Miss Green pondered the question for a moment, tapping her claws deeper into Odge’s head as she did. ‘You know what – I don’t know. It sounds like something we would have to try in order to be certain about it.’
Lina winced.
‘THIS,’ Mrs Smith roared, thankfully interrupting them, ‘IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TRY TO OUTSMART ME! I HAVE BEEN IN CHARGE OF THE POLICE FORCE ON THIS ISLAND FOR MANY YEARS, AND THERE IS NO TUNNEL, NO CAVE, NO ROCK THAT I DO NOT KNOW. HIDE FROM ME, AND I WILL FIND YOU! YOU WILL LEAVE THROUGH THE GUMP IMMEDIATELY, OR STAY AND FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.’
She paused, breathing in deeply before announcing, ‘THE REBELLION IS OVER.’
Hundreds of harpies hung above them, chattering excitedly. One of them dropped her handbag, and Lina watched it fall and hit Ben on the head. He straightened himself up.
‘THE REBELLION WILL NEVER BE OVER!’ he shouted as loudly as he could. Ben wasn’t very good at shouting, and even when he tried his hardest it still sounded somewhat pleasant.
‘WHO SPEAKS?’ Mrs Smith demanded. ‘WHO DARES TO SPEAK?’ She turned to the other harpies. ‘Was that a shout or someone trying to sing?’
Ben stepped forward to some muffled cheers from the captured rebels. Lina watched him place Ray gently in one of the cauldrons. She breathed a sigh of relief. All she wanted to do was run over to the cauldron and scoop the mistmaker up, but now wasn’t the time.
‘WHO ARE YOU, YOU SWEET-SOUNDING HORROR?’ Mrs Smith demanded.
Miss Witherspoon whispered something urgently to Mrs Smith and received a glare for it.
‘YES OF COURSE I KNEW IT WAS THE PRINCE,’ she snapped, even though she clearly hadn’t. A sinister grin spread greedily across her face.
Ben walked towards them, wobbling slightly as he went. Lina couldn’t tell if he was losing his footing because of the debris or because he was shaking with fear.
‘I wonder where his hideous parents are?’ Miss Brown whispered to Miss Green. ‘Maybe they didn’t go through the gump either.’
‘I escorted them myself,’ Mrs Smith snapped. ‘I watched them go – to a world I knew wouldn’t want them! At least they’ll be able to blend in. I imagine the trolls and flower fairies and witches and other beasts will not have so much luck. They’ll spend their lives hiding and lurking and never belonging!’
‘Where’s the fifth one?’ Ben asked. He knew the harpies well – after all, they had once protected the royal family. ‘There’s you, Mrs Smith … Miss Witherspoon, Miss Brown and Miss Green – but where’s Miss Jones?’
‘Who cares!’ Mrs Smith scoffed, even though she did care, very much. The five of them had been as thick as thieves since childhood – sisters in boldness, if not blood. They had ruled the harpy police force together, but when the gump opened, just after they had finally seized power, Miss Jones had vanished.
‘Maybe
he knows where she is,’ Miss Green seethed, unsticking her talons from Odge’s head and flying over to Ben. Miss Brown released her grip on Lina and followed.
Now free from the harpies’ talons, and with all eyes firmly fixed on Ben’s distraction, Lina gave Odge a nod, and the two of them slid down the rock fast, scuttled through the crowds, and together they fished Ray out of the cauldron. Lina placed him gently in her backpack, and they made their way slowly around the crowd.
‘We just need to get close enough to grab her,’ Odge said, rolling up her sleeves. ‘I hate that they can fly.’
Lina gasped. ‘Grab Mrs Smith?’ Having seen the harpies in action and felt their talons, she wasn’t keen to go anywhere near her again. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Odge.’
Odge turned to Lina and stared down at her. ‘Not a good idea?’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Lina said quickly. ‘We need to be better prepared. Right now, we need to find a way to get Ben to safety, and then we need to hide.’
Odge stared down at the rubble, all that remained of the tunnels of the Undermist. ‘That was the only hiding place.’
‘Where have they gone?’ Miss Witherspoon squealed, pointing madly at the empty spot where Lina had sat moments earlier. ‘THEY’VE GONE! THE FOUL CHILD HAS GONE, AND SHE’S TAKEN ODGE GRIBBLE WITH HER!’
The crowd gasped. Mrs Smith went black in the eyes and grabbed Ben. The other harpies stuck a talon each into his perfectly ironed jumper, and together the four of them hoisted him into the air.
Odge and Lina watched in despair as they flew up high out of reach.
‘ODGE GRIBBLE!’ Mrs Smith’s voice echoed through the snow, which had now turned to dagger-like sheets of slush, falling so fast that the world became a blur. ‘YOU CAN PLAY YOUR SILLY GAMES, BUT I THINK WE ALL KNOW I HAVE THE ONE THING THAT MEANS THE MOST TO YOU. TWO THINGS, ACTUALLY, WHEN YOU COUNT NETTY.’
Lina peeked past a witch’s hat to where the other, lesser harpies – all one hundred or so of them – were struggling to hoist Netty into the air.
‘PLAY YOUR SILLY GAMES WITH THE FOUL CHILD, ODGE GRIBBLE,’ came Mrs Smith’s sinister voice. ‘WE’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU. BUT IN THE MEANTIME …’
There was a buzzing noise, and everyone’s nose began to twitch.
‘ROUND THEM UP!’ Mrs Smith cried as an army of swamp fairies descended from the crumbling old palace in a cloud of putrid smells. ‘TAKE WHAT REMAINS OF THE REBELLION AND KICK!
‘THEM!
‘OUT!’
Lina heard a familiar voice at her feet.
‘Well, what are you waiting for? This is the bit when you run!’
She looked down to see a little ghost rat in pearls glaring up at her.
‘Magdelena!’ Lina cried. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What can I say? I like you, Lina, and I thought you might need a helping paw. Plus Netty’s mother has flooded the hotel, and I cannot stand wet carpets.’
‘We have nowhere to hide,’ Lina said quickly. ‘Undermist is gone.’
‘Hmm,’ Magdelena said, ignoring the swamp fairies trying to grab at her ghost pearls.
Odge covered her face with her cloak and began batting the foul little things left and right.
A brollachan wobbled past with about a hundred other brollachans stuck to it.
‘Well,’ Magdelena finally said as Lina tapped her foot impatiently, all the while hoping the suggestion would be worth the wait. ‘If the swamp fairies are busy being an army, that means no one is in Swampton.’
‘Swampton,’ Lina said to Odge as she pulled a swamp fairy from her cheek. ‘We need to go to Swampton.’
‘Oh no,’ Odge said, ducking to avoid a troll springing over the warring crowd. ‘Swampton smells.’
Lina looked around in bewilderment. ‘I’d take smelly over mortal danger right now!’
‘And, anyway,’ Odge said, ‘no one knows how to get in.’
Magdelena laughed. ‘Are you the great Odge Gribble, or are you not?’ She trotted off through the crowds. ‘It’s this way, in case you’re interested!’
‘We’ll get in,’ Lina said, grabbing Odge’s arm and pulling her fast through the rubble.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Odge shouted as they charged after Magdelena towards the shoreline.
‘Because I want to be!’ Lina shouted back.
They skidded to a halt in front of the thundering waves.
‘Down here, quickly,’ Magdelena said.
Lina slipped along icy rocks as waves crashed down on them. Magdelena glided on effortlessly. Up ahead, Lina could just make out a cove. It sat opposite a similar cove on the other side of the half-moon-shaped beach.
Odge spotted Lina looking. ‘That cave over there is the entrance to the platform thirteen gump.’
They both paused for a second and watched as magical beings were chucked into boats and sailed towards it – to be thrown through the gump and never allowed back.
‘I worry about them in the human world,’ Odge said sadly.
The rocks under her feet flashed emerald green as if to tell them to hurry up. Lina forged on, occasionally glancing out to sea where she spotted the feet of mutant mermaids breaking the surface of the waves. She blinked, wondering if she were imagining it, or if the talon prods to the head had done something to her vision.
‘In here,’ Odge said, wrapping her arm round Lina and pulling her into a strangely tropical cave. It was covered in the most beautiful emerald leaves, mist rose from the floor and the smell of sun-soaked sand filled the air. On the other side, carved out in a perfect circle, was an exit to what seemed to be a forest beyond.
Lina looked back at the icy spot they’d just come from. ‘Impossible!’ she cried.
Magdelena stared at her. ‘You’re surely saying that to a ghost rat?’
CHAPTER TEN
THE SWAMP
Lina waded through the wet grass at the edge of the swamp. It barely came up to her knees. Birds chirped in the trees, and a sticky, still air hung around them. As they walked through the gloopy water, Lina could feel things moving, brushing against her ankles and nibbling on her toes.
‘Nothing dangerous in here,’ Magdelena assured her. ‘But I suppose I am dead.’
‘So if we hide here,’ Lina reasoned, ‘we’ll be safe for a while, because the swamp fairies are all out and about and busy.’
The swamp bubbled, making the fairy-sized leaves and lily pads move. Lina gulped.
‘The swamp fairies live in a hidden place within the swamp called Swampton, and no one knows how to get in apart from them,’ Odge said.
‘And from what I hear,’ Magdelena said, wrinkling her nose in disgust, ‘no one wants to find it – disgusting smelly place, it is.’
‘I bet we can find it,’ Lina said, pulling at reeds and pressing lily pads covered in bright swirls of purple and green. She waded out further until she couldn’t stand any more.
‘What’s she doing?’ she heard Odge whisper to Magdelena.
‘Have you got any ideas, Magdelena?’ Lina asked hopefully.
‘Beats me, dear girl,’ Magdelena replied. ‘Do I look like a rat that’s ever gone anywhere near a swamp?’
Lina shook her head no, because she knew that was the answer Magdelena wanted. To be perfectly honest, she’d always imagined rats would be right at home by a smelly swamp; she didn’t for a second think they’d be wearing pearls and turning their tiny noses up at anything less than a five-star hotel.
‘Ugh, Ben would probably be helpful,’ Odge said, hitting a lily pad in anger. ‘He’s much better and more interested in this stuff than me. He’d be telling us all the names of plants and pointing at little worms we would’ve never spotted if it weren’t for him.’ She picked up a worm and waved it to prove her point, until it bit her, and she accidentally flicked it at Lina.
Lina watched it bounce off a lily pad that looked a little different to the others. The water bubbled fast around it as if there were some sort of c
reature lurking beneath it. And there was something about its colour – the swirls were imperfect, and nature was usually a perfect painter. No, this one had been done by hand – tiny, tiny hands, by the look of it.
Lina swam over and tried to pick it up, but the gloopy water around the lily pad stuck to her skin like slime. She tried and tried to pull the lily pad up, but it wouldn’t budge. Instead, the water seemed to grow even more sludgy and slimy until Lina didn’t need to kick her legs to stay afloat – she was suspended and supported in it.
‘That’s either very promising or very worrying!’ Odge said, giving the water a prod.
The ground began to rumble, and the birds fell silent. There was a weird click, and the lily pad sprang up into the air, and the gloopy water began to drain, taking Lina with it.
‘LINA!’ Odge cried, kneeling down and reaching out a hand.
But it was no good. No matter how much Lina stretched, Odge was too far away.
She sank, lower and lower with the chunky water until she hit the seabed. The gunge seeped through thousands of tiny holes in the sides of the pond until there was nothing left but a scattering of lily pads and limp reeds.
‘You did it!’ Odge cheered, swinging her legs over the edge and landing with a thud next to Lina.
As soon as Odge hit the ground, the limp reeds scattered around them sprung to life, winding their way around the hag and the human.
‘WHAT’S HAPPENING?’ Lina cried as the reeds tightened around her.
The ground beneath them began to shudder.
‘Is this supposed to—’ Lina started, but the floor disappeared before she could finish. She somersaulted down with nothing to hold on to but the slippery reeds wrapped around her.
‘Odge!’ she cried. ‘ODGE!’ She was terrified of heights, and it was very unnerving to feel the ground disappear beneath you.
Lina tried to catch sight of her friend, but they were both tumbling too fast, and all she could make out was a flash of black dress fabric and a blue boot heel.
She dropped down, the reeds tightening around her, threatening to snap. She felt herself ping back up, before dropping down again, hanging suspended above what looked like the smelliest and tiniest city she had ever seen.
Beyond Platform 13 Page 6