Читать книгу The Cradle of All Worlds - Jeremy Lachlan - Страница 12

CATCH OF THE DAY

The streets of Bluehaven might be fair game for me on the odd occasion, but I’m banned from entering all public buildings. Never really cared, either. The museum? The Town Hall? Boring-with-a-capital-Ugh. But as far as school goes, curiosity got the better of me years ago. Trying to resist this colourful place where kids gathered every day to learn, read, laugh and play was like resisting the urge to pee. The longer I held it in, the more I had to go.

I used to sneak down a few days a week. I learned my times tables crouched beneath an open window. Learned the names of clouds hiding in an alleyway outside a science lab. When I was nine, I snuck into an actual classroom and spent most of the day stowed away in a cupboard. Peering at the class through a chink in the doors, I learned how their ancestors came from across the seas, having fled the Dying Lands. I learned the difference between a labyrinth and a maze. I even learned that booby traps have nothing to do with actual boobies. Unfortunately, the cupboard I’d chosen was filled with art supplies, so when the time came for the students to paint their favourite Otherworld, the teacher found me and threw me out the window. Security was tightened, the school scrubbed clean, cleansed with incense and all.

I’ve had to borrow books from Violet ever since.

So I’m no genius. Maths, science, history? Forget it. What I do have is a noggin-load of street smarts. Survival skills honed from a lifetime of living in a place I’m not wanted. I know when to run, when to hide, when to lie. I know I have to stick to the shadows whenever I step into White Rock Cove because, like Mayor Atlas, the fisherfolk got over their fear of me a long time ago. Hell, over the years I’ve been pelted with fish guts, threatened with hooks and chased with knives up the road. I’m pretty sure it’s an act. I doubt they’d do anything if they actually caught me – one guy nearly did but he backed off right away, all shifty-eyed and awkward, as if someone or something was gonna jump out from behind me and tear his head off – but I’d rather not test that particular theory.

I creep behind the lobster traps and trays of dried kelp, take in the scene. Luck’s on my side today. A new catch has just come in, fresh for the festival. The fisherfolk are busy unloading their sailboats, hauling buckets down the jetties, gutting their catches on these big stone tables, and flinging the scraps to the army of cats prowling around their ankles. The cove’s namesake sits out a ways in the water, beyond the boats, a pale rock poking from the swell. Atlas lives down the far side of the cove, but there’s so much junk scattered around the place I can pretty much crawl, dart and creep my way there, under a sheet of canvas, behind crates and piles of netting.

I’m knocking on Atlas’s front door in no time. Late, but only just.

I pull back my hood. The mayor’s residence is huge. Four storeys, arched balconies, window boxes weeping jasmine. Old Mayor Obi carked it a month or two back. Nice enough guy, I guess, in that his preferred method of dealing with me and Dad was pretending we don’t exist. Never gave us much trouble. The man’s ashes had barely cooled before a snap election was called. Atlas won in a landslide, and wasted no time moving into his new digs.

I knock again, but still, nobody answers.

‘What the hell are you doing here, Doe?’

Joy of all joys. Not Atlas, but his dropkick of a son, standing right behind me. The kid’s a few years younger than me, but already nearly as tall. A real meat-safe in the making.

‘Eric Junior,’ I say. ‘Yeah. Um. I’m just . . . here to see your dad.’

He doesn’t raise the alarm or shout for help. What he does is look me up and down, like he’s trying to work out if I’m really here and not just some horrid figment of his imagination.

‘Why would my father want to see you?’

‘Oh, you know.’ I shove my hand in my pocket, hold the photo tight. ‘Catch up on old times, play some backgammon. Discuss plans for a statue of me and Dad in Outset Square.’

Eric Junior frowns at me. I clear my throat, tell him I was joking, and miraculously I get a smile. One of those practised, winning smiles. The kind of smile that’s supposed to make me swoon and drool, quiver at the knees. And who knows? If I was into guys, maybe it would, but I don’t think I am. Into guys, I mean.

‘That’s pretty funny, Doe,’ Eric Junior says. ‘But I’m sorry, he’s not here.’ He cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘Let me just ask his mates, though. Surely someone knows where he is.’

‘No, don’t –’

‘Hey, everybody,’ Eric Junior shouts. ‘Jane Doe’s looking for my father. Anyone know where he’s gone? Anyone want to help her out?’

The fisherfolk freeze. Even the cats abandon their fish heads and stare.

‘Huh, guess not,’ Eric Junior says. ‘Actually, how stupid of me. I just remembered he’s at the Town Hall, working on his speech. It’s a good ’un this year.’ The creep slaps me on the shoulder and stands aside, ready to enjoy the show. ‘Pity you’re not invited.’

A seagull squawks. A cat meows. A lonely buoy-bell clangs in the distance.

‘W-well,’ I say in the general direction of the fisherfolk, ‘I’m running late, so I’ll leave you all to –’

‘GET HER! ’

They charge. Naturally, I run for my goddamn life. Duck and dodge. Jump over a barrel, slide under one of the gutting tables, and leap to my feet again. For a second I figure I’m gonna make it, too – there’s a break in the crowd, an alleyway beyond – but then some jerk swings an anchor at me – an actual anchor – and I have to change course. I’m surrounded in no time. Everything’s a blur. Everyone’s shouting and screaming, closing in, so I head for the only clear space I can see. Before I know it, I’m running along a rickety old jetty stretching out into the sea. The fisherfolk weren’t just closing in. They were herding me.

I’m trapped. Over water. Maybe not so street smart, after all.

A cheer from the fisherfolk now. Even Eric Junior joins in, whooping and howling.

I feel sick. I can hear the water lapping far beneath my feet. See my shadow drowning between the rotting planks of wood. A few sailboats are anchored nearby, but for a girl who can’t swim they may as well be floating on the horizon. I turn around, slowly. The fisherfolk are already stalking down the jetty towards me, led by Eric Junior and a gap-toothed giant with a wooden leg. Peg, they call him. Yeah, they’re really great with nicknames round here.

‘We told you not to show yer face here again, little Doe,’ he growls.

The jetty groans under our combined weight. It sways a little.

‘We really need to get off this thing,’ I say. ‘Please, I – I’ll go home. Right now.’

‘You don’t have a home,’ Eric Junior says. ‘You’re a parasite, Doe. A leech sucking this island dry. You and your demented dad.’

I barely get the chance to think Nobody calls my dad demented, you overgrown turd before he breaks away from the others and sprints right at me. The jetty cracks and buckles.

‘Wait,’ I shout, ‘nobody move,’ but it’s too late.

The jetty lurches to one side. The fisherfolk topple like dominoes. Eric Junior slams into me and we fall and fall and hit the water hard, shoot right under. My cloak’s too heavy, dragging me down already, as if the pockets are filled with stones. I cling to Eric Junior. He kicks, thrashes, tries to break free, but I can’t let go. I plead with him, scream bubble-shaped cries for help, my lungs heaving and burning. It’s like I’m trapped in one of my nightmares.

And then he’s gone.

Eric Junior disappears and an eerie quiet settles around me. I can hear my own heart beating, every spasm in my throat, but all I can think about is Dad, lying in the basement at the mercy of the praying mantis and the weasel. Alone. Hungry. Waiting. Worrying.

The invisible thread between us tugs and wrenches.

But now there’s a different feeling. Some tentacled thing wrapping around me, squeezing, stealing me away. No, not away. Up. I’m rising, faster and faster, caught in a fishing net. I burst from the water in a flash of brilliant sunlight and glorious air fills my lungs. I’m not just breathing it, either, I’m flying through it. The net swings around, dumps me on the deck of a sailboat and I collapse in a tangled, panting mess. Even manage a smile, till I realise someone’s watching me. An old woman in a red cloak, standing by the rope pulleys.

Winifred Robin. Up close and personal. Her skin’s wrinkled and scarred. Face like a goddamn chopping board. Hands like talons. As she strides across the deck towards me she pulls a shotgun from her cloak. Clearly my situation hasn’t improved.

‘I am sorry, Jane,’ she says. ‘You are going to wake up with quite a headache.’

And she knocks me out cold with the butt of her gun.