The Cradle of All Worlds

THE MANOR LAMENT

There was a time when I was obsessed with the Otherworlds. I used to sneak into the storeroom of the Golden Horn and hide behind the barrels of ale, listening keenly as the old folks at the bar told their tales. Back in the basement, I’d re-enact them for Dad, dwelling on the fine details of these different places, these worlds without curses and curfews. Better worlds where smiling wasn’t a punishable offence, and maybe – just maybe – Dad could walk and talk and play. Maybe even a world where Mum was waiting for us both with open arms, ready to take us home – to our real home.

It was a prospect too exciting to ignore.

I even used to love the Manor Lament. Locked in the basement, I’d listen through the open window, trying to guess which stories were being celebrated, savouring the scent of barbecued sausages and sugar-roasted nuts. Come nightfall, I’d cheer on the unseen fireworks, every crack and bang. Marvelling at each flash of light that burst over the neighbouring stone wall like a shattered rainbow. I pictured stars exploding over the island and wondered if you could catch the pieces as they fell. But all of that was way back when. Before I understood what the meaning of the word outcast truly was. Before I realised the festival was damning me and Dad.

The Manor Lament quickly slipped into the long list of things I couldn’t care less about. The sounds, the smells, the stories, the very idea of the Otherworlds themselves. That mythical home-sweet-home. I bottled up the desire to embark on a quest to find my mum, buried it deep. I knew I had to make a choice. Spend my life wishing for something that would never be or focus on what I had. What was there, right in front of me. What was real.

Caring for Dad. Protecting him.

Now I’m about to become the festival’s star attraction.

And Dad’s gonna be all alone.

My prison-on-wheels rattles and clanks up the road to Outset Square, drawn by the horse. I can only just hear Violet’s voice over the racket, which is good, seeing as she chose the worst hiding place in the history of stupid hiding places. She asks how I’m holding up.

‘Peachy,’ I mutter through frozen lips.

‘Hang in there, kid,’ she says. ‘At least you finally get to see the festival, right?’

Nobody notices us when we emerge from the alley. Atlas, Peg and Eric Junior stop the horse beside a cluster of barrels and wait, soaking up the scene. The ecstatic crowd. The busy food stalls. The flags, banners and confetti tinted pink in the light of the setting sun. The jugglers and fire-breathers. Barnaby Twigg striding around the well, twirling a sword.

I spot Mr Hollow in the crowd, desperately trying to avoid touching anyone, a handkerchief clasped to his mouth. Mrs Hollow’s laughing and clapping beside him. The effigies of me and Dad haven’t been lit yet, but they’ve been used as target practice for eggs and arrows. A group at the base of the Sacred Stairs chant and shake their hands in some sort of ritualistic dance. Kids watch, enthralled, as red-faced old-timers act out their Otherworldly adventures on every stage, complete with homemade props. Battles with beasts. Epic wars. Narrow escapes from ancient, booby-trapped temples. The whole square is a heaving mass of people, colour and noise.

The Manor looms above it all, silhouetted against the golden, sunset sky, its features lost in shadow. I can’t help but feel it’s staring down at me, a hungry toad watching a fly.

I can’t hold its gaze for long.

That’s when I realise Mr Hollow’s looking right at me. He flaps his handkerchief at me. Grabs Mrs Hollow’s arm. She sees me too, and turns a dirty shade of green.

They scream together, long and loud. An ear-piercing, blood-curdling shriek.

One by one, the performers stop performing, the jugglers stop juggling, the fire-breathers let their flames die to curling wisps of smoke. Barnaby keeps on marching and singing until a rogue sausage flies from the crowd and hits him in the chest. Then he too stops and stares along with the rest of the crowd.

And a grim, heavy silence settles on the square.

‘What’s happening?’ Violet whispers. ‘Why’s it so quiet?’

I feel naked, exposed, like a hooked worm dangling over a school of fish.

‘Um . . . hi,’ I say to everyone.

Mr Hollow clutches his chest. Someone lets out a stifled cry. Old Mrs Jones faints into the arms of some idiot dressed in a bed-sheet toga, but Atlas doesn’t miss a beat.

‘Fear not, good citizens of Bluehaven. The Cursed One is our prisoner at last!’

A collective gasp ripples through the square. I signal Violet to run with a jerk of my head. She stares defiantly back. The crowd doesn’t know what to do, what to feel. Relief ? Happiness? Terror? They aren’t sure whether to celebrate and cheer or dash home and hide. But Atlas stirs them up, milks them for all they’re worth. He assures them of their safety, my treachery, his undying love for them all, and sure enough the good sheep of Bluehaven start a goddamn slow-clap. A slow-clap that quickly turns into outright applause. The idiot in the toga drops Mrs Jones and kisses some guy standing next to him. The Hollows even hug for three whole seconds.

‘The Cursed One attacked a group of perfectly innocent fisherfolk five hours ago in White Rock Cove!’ Atlas cries. ‘Ran at them with a machete! Threatened to kidnap their firstborn children! When they tried to flee, she herded them onto a jetty and tried to drown them all. Tried to sink the whole island with another quake!’ Cries of outrage from the crowd now. ‘But my son leaped onto a nearby boat, trapped the beast in a fishing net, and brought her ashore to face her crimes!’

Eric Junior flashes a cheesy smile and punches the sky. Everyone hoo-rahs and huzzahs and sends gleeful praises to the Makers. It’s amazing, to be honest. Insane, but amazing.

Atlas raises his hands, silencing the rabble. ‘The sentencing, Gareth, if you please.’

Peg unfurls a scroll from his vest and clears his throat. ‘By the powers newly entrusted to ’im as Mayor of Blue’aven, the Honerababble Eric Nathaniel Atlas, son of ’ighly esteemeded adventurer Nathaniel Constantine Atlas, does ’ereby sentence Jane Doe, daughter of what’s-’is-face Doe, to – ’ang on, can’t read me own writin’. What’s that last word there?’

‘Death,’ I say, adding in a much quieter voice, ‘idiot.’

‘Oh yeah – DEATH!’

Surprise, surprise, the crowd goes wild. Right on cue, a bunch of fisherfolk haul large wicker baskets through the crowd, handing out rotten eggs, fish, fruit and vegetables.

‘Fourteen years ago, this filth and her father intruded upon our world,’ Atlas cries above the uproar. ‘Cursed our home!’ He pulls the Manuvian knife from his vest. ‘Now her death shall set us free! Gone are the days of injustice! Gone are the days of fear and sorrow! Tonight we end our long years of suffering! Tonight we take destiny into our own hands!’

DUSK

By the time the cage reaches the Sacred Stairs I feel like a compost heap and smell even worse. Violet’s no better off, drenched in the sludge dripping through the planks between us. At least she was shielded from the harder projectiles. Rocks, boots, stage props, torn-off pieces of the stages themselves. All I had were the cage bars fending off the occasional attack and half a watermelon shell to wear as a helmet. I’m resourceful like that.

‘What do you think of the festival now, huh?’ I ask Violet, but I don’t think she can hear me. What else am I supposed to say? Look away? Close your eyes? Run home and don’t look back? Please, please, please take care of my dad? Don’t let them hurt him?

The invisible thread tugs at my heart and guts. I feel like throwing up.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be it. None of this feels real.

I try to fight Peg off when he snatches me from the cage. Wave my arms, kick my legs, say the things I expect people always say when they’re about to have their throats slit. Pointless things like, ‘Let me go,’ and, ‘Get your stinking hands off me.’ He doesn’t listen, of course, just drags me to the Stairs and pins me down with his wooden leg as the drums bum-ba-dum and the crowd claps to the beat. Eric Junior grabs my ponytail, pulls my head right back. Atlas holds the Manuvian knife high, and every idiot in the square cries out for my blood.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any point asking you to – ouch – forget all this, is there?’

‘You can beg all you want, witch,’ Atlas growls. ‘Won’t make a difference. We should’ve done this years ago.’ Then the drums thud, bam, boom and Atlas cries, ‘In the name of the Makers! Po, Aris, Nabu-kai!’

I clench my eyes shut. Try putting myself in a happy place. Any place but here.

But then a voice says, ‘Wait!’ and silence reigns again.

I open one eye, then the other. The knife’s hovering above me, dangerously close. Atlas is glaring down at me, veins pulsing on his forehead. Eyes bloodshot, twitching.

Peg removes his leg from my chest, turns to the crowd. ‘Who dares in’errupt?’

‘I dare,’ is the only response he gets.

Atlas pulls me to my feet then, twisting my arm behind my back. He knows as well as I do who it is. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he shouts, ‘we are joined by a living legend.’

The red cloak. The scars. Her presence here is clearly as rare as mine. Those closest to her in the crowd step back in awe. Only one person stays by her side. A stooped figure with a hooded cloak of his own. Someone from the museum, maybe. An apprentice?

‘Winifred Robin,’ Atlas says. ‘Such an honour. What brings you here this evening?’ And in a lower, aggressive yet undeniably pleading tone, ‘We had an agreement.’

‘The agreement stands.’ I swear Winifred’s eyes flick to the wagon where Violet’s still hiding, huddled behind one of the wheels. ‘Everything is as it should be.’

‘What? ’ I shout. ‘How can you say that? You said you were on my –’

Atlas covers my mouth with his hand.

‘I merely wanted to congratulate you, Eric,’ Winifred says. ‘You are putting on quite a show. And I must say I am dreadfully sorry for the interruption.’

‘No problem.’ Atlas clears his throat. ‘And – and thank you.’

Whispers ripple through the crowd. Everybody looks from Winifred to Atlas and back again, expecting something else, something more. But the old woman just stares at him, doesn’t even blink. It’s enough to make his palms sweat. I should know. I can taste it.

‘Is there anything else?’ he finally asks. ‘Ma’am?’

‘Yes. Actually, there is.’

‘Oh?’ Atlas mutters. I can’t help but feel relieved. Winifred has just been toying with him. She’s about to tell him it was all a game. Demand he let me go or –

‘Could you conduct the sacrifice a little higher up the Stairs?’

Wait. No. What?

‘My friend here is not quite as tall as me, you see. I’d hate for him to miss out.’

‘Oh,’ Atlas says again. ‘And, ah, who is your friend?’

Winifred places an arm around the mystery man’s shoulders. That’s when I notice his swaying stance. The tendrils of grey hair weeping from his hood.

‘To you, Eric, he is nothing. To Jane, on the other hand, he is everything.’

She pulls back the hood, and the invisible thread tugs again, pulling at my insides so hard I almost pass out. I can’t move, can’t think how it’s possible, but there he is, staring at the ground as if nothing’s going on at all, as if he hasn’t even left the basement.

Winifred Robin has brought my dad to the party.

‘How dare you bring him here,’ Atlas growls. ‘Gareth! Take him into custody!’

Peg and his men charge into the crowd, weapons raised. Panic flushes through my body and everything seems to slow down. Winifred vanishes into the crowd, leaving Dad unprotected, alone, adrift in an angry sea. Now they’re calling for his blood as well as mine. I scream and try to break away from Atlas, anger swelling inside me, a furious tide. The stone trembles beneath my feet. The sky’s no longer caught in a tug of war between day and night. The blood-red clouds are bruising.

Dusk has come.

The crowd scatters. Atlas tells me to stop, but I keep screaming, fighting, reaching out to Dad. I’m thrown onto the shaking Stairs. Eric Junior holds me down, but nobody sees Violet coming, not even me. She slams into Eric Junior, who falls into Atlas, who staggers back but recovers all too quickly, swinging his knife again. I pull Violet close, shield her with my body and swipe at Atlas as I turn away, but the blade gets me, slicing my left palm open, cutting to the bone. My hand hits the Sacred Stairs. Something snaps inside me, breaks free, and the furious tide overflows. I can feel the cracks in the stone snaking their way up and down the Stairs, tearing across the square. I can feel the whole island shaking to its very core.

ROCK AND RUIN

What just happened? I’m holding my palm against my chest, stemming the flow of blood with my tunic, covered in a cold sweat and shaking. Violet’s yelling in my ear, but I can’t focus. My hand’s killing me. My vision’s gone fuzzy. The air’s thick with noise.

‘Come on, Jane, we have to go!’ Violet slaps me, hauls me to my feet. ‘Now!’

Bluehaven’s being torn apart. It’s chaos. The horse gallops around the square, still tethered to the wagon. Peg is out for the count or worse. Some of the crowd flood into the alleyways, heading for their homes or the ocean. Others stick to the open spaces, but nowhere’s safe. The ground cracks at their feet. Windows shatter, walls crumble. I can’t see Dad anywhere.

‘We have to get out of here.’

‘Oh, really?’ Violet says. ‘Where’d you get that idea, genius?’

She grabs my uninjured hand and pulls me down the stairs. I’m too slow and clumsy. Don’t even see Atlas coming till he’s nearly on top of me. He has that bloody knife out again, but one swift kick from Violet and he’s on his knees, clutching his groin and grimacing.

‘Told you I’d get him,’ she says.

Through the screaming crowd now. A lamp post falls. A stage collapses. We change course again and again, ducking and stumbling across the square. I feel lightheaded. The blood from my hand’s running freely down my chest, but I can’t stop, have to find Dad.

The thought fuels me.

A woman screams and points behind us. Enormous chunks of the Sacred Stairs are breaking free, crashing down the hill. Bouncing through the terraced farms, flattening trees and farmers’ huts, tumbling into the square and obliterating both effigies in a shower of sticks. The cracks at our feet open wide, some half a metre or more. Me and Violet jump one hand-in-hand, take a hard left when the horse and wagon thunders past. We’re running alongside the Town Hall now, weaving between the stone columns. Definitely not the safest place to be.

The column ahead crumbles. I pick Violet up, leap over a fallen boulder, and dive into the Town Hall foyer just as the great doors slam shut behind us, blocked by the falling rubble.

‘Inside?’ Violet cries. ‘You brought us inside? What if the roof collapses?’

‘Working on it.’ The chequered floor’s covered in dust and debris. The high-domed ceiling’s falling apart, and the statue in the centre of the foyer has already lost its head. There are other survivors in here, too, none of them happy to see me. The Hollows. Eric Junior. Old Mrs Jones. Meredith Platt. Basically, everyone dumb enough to head indoors during a quake. They arm themselves with any weapon they can find – rocks, paperweights, shards of glass from the broken windows high on the wall, a chair. ‘Oh, give me a break . . .’

Mrs Hollow snatches Violet from my arms with a high-pitched, ‘Hands off my daughter!’ Violet tries to get free, but Mr Hollow grabs her, too. Not, I suspect to protect her, but to use her as a human shield. Nobody else moves. They’re not as brave as Atlas. Even Eric Junior hangs back now.

Everyone’s terrified. Well, everyone but Winifred Robin.

She’s in here too, walking calmly towards me. ‘Hold out your hand.’

‘Where’s my dad? What did you do with him?’

‘Your hand, Jane,’ she says. The domed ceiling cracks again. More chunks of rock rain down. People scatter and shout but Winifred doesn’t blink an eye. ‘Hold it out. Now.’

‘Dad,’ I cry, even though I know he can’t hear me.

I trip and fall backwards. My tunic’s drenched in blood, my head’s spinning. But then Winifred grabs my left arm, tucks something small into my bloodied hand, and everything changes. The ground gives a final, almighty shudder, as if the island itself has shrugged, sat down and sighed. The quake has stopped. Everything’s gone quiet.

If it weren’t for the settling dust I’d think time itself had frozen.

I sit up, blinking. Winifred smiles at me. But before either of us can say a word, somebody screams outside. Several people, actually. Cries of outrage, of fear. Eric Junior tries the doors but they won’t budge. People crane their heads up to the broken windows high on the wall instead, gathering beneath them like little light-starved flowers.

‘What’s going on out there?’ Mr Hollow asks.

‘It has happened,’ Winifred says, and she closes her eyes, as if listening to a beautiful song. A favourite tune she hasn’t heard in years. ‘The Manor has woken from its slumber.’

THE DEPARTURE

At first, everyone in the foyer’s too stunned to move, but it isn’t long before they’re all bustling around the doors, trying to get them open. I’m still on the floor, staring at an old, tarnished brass key resting alongside the gash in my palm. I let it slip between my fingers. It lands on the floor with a dull thud. Winifred bends down and quickly ties off a bandage around my hand. I can feel her watching me, hear Violet calling my name, but I can’t stop looking at the bloodied key lying there in the dust. There’s a symbol on its handle. The one Winifred drew on the back of my photo. The almost-triangle in a circle.

‘Jane, you better come look.’

Violet’s standing on her mum’s shoulders, looking through one of the broken windows. Strange. It’s probably the most intimate moment I’ve ever seen them share.

‘Don’t talk to her, Violet,’ Mrs Hollow grunts. ‘You know you’re not allowed. Why should she look anyway? The last thing we want to do is let her curse us all over ag–’

‘It’s your dad, Jane,’ Violet says. ‘He’s outside and he’s . . . he’s . . .’

I’m up in a flash, heading towards a small upturned desk in the corner of the foyer. I pick it up, turn it over and slam it against the wall beneath another broken window, shooting daggers at Winifred Robin all the while. ‘I swear if anything happens to him –’

‘You cannot stop him, Jane.’

‘Stop him from what ?’

Onto the desk now. I leap for the tall, narrow window, pull myself up and look through the shattered glass. It’s a war zone outside. The square’s a mess. Pillars of smoke rise from the town beyond. The horse and cage have disappeared. People are stepping out of the shadows. Stumbling. Crying. Staring and pointing up the Sacred Stairs.

‘Violet, where –’

And then I see him, my dad, scrambling up the Stairs, already halfway to the top.

‘He is about to enter the Manor, Jane,’ Winifred says. ‘He has been chosen.’

‘WHAT? ’

It isn’t even me who says this. It’s the Hollows. Eric Junior. Pretty much every idiot in the room. Everyone’s glareing at Winifred.

‘Now listen here, you home-wrecker!’ Mrs Hollow shoves Violet back into Mr Hollow’s arms. ‘First you break into my house and free that – that man. Then you interrupt the festival just when it’s getting interesting, and now you have the nerve to suggest –’

‘I have the nerve to do a great many things, Beatrice. Do not forget who you are talking to. I have let you get away with many horrible deeds in the past, but those days have come to an end. A new age in Bluehaven has begun and John Doe is leading the way. Now are you going to keep arguing with me or are you going to stop Jane from joining him?’

I really hate this woman. Nobody had noticed me hop down from the desk and start towards the back of the foyer. Now they’re all looking at me like a bunch of ravenous wolves, which are these big ferocious dogs that howl and hunt in packs. I read about them in a book once.

‘Run, Jane,’ Violet shouts.

So I run. Past a grand staircase, down a long corridor. I kick my way into some sort of office and push through the upturned furniture to a window. Mrs Hollow shouts after me, ‘Get back here, Doe! You are a scar upon this island! A catastrophic blemish –’ but I’m already out the window, already sprinting for the Stairs. I trip more than once – over a rock, a plank of wood, Peg. Whenever I stumble or hit the ground I pull myself up and keep on moving. Dad’s just an ant-sized speck now, three-quarters of the way to the top. I wish I could reach out, grab the invisible thread and reel him back to safety before it’s too late.

Because I’m not the only one trying to stop him.

Atlas has found a pistol. Someone must’ve dropped it in the square. He’s running for the Stairs too, but he hasn’t seen me coming. He fires at Dad. Misses by a long shot. Raises the pistol to fire again. I jump over a boulder and that’s when we collide. We hit the ground hard and roll. The pistol goes flying. I manage to slip out from under Atlas, but he grabs my ankle, pulls me back, and before I know it he’s on top of me, hands wrapped around my neck. He squeezes. Leans in.

‘No more games, girl,’ he snarls.

I’m choking. I can’t breathe. I reach out with my uninjured hand, feel around for something, anything, to help me. The pistol, a piece of wood, a club.

‘Your little friend’s not here to save you now, and neither is Winifred Robin.’

A rock. I grab it, hold it tight, smack Atlas in the head as hard as I can. A dull thud and he collapses beside me.

‘Lucky I can take care of myself then,’ I wheeze.

I stagger to my feet, coughing and spluttering, rubbing my neck. Only manage three steps before my legs buckle and someone catches me from behind, strong but gentle.

Winifred’s here, holding me up, holding me back.

Dad’s at the top of the Stairs now. A tiny red dot of a man dwarfed by the sheer size of the Manor and its great stone door. It strikes me that we’ve never been this far apart before.

Why is he leaving me? How can this be happening?

He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t look back. He scrambles right up to the Manor, and we can’t even see him any more for the angle of the Stairs. But we can see the great stone gateway opening wide, ready to swallow him whole. Nothing can stop him now.

‘A door opens,’ Winifred whispers, ‘an adventure begins . . .’

I’m not a big crier – hell, I reckon I could count the number of times I’ve cried in my life on one hand. But as the Manor gateway shuts again, and I feel the invisible thread stretch and tug and snap with a sickening jolt, I can’t stop the tears from coming. I struggle in Winifred’s arms. I want to follow Dad, run up to the Manor and smash my way inside, but I’m too weak. Exhausted. Broken.

He’s gone.

I can’t go up the Stairs now anyway. A flock of people have beaten me to it. Dozens of townsfolk stream around us, shouting, pushing, desperate to try their luck on the gateway. Barnaby Twigg’s in the thick of it, warning everyone to back off.

‘It’s my turn,’ he bellows. ‘My destiny! My time!’

‘We must leave,’ Winifred says. ‘That door will not open again for a very long time. Atlas will come for you again when he wakes. We must get you somewhere safe.’

Dad’s gone. I’ve lost him, and I don’t know how I’m gonna get him back.

‘I have to . . . have to go after him.’

‘You will,’ Winifred says. ‘But not that way. There is another.’

That’s when I notice my bloodied handprint on the Stairs. Every crack in the stone spiderwebs out from its centre. Up and down the Stairs. Across the square.

My left hand throbs again. The bandage is already spotted with blood.

‘Did . . . did I do this?’

‘Come, Jane,’ Winifred says. ‘We need to talk.’