The Cracks in the Kingdom Page 14

  The pattern in the air vanished.

  “How did you read that?”

  “It’s her vision again.”

  “Why was it so faded that time? The others had been …”

  “It’s the spell. It’s almost all used up.”

  They looked at Princess Ko’s hand. The sluglike spell, which had completely emerged from its casings now, was paling. Its dark gray was fading to a pale pinkish-white. It was wriggling about a little, and then, as they watched, its movements slowed and slowed, until it was perfectly still.

  “It’s dead.”

  The Princess gazed at the dead spell on her hand for a moment, then she tossed it aside, and reached for the papers on which Sergio had written the addresses.

  “We know exactly where they are!” she said, and she shone her delight around the tent so brightly it was almost weird. It seemed like she was not a person anymore but a collection of sparks.

  “Now we have to get them!” She directed her sparks at Elliot. “Tell your contact — what’s her name? Madeleine! Tell her to fly to these addresses now and bring my family back to her city!”

  Elliot frowned a little. “Well,” he said. “I’m not sure that’ll work. I guess Madeleine would need money for that, and I think she hasn’t got much.”

  The Princess patted her own mouth rapidly. “Well, for all we know they may be imprisoned at these places, so my idea was ridiculous anyway! What Madeleine must do is, she must contact the authorities in each of these cities, and tell them that innocent people are being held at these addresses! Only …” she faltered. “Should we not contact World authorities in case they are working with the Hostiles here? Can we trust World authorities to do it right? But still! Still!”

  She turned around, her eyes like flashlights. “We know where they are! We know where my family is! And now we have to get them back! We need to figure out how to open cracks! Samuel, you must go back home and throw yourself into the archives! There must be something there! Sergio, go back to the WSU, and get a detector! Get one! Where are they? Find them! And Elliot! Elliot! Pay attention!”

  Elliot was lost in his own thoughts. His gaze was fixed on something.

  Sergio bent his head, followed the direction of Elliot’s gaze, and there was the dead spell, shriveled now, even flaking a little, on the edge of a sleeping bag.

  “Your father, he is missing?” Sergio said. “Elliot?”

  Elliot roused himself, then nodded.

  “Might have been good,” he said, “if the spell could’ve lasted just one more….”

  “But do you know what city your father is in?”

  “The agents think he might be at a Hostile compound in Trent, Jagged Edge. Only, they don’t know exactly where it is.” His eyes remained on the dead spell.

  “Ah,” the Princess frowned slightly. “But there are agents working on the issue, yes? And they are confident they will retrieve him?”

  Elliot straightened. “They seem like good guys,” he nodded. “Just, it …”

  “It might have helped,” Sergio agreed.

  “Ah.” Elliot shrugged.

  “Well.” The Princess seemed to shove her words through the awkwardness with the force of her own excitement. “Well, Elliot, the moment you get back home, you must work your heart out with Madeleine to figure out that crack. Draw up a table, perhaps, some kind of chart — about — at any rate, you must solve it!”

  “What do you want me to do?” Keira said.

  “Oh, there are more of those boxes of code for you. Read them.”

  Keira flinched. In fact, the whole tent seemed to flinch.

  “Isn’t she sort of wasted on that?” Elliot ventured.

  But the Princess was looking at him fiercely.

  “We know where they are!” she cried. “I need to contact them! The moment you get home you must have Madeleine contact them!”

  “Well,” Elliot said, and he breathed in deeply. “I’m thinking I might stay another few days. Try to get another Locator Spell. If the book worked for you —”

  “Nonsense! You must go home! I command it!” The Princess was trembling violently. “Think of my family! They must be frantic! They must be desperate for news of me, for news of Cello! Think of —”

  Elliot was shaking his head, slow and firm, but there was an odd sound from Samuel. A sort of yelp.

  “As to a tree snake in a teapot,” he declared. “As to that — well, no —” And then more firmly: “No, they would not necessarily be frantic. Nor is there much chance they’d be desperate for news about Cello.”

  The others stared.

  “Have I not mentioned this yet? No, I fear I have not. Ah, my report, it was so filled with holes, as to a …! Have I not told you this?”

  “Told us what, Samuel?”

  “Your family would no longer know themselves, Princess Ko. No, neither would they know you. As for the Kingdom of Cello? Not the faintest clue!”

  Keira actually slapped his arm. “Would you explain yourself?”

  “Within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of crossing over to the World,” Samuel said, “sometimes a little longer, sometimes sooner — a Cellian ceases to be Cellian.”

  9.

  There was a baffled silence.

  “In their own minds, I mean,” Samuel hastened to add. “They are still Cellians in fact. But memory is stronger here than it is in the World. There, time is unstable: Did you know they have different time zones?”

  “Beautiful,” murmured Sergio. “In the impossible sense of the word.”

  “No,” said Samuel. “Quite possible. Time drifts in the World. It is fleeting. And thus memory is weak. Cellians, suffering a severe and rapid form of culture shock, subconsciously translate themselves into Worldians. Their memories are reassembled until they make sense in a Worldian context. Real people from their past are given different names and slightly different roles — real events are converted, relocated, and reshaped. It’s fascinating. And it’s why earlier visitors to the World were always careful not to stay more than a day or two.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Samuel,” Sergio reflected. “I am thinking. This is maybe another one of your rather important omissions, no?”

  There was another surge of conversation, as the implications of Samuel’s words filled the tent.

  “If they don’t know who they are, how can we ever get them back?”

  “They won’t even try to get themselves back, if they’ve forgotten Cello!”

  “It’s brilliant,” Keira said. “It’s like amnesia as prison.”

  “They’re probably not under any kind of guard, then. I mean, if they think they belong there, why would they need to be?”

  They talked in such a clamor that it took a moment to realize that the Seclusion Spell had expired, and the noise of the Lake was back amidst them.

  Almost immediately there was a shout from outside: “Get out here now!”

  It was the boy who’d registered them when they first arrived. He was standing, arms folded, waiting for them. His face was grim.

  “You kids out of your darn minds?” he demanded, and they all stared down at him. What was he, ten years old? He straightened up, even lifted on his toes a little. “You are hereby ordered to get out of the Lake right away and never come back.”

  “Why?” demanded the Princess. “And on whose authority?”

  The others looked toward the Princess uneasily. Was she affronted enough to reveal her identity?

  “Word is, you tried to catch a monster spell.” The boy shook his head. “You realize how lucky you are to be standing here right now? With your dumb heads still attached to your dumb bodies? And your arms and legs? And still breathing? You realize what a sweet darn miracle that is?”

  For a brief moment the air was filled with equal parts discomfort and defiance.

  “We didn’t try to catch a monster spell,” Princess Ko declared. “It just happened to be there — it was in the way of the spell
that we wanted!”

  “You think that sort of technicality makes a difference?” The kid was skinny but the bones in his face were standing up in fury. “You’re all banned from the Lake for life, and my authority’s this here badge. You’ve got fifteen minutes to be gone.”

  “And if we don’t?” Keira said acerbically.

  “Go ahead and try me if you like,” he replied, smiling now. “Just maybe keep in mind that I have got authority to catch monster spells, and I have caught them before, and heck, maybe I’ve even stored a couple at the Gatehouse ready to use on folks who don’t do as I say.”

  Princess Ko actually flounced. “We were planning to leave anyway!” she declared. “Come on, guys!” Which was sort of schoolgirlish and embarrassing.

  The others turned away, glancing back at the official as they did. He had folded his arms, and was glowering.

  Seemed he planned to watch them pack.

  “I guess you won’t be staying after all,” the Princess murmured to Elliot.

  “I guess not.”

  “Can you ask Madeleine to post letters to my family?” she said cautiously, not quite looking at him. She paused. “I’m sorry, Elliot,” she said. “About your father.”

  He was pulling up tent pegs, and didn’t look at her.

  “It’s just,” she said, a little louder, “I can’t believe they can really have forgotten themselves — and Cello — and me.”

  Nearby, Samuel took a quick intake of breath through clenched teeth. “I think you will find that they have, Princess,” he said.

  She ignored him.

  “I just want,” she said to Elliot, “to reach out and touch my sister’s hand.”

  They were escorted from the Lake, tramping through sludge and ice. The official’s stride tried to make this a parade of shame, but what they felt, as they looked up at the cold blue, and around at the bright white, was a rising sense of jubilation.

  They’d done what they’d come here to do. They’d decided on a spell and they’d caught it — and everybody knew you couldn’t do that. On top of which, they’d taken on a monster spell and lived.

  Sure, they hadn’t paid much attention to that part, or what it meant, but there it was. They’d done it.

  The kids they passed stopped and stared. Word had gotten around about the monster. Some even whistled, or clapped.

  The official’s shoulders stiffened at this, then lifted in a sigh that was almost resignation.

  Maximillian Reisman sits at a table in Olive et Gourmando, a bakery-café on Rue St-Paul in Montreal.

  Opposite him is a potential new client. The guy’s name is Harry. He makes nail scissors out in Winnipeg, and he’s hoping to break into the Quebec market.

  “Nobody,” Harry jokes, “can make nail scissors sexy.” He says it like he makes that joke a lot.

  “Try us.” Maximillian winks, and they both laugh.

  The meeting has gone well. Harry is standing now, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

  “What’s your story anyhow, Max?” he asks. “Heard you were a rock star?”

  “That’s too strong a word.” Maximillian smiles. “But I fronted a band. It did okay.”

  “Yeah? What kind of music? Would I know the name?”

  “Big in Europe, never cracked America. It was new wave crossed with punk/blues/metal.”

  Harry laughs. “That’s quite a combination.” He takes his jacket from the back of the chair, slips his arms into the sleeves. “It end the usual way? Bass player run off with the drummer’s wife? Trumpeter arrested with a suitcase of cocaine?”

  “Something like that. Plus, you get to our age, you can’t keep up the pace.” He shrugged. “Have to know when to cut and run before you end up dead in a hotel room.”

  “I hear you.” Harry nods sagely, as if behind the blue eyes, plump cheeks, bow tie, nail-scissor factory owner, there’s a wild and shady past. This seems doubtful.

  “It was stolen wristwatches,” Maximillian adds.

  Harry looks startled.

  “In the trumpeter’s suitcase. Not cocaine. Stolen wristwatches.”

  Now Harry laughs, relieved that it’s a joke, and reaches out to shake Maximillian’s hand.

  Maximillian says he might stay awhile, get himself a pain au chocolat. He watches as Harry pushes out into the morning, strides off in the wrong direction, hesitates, and turns, waving and clowning through the glass as he heads the other way.

  That’s not a potential new client anymore, Maximillian thinks.

  It is Friday, 11:00 A.M., September 23.

  Maximillian orders another espresso. Leans back in his chair. Feels something crumple in his pocket.

  It’s the letter he found in his mailbox that morning.

  He takes it out, opens it, and reads:

  To the Man Living at This Address

  Who is 52 years old

  and believes his identity — indeed, his entire life so far — to be something Entirely Other than

  What, in fact, it Is

  Dear Incorrect Name/Dad,

  Apparently, you have forgotten this.

  Hence, I am hereby reminding you that:

  1) You are the King of Cello.

  2) King Cetus is your name.

  3) You and the rest of your family (except me) were sent to the World by a branch of Hostiles (we think).

  I understand that you have probably given yourself a new identity and past.

  However, surely the above has woken the truth! Memories are crashing back? You are shaking violently, looking around you wildly, etc., etc.?

  Stay calm.

  Do not be too troubled that you have been living a translated life. I hear it is common: Indeed, that it happens to ALL who go to the World from Cello.

  Give yourself time to reflect, and ponder.

  But don’t give yourself long.

  The Kingdom needs you urgently! Obviously it does. You are King.

  We’ve been pretending you and the others are here, just out of sight, but we cannot keep this up for much longer.

  I must stress that. We cannot.

  Furthermore, the King of Aldhibah has invited you to be Candlemaker at the Namesaking Ceremony of his first and only son. This is to take place in exactly two months. There are tensions in both our Kingdoms about this invitation — the Aldhian military are particularly disgruntled and skeptical, and they have increased their presence along the border tenfold; our military have done likewise (they are tricky to control; how do you do it?) — your failure to attend the ceremony would be like a match struck in a Nature Strip hay-mountain.

  So. You know. Hurry.

  We have found a small crack through to the World and we have a contact there in Cambridge, England. She is going to add her name and address, along with something called an “email address” to the envelope. Please write to her IMMEDIATELY, confirming receipt of this letter, and answering the following, to the extent that you can:

  What do you know about the people who took you, and why?

  What do you know about the crack that you went through, and cracks generally?

  Any ideas on how we can get you back?

  Thank you.

  We are working around the clock to find a way to bring you home. Be ready to leap through a crack the moment we’ve found one/figured out how to open it, etc.

  Looking forward to seeing you again soon.

  Your daughter,

  Princess Ko

  P.S. If, however, you continue to believe in your current hallucination about who you are/what you are, etc. (which Samuel tells me is quite likely — he thinks simply reminding you won’t be enough), well, STOP IT. I must insist that you set aside these false ideas at once! Trust me. You’re embarrassing yourself. I cringe just to think of you walking around thinking you are somebody else.

  P.P.S. Any tips on how to run Cello much appreciated.

  Maximillian chuckles.

  What he can’t figure out is what they’re trying to sell. He turns the p
aper over, looking for a tiny footer, a watermark. The subliminal message.

  It must be one of those brand-saturation campaigns. Kingdom of Cello will turn out to be a new nightclub or fashion label or bowling alley. He’s not keen on that sort of strategy — the risk is you irritate people. People don’t like to feel confused.

  He puts his elbows on the table, closes his eyes, and presses his face into his hands for a moment. He likes to think that way, palms warm against his forehead and eyelids, wrists against his cheeks.

  He becomes aware that he must look like someone lost in private anguish. He straightens. The woman at the next table is watching him curiously.

  He asks her if she’d like to have a drink with him. Crumples the junk mail in one hand, while he reaches for his phone with the other so he can enter her number.

  * * *

  “I was married to a gang leader,” Sasha Wilczek says, “back in New Zealand.”

  She’s at a job interview. Her income from the dance classes is not enough. She’s hoping to supplement it by teaching English.

  The interviewer, a slight man with a lisp, allows his mouth to fall open.

  “A gang leader?”

  “I want to be honest with you,” Sasha explains. “I met the gang leader when I was very young. Realised too late what I’d got myself into. For years, my work was buying groceries for the gang’s safe houses. I’ve got rheumatoid arthritis in all my joints now — I guess it might not be related, but those groceries were pretty damn heavy. Anyhow, when I broke up with him, he said I’d have to leave the country. I knew too much, see?”

  “So you came to Taipei?”

  “I have references here,” Sasha reaches for her handbag. “I don’t want to tell you that the only reason I’m here in Taipei was that I was running away to the least likely place —”

  She looks down and sees the letter she picked up that morning.

  To the Woman Living at This Address

  Who is 49 years old

  and believes her identity — indeed, her entire life so far — to be something Entirely Other than

  What, in fact, it Is

  She pushes that envelope away.

  “But like I said” — she hands over the correct envelope and smiles brightly — “I want to be honest.”