The Cracks in the Kingdom Read online

  The thing is, who knows what the trick is to getting through to you guys? Maybe if the whole world just engaged our imaginations, and believed in the impossible — like believing in Tinker Bell — maybe then we could get through to you?

  It could be that thing about people only using 10 percent of their brains (I don’t know if that’s true, I just keep hearing it), and if we used the rest we’d know how to fly, teleport, and walk into your Kingdom?

  Maybe you’re right there in front of us and we just can’t see you — but we would if we looked through the right kind of tears, or through a smokescreen, or 3-D glasses, or 5-D glasses, I guess — because maybe you’re a whole other dimension. Another dimension of us.

  Who knows what it is. All I know is, it’s way beyond our comprehension, and messing around with it — without having a clue what we’re doing — is just dangerous.

  Talk soon,

  Madeleine

  3.

  The night was oddly quiet.

  Madeleine pulled her sleeves over her hands, and looked at the parking meter. It shone coldly back at her, like a rebuke.

  She thought back over the letter she’d written to Elliot earlier that day.

  It was a good letter, she argued with the parking meter. Elliot will understand. He’ll agree. It’s the right thing to do.

  She breathed deeply, took out her notebook, and wrote:

  Hey, Elliot. You there?

  His reply came a few moments later.

  Yep. Just reading your letter. My dad’s not back yet — they think Wednesday. I’ve got mail for you to forward to the royal family. Weekend was good — crazier than ever, and I never want to eat another bowl of clam chowder again, or anyway never again while I’m trying to dance the Olde Quainte Tambourine Jig at the same time. I’d teach you the Tambourine Jig, but I see you’ve decided you don’t want to try getting through the crack anymore. What’s up with that?

  Madeleine felt a flutter of confusion and mild panic. The parking meter seemed to raise its eyebrows: I told you so. She wrote fast:

  Well, I explained in the letter. It’s just the right thing to do.

  There was another long pause, and then Elliot’s reply.

  Okay, just looked at the letter again, and as far as I can see you want to stop trying because the last couple of times it was “weird” and “uncomfortable.” Not sure how you do things over there, but I don’t usually quit at the “weird” and “uncomfortable” point. So. Then you go on about how our Kingdom might exist if you just used your imagination, or got the right glasses, and that we might actually be another “dimension” of you. Which if you don’t mind me saying is all kinda intensely egocentric. Finally, you say that figuring out the cracks is really hard, which I agree with, but you seem to conclude from that that it must be “dangerous” to try, which makes the least sense I’ve ever heard in my life. Anyway, I guess you can make your own decisions but you should know that the Princess is relying on us to figure out the cracks before Saturday so we can get her family home. And I kinda thought we were on the verge of doing that, so it seems like a “weird” time to stop.

  Madeleine read this note with the sense that there were elbows jostling her from either side. She made louder and louder exasperated sounds and muttered to the parking meter, “Come on,” and “You must be kidding.” Her pen had trouble keeping up with her trembling thoughts.

  Yeah, well, with great respect to your Princess, why does she have a Kingdom that SEALS up the cracks to our World anyway? What’s up with you people that you’re not even allowed to TALK about how to get through? You run around locking the doors so we can’t get in, like we’re so repellant that you can’t even KNOW we’re here, then expect me to help you open them???

  She watched the parking meter through narrowed eyes and tapping feet, and grabbed at the reply when it arrived.

  Okay, that’s a fair point, but if you’re going to start laying into my Kingdom, just keep in mind that your World isn’t exactly a pecan pie. I’ve been reading about it a bit, and turns out you guys turned actual people into SLAVES, and women weren’t allowed to have the same jobs as men, and you actually had issues with same-sex relationships. Maybe you’ve got over all this now, but just remember that there was a time when you were all the Kingdoms and Empires’ distance from perfect.

  Anyway, we’re getting away from the point here. I guess it’s up to you if you want to quit. All you really need to do is send the letters to the royals. Can you send them priority or express or whatever, ’cause they need to get them before Saturday.

  This time she actually shouted her anger, and it echoed up and down the empty laneway. Heat swarmed over her, burning her cheeks and the back of her neck, then abruptly slipped away. Now she felt cold with calm.

  I’ll send the letters to the royals by regular mail. I can’t afford to send them express. (Do you have any idea how much international express costs?) They probably won’t get there before the weekend, but that’s the best I can do.

  Elliot’s reply sped back to her.

  If you can’t get the message to them before the weekend, then it’s pointless. The royals need to be at certain places at certain times.

  Well, people aren’t always where they’re meant to be.

  Yeah, I get that, but that’s even further off topic right now.

  Madeleine shook her head slowly. Again, she wrote with cold composure:

  I don’t think you “get it” at all. What about the time when I came here to talk to you at the time we’d arranged and you didn’t turn up? And then night after night I kept coming back into the cold and dark and nothing, nothing, nothing except silence. Then suddenly you were back, and it’s just “sorry,” and “here are some more jobs for you.” Seems to me like I’m doing a lot of running around to post offices and trying to rescue your royal family (who mean NOTHING to me, by the way, and neither does your kingdom, which is not egotistical, it’s just my reality — it’s all I’ve got to go on) and trying to get through the crack is a lot more than “uncomfortable,” it hurts like HELL, and who are you to say when things are dangerous or not — I KNOW it’s dangerous what we’ve been doing, and not just cause I don’t understand it — I just KNOW it. And meanwhile, it’s not exactly clear what YOU’RE doing for me, except giving me days of silence, and making me the “quitter” and yourself the hero.

  A car turned into the street and drove slowly past. A man turned and stared at Madeleine, and another wave of anger warmed her. Here was Elliot mocking her fears about the cracks. Here she was, a fourteen-year-old girl standing alone in a deserted street in the middle of the night.

  She watched the car disappear around the corner, and another note appeared from Elliot.

  Now I’m really confused. You mean that week when I got back from Tek in Jagged Edge? I guess I didn’t come and talk to you for a while then. I was caught up here — it looked like Agents Tovey and Kim were going to be pulled off my dad’s case and taken into the missing royals thing and I was trying to stop that happening. Did that seriously bother you?

  Of course it bothered me. I had no idea where you were. I had no idea if I was ever going to hear from you again. We’d been talking for HOURS every night. We were, like, really good friends, or that’s what I thought. I had all these stories I’d been planning to tell you, and they ended up clogged up in my throat. Who even knows where those words have gone now?

  Madeleine waited. She felt like crying.

  Okay, well, I’m sorry — I didn’t have a clue that was an issue. And I’m kind of thinking maybe this is not about me? You’re thinking about the silence from your dad really? And how you don’t know if you’ll ever hear from him again?

  OF COURSE I’m thinking about my dad. But that doesn’t mean it’s not about you too. It just means it hurt me MORE when you disappeared because it was like somebody ELSE I cared about ignoring me. And of COURSE you didn’t “have a clue that it was an issue.” You’re one of those stupidly hot guys. You’re so
stupidly hot I have no doubt that ALL girls like you. You probably can’t even walk anywhere without tripping over a girl.

  I have no idea what you’re talking about.

  I saw you, Elliot. I never told you that, but there was one night when I saw your face in the schoolyard. You looked right at me, but you didn’t see me there. You don’t hear me when I need you, you don’t see me when I’m right in front of you. But, like I said, of COURSE you don’t. Your life must be a party of girls. I bet you’ve just spent the weekend getting it on with those girls in the Youth Alliance. I remember you said that the princess is “super pretty.” And that Keira girl — you called her “beautiful.” I bet you and Keira have a thing.

  This time there was a long pause. The parking meter sat silent. The pause continued.

  There was a sound like a distant shout from a block away, and then the crash of a garbage-bin lid.

  Madeleine grabbed her pen and wrote again.

  See what I mean. You do the silence thing. You have no idea what silence feels like, the different shapes it can take.

  Yeah, well, I kinda do know how silence feels. My dad’s missing too, remember?

  Madeleine read this, rolled her eyes, and stamped her foot.

  He understood silence? Her life was made of silence at the moment. Just the night before, they’d been at Belle’s place again, listening to music, and Belle had abruptly switched it off.

  “Music is a lie,” she’d said.

  “What are you talking about?” they’d asked her.

  “It alters your state of mind,” she’d said. “Gives you false hope.”

  She’d refused to say another word, and they had sat in the new silence until Belle had said abruptly, “Do you miss your mother, Jack?”

  “Of course not,” Jack had said. “She died when I was two. I don’t even remember her, and we haven’t got photos. Although one thing I’ve noticed is that in all my memories of former lives, my mother is always the same person. So maybe that’s her.”

  “You and your former lives,” Belle had said contemptuously.

  For the next few minutes Belle and Jack had looked oddly at each other, their eyes exchanging silences. Then Madeleine and Jack had walked home, silently.

  Between Madeleine and her mother too, she could feel silences expanding. Holly would be kneading her forehead as they chatted, but they wouldn’t mention headaches: They’d discuss Madeleine’s allergies, and how her nosebleeds were back, and the taste of blood at the back of the throat, and which over-the-counter medications she should try next.

  All these silences, meanwhile, were just lily pads in the dark pool of silence that was Madeleine’s dad. She’d thought she was “facing the truth” when she accepted he had drug and alcohol problems. It had never occurred to her that he might not solve the problems. That he might be lost forever.

  She and her mother never talked about her dad, which added another dimension to the silence between them. So it went on. Silences on silences.

  She wrote to Elliot:

  Your dad’s not missing, he’s coming back. Wednesday, right? It’s completely different anyway. I thought we were the same — that our absent fathers meant we were like echoes or reflections or matching displacements or whatever, but we’re not. My dad is gone because of drug issues, and seems like he’s decided not to deal with those. YOUR dad is gone because he was stolen by Hostiles. My dad’s a loser. Yours is a hero coming home. So don’t tell me you understand silence.

  There was a short pause, and then Elliot’s handwriting, more careful than usual:

  You’re angry with me because my dad is coming back?

  That’s not what I’m saying.

  Yeah, well, sounds like it is. Heading home now. Bye.

  Madeleine panicked. She shook her head as she wrote.

  Hang on, that’s NOT what I meant. I’m GLAD your dad’s coming back. WAIT.

  She sent her note.

  She folded her arms tightly.

  She stared at the parking meter, but no more notes appeared.

  The silence of the street drew itself out, stretched, undulated. It slowly took on different shapes, grew closer, colder, more and more reproving.

  Eventually, she gave up and went home. The silence walked with her, hanging its head.

  4.

  The next morning Elliot woke at five A.M. As his feet hit the floor, his thoughts hit Madeleine.

  He let that flare through his bloodstream a few moments. Then he stood, stretched, and sniffed. That’d be it now. He wouldn’t think of her again. Disappointing, sure, that she hadn’t matched up to her voice, but she could live her own story. He’d live his.

  He’d just have to figure out the crack on his own. Keep experimenting from his end.

  There were those reports that Samuel had stolen too. He hadn’t seen much point in looking at them — if nobody else had figured out how to see through the blacked-out bits, how could he? — but he’d give it a try now.

  The key was to keep busy, and — something startled in his chest as he recalled this — his dad was coming home tomorrow.

  Who cared about a girl in the World. His dad was coming home. If it all went okay; if —

  Actually, he wouldn’t think about that either.

  He reached for his backpack, found the envelope of stolen accounts, and tipped them out. They were yellow-brown, spotted with age, the creases where they’d been folded almost tearing the paper at some points.

  He leafed through them.

  Every second page had blocks of black. No wonder Samuel’s transcriptions had been so useless. He held a couple up to the window to let the sun shine through. Turned them over. Shone his flashlight on them. Nothing.

  His eyes fixed themselves on a random block of black. If he could scrape it away with his fingernails. There was something about it — how impenetrable it was, how frustrating and implacable — that made him think of Madeleine. The way she’d slammed a door between them.

  Wait. He was supposed to have set her aside.

  He sat on the edge of his bed. Looked like summer outside. That blue haze in the sky, the warmth on the glass.

  What was this blackness? Was it ink? Couldn’t you just pour water on ink and wash it away?

  That’d be dumb though — it’d sog up the paper.

  Two words came to him, precise as mathematics: art restoration.

  Of course! There were people who did this sort of thing professionally! They took old paintings that were covered in grime or mold or whatever — paintings that had been painted over by smugglers or forgers — and they did something to them. Who knew what. They used chemicals or solutions, he thought, and they gently washed away the top layer. And ta-da! Whisked back the curtain. Revealed the truth beneath.

  He was pretty sure there were no professional art restorers here in Bonfire. He’d have to go into Sugarloaf, or even as far as Forks.

  He pictured himself arriving at an art restorer’s office, handing over these documents, asking what they said.

  Huh.

  Nope. Couldn’t do that.

  He needed someone close to him. Someone he could trust.

  An artist maybe?

  Half an hour later he was riding his bike to school. The pedals seemed to revolve him through moods, from almost-cheerful to furious, to indifferent, to elated, to scared, to set-it-all-aside. By the time he arrived he was exhausted.

  His friend Cody lit right up when Elliot asked if he could help with something “seriously illegal” and “completely confidential” and he couldn’t “tell him any more than that, sorry, buddy.” Turned out Cody had done a couple of classes on restoration as part of his Art course here at school.

  “Leave the papers with me,” Cody suggested. “I’ll go to the small Art Room later today — it’s always empty at lunchtime.” He ran a hand through his hair thoughtfully, then lifted it away, and his wild curls sprang back. “Elliot, I’ve gotta tell you, I only took a couple of classes on this, and paper is its ow
n specialty. You’d use infrared or UV or even X-ray, I think, to try to see through the black. But I haven’t got those technologies. I could try a solvent. Might clear the black away — might also clear the words behind the black. He looked Elliot square in the eye. “And then they’re gone for good. You want to take that chance?”

  Elliot looked back at him. He shrugged.

  “Got no other choice. You sure you don’t mind risking a life sentence?”

  “Ah, I hear they’ve got art supplies in prisons these days. See you at the end of lunch.”

  Elliot handed over the envelope.

  * * *

  By lunchtime, the spinning wheels of mood were getting too much for Elliot. Turned out none of his teachers had a single thing of interest to say. You’d have thought they might have learned techniques for entertaining students at teachers’ college, but no, seemed all they’d learned was how to drag their voices along classroom floors picking amongst dust, bugs, and the spongy bits in the wood.

  Students were allowed to leave the school at lunch, and Elliot ran straight to the Watermelon Inn.

  “Hey,” he said, skidding in the front door. Auntie Alanna looked up from behind the desk. “Heard you had someone do a runner on the weekend?” he said. “Broke a window latch on the way out? You want me to fix it for you?”

  Alanna replaced the lid on the pen she’d just been using. She tilted her head.

  “Already fixed that myself, Elliot,” she said. “But that’s a sweet offer.”

  “Well, then, what can I do for you? You must have something else?”

  The door jangled, and they both turned and watched as Corrie-Lynn walked in.

  “You know I don’t like meat-loaf sandwiches,” she said to her mother in a voice of mild, disappointed reproof. “I saw you’d packed it for my lunch and I had to throw it away and come home.”