The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Read online

  Father was making peculiar sounds in the back of his throat.

  ‘Today, my father has signalled for the flood to begin,’ Pelagia continued. ‘The Fiends will have received the message. And Turquoise Lake is huge. We need to warn the people! I don’t know how much—’

  At that moment, a ripple ran right across the lake as if it was being unzipped.

  ‘Oh!’ cried Pelagia—and my father began to run.

  So did my sisters.

  ‘GET TO HIGHER GROUND!’ my father shouted in the direction of the streets below, his arms waving wildly. The people there turned slowly, gazing back at him.

  Pelagia set off too, but I grabbed her by the sleeve and dragged her back.

  She was telling the truth.

  I knew it now.

  I remembered a flash of light, Pelagia slipping through the school’s front door, hair wet, a towel over her shoulder.

  Sitting by the pond, murmuring, ‘It’s too much responsibility.’

  Wistful and sad: another flash of light.

  ‘He will use the ocean to flood all the coastal regions,’ she told me now, speaking firmly. ‘And the ten lakes and rivers across the Kingdoms and Empires will swamp inland regions.’

  ‘Too much for the Spellbinders,’ I breathed.

  ‘Come on!’ Pelagia urged. ‘We need to warn the town!’

  But saving one town was not enough.

  ‘How do you communicate?’ I asked. ‘With your father?’

  ‘Bioluminescence.’

  I nodded—then stopped. ‘Bio-what?’

  ‘Bioluminescence. It means light. Living light. Like glow–worms and fireflies. It’s how sea creatures communicate in deepest, darkest ocean. Since we’ve been on land, Father has been sending light messages to me and to the newly woken Fiends in their lake and rivers.’

  As she spoke, I was watching the main street—my father and sisters were still shouting but people were either smiling at them, frowning at them, or taking no notice. The lake, a huge expanse of blue, was perfectly still again, shining in the sun.

  On its shore, people threw crusts of bread to ducks. On its surface, they relaxed in paddleboats.

  My mind began racing so fast I could hardly catch up with it.

  ‘What if you sent a message?’ I asked. ‘Pretend it’s from your father? Tell all the Fiends that the flooding has been cancelled!’

  Pelagia’s face startled. ‘I mean I could, but …’

  But what? Why would she not? Then I realised: ‘You’d get in trouble?’

  We held each other’s gaze, Pelagia’s face rushing with emotion.

  ‘You’re frightened?’ I whispered.

  That’s when the lake attacked.

  Have you ever been lying down in a bathtub and slid yourself forward, and then quickly back, then forward, and quickly back, forward, back, forward, back—

  —faster and faster—

  —until the bathwater surges right over the edge of the tub and lands with a SPLASH! on the floor? (Bathmat, clothes, tiles get drenched—big trouble from your mother.)

  Well, at first the lake appeared to be playing that game. Water seemed to lean in one direction, then back, lean, and then back, lapping at the distant banks then careening towards the closest, back and forth, back and forth—

  Until a great surge of water threw itself with a sound—not a splash, but a sound like the CLASH of giant cymbals, onto the banks—

  —drenching the people standing there—

  Back into the lake, washing first one way, then the other, back and forth, back and forth—

  A bigger, mightier wave forming—

  And then, with a ferocious howl, a thunderous roar, it flung itself at the town.

  ‘Try!’ I shouted. ‘Pelagia! Please!’

  Water was climbing the hill rapidly towards us. Pelagia and I sprinted away from it, splashes dashing at our ankles and backs.

  We scrambled up a tree, branch after branch, scratched by bark and spiky leaves, and stopped when we could climb no further.

  The water stretched towards us then slid away, back down the hill, back into the town, and there it joined the huge body of water that had once been the lake but that now frothed and surged, swerving around corners and up laneways, pounding against brick walls, thwacking windows.

  Again and again, water reared up and smashed down, boom, boom, boom.

  For a moment all I could see was swell and foam—and then amidst the chaos, I caught glimpses of objects—a rubbish bin rolling across the water’s surface, books flying along, pages flapping wildly, doormats, tables, chairs. A carriage, half-submerged, was tossed about, fruit stalls broke into splinters, umbrellas, napkins, cushions, panes of glass—

  Another boom and the newly constructed swimming pool walls exploded. Shattered glass scattered onto the water surface, gleaming in sunlight—

  A dog paddled madly—

  —People.

  People clambering onto roofs, dragging others up behind them; wrapping arms around lampposts, legs flailing in the rush of water; clutching at upturned pots to keep themselves afloat—

  People slipping under the surface, bursting out, spluttering, slipping under again, and under again, and under, each time for longer—

  Men, women, children—my father, my sisters—all of them drowning.

  The weight of all that water was crushing my family, crushing my heart—

  And I could not speak the words.

  I could hear the words. Their strange shapes. Poised in my mind, ready to pounce, but my mouth was closed tightly against them.

  Come on, I urged. Speak.

  But how?

  I wasn’t strong enough, good enough, bright enough.

  C–

  C–

  C–

  Go and sit at the Endiva table.

  The light glancing off Mrs Pollock’s glasses.

  Just Esther.

  Of course, I cannot do it.

  But you must, I begged myself. Or everyone will drown.

  My lips parted ever so slightly—

  Water splashed at my ankles. Shattering glass. Crashes and screams. The frightened yelps of dogs, yowls of cats.

  And I clamped them shut again. My hand slapped against my mouth, pressing it closed.

  Esther, you can do it, said a voice in my head, so clear, so bold, so certain that—

  At last I spoke the words.

  I don’t want to think about, or talk about, or even touch the memory of speaking the words—

  —and I don’t want you to say that I was brave or courageous or strong—because I was not.

  I shrieked, writhed and wailed on the branch of that tree, scratched by bark, tearing at leaves.

  The only thing I will say—

  —something I noticed as I spoke the words—

  —was this.

  The greatest pain was not the Ghouls, the Ghouls slowly, steadily crushing tendons and bones—

  —it wasn’t that at all.

  I was a small child again on a blanket in the rain, Ghouls slowly, steadily crushing me as they reached for the essence of who I was—and the greatest pain, the heart of the anguish, was that I knew that my mother had left me there.

  Over and over and over, I cried out for my mother while the moon rose slowly over the turtle-shaped rock.

  But then I spoke the final word, and silver rainfall ran through my body.

  As soothing as honey, or pillows, as warm tea in winter, a walk in a forest, a leap from a jetty in summer, Father chuckling, Imogen diving, Astrid fanning out her cards, cake.

  It was exactly like those bubbles in a swimming pool when your palm slaps the surface of the water, so you twist about to feel it on your skin.

  An odd thing happened then, difficult to explain. Say a balloon or a parachute catches a whoosh of wind and soars upwards? That was me.

  I was whooshing into the sky.

  Only not.

  I was not in the actual sky, I was still on the tree br
anch. I could still feel the leaves against my face, the texture of bark beneath my palms, but somehow I was also above.

  Above place, above people, above time—above the story.

  I could see the Kingdoms and Empires, all of them, both northern and southern climes. Coastlines, rivers, islands, like pages in an atlas. I could also see the finest details, a man’s wrist, a coloured pencil rolling down a desk.

  And I could see this:

  Monstrous waves were slamming against coastal towns; ten lakes and rivers were frothing and surging down roads, through villages, towns, fields.

  A small group of Spellbinders, both adults and children, stood on a distant beach, hands moving briskly in the air. Peering more closely, I found my cousin Bronte, her hair blowing sideways in the wind, Aunt Carrie, her movements smooth and powerful, Hsiang and Georgia, faces fierce in concentration.

  A wave was poised mid-air, ready to devour them all—

  Elsewhere, I saw pirates and fisherfolk tossing out nets and life-rings, reaching out hands to drag drowning people aboard.

  Water Sprites swarming to help—

  In cities and on mountains, Crystal Faeries worked with Faeries and Elves, even with some Shadow Mages—Fire Sirens, Sirens, Sterling Silver Foxes, Radish Gnomes, Witches—together casting spells to raise ladders and construct boats and rafts, to lift babies from the sea and breathe air into their lungs—

  Scanning the Kingdoms and Empires, I found my other aunts—Aunts Maya and Lisbeth scooping people out of the sea as they sailed their cruise ship; Aunt Isabelle and the Butler, Uncle Patrick and Aunt Lida, swimming steadily along a flooded street in Gainsleigh towards a stranded family; Aunt Sue, shouting at her boys to climb higher in the orange trees; Aunt Emma, thrusting the paddle of her rowboat to collect an elderly woman; Aunt Alys, directing the people of her Kingdom in a coordinated climb onto her palace roof; Aunt Franny, wading shoulder-deep through muddy water, guiding a herd of horses; Aunt Sophy flying a dragon low over the water, swooping now and then to rescue a child or a cat.

  I even glimpsed myself, clinging to the upper-branches of a tree, and just below me, Pelagia, amongst leaves and branches, one hand curled around the trunk, while, with the other, she sent flashes of light from her fingertips. The light leapt from point to point, cascading through Kingdoms and Empires.

  Go back to sleep, Pelagia’s message commanded. This is not the time. Go back to sleep.

  For a moment I thought: It’s all right.

  Between the Spellbinders, the Mages, the brave and the strong, the Kingdoms and Empires will win.

  But when I looked again, I knew that they would not.

  Ships were capsizing. Cliffs were crumbling.

  Water was surging, shoving at buildings, and spreading like fire.

  Here, a flood stretched itself out and out to touch the edge of another; there, bodies of water leaked at the edges, thin strands of water, rushing like blood, joining forces, rivers to ocean, oceans to rivers, sending waves of blue-black to devour the greens and golds of land.

  People flailed, screamed, sprinted, clambered—and drowned.

  Steadily, the ocean encroached. The Mages were tiring, fading, slowing—

  I looked into the ocean.

  Seahorses, jellyfish, plankton, and Berg trolls.

  Deeper and darker I looked—

  Deeper, deeper,

  Blindingly dark

  And then the faintest light.

  A wall of sandstone.

  A roughly constructed underwater house. Its walls curved and pale. Lit with an eerie underwater glow.

  I saw a master bedroom and across the hall, a smaller bedroom decorated with shells and seaweed.

  Pelagia’s room.

  Along the corridor to a living room.

  —And there he was.

  Jonathan J. Lanyard.

  An ordinary man, thinning orange hair, orange freckles on a pale face, curling hair on a bare chest, dark swim shorts, solid calves and muscular forearms.

  He was reclining in an armchair, legs crossed at the ankles.

  As I drew closer, I saw that his skin was covered in fine, translucent scales, and there were gills cut neatly into his neck, just above his collarbone.

  I found myself standing in his living room.

  He glanced up, saw me, and smiled.

  A shot of panic darted through me.

  I might have officially become a Weaver, but I felt exactly the same as I had. I was a child, and this was a grown-up, a man, comfortable in his own home.

  Also, he was a Fiend.

  A Fiend was a thousand times stronger than today’s Shadow Mages. This man was the strongest water Fiend of them all. A Fiend of the ocean. I felt the weight of water again, the weight of such an immensity of water. What was a sprinkling of rain compared to the ocean?

  I was only a Rain Weaver, a child who knew nothing, and this was an Ocean Fiend.

  What happened next was strange and dreamy. I’m still not sure if it was my imagination.

  It was like this: Jonathan J. Lanyard stood and held out his hands. I saw that he was holding the edges of a cloth. Somehow I realised that he’d been holding this cloth the whole time.

  The cloth was the size of a bath towel, but a silky, wavy bath towel, a towel much too beautiful for a regular bathroom. It shimmered with colours: reds, blacks, golds, greens, silvers, and blues. Jonathan indicated that I should take the other end of this towel-shaped cloth. So now we were facing each other, like two people about to fold laundry together. He still had a wry, friendly smile, as if he was indulging me in a little game: a friendly uncle agreeing to play with a child.

  He began to fold the cloth in half, and my hands automatically followed the movement. As this happened, the red and black threads rippled across its surface. I felt their power tendril through my fingertips and palms, burning through my bloodstream. The turn of the cloth was also, I realised, a surge of water, waves, a rush of cruelty on the surface.

  And I was helping him.

  Jonathan smiled more broadly. The muscles in his forearms twitched.

  I would just have to fold the cloth in the other direction, I decided uneasily. But the cloth was already moving, and my hands were once again moving with it—

  And then suddenly, a peculiar memory came to me.

  Our class was doing speeches.

  Katya was speaking about ‘the cycle of life,’ in that flat, sad voice of hers.

  ‘All water was once gas,’ she had said. ‘When temperatures dropped, it condensed into rain. Rain fell into the great basins and troughs … and formed oceans and lakes.’

  I laughed aloud.

  Jonathan raised his eyebrows at me, making ready to turn the cloth again.

  But it was clear now.

  The oceans, the lakes, the rivers—they had all started as rain.

  And I was a Rain Weaver.

  ‘Good defeats bad,’ I told Jonathan J. Lanyard. ‘Rain defeats ocean.’

  He smirked at me, as an adult might to a girl chanting a skipping rhyme.

  ‘Rain defeats ocean,’ I repeated, and ever so gently, I tugged at the cloth between us—

  It sprang out of Jonathan’s hands.

  His brow crumpled in surprise, and he grabbed at it, but now it was sailing out from my hands like a flag. As I watched, it began to grow. Steadily, it grew to the size of a blanket, a sheet, a tarpaulin—the golds, the greens, the silvers, the blues, dazzled and shone now. They darted back and forth across the surface, blending with the texture of the ocean, and the cloth grew and grew, extending beyond the ocean, rising into the sky—

  —and everywhere, waves and water calmed.

  I glanced at Jonathan again.

  He had stumbled back, hitting his armchair. He fell into it.

  ‘So much power,’ he whispered.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ I suggested and, at once, his eyes closed and he was perfectly still.

  ‘Go back to sleep,’ I murmured over and over, and I could
see them all, the other Fiends of lakes and rivers, also slipping back into their deep, deep sleep.

  And all over the Kingdoms and Empires, the wild water of the ocean, of the seas, rivers and lakes, slid neatly and rapidly, like water down a drain, back into place.

  ‘Father says you’re invited to the meeting,’ Imogen said.

  ‘And we’re allowed to miss the first day of term and come, too,’ Astrid added, ‘to be loving and supportive of you. Like we’ve been for the last two weeks.’

  Two weeks had gone by since the flood, and my sisters had just come into the room and woken me.

  After the Fiends were defeated, I collapsed into the branches of the tree and rescuers had to scramble up and carry me down, and all the way back to the Old Schoolhouse. I stayed there, resting, for the next two weeks, and my sisters—who were staying in the room next door—brought me news each day. It was a curious way to spend a school holiday.

  Everybody in Pillar Box Town had survived the lake flooding, including my sisters and father—although there were broken ribs, bloody noses, scratches, concussions and bruises.

  Across the Kingdoms and Empires, there were similar injuries, many more severe, and sadly, some lives were lost.

  ‘But imagine how many more would have been lost if not for you,’ Astrid told me when we heard this. ‘You’re a hero, Esther.’

  ‘Don’t let it go to your head,’ Imogen advised.

  That was my sisters’ job, apparently: to stop me growing conceited.

  In the days after it happened, the school closed for the holiday, students went home, and everybody else—including my parents, most teachers and Mustafa—got to work in town setting things right-side up again. Wringing out soggy rugs. Straightening fences and chimneypots. Rebuilding houses. Placing tiles back on roofs and doors back into frames. Raking and sweeping.

  This, of course, was happening all over the Kingdoms and Empires.

  The Fiends remained in deep sleep, and there was a lot of talk about the dangers of their waking again.

  ‘They won’t,’ I said, ‘and if they do, they are no longer Fiends. I’ve washed away their evil powers.’