The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Page 32

  ‘But how did you know Mrs Pollock was awful?’

  ‘I didn’t. Not until that morning. Before that, I kept sensing something strange about her. Then when my hair was cut off, it was like—well, instead of ruining my Whispering, it shocked it into me. Then the trance fell away.’ She half-smiled. ‘The funny thing is that Mrs Pollock thought she’d crush my spirit by getting the twins to cut my hair.’

  ‘Like when she made me so sad I ran out into the rain,’ I realised, ‘and rain made the Weaver pattern show up.’

  We both laughed then fell silent, reflecting on Mrs Pollock’s backfiring plans.

  ‘So what made you decide to Whisper everyone tonight?’ I asked.

  She sighed. ‘I tried before but I couldn’t get through to anyone. Tonight, I just had to try again. Yet it wasn’t until your mother’s outburst that it worked. She was so sure of herself that it opened a crack in people’s minds for me to Whisper through. Of course, my Whispers are faint. You could all have shaken them away.’

  ‘But we didn’t.’

  We’d reached the entry to the gymnasium, and Autumn smiled: ‘That’s because it was the truth. Truth is powerful.’

  Before the music and dancing began, while we were all still pouring into the gymnasium, everyone babbling about the exciting events of dinner—Autumn and I joined a group of girls.

  My sisters were part of the group, and a few Grade 6 girls, all surrounding Pelagia, asking if she was all right.

  She was very grim.

  ‘It’s like this,’ she was saying. ‘Jonathan J. Lanyard was my father, and now it turns out he’s an evil being from a thousand years ago who stole me away. Mrs Pollock was like my mother. She was never kind but I adored her anyway. And now I’ve discovered that she’s an Ogre who only made me think I loved her.’

  We all tried to comfort her, but most of this was outside our realm of experience. Nobody could say, ‘Oh, I know just how you feel.’

  The twins tried saying that anyway, which made Pelagia smile, wipe away a tear, and hum softly to herself.

  ‘What’s that tune?’ Imogen asked her. ‘It’s pretty.’

  Pelagia laughed, embarrassed. ‘I don’t know. I used to sing it when I was small. My father—Jonathan J. Lanyard, I mean—used to tell me to hush. He didn’t like it.’

  ‘But where would you have heard it?’ Astrid wondered. ‘Could it be from your life before he stole you away?’

  ‘I don’t remember anything from then,’ Pelagia shrugged.

  Bu Imogen was rising up onto her toes, waving at us to shush. ‘Wait, shush, wait! Sing it again, Pelagia! Hum it again!’

  Obediently, Pelagia hummed.

  Then Imogen swung in place, grabbed Pelagia’s hand and pulled her away—so fast that Pelagia lost her balance—urging: ‘Come with me, Pelagia! Come with me now!’

  Imogen skidded across the gymnasium, dragging Pelagia behind her, darting between people, breaking apart dance partners who’d already joined hands—until she reached the stage. She hurried Pelagia up the stairs, and skidded up beside Mr Dar-Healey. He himself was busy with the gramophone player, trying to get the music started.

  Astrid and I had followed, so we heard the conversation.

  ‘Hello, Imogen! Hello, Pelagia!’ Mr Dar-Healey said, lighting up. ‘How are my swimming Weavers?’

  ‘We have something important to discuss,’ Imogen informed him.

  ‘Do we?’ Pelagia wondered.

  ‘Well, always happy to discuss things, but can it—’

  ‘No! It cannot wait!’ Imogen insisted.

  Mr Dar-Healey shrugged and turned to face her.

  ‘Your little girl was lost while you were on holiday at the Candle Islands, right?’ Imogen demanded, breathless.

  Creases of pain formed on Mr Dar-Healey’s forehead. ‘Imogen,’ he said softly.

  But Imogen persisted. ‘About ten years ago? And she was two?’

  ‘Imogen,’ he repeated.

  ‘Hum your tune, Pelagia. Hum it!’

  Pelagia, baffled but obedient, began to hum.

  ‘You see,’ Imogen cried. ‘It’s your tune, Mr Dar-Healey! It’s the one you always sing when it’s quiet in class! And the Candle Islands is near where the Fiend was living! And it was ten years ago that the Fiend tried to steal the Prince of Cloudburst—only he was taken by pirates—and Matron said that Pelagia was little when she was stolen, and now she’s singing your tune! She could be your baby!’

  Hmm, I thought. That tune could be common.

  ‘She said she’s always sung it!’ Imogen added. ‘Mr Dar-Healey, don’t you think …?’

  Mr Dar-Healey was staring at Pelagia, the creases fading from his forehead. ‘I made it up,’ he murmured. ‘It was my lullaby for my baby.’

  He began to hum along with Pelagia, their tunes lining up side by side.

  ‘Paige?’ he whispered.

  I looked from one to the other and that’s when I saw what I should have before: Mr Dar-Healey had the exact same snail-shell nose as Pelagia.

  His was bigger though. That’s why I hadn’t noticed, I suppose.

  Pelagia stopped humming. She looked up at him quizzically.

  And Mr Dar-Healey burst into tears.

  Imogen took a step back and beamed. She likes to fix things.

  After that, the dance began.

  I do remember seeing Father offer his hand to Mother and, when she took it, waltzing with her quietly for a moment.

  I remember seeing Pelagia and Mr Dar-Healey sitting side by side, sometimes talking incessantly, sometimes very quiet.

  I remember people gathering around—me and Arlo included—wanting to eavesdrop, and Mr Dar-Healey told us all how, when his little girl vanished—drowned, he’d believed—he had gone back to the nearby town of Spindrift and spent months there, wandering the streets, lost. He’d met a fortune teller in the square—an old man named Snatty-Ra-Ra—who had told him that his shattered heart would heal if he found a job as a teacher in a boarding school in a faraway Kingdom. ‘There are mountains there,’ the fortune teller had said. ‘And these mountains are crowded with Elves and Crystal Faeries.’

  So Mr Dar-Healey had decided to apply for a teaching position at Katherine Valley Boarding School and, over the years, his heart had healed in a way. He had learned to be happy again from the pleasure of teaching.

  ‘But now,’ he said, ‘I wonder if Snatty-Ra-Ra meant this.’

  ‘Of course he did!’ we all agreed.

  Then Pelagia began telling stories, in her old, dramatic way. Only this time, I realised, she was sharing true adventures. Stories of deepest, darkest ocean, of soft coral and sponge gardens, giant clams, leaf-shaped baby eels, fish like circles of slimy mud, viper fish, hatchet fish, a fish the length of a football field that trailed a chain of stinging nettles.

  Pelagia’s eyes shone, and so did the eyes of her listeners: we were all transfixed, none more than Mr Dar-Healey himself, who kept wiping away tears, laughing as he did. At the end of one particularly harrowing story, he offered to give Pelagia a hug. She accepted.

  The dance began again.

  Arlo and I were dancing steadily, when Stefan and Dot Pecorino swished by us.

  ‘Great speech,’ Stefan told me.

  Dot nodded in agreement.

  They danced away.

  The next time they passed us, Stefan spoke again: ‘Great detective work.’

  Again, Dot nodded, and again they danced away.

  ‘But one thing,’ he said, the next time.

  And danced away.

  Finally, he told me something extraordinary. I was so surprised and pleased I flung my hands into the air—

  —and Arlo reached out, very seriously, returning my hands to the correct position for the dance.

  Arlo, I realised, sleepy with surprise, is a great dancer.

  But I suppose I was exhausted because, soon after this, when my eyelids drooped and my feet scraped the floor, Arlo sighed, lifted me up in his arms and calle
d, ‘Somebody take Esther to bed?’

  I dreamed again that night.

  The rock shaped like a turtle. Trees. A picnic blanket.

  At first, I was annoyed because I was sure this dream was finished now!

  Then I realised it was a different dream.

  I was seated somewhere high, on a clifftop, looking down at the turtle-rock, the trees and the blanket.

  A woman sat very neatly on the blanket, her satchel lying beside her, hands clasped in her lap. Perfectly still.

  She’s so tiny, I thought, astonished, and I began to cry.

  I cried so much I woke myself up.

  I was sleeping back in my dormitory that night, but my sisters had insisted on taking the beds either side of me. They’d thrown out the twins, and shifted Autumn one along. They can be bossy.

  Both sisters sat up and whispered, ‘What’s wrong?’

  I told them I’d dreamed that our mother was sitting on a picnic blanket.

  ‘From the cliff where I was,’ I explained, ‘she looked tiny.’ My sisters were quiet in the dark, sleeping room.

  After a moment, Imogen said, ‘You know I don’t remember our mother ever once saying sorry about anything?’

  Astrid and I both murmured, ‘I know.’

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ Imogen said slowly. ‘The important thing is being able to admit it and say sorry. I mean, Father wasn’t paying attention when we were on the shadow train, remember? Then he apologised and started paying attention. That’s what parents are supposed to do. You can apologise too, Esther. Remember when you sent us an apology note on the poker tour?’

  ‘You two can too,’ I pointed out. ‘I mean, sometimes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ they both whispered.

  ‘So what I’m realising,’ Imogen continued, ‘is that you’re more grown–up than Mother. She was small in your dream because she is much smaller than you.’ Imogen spoke faster, as her thoughts grew. ‘She made a huge, terrible mistake when you were little, so huge she couldn’t even look at it. But that meant she couldn’t really look at us any more—especially not you, Esther—not properly anyway. She can’t even see herself because it’s like she’s had to make herself teeny tiny and hide herself away.’

  Another long quiet.

  ‘No wonder I can’t beat her at poker,’ Astrid said softly.

  ‘And no wonder she didn’t fall under Mrs Pollock’s spell,’ I added.

  Imogen sat up suddenly, clutching her pillow, and spoke to me fiercely: ‘But that doesn’t mean you have to feel sorry for her, Esther. You should be angry! Astrid and I are furious!’

  A curious calm fell over me. I was angry with Mother, but knowing my sisters were also angry seemed to lift some of my anger away.

  Astrid yawned. ‘Maybe one day she’ll be able to look at what she did properly, and think about it,’ she said.

  ‘And then she might be able to see us properly,’ Imogen put in, ‘and start being our mother.’

  ‘It was brave of her to ride alone into the shadow realm to collect you,’ Astrid murmured sleepily. ‘And to stand up to Mrs Pollock tonight.’

  Quiet, sleepy breathing.

  ‘Even though Mrs Pollock tried to crush my spirit,’ I whispered, ‘I think I know why I could still become a Rain Weaver.’

  ‘Why?’ they both whispered.

  ‘Because I have you two.’

  I could hear my sisters smiling in the darkness.

  ‘But don’t let it go to your head,’ I added.

  And we all fell asleep.

  Six Weeks Later

  During the last six weeks, Mrs Pollock has been arrested, tried and found guilty of Aiding and Abetting an Ocean Fiend, Unlawful Shadow Hypnosis, and Conspiracy to Drown the Kingdoms and Empires.

  A new teacher named Professor Harvey is teaching Grade 6. He chuckles deep into his bushy grey beard but his jokes are never at other people’s expense. Also, he has rearranged the classroom so we don’t have graded tables.

  The first time we had a Mathematics test, he handed mine back with a large red B+.

  I burst into tears of happiness.

  Embarrassing.

  Nobody took any notice, though, as everybody has been crying lately. Principal Hortense says it’s delayed shock about having been tricked by a nasty Ogre teacher, and ‘all of that nonsense with the Fiend’. She weeps quite openly herself, during most meals.

  In my spare time, I’ve been writing this book, mostly in the school library, and lately in train compartments, ship cabins, and hotel rooms.

  Guess why that is?

  I am taking a journey around the Kingdoms and Empires! My sisters are accompanying me and so is my cousin, Bronte Mettlestone.

  Guess where we are staying right now?

  You never will.

  It’s the Royal Palace in Cloudburst in the Kingdom of Storms!

  Alejandro ran down the palace steps to meet us when we arrived, exclaiming, ‘Finally! The Mettlestone-Staranise girls! I invited you to the welcome party but it was washed away before I got to see you!’

  So he had remembered us! We are very pleased about this.

  He has a beautiful smile, Alejandro, and he’s very interested that I’m writing this book.

  ‘There is one thing that I do not understand,’ he said. ‘You have called it The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is wrong. This is your story, not mine.’

  He thinks I should call it Esther, the Rain Weaver, instead.

  Which is kind of him.

  But I won’t change it. I like my title. Also, his idea would give away the ending.

  You may be wondering why we are on this journey.

  Well, remember when Stefan told me something ‘extraordinary’ at the dance, so I flung my hands into the air? This is what it was. He’d been reading more about Weavers, and had learned that a Weaver is actually the original form of both a Spellbinder and a Faery.

  ‘Therefore,’ Stefan concluded, ‘you’ve got the power to heal, as Faeries have, plus the power to bind Shadow Magic, as Spellbinders have. Which means you have a particular kind of healing power. You can heal people of Shadow Magic spells. Like stolen laughter.’

  This turned out to be true.

  And that is why we have been journeying—we’re visiting Faery Treatment Centres and hospitals all over the Kingdoms and Empires, and I’m curing people.

  Father says it’s important to be tourists too, and visit galleries and museums, but we’ve interpreted that to mean we should visit beaches, cinemas and arcades. That’s our kind of tourism, Imogen says.

  It’s been a lot of fun.

  The greatest fun though is this: Katya’s face, and the faces of all the other people I’ve met in the treatment centres when I raise my hands and wash away the shadows. Their faces light up like sunshine, and their laughter—cautious at first, then building into joy and music—is exactly like the summer rain.

  One final thing.

  When we arrived here at the Cloudburst Palace, a package from my mother was waiting for me.

  This is what the cover note said:

  Dear Esther,

  I hope you & your sisters are having a lovely time.

  Listen, after I left you behind on the picnic blanket that night, I knew I was a terrible, terrible parent. I decided to leave most of the parenting to your father, and concentrate on my work. So I was a terrible parent that one time, and then I just carried on being terrible! I see that now! I thought I was doing the right thing for you, but I owe apologies to all three of you!

  I know you may never forgive me—

  But Esther, I’m sorry.

  So very sorry.

  See you soon, I hope.

  Love,

  Your Mother

  Enclosed in the package was a copy of the new G.A. Thunderstrike book.

  I burst into tears. I’m not sure if that was to do with the letter or the book.

  ‘It’s not a bad letter,�
� Imogen conceded when she read it.

  ‘Imagine her knowing who your favourite author is,’ Astrid added.

  I will write a reply tomorrow.

  In my reply, I’ll tell Mother that I realised something important as I fell asleep last night. Here’s what it was.

  The voice that I heard in my head when everyone was drowning, and I was still too frightened to speak the ancient words?

  The voice that made it possible for me to speak those words?

  It was the voice that had taught me to play poker, to swim, to kickbox, to tie my shoelaces, to thread a needle, to squeeze the lemons for a jug of lemonade.

  Esther, you can do it!

  A little impatient and cranky, but perfectly sure that I could.

  Thank you so much to my extraordinary, wise, patient and insightful publishing and editorial team: Anna McFarlane, Radhiah Chowdhury and Nicola Santilli. Thank you to everyone else at Allen & Unwin, especially Deb Lum, Zoe Knowles, Carolyn Walsh, Simon Panagaris, Matt Hoy and Tina Quinn; to Romina Edwards for the beautiful design; to Kelly Canby for illustrations that make my heart sing and turn cartwheels; to my brilliant agent, Tara Wynne; to early readers of this manuscript, including Nicola, Liane, Nigel, Maddie and Piper; to Steve Menasse; to Rebecca, Maria and Deborah at Coco Chocolate; to my sisters and my beautiful Mum; all my excellent friends (with special mention to Rachel, for the ice cream and pizza, and to Corrie, for parkour, cake and poetry); and to my very fine boys, Charlie and Nigel. And remembering Dad with love.

  DISCOVER the KINGDOMS and EMPIRES

  ‘Jaclyn Moriarty charms, thrills and delights in this delightfully unpredictable, unique and modern novel, while also brilliantly evoking echoes of Diana Wynne Jones and Joan Aiken.’

  — Garth Nix, author of The Keys to the Kingdom series

  2018 CBCA Notable Book of the Year, Younger Readers

  2018 Readings Children’s Book Prize shortlist

  2017 Best Children’s Novel, Aurealis Awards shortlist

  ‘A wickedly clever book—anchored by rich world-building and several vibrant, quirky, sympathetic characters—and while touching lightly on the injustices of war and social class, it manages to be sheer fun without sacrificing emotional weight.’ —Booklist