The Cracks in the Kingdom Read online

  He carried on with his journey and the cracks kept opening — your father is dead — he could feel them forming all over his body. But he kept on patching them up, sealing them, rolling out pastry dough, and smoothing it again, running his palms over his face, keeping himself in place.

  I am Elliot Baranski of Bonfire, the Farms, Kingdom of Cello.

  2.

  Behind Madeleine’s closed eyes, she saw Belle falling.

  That crowd of people, the hurry in their footsteps and their eyes, and Belle was falling. It was the opposite of everything. A decision to stop being. Falling as a way of choosing not to stand.

  Or maybe it was the opposite of deciding? Gravity wants us to fall, so every moment we don’t fall is a choice to defy gravity.

  A clattering sound opened her eyes.

  She was sitting on a couch. Belle was tipping corn chips into a bowl, and Jack was on the floor across the room, hooking up his iPod to the stereo.

  They were in the baker’s flat. Belle hadn’t wanted to go home yet, and the various parents, and Jack’s grandfather, had agreed they could stay a couple of days — although they’d wondered about things like the state of their education, and how the baker felt about three houseguests.

  The baker had turned out to be friendly, distracted, and sleepy. He’d offered them the living room floor for as long as they wanted, then headed to bed himself. His flatmates were brooding and scrawny. They’d looked a bit dark about houseguests in their living room, then headed down the pub.

  The living room was almost empty except for the couch, a coffee table, and the stereo, which sat on a plank of wood, held up by a couple of bricks. A piece of red tinsel was tacked to the wall, and fell across the window, which looked over a busy street.

  The Only Place For Eyelash Extensions in Norwich! exclaimed a neon sign across the road.

  Something soft started up on the stereo: acoustic guitar and wandering vocals, and Jack landed on the couch beside them and took a corn chip.

  “Do they mean they’re, like, the place to get eyelash extensions?” said Madeleine. “Or the only place. Like, literally, nobody else extends your eyelashes.”

  “That’s exactly what I was just thinking,” Belle said.

  They leaned back, the three of them in a row, staring at the sign.

  “I think what happened was,” Belle said, then stopped.

  The others waited.

  There was a long silence, and eventually they turned to Belle. She seemed lost in thought.

  “What?” Jack prompted.

  “What?” repeated Belle.

  “What happened was?”

  “Oh, right. Well, it’s like this. There are a lot of cruddy auras around, see? A lot of muddy, cracked, ruptured auras; a lot of worn, feeble, wounded auras; a lot of auras just crammed with rubbish. And each time I see one of these, it’s like it gets loaded on top of my own aura. So mine gets too heavy to carry. So I have to lie down in the street.”

  Madeleine and Jack waited.

  “Or maybe not,” Belle reflected. “That could be bollocks. I mean I don’t physically go around picking up other people’s auras. This is like metaphor talking. And as it’s the first time I’ve ever had to lie down in the street, I’m just speculating.”

  The music played. Jack put his feet up on the coffee table, and the girls did the same. They lay back against the couch.

  Belle shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “Ah.” Now Jack sounded miffed. “Don’t start with that pseudo-Buddhist tosh. It is what it is. That’s just more close your eyes and trust the force. Works very nicely for the establishment, I’m sure, cause everyone’s sitting around meditating instead of starting a revolution. Also works nicely for people like your mum who do crap jobs of being a mum. They never have to fix that or say sorry, they can just go, It is what it is. What will be will be. Bollocks.”

  Madeleine brushed corn chip crumbs from her lap.

  “Isn’t that the opposite of astrology?” she said to Jack. “Don’t the stars say what will be? So how can you change that?”

  “Of course you can change what’s in the stars,” Jack said promptly.

  Belle and Madeleine looked at each other across Jack.

  “That,” Belle said, “is totally inconsistent with your whole world view.”

  “No, it’s not,” Jack said easily. “You’re forgetting how time happens all at once. So if you change things, you change the stars retrospectively. I’ve explained this to you both on multiple occasions.”

  Belle considered this. “I might stop listening sometimes,” she admitted.

  “Me too,” Madeleine agreed. “You’ve gotta take a break from Jack sometimes.”

  There was another pause. Jack sighed philosophically.

  They leaned back on the couch and closed their eyes, all of them watching the image of Belle falling.

  “I’m thinking,” Madeleine said, “if you’ve got all that extra junk in your aura, Belle, you should give some of it to us. Kind of like, share your aura with us.”

  “So we can air it out for you,” Jack said, somewhere towards sleep.

  “Profound,” murmured Belle. “You think my aura’s a cupboard.” She yawned and spoke into the downside of the yawn: “Very nice of you both, thanks, but that’s okay. I don’t want your help. No offence.”

  There was a long quiet.

  Their eyes were closed.

  “Are you in love with the baker?” Madeleine said.

  “Seems unlikely,” Jack put in. “She can’t even remember his name.”

  “But she accepted the sugar mouse from him,” said Madeleine.

  “Well,” Jack began, ready to argue.

  “She’s not in love with him,” Madeleine said, almost talking in her sleep, her words slipping away from her as she spoke. “The sugar mouse was a message to us. So we’d know where to come and get her. She’s lying when she says she doesn’t want our help.”

  Jack chuckled sleepily.

  Belle was silent.

  The music drifted across them. Their heads tilted towards one another, a slowing in their breathing.

  “This music,” Madeleine said, “is not a lie.”

  “That’s the truth,” mumbled Belle.

  “The main thing is not to — don’t just close your eyes — and let yourself —” Jack’s words fell, then he started again. “Except now,” he said. “Now you can.”

  They slept, and the music played on behind their quiet.

  The Royal Youth Alliance had half an hour to get from the White Palace to the airfield, but Princess Ko did not want to leave.

  Her little brother had curled himself into her for the first few minutes, winding his arms tightly around her neck. Then he had sprung away and flown around the room, picking up toys, frogs, games, switching on the TV, switching it off again, turning over his pillows, until a thought had filled his eyes, and the Princess had handed over his blankie. He had exclaimed, buried his face in it, danced with it, then looked up and realized he was in a roomful of strange teenagers, and he’d dropped it casually to the floor and kicked it aside.

  The security guards had been summoned, along with the Prince’s nanny, who lost her voice in her hysteria, and the room had been filled with questions from all directions, about his abduction, and the year he’d spent in the World. He’d ignored all questions and asked his own, specifically about various pets, Palace foods, and then his other sister, Jupiter, his brother, Chyba, and his mother and his father.

  “They’re all in the World,” Princess Ko explained, “but we’re getting them back today and tomorrow.”

  “Starting with King Cetus,” Agent Ramsay reminded her. “Princess, we need to leave at once to make the flight to Ducale.”

  “Where’s Samuel?” someone asked as Samuel crawled back into the room.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “As to a strong coffee,” mumbled Samuel.

  “There might be delays,” Agent Nettles said.
“Word is, there’s a spate of Color attacks across the province.”

  “Across the Kingdom,” Agent Ramsay corrected. “And some have mutated, apparently: sharper version of themselves. Shutters are still working but the protective clothes are useless now. Not strong enough.”

  “Colors,” smiled Prince Tippett, his dark eyes lighting up. “I remember Colors!”

  “Welcome home, kid,” said Keira, sounding wry.

  Then the members of the RYA were running down corridors and leaping aboard the sleigh.

  The sleigh spun to a stop just short of the airfield. Warning bells filled the air.

  “That’s a sixth-level Orange,” shouted the driver, pulling on levers so that shutters flew up, enclosing them in darkness.

  Almost at once, the Orange pinged and clanged against the shutters like raining pebbles or a hailstorm.

  The Princess looked at her watch.

  “Is the plane on the runway?” she shouted, above the noise.

  “Yes.”

  “And the pilot’s aboard, ready to go?”

  “Should be.”

  Outside, the Orange intensified, and they all instinctively flinched, hunching forward.

  The Princess looked at her watch again.

  “We need to risk this,” she yelled.

  “Oh, Princess!” yelped Samuel. “A sixth-level Orange? Isn’t that an Excoriating Orange?”

  “No, Excoriating is seventh-level. This is just Slashing. Won’t kill us. Might hurt a bit.”

  “A lot,” corrected Agent Ramsay. “But she’s right. If we don’t go now, we miss our chance. Open the shutters.”

  The driver chuckled. “You haven’t even got your protective gear on,” he said.

  “I command you to open the shutters,” the Princess shouted. “Gear won’t help if it’s sharpened anyway. We’ll just run. Be ready,” she told the others.

  The driver looked at her, amazed, then shrugged and pulled another lever.

  The shutters swung back.

  At once, the sky crashed down on them, tiny pellets of Orange, sharp as razors, slicing at their faces, striking their shoulders, arms, coats, gloves, legs.

  They stumbled from the sleigh, and ran, slipping, dropping their bags, and fumbling their way to the fixed wing.

  The pilot threw open the door, dragged them inside, and slammed the shutters closed again.

  “You’re mad,” he said.

  “You can fly in this?” the Princess said. She pulled off her gloves and touched her face, then glanced, surprised, at the blood smears on her hands.

  “Shutters on fixed wings are transparent,” the pilot said. “So I can. But I still think you’re mad.”

  The Princess looked at him.

  “With respect,” he added.

  The flight was almost silent, except for the sounds of scissors cutting bandages, the lid of the first aid box opening and closing, disinfectant being poured into basins.

  Samuel’s right eyelid had been cut open; there was a fine line of blood from Keira’s chin to her collarbone. The agents dabbed cloths at each other’s cheeks and noses. Mostly, the Oranges had not penetrated their clothes, only ripping the material here and there, and bruising the flesh, but Sergio’s jeans were threadbare, and his legs were crisscrossed with nicks.

  The pilot turned back and called to them: “There are reports of Color attacks everywhere. Charcoal Gray covering Brighton. Lemon Yellow in Northbridge. I need to detour around Melphintown. Okay?”

  “Whatever,” the Princess said, pressing her palm hard against the wound on her cheek. “Just get us there.”

  Twenty minutes later, the pilot called again.

  “We can land at Ducale,” he said. “But you won’t be able to disembark. They’ve got a Magenta.”

  The fixed wing circled a few times, then lined up to land.

  Samuel moaned. He had reclined his chair to almost horizontal, and was lying back, his hands over his face.

  “You have to put your seat up when we land,” the Princess snapped.

  Samuel ignored her.

  The fixed wing bumped and thudded onto the runway.

  There was another silence. The window glass seemed to have a deep pink coating.

  “The Magenta,” Agent Nettles said, amazed. “It’s everywhere.”

  Abruptly, the Princess unbuckled herself and stood.

  “We need to go,” she said.

  Both agents unbuckled too.

  “We survived the Orange,” Agent Ramsay said. “We can cope with this.”

  Everybody stood, and there was a slow staggering down the aisle. Samuel stumbled, fell against a seat, then dragged himself upright again.

  “Seriously,” complained the Princess. “What’s wrong with you, Samuel?”

  Blood leaked from underneath the bandage on the Princess’s cheek.

  “You need to get that stitched up,” Keira said. “And, Princess?”

  “Open the door,” the Princess commanded.

  “You’re out of your mind,” the pilot replied. “With respect.”

  “Princess?” Keira repeated. “Listen. All the letters that you’ve written to your father in the World: Has he answered a single one?”

  The Princess ignored her, fixing her glower on the pilot.

  “He hasn’t, has he?” she persisted. “You think maybe Samuel might be right? That your dad has forgotten who he is, and letters won’t make a difference? In which case, he won’t be at the crossover point? So this is all for nothing.”

  “I think Samuel is right on this one,” Samuel murmured faintly.

  The two agents pushed to the front, and turned to address the group.

  “A Magenta will give you the mother of all headaches,” Agent Nettles said. “If flecks get in your eyes, they stay for good: chronic headache and permanently bloodshot eyes. In other words, a permanent hangover. So if anyone prefers to stay here, do.” Her gaze drifted over the group. “But we need you, Keira. To see the crack and unseal it.” She touched the pilot’s shoulder. “Open the door.”

  The pilot sighed, leaned across, and rested his hand on the door. “Welcome to Ducale. Enjoy your stay. Kindly disembark at lightning speed!” Then he threw it open, bellowing, “Go! Go! Go!” before slamming it behind them.

  They stopped on the runway, and stood in a huddled group.

  It was empty and silent. The Magenta misted damply around them.

  It seemed harmless enough.

  Nearby the aerodrome hummed behind its shutters.

  “Run,” Agent Nettles ordered.

  They jogged around abandoned luggage trolleys, past empty trucks, past the side of the aerodrome building to the street, where they slowed and stopped.

  The street was silent too. Empty cars stood about at odd angles. A half-open suitcase lay on the sidewalk. An ice cream melted in the gutter.

  “They didn’t have much warning of this one,” Agent Ramsay observed.

  The Magenta’s deep pink haze gave everything a dreamy prettiness. Its touch against their skin was light and soothing.

  “How do we get to the Sandringham Convention Center?” Princess Ko asked. “I guess the limousine’s not coming. Should we just borrow a car? I think —”

  The headache got them all at once. It was like being kicked repeatedly in the forehead, while fists beat at the insides of their skulls, trying to shove out their eyeballs.

  It was like discordant, high-pitched feedback from a microphone while cigarette lighters set flash fires in their brains.

  “We need to go,” Keira moaned. “I’ll hot-wire a car. Get up, Samuel.”

  Samuel was on his hands and knees, swinging his head wildly like a dog under a hose.

  “I can’t,” he cried, hysterical. “I’m going to throw up in this mud.”

  “Come on!” Princess Ko staggered toward an abandoned car. “If we stay any longer — mud? What mud?”

  They looked down, squinting through the pain, which intensified now in their confusion. The
ground beneath them was a rich red-brown — polished like wet mud, but dry and hard. This substance ran across the pavement and curled up the side of the aerodrome building. In the other direction, it covered the street and opposite pavement, running up the sides of shops there. About a block away, they could see where the edges met regular asphalt.

  “That wasn’t there a moment ago,” Sergio said, mystified.

  “Why would they have mud here?”

  “This isn’t mud,” Keira said abruptly. “It’s a Clay Brown. We’re standing on a Clay Brown. In less than five minutes we’ll all be dead.” She laughed aloud.

  Maximillian Reisman is having an existential crisis.

  His apartment is crowded with friends. It’s a warm fall afternoon. There’s a plate of crackers on the table, spilling at the edges, alongside a tapenade and a smoked-trout dip. There are glasses and bottles on every surface. Music is playing. Conversation and laughter are swaying.

  He opens a window and wonders what he’s doing here.

  His existential crisis has narrow boundaries: Specifically, he’s wondering why he’s here in Montreal.

  Why did he leave his band, his wife, his children, his life in Europe?

  Two daughters. Two sons. What was he thinking?

  He looks at his watch. It’s ten to two. At two, he’s supposed to be at the corner of St-Catherine and St-Denis for the “crossover.” For a moment, in the night, he’d considered going there. To confront whoever was behind this, and give them a taste of his right hook. But when he woke this morning, he remembered that he didn’t really have a right hook. He’d never punched a person in his life. He’d always got along with people. He liked people. He liked to chat with them and have a drink.

  So he’d invited the office over for drinks instead.

  He tips back his whisky.

  Montreal is great. That’s why he’s here. He likes ice hockey. He likes poutine. He likes how Montrealers call convenience stores deps and blueberries bluets.

  Down below, an SUV pulls up at the curb. A couple gets out and begins to argue, in English, about the parking signs. That’s another thing he likes. The complicated parking rules in Montreal.

  “You can’t park there,” he calls down now. “You’ll get a ticket.”