The Cracks in the Kingdom Read online

  There was a basket overloaded with stuffed teddies. There was a rumpled bed covered in toys, as if he’d just been playing there — including a racing car track with a loop that was not properly linked up. You could see exactly where the toy car had crash-landed when it hit the break. You need a hard surface, Elliot thought at the kid, not a mattress, for a racing car track.

  Scattered on the floor were socks, a crumpled undershirt, an inside-out sweater. There were Color combat games, remote-control choppers, Aldhian pirate ships, a souvenir hovering Hideum from Golden Coast, dress-up capes and masks. Also, now that Elliot looked more closely, a whole lot of frogs: ceramic frogs, stuffed frogs, posters depicting species of provincial frogs and toads, a homemade frog mobile. These were hung on walls and wardrobe doors, and pasted to the sides of chests of drawers.

  Elliot remembered that Prince Tippett was known to have a passion for frogs, and it came to him slow and sharp, like someone hanging posters up and adding pins here and here, that a child was missing.

  A little boy. Ko’s brother.

  The pins kept jabbing at him, getting in behind his eyes, his nasal passages, his gums. Had the little boy cried out when he was taken, or just felt confused? Did he have time to speak? Was it somebody he knew? Had they fooled him into thinking they were buddies? Or had they bound him up and knocked him unconscious?

  Right now, that kid was somewhere. Terrified maybe, or tired of being terrified. All these months later, his tears were probably all used up. He might have found a way to enjoy his new life, or he might be dead.

  That was why that stupid brainstorming session had been so bizarre.

  The whole royal family could be dead.

  “This is where he was last seen,” the Princess was saying in her cool guide’s voice. “Housekeeping have not been through: We had to leave it just as it was. Let’s continue the tour.”

  5.

  The next session was the second to last.

  They arrived in turn and made their way to the table carefully, smiling briefly at one another as if they had all recently been battered by a hurricane.

  The exception was Sergio, who strode in, narrowing his eyes at Keira as he swept back his chair. Keira held his gaze. She seemed sad today; the kind of sadness that has settled in, and that makes other people’s narrow eyes irrelevant.

  Princess Ko stood in her usual position at the head.

  Then she surprised them by stepping around the table and taking a seat alongside Elliot.

  “At this session,” she said, from her new position, “we are going to hear from two people. You will know them well by now. Agents Nettles and Ramsay.”

  As she spoke, the security agents stepped away from the wall. It was almost as shocking as if a bookcase had marched toward you, breaking itself into two separate pieces as it did.

  You will know them well by now was overstating things a little. You didn’t usually get to know a bookcase, did you? They dressed identically and seemed completely humorless was about all Elliot had on them.

  He hadn’t even known their names until this moment.

  It turned out that Agent Nettles was the woman, and she was the one who addressed them. While she spoke, Agent Ramsay shadowed her silently, his posture much as if he were still up against the wall. But there was something different about him.

  That’s what it was. He was allowing himself facial expressions.

  His expressions were mostly of an open-necked, shrugging, what’s-to-lose? sort, even when that didn’t particularly match what Agent Nettles was saying. Now and then, he’d switch to a more intense, soulful gaze, and he’d twist his lips, a world of profound thought apparently going on behind his eyes.

  If it was unexpected to be hearing Agent Nettles speak, what she had to say was a kick in the teeth.

  “Okay,” she began. “Cutting to the chase, we have three messages today. Number one: The royal family is NOT missing.”

  Dramatic pause.

  The royal family is not missing? Elliot assumed this was for effect — that she had some point to make — and he waited for the explanation. Predictably, Samuel gasped. “They’re not missing? But that is like to a wonder of —! They’re not — but in that case, why …?” and so forth.

  “As far as the entire Kingdom is concerned,” Agent Nettles qualified, “they are not.”

  There it was.

  “Aaah.” Samuel blew the air out of his cheeks.

  “And that’s how you have to see things too. Tell yourselves that. Believe it. When you go home, convince yourselves — however you do your convincing — meditation, yoga, self-help audios, whatever — but convince yourselves that the royals are fine. Because that’s the impression you must give to every person in your lives. Mothers, fathers, sweethearts. No exception. And if you don’t, we’ll track you down and break your fingers.” She smiled, as if this were a joke, but carried the smile for so long that the joke seemed to turn a corner toward truth.

  Eventually, it ran right into truth. She would break their fingers if they told.

  “The fact is,” she continued, letting go of the complicated smile and picking up her words again, “it’s not your responsibility to find the royal family.” She indicated herself and Agent Ramsay. “It’s ours. And the handful of agents who know about the disappearances. Second.”

  Another pause, and then she said the teeth-kicking thing.

  “We do not believe that the royal family is in the World. That’s one theory, sure, but it’s the theory of some small-town cop who’s as clueless as — well, as a small-town cop.”

  “Hang on.” Elliot could feel his temper, which mostly stayed out of his way, clambering up on him. “You’re talking about Jimmy Hawthorn. He’s Deputy Sheriff in my town, and there is no way in —”

  “I know, I know. You respect him. He’s a genius! He’s got a great reputation with missing persons cases, yada yada yada. But trust me, we have a world more expertise on these issues, and your Jimmy did not have the facts.” She shrugged. “He wasn’t even told that the files he was studying were members of the royal family. Princess Ko believes him. She believes her family has been taken to the World. And, hell, it’s remotely possible. But we are exploring several far more likely options. Anyhow, yada yada. All you need to know is that we’re taking care of this. Your job is to help the Princess follow her chosen path: a path we believe leads nowhere.”

  They all looked at the Princess. She was scratching at a mark on her sleeve, and did not seem remotely bothered.

  Elliot was plenty bothered.

  It was like they’d spent a weekend trying to solve a hornworm infestation in the tomato crop, and turned out the issue was the carrots. What was he even doing here?

  Keira was smirking. Samuel, of course, was openmouthed and aghast, and Sergio’s eyes had narrowed again.

  “You must not,” Agent Nettles went on, shaking her head slowly as if her enunciation was insufficiently emphatic — which, it seemed to Elliot, was not the case — “get in the way of the true investigation. Now, that, in a nutshell, is message number two. Before I move on to three, do you have anything to add, Princess Ko?”

  “No, no.” The Princess twisted her lower lip thoughtfully. “Just, I suppose, everyone should listen to the agents — I trust and respect them completely. I mean, I do believe my family is in the World.” She shrugged. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about Elliot’s suggestion that we go to the Lake of Spells and try to catch a Locator Spell. It might work, and a trip there would be just the thing the Royal Youth Alliance might do, so it’s perfect as a cover.”

  The Princess reached across the table and got herself a mint.

  “We have one more meeting before everyone goes home,” she continued, weighing the mint in the palm of her hand. “I’ll give you the arrangements for the expedition then. Go on, Agent Nettles. You’re doing great.”

  Agent Nettles nodded.

  “Thank you, Princess. And here is the final message.”

 
; Agent Ramsay handed her a stack of thick manila folders. She raised the top folder, then paused for so long that most of them began to frown or fidget.

  During the pause, Elliot studied her. She had thin shoulders, pearl earrings, and a number of pins in her hair. The skin around her lips was dry, and she seemed to have a nervous habit of stretching out her mouth suddenly so that her eyes widened and brows lifted, before just as quickly relaxing both, like a twitch.

  Elliot sighed, bored by her pause. He’d never liked theatrics.

  “THESE!” she shouted suddenly. Naturally, they all jumped, and Elliot felt even more irritated. The agent’s voice lowered. “These are files on each of you.”

  The room straightened up, curious, looking from the folders to Agent Nettles’s face.

  “You may not realize this,” she continued, “but we do not allow people to have access to the Princess without first finding out every single thing we can about them.”

  She slapped the folders onto the table.

  “You,” she said, pointing at Samuel so he flinched. “You live in one of the most Hostile towns in the Kingdom. We’re appalled by your presence here!”

  “But …” Samuel protested, his hands fluttering, his eyes pooling with tears.

  “And you,” she said, next turning to Sergio. “You’re from Maneesh.”

  So that’s what the accent was. Maneesh was a small island nation, adjacent to the Southern Climes. Elliot had never met anyone from there before, and knew almost nothing about the place. Something about civil war, years before? Or a clash with a neighboring kingdom?

  “It’s not clear to me why we should be trusting a foreigner at this time of crisis,” Agent Nettles was saying, her eyes fixed on Sergio, “when every foreign nation must be suspect — no disrespect nor racism intended, yada yada — but more to the point, it’s not at all clear what skills you bring to the table.”

  Sergio looked back at the agent, his face impassive, unreadable. Then he shrugged, ever so slightly and held up his hands, meaning, Elliot guessed: no skills at all.

  She turned to Elliot.

  “As for you,” she said, “we absolutely did not want you. You communicate with the World? You have a contact there? You know about a crack and you have not reported it? These are serious capital offenses, and even the slightest hint that the Princess knew about this would be catastrophic for the royals. So, Elliot Baranski, know this —”

  She leaned forward — again with the dramatic pause. He thought about asking if he could go get a cup of coffee and come back when she was done with it.

  “Know this,” she repeated at last. “The World Severance Unit currently has more manpower, more weaponry than the armies of all the Kingdoms combined. They have crack teams who live, breathe, and dream about locating cracks and killing people who conceal or use them. Yes, that’s what I said. Their preference is to kill, rather than risk losing at trial on a technicality, and they’re adept at finding loopholes to justify homicide. Indeed, if a suspect is classified as a Flagrant Offender, they are legally obliged to execute on sight. They will find you, Elliot. You will, at the very least, be arrested and condemned to death. And when that happens, do you know what the Princess will do? What she must do for the sake of the Kingdom?”

  Another pause, then: “She will wash her hands of you.”

  Ah, what was this, an action thriller? The woman had seen too many movies.

  “Thanks,” Elliot said dryly.

  Agent Nettles was holding up those folders again.

  “If there is even the slightest hint of you kids doing anything that might hurt the Princess or her family,” she said, “we will not hesitate to use this information, and hang you out to dry.”

  At this point, she looked at Keira.

  Keira looked back.

  Neither said a word.

  There was a long silence, and this time it didn’t feel like an effect, it felt like something was creeping slow and steady into the room, climbing up the sides of their chairs.

  Agent Nettles drummed her fingers on the topmost of the folders. She kept right on staring.

  Keira’s eyes dropped.

  “Okay, that’s it for us,” Agent Nettles said.

  She and Agent Ramsay stepped back, resuming their positions.

  1.

  It used to be, the world was a fried egg.

  Madeleine woke.

  The light suggested late morning. She had an odd sense that something important was trying to make its way into her thoughts. Roaming the perimeters of her mind, running its hands along the railings. If she stayed perfectly still — lying on the couch, facing the ceiling — it might edge its way in.

  There was poised suspense. Her eyes flickered, but her breathing was deliberate and slow. She thought of what Belle called “soft focus,” where you look around in an unlooking way — receptive, listening — and she tried to still herself further, listen with her eyes. Let the world in, let herself into herself.

  It was something to do with the thought that had just woken her, she realised:

  It used to be, the world was a fried egg.

  That thought made no sense.

  She was being a half-wit. She shifted, ready to sit up, but then right away lay down again. As if someone had grabbed her shoulders and forced her back.

  All right, she thought, I’ll go along with this. The flat was empty: Her mother had a morning appointment at the hospital, she remembered. So there was nothing stopping Madeleine from staring at the ceiling for a while.

  She tried to return to her trance-like state. She imagined she was a fried egg in a pan. You’d just lie there, wouldn’t you, perfectly still, as a fried egg in a pan. Stray thoughts would weave their way into you.

  Into your yolk.

  She nodded, pleased with the thought. Your yolk could be your soul. This seemed Belle-esque.

  It’d be hot, though. In the pan.

  She changed it to an egg on a plate.

  I am a fried egg on a plate.

  That was no good either.

  She’d get eaten in a moment.

  Ah, she was useless at this. Maybe the idea was to think of nothing at all.

  She’d have to be quick with her nothing thinking, though. She had a lot to do today. There was the French translation, the essay on Macbeth — or anyway, finding her lost copy of Macbeth so she could read it and think about an essay — and she had to buy batteries for the remote, and Clearasil, and she had to take back those biscuits that were past their use-by date. That felt embarrassing, taking them back. They were only a couple of quid, so why not just chuck them out?

  Quid and chuck. Her language seemed to have transformed.

  Anyway, the point was, she and her mum almost never bought biscuits these days. They were a treat, a luxury. And Sainsbury’s should not sell stale luxuries.

  Or were you supposed to check use-by dates yourself? Did everyone else squint closely at the products they picked up from supermarket shelves?

  Her upbringing had left serious gaps. None of her fancy boarding schools or governesses had ever flown her to England for a guided tour of a Sainsbury’s.

  Anyway, the point was — here, she returned to the wandering thought, and addressed it — the point was, she was very busy with schoolwork and shopping today.

  Not to mention finding the royal family of the Kingdom of Cello. Where was she supposed to fit that in?

  Ha-ha. Well, that was a private joke with herself. There wasn’t much she could do about that right now. She was waiting to hear from Elliot when he got back from the Magical somewhere. North. That’s where it was. The meeting with the leftover Princess.

  Belle and Jack had been very enthusiastic about it all for a minute. Jack had even sat down, opened a notebook, and said, “Right, then. So Madeleine’s found herself a kingdom. Nice work, Madeleine. Anyway, as I see it, a kingdom needs its royals. So let’s find them. But how? Go to shopping centres and railway stations and make an announcement: Attention, all
members of the Cello royal family, please report to the stationmaster’s office?”

  “That’d take years,” Belle had reflected. “Longer even.”

  So that had been that. They’d gone to Gardies for burgers instead.

  Still. Even without having to track down a royal family, Madeleine had a lot on today.

  She shifted a bit. The sheet was sliding off the couch, and her T-shirt nightie was riding up, so her back was on the scratchy cushions. She stood and fixed her couch-bed, turned the pillow over, and lay back down.

  Strange, lying in the stillness, staring at the ceiling, while everything was busy being Saturday outside. Even up here in the attic flat she could hear the street noises clearly. Footsteps hurrying past, or running past, and someone shouting, “Come on, then!” and people laughing. Even the laughter was running along. Cars slid by, over and over, each with its own thoughtful, superior drone, rising up and down, definitely busy getting on with things. People pedalled by on bikes, and some of them were brrringing bells. That was sharply busy, to be ringing bells. That was moving around and through, moving people out of the way!

  Something was happening to Madeleine now. She had the sense that her stillness was about to pay off. The thought was going to present itself, and it had taken the form of an egg being cracked against the side of a mixing bowl. Not that motion so much, as the sensation of the egg itself cracking, sliding, glugging out of the freshly broken shell.

  What’s with all the eggs this morning? she thought.

  But she didn’t answer because it had come to her, the meaning of her waking thought: that long ago, everyone had thought that our planet was sitting flat and still. A big fried egg. In the centre of the plate.

  They’d seen the rest of the universe as a sort of children’s mobile, put there to entertain the egg. There’d been a series of rings in the mobile — moon, planets, sun, and stars were all dangling from the rings — and some benevolent giant hand set these all to spinning, gently and harmoniously, while the fried-egg earth sat and watched, feeling chuffed.

  Imagine that, she thought.