Orfeia Read online

  This time she did not stop to look, but quickened her pace and ran faster. The wind was strangely warm, and smelt of sage and samphire, and fallen leaves, and windfall apples, and blackberries. Even the air is different today, thought Fay. It smells of the woods in autumn. I am lost in the wild woods, except that the woods look like London.

  By now she was approaching Euston Road. There, at least, would be people, she thought. But turning onto the carriageway, she saw no sign of life; no traffic; no litter but fallen leaves; not even a single pedestrian. And here, too, was that scent on the wind, that wind that seemed so strangely warm, a scent that reminded her of the woods, a distillation of spices and leaves left to moulder and crumble and rot, and beyond it, the salty tang of the sea. And rolling in the gutter, Fay saw something that looked like a child’s red ball, coming towards her, blown by the wind—

  She stopped to retrieve it. It wasn’t a ball. It was a single, flawless, red rose, tumbled and travelling with the wind. No florist’s bloom, but an old-fashioned rose, packed with scented petals. Fay held it to her face. It smelt of summer and of endings. The wind must have blown it off a bush, in a churchyard, maybe, somewhere on the Euston Road. She tucked it carefully into her backpack, taking care not to crush the petals. Daisy always loved roses, she thought. The scented ones were her favourites. And Fay had always meant to plant a rose bush by her daughter’s grave, but the task of choosing just one had been too much for her. There were so many, their names as enticing as their colours: Albertine; Grand Siècle; Autumn Damask; Madame Alfred Carrière. They sounded like ladies-in-waiting from some old French fairy-tale. But some part of her knew that once she had chosen a rose bush and planted it over Daisy’s grave, she would have taken another step towards saying goodbye for ever. And Fay did not want to say goodbye. Not even with the pain of her loss like a tangle of thorns in her heart, remembering Daisy was all she had, and was better by far than forgetting her.

  Once more she started to run down the road. Home was barely ten minutes away. And however alien London had become, home was still home, and meant safety. Home was where she and Allan had lived, in that little house near King’s Cross with the patchy central heating; home was where Daisy had been conceived; where her childhood room stayed untouched, her toys and dolls all put away, her bed remade and aired every week, with flowers at her bedside. Home was where you went when nothing else in the world made sense, and all you wanted to do was curl up under a blanket and sleep until the stars began to fall and all the world was ashes.

  But when Fay finally got to King’s Cross, it was overgrown with weeds, and brambles grew across the road, and elders from the clock tower. And beyond that, there were no houses at all, except for some dere-lict buildings, roofless and empty and vaulted with trees and spreading Virginia creeper, and buddleia, and sycamore, and creeping scarlet roses.

  London Beyond

  ≈

  ‘For da king o Ferrie we his daert,

  Has pierced your lady to da hert.’

  Child Ballad no. 19: King Orfeo

  One

  For a long time, Fay stared at the forest that had been King’s Cross. Some of the trees looked very old – a hundred and fifty years or more – and there were birds among the branches; magpies and starlings and jackdaws and crows. The wall between what had been York Way and the railway station still stood, although it was pitted and almost obscured under a curtain of creeper, and there was a narrow path running alongside it, leading into the forest.

  Fay had long since ceased to tell herself that she was dreaming. If Daisy could be dead, she thought, then anything was possible. She came closer to the path, which was more like a tunnel overhung with branches and vines and strong brown twists of briar. Some of the briars still bore a few ripening blackberries, although most of the fruit had dried on the branch, and Fay picked and ate them, less out of hunger than out of a strange compulsion. It was enchanted fruit, after all. Perhaps, like the madcap, it opened doors.

  She remembered Alberon’s words to Mabs: We’ll find her again in London Beyond. London Beyond. Was this where he had meant? Whatever had happened, she told herself, Alberon was a part of it. Fay knew she had to find him again.

  She looked into the tunnel of leaves. The path there was small and winding. And yet it looked clear. She was not the first to seek a way through the undergrowth. She looked over her shoulder towards the deserted station, where the clock tower was overgrown with bindweed and roses. On the side of the building, someone had sprayed the phrase: MY PLAID AWAY in a wild, exuberant script. And the clock had stopped at 4.03 – the time at which she had received the call that Daisy had taken her own life—

  What was it Alberon had said? She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King. At the time, Fay had barely heard him; the sight of Daisy asleep in the woods had taken up all her attention. But now his words came back to her like the rose on the wind: She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.

  Nothing you do here can wake her. Why not just nothing can wake her?

  Because things have changed, she told herself. Because the world is different now. Because I stepped on a crack and fell into a realm of magic.

  And at that thought, she stepped onto the path through the wilderness, into London Beyond.

  Two

  A few steps onto the overgrown path, and it was already darker. Thick vegetation surrounded her in every shade of autumn. Light filtered through like stained glass in a narrow chapel of rest, and the wind was like plainsong through the leaves, whispering and calling. There were roses growing up into the canopy over her head: most of them had gone to seed, sending out sprays of rose hips, but there were still some dark-red blooms adding their scent to that of the leaves carpeting the forest floor.

  The roses were barbed with wicked thorns, clutching at Fay’s clothes and hair. And yet the path stayed clear enough, though walled in thickly from both sides, as it led her into the heart of the woods that now grew over Battlebridge. From time to time she could hear birds, or see insects – jewelled beetles and moths – crawling in the undergrowth. Fay remembered how Peronelle and Cobweb and Moth had turned into clouds of butterflies. Where were Alberon and his friends now? Were they the only other people left in this world? And how could she ever find them again in this overgrown version of London?

  And then she heard a sound from afar, like that of a musical instrument. A horn, thought Fay, its mellow tone both sweet and wild. It seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead; beyond the urban forest. She heard it only once, and yet felt strangely drawn to the music. Someone was near. She was not alone. She followed the path towards the sound, quickening her pace as much as the undergrowth allowed and, after a time, emerged into a kind of clearing.

  On one side of the clearing was the wall that ran alongside York Way. She saw a row of arches choked with vegetation, and beyond that the railway; the overhead lines now garlanded with bindweed. Trumpet-shaped flowers and heart-shaped leaves cascaded over signals and points, and there were railway carriages, now covered with moss and hanging vines. On the other side was forest, a little less dense than the patch through which she had crossed, with ruined buildings and ancient trees rising up out of the undergrowth.

  The clearing itself was concrete, broken in many places, with dandelions and buddleia growing out of the cracks. A number of tags and slogans had been spray-painted on the ground, but the colours were old and faded. One read: THE KIDS FROM FAE, and beyond it, on the far side of clearing, lay an enormous tiger.

  For a moment, Fay was pinned to the spot. A wave of adrenalin washed over her, and it was almost more than she could do to stop herself from running. But how could she outrun a tiger? Don’t behave like prey, she thought. Move slowly, with confidence. She wondered whether to turn back into the thicket, but told herself that she would stand more of a chance if she stayed in the open. Besides, she thought, I heard a horn.

  She started to move, very slowly, edging away from th
e tiger. The tiger watched her, motionless, except for the very tip of its tail, which twitched to and fro like the second hand of a watch with a dying battery. It was a very large tiger, radiant with health and life. It looked well-fed. Fay almost laughed. A tiger, here in London?

  But this is London Beyond, she thought. Anything is possible.

  The tiger shifted position. The arc of the tail grew wider. It stretched out a lazy forepaw, extending claws like grappling hooks. Fay was struck by how closely the creature resembled a domestic cat. Daisy always wanted a cat, she thought. Why didn’t we get one? A low vibration reached her ears: the animal was purring.

  Fay quickened her pace a little, heading towards the railway.

  The tiger slowly rose to its feet. Each paw was the size of a footstool, upholstered in autumnal fur. The purr was a less of a sound than a tremor that moved through the concrete, that made the leaves shiver, that froze the sun. And now the tiger began to move, very slowly, towards her. It looked like an illustration in a Victorian children’s book; every whisker perfectly rendered. And yet there was something unreal about it; something she could not identify. Maybe it was the mere fact of its presence, here in the concrete clearing, but Fay could not rid herself of the thought that she’d missed something obvious.

  Fay was sure it could hear the quickening of her heart. Three seconds and the urge to run would be impossible to resist; three seconds and she would be prey, running helplessly from Death—

  And then she saw a little girl standing by the tiger’s side; standing so close that a swipe of a paw might erase her from the world. She looked about seven years old, and was wearing an adult’s overcoat so large that it trailed behind her, the sleeves rolled up so far that her thin brown arms stuck out like twigs. She did not seem at all afraid, and in spite of her own fear, Fay found herself instinctively moving to protect her.

  ‘Turn around slowly,’ she said. ‘Don’t run. Running makes you look like prey.’

  The little girl looked at Fay, and laughed. ‘He won’t hurt you,’ she said. She had the same accent as Alberon and his friends; an accent that might have been regional, but which Fay still could not quite place. She put her hand on the tiger’s flank and the tiger licked it. ‘Look,’ said the child. ‘He won’t hurt us. Come and see.’

  Fay stared at the child and her tiger. The animal’s pads were large enough to cover the whole of the little girl’s head. But the child seemed so certain of herself, one hand in the tiger’s fur, the other extended to welcome Fay. The heavy purring intensified. The whole of the tiger’s flank vibrated softly, like an engine.

  She looks like Daisy, Fay thought. Daisy had been blonde as a child, and this girl was very dark, but her expression was the same mixture of curiosity and sweetness. And yet there was something odd about her; something faintly troubling in the way she she spoke and moved.

  ‘What’s your name?’ said Fay at last.

  The child shook her head. ‘Don’t have one,’ she said.

  ‘Is the tiger… yours?’ asked Fay.

  ‘Of course not,’ said the little girl with reproach. ‘Tigers don’t belong to people. But he is my friend.’

  ‘Oh. What’s his name?’

  ‘Tigers don’t have names,’ she said. ‘They don’t need them. None of us do.’

  ‘Us?’ said Fay.

  ‘The travelling folk.’

  That makes a sort of sense, thought Fay. Alberon and his friends had been travellers, at least of a kind. Perhaps she too was a traveller, caught between the London she knew and this overgrown, empty world. ‘Where are they now, these travelling folk?’

  ‘Everywhere.’ The child made a gesture that took in the sky, the undergrowth, the trees, the broken buildings.

  ‘Surely you don’t live here all alone. Where are your parents?’ said Fay.

  Once more the child made a gesture, part shrug and part dismissal, as if the very idea of having parents was ludicrous. ‘Don’t have ’em. Don’t need ’em.’ She stroked the tiger’s glossy flank. ‘We don’t live like tame folk. We don’t have names, or families. We have fur and wings and teeth. We have roots and branches.’

  ‘So where do you travel to?’ said Fay. ‘And do you know a man called Alberon?’

  The little girl looked incredulous. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ she said. ‘No, he isn’t one of ours. He has more names than the Old Man himself. And he’s nothing but trouble.’

  The tiger gave a low growl, as if in agreement – or warning.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said the little girl. Then, addressing Fay, she said: ‘We like to keep ourselves to ourselves. We don’t get involved with the Silken Folk. You shouldn’t either. They’ll mess with your mind.’ She put her small brown hand on Fay’s arm. ‘You don’t belong here, my Lady,’ she said. ‘Go back before something happens.’

  The tiger’s purring resumed. Its eyes were a deep and luminous gold, flecked with dancing motes of light, and Fay had the strangest impression that it knew what she was thinking. And then, as she looked at the sunlight against the broken concrete, she realized what had troubled her about the little nameless girl. Neither she nor the tiger cast the slightest shadow.

  Three

  When Daisy’s father died, she began to dream of a being called the Shadowless Man. For nearly a year she had dreamed of him; a tall man, pale and all in black, wearing a coat that was lined with eyes that blinked and glittered in the dark. Fay could only speculate on what had summoned the Shadowless Man, but the dreams had stopped when the pavement game had taken over Daisy’s life; only returning nine years later, when the shadow of her depression had begun to creep over everything.

  Of course, there was no such person as the Shadowless Man, Fay had told her. He was a symbol of something else, with his stern pale face and his coat of eyes. And yet, the dreams kept coming, growing ever more potent, ever more real, until the day she ended her life, only to exist in dreams.

  But now dreams and reality seemed to have changed places. London had become the dream, and London Beyond the reality. And here was a child with no shadow, who might cast some light on the mystery.

  ‘I can’t go back. Not yet,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. I know it sounds crazy. I thought she was gone. But I saw her last night, in the bluebell wood, through the cracks in the pavement.’

  And she told the child all she remembered: of Alberon and his group of friends; the madcap; the light through the pavement cracks. She even showed her the red rose that had come to her on the wind, and mentioned the sound of the hunting horn that had led her through the forest.

  The child listened attentively, but showed no surprise at the story. Then she looked at the tiger. ‘Well?’

  The tiger seemed to consider her words. Then it spoke, addressing Fay in a voice which held the hint of a purr: ‘Madcap. That would do it, o Queen. Madcap is what brought you here.’

  She said: ‘Why do people keep calling me that?’

  ‘You’re Queen Orfeia,’ the tiger said. ‘Everyone knows that, Your Majesty.’

  ‘But I’m not a Queen,’ said Fay. ‘And I’ve never been here before in my life. My name is Fay Orr. I’m from London.’

  The tiger made a gesture that was oddly like a shrug. ‘Whoever you were in London, Your Majesty, you’re Queen Orfeia in London Beyond. Your singing is known throughout the Worlds; as clear as the call of the cuckoo.’

  Fay said: ‘I don’t sing any more.’

  ‘That’s very wise,’ said the tiger. ‘And yet you might do well to remember some of the songs of the Nine Worlds. There’s wisdom in an old wives’ tale, and magic in a story.’

  And in a beautiful baritone voice, the tiger began to sing. The words were a little different, but the tune was familiar: it was the same as the song Peronelle had sung to her the previous night; a night that now seemed as far away as Daisy, asleep in the bluebells.

  The elphin knight sits on yon hill,

  Bay, bay, lily bay.

  He blows his ho
rn both loud and shrill,

  My plaid shall not be blown away.

  My plaid away, my plaid away,

  And o’er the hill and far away,

  And far away to Norroway,

  My plaid shall not be blown away.

  Fay wanted to ask all kinds of things: about the song, what a plaid was, and about madcap, and Mabs and Alberon, and why the girl and her tiger seemed so sure she was Queen Orfeia. But all that really mattered, she thought, was Daisy, glimpsed through the pavement crack, and Alberon saying: She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.

  ‘Have you heard of the Hallowe’en King?’ she said.

  The little girl nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He lives far away, on the shore of the river Dream. Some call him Lord Death, the Harlequin, the Erl-King, or the Elphin Knight. Sometimes they call him the Shadowless Man.’

  Fay felt her heart clench like a fist. ‘I need to find him,’ she said. ‘I think he may have taken my daughter.’

  The girl gave her a look combining surprise and pity. ‘People don’t find the Hallowe’en King,’ she said. ‘He finds them. Eventually.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Fay. ‘I’m going to find him. Where is he? Do you know?’

  The tiger yawned, showing a full set of sharp teeth. ‘To reach the Hallowe’en King, Your Majesty, you must go into Nethermost London. But there is no madcap in London Beyond to help you on your journey. It only grows by the shore of Dream, under the cliffs of Damnation. And to travel as far as the court of the King, you’ll have to take the Night Train.’

  ‘The Night Train?’

  ‘You heard its horn.’

  Fay thought back to the sound she had heard; its low and musical command. It made a certain sense, she thought, for there still to be trains in London Beyond. ‘So where do I find the Night Train?’