The Shadows of Rookhaven, page 1
This one is for Mona, who taught me everything I know about
whispering in the corner at parties. We miss you, Momo.
Contents
Part 1: Billy and the Worms Billy
Part 2: The Misbegotten Mirabelle
Billy
Mirabelle
Piglet
Billy
Mirabelle
Billy
Odd
Billy
Piglet
Billy
Mirabelle
Piglet
Odd
Piglet
Part 3: The Configuration Mirabelle
Billy
Odd
Mirabelle
Piglet
Billy
Odd
Mirabelle
Billy
Odd
Mirabelle
Billy
Odd
Billy
Mirabelle
Odd
Piglet
Mirabelle
Odd
Part 4: Piglet in the World Billy
Mirabelle
Billy
Piglet
Mirabelle
Billy
Piglet
Billy
Mirabelle
Billy
Mirabelle
Piglet
Mirabelle
Odd
Piglet
Part 5: The Pied Raven Mirabelle
Odd
Mirabelle
Billy
Piglet
Mirabelle
Billy
Mirabelle
Piglet
Part 6: The Vulsifier Mirabelle
Billy
Piglet
Mirabelle
Billy
Mirabelle
Piglet
Part 7: Endings Mirabelle
Piglet
Mirabelle
Billy
Mirabelle
Odd
Piglet
Acknowledgements
Billy
‘We loves you, Billy Catchpole. Your mum and dad loves you – you know that, don’t you?’
Billy sat cross-legged in the gloomiest corner of the cellar. Mum, as she liked to be called, was sitting in one of the old, mouldering armchairs he’d rescued from a bombed-out house. Its once-bright floral pattern was faded to a pale yellow and grey.
‘We loves him, don’t we, Dad?’ she said, turning her eyes to the man sitting in the matching chair across from her. The man’s head was tilted upwards. He was clearly distracted, as if not completely present in the room. Billy could see the sharp edge of his Adam’s apple in his scrawny neck. It bobbed up and down as he tried to form words.
‘That’s right, Mum,’ the man said in a hoarse whisper, his white, sightless eyes staring up at the ceiling. ‘We loves him very much. And we loves his little sister too.’
Billy looked over to the corner where Meg was playing with a filthy rag doll. She looked no more than six years old, but appearances were deceptive for their kind. She had likely looked that age for a very long time – certainly from before he’d found her, anyway. Her hair stuck up in dry, jagged clumps and her soft, round face was grimy with dirt, but her eyes shone, and it made Billy’s heart melt to see them.
Mum licked her lips, and the corner of her mouth twitched into a grimace as she tried to form a smile. Billy knew exactly what was coming next, and the thought of it made his stomach flip.
‘You know what I’d like, Dad?’ Mum said.
‘No, what’s that?’ Dad replied.
Billy’s shoulders and neck tightened, as if tensing for a blow.
‘Something nice to eat. A snack, maybe.’
Dad frowned, then his face started to twitch and become more animated. He swung his head round on his stalk-like neck and looked towards Mum.
‘A snack,’ he whimpered, his hands clenching the armrests of his chair.
‘Just . . . just something small,’ said Mum, licking her lips again. She started to drum her bony fingers against the arms of her chair.
‘That’d be nice,’ said Dad, turning hopefully, desperately, in the direction of Billy.
Billy stood up, his eyes going to the book he was holding. It had been nice reading it. It was a book about pirates and treasure on a mysterious island, and it made him feel as if he were there on that island, and not here in the damp and gloom of the cellar with the Catchpoles. The book was written by someone called Robert Louis Stevenson. It was wrapped in a ragged and torn red dust-jacket. There was a pirate on the cover. He held a bloodstained sword and was looking at a smoking ship on the horizon.
‘What would you like?’ Billy sighed, barely able to look at them.
‘Something small,’ wheedled Mum.
‘A snack,’ said Dad.
‘Just a little one.’
‘But warm.’
‘And juicy.’
‘And alive.’
Dad rubbed a hand across his chin in an effort to wipe away a long string of drool that had been slowly dripping down from the corner of his mouth.
Mum leaned her head in Billy’s direction. Her whole spindly body was quivering.
‘What about a nice suckling pig?’ she said, clapping her hands together with glee.
Dad responded with some vigorous nodding.
‘I’ll try,’ said Billy, feeling the great weight of their expectation.
Mum smiled, revealing a mouthful of yellow, sharpened teeth.
Dad looked suddenly crestfallen. ‘But not a dog. I hates dogs. Awful stringy things. Sour-tasting, they are. I hates them,’ he shouted, banging a hand down hard on the arm of his chair.
‘No dogs,’ said Billy.
Dad’s eyes widened. ‘You promises?’
‘I promises,’ said Billy.
Mum clasped her hands under her chin and squealed, her feet tapping the floor with delight. Meg looked up sharply from her doll and frowned at her.
‘We’ll stay in and watch the telly while you go about your business,’ Mum said.
Billy looked at the old television set, which he’d positioned at a point between them. Its screen was caved in, and its casing was scarred and burnt. It too had been salvaged from the ruins of another house in the London streets above.
‘Telly, yes. We’ll watch us some telly before tea,’ Dad murmured, his tongue licking his long incisors, his gaze returning to the ceiling.
Both of them settled back in their chairs, their breath rasping in the gloom as they returned to a state of what looked like semi-hibernation. Billy watched them for a moment. Secretly, he called them the Worms. Years of hiding underground from the sunlight that was fatal to their kind had bleached them both to a deathly pallor. They reminded him of white twisting maggot-like things, blind and panicked, oblivious to the world around them, caring about nothing else but their next meal. Nevertheless, he felt some measure of pity for them. It was hard not to after knowing no other company for so long.
They didn’t speak of their past, but sometimes Billy would catch Dad rambling deliriously in his sleep about being banished by their family for the sin of hunting humans. About having broken something called the Covenant. They’d taken the name Catchpole years ago. Slowly but surely, they’d started to imitate the ways of the people who lived in the world above. The telly had been one way of doing this, the furniture another. Soon he was calling them Mum and Dad. It was easier that way. Easier to pretend that how they lived was normal. He could have left them a long time ago, but he had no one else. He was alone. Even in his first couple of years with the Catchpoles he’d still felt alone, but at least he could imagine he was part of something bigger. A pretend family wasn’t a real family, but pretending was better than nothing.
Meg was the only person in Billy’s dark little world he truly had something in common with. He’d found her hiding in a rubbish tip. One look at her was enough to tell him that she wasn’t human. She, too, had obviously been abandoned. No doubt for the same reasons he had. He’d offered her food, but she clearly had no interest in it, and being in sunlight didn’t seem to affect her either, just as it didn’t affect him, unlike the Catchpoles. He’d taken her home that very night and their ‘family’ had been complete.
Billy went over to Meg and knelt before her. He cupped her face in his hands.
‘You behave now, Meggie. Stay here and look after Mum and Dad. Billy’s going to see if he can get some food for them. I’ll read to you when I get back.’
Meg rubbed her nose vigorously with her hand. Billy smiled at her.
He made his way up the stairs. Every step away from the Catchpoles seemed to make him feel lighter, and yet every step away from Meg almost caused him pain. They were all he had, and the world above wasn’t safe for him. It wasn’t safe for any of them, which is why they’d spent so many years underground.
The Catchpoles had found him years before, in the abandoned ruin of a house destroyed during the Blitz. Like him, they were discovering it was harder to find places to hide, what with all the people seeking shelter from the bombs. Almost anything below ground that could be converted to a shelter had been, which had left their kind scrabbling above in the dark and, in the worst cases, exposed to sunlight.
Some of their kind. Because he really wasn’t exactly one of them, was he? He was what Mum called ‘something else’, just as Meg was. He was different. He could walk around in daylight for one thing, and pass himself off as human.
At least to the untrained eye.
He opened the cellar door just a crack and peered into the scorched shell of the house that sat above them.
Nothing moved, but Billy knew you couldn’t be too careful. He hoisted himself up and over the lip of the opening, and then gently closed the door behind him. He made his way to the back of the house and crept out into the ragged garden.
It was dusk, and the light in the evening sky was a pallid pinkish grey. Billy sniffed the air. It was cold and a little smoky. To his right he heard the human family three doors down chattering among themselves.
Billy made a run for the bin at the end of the garden. He leapt on to the lid, and bounced straight up and over the wall, landing deftly on his feet in the narrow weed-tangled laneway on the other side. He crouched there for a moment, sniffing the air again and listening hard. He could hear the chatter again. A child laughing, a man speaking, someone saying something about it being teatime.
Billy moved swiftly down the laneway to the right, keeping his eyes and ears open. He was walking past the house he’d heard the noise coming from when he felt that familiar tug at his heart. He stopped, and looked at the wooden door that led into their back garden. He heard a child squealing with glee.
Just a minute, he thought. I’ll take just a minute to see. Just a quick look.
Billy put his eye to the knothole in the door. He could see the well-tended garden and in through the window of the sitting room.
The father was standing by an armchair and smiling. He’d obviously just come in from work. He was still wearing his work clothes, a grease-splattered set of brown overalls. The young boy ran into the room like a little blond whirlwind, and his father ruffled his hair. He was followed by an older girl. She looked to be about seven, and seemed a lot quieter than her brother. Their mum was already sitting on the couch, and the children went to sit either side of her.
Billy knew every rhythm of this tradition.
The man leaned down towards the rectangular wooden cabinet with the grey screen inset in its front. This was the fabled family television set. Billy smiled as he remembered the excited shrieks of the two children as their father had lugged it in through their hallway a mere two months ago. It was made of scuffed and battered mahogany and the family seemed to love it.
There was the familiar clunk as a black knob was turned, and a tiny square of light appeared and then expanded to fill the full screen. The screen glowed with a low luminosity, and Billy saw the grey-black figures of two men onstage talking to each other. There was the laughter of what sounded like dozens of people, and the family, all of them sitting together on the couch, laughed along too.
Billy watched for a few moments, noticing their bright, shining eyes, their easy smiles and laughter. His own smile faded as he remembered the cellar and his ‘family’ below and what he had to do. He reluctantly stepped away from the door. He heard the laughter fading behind him as he walked, and felt that familiar sick longing in the pit of his stomach.
He rounded a corner that brought him to the front of the street. A few of the houses were empty shells, but some of them, like the one he’d just been spying on, had people living in them. Billy could see the warm glow of lamps through net curtains, and the telltale flicker of television screens.
He walked with his head down, making sure to avoid any passers-by. The street was almost deserted, but he still didn’t want to catch the eye of anyone. He passed by the Regal cinema. A young man dressed in the buttoned blue tunic, bow tie and pillbox hat of a cinema usher was sweeping the marble steps. He had a cigarette clamped in his mouth and he frowned as he spotted Billy. Billy averted his eyes and quickened his pace.
Billy had been in the Regal several times before, but had never once paid the admission fee. He remembered a Saturday night not long ago when he’d sneaked in and the place had been so packed it had felt fit to burst. A film about a hapless store assistant had been showing. The man in the film wore his cap backwards and was always getting into scrapes and falling over. The laughter was deafening. Tears were streaming down people’s faces. There was a young couple sitting next to him and they were doubled over with laughter. Billy sat back and smiled at the screen, and just for a few moments he pretended the three of them were there together, and that they were a family.
A cold gust of wind rounded the corner and slapped a scrap of newspaper against his shin. Billy brushed it off and kept walking, leaving the Regal behind.
He stopped short as he heard whimpering on the air. Billy closed his eyes and listened hard. There was the rapid, panicked thrumming of a heart nearby. Billy nodded to himself and followed the sounds. The wind shifted slightly and he caught a scent. He quickened his pace.
The sound was coming from a dank alleyway nearby. Billy crept into it, and something flashed in the gloom. He spotted a pair of eyes.
A dog’s eyes.
I hates dogs.
Billy sighed.
It was a skinny-looking terrier, and it was pulling at a bone lying underneath a pile of mulch and soggy paper.
‘All right, boy?’ said Billy.
The dog’s head whipped round. It looked terrified. Billy bent down and held his hand out. ‘All right?’ he said.
The dog eyed him warily, but started to approach him. It looked at him suspiciously for a second, then licked the palm of his hand. Billy smiled.
‘Good boy.’
He could hear Mrs Catchpole’s voice now.
Break its neck, Billy. Snap it like a twig. It won’t feel nothing. It’ll do as a snack. I ain’t picky.
Billy’s smile disappeared. He felt a shiver of disgust. He stood up.
‘Go on, boy, go. There’s a good boy. Run.’
Billy made to step aside, but the dog was trembling now, and it bared its teeth as it started to growl. It was staring at the mouth of the alleyway.
Billy cursed himself for not having paid attention. He should have noticed the alleyway getting darker. Should have smelled the scents.
A net descended on him, and one of the two men who now rushed into the alleyway tried to cinch it tight. Billy could see him grinning. He stopped grinning when Billy punched him. The man fell backwards, choking and clutching his throat. The dog snapped at the man for good measure before it dashed away. Billy had just wrestled the net off himself when the other man swung at him with something heavy and black. Billy ducked, and in the same swift movement reached up and grabbed the man’s hand. For an instant their eyes locked.
Billy squeezed.
Hard.
There was the splinter and crack of finger bones.
The man’s eyes widened and he shrieked in agony. His weapon clattered to the ground. He fell back against the alley wall and slid down it, clutching his mangled hand to his chest.
Billy ran.
He could still hear the choking sounds and the other man howling behind him. He allowed himself a brief smile.
He stopped smiling as soon as he saw two more men burst from cover behind a parked van, and hurtle across the street towards him.
He pivoted on his heel, reached out and grabbed a drainpipe. He swung himself up and scampered skyward, feeling a curious mixture of dread and elation. He reached the eaves of the roof of a tenement building and flipped himself up and on to it, as if he weighed nothing. He heard someone shout, ‘Get it! Get the feral!’ and he was already leaping the space between the building and another one across the alleyway. He felt the rush of wind in his hair.
Something snagged his ankles, and now he found himself tumbling over and over, while the ground rushed up to meet him.
He tried to right himself in order to cushion his fall, but his ankles were tied together with rope, and he could see the wooden balls of a bolas wrapped round his legs.
The ground was wet and hard, and he hit it with a smack. For a moment, the edges of the world burned a vivid white. He couldn’t breathe.
At last, he took in a huge lungful of air. It felt as if a knife had been plunged into his chest.
Then the rage came.
He felt the blood fizz in his veins. His breathing became guttural and the fingers of his hands became elongated and clawed.
Billy sat up and snarled. He worked at the bolas rope, took it off and swung it at one of his attackers, just as the man was about to pounce on him. A ball hit the thug in the side of the head with a loud thok and he flailed backwards into the deserted road.
