Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds Read online

  For Mum and Dad

  ‘One cannot map these hallowed grounds. This is a place between places, and a deadly one at that. Adventurers beware: only the worthy may pass between worlds.’

  – Arundhati Riggs and the Colossal Door

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  THIS IS NOT THE BEGINNING

  THE HIDDEN SYMBOL

  PART ONE

  TWELVE YEARS LATER

  OUTSET SQUARE

  CATCH OF THE DAY

  VOICES IN THE DARK

  THE CAGE AND THE CURATOR

  WORST-CASE SCENARIOS

  THE MANUVIAN KNIFE

  THE MANOR LAMENT

  DUSK

  ROCK AND RUIN

  THE DEPARTURE

  THE MUSEUM OF OTHERWORLDLY ANTIQUITIES

  THE NIGHT OF ALL CATASTROPHES

  HIDDEN THINGS AND PUPPET STRINGS

  THE CATACOMBS

  FIRST INTERLUDE

  THE WORK OF WINIFRED ROBIN

  PART TWO

  THE WONDER BEYOND THE WALL

  THE SKELETON KEY

  THE NIGHTMARE

  THE MAN WITH THE BLACK BAG

  TIN-SKIN TROUBLE

  THE WAY THINGS ARE

  HICKORY’S HIDEOUT

  A DIFFERENT WINDOW

  HUNTED

  THE GRIP

  LEECHWOOD HALLS

  THE FLOWER IN THE DELL

  THE BOUNTY HUNTERS

  THE HALL OF A THOUSAND FACES

  THE PRISON CAMP

  INTO THE GIANT’S MOUTH

  THE GUARDIANS

  THE TRUTH ABOUT JOHN AND ELSA

  THE GATEKEEPER, THE BUILDER AND THE SCRIBE

  THE MAN WITH THE PORCELAIN FACE

  ESCAPE

  A CHANGE OF PLAN

  THE SPIRAL ROAD

  SECOND INTERLUDE

  NOT THE GIRL SHE REMEMBERS

  PART THREE

  WAKING

  THE FATE OF BLUEHAVEN

  BEST-LAID PLANS

  THE GREAT ADVENTURER

  THE CRYSTAL CAVERNS

  A TIGHT SQUEEZE

  UNDERSTANDING WINIFRED

  THE RIVER

  DRIFTING

  OPEN NIGHT AT THE CASKET BUFFET

  THE NEST

  THE SPECTRE

  THE TIDE UNLEASHED

  OTHERWORLD

  THE TRUTH ABOUT JANE

  THIS IS NOT THE END

  GRIM TIDINGS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  THE HIDDEN SYMBOL

  Her lantern chases shadows through the dark. Cobwebs tear at her fingertips; spiders flee. She runs a hand over the stone wall of the tunnel and breathes in deep, savouring the damp, the dirt, the unknown. She has missed this. People call her an old relic, but they are fools. Winifred Robin is one of the Great Adventurers. She may be old, but her story is far from complete. Tonight, something has changed. She intends to find out what, and why.

  Winifred was conducting research down in the catacombs when the quake struck. The ground shook, the scrolls trembled. Candles toppled from the walls, snuffed out. A deep sound rumbled towards her – the echo of breaking stone – but it is not so much what she heard as what she felt moments later that intrigued her. A sinister breath. A breeze.

  It blows towards her now, making the cobwebs dance. She is close.

  There is a chasm around the next bend. A long, black void so thick with thousand-year dark even the lantern light shies away from it. Winifred does not consider turning back, not for a second. This is a woman who has defeated armies, cheated death, battled gods. There are only two things she fears in all the worlds. Heights are not one of them.

  Lantern hooked onto her belt, she climbs around the edge. A rock clatters into the chasm. The darkness takes it. She never hears it land. She swipes away the odd spider as she navigates the wall. Hairy, palm-sized things. The breeze swirls around her from the depths, but she makes it safely to the other side. Straightens her crimson cloak. Chances a smile.

  She proceeds with caution now. The island of Bluehaven is riddled with abandoned mines and passages, but this one has sat here in secret for thousands of years, sealed off from the world. Now, on the second anniversary of the Night of All Catastrophes – two years since the quakes began – it has opened.

  She does not believe in coincidence. She knows secrets are kept for a reason.

  There is a small, rock-hewn chamber at the end of the tunnel. Winifred’s lantern splashes golden light upon the walls when she steps inside. She frowns. There are no chasms in here, no spiders. In fact, there is nothing at all. The chamber is empty.

  She turns on the spot, searching, hoping for a secret passage, another path. Could somebody have been here before her? Climbed up the chasm from a different tunnel?

  The floor is bare. No footprints. No deathly triggers set into the stone. She paces around the chamber, runs a hand over the back wall, and that is when she finds it. A small, faded symbol: rust red, like dried blood. An ancient hieroglyph. A triangle with one inward-curving side, like a ship’s sail or a wave, encased within a circle.

  Incredible. Winifred knows the symbol – has been scouring the Great Library for two years trying to uncover its meaning, and here it is. It has been right under her feet all along, but how? Why?

  The symbol calls to her. Whispers in a foreign, archaic tongue.

  She touches it. The symbol flashes, white and blinding. A phantom gust of wind howls through the chamber, kicking up her cloak, swirling dust. Winifred tries to pull her hand away from the wall, but it is stuck, fixed to the symbol as if seared to a burning hotplate.

  The pain is excruciating. Not in her hand, though.

  In her head.

  Winifred sees things. Flashes before her eyes. A story unravelling in her mind like a book read at speed. But not just a story. This is real – or at least, it will be.

  This is a vision of things to come.

  There is a chase. A cage. A sacrifice. There is a long journey, a trickster and an ally. There are horrors from Winifred’s own past, born from the sands of a distant world, that fill her with a certain cold dread she hasn’t felt in years. There is rock and ruin. Death and destruction. Just as Winifred thinks she can take no more, the phantom wind ceases, the stone in front of her splinters into a thousand cracks, and she is thrown back from the wall. The darkness takes her, too.

  Winifred is not certain how long she is out. By the time she comes to, her lantern has almost burned dry. The dust has settled. The symbol has vanished. She feels strange. Drained of all energy, yet filled with something more. A grim sense of purpose. The vision was a gift, a warning, a set of instructions from the Makers themselves. Winifred has seen, but more than that, she understands. There are things she must do.

  Terrible things.

  This godly gift comes with a price.

  Winifred stands. Holds a scarred, bony hand to the cracked wall. She now knows what lies beyond this stone. A wonder beyond wonders. Her hand trembles. She cannot remember the last time she cried, but she allows herself a moment now. She weeps for the things she has done, for the things she is about to do, and for the long road laid out before her. When she has finished, she clears her throat and straightens her crimson cloak once more.

  Enough. She must leave this place – leave and never return – for the wonder beyond the wall is meant for someone else. This is not Winifred’s story, after all.

  It is Jane Doe’s. The child with the amber eyes.

  TWELVE YEARS LATER

  I’m in trouble again. Occupational hazard when you’re known as the Cursed One, the Unwanted, the Bringer of Bad Juju, a Djinn. Bad wea
ther, spoiled crops, missing pets – I always cop the blame. I don’t have a clue what I’ve done this time. All I know is, Mrs Hollow’s performing another cleansing ritual at the top of the basement stairs, spitting on the landing, flapping a sprig of thyme. Muttering things like ‘repugnant abomination’ and ‘catastrophic blemish of unfathomable proportions’ under her breath.

  Clearly, she’s been looking up big words in the dictionary again. Never a good sign.

  Normally, I’d settle in for the long haul. Sit in the shadows, chew my fingernails, hum a tune. Not today, though.

  Today, I actually have somewhere to be. Today, I have a secret.

  I step into the wedge of light cast by the open door. ‘Um. Mrs Hollow?’

  ‘Shh!’ The woman’s tall and lanky. Twitchy eyes ten sizes too big through her glasses. Basically a six-foot-tall praying mantis on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She pulls half a lemon from the pocket of her apron and squeezes it along the doorframe. ‘Need to focus.’

  ‘Right. The spit-and-twirl. Sorry.’

  Mrs Hollow ditches the lemon and thyme, spits on her hands – ptooey, ptooey – spins in a circle and shouts, ‘Be gone!’ Then she freezes with her hands held high, fingers splayed.

  Nothing happens, of course, but it sure looks impressive.

  ‘Good one,’ I say. ‘Thing is, I’m kinda busting for the loo –’

  ‘Ugh. Damn it.’ Mrs Hollow snaps out of her trance and wipes her hands on her apron, shakes her head. ‘It’s gone. The vibe. You’ve ruined it. I’ll have to start again.’

  ‘Maybe if you just told me what it is you think I’ve done –’

  ‘Not you. Well, not just you. Him too.’ She jabs a finger over at my dad, lying in his little alcove, still awake but calm at last. We live in the basement, see. Rats and all. ‘Keeping us up all night, shrieking like a banshee. We’ve had it! Learn to control him or he’s out.’

  My face flushes red hot. ‘It wasn’t his fault. The quake scared him, is all.’

  ‘The quake you caused, you freaky-eyed little –’

  ‘Beatrice!’ a voice screeches from upstairs. Her husband, Bertram, a little weasel of a man perched semi-permanently at the kitchen table. He hardly ever leaves the kitchen because a) that’s where the food is, and b) he’s terrified – of everything. Germs, animals, pollen, books, simple human contact, me. The man squealed at a coathanger once, I swear. ‘Give her The Speech.’

  Uh-oh. Anything but The Speech. Not now.

  ‘Excellent idea, Honey-Bucket!’ Mrs Hollow stares down at me, suddenly so earnest, so wounded. ‘This is how you repay us, is it? We take you in, purely out of the goodness of our hearts. We feed you. Employ you. Heck, I even bathed you when you were a baby, and all you can do to show your appreciation is keep us up all night? Well, let me tell you something …’

  The woman drawls on, but I learned to ignore her a long time ago.

  Sure, some of it’s true. The Hollows really did take me and Dad in, but only because they drew the short straw. Nobody wanted us after we showed up on Bluehaven, so the town council threw the names of every couple on the island into a barrel and picked the lucky winners. Half an hour later, we were dumped on the Hollows’ doorstep with two chickens and a cow to soften the blow. There’s no ‘goodness’ in their hearts. They have no friends, they pretend Violet – their own daughter – doesn’t exist, and they’ve treated me like a slave for as long as I can remember. I clean the outhouse, do their laundry, collect eggs, milk the cow, shovel crap and mop the floors, all while caring for Dad full-time.

  Jane Doe, Jack-of-all-trades.

  ‘Are you listening, girl? I said that is why you deserve a horrible, lonely death.’

  ‘Oh.’ My turn now. ‘I apologise, Mrs Hollow. You’re absolutely right. I’m a bad seed. Rotten to the core. I promise I’ll try harder in the future. Ma’am.’

  Thankfully, the woman’s never been good at catching sarcasm.

  ‘Good. We’ll be leaving for the festival in a few hours. You know what to do.’

  I nod. ‘Stay here. Stare at the wall. Pray for forgiveness. Same as always.’

  ‘Precisely. The Manor Lament is an important day for us all.’ She jabs a finger at me. ‘Don’t ruin it! With any luck, the Makers will grant us mercy this year,’ she adds, meaning with any luck I’ll be struck by lightning, attacked by rabid dogs or stung to death by bees.

  ‘We can only hope,’ I say, but I’m pushing it.

  Mrs Hollow frowns at me, then nods at Dad. ‘Keep. Him. Quiet.’ And with that, she steps back and slams the door.

  ‘Finally,’ I mutter.

  I skirt round my raggedy mattress on the floor and duck into Dad’s alcove, squeeze alongside his bed. He barely slept at all last night, thanks to the quake. Tossed and screamed, sweated through his sheets. Just like the quakes, his outbursts have been getting worse lately. More intense. Almost violent. Now his big brown eyes are glazed again, fixed in that thousand-yard stare. Most people would see an empty shell of a man, but I know better. The slight crease in his brow. The tremble in his hands. I know he’s in there somewhere, and he’s scared.

  He wants me to stay.

  ‘Thought she’d never leave,’ I say, forcing a smile. ‘You doin’ okay?’

  He doesn’t answer, of course. I’ve never actually heard him talk, not once.

  Caring for Dad’s the one chore I like. It’s hard work. Beyond sad. I have no idea what kind of nightmare he’s stuck in, and I gave up trying to guess a long time ago. Sure, he can stand and walk if I help him. A slow two-step shuffle. He can drink and chew and swallow, use the toilet in the corner, but that’s pretty much it. He can’t talk. Can’t laugh. Can’t hug me. I can’t play games with him or take him outside. Worst of all, I can’t make him better. All I can do is plump pillows, tuck blankets, spoon soup, tear bread, brush teeth, wash hair, trim fingernails, and ask myself the same old questions that have drifted into my head for years: What was he like before he got sick? What’s his real name? When did his hair turn this premature, smoky grey? What were his favourite foods, colours, seasons and songs? And the bigger questions: Where did we come from? What was my mum like? What’s her name? Does she have eyes like mine? Is she out there somewhere, waiting for us on the Other Side? Why isn’t she here with us now? In short, what really happened the night we came to Bluehaven?

  I know Dad has all the answers – he must – but they’re trapped inside him, like scuttling bugs in a jar. All I can do is imagine. Some days it drives me mad, but I love him, simple as that, which means I wouldn’t have things any other way. Sure, I wish he’d snap out of it and steal me away from this place, but wishes are dangerous, distracting things. This is our life. Always has been, probably always will be. At least, that’s what I used to believe.

  Now I’m not so sure.

  I woke at dawn to a quick rat-a-tat. Wiped the drool from my chin and the sleep from my eyes just in time to see a note slip through the crack in the tiny basement window. Not just any note, though. An old photograph. A picture of Dad, sleeping in a chair in a grand, sepia-toned study: still sick, I think, but slightly younger, his face less lined. I felt like I’d swallowed an anvil. I’d never seen a photo of him before. I dragged a crate under the window and stood on my tiptoes, desperate to see who left it, but they’d gone. I held up the photo to the milky light and that’s when I noticed the message on the other side.

  My place. White Rock Cove. 10am. Come alone if you want answers – E. Atlas

  Eric Atlas. It didn’t make any sense. Still doesn’t. Bluehaven’s illustrious new mayor skulking around town at dawn, sneaking messages through windows? The guy was here in the house just a few weeks ago. I didn’t see him, of course, but I could hear him through the basement door. The heavy boots. The gravelly voice. He said he was checking up on the Hollows, sat in the kitchen for an hour while they listed their grievances, so why all the secrecy now? Why today? I paced and pondered, scratched my head. Debriefed, plotted and planned with
Violet when she sneaked down to say hi before her parents woke up.

  ‘You have to go,’ she said. ‘It could be a trick, but you have to go.’

  And she was right. It probably is a trick. A ploy to lure me out into the open. Festival shenanigans or something, I dunno. But I have to go. I have to risk it, have to know.

  This feeling doesn’t come along every day, the feeling that everything could change.

  I pluck the crumpled photo from under Dad’s pillow. Best hiding place in the basement. Dad has a blanket tucked over his legs in the photo, and there’s a desk beside him. A fireplace, too. Behind him, a cabinet stocked with books, weapons and vases. It sure as hell wasn’t taken in the Hollows’ place, so where was it taken? And when?

  Dad’s breath quickens. I hold his hand, give it a squeeze.

  ‘Don’t sweat it, Johnny-boy. I’ll be back before you know it.’

  I need to hurry. The old clock on the wall says it’s almost nine-thirty, which means Violet’s signal should come any moment. Just a diversion, I told her. Nothing crazy. Don’t blow anything up. She promised, crossed her heart and all, but I saw the glint in her eyes.

  I tie my hair back – long, dark, so knotted I swear it’d snap a comb – then shove the photo into my pocket and kiss Dad on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll fix you something to eat later on, okay?’

  I turn away, don’t look back. Leaving him alone is hard enough as it is.

  There was a time when I could squeeze through the basement window, but those days are long gone, so I grab my cloak and creep up the basement stairs. The Hollows won’t lock the door till they leave, so getting out’s no problem. Even so, I sit tight a moment, breath held.

  Then it happens.

  There’s a sharp crack. Somewhere out back, I think. Mrs Hollow yells, ‘Not again! The bucket, Bertram, where’s the bucket? Violet! You get back here now!’

  I smile.

  The girl’s incorrigible. Eight years old and already a pyromaniac.

  The back door screeches open, which means it’s time to move. I step out into the hallway, ease the basement door shut, and sneak down to the front door as quickly and quietly as I can, doing my best, as always, to ignore the Three Laws hanging above it, framed and embroidered, covered in a fine film of dust. Standard in every house on Bluehaven.