Tell the Story to Its End (14 page)

I closed my eye, sighed. I thought about my dad, about where he was, about him not being here with me.

‘What do you
want
?' I asked, exhausted. I sat down next to him, the rustle of his wings making my skin shiver. ‘I should tell Mum and Uncle Rob, I should—'

‘No,' he said. I nodded. He was right.

‘You
could
do one thing for me, however.'

‘What?' I asked, almost in tears. Something was wrong, I knew; something was terrible, but it itched in my mind without ever becoming a solid thought. Everything Eren said seemed too important to miss.

‘That book of local stories. The one your
friends
were blabbing about. I want it.'

‘Go and get it, then.'

‘Manners, Oli,' he growled, so low the air seemed to move as he did. I nodded again. ‘Why would I go and get it myself, when you could go and get it for me?'

A tiny half-thought tugged at my mind, but Eren leaned over and pressed one finger to my temple. ‘Do it for me, eh?'

‘I just want to know what you are,' I said in a whisper. He looked at me with pity and patience, a teacher struggling with a slow student.

‘Quite right, too,' he said, and twitched his head towards the ladder. I stood up to leave when he stopped me with an outstretched arm.

‘I'm growing, you know. First the dreams, then the whispers, then the sights and the sounds. Oh, the things I can do when I'm strong, child! You'll get to see such wonders.'

‘Are you
real
?' I said. My mouth was dry. Eren raised his eyebrows and laughed.

‘Think you're mad, do you? You made me up? I don't think so. Here,' he said, moving forwards, ‘how much
proof
do you want?'

He raised one talon, its sharp point glinting in the thin light, and he pulled it across my cheek. I cried out, backing away, a cold-hot pain bursting up where he'd touched me.

‘
Real
enough for you?' he growled. He spat on the floor, shook himself.

‘Kids,' he said. He turned his back on me.

‘That hurt!' I said, holding my cheek. I could feel a thin line of blood.

‘Truth hurts, don't it?' shouted Eren. ‘Am I real, indeed? Boy, I am older than everything you could
dream
of! I am the very essence of stories and you and all your human world are nothing but
mist
, nothing but
vapour
, as far as I'm concerned!'

I clenched my jaw, my fist. ‘You say that,' I said in a quiet, steady voice. ‘But you need me, don't you? You keep on needing me, and the others, to tell you stories!'

Eren turned, very slowly, and his eyes flashed a dangerous red. Something made me step back again. The hair stood up on my neck. I was facing something truly, truly bad. I made myself breathe slowly and stared right back.

‘I'm right, aren't I?' I said. ‘You do need me.'

‘You,' said Eren, ‘are so interesting.'

‘You what?'

He cocked his head. ‘You're so special, Oli. So different. Maybe it's truth that I need you! But did you think that I
waited
for you?'

I stood my ground, watching his eyes, his feet, his shuffling wings.

‘There's darkness and power in you, child,' he said, ‘that call to me like blood in the night. You think you're the only one in this world? Pah! I could hear stories every day for a thousand years if I
wished
it. Your friend, Emma! Isn't
she
fine? Doesn't she know such
lovely
things? But you're better, Oli. You have something rarer. You've got heart. You've got darkness.'

My cheek stung. I touched my fingers to it.

‘Don't ever doubt me,' said Eren. ‘Don't ever think you can wish me away by pretending I'm not real.'

‘What's wrong with Em's stories?' I said.

Eren shook his head. ‘Nothing! Stories are good. Nothing wrong with her, either. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's the things that are wrong that I need. You have that, boy. That magic. That truth. Now,' he said, ‘enough prattle. Enough breath. Tell me a true thing. Tell me a story. Your choice – but tell me something good.'

I blinked, tried to argue, opened my mouth, but something stopped me. If that was what he wanted, I'd show him. I'd show him how good I could be.

‘There … there was a girl,' I said, ‘who was searching for a baker. Every day she rode around, trying to find this one man, 'cause she had heard that he knew a secret. He was a baker for money, but a magician for power, and people said that he had found a way of contacting faeries. The girl only knew two things – that the man was a baker, and that he was her father. It had taken her all her life just to find out that much, but now she was hunting for him, just to know his name, just to see him. One by one she worked her way through all the bakers in a town, and then she moved on. The town she came to next, she thought, might be the one, so she'd never stop until she found him. One day, she was in a new town, to find the next baker on her list. The air in the bakery smelled like it always did – nothing special to her well-accustomed nose. Though the other customers were drooling, the girl had been in a hundred shops before that one, and she was immune, by now, to the temptations of fresh bread or perfect pastries.'

‘This,' said Eren, ‘is not something I ever worry about. You people have weird ideas of hunger.'

‘The girl went to the counter, and asked to meet the master baker. It was always quite easy to get just a quick word, using her pretty looks, or a sad story – or even a lie, if she had to. Finding her dad made it seem OK to bend the rules a bit. In this bakery, the girl asked just to talk to him, and like in so many other places, the staff said it shouldn't be a problem – he was always happy when he baked, and a pretty girl could only improve that. Sure, they said, just through this door, but don't disturb him too much! Lunch orders had to be made. The girl went in to the kitchen, where a man was busy kneading bread. He wore a big white hat, with flour all over his chest, the usual. The girl decided to be blunt. “Excuse me,” she said. He turned around and smiled, waiting to hear what she had to say. “I'm looking for a man who knows the faeries. Is it you?”'

‘Direct, indeed,' said Eren, but he lay back and kept listening. He seemed to enjoy it. I smiled.

‘The man's face turned into a frown. “I'll have none of that monkey business in here, please,” he said. “If you're selling potions, be off. It's an honest business, here.”

‘The girl nodded and apologised, and turned around to leave. The baker frowned again and opened his oven to pull out the rolls. The girl froze, stopped dead in her tracks, and stared at him. “What is that
smell
?” she asked. “It's
amazing
. Like heaven, like every perfect meal I remember as a child, like liquid gold. I've been in every bakery north of this place, and never … never … it's out of this world! It's…”

‘She stopped. When she had said those last words, the baker's face had turned sour and dark. “Go on,” he said, holding a large rolling pin in his hands, and he looked at the girl very strangely.

‘“You … you cook bread beyond anything this side of dreams…” she said. “That bread has been cooked with spices from beyond our world. You
are
him who speaks to faeries. You're the magician.”'

Eren was watching me with a cold, animal hunger. If he had licked his chops I wouldn't have been surprised. As I stopped talking, he only raised his head, just slightly, like an old man being roused from a nap. ‘That's not the end,' he said, no question in his voice, just a distant, icy certainty.

‘I can tell you the rest later,' I said.

‘Oh? Hmm? What's that? Are you out of ideas?'

‘I don't
want
to tell you any more now. I'm going downstairs.'

There was a cold, vicious fury in his words as he spoke next, something ancient and terrible and deathly. ‘Maybe I will tell
you
a story, child, about the boy who played with fire, and then tried to run away. I could tell you how he burned.'

‘Please—'

‘Go, then. But come back. And I want that book, too, the book from that society. Bring it, hmm?'

His face seemed to warp then, pulsing and distorting until he looked almost, just barely, like a cat, purple-black fur and sly slits of eyes.

‘Let's see how thin the curtains are, shall we?' he said, with a lick.

Oily smoke again, thick and heavy, and then nothing. I was alone in the loft, my whole chest beating, thu-thump, thu-thump, as my heart raced and raced.

 

SIXTEEN

‘It's all so good,' says Eren.

‘Hmm?' I feel so dazed. I can't tell if I'm sleeping, if I'm dozing off, if I was ever paying attention. Only when Eren wants me listening, I think. That's the only time I'm wide awake.

‘It's all so good,' he says again. ‘You've got a knack. A skill. You're a natural! Well … you're getting there, with my help.'

‘Thanks,' I mutter. A stupid, thick-lipped thing to say. I'm not thankful. I don't feel anything. ‘A dullness,' I say, out loud.

‘Yes,' he says slowly. ‘It's to be expected. Now! Let's just check. Do you know what a lie is?'

Oh, this again. It doesn't ever bore him.

‘A lie is something that hasn't happened.'

‘And when did it not happen?'

‘Just the once.'

‘And what,' he says, dark voice, dark eyes, dark shadow in my mind, ‘is a story?'

‘Oh, it's everything,' I say, exhausted. I could cry, if I had that much strength.

‘Go on, go on.'

‘They're the truths that didn't have time to happen,' I say. His eyes are wide amber moons in the dusk.

‘You might have got it…!' he says, and there's actually a note of awe in his voice. He's impressed. ‘You might have actually got it. Which means, of course, that I am truly winning.'

I smile, then forget why I'm smiling, so I stop. On and on and on. The moon passes across the sky.

I
WANTED TO
tell someone. Anyone. Mum, Uncle Rob, Bekah, or Em, or Takeru. But I couldn't. I hadn't thought about this, it wasn't something I had worked out was true, like a maths problem or an essay or a riddle. It was something deep and obvious and natural, that I could never tell anyone about Eren, that I could never give a reason not to sleep in the house, in that room …

That night I dreamed again, dreams of a lime-green forest. The trees were tall, silver bark pulled tight across the trunks and ripping like clothes that are too small. The leaves were small and sharp, pointed little streaks of pale green, mint green, and all other greens, making up the sky. The air was yellow with the power of those branches. I walked along a path, or what might have been a path, or the idea of a path. Bracken, brown and coiling, crunched, and something moved underneath. Somewhere behind me laughter rang out. I span around. Nobody was there. I heard it again, high, musical, hard to place. Leaves as bright as tropical frogs danced on a breeze as I searched. Where was it coming from? Somewhere just beyond. Just a little further …

‘A hiding place

You'll never find,

Just stare ahead

And turn behind!'

A tiny, singsong voice spun through the air. A kid? I tried following the noise but nothing made sense. The towering trees were silver and grey.

‘Follow your nose

To find your bread!

Stay on your toes

To keep your head!'

‘Who are you?' I shouted out, and my voice echoed like a dull, forgotten bell.

‘We run and sweep and jump to bite!

We sing and dance and kill and fight!'

‘Where are you? Cowards!' I called. In that moment, something changed. I hadn't realised the woods had been noisy, but suddenly, and completely, everything was silent. Had there been so much noise before? I didn't know, but now there was none, and my own breathing rang in my head like a rattle, every cracked twig became loud to me as a gunshot.

‘You should beware insults, didn't I say?' said the cat, licking its paw absent-mindedly. ‘There are places where they mean a lot more.'

‘You!' There was a name I should remember. Something, someone … something like a bat …

‘Be careful, in the low places, not to insult those you can't see,' he said, and turned away, flicking his tail, and was gone. In the silence, a rustle of bracken echoed over and over. I jerked awake with a dry gasp.

‘Who's there?' I said.

I was in my bedroom. The room was a deep, late-night blue and I rubbed at my eyes to focus.

A faerie tapped on the window.

‘Spices from beyond the world!' he said. ‘Prices from beyond the grave!'

‘Eren,' I said, looking up, looking out at the stars, then at the faerie. He was playing games again.

‘Will ye no' buy some?'

‘What?'

‘Warm those buns, baffle those loaves. Buy my fruits, eh, eh?'

‘What do you want?'

‘There's no telling,' said the faerie, his voice dropping into a growl. ‘Who knows how I end up? Mebbe I just start lashing out.'

‘I don't—'

‘How's it end, eh?'

‘What? End? I—' I stopped, suddenly understanding. Was he serious? Now? I could barely focus enough to talk. How could I finish a story with no ending?

‘Give us a hint, eh?'

‘Fine, fine, just … wait, OK? Wait.'

I took a breath. I opened the window. The night air stung my lungs.

‘The faeries had given the baker their spice on one condition: he had to swear that the spice would never touch his children's blood. Well, he thought he didn't have any children, so he agreed without a second thought. But now, everything changes. He panics. He can't risk his secret being discovered: no one can know he is a magician, he thinks. He has only one choice: to save his secret, he has to kill his own daughter – dead. So he does. A single drop of her blood falls and lands right in the bread dough, a red splash in the white bowl. He loses everything – his spice, his magic, and his daughter. The end.'