The Tree of Story (18 page)

The driver’s tattooed head appeared over the side of the caravan.

“We’d have a word with you young folks,” he said sullenly, as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Just the two of you. Keep the beast away.”

Will exchanged a glance with Rowen.

“We should speak with them at least,” Rowen said. “We need to find out where we are.”

“They are afraid of us, Will Lightfoot,” Shade said. “They do not mean us harm, but they may strike out of fear.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s you they’re afraid of. And Shade …”

“I know, Will Lightfoot. I will not speak. There will be fewer questions that way.”

Will and Rowen left Shade by the wall and walked along the side of the caravan to the front. Will made sure he stopped in a spot where he and the wolf could still see each other. The man hunched in the caravan doorway still clutched the cudgel as if ready to use it.

“So where might you three be headed?” the driver said.

As an attempt to sound friendly it was not convincing. Will
studied the man. The dark blue tattoos on his bald head appeared to be ornate letters, but Will could not read them. The vest he wore, embroidered all over with a bright floral pattern in yellow and silver, was at odds with his stiff, guarded manner. A dull, dinted sword was slung through his belt, along with two smaller, unsheathed knives. The other man, who was much larger but clearly the younger of the two, gaped slack jawed at Rowen and Will. The woman’s sunken, staring eyes, Will noticed with unease, were fixed on Rowen.

“We’re looking for friends of ours,” Rowen said. “We think they may have come this way.”

“Odd place to be looking for friends,” the driver said. He was younger than Will had thought at first, probably not much older than Finn Madoc, but he had a thin, rasping voice that did not carry well.

“Why is that?” Rowen asked. “We’re not from here.”

“No one is,” the driver said with an edge of bitterness in his voice. “Tell us about your friends. Maybe we’ve seen them.”

“They’re travellers like us. They live in tents and pavilions. They have horses. Have you seen anyone like that?”

The driver exchanged a look with the woman. Her bony fingers plucked at his sleeve, setting the bracelets on her wrist jingling, but he shrugged her off. Clearly she wanted something from Will and Rowen, but he was not of the same mind.

“We’re going to a place where folk live mostly in tents,” the driver said at last. “A big camp on the outskirts of the city. There are horses there, too. A few, anyhow, most of them like this one—not much good anymore. Nothing worth stealing, either. But it’s a big place, with folk from all over coming and going. Maybe your friends are there.”

“Is the camp far from here?” Rowen asked.

“Not far,” the woman said to her eagerly. “We’ve been out gathering things we need and we’re going back now.”

From the look of all the worn and beat-up objects hanging off the sides of the caravan, Will guessed that they had been scavenging for whatever they could find. Will glanced at the younger man’s bare, muscular arms and understood that he served as the protection for the other two, just as Shade did for Rowen and him.

There was something else about these people, something that struck him as strangely familiar. The driver’s gaudy vest, his tattoos and phony-looking sword, the woman’s once-elegant but now-faded dress and her bracelets, so out of place on her bony wrists. Costumes, he suddenly realized. The hulking younger man with the cudgel could be a strongman. The woman would easily pass as a fortune teller. The driver might have been a sword swallower or knife thrower. They were dressed like performers from some shabby circus of long ago. They were sideshow people.

“It’s not far,” the woman repeated. “Lots of people. Good people. It’s safe there.”

“The thing is,” Rowen said, “we’ve come a long way and we’re not sure just where we are. What city is that over there?”

“If it has a name, we don’t know it,” the driver said. “We don’t go there. No one from the camp does. It’s … not a good place to be.”

“Why is that?” Will asked.

“People who go there don’t come back,” the driver said.

Will wanted to ask if they had heard the name of his town, or any place that he knew of in his own world, but before he could speak, Rowen said, “Will you show us the way to the camp? All we want is to look for our friends.”

“My sons and I will show you the way,” the woman said.

The driver glared at her but nodded. “You can come with us,” he said grudgingly, “but I’ll tell you right now your
friend there won’t be welcome.” He nodded at Shade, who hadn’t moved from where he stood.

“He won’t harm people unless they try to harm us first,” Rowen said sharply. “If the people at this camp are peaceful, they’ll have no trouble from him or us.”

The driver did not appear convinced, but he had clearly given in to the woman’s wishes.

“Just make sure the beast keeps his distance.”

“There’s food where we’re going,” the woman said. As if to sweeten her words, she managed a strained smile, showing many gaps between nubs of yellowed teeth. “There’s no need to be afraid. It’s safe at the camp.”

She held out a hand for Rowen to take, to climb up on the seat.

“There’s room, girl—you don’t have to walk. Vardo will stay in the back. He won’t hurt you. He wouldn’t hurt anyone ’less we told him to.” She gestured to the red-haired young man, whose dull gaze passed from the woman to Rowen and back again.

Rowen shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said. “We can keep up.”

The woman shrugged, but Will could see she was stung by the rebuff.

“Suit yourself,” she said offhandedly, then turned to the red-haired young man, who was still hunched in the caravan doorway. “Vardo, it’s all right. These children won’t hurt us.”

The red-haired young man set down his cudgel obediently but remained in the doorway.

“Very well, then, let’s get moving,” the driver said with a nervous glance at the close walls of the cutting. He gave the reins a flick and shouted a loud
yah
and the horse lurched into motion again. The caravan started off with a clatter. Will and Rowen began to walk after it and Shade joined them.

“These people are strange,” Rowen said in an undertone to Will as they hurried along beside the caravan. “That woman won’t stop looking at me. I think there’s something wrong with her.”

Will quickly told her of his guess that they were circus folk. She had not heard the expression before, but when he described what he meant, she nodded eagerly.

“Travelling carnivals like that sometimes come to Fable,” she said. “With clowns and tumblers. But these people don’t seem very”—she searched for the right word—“merry.”

“We don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to,” Will said.

After a long pause, Rowen said, “No, let’s keep going. Shade’s right, I’m sure. They don’t mean any harm. I think it’s safe to trust them.”

The horse walked very slowly now as it climbed the rising road on the far side of the cutting. Rowen and Will were able to keep up alongside. The driver ignored them, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, but the woman, who was sitting closest to the side of the caravan they were walking on, continued to glance at Rowen with eyes that were full of concern but also a strange intensity that Will found unsettling.

They went on in a tense silence for a while. A brief rain fell out of the churning, restless sky and then quickly drew off, leaving a humid mist behind. The towers of the city loomed closer. Finally the woman seemed unable to contain herself, and she spoke to Rowen.

“What’s your name, child?” she asked.

Rowen glanced at Will, who gave a barely perceptible shrug.

“I’m Rowen. I’m from a place called the Bourne. Have you heard of it?”

“Rowen’s a pretty name,” the woman said. “How did you end up out here? Does your family know where you are?”

“The friends we’re looking for are sometimes called the Fair Folk,” Rowen said. “Or the Tain Shee. Have you ever heard of them?”

The woman gave the driver an odd glance, as if happily surprised, then she turned back to Rowen.

“Fair Folk, yes,” she said with a strange smile.

“You know them?” Rowen exclaimed.

“Yes, yes,” the woman said with matching eagerness. “We’ve heard of them.”

“We think they came this way, but we’re not sure,” Rowen went on. “We’re not really sure where we are at all. Nothing looks familiar to us. What do you call this country?”

“We don’t call it anything,” the woman said. “We’re not from here, either. But if you’re looking for Fair Folk, you’re in luck. That’s us.”

Rowen frowned. “You are not,” she said angrily. “You can’t be. We … we would know it. You would know us.”

“We’re the Fair Folk,” the woman said firmly. “That’s what we’re called. Ain’t we, Vardo?”

The red-haired giant, who had yet to say anything at all, nodded solemnly.

“This caravan has seen better days, it’s true, but it was once part of the Great Travelling Circus of the Plains, and so were we,” the woman said importantly, confirming Will’s guess. “But nobody ever called us that other name you said.
Tain
 …”

“Tain Shee,” Rowen said. “They’re not circus folk.”

The woman shrugged. “There are people from all over at the camp. Some are travelling performers like we was. Some ain’t. Some of them might be your Tain Shee, I suppose. But everyone calls our camp the Fair,” she went on, “because you can trade anything for anything there. And there’s music and magicians and rope walkers.” She shrugged. “So that
makes us the Fair Folk, don’t it? Anyhow, you’ll see when we get there. You’ll see what it’s like, and maybe … maybe you’ll want to stay. That is, if she allows it.”

“
She?”
Rowen asked.

“The Witch,” the woman said, lowering her voice. “We didn’t tell you that before. Maybe we should have. But you needn’t be afraid. The Witch won’t do you no harm if you’re good and don’t do nobody no harm yourself. She watches over everyone in the camp and makes sure nothing bad gets in. She looks after us Fair Folk. She’s our protector.”

“Or our keeper,” the driver muttered.

“None of that now, Arn,” the woman snapped with a sideways scowl at the driver. “We’d be dead or scattered by now if it wasn’t for the Witch. That’s why you should come with us to the camp. It’s the only safe place to be around these parts. There’s bad folk wandering these roads. Robbers. Murderers. And worse things. The Witch will protect you, too, if she decides you can stay.”

“We won’t be staying,” Rowen said.

“Child,” the woman said, shaking her head. “You just don’t know yet. You don’t know how it is. There ain’t nowhere else to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone you meet on these roads is lost. All of us was going someplace else and ended up
here
, instead. Sometimes a few try to find the way home again, but they always return to the camp. It’s like the roads never go nowhere except around in circles.”

Rowen and Will shared a troubled glance.

“Your families must be worried about the both of you,” the woman said. “Did you run away from home?”

“We didn’t run away,” Rowen said. “We meant to come here, to find our friends. Tell us more about this Witch.”

“She sees and knows more than anyone. Maybe she can tell you where your friends might be. If she’ll speak with you, that is. She don’t speak to almost no one. Least that I know of it.”

“And that’s a good thing,” the driver said.

“You shouldn’t be talking like that, Arn,” the woman said with an edge of fear in her voice. “You don’t know she can’t hear you.”

“All the way out here?”

“Even if she can’t, she can tell what’s in someone’s heart. You know that.”

“I do. I’ve seen it. She protects the camp, it’s true, but—”

“But nothing,” the woman snapped. “There ain’t no more to say about it.”

The man shook his head angrily but made no reply.

The news that these people called themselves the Fair Folk gave Will and Rowen much to think about. Did it mean they had lost the Tain Shee entirely and were following a false trail that would lead them nowhere? It seemed there was only one thing to do: keep going and hope to get some answers.

The road crossed a rusting metal bridge over a dried-up stream bed. On the far side the pavement gave way to an uneven track of sand and gravel. The caravan jolted and rocked as it trundled along, the wheels grinding on the rough surface. The noise kept the woman from speaking to Rowen and Will for the time being, though clearly she still wished to. Instead she began to croon a wordless melody that rose and fell along with the rhythmic creaking of the caravan’s wheels. The strongman grinned open-mouthed as she sang.

They crossed a train yard, where the caravan juddered and bounced over rusty rail lines. Brown and dull green train cars decorated with colourful but unreadable graffiti sat here and there on some of the tracks. The air was smoky,
metallic tasting. Not far off rose the skeletal silhouettes of what Will guessed were electrical transmission towers marching off into the distance. Faint but recognizable sounds came to him now, as well: the surf-like roar of traffic, the whoop and wail of sirens, other distant rumbles and hisses of machinery, all of it merging into the background noise of a city, a kind of mechanical breathing so familiar that once you were used to it you didn’t even hear it anymore. Familiar to him, anyhow. He glanced at Rowen and saw concern on her face, and realized that these distant noises were strange and alarming to her.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Where I come from that’s what a city sounds like.”

Yet there were no vehicles on the road and no other people anywhere in sight. Will didn’t know what to make of that. If not for the distant noise of its life, he would have said the city was abandoned.

On the far side of the train yard they came to a chain-link fence. One section had been dismantled or had fallen down, leaving a gap wide enough for the caravan to pass through.

Beyond the fence lay a straight asphalt road lined with squat, windowless buildings. Warehouses or storage sheds of some kind, Will thought, though they looked more like mausoleums in a graveyard.