The Tree of Story (19 page)

“Where are all the people?” he wondered aloud to Rowen. “There should be people. Lots of them.”

It was like a derelict neighbourhood in the cities of his own world, Will thought, except for the tall grass growing along the sides of the road. There were even a few stunted trees growing up right out of the pavement in places, as if the city and the natural world had somehow clashed here and neither had given way completely.

By the side of the road ahead, half hidden in the tall grass,
were what looked to Will at first like three large reddish-brown boulders lined up in a row. As he and the caravan got closer, he realized they were cars—or the remains of cars. They were badly rusted, the glass was gone from all the windows and most of their tires were gone. Will saw Rowen’s baffled look and as they passed, he quickly explained what they were.

“They’re sort of like carriages,” he told her. “Like this caravan, except they don’t need a horse to pull them. They have an engine inside that moves them.”

“Engine,” Rowen echoed. “I’ve heard that word before but not for something like this. An engine is something used in war to break down gates or walls …”

Her voice trailed off and a frightened look came into her eyes. Will guessed her thoughts had gone to the same place his had: what was happening in Fable? It was hard to say how much time had gone by while they’d been in the Weaving. For all they knew the armoured fetches were already at the gates of Rowen’s city. Yet here he and Rowen were, following these strange folk through this deserted, nameless land, seemingly no closer to finding the Fair Folk and the way to the Shadow Realm.

The road ended at a high wooden fence plastered with faded posters for music concerts and theatre performances. Beyond the fence rose the abandoned shell of a building. Its windows were devoid of glass, and bits of yellow insulation and tangles of wiring hung from many of them. The road did not really end here, Will saw, but branched now to their left and right. Neither direction appeared any more inviting than the other.

The driver took the caravan to the left and at last they reached a gap in the high fence.

“Here it is,” the woman said. “The Fair.”

Beyond the fence lay an open space, a large square field across which were scattered a motley collection of patched and faded tents, lean-tos and shelters, most made of unmatched scraps of wood and topped with canvas or plastic tarpaulins. There were many people milling about the camp, though, engaged in all sorts of activity: some were tending cooking fires, some hanging washing on lines, others putting up or repairing some of the shelters. A gang of small shrieking children were kicking a ball around on a flat patch of dusty bare earth. There was a garden patch to one side, and geese and chickens in pens, and they could hear the bleating of sheep and the barking of dogs. Around the entire camp ran a fence like the one they had just been following.

Despite the strangeness of the surroundings, Will recognized almost at once what he was seeing. The news at home in his world often showed such places. The Fair was a refugee camp.

But as they passed through the opening in the fence, Will noticed other things that made this unlike any refugee camp he had seen: banners; colourful decorations hung from posts and tent poles; and the way that many of the people were dressed, in bright clothes and hats, as if they were getting ready for some kind of celebration.

At the far end of the camp stood a long platform of painted wood, really the bed of a wagon, Will saw after a moment’s examination, with its wheels removed and replaced by wooden piles. The platform was topped with a curtained wooden frame and at the back hung a dark blue cloth painted with stars. A stage, Will realized.

Beyond the stage and the fence rose a tall building that Will immediately thought would have been an old-fashioned grand hotel in his world, with its stone facade, peaked green roof and gabled windows. The appearance of such a building
here was so unexpected that Will could only think the hotel had been uprooted from some elegant street in another place and time and dropped here by accident.

When the caravan passed through the entrance, a young boy standing nearby shouted what might have been a warning or a greeting, in a language Will didn’t know, and ran off. Other people came out of the tents to see what was going on. At the sight of Will, Rowen and Shade, the people gawked, especially at Shade.

The boy returned with a tall grey-bearded man wearing a sheepskin coat and leading a large black mastiff on a leash. The boy halted some way off from the caravan, but the man strode right up. A knot of smaller children gathered around the boy and curiously eyed the newcomers.

“Who have you brought with you, Arn?” the tall man demanded. The mastiff strained against the leash and growled when it saw Shade.

“It’s all right, Holt,” the driver said. “They’re just looking for friends of theirs.”

“What about the …” the man began. He was apparently about to say
dog
, then he had a closer look at Shade, his eyes narrowing, and he shook his head. “That animal isn’t coming in here.”

“He won’t hurt no one, Holt,” the woman said, rising from the seat. “And you know
she’ll
have them out of here if there’s any trouble. No need to worry yourself. Go back to your workbench.”

The man named Holt studied Will, Rowen and Shade for a long moment, then shrugged.

“Very well,” he said, “but Arn, you’re responsible for them. Don’t forget that.”

He tugged the mastiff’s leash sharply and marched off without another word. The crowd began to clear away and
go back to their own business as Arn brought the caravan to a halt not far from the gate. He and the others climbed down, while Will, Rowen and Shade waited nearby. Some of the children had gone off with the man called Holt, but a few were still milling around, interested more in Shade than anything else. Arn had begun to unhitch the horse, then he paused and shouted at the children to clear off and they finally wandered away.

“These are friends, Hulda,” the woman said to a frightened, ancient-looking face peeping through the flap of the nearest tent.

“Thank you for letting us come with you,” Rowen said. “We’ll leave you be now and go search for our friends.”

The woman turned to Rowen with a beseeching look.

“We’ll be having our dinner soon,” she said. “You should stay. Have something to eat, I mean.” She gestured to a nearby firepit surrounded by crude benches made of split logs. “You can sit there.”

Rowen shook her head. “We really have to go now. It’s a big camp and—”

“Bigger than it appears from here,” the woman agreed quickly. “And you’re both tired from the road. Sit and rest and I’ll get Vardo to fetch the Scholar.” She said the word importantly, like a title. “That’s who you need to see. The Scholar keeps a record of everyone who comes to the camp. He’ll know if your friends are here. Better than wandering around asking everyone questions. Go ahead now. Sit.”

With a droop of her shoulders Rowen gave in and sat down on one of the benches. Will was relieved. He was worn out from the long walk and he knew Rowen was about to drop from weariness, though she was trying not to show it. She met his eyes and he nodded his agreement and sat down beside her. Shade hunkered down close to them.

The woman smiled and spoke to Vardo, who lumbered off down the main thoroughfare of the camp. Then, with another intense look at Rowen, she climbed into the caravan. The driver brought a bundle of thin sticks to the firepit and soon had a crackling fire going. He set a small iron kettle on the grate over the firepit. Shade, as they had agreed when they first met the caravan, sat silently nearby like an obedient dog, ignoring the man’s many nervous glances.

Will had noticed that ever since they’d entered the camp, Rowen had become quiet and withdrawn. Now he saw that she was shaking her head slowly as if to drive away some troubling thought.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“They
were
here,” Rowen said. “The Fair Folk.”

“You’ve seen that?”

“I’m seeing it right now,” Rowen said desperately. “They were here. But it was somewhere else. Or this place was different. I don’t understand.”

“What do you see?”

Before Rowen could answer, the woman reappeared, carrying a big cast-iron pot, which she set beside the kettle on the grate.

“It’s only leftover stew from yesterday,” she said apologetically, “but it’ll fill you up.”

“So you don’t know what this country is called?” Rowen asked her.

“Like I said, if it has a name, we don’t know it. But I don’t think it does, because the Scholar says it’s between places. Or it’s bits and pieces of many different places, all sort of jumbled together somehow. Like a lot of voices all speaking at the same time so you can’t understand what anyone’s saying. It’s a kind of … what does the Scholar call it, Arn?”

“Limbo,” Arn said.

“Yes, limbo,” the woman echoed. “And if there’s a way out, no one’s found it yet.”

“You said you were on your way somewhere else when you ended up here. Where were you going?”

“Away,” the woman said, and now a look of immense sadness fell over her lined features. She seemed suddenly bowed by a great weight.

“Away?” Rowen echoed quietly.

The woman slowly stirred the pot with a wooden spoon. It seemed she wasn’t going to answer Rowen’s question, then finally she spoke.

“Folk never trusted us where we’re from. Never. Oh, they came to our shows, all right, and bought our potions and remedies, but they never trusted us or let us stay for long in their towns. They called us thieves and sorcerers. Then the weather changed. Lots of storms. Too much rain. The crops rotted in the fields and folk went hungry. Some started blaming us, the travelling folk, for what was happening, and that idea caught on quick. One night they came with torches to burn the caravans. Only a few of us got away. Only a few.”

She looked searchingly at Rowen.

“My Hana,” she said. “She had long hair. Not like yours, no. It was dark, dark hair. In curls. Beautiful curls, like mine used to be. But she was about your age, maybe a bit younger. And she was a sharp one. She spoke her mind like you. Didn’t she, Arn?”

The driver, busy brushing down the horse, gave a short, mirthless laugh.

“What happened to her?” Rowen asked.

The woman stared into the fire.

“The ones that came to burn our caravans—they took young girls. They took my Hana.”

“We don’t know that, Mother,” Arn said, and in his voice
they heard a very old argument. “She might’ve got away. She could have escaped.”

“She could have escaped,” the woman echoed without conviction. “But she didn’t leave with us and now we can’t find the way back. We can’t look for her. She might be out there looking for us, too. And we’re here.”

“I’m sorry,” Rowen said.

The woman went back to stirring the pot of stew and said nothing more. No one spoke until Vardo returned, hurrying up the path followed by an old man dressed in what appeared like a dingy suit of armour. As they approached, Will saw that the armour was made of cut sheets of cardboard painted a dull silver and held together with twine. The man had a wispy white goatee and his face was deeply lined, but it was a disguise: he was wearing stage paint and the beard was pasted on. He was actually quite a young man, Will realized.

“This is our Scholar,” the woman said with sudden, feverish enthusiasm. “He’ll be able to tell you about your friends if anyone can.”

“Forgive the attire,” the young man said with a gesture at his costume and an embarrassed smile. His cardboard armour was much creased, Will noticed, and frayed at the edges, as if it had been worn many times. “We’ve been rehearsing for tonight’s performance. I hope you’ll be able to attend. It will be our first ever staging of the famous tale
The Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance
.”

“We’re trying to find the Fair Folk,” Rowen asked. “They’re sometimes called the Tain Shee. We think they came this way. We were told you know everyone in the camp.”

“I am the record keeper, yes, as well as master of the revels,” the Scholar said. His polite, formal way of speaking was at odds with the shabby surroundings, and when he talked, his thin little stage beard twitched up and down.
“I gather the histories and tales of everyone who joins us here, many of which we enact on our stage in the evenings. But no, I have never heard of anyone called the Tain Shee. As for the Fair Folk …”

He gestured to the woman and her son.

“No,” Rowen said. “These are not the folk we’re looking for.”

“Well, then …”

“Is this the Perilous Realm?” Will asked.

The question seemed to baffle the Scholar, as if Will had asked him whether they were on the moon.

“The Perilous Realm? Well, we performed a story about the Perilous Realm once, quite a while ago. About a boy who ran away to that mysterious land and the adventures he had there. But that was just one of the stories we tell here. You see the Fair is a place to trade for what one needs and seek shelter from the dangers of the road, but the truth is it’s the stories everyone really wants, and it is our task to provide them. That’s what they’ve lost, those who find their way here. Their stories. That’s the one thing that gives us common ground. What we’ve lost. Have you heard of
The Tale of One-Armed Lodovic the Fiddler
? Or
Brave Meena and the Hen of Wisdom
?”

Both Will and Rowen shook their heads.

“Of course you haven’t,” the Scholar said. “That’s to be expected. They’re almost forgotten, those stories. They came from places that have been left behind or lost, and all trace of them is likely to vanish forever if we don’t keep them alive.”

“We’re trying to do the same thing,” Rowen said. “It’s why we need to find our friends.”

The Scholar raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

“They’re not here, not unless they have concealed their true identity, though that’s doubtful. We have many performers and stage folk here who play many roles, and the
Witch allows our playing—in fact, I believe there are times when she watches our performances in secret. But sometimes folk come to the Fair, you see, to hide from their crimes or with some wicked intent. They give false names and spin a hard-luck tale to gain admittance, but their goal is theft or worse. And the Witch, well …”