The Twyning (28 page)

Then she was gone.

I made my way slowly to the mountain and found Malaika, sleeping near to the human.

I told her of what I had heard.

We must have made some kind of noise, because the human stirred and turned in his half sleep. With that movement, everything changed. A stench of anger, fear, blood, and pain seemed to choke me. I was back on the battlefield of yesterday.

For a moment, I was confused. How could the smell of death be upon the boy, Caz’s human?

Then I knew the answer.

He had been there.

. . . that makes it impossible to eat, or to sleep for very long. It is as if all that was alive in me has left, leaving only a walking, breathing corpse.

The last thing I need is to be bothering with rats.

Yet, when I awake that morning, I catch a glimpse of the beast that has been lurking in the undergrowth of the tip with Caz’s pet. After it scuttles away, Malaika moves closer to where I am lying.

She sits in front of my face. We are at the same level, and strangely, it almost feels as if we are equals.

I have seen enough of rats over the past day. I close my eyes. Soon afterward, I feel the animal climbing onto my arm. She settles there while I doze.

When I open my eyes, she is still there. I move my other hand gently and stroke the gray-and-white fur. She turns to face me, staring in that strange, direct way that rats have.

“Poor Malaika.”

I say the words out loud because saying them reminds me of Caz. She would spend hours, her face close to the rat’s. Revealing, she said. It was the kind of tender fancy that made her special to me. I murmur again.

“How can we find her, Malaika?”

The rat moves up my arm until she is standing in front of my face.

On any other morning, I would get up and start my day, but the thought of the great hunt by the river is still with me. I remembered Bill’s face as we picked our way through the bodies.

“A lot of beasts,” he said.

Yes, there were a lot of beasts. I have no wish to see the doctor on this, the day after his great triumph. I have had enough of killing for the moment.

I lie in my blankets, staring into the eyes of a rat. It is better than going to work. I think of Caz.

The rat noses the air in a peculiar fashion. She does it again. Then again. If I didn’t know better, I would think that she is trying to tell me something.

The doctor will soon be wondering where I have gone. He is not a man to rest on his victories. Already, he will be planning the next hunt.

A world without rats. His great dream. All the people he speaks to — the politician, the important men in the council — seem to find it a marvelous idea. I wonder about that. They can be brave and clever creatures sometimes. If they fought yesterday, it was because they were being attacked.

My mind is suddenly filled with the sight of the dogs at work. I groan quietly to myself.

— Do not be sad.

What? Those words enter my head, unbidden. It is as if I am still asleep, in a dream.

— Do not be sad.

I sit up, slightly scared. I am hearing voices now. Being alone is driving me mad.

— It is not you. It is me.

I look down and find myself gazing into the dark eyes of Malaika.

— Me.

She is a charming little thing, so delicate. She moves onto my hand. I raise it slowly. She makes no attempt to escape. She rests on my palm in front of my face.

She stares at me and makes that odd upward movement of her nose once more.

No. It can’t be. That doesn’t happen.

— It does.

Now I am beginning to feel truly scared. I move my hand even closer to my face. Most creatures would show at least a flicker of fear, but this rat actually rests on its haunches, its whiskers quivering.

— Believe it. I can reveal to you and you can reveal to me.

I laugh softly. Revelation! This is true madness. For the game of it, I let my imagination talk to the rat.

— Is this how you talk to each other?

There is a tickling deep within my head, almost like silent laughter.

— Some can reveal strongly; others, more weakly. Yours is so feeble I have to stand close to you.

“No.” I say the word out loud. “I mustn’t go mad. Not now.”

— It is no dream. Reveal to me. You will see.

Enough. I must awake. It is time to bring myself back to the world. I look at the rat and think these words. — Tell me something that my own brain could not bring me.

There is a moment when my head is empty of noise. Then she is back.

— We have heard from Caz.

I start, closing my fingers around the rat. She makes no effort to escape.

— It is true. We have heard from Caz.

The voice in my head is stronger. I have no choice but to answer.

— How? Where is she?

— Efren has heard two words.

— Efren?

— He can hear revelations from far away.

— The two words. What were they?

— Little dancer.

It is at that moment that I begin to believe it. Perhaps Caz was right. We can talk to rats, but only if we listen to them.

There is some bread left from the night before. I scoff it down, leaving a corner for Malaika, and make my way out of the tip.

I walk fast across the city. The world is going to work, but I have no eyes for it.

Little dancer. What does it mean?

I reach the center of the city and turn into the narrow street I last saw in my dream. I knock hard on the door.

Nothing. I bang again.

Two men, passing at the end of the street, stand to watch me for a moment. At any other time I would return to the shadows that are my natural home, but somewhere in the night, I have lost my fear.

Let them beat me. Let them kill me. My little life counts for nothing now that Caz has gone.

One of the men says something to his friend. They both laugh and go on their way.

I crouch beside the keyhole of the door and put my mouth to it.

“Rose!” My voice echoes in the empty street. “Rose! It’s me.”

Silence.

I turn and rest my back and head against the door. I slide downward until I feel the cold pavement beneath me.

After a few moments, the door opens behind me.

I look up. It is the white-faced girl who was there before. Her face, then so sharp and tidy and severe, is now smudged and disordered. Her hair, which was straight and brushed when I last saw her, is like a madwoman’s. Now that she has no makeup, I see that she is barely more than a girl.

Looking down at me, she groans.

“Not you again.”

“I need to see Rose.”

She swears to herself, steps back into the darkness of the house, and makes to close the door. I am too quick for her and push my leg so that, short of breaking it, she is unable to lock me out.

Muttering another oath, she goes inside.

I stand up, push the half-closed door, and walk in.

The room is in utter darkness, with the same heavy smell of scented smoke in the air that for a moment makes my head swim.

Something moves at my feet. It is a man, youngish but with so much hair about him that his face is like a moon on a cloudy night. His eyes are wide and dark, but he seems to be seeing nothing.

With a great effort, he reaches toward the door behind me and slams it shut.

The weak flame of a small candle lights the middle of the room. I see now that there is a sort of big glass pipe there. Sleeping figures are all around me on the floor. The girl who opened the door is sitting on the sofa, her arms around her knees, shivering.

“Rose?” I call out, peering through the gloom.

From a far corner of the room, a figure untangles itself from a heap of bodies. It looks like an older, more wrecked version of Rose.

“Who’s that?”

The voice is hers.

“It’s me. Peter.”

She utters a long moan. “You? What are you doing here?”

“I need to ask you something.”

She lies back against a man who is lying beside her. He is so deep in sleep that he could be dead for all I know.

“You picked your time.”

I walk farther into the room. “It’s about Caz — the girl who’s disappeared.”

“I told you, love. I can’t help you. Lots of girls disappear.”

“Does . . . ?” I hesitate, suddenly feeling stupid. “Do the words ‘little dancer’ mean anything to you?”

“Little dancer.” She closes her eyes. “Little . . . dancer.”

From the floor, an old man sings in a croaky voice. He sounds like a sickly jackdaw.

“She was just a little dancer
,

A sapling in the green
,

The prettiest this romancer

Has ever, ever seen.

She twirled and she . . .”

The song peters out in wheezy coughs. The man farts noisily, then turns over.

“What a lovely old song,” another male voice murmurs.

One of the girls laughs.

“Little dancer,” I repeat. “Could that mean something?”

Rose appears to have fallen asleep.

I look in despair around the room. There must be seven people here, and none of them is in any fit state to help me.

I turn toward the door, picking my way carefully over the bodies on the floor.

My hand is on the door handle when someone speaks.

“Champagne Charlie.”

It is the white-faced girl. She is in the same crouched pose that she has been in since she let me in. She gazes ahead of her as if she is in a trance.

“Knightley.” Her voice is hushed. “Champagne Charlie, they call him.”

The man on the floor begins to sing again.

“Champagne Charlie is my name
,

Champagne Charlie is my name . . .”

He sings the whole song. It is a long time before he is finished.

“Knightley.” Slowly, the girl’s eyes find mine. She frowns, as if an unwelcome thought has entered her head. “Lots of people know Champagne Charlie, but the girls know what he’s like. He’s”— she gives the matter deep thought — “a nasty piece of work.”

“What’s that got to do with Caz?” I ask.

“It’s what he collects,” she says. “Little dancers. That’s what Champagne Charlie really, really likes. Little dancers. They’re his hobby.”

“I don’t understand.”

“ ’Course you don’t.” The girl gives a light, wheezy laugh. “Good thing, too.”

“What happens to the little dancers?”

“Stow it, kid.” Rose speaks up, her eyes still closed. “You’ve lost her, love. If your friend’s with Champagne Charlie, she’s finished.”

“Champagne Charlie is my name . . .”
The man on the floor starts singing again.

“Where does he live, this Mr. Knightley?”

The white-faced girl shrugs. “Search me, love. Somewhere posh. Forget her — that’s my advice.”

The man with all the hair looks up at me. Narrowing his eyes as if trying to remember something of great importance, he opens and closes his mouth silently as if he is dreaming. Eventually, he manages to speak. “Plenty of other fish in the sea.” He laughs, as if he has said the funniest joke ever heard. “Plenty of other fish in the sea.”

. . . on the body of the boy human, the kingdom was calling me back more strongly than ever. I knew now that to stay with Malaika, I would have to betray the citizens who had died.

I loved her, but I could not do that.

For a rat, every defeat brings new strength. In the kingdom, destruction is a passing thing. It is renewal that lasts.

Already citizens would be gathering in the world below. I was a hearer. I had seen the battle. They needed me.

And yet I stayed under the hedge as the sun shone down. Within me, the memory of that human revelation troubled me.

— Little dancer.

I would go home. Malaika had shown me how easy it is to fall under the power of the enemy. Some humans fight with weapons and dogs. Others conquer with gentleness and words.

When the sun was high in the sky, I was ready to leave. The touch-path through the mountain was familiar to me now, and I moved swiftly, knowing I could escape danger even in the daylight.

They were there, Malaika and the boy. He sat, sharpening a stick with the knife that he carried. She slept, her body resting against the side of his leg.