Unwritten Books 2 - Fathom Five (15 page)
His knees buckled.
Then he heard footsteps in the hall, and the effect disappeared. “Peter?” Fiona’s voice.
He looked around frantically. “Quick! Hide!”
Rosemary stared at him. She didn’t move. “What are you talking about?”
“They can’t find you here!” Fear for Rosemary clutched his throat, though he couldn’t figure out why.
“Hide in the closet! In the closet!” He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her across the room.
“Let go of me!” Rosemary punched him so hard he was still retching when the door burst open.
Fiona stood in the doorway, trident in her hand, her mother and Ariel behind her. She took in the sight of Peter on his knees, and Rosemary standing, fists raised, in the middle of the room. She focussed on Rosemary, and her gaze grew dark. “You!”
“She’s my friend, Fiona,” Peter gasped.
Fiona hoisted her trident at Rosemary. The shaft gleamed. “I’m warning you, don’t interfere!”
“Fiona!” Peter wheezed.
“Some welcoming party, Peter,” said Rosemary, backing away.
“Fiona, what are you doing?” Peter scrambled to his feet and grabbed Fiona’s trident. There was a sizzling sound and he cried out. The shaft left a red mark across both palms.
“Peter!” both women cried. Fiona dropped her trident and rushed for the shocked boy, arriving a split second after Rosemary. She pushed Rosemary aside, but Rosemary resisted.
Peter looked up from his hands, and shook his head blearily. Fiona wavered in front of him. Her skin flickered green and he saw the ghost of fins on her arms. “What?” he mumbled, as though waking from a dream. “Who … Ariel?”
Fiona’s image solidified. Rosemary pulled hard at Fiona’s hair. Fiona had her hand around Rosemary’s throat.
“Stop fighting,” he gasped. Then he shouldered between them. “Fiona, stop it!” he yelled. “Rosemary is my friend; stop fighting!”
Both women glared at each other. Then Fiona relented. “I am sorry, Peter. I was taken by surprise. Do your hands hurt?” She reached for him … but for his eyes, not his hands.
“Hey!” Rosemary shouted.
Fiona touched Peter’s brow. He fell to his knees.
Dimly, he could hear Rosemary screaming. “What did you do to him?”
“Take her away! We can decide what to do with her next council meeting!” Did Fiona say this?
More people were rushing into his room.
“Intruder!” Eleanna shouted. “She attacked Peter!”
“No, I didn’t!” Rosemary yelled.
Fiona lowered him to the bed. Yes, sleep seemed just the thing for him, now.
“Peter!” Rosemary cried. “Peter!”
He felt that he should care. He felt it strange that he could not.
“Peter!”
He slipped into a deep sleep, and Fiona dominated his dreams.
P
eter struggled awake and rolled out of his canoe-bed. “I mustn’t sleep,” he gasped. “Mustn’t sleep!”
He sat up, rubbing his eyes in confusion. Why mustn’t he sleep?
All at once, the answer came to him.
“Rosemary!”
He scrambled up and looked around the room. He was alone. Bringing his breathing under control, he stepped to the door and opened it a crack. He heard voices outside.
“That woman!” Fiona stormed. “She’ll ruin everything! I could have ripped her to shreds where she stood!” “That was her,” said another voice, soft and lilting, but full of fear. “Darius and I saw her on the edge of our world. She is a songbreaker, Fionarra! She robbed me of my second with just one word from her lips.”
Fiona hissed. “A songbreaker! And to think I just left her out there. But she could not have got in here without help. Someone must have pulled her in, Loria.”
“Merius?” said Loria.
“Merius. He’d do anything to embarrass me before the council. He might even be stupid enough to bring a songbreaker amongst us. Wait till Eleanna hears this.
Yes, she
will
hear of this.”
“But what about the songbreaker?”
“Does anybody else know what she is?” asked Fiona.
“No, only Darius and I saw her powers.”
“Then do not talk about her to anyone else.”
“But —”
“We must not cause a panic. At least not until I can be sure that Merius is behind this. Then I will expose his treachery.”
“Is your rivalry with Merius all you can think of? We have a songbreaker in the village! We have to make her leave. If she is linked with Peter, then perhaps —”
“No.”
“But —”
“No! I will
not
send Peter away after all that I’ve risked. Peter belongs here!”
Peter shut the door quickly but quietly. He had to think, and to do that, he didn’t want to hear Fiona’s voice, even in the next room.
He leaned against the wall. So, Rosemary had followed him to this world, or had fallen into it. Judging from Fiona’s tone of voice, she wasn’t welcome here.
How could a people who had accepted him reject somebody like Rosemary?
The dominant voice in his head spoke out: Because she’s human and you’re not. You belong here and she does not.
And yet he knew Rosemary well enough to know that she would not leave without him.
The battle of wills between Rosemary and Fiona played out in his mind, with this “council” standing behind Fiona. He knew he had to make Rosemary leave, for her own sake. To do that, he had to talk to her. And he sensed the council and Fiona would frown upon that.
So, the council and Fiona had better not see him talk to Rosemary.
Stepping to the window, he pushed up the casement and hauled himself over the sill.
Behind him, the door clicked. Ariel sidled in and stared at the empty room. Her eyes fell upon the window.
***
Rosemary paced her bar-less cage. She followed the perimeter of a bubble-shaped cave, tapping her fingers on the rough stone wall. Small nooks and crannies glowed phosphor, providing the only light. There was no window. There was no door. There was no hole in the ceiling, and yet somehow they’d thrown her in here.
No, there had to be some sense to this. Every cell had an exit, or else they couldn’t have gotten her in here, so she circled the blob-shaped room, treading carefully on the uneven floor, feeling for any difference in the texture of the wall.
On her third circuit, she found something.
She stopped and ran her fingers along the rough stone. It felt as hard as granite, and then she passed a spot where the stone pushed back, but without any sense of touch, like an air mattress, but without the mattress.
Rosemary pushed harder. She saw her fingers whiten; her tips felt numb, but as she pressed, she saw the fingers begin to vanish into the stone. She ran her other along the wall and felt the same thing. The space between her two hands was wide enough for a door.
“A-ha!” she muttered. She flattened her hands on the smooth surface, and saw her fingers sink beneath the stone. “I knew it!” Just like these creatures to try to fool her into staying in her cell.
She pushed at the space. She put her shoulder in it. She put her back on it and scuffed her feet. Each time she bounced back like she was fighting elastic. In the end, she slumped to the floor, breathing heavily.
Then the wall opposite her shimmered, and a cave entrance materialized. Merius stepped through, bearing his trident. The opening vanished once he was in the centre of the room.
“Is any of this place real?” she asked.
“It’s all as real as we want it to be,” said Merius. He nodded over his shoulder the way he’d come. “Did they hurt you?”
“No.” Rosemary stood up. “And I admit I gave them plenty of reasons to.”
Merius smirked. “Good.”
“Really?”
“Only in its context,” said Merius. “I appreciate that you stand up for yourself, but you were still a fool to confront Fionarra when I wasn’t ready.”
Rosemary frowned at him. “I heard Peter’s voice when you smuggled me into your home. I thought that if I could talk to him —”
“You’d find yourself in a room with no doors?”
Rosemary glared. “I
had
to try. I almost reached him, too, until this woman burst in and touched his eyes.”
“Ah,” said Merius, nodding. “That was Fionarra. I
thought
she was using glamour to keep Peter under her thumb.”
“Glamour?”
“It is the singing of our minds made solid,” said Merius. “Applied by voice or touch, it allows us to control what people see, even ourselves. From this we create our tools, our nets, our homes ...”
“Doors that look like walls?” Rosemary asked. “Even other people?” A small army to hunt down large creatures like squid, she thought.
Merius nodded. “Glamour is at the foundation of our society.”
“And that’s what’s holding Peter? How do I fight it?”
“You don’t,” Merius rumbled. “You can break glamour for a few seconds, through some shock like cold water, a kiss, or a firebrand, but unless blocked by an exceptionally strong mind, glamour simply reasserts itself.”
Rosemary started to say something, but Merius cut her off. “Don’t raise your hopes high. Peter is a man, and the human male is notoriously susceptible to glamour. Moreover, there is a second glamour behind the first. Fionarra could not have called him to this world unless, deep down, Peter wanted to come. Even if you could break Peter’s external glamour, you would not have time to break through his internal glamour, his desire to find a family here, before the external glamour reasserted itself.”
“I have to try,” snapped Rosemary.
“Rosemary!”
“Peter!” She whirled around and found herself staring at a small, blob-shaped window on the wall over her shoulder. Peter stood on the other side, gripping the sill. She ran up to him.
“Keep out of sight,” said Peter, looking nervously over his shoulder. “Nobody can see me talking to you.”
She looked past him, into a gully cut between two rises of rock. “Peter, what —” She looked at his feet and started. “How the heck did you get up here?”
He frowned at her. “What? I’m just standing on a box.”
Rosemary craned her neck. He stood on an outcrop, his heels in midair, fifteen feet above uneven ground.
“Peter,” said Merius.
Peter gasped and stumbled back. Horrified, Rosemary grabbed him through the window and pulled him back to the sill. “It’s okay,” she said before he could run. “This is Merius. He’s a ....” She looked Merius up and down. “He’s an ally. You can talk in front of him.”
“Peter,” said Merius again. “Does Fionarra know you’re here?”
“No,” said Peter. “And she’d better not find out, so listen up, Rosemary: you’ve got to leave!”
She bristled. “Not without you!”
“I’ll make sure Fiona gets you back to Clarksbury, but I’m staying here.”
“Peter!” She gripped his hand. “Listen to me! They’re lying to you! You’re
not
one of them; you’re not even green!”
Merius blinked. “Green?”
“Peter, please,” she continued. “You’ve got to come home with me!”
Peter glared at her. “Why? My parents are dead, my uncle’s never home! I have no friends; I’m treated like a stranger. These sirens, I may not be like them now, but the Homecoming Ceremony will take care of that. There’s nothing left for me in Clarksbury.”
Rosemary’s eyes glistened and she swallowed hard. “But … what about me?”
There was a long pause. Peter couldn’t look her in the eye. “Rosemary … j-just leave me and go … I’m … I’m back where I belong.” He pulled free from her grip and hopped off the outcrop, landing lightly on the ground.
“Peter, come back!” Rosemary reached through the window, and strained against its sides. “Peter!” She struggled as Merius plucked her free.
“Careful!” he gasped. “Peter is right: he mustn’t be seen near you.”
Rosemary slumped against the wall, choking back tears. “He wouldn’t listen to me,” she sobbed. “He’s too tied up in their lies!”
Merius patted her shoulder. “Actually, I was impressed by him.”
She looked up. “What do you mean?”
“If Peter were truly under Fionarra’s grip, would he have cared enough to sneak away and tell you to leave?”
She brightened. “You mean I have a chance?”
“I think Fionarra doesn’t have the hold over Peter that she thinks she has. Are you sure you two aren’t pair-bonded?”
Rosemary blushed. “Certain.” She drew herself up. “Let’s get out of here and figure out how to reach him.”
“I have a plan already,” said Merius. “You stay here.”
Rosemary frowned. “Stuck in this cell?”
“Here, Fionarra would think you were safely tucked away. It would lower her guard.”
