In Underwood Hills, there was always a lot of pressure to pretend that everything was perfect.  Erda assumed that it was the same in most of the other towns on the paths, not that she’d ever know for sure.

Knowing that the paths were there did something to you.  Within a short walk, there were glorious places, lagoons full of strange, tentacled people, crystal cities full of people who could join together and become a huge, shambling thing, windswept planes full of tough little people with sharp fangs, skies full of beautiful multicoloured things that looked like they should have been sea creatures.  And you knew you’d never get to see any of it.  At best, you might be able to buy some stuff imported from one of them at the shops.  For everything else, you just had to trust the people at Dovecote Gardens.

There was a kind of happy sigh that came into people’s voices when they talked about Dovecote Gardens.  As if even thinking of it for a second was enough to give you a little burst of pleasure.  It was definitely enough to shut down any criticism of Underwood Hills as a place.  No matter what happened- people’s roofs caving in, employers trying to get you to do more work for less pay, council members being caught with their hands in the till- you weren’t allowed to complain too much, because, at the end of the day, you lived in Underwood Hills, which was right next to Dovecote Gardens, and wasn’t that just wonderful?  Weren’t you just blessed?

Never mind that Colwyn Ballantine had sole control of any resources travelling along the paths.  Never mind that he only met up with one or two council members a few times a year to discuss what to do with those resources.  Never mind that most ordinary people in Underwood Hills would never get a face-to-face meeting with him no matter what they did.  Colwyn Ballantine was perfect, Dovecote Gardens was perfect, and anyone who said anything different was just a grubby little malcontent who could be safely dismissed.

When Erda was younger, she’d gone through a phase of wondering whether the other places on the paths even existed, or if it was all an elaborate con so that Colwyn Ballantine could flog any old crap to Underwood Hills.  But, since then, she’d met a couple of people from Kindling Grove and Woebegone Valley and so on, and what they’d had to say more-or-less matched up with the stories Erda had heard.  She’d spent one summer following the paths in every direction she could, hoping that there was a weakness in the barrier somewhere that would allow her to visit one of the other towns, but all she’d found was the edges of Colwyn Ballantine’s property.

No.  The places on the path existed, and nobody from Underwood Hills could ever get to them.  So, the mission of the Pigeon Pie Society was to decide what should be done about that.

Today, the society were meeting, as usual, in Erda’s flat on the Dahut side of the mountain.  A lot of the other members were from the Spriggan side, and she’d had things set up so that they’d be comfortable- small chairs on top of the kitchen counter, a table with a tiny kettle and supplies for making tea.  They’d probably have had an easier time meeting in a rented hall (one of those would probably have provided both Dahut- and Spriggan-sized supplies, instead of Erda having to order them in), but they couldn’t take the risk.  You never knew when the council might come snooping.

So instead, Erda stood by her kitchen door and addressed her audience, the ones at her table and the ones on the counter.  “There’s been… a development,” she told them, “You’ve probably already noticed that Kynella Good isn’t here.”

The people in the tiny chairs on the counter looked around to confirm this.  Kynella would have been sitting among them- right at the front, most likely.  She was always the first to put her hand up and make a point.  Drove whoever was speaking round the bend, but you couldn’t help but like her.  Truly passionate people were hard to come by around here.

“Yesterday, I got a coded message from Kynella.  She told me that she was about to be arrested for shoplifting, and that I’d find a letter from her hidden on a particular shelf in a bookshop on the Spriggan side of the shopping centre.”  She nodded towards a man on the counter.  “I asked Toby to fetch it- do you have it with you, Toby?”

Toby stood up and took a piece of paper out of his pocket.  He unfolded it and squinted for a few seconds. “Sorry, the handwriting’s a bit…  Well, she was in a hurry.”  He cleared his throat.  “Dear Erda, I just saw a man from Dovecote Gardens being arrested in the newsagent.  He was shouting something about Colwyn Ballantine, and I got the impression that he knew him personally, and didn’t like him one bit.  Once I’ve hidden this letter, I’m going to go into one of the clothes shops and be really obvious about stealing something- hopefully when they arrest me, they’ll put me somewhere near where they’ve put him and I can talk to him.  I’ll get in touch as soon as I can- Kynella.”

One of the people at the table- Soren, a skinny guy with shiny green scales- frowned and made an uneasy noise.  “Do you think she’ll manage to get a message to him?  If they put them in different parts of the building…”

“If anyone can do it, it’s Kynella,” replied Erda, “Most stubborn girl I’ve ever met.”

The rest of the society nodded approvingly.

Erda clasped her claws in front of her.  “So…  I think we have two things to consider here.  One- Can this man help us at all?  Provide any useful information, say?”  There was a slight rumble of acknowledgement, but before anyone could say anything proper, Erda ploughed ahead.  “Two, and this is the riskier idea…  Whenever they arrest a Dovecote Gardens man, they ask Colwyn Ballantine to come over and fetch him.  In person.”

The room went quiet.

“If he was arrested yesterday, Ballantine might have already come and got him by now…” said Soren.

“He hasn’t,” said Dirk Spearing, who was sitting opposite him, “We’ve had people watching the paths.  No sign of him.”

Another silence, this one heavy with possibilities.  Erda knew that most of them were thinking of the same thing she had at first- kidnapping Ballantine and holding him hostage until he agreed to make some changes to how Dovecote Gardens was run.  Of course, logic told her that things like that had to be kept as a last resort, no matter how appealing they sounded.  We’ll see.

“I have some ideas,” she told the others, “Maybe you do as well.  Let’s talk.”

(To be continued)