As they walked, Charlie was up front, leading the way, with Rube a few paces behind him.  At the back was Lor, carrying the can of poison, and between them walked Dol and Bo Iridescence.  Rube and Lor had found some long grass and used it to tie their hands.  It would never have worked if they’d been planning to leave them behind- too many opportunities to work away at it, fray the fibres and get the knots loose- but it would do until they found something better.

“There used to be more of us,” said Siobhan, the other bee.  She’d been hovering just by Rube for a few minutes, and Rube had been waiting for her to say something.

“In the terrarium?”

“Yeah.”  Siobhan’s voice was a bit lower than the other female insects’- one of those voices that always sounded like you were being strangled- but Rube thought she sounded quite young.  They were probably around the same age.  If things had been different, they might have been in the same class at school.  “I mean, in case you were wondering if the seven of us raised Kai by ourselves.  He wasn’t that deprived.”

There was an obvious question that came next, but Rube didn’t know if it was a good idea to ask it.  “What happened to them?”

Behind her, Dol Iridescence gave a long-suffering sigh.  It seemed to turn into a kind of exasperated laugh towards the end.  “Are you really going to do this?”

“Do what?” asked Rube.

“Spend the entire journey letting her drip poison in your ear.”  A couple of strands of hair were sticking to her forehead with sweat.  Rube probably wouldn’t have noticed that if she hadn’t looked so well-put-together before.  “There’s more than one side to this story, you know.”

That sounded so ridiculous that Rube couldn’t help but want to know what was behind it.  “OK.  Why don’t you tell me what happened to them?”

Dol leaned forward, as if taking Rube into her confidence.  The effect was spoiled a bit by the fact that they were moving through plantlife that seemed like it was about seventy per cent moss, and Dol had to raise her voice to be heard over the squishing sound of their footsteps.  “We were the only ones who wanted them, you know.  We paid for them.  An if we hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.  Maybe somebody much worse.”

Rube had to hold back a weird shudder.  “That doesn’t really answer…”

“If Kai’s told you a sob story about how he was ripped away from his loving parents, it’s a lie.”  Dol’s face stretched out into a horrible grin.  “They sold him to us.  Fair and square.”

Rube had half-assumed that Siobhan had flown away as soon as Dol started talking (she wouldn’t have blamed her), but then she heard her voice in her ear again.  “With me it was my mum’s boyfriend.  He talked her into…”  Siobhan broke off and laughed.  “Well, he probably didn’t have to try too hard, knowing her,”

Rube swallowed.  All of a sudden, her throat felt strange.

“No-one missed them,” said Dol, as if what Siobhan had just said proved her point, “No-one else would have given them a roof over their heads.”

“So what did happen to those other insects?” snapped Rube.

Dol sigh-laughed again.  “Have you even been listening to me?  Nothing happened to them that wouldn’t have happened anyway.  Believe me, they were never destined for long and happy lives.”

Rube would have asked again- would have kept on asking, even though she knew she wouldn’t get an answer- but at that moment, Charlie flew up and told her, “We’re here.”

At first, Rube didn’t know what he meant- it just looked like more trees up ahead- but then she saw the broken panel just between the branches, about level with her ankles.  Rube waved to Lor and the others to tell them to stop, then crouched down to look through it.  Mouldy and neglected, Charlie had said, but Rube couldn’t see enough to tell. To her, it just looked dark.

“Keep an eye on these two,” Lor told her, and ran up to get a closer look.  She lay on the ground and put her eye to the crack.  After a moment, she straightened up and nodded.  “I managed to put my foot through one of the panels upstairs,” she told Charlie, “I should be able to do the same thing here.  Unless you’ve got any objections?”

Charlie shook his head. 

“Kick the whole thing apart, if you need to,” growled Annie.

(To be continued)

You’re not the only one who has a problem with Colwyn Ballantine.  You have friends here.

Who are you?

My name is Kynella Good.  What’s yours?

Joe Warbeck.

And yeah, I’ve got a problem with him.  He’s got my children.

What do you mean?

Their mother sent them to him without telling me.

I tried to get them back, and I ended up in here.

I need to get out.  They’re not safe.

I’ll do whatever I can.

I don’t know how much I can reveal here, but I have friends who can help.

Can they get me out of here?

We’ll find a way.

Your children will be safe.

Thank God somebody here can see what’s going on. 

I’ve seen what he’s done to this place.

I’m not going to be here much longer, but I promise, you’ll hear from us.

One way or another, you’ll be out of here soon.

(To be continued)

There was a little rocky ridge about twenty yards away, so Rube and Lor went and hid behind it.  That was the easy part.  After that, the insects started arguing about whether or not all of them needed to be there, or whether Annie and Charlie could hide somewhere else.  Thirty seconds of frantic whispering about whether that would be safer or whether it would just make the Iridescences more suspicious turned into a series of variations on, “Go further up!  Graham, you go with them!” as the footsteps got closer.  Finally, the whispers stopped altogether, so they could hear the voices echoing out of the tunnel.

“…haven’t even been fed in three days, and they decided that now is the perfect time to go and see the sights,” came a sarcastic sing-song voice that Rube recognised as Dol, “You’d think they’d consider…”

“Consider what?”  That was Bo.  Rube hadn’t heard him talk as much as some of the others, but it could only be him.

“Well.  Consider anything.”  Dol let out a snuffly laugh- a kind of fnurg-fnurg sound- and suddenly the two of them were there, at the mouth of the tunnel.  Rube was a little surprised that they hadn’t merged together to come down here.  Maybe there needed to be a certain number of them in order to do that.

From where she was sitting, Rube could see Rosemary, Nadia, Vincent and Siobhan flying a little way ahead of the tunnel mouth, with the others sticking close to some bushes nearby.  Dol caught sight of them, raised a hand (the one that wasn’t carrying something heavy that Rube couldn’t see), and snapped her fingers to call them over.

Rosemary and Nadia swooped down.  Dol squinted at them.  “What about the others?”

“What about the others?” replied Nadia.

Dol put the heavy thing down on the ground, and stepped sideways so she could get a better look at the insects in the distance.  She nodded at Charlie.  “How are that one’s wings doing?”

She said it in a sugary-sweet voice, but Rosemary and Nadia caught her meaning.  They turned to the others and motioned for them to come over.

Behind the ridge, Lor nudged Rube.  “I don’t know what’s in the black case she’s got, but we should probably get it off her.”

Rube had no idea how they were going to do that, but she nodded anyway.

As the insects gathered, Bo cleared his throat.  “I won’t waste words.  We know that someone’s come through here, and we know you’ve seen them.  So where are they?”

The insects stared straight at him.  “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Rosemary.

Before Rube even knew what was happening, Dol had already done it.  She raised both hands and clapped, trapping Rosemary between her palms.  “I think it will take two or three minutes for her to suffocate,” she told the rest of the insects, “Just enough time for you to share with us what you know.”

But she’s a bee! thought Rube, She can sting her and make her let go!  Then she remembered something- the first thing they ever taught you about bees and their stings.  If Rosemary panicked, she probably would sting Dol’s hand, and then she was done for no matter what her friends said.

“We don’t know anything!” cried Nadia.

“Well,” said Dol, “That’s a shame.”  And she pressed her hands closer together.

Rube turned to Lor, about to ask what they should do… but Lor was already halfway up, grabbing a rock from the ground and hurling it forward so that it hit Dol right between the eyes.

Dol stumbled backwards, freeing Rosemary, who made a wobbly flight out of range.  Lor had already run past her, picking up the heavy case and trying to shift it as fast as she could.  Without even stopping to think about it, Rube picked up a rock of her own and hurled it at Bo.  He’d taken a step towards Lor, but when he was hit on the shoulder, he turned on Rube instead.

Rube didn’t even see how Lor got where she did.  She’d only looked away from her for a few seconds, watching Dol recover and Bo try to decide whether or not to pounce, when she heard a cheerful shout and looked back to see Lor sitting on top of the arch at the end of the tunnel, the black case balanced beside her.

Dol pointed an accusing finger at her and screamed something in the Opal Hill language.  Then she added, in English, “This is our home!”

Lor nodded.  “And these are your insects, are they?”

Bo looked back at Rube for a moment (in case she had any more rocks, probably), then shoved in front of his sister and shouted up to Lor.  “You were here before.  In our house.  And things didn’t go well for you then, did they?”

(Rube might not have thought about it if Dol hadn’t spoken another language just now, but she had no idea why they were speaking English to each other.  It had to be either for her benefit, or for the insects’.)

Lor’s legs dangled over the arch, and she swung them from side to side, trying to look nonchalant.  “Would I be right in thinking that whatever’s in here isn’t exactly legal?” she asked, patting the black case.

“Things didn’t go well for you, did they, the Radiance family?”  Bo spat those last three words as if they were poisonous.

Lor’s brow creased, but her voice sounded as cheerful as ever.  “Well, I suppose pretty much everything down here isn’t exactly legal…”

Dol spun around and spoke to the insects.  “She’s going to kill you!” she screamed, pointing and waving frantically, “It’ll poison the whole terrarium- she doesn’t care that she’ll die too!”

“It’ll poison the whole terrarium.”  When Rosemary spoke, Dol’s hands suddenly stopped waving.  She flew slowly down (still a little wobble here and there) until she was only a few inches from Dol’s face.  “And you brought it down here.”

“Why’d you do it?” demanded Nadia.

Rube picked up another set of rocks, in case Dol and Bo made a move towards the insects… but it didn’t seem to be happening.  Either they were genuinely scared that Lor was going to drop the case and kill them all, or they’d been shocked into silence by Rosemary’s anger.

“They were worried that more of us were going to turn out like Kai,” said Annie, “Might as well wipe us all out and start over.”

“No!” insisted Dol, pointing at Lor, “We brought it down for her!”

Rosemary made a noise that sounded like a snarl.  “Even if we believed that…”  She shook her head, took a deep breath, and asked Lor, “Where can we put it so it’s safe?  So it won’t hurt anybody?”

Lor waved a hand towards Dol and Bo.  “We could force them to drink it all.  That might help.”

Dol shrank back against Bo, making a high-pitched sound.

“Be serious,” said Rosemary dully.

Lor shrugged.  “You’re right.  I was messing about.”  She tapped the case again.  “It should be safe, as long as it’s locked in here.  So if we tie these two up and leave them here, we can take it with us.”

“No,” said Nadia, “They’ll get free.  And they’ve probably got more of that stuff hidden somewhere in the house.”

“Besides, what are we going to tie them up with in the first place?” added Siobhan.

They’re going to decide they have to kill them, thought Rube.  And was she going to be able to talk them out of it?  Should she even try?  From the little she’d seen and heard, the insects had plenty to be angry about.  But could she stand by and watch it happen?  Was there even an alternative?

The same thought had probably crossed the insects’ minds (from their faces, it had definitely crossed Dol’s and Bo’s), but when one of them spoke, it was to suggest something else.  “There are cages,” said Charlie, “Outside the terrarium, in the place I mentioned.  And they were empty when I saw them.”

Rube wondered how the cages had got there, and what they were for.  Well, I suppose pretty much everything down here isn’t exactly legal, Lor had said.  Maybe she didn’t want to know after all.

There was a brief silence, and Lor nodded.  “All in favour of cages?” she asked, raising a hand.

(To be continued)

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)

To mark the fiftieth chapter (and because I’m taking a break from this in December to make way for a seasonal story), I’m going to be adding art to some of the previous Warbeck instalments. I’ll start by restoring some of the pictures from my first attempt at writing it, back in January 2020.

*

Rube’s clothes were damp from spending all night in a pile of moss, but she was feeling a lot better since she’d eaten breakfast.  It wasn’t until Lor had mentioned it that she’d remembered that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime, back at the Tavins’ place.  There had been a bush, covered in clusters of bluish-purple berries that had tasted a little like aniseed.  Rube had had time to wonder if the fruit that grew here would be safe for people from her world to eat, but it hadn’t stopped her from doing it.

There seemed to be a long series of staircases and slopes, taking them downwards through treacherous slippery stuff.  Charlie flew a little way ahead of the group, listing slightly to the right (probably because of that ragged bit on his wing, Rube thought).  “Like I said, a long way through the green…”

“Oh!”  Rosemary popped up- actually rose a foot in the air to meet Charlie.  “Might it be quicker if Rube or Lor carries you?”

Charlie hovered in the air, moving up and down apparently by instinct.  “I guess that would make sense…”

Rube felt Lor nudge her in the side.  She whispered, “I was going to suggest that, but I didn’t want Annie jumping down my throat again.”

Rube nodded.  It was hard to think of a way they could have suggested it that the insects wouldn’t have found patronising.

“Rube can do it,” insisted Annie, giving Lor a sideways glance.  Lor shrugged.  As throat-jumping went, that had been fairly minor.  Rube held out a hand, and Charlie landed on it… followed by Graham, who looked up at her as if daring her to question his being there.

Rube cupped her left hand under her right one for extra support, and they went on.

They seemed to be done with the steps for now.  Next up was a thin, grassy tunnel that was almost narrow enough to force Rube and Lor to walk sideways.  As it was, stiff strands of grass brushed against Rube’s arms and shoulders, scratching against any pieces of bare skin they found.  They were the kind of scratches that didn’t hurt, exactly, but that you knew would itch and ache like mad as they healed. 

Rube raised her hands up so that Charlie and Graham could hear her better.  “How long had Kai been in the terrarium?” she whispered.

Charlie turned round to face her, tottering carefully as he went.  “It’s not always easy to measure time,” he told her, “We think about fourteen years, give or take.”

“And the rest of you?”

“Varies,” said Graham, abruptly. 

The tunnel went on for another fifty yards or so, and with every step, Rube debated with herself about whether or not to ask him to elaborate.  Just after they came out the other end, though, Charlie spoke up instead.  “Vincent’s been here the longest.  After him, it’s…”

“What was that?” asked Charlie, his antennae twitching.

Rube stopped and listened.  She heard rustling grass, and the sound of Rosemary and Siobhan (the other bee) flying ahead, but nothing that hadn’t been there before.  Maybe Graham had just wanted to end the conversation.

She hadn’t noticed until now that some of the others had got ahead of them.  Rosemary had, anyway, and Annie was rapidly barrelling towards her so that she could tell her what she thought of her.  “Think you always need to be out in front, don’t you?”

Rosemary put her hands (second set of legs) on her hips.  “I was scouting ahead!  Someone needs to!”

“Scouting ahead.  Right,”

“Come on, Annie…” said Nadia, wearily floating towards them.

“Can’t stand the thought of somebody else getting to see it before you, can you?”

“Annie.”  Nadia floated so that she was half an inch above her.  “Don’t be like that.  She isn’t flying ahead at you.”

Rube felt a tickle on her hand.  Charlie was turning to face her again.  “After Vincent, it’s Rosemary and Nadia.  I don’t know which one of them came here first.”

Graham’s antennae went up again… and this time, Rube knew what he’d heard.

It was faint, but there was a tapping sound somewhere behind them, echoing through the tunnel.  Distant, but getting closer.  It sounded like footsteps coming down one of those stone staircases.

She looked up, and saw that Lor had heard it, too.  She’d frozen in place, her eyes wide and staring.

“Dol and Bo?” asked Rube.

Graham nodded.

“How long do we have until they reach us?” asked Lor.

Graham raised an antenna.  “Two minutes.  If that.”

“Right.”  Lor raised her hands to her face, took a deep breath, and looked up.  “Where can we hide?”

(To be continued)

It wasn’t the first time that Joe Warbeck had found himself locked up for speaking his mind, but it was the first time it had panicked him this much.  He’d try to take a breath, try to assess the situation and work out whether there was anything he could use to his advantage, but he just couldn’t.  Whenever he tried to think, it all came back to what he’d seen in the shop upstairs, and what lengths Colwyn would go to in order to hide it.  He could do it.  If a man had enough money, he could have someone like Joe wiped from the face of the earth.  Completely disappeared.  And then he’d never find out what had happened to his girls.

Joe screamed and rattled the bars, threw the plates and cups they’d given him across the cell, tore the blankets and pillows down the middle.  Sanest possible reaction to being in a place like this.  Make as much noise as you could, until they silenced you forever.

It wasn’t until a few hours in that he even registered that there were other cells near his, and when he did, he didn’t much care.  So people were banging on the walls?  So there were voices in the distance that whined at him to keep that racket down?  Why should he care?  Being a good neighbour wasn’t his first priority right now.  Staying alive and seeing his girls again, that was all he could think about.

Eventually, his voice gave out, and he fell to his knees, forehead against the bars, staring into the dark corridor outside.  It hurt just to draw in a breath.  It hurt just to exist.  This must have been their plan all along- let him tire himself out, then come back and put the boot in.

Something white bounced against the wall.  It landed an inch or two in front of the bars.

For a long time, Joe just stared at it.  A screwed-up piece of paper?  Maybe they’d given up on whining and banging around, and decided to throw projectiles at him instead.  If this was the best they could do, he’d be laughing.

There was a muffled noise to his right.  A voice from a throat that sounded even more raw than his was.  “Read it.”

Joe looked at the paper again.  He stretched his fingers through the bars, and pushed it close enough to pick up.  It was screwed-up, alright, but not so badly that he couldn’t read it.  And as he did, his lips slowly twisted into a smile.

(To be continued)

Bo and Dol hadn’t gone straight back to the house.  There was a little bolthole, an out-of-the-way place just past the Opal Hill borders, where they could spend the night and consider their options without having to worry about the Fineries and their lot knocking on the door.  After that, they approached the house slowly, round the back way, careful not to alert the attention of anyone who might be watching.

If Pin or Eg had been with them, they’d have been spluttering with outrage and demanding immediate action because didn’t Dol and Bo realise there was an intruder in the house?!  Dol and Bo did realise.  But they also realised that they’d be in a better position to confront the intruders if they weren’t arrested before they got anywhere near them.

There was a little path through the mountains, made originally by natural erosion, but widened and maintained by the Iridescence family for the last twenty years.  One end was hidden by the trees and foothills around it, nearly impossible to find unless you knew where to look.  Follow it to the other end, and you reached a gate at the back of the Iridescence house, which Bo unlocked and held open for Dol.  Home at last.

They passed a number of servants on their way through the back garden, but none of them asked where they’d been or where the others were.  None of them made any comments at all.  They knew better than that.

Once in the house, they went to the secret door and confirmed their suspicions.  “Unlocked,” announced Dol, “They must have had it off the hook the minute we turned our backs.”  She took the key (still in the lock, thank goodness), and locked it again.  “Put the bookcase up against it, just to be sure,” she told Bo, “That way we can check the rest of the house without worrying about losing track of them.”

“Why would they be anywhere else in the house?”

“Well, they probably won’t.  But better safe than sorry.”

Bo nodded, and moved the bookcase.  And so began a half-hearted search of the main house- the main downstairs room, the solar upstairs, the bathrooms and the servants’ quarters.  No sign of Colwyn’s nieces.  No sign of anything out of the ordinary.  After about an hour, they agreed to stop.  Whatever they needed to find, it was beyond the secret door.

Before they moved the bookcase and opened it, though, they made an extra stop at one of the sheds in the back garden.  There was a metal container full of chemicals, and a tube.  Pest spray, it said on the front. 

“We’ll check the attic first,” said Dol, “But I suspect they’ve gone to the terrarium.”

“I hope not,” said Bo, “It would be a shame to lose it when we’ve had it so long.”

Dol laughed.  “If that’s the worst thing that happens to us today, consider yourself lucky.”  She opened the door, and she and Bo stepped into the corridor behind the walls.

(To be continued)

Jeanette picked up the receiver, then turned back to Colwyn.  “What do I tell her?”

“Whatever seems right to you,” he replied, “You don’t have to hide anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“So she knows about the paths?”  As soon as Jeanette said it, she realised it was a stupid question.  Mum had grown up at Dovecote Gardens- she couldn’t have missed it all those years.  Probably the only reason Jeanette and her sisters hadn’t known about it before that was that they’d never spent any time around here.

“She does, yes.  Although a lot’s changed since she lived here.”

Jeanette went back to the phone.  It was one of those irritating ones with the round dial that gave you repetitive strain disorder after about three numbers and meant that you were never sure whether you’d made a mistake or not.  But Jeanette got in all eleven numbers, listened to it ring, and hoped for the best.

It wasn’t until she heard her mother’s voice that Jeanette realised how worried she’d been that she wouldn’t.  That Dad would have visited her first, and caused even more damage.  “Hello?”

“Hi, Mum, it’s Jeanette.”  She probably sounded much too cheerful for the serious turn this phone call was about to take, but she couldn’t help it.  She was relieved.

“Jeanette!  How are you, darling?”

“Fine.  We’re all fine.”  Here came the tricky part.  “But, listen, there’s been a lot of stuff…  Well.  Dad came by.”

You could hear the joy drain out of Mum’s voice.  “Oh my God…”

“We weren’t in,” said Jeanette, waving a hand as if she thought Mum would somehow see it through the phone, “Neither was Colwyn.  We’re fine.”

“But he got into the house?”

“For a while, but then he got onto the paths.  And he’s been arrested.”

“Arrested?”

“In Underwood Hills.  Do you know that one?  It’s…”

“Up in the mountains, yes.”  Not the description Jeanette would have used, but never mind.  “Did he hurt anyone?”

“No, it sounds like he just threw a tantrum in a newsagent’s.”  She thought for a moment, then added, “He did get into a fight nearer to the house, though, but the other guy’s ok.  He kind of deserved it, to be honest…”

“Oh God.”  Mum sounded as if she was going back and processing the news a second time, just to wring out all the misery.  “He’s been calling me day and night, but I didn’t think he’d come up and bother you.”

“Well, he’s not bothering us now.  We’ve got to go and see if we can bail him out or something.”  Come to think of it, Jeanette didn’t actually know what the Underwood Hills people were expecting her to do when she got there.  Hopefully they weren’t going to ask her to pay for the damage.

“Don’t do anything until I get there,” said Mum.

“But I said I would,” said Jeanette, and her voice sounded whiny even to her.  She’d been looking forward to that!  “Come on, I can’t make them wait five weeks.”

“You won’t.  You’ll be waiting three or four hours.”  There was a jangle of keys.  “I’m coming up now.”

Jeanette just stood there, blinking stupidly.  “What?”

“I’m not letting you and Colwyn deal with him on your own.  I’ll be there by this afternoon.  Don’t do anything til then.”

“Don’t you have work?” asked Jeanette, but she knew the answer to that before she’d even finished speaking.  They let you have days off for an emergency, even if “my ex-husband has been imprisoned by dragons” probably wasn’t the kind of emergency they expected.

Anyway, Mum didn’t even bother to answer that.  “Jeanette, put me back on to Colwyn.  We need to work some things out.”

“OK…  See you this afternoon, I guess.”  Jeanette turned back to Colwyn, and handed him the receiver.  He looked worried, as well he might be.  Mum was not going to be happy when she got here and saw Rube was missing.

(To be continued)

Rube and Lor could stand up inside the terrarium, but only just.  And that wasn’t the only thing that made it difficult to walk around.  Every step they took, they had to deal with either a branch in the face or a foot sinking ankle-deep into moss or mud.  The air around them seemed to be about half water vapour, and it was hard to tell whether it was that making your clothes damp, or your own sweat.  There was the kind of uncomfortable warmth you got when somebody turned the central heating up too high.  The insects led them down some mossy, uneven steps and into a kind of leafy bowl about three yards across.  Rube and Lor sat in what looked like the driest spots, and watched as a little group gradually gathered in front of them.

The group consisted of two moths- Annie and a bigger one who kept giving her calming pats on the shoulder- two ladybirds and three bees.  The bee who’d invited them in had introduced herself as Rosemary, and seemed to be in charge.  “Right,” she told Rube and Lor, as soon as everyone had settled in, “Tell us everything.”

They did their best.  Rube did, anyway, racking her brains for everything Sally had told her about what happened while she wasn’t there.  Lor didn’t add much except to confirm a few details of Rube’s story, which seemed strange.  Maybe the insects already knew who she was and why she was down there.

Once Rube had finished, Rosemary let out a long breath.  “So Kai’s still alive.”

“We don’t know that,” snapped Annie.

One of the ladybirds- the female one- looked from Annie to Rube to Lor.  “I have to admit, we don’t,” she said, a little apologetically.

“Well… how can we prove it to you?” asked Rube, leaning forward a bit so that the insects could hear her better.

No-one answered, but one of the bees asked Annie, “Why would they make it up?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Siobhan, because this bitch-” she pointed at Lor- “wants us to show her the way through this place?”

Lor sat up, offended.  “I didn’t say you had to show me!”

The male ladybird made a dismissive noise.  “How else are you going to get through?  You practically broke your ankle just getting this far.”

Rube tensed in case she had to grab Lor to stop her from squashing him.  Before that could happen, Rosemary the bee flew two feet into the air so that she could address the others.  “Look!  I believe them!”  She pointed a front leg at Rube.  “Everything she said… it sounded like Kai, right?  Him getting up and calling the piper as soon as he got up?  Remember how interested he was when he first heard about them?  He learned the tune and everything!”

“Lor probably coached her,” muttered Annie.

“Annie!  Come on!”

Rube relaxed a bit, now that nobody was going to squash anyone.  “Where is it you need to get to, anyway?” she asked Lor.

“Down to the next level.”  Lor shrugged.  “Whatever that is.”

“I know what it is,” said a quiet voice, “I’ve been there.”

It took Rube a moment to work out that it had been the other bee who’d spoken, the one who looked a bit shabbier than Rosemary and Siobhan.  One of his wings had a ragged edge, as if he’d been in an accident.

“How do you know that?” asked the female ladybird.

“I went to find it once.  Set an expedition for myself.”  He gave a little, barely-there laugh.  “That was when I was… braver…”

The male ladybird put a hand (feeler) on his shoulder.  “Charlie, you don’t have to…”

“It’s OK.  I can tell them.”  Charlie’s voice was low- not deep, but low- and had a careful sound to it, as if he’d put serious thought into each word.  “It’s a long way through the green, but there are…”  He faded out, then back in again.  “Eventually you make it to a sheet of glass.  The bottom of the terrarium, I guess.  There are cracks in it…  At least, there were when I was there.  Maybe they’ve fixed it since then.”

Rosemary was still hovering, but she’d gone from two feet in the air to about ten centimetres.  “You’ve never mentioned this, Charlie,” she said gently.

“He doesn’t have to tell you everything,” said the male ladybird.

Charlie continued.  “I managed to get through one of the cracks, but I didn’t get very far after that.  It was mouldy and neglected, but there were… shadows moving in the distance…”

He trailed off.  It was hard to tell for sure, but Rube thought his mouth might have carried on moving after the sound stopped.

The male ladybird rubbed his back.  “We’re done here,” he told everyone else.

“Wait,” said Lor, “Which direction is it?  We can make our own way there if you…”

“He needs to rest,” said the female ladybird.  It wasn’t a loud voice, but it was one you knew it would be useless to argue with.  “And frankly, so do you!  Your friend’s yawned three or four times in the last minute…”

“Sorry,” said Rube, catching Lor’s eye.

“…and you’re about ten seconds from an adrenaline crash.  Get some sleep.”  She pointed at the mossy floor.  “We’ll talk about directions in the morning, OK?”

Rube didn’t need telling twice.  Luckily, neither did Lor.

(To be continued)