London Beyond
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‘For da king o Ferrie we his daert,
Has pierced your lady to da hert.’
Child Ballad no. 19: King Orfeo
One
For a long time, Fay stared at the forest that had been King’s Cross. Some of the trees looked very old – a hundred and fifty years or more – and there were birds among the branches; magpies and starlings and jackdaws and crows. The wall between what had been York Way and the railway station still stood, although it was pitted and almost obscured under a curtain of creeper, and there was a narrow path running alongside it, leading into the forest.
Fay had long since ceased to tell herself that she was dreaming. If Daisy could be dead, she thought, then anything was possible. She came closer to the path, which was more like a tunnel overhung with branches and vines and strong brown twists of briar. Some of the briars still bore a few ripening blackberries, although most of the fruit had dried on the branch, and Fay picked and ate them, less out of hunger than out of a strange compulsion. It was enchanted fruit, after all. Perhaps, like the madcap, it opened doors.
She remembered Alberon’s words to Mabs: We’ll find her again in London Beyond. London Beyond. Was this where he had meant? Whatever had happened, she told herself, Alberon was a part of it. Fay knew she had to find him again.
She looked into the tunnel of leaves. The path there was small and winding. And yet it looked clear. She was not the first to seek a way through the undergrowth. She looked over her shoulder towards the deserted station, where the clock tower was overgrown with bindweed and roses. On the side of the building, someone had sprayed the phrase: MY PLAID AWAY in a wild, exuberant script. And the clock had stopped at 4.03 – the time at which she had received the call that Daisy had taken her own life—
What was it Alberon had said? She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King. At the time, Fay had barely heard him; the sight of Daisy asleep in the woods had taken up all her attention. But now his words came back to her like the rose on the wind: She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.
Nothing you do here can wake her. Why not just nothing can wake her?
Because things have changed, she told herself. Because the world is different now. Because I stepped on a crack and fell into a realm of magic.
And at that thought, she stepped onto the path through the wilderness, into London Beyond.
Two
A few steps onto the overgrown path, and it was already darker. Thick vegetation surrounded her in every shade of autumn. Light filtered through like stained glass in a narrow chapel of rest, and the wind was like plainsong through the leaves, whispering and calling. There were roses growing up into the canopy over her head: most of them had gone to seed, sending out sprays of rose hips, but there were still some dark-red blooms adding their scent to that of the leaves carpeting the forest floor.
The roses were barbed with wicked thorns, clutching at Fay’s clothes and hair. And yet the path stayed clear enough, though walled in thickly from both sides, as it led her into the heart of the woods that now grew over Battlebridge. From time to time she could hear birds, or see insects – jewelled beetles and moths – crawling in the undergrowth. Fay remembered how Peronelle and Cobweb and Moth had turned into clouds of butterflies. Where were Alberon and his friends now? Were they the only other people left in this world? And how could she ever find them again in this overgrown version of London?
And then she heard a sound from afar, like that of a musical instrument. A horn, thought Fay, its mellow tone both sweet and wild. It seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead; beyond the urban forest. She heard it only once, and yet felt strangely drawn to the music. Someone was near. She was not alone. She followed the path towards the sound, quickening her pace as much as the undergrowth allowed and, after a time, emerged into a kind of clearing.
On one side of the clearing was the wall that ran alongside York Way. She saw a row of arches choked with vegetation, and beyond that the railway; the overhead lines now garlanded with bindweed. Trumpet-shaped flowers and heart-shaped leaves cascaded over signals and points, and there were railway carriages, now covered with moss and hanging vines. On the other side was forest, a little less dense than the patch through which she had crossed, with ruined buildings and ancient trees rising up out of the undergrowth.
The clearing itself was concrete, broken in many places, with dandelions and buddleia growing out of the cracks. A number of tags and slogans had been spray-painted on the ground, but the colours were old and faded. One read: THE KIDS FROM FAE, and beyond it, on the far side of clearing, lay an enormous tiger.
For a moment, Fay was pinned to the spot. A wave of adrenalin washed over her, and it was almost more than she could do to stop herself from running. But how could she outrun a tiger? Don’t behave like prey, she thought. Move slowly, with confidence. She wondered whether to turn back into the thicket, but told herself that she would stand more of a chance if she stayed in the open. Besides, she thought, I heard a horn.
She started to move, very slowly, edging away from the tiger. The tiger watched her, motionless, except for the very tip of its tail, which twitched to and fro like the second hand of a watch with a dying battery. It was a very large tiger, radiant with health and life. It looked well-fed. Fay almost laughed. A tiger, here in London?
But this is London Beyond, she thought. Anything is possible.
The tiger shifted position. The arc of the tail grew wider. It stretched out a lazy forepaw, extending claws like grappling hooks. Fay was struck by how closely the creature resembled a domestic cat. Daisy always wanted a cat, she thought. Why didn’t we get one? A low vibration reached her ears: the animal was purring.
Fay quickened her pace a little, heading towards the railway.
The tiger slowly rose to its feet. Each paw was the size of a footstool, upholstered in autumnal fur. The purr was a less of a sound than a tremor that moved through the concrete, that made the leaves shiver, that froze the sun. And now the tiger began to move, very slowly, towards her. It looked like an illustration in a Victorian children’s book; every whisker perfectly rendered. And yet there was something unreal about it; something she could not identify. Maybe it was the mere fact of its presence, here in the concrete clearing, but Fay could not rid herself of the thought that she’d missed something obvious.
Fay was sure it could hear the quickening of her heart. Three seconds and the urge to run would be impossible to resist; three seconds and she would be prey, running helplessly from Death—
And then she saw a little girl standing by the tiger’s side; standing so close that a swipe of a paw might erase her from the world. She looked about seven years old, and was wearing an adult’s overcoat so large that it trailed behind her, the sleeves rolled up so far that her thin brown arms stuck out like twigs. She did not seem at all afraid, and in spite of her own fear, Fay found herself instinctively moving to protect her.
‘Turn around slowly,’ she said. ‘Don’t run. Running makes you look like prey.’
The little girl looked at Fay, and laughed. ‘He won’t hurt you,’ she said. She had the same accent as Alberon and his friends; an accent that might have been regional, but which Fay still could not quite place. She put her hand on the tiger’s flank and the tiger licked it. ‘Look,’ said the child. ‘He won’t hurt us. Come and see.’