Fay stared at the child and her tiger. The animal’s pads were large enough to cover the whole of the little girl’s head. But the child seemed so certain of herself, one hand in the tiger’s fur, the other extended to welcome Fay. The heavy purring intensified. The whole of the tiger’s flank vibrated softly, like an engine.
She looks like Daisy, Fay thought. Daisy had been blonde as a child, and this girl was very dark, but her expression was the same mixture of curiosity and sweetness. And yet there was something odd about her; something faintly troubling in the way she she spoke and moved.
‘What’s your name?’ said Fay at last.
The child shook her head. ‘Don’t have one,’ she said.
‘Is the tiger… yours?’ asked Fay.
‘Of course not,’ said the little girl with reproach. ‘Tigers don’t belong to people. But he is my friend.’
‘Oh. What’s his name?’
‘Tigers don’t have names,’ she said. ‘They don’t need them. None of us do.’
‘Us?’ said Fay.
‘The travelling folk.’
That makes a sort of sense, thought Fay. Alberon and his friends had been travellers, at least of a kind. Perhaps she too was a traveller, caught between the London she knew and this overgrown, empty world. ‘Where are they now, these travelling folk?’
‘Everywhere.’ The child made a gesture that took in the sky, the undergrowth, the trees, the broken buildings.
‘Surely you don’t live here all alone. Where are your parents?’ said Fay.
Once more the child made a gesture, part shrug and part dismissal, as if the very idea of having parents was ludicrous. ‘Don’t have ’em. Don’t need ’em.’ She stroked the tiger’s glossy flank. ‘We don’t live like tame folk. We don’t have names, or families. We have fur and wings and teeth. We have roots and branches.’
‘So where do you travel to?’ said Fay. ‘And do you know a man called Alberon?’
The little girl looked incredulous. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ she said. ‘No, he isn’t one of ours. He has more names than the Old Man himself. And he’s nothing but trouble.’
The tiger gave a low growl, as if in agreement – or warning.
‘It’s OK,’ said the little girl. Then, addressing Fay, she said: ‘We like to keep ourselves to ourselves. We don’t get involved with the Silken Folk. You shouldn’t either. They’ll mess with your mind.’ She put her small brown hand on Fay’s arm. ‘You don’t belong here, my Lady,’ she said. ‘Go back before something happens.’
The tiger’s purring resumed. Its eyes were a deep and luminous gold, flecked with dancing motes of light, and Fay had the strangest impression that it knew what she was thinking. And then, as she looked at the sunlight against the broken concrete, she realized what had troubled her about the little nameless girl. Neither she nor the tiger cast the slightest shadow.
Three
When Daisy’s father died, she began to dream of a being called the Shadowless Man. For nearly a year she had dreamed of him; a tall man, pale and all in black, wearing a coat that was lined with eyes that blinked and glittered in the dark. Fay could only speculate on what had summoned the Shadowless Man, but the dreams had stopped when the pavement game had taken over Daisy’s life; only returning nine years later, when the shadow of her depression had begun to creep over everything.
Of course, there was no such person as the Shadowless Man, Fay had told her. He was a symbol of something else, with his stern pale face and his coat of eyes. And yet, the dreams kept coming, growing ever more potent, ever more real, until the day she ended her life, only to exist in dreams.
But now dreams and reality seemed to have changed places. London had become the dream, and London Beyond the reality. And here was a child with no shadow, who might cast some light on the mystery.
‘I can’t go back. Not yet,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. I know it sounds crazy. I thought she was gone. But I saw her last night, in the bluebell wood, through the cracks in the pavement.’
And she told the child all she remembered: of Alberon and his group of friends; the madcap; the light through the pavement cracks. She even showed her the red rose that had come to her on the wind, and mentioned the sound of the hunting horn that had led her through the forest.
The child listened attentively, but showed no surprise at the story. Then she looked at the tiger. ‘Well?’
The tiger seemed to consider her words. Then it spoke, addressing Fay in a voice which held the hint of a purr: ‘Madcap. That would do it, o Queen. Madcap is what brought you here.’
She said: ‘Why do people keep calling me that?’
‘You’re Queen Orfeia,’ the tiger said. ‘Everyone knows that, Your Majesty.’
‘But I’m not a Queen,’ said Fay. ‘And I’ve never been here before in my life. My name is Fay Orr. I’m from London.’
The tiger made a gesture that was oddly like a shrug. ‘Whoever you were in London, Your Majesty, you’re Queen Orfeia in London Beyond. Your singing is known throughout the Worlds; as clear as the call of the cuckoo.’
Fay said: ‘I don’t sing any more.’
‘That’s very wise,’ said the tiger. ‘And yet you might do well to remember some of the songs of the Nine Worlds. There’s wisdom in an old wives’ tale, and magic in a story.’
And in a beautiful baritone voice, the tiger began to sing. The words were a little different, but the tune was familiar: it was the same as the song Peronelle had sung to her the previous night; a night that now seemed as far away as Daisy, asleep in the bluebells.
The elphin knight sits on yon hill,
Bay, bay, lily bay.
He blows his horn both loud and shrill,
My plaid shall not be blown away.
My plaid away, my plaid away,
And o’er the hill and far away,
And far away to Norroway,
My plaid shall not be blown away.
Fay wanted to ask all kinds of things: about the song, what a plaid was, and about madcap, and Mabs and Alberon, and why the girl and her tiger seemed so sure she was Queen Orfeia. But all that really mattered, she thought, was Daisy, glimpsed through the pavement crack, and Alberon saying: She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.
‘Have you heard of the Hallowe’en King?’ she said.
The little girl nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He lives far away, on the shore of the river Dream. Some call him Lord Death, the Harlequin, the Erl-King, or the Elphin Knight. Sometimes they call him the Shadowless Man.’
Fay felt her heart clench like a fist. ‘I need to find him,’ she said. ‘I think he may have taken my daughter.’
The girl gave her a look combining surprise and pity. ‘People don’t find the Hallowe’en King,’ she said. ‘He finds them. Eventually.’
‘Not me,’ said Fay. ‘I’m going to find him. Where is he? Do you know?’
The tiger yawned, showing a full set of sharp teeth. ‘To reach the Hallowe’en King, Your Majesty, you must go into Nethermost London. But there is no madcap in London Beyond to help you on your journey. It only grows by the shore of Dream, under the cliffs of Damnation. And to travel as far as the court of the King, you’ll have to take the Night Train.’