‘The Night Train?’
‘You heard its horn.’
Fay thought back to the sound she had heard; its low and musical command. It made a certain sense, she thought, for there still to be trains in London Beyond. ‘So where do I find the Night Train?’
The travelling girl extended a hand across the stretch of concrete. Beyond it, through the arches, Fay could see down into a kind of decline of junction boxes, and signals, and points, and above it all a network of lines and cables like a spider’s web, with carriages tumbled like children’s toys, all tangled with bindweed and clematis and briar rose and Russian vine. Surely no trains could be running now. And yet she had heard the Night Train’s horn. It must be down there, somewhere.
‘The Train leaves from Nethermost London,’ said the tiger in its purring voice. ‘The path there is dark, and the price is high. Obstacles and dangers abound. Beware false friends, and false promises. Most of all, beware the Silken Folk, and their hospitality. For if you take as much as a mouthful of the food of World Below, you will never leave again, or hope to find your daughter.’
Fay moved towards the arches that marked the descent into the station. ‘Which platform does the train leave from?’ she said. ‘And do I need a ticket?’
But when she turned back, the travelling girl and her tiger had already vanished.
Four
There was a flight of red-brick steps leading down into the station. Like everything else they were broken and overgrown and tangled with weeds, and there was more graffiti on the wall running alongside the banister. Among the many faded tags and graffiti, one in particular caught her eye. It was a faint, almost fey sky-blue, and read: SHE SLEEPS IN TIR NA NOG. Another, in the same faded blue, simply read YOUR DAISY.
Fay paused to touch the inscription: the paint was old, beginning to flake, and there were small white crystals growing out of the damp stone. She proceeded down the steps, taking care to avoid the tumbling coils of creeper, and finally reached the heart of the overgrown station.
Looking up, she could see the sky through a roof of broken glass; a sky unmarred by vapour trails or blurred by air pollution. The platforms and rail tracks were overrun with weeds; yellow ragwort and buddleia and great umbrels of giant hogweed that loomed over the leaf canopy. Fay noticed that the leaves were still green and the buddleia still in flower down here, as if she had left the autumn behind and was moving back towards summer, but all the trains left on the tracks were clearly long-abandoned. Some of the carriages had been knocked onto their sides, and some were filled with briars and vines, but nowhere could she see a sign of a working locomotive. On the concrete at her feet, someone had sprayed the familiar words: MY PLAID SHALL NOT BE BLOWN AWAY, in faded, silver spray. On one of the tumbled carriages, someone had scrawled the word: XANADU.
But Fay was not alone here. A sound from the buddleia bushes that grew around the platform suggested the presence of animals. Something large, by the sound of it – Fay thought of the tiger, and shivered.
‘Who’s there?’ she said.
The sound – a furtive rustling – came once more from the undergrowth. Fay approached, and saw a face peering out of the bushes. It was one of Alberon’s folk; the one with the eyepatch and the tattoos, Moth.
Another face appeared alongside: it was the girl, Cobweb.
‘Were you following me?’ said Fay.
The two figures parted the undergrowth and moved into the open. Fay saw that Moth was wearing a strapless dress and a pair of Dr Martens boots; Cobweb, without her wheelchair now, was wearing pink legwarmers and a hooded sweatshirt, bearing the slogan: 4 EVA FAE.
She smiled. ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’
Moth bowed. ‘Well met, Queen Orfeia. King Alberon sends his compliments, and begs the delight of your company.’
Last night they had looked like homeless folk, but here by day in London Beyond, the pair seemed altogether different. It was not simply the change of clothes, or the absence of Cobweb’s wheelchair; it was something more than that. A luminous quality to their skin, which was smooth and acorn-brown; a fleeting shimmer around them, like midges in the sunlight. Like the girl and her tiger, Fay saw, the pair of them cast no shadow.
‘King Alberon?’ Fay repeated, remembering the madcap smoke, and how they had danced together. That seemed so far away to her now, and so very long ago. And yet – that he should be a king here was no more surprising than anything else. After all, she told herself, this world was like a pack of cards; it seemed to be filled with kings and queens. But the tiger had warned her: beware false friends. And hadn’t the travelling girl told her Alberon was nothing but trouble?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t have time. I have to take the Night Train.’
Moth and Cobweb exchanged glances. ‘That train is not for the living,’ said Moth. ‘The price of a ticket is death, and those who take it only travel one way.’
‘I have to,’ said Fay. ‘The Hallowe’en King has my daughter.’
‘Then come to the court of King Alberon,’ urged Cobweb. ‘He knows the way to the Night Train. And there will be banqueting, and song, and company befitting the occasion. And His Majesty would have you bedecked in raiment fit for your station.’ And at these words, the unlikely pair gestured towards the undergrowth, and a luminous cloud of insects emerged, descending onto Fay’s shoulders and arms. Some of them looked like bright green bees, others like tiny lacewings; and as they settled on her like a veil, Fay felt her clothing fall away, to be replaced almost instantly by something that felt like gossamer.
‘Tailor bees, Your Majesty,’ said Moth.
‘Lacemakers,’ said Cobweb. ‘Don’t be afraid, Your Majesty. Just let your servants do their work.’
Fay, who had never been fearful of any kind of insect, watched the creatures with interest. The tailor bees and the lacemakers seemed to be weaving at incredible speed; creating a delicate webwork of silk, draped like the finest crêpe de Chine. Moth made another gesture, and now a third kind of insect swarmed to join the lacemakers and the tailor bees. They looked like shiny beetles, gleaming in the sunlight, and as Fay watched, she saw that they were fixing particles of something that looked like tiny flecks of mica between the strands of woven silk.
‘Sequin bugs,’ said Cobweb. ‘To make a gown befitting a queen.’
Fay tried to protest as the tailor bees severed the straps of her backpack; cut away her running clothes, her leggings and her laces. She had no time for adornments. She had to find the Night Train. Anything else, she told herself, was a dangerous distraction. But as the silken gown took shape, she was unable to stop herself from watching in fascination. Woven to fit her perfectly; artfully draped in its many layers; in spite of its gossamer lightness, the fabric was deceptively strong. It shone like iridescent moiré, and now she saw that in the silk there were patterns of flowers and leaves, frosted into the warp and weft of the fabric like flowers on winter glass.
It took only minutes to create, the tailor bees humming imperiously, and the sequin bugs trundling busily around the neckline and the sleeves. Fay could feel them in her hair, moving and adjusting the strands, weaving them into an intricate coronet of jewelled braids. Then, when their work was complete, the creatures all took wing and dispersed, illuminating the air with their wings so that everything was rainbow.