The Seventh Tide (33 page)

‘Tell me.’

He spoke as if he were giving an order, as if he really expected her to do so that very minute.

The girl stared at him. She said, ‘Tell you?!’ just as the minder squeaked, ‘Be reasonable, sir. She’s just an O.’

The old man turned into the full glare of the floodlights. It was uncanny how young he looked, under that wild white hair. ‘I want her to tell me. And my understanding of the system is, it’s what I want that matters.’

For a second, there was a look of shrewdness on that unlined face, a look very much on the ball, very wide awake and not a little frightening.

The minder had seen the look before. She knew what it meant.

As you say, sir,’ she sighed. ‘But not
here
!

He smiled sweetly at her.

‘What’s your name, girl?’ the minder asked crossly.

‘Jay’ the girl said through teeth that were beginning to chatter.

‘Right then,
Jay
, since the master has spoken. Let’s
go…
’

‘What’s she
doing
here?’

‘Does she think we don’t
know?!
’

‘The Ardnamurchan Reading Room is not and never will be open to Os.’

‘And what possible use could it be to them if it
were?!
’

The minders and scribes and shelf-stackers whispered together in corners of the Reading Room, shaking their heads and tutting in disapproval.

‘I’m afraid it’s my Dr Horace’s fault. He insisted. Don’t ask me why’ one of the minders said, privately hoping that no one
would
ask her why. She really didn’t want it generally known that her charge was so good at getting away from her, or that he went into Restricted Sectors like the surface platforms when he did. ‘You know what they’re like.’

The others nodded, wry expressions on their faces. They did indeed know what
they
were like.

‘Do you know what she said to me?’ somebody else said.

The others all leaned in close to hear.

‘No. What did she say?’

‘Well,
I
said, “If you’re going to read that stuff you’re going to need a download of Early Dalraidian Gaelic,” and
she
said, “I’m ahead of you there, sunshine. Got it already. Right here,
in my enchanted arm.”
’

‘She
never
!’

‘As I live and breathe!’

On the other side of the Reading Room, Jay sat at a table covered in ancient manuscripts and scholarly commentaries, some of them almost as old as the texts themselves. A voice long dead droned in her ears, one of many in the last weeks.

‘The name of the poet is not known for certain, though some scholars have suggested the work is by Devin of Dalraida. The fact that the poem is never included in collections or listings of his work is problematic. That the poem might have been written as a private work only, and not intended to be read or heard by the world in general, would have been an odd concept in his time…’

It had been a long day and she was tempted to skim, but something made her stick to it. Something made her pay attention.

‘… includes passages which mention “the otter-haired woman”, though some scholars think the correct translation is “the bald woman”. She may have been a nun, though it is not known for certain whether nuns of
this period had their hair cut off. However, the
tone
of the references is distinctly more secular…’

Suddenly Jay wasn’t interested in the commentary any more. She shoved it aside, and peered intently at the thing itself – a peculiar poem of uncertain origin called ‘The Journey’. The manuscript was only a copy of a copy, in tiny crabbed writing and pale ink, hard to read, and harder to understand, unless you somehow, magically, knew what it was saying already.

…
the otter-haired woman… the one from, the land of laughter… St James’s talking beast… the men of ice… the beasts of Eden… the Seventh Tide…
the phrases swam in front of her eyes, making her afraid to blink, in case it was just wishful thinking, seeing them there. So she didn’t blink, for as long as possible, and then she did. And when her eyesight cleared, the words were still there.

Her shriek shattered the silence of the Ardnamurchan Reading Room.

‘I found them!’ she squealed.

All over the library, D-class and RD-class heads jerked up nervously. Minders and scribes hurried to soothe and placate, but after the first startlement had passed, D-class and RD-class smiles were seen. They recognized the Eureka moment, the joy of opening doors and arising possibilities. They recognized one of their own.

Jay looked round the room, smiling back at them. She kissed her finger, touched the pile of manuscripts on the table before her and began to dance.

21
Eo

Three clown-coloured oystercatchers – Gladrag, Market and Interrupted – circled high above the Isles as the tide, no longer restrained, surged back in search of its proper place. They looked down on a scene of foamy white chaos, as low-lying land was submerged and then returned to the air, battered but unmoved. Plumes of spume were thrown against the faces of cliffs and up into the sky, and dolphins freed from gullies rode the surf. Although they were in no doubt about what had happened, the birds still waited until they could see the top of the Island of the Dry Heart clearly before moving off.

There was no sign of the Queen, the Kelpies or their vortex. The door between the worlds was shut again.

‘Home?’ said one, and the others agreed.

The G island, some distance from the epicentre, had been a little protected. As the three oystercatchers came in to land, they saw how the beach was littered with
torn-off seaweed fronds and a scattering of flapping fish, but there’d been no permanent damage done.

And there, in the midst of the mess, they saw the figure of a boy lying on his side, curled up tight.

‘Is he all right?’ Interrupted Cadence half-squawked, half-said, as he morphed from bird to human while simultaneously trying to get into a soggy robe.

They rushed over to Eo as he began to stir and groan. For a moment he just lay there, peering blearily up into their anxious faces. Then, suddenly, his expression changed. He lurched forward and grabbed Hibernation Gladrag by the robe.

‘Where’s the Professor?’ he croaked frantically. ‘Is he safe?
Is he alive?
’

Gladrag tried to point while not getting throttled at the same time. ‘We left him up there. On the high ground.’

Eo instantly let her go and scrambled to his feet.

‘Show me!’

‘Steady!’ warned Market Jones, as the boy swayed a little, but Eo shook off his hand.

‘Show me,’ he repeated.

They led him up the beach, across the dune grass and on to the high ground. The returning water hadn’t come this far, and the nest was where they’d left it, tucked in among some rocks.

And Hurple hadn’t moved. He still lay there, apparently lifeless, looking like nothing more than a scruffy scrap of fur.

Eo reached out a hand as if to touch him, but then pulled back with a moan.

‘No. No. Why hasn’t he woken up? I did everything I was supposed to.
Why isn’t he OK?
’

Then, suddenly, the Professor began to twitch. His four paws jerked and a muttering sound came out of his mouth.

‘He’s having convulsions!’ wailed Eo, looking up at the others, stricken.

Hibernation Gladrag put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘No, no. Look! He’s having a dream!’ she said kindly. ‘And if it doesn’t include chasing rabbits, then I don’t know my ferrets as well as I thought!’

As Eo looked down again, Hurple stopped twitching and heaved a great contented sigh.

‘He caught one!’ Eo whispered, smiling. And now he’ll be ready for a
proper
sleep.’ He picked up the still-unconscious ferret in his two hands and carefully decanted him into his battered bag. Then he laid the bag in the lee of the rocks and tiptoed away.

‘He’s going to be fine,’ he said to the three G. And now I want my parents, please.’ He sat down on the grass, took a ragged breath and burst into tears.

This disconcerted them almost more than anything that had gone before, but fortunately, help was at hand.

Two handsome gannets plummeted out of the sky, overshooting the figures on the hill by several metres. This meant that by the time they had landed and then shifted into human shape, they had also been able to acquire some robes. As they homed in on the weeping boy one of them pulled a handkerchief out of one pocket and a small fish out of the other. There was only an infinitesimally short pause before the handkerchief was offered and the hugging began.

Hibernation Gladrag, Market Jones and Interrupted
Cadence strolled politely away, grateful to give the family group a little privacy. They headed back down the slope to the shore.

‘He’s got that hairstyle, did you notice? Like the girl had,’ Interrupted commented. ‘I do like it.’ His own hair was relaxing out of its tight coil, and he ran a hand through it. ‘I wonder if…’

Market looked sideways at him speculatively and then nodded. ‘Could work.’ The two fell behind their Head a little.

‘You don’t think I’m too, you know,
old
?’

‘Nonsense! What do you think, Hibernation?’

‘Hmmm? Oh yes. Very nice.’

Market winked at Interrupted, and they caught up with her.

‘That was quite a kerfuffle,’ Market said.

Gladrag shook her head solemnly and tutted.

‘Haven’t seen that much fuss since
you
were a child, Hibernation, old girl,’ Market continued.

‘Really?’ said Interrupted. ‘How intriguing – tell me more!’

Gladrag tried to chuckle carelessly, but a close observer would have noticed the faintest trace of a blush on her cheek. Market certainly did.

As they reached the water’s edge, he started to laugh.

Interrupted giggled.

Gladrag muttered something under her breath and stepped abruptly forward. At the lip of the surf she melted, belly-flopped into the waves and seal-swam away. Her friends hooted even louder…

… and bubbles of answering mirth breaking the surface marked her path.