The Black North (13 page)

‘Sorrowful Lady preserve us!' said Merrigutt.

Oona said nothing. She stood, because what else was there to do when the world ends under your feet, gives up to be succeeded by dark? And beyond and beyond … in the distance mist shrugged its shoulders, stopping signs of the other side, giving no sight of the North. But it wasn't pale mist – it was black. On the brink Oona could feel – almost hear? – the will of the land, the strain and want of it to separate further. And at the same time such quiet, not unlike the hush brought by the Coach-A-Bower. She shifted her bare feet as if she needed to keep finding fresh purchase or fall. Oona felt drawn to the dark – it seemed to be inviting her, as though it was saying,
Want to see how far I go down? How deep and how dark? Well, come close and –

‘
Stop
!' called Merrigutt.

Oona stepped back, only realising then how close she'd come to toppling.

‘How are we gonna –?' she started the question, and then spied inadequate answer: a rope-bridge with a blasted look, the planks all broken, or missing. All of it was battle-worn and bullied by the elements and drawn taut by the Divide.

‘Well,' said Oona. ‘I suppose there are no Invaders about, so that's something.'

‘Doesn't need to be any Invaders,' said Merrigutt. ‘You should be more worried when there are none – never a good sign, far as I've learnt. And why would they patrol here anyway? Sure only a fool would try to make a crossing on that excuse for a bridge!'

There's that word again, thought Oona.
Fool
.

‘You're going to, aren't you?' said Merrigutt, and she leaned in so that there was hardly a hair's space between the jackdaw's eyes and Oona's own. ‘You're actually standing there and weighing up and thinking of crossing that bridge, are you not?'

‘I am,' said Oona. She didn't move – she wasn't ready, not yet.

‘There's no return after this,' said Merrigutt. ‘Once you cross, that's it. It's only on, my girl. Only on and into the Black. You understand?'

Oona said, ‘Aye. I understand it.' She looked to the bridge – so many places to fall through. Too many!

‘Some kind of North magic on the thing,' said Merrigutt.

‘Then you need to help me,' said Oona. She heard the plea in her own voice. ‘Will you?' Merrigutt did her shifting on Oona's shoulder.

‘Start walking on,' said the jackdaw. ‘And I hope the Sorrowful Lady Herself is watching over us!'

Oona tried for the fabled deep breath but couldn't get much air into herself. A gasp, bit of a rasp, and then she settled her hands on rope. And she may as well have taken hold of the bridge and shaken it for the way the thing suddenly swayed and shivered and under her fingers she felt more fibres give.

‘Better say a prayer, my girl,' whispered Merrigutt.

Oona made another attempt at a deep breath – swift gasp-sigh-gasp. Then she said, ‘All right: Sorrowful Lady, if you're any way real and not just some miserable-looking statue we like to have in the corner of the cottage, then some help would be bloody gratefully taken right now.'

‘Suppose it's better than nothing,' said Merrigutt. And Oona took first steps.

‘Wait!' said Merrigutt. ‘Stay a minute.'

‘Why?' said Oona. ‘We've no time for waiting.'

‘Did you know that if you fall into the Divide you fall forever? Ever hear that story? No? Well it's true, so just stay.'

The jackdaw left, circling and keeping her distance from the Divide. Then she came suddenly down and settled with wings still outstretched on a place where no plank was apparent. And, strange thing – Merrigutt was held. Then away she went again, crying down to Oona, ‘There's a place to stand there! Concealed by some sly magic, so it is!'

Some more words Oona said to herself: ‘Sly magic. So there's somewhere to be standing where there doesn't look to be anywhere to stand. What does that say about where there does seem to be something to stand on?'

So what did it look like, this now altered way ahead? Oona had a dozen (now known as seeable) steps to follow, and then she would reach that first gap, the first place where Merrigutt had found something invisible to settle on.

‘Right,' she said, and then walked. Took slow steps and soon reached that first opening in the bridge.

‘Quickly!' called Merrigutt from somewhere above.

‘I'll give you quick,' Oona muttered to herself. ‘Bloody bird.'

She sucked in every breath and chewed on each lip. Then on. But it was the hardest thing to defy instinct, for Oona to move her foot to a place where there was nothing, with all her good senses screaming,
No
! But when she set her first foot on empty space, it held. She brought all her weight together, both feet: still held.

Oona breathed out. Then she did the worst thing – she looked down. Silence like it could suffocate her reached up and enveloped and all Oona's insides churned and she was suddenly snatching for any breath the way a spoon snatches at the bottom of an empty bowl. Oona wasn't afraid of heights – in Drumbroken she had taunts and mocking for anyone who was. But this wasn't height like she knew it: the worst that could happen if you fell from a tree was broken bones and shame, things a bit sore, but worst that could happen at the Divide was –

‘Oona!' cried Merrigutt. ‘Quick – look there behind you!'

Oona looked, but wished she hadn't – the first dozen planks she'd crossed were softening, were splinter and dust and then falling with a slow whisper and Oona shut her eyes and stayed, expecting to fall too. No prayers came into her head quick enough.

She didn't fall, though.

‘Don't just stand there!' she heard Merrigutt shout.

Oona opened her eyes – the way ahead from feet to far distance was only four planks, places between promising nothing. But were there more invisible places to stand or not, concealed by magic maybe, or not? All sense had been dispelled.

Merrigutt returned to Oona's shoulder. The old bird sounded exhausted as she said, ‘Thought something like this might happen.'

‘Thanks for the warning,' said Oona.

‘I did warn you!' said Merrigutt. ‘I've been warning all the way from Drumbroken! The very worst of North magic, this is. We'll have to cross together, it's the only way now.'

Oona's next step was simple enough, she supposed: somewhere visible to walk. But she didn't move.

‘Look,' said Merrigutt, some softness being attempted in her tone. ‘This is as difficult as we make it. It's trying to make a fool out of you, make you too afraid to think right – don't be letting it.'

Oona Kavanagh didn't like the idea of being outsmarted by a bridge any more than Merrigutt did. So she nodded, and then moved on. But sure enough, something strong and spiteful was at work: the bridge wasn't getting its way so it went its own, swinging with sudden force and Oona was thrown from her feet and forwards – Merrigutt's cry: ‘
Oona
!'

Fell –

eyes shut –

middle of nothing and tumbling and then –

collided –

held what she could hold –

tight –

Her hearing sang shrill notes –

heart screaming,
Please
!

Pleading –

She breathed in –

throat dry –

breathed-out-breathed-in.

Cold tears stung each cheek.

She just breathed.

‘You all right there, my girl?' Merrigutt asked. The jackdaw was still on her shoulder.

Oona didn't answer. No energy for speech – opening her eyes was enough effort. And when she did, everything she saw was sharpened by fear: the weave of the rope unravelling, the pattern of dog-roses on the sleeve of the dress she'd made at the hearthside at home. The familiar tangle and split of lines on her palm – the detail was all too much and made her stomach want to empty what little food it had in it. Oona swallowed – another simple thing, usually, but it was such an effort. And she wanted more than much else to be somewhere else.

Then she looked further –

Ahead was nothing but open space. Not a single piece of wood was left to stand on. Oona lay, held her satchel tight and said, ‘Now what the (
swear
) am I gonna do now?'

‘This is what it wanted,' said Merrigutt. ‘It lures people out and then takes away all places to stand on, or seems to. Leaves you stranded. Most people probably just fling themselves off, too frightened to go on!'

Oona heard the jackdaw's words, but from a distance: she had too much in her own head to think of anything else. She swallowed, and said only to herself: I'm not flinging myself anywhere. And somehow Oona was on her feet again, all of her shivering but standing anyway.

Merrigutt dropped and settled on Oona's bare foot.

First thing – Oona's hands went to the rope on either side.

Merrigutt dipped her beak towards the dark – towards nothing but that malign silence – and touched something.

‘Solid step, it seems like,' said Merrigutt.

Oona bid her hands to slide and her feet to lift and they complied, and she found somewhere to exist for a minute more.

And the next?

Merrigutt tried and found nothing there for standing on, but then there was something fresh to panic about –

‘
He said to check the bridge, said the girl might try to cross into the North!
'

‘
Nah! Who'd be fool enough to do that?
'

Again! thought Oona. Fool – and this time the word from a hooligan Invader!

But before Merrigutt could say a thing Oona breathed, ‘I know – hurry and go quicker.'

On she went, faster in her testing and trying for somewhere to stand then shuffling forwards. But the voices of the Invaders, closer –

‘
Better check anyway! If we can find the thing in this mist and don't just fall in!
'

‘We need more time,' said Merrigutt. ‘Whatever happens – keep going.'

Once more the jackdaw was off into the air. Oona watched Merrigutt turn towards the South and slip into the mist, gone. Oona listened – surely some shouts from the Invaders? Then certainly gunshots. But Oona had her way ahead – she faced the North, its wall of Black mist.

She watched her feet, moving them faster in many steps.

She looked up – she wasn't a bit closer to the other side. No nearer the end of it at all! How many paces had she taken and still she was where she was? Then Oona knew the true and proper trick of the bridge, and it was this: there was no way across. And if she tried to return to the South? She'd find it just as impossible to reach that end. No way over, no way back.

‘Run on, Oona!'

Mist hurled Merrigutt back but behind were the Invaders, calling and gun-firing –

Only one thing left: Oona took the Loam Stone from her satchel and begged knowledge, craving nightmares. She shut her eyes, the Stone hot, and saw: others attempting the crossing, becoming stranded like herself then falling, surrendering …

Invaders –

‘
There! She's on the bridge!
'

‘
Don't shoot! We need to get her alive!
'

‘
How? There's nothing to bloody walk on!
'

‘
It's a Wander of Faith, they call it!
'

‘
I can bloody well see why!
'

One last nightmare: man and wife on the bridge, wife running across with eyes shut and not falling until she felt land under her feet, landing on the other side. But the husband was too frightened to move. Even as his wife tried to coax him over, he stayed where he was.

Oona opened her eyes as Merrigutt fell heavy onto her shoulder. Oona said, ‘I know what to do now. Hold on.'

The Loam Stone held high, her hands leaving the rope, Oona closed her eyes, breathing in, and ran, not thinking of anything except the wife on her way across, believing and needing and dreaming as the pointless shouting from an Invader went, ‘Stop her! She's getting away!'

Then something snagged and Oona stumbled and fell … flat on her front onto something solid. She opened her eyes and saw dark: the Black of the North was beneath her. Looked up: Black mist around her. A moment, and then some laughter rose in her throat, low and breathless and relieved.

Merrigutt said, ‘I don't know how you did that, but the tale can wait for later. Now let's get the hell away from this place!'

Agreed, thought Oona. And long before Merrigutt had finished with her hurry and demand for haste, Oona was on her way, running. And the Invaders –
the proper fools!
thought Oona – were soon left distant, all their pointless bellowing and threat dying quick on darkened air.

It should've been day (and might've been somewhere), but the scene looked closer to dusk. Darkness pressed close, clinging to everywhere: palms and lips, sneaking under eyelids, fingernails and toenails. Oona looked for her feet and thought that if she stopped they'd slip invisible, no difference between their black and the ground they were walking. She had to move with care, the ground broken and uneven, gouged with dry gullies and parched trenches. She licked her lips – foul taste. Picked her nose and what she excavated made her stomach twist.