The Width of the World Read online

  My grandfather had not summoned me. He had not rescued me or my brother from Wormwood.

  In fact, he had done nothing for me … except leave me behind. And my parents had never tried to contact me after they had left Wormwood. So I supposed they didn’t care about me either. For all I knew, they were just fine with me spending the rest of my life in Wormwood.

  Without them.

  “What are you thinking, Vega Jane?” asked Delph, who was watching me closely.

  I felt tears rising to my eyes, but I looked away and brushed them off. I didn’t want Delph to see me like that. And I definitely didn’t want to display any such weakness in front of Petra.

  I composed myself and said, “I’m thinking that we’re going to have to figure this out on our own. Because I don’t think there’s anybody here that can or will want to help us.”

  I looked at each of them in turn before settling my gaze back on the floor.

  “We’re alone.”

  WELL, HERE WE were ensconced in another little room, like mice in a hidey-hole. And I didn’t like it one little bit.

  Delph and Petra were asleep on the floor with their heads on their tucks. Harry Two had his head on my lap and was snoring softly. As usual I could not sleep. Whether here, in the Quag, or back in Wormwood, sleep had never come easily for me. My mind was whirling far too fast. I looked enviously over at Delph and Petra, perched as they were close together, perhaps too close. I recalled her touching his arm and giving me that smile. This was going to come to a head at some point, I knew. I just didn’t know what the result would be.

  Restless, I turned to look out through the back of the sign. It must be very late outside, I thought. In fact, the train station was quite empty now, with nary a bloke toting a bag in sight. I couldn’t see the front of the sign so I didn’t know if any more trains were coming in.

  I had slumped down and closed my eyes when I heard it. A low, faraway whistle. Then another. Then I heard a rumbling. It was growing closer.

  I opened my eyes and looked around.

  “It’s like last night, eh?”

  I turned to stare at Delph, who was awake and looking at me.

  He said, “When we were coming to True for the first time after leaving the Quag. It was about this time of night, I reckon. When we heard the whistle. And the rumble.”

  He was right. We had heard these sounds when flying toward True last night.

  “But, Delph, why would a train be coming in this late?”

  “Dunno, but it’s definitely coming here,” he said. “The rumbling is picking up.”

  We waited a few more minutes, during which time Petra woke.

  The rumblings became louder and louder, and our gazes were fixed through the slits in the sign on that part of the station. We could see through glass doors the location where the trains would come into the station. I had early on guessed why, because I had seen the steam and smoke pouring out of the lead contraption in the train that I knew now was called the engine. I knew this because there was a little version of a train on display on the main floor of the train station. Next to each car of the train was another sign telling what it was called. Thus I also learned that the last car was known as the brake van.

  Though it was now dark, I knew we would have no trouble seeing the train come into view because they had little lights on inside. I had seen that on other trains.

  I looked at the others and saw they were as curious as I was. The rumbling became very loud, and I tensed since I knew the train would be appearing in our line of sight momentarily.

  But it didn’t. In fact, the sound went away and there was never a glimpse of the actual train at all.

  “What happened?” said a surprised-looking Delph.

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I got up and headed to the door. The others followed me.

  We reached the main floor of the station and peered around.

  In a low voice Delph said, “Vega Jane, maybe being invisible would come in handy now.”

  I nodded and ensnared everyone with my magical tether and then turned my ring the wrong way around. We instantly vanished from sight. As we moved along, I kept gazing around and listening. I thought I could hear something, but it wasn’t clear where it was coming from.

  We passed through the glass doors and stopped at the edge of the train platform, where shiny metal rails ran in parallel with stout wood laid perpendicularly in between. This was what the train ran on, and it was clever indeed. In fact, I thought wistfully, it might be something my brother, John, would have invented given the opportunity.

  I whispered, “Well, the train didn’t stop here.”

  “But the thing is,” said Petra, “we didn’t see it go through the station a’tall. I mean, doesn’t it have to run on those metal things?”

  Delph said, “She’s right. Why would it come close to True and not come into the station? It had to be ruddy close or else we wouldn’t have heard it from where we did.”

  “Maybe there’s another place for the train to stop.” I looked down. “Under the station?”

  They both looked at me quizzically. “But why would it do that?” asked Petra.

  I felt my skin start to tingle all of a sudden. I didn’t know what made it do that. But then again, maybe I did. I had always relied on my instincts. And maybe they were sending me a message.

  “Why would a train be coming in this late at all?” I asked.

  Delph said, “To keep it secret-like from everybody, ’cause most folks are sleeping now.”

  “Exactly.”

  Petra looked around and pointed. “Those stairs head down.”

  We scurried over to them and peered down. It was so dark we could see nothing. I said my incantation, pointed my wand and the area was magically magnified.

  “Big doors,” said Delph. “With a bunch’a signs that say DO NOT ENTER.”

  “And I bet they’re locked,” added Petra.

  I had no doubt they were. I led the way downward and when we reached the doors, I pointed my wand and said, “Ingressio.”

  I heard locks click, and one of the doors moved an inch or so. I gripped the knob and pushed it open just far enough for me to peer through.

  There was a short corridor and yet another set of doors. We passed through these, and then the stairs headed steeply downward.

  I had to get us through two more sets of doors, and it felt like we were about a mile underground.

  We stepped through the last set of doors and looked around.

  It was dark and musty and huge. I wasn’t sure the space down here wasn’t as big as what was up top.

  Delph said in a hushed voice, “Do you hear that?”

  It was a rumbling sound, but not like the noise before. It was lower and seemed to be made of many little noises accumulated somehow.

  We raced over to a door set in the wall and put our ears to it.

  “I hear something,” said Petra.

  I pointed my wand and said, “Crystilado magnifica.”

  Revealed on the other side of the door was a long hall. And it was full of people: males, females and youngs walking along. I was so nervous, I momentarily couldn’t recall the other terms used here so I had reverted to my native Wugish.

  And next to them the darkened train was sitting on the tracks, the engine belching smoke.

  Everyone had obviously just gotten off the train. They carried small tucks with them.

  They marched along in silence, staring straight ahead as though in a trance.

  “The hall is too full of people for all of us to go out,” I said. “You hide behind those crates over there because I have to break the magical tether.”

  “But, Vega Jane,” Delph began in protest.

  “I’ll be back in a jiffy,” I said. “Petra, keep your wand ready.”

  I released the tether once they were safely hidden. Invisible, I used my wand to open the door just enough to allow me to slip through. Luckily, no one was watching the d
oor. When the last of them had passed by, I fell in behind the group.

  At certain points along the way were more cloaked blokes holding wands, who I assumed were Maladons. When the line wasn’t moving fast enough, they roughly pushed people along. As I watched, a small girl with dark skin was knocked down by one of them. When a female I supposed was her mother went to help her, she was struck by the same Maladon and fell next to her daughter.

  The others marched on, not once looking back at their fallen comrades. As soon as the column had disappeared down the long hallway, the mother and daughter were jerked up, taken over to a far wall, lined up against it and the men stepped back and raised their wands.

  “ ’Tis a heavy price to be paid for dawdling, vermin,” he hissed.

  The horror I was witnessing was even greater than what I had experienced in the Quag. At least in there the bloodthirsty predators had the excuse that they were beasts.

  Without even thinking, I raised my wand and said, “Impacto.”

  The spell shot out from the tip of my wand and blasted both men off their feet. They sailed through the air and landed hard against the floor of the platform, their wands flying from them.

  I rushed forward to help the girl and her mother, but they just stood there impassively. It was then I realized that they were under the Subservio spell. I released them from it and they slowly focused and looked around in confusion.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  But I had forgotten that I was still invisible. When I spoke, the mother screamed, clutched her child and they ran off in the direction opposite from where the column had marched.

  “Wait,” I said. I was about to make myself visible when I heard feet running toward me. I turned and leapt out of the way as a group of cloaked Maladons with raised wands rushed past me. I lifted my wand to attack them from behind, but then I heard spells being cast and people screaming and more sounds of running.

  Overwhelmed by all of this, I turned and ran in the other direction, toward where the column of downtrodden had headed. I reached a door through which they must have passed. I eased it open and slipped through.

  On the other side of the door was a long, dark hall. I heard noises coming from the other end. People were talking in raised voices. Obviously everyone was on alert now.

  Not waiting for anyone to come to me, I rushed headlong down the hall, protected by my being invisible, though someone could certainly collide with me — invisibility did not mean that I was no longer a solid being.

  There were no doors along the hall, but I knew there had to be some place they had taken all those people.

  “Crystilado magnifica,” I said, pointing my wand ahead.

  Instantly in front of my face was the most bizarre sight.

  The room was enormous, cavernous really; easily the largest room I had ever seen.

  And in the middle of it was a huge crowd of people. Some I recognized as having just gotten off the train. In front of them, on a large white wall, were images moving back and forth. There was nothing really recognizable on the wall. It was just a sense of something there and movement, that was all.

  But everyone in the room was staring at it, transfixed.

  As I looked away from them and glanced back at the wall, I heard something. Again, as with the images on the wall, I couldn’t make out actual words; it was simply murmuring, something less than a whisper and a bit more than silence.

  When I looked at the mass of people, I froze. They were now rocking from side to side, in unison it looked like, though it seemed unfathomable that such a large crowd could do anything so perfectly in time with one another. Then each reached out and gripped their neighbor’s hand.

  When I looked back up at the wall and listened to the murmurings, something happened to me. I too started to sway back and forth. I felt my mind start to, well, dissolve. It wasn’t frightening. In fact, it felt right; it felt safe. I wanted it to happen. Memories that I had were starting to fall away from me. I felt good. My eyes began to close.

  “Vega Jane! Are you here somewhere?”

  My eyes snapped open and I looked wildly around.

  “Delph?” I whispered. “I’m over here, by the wall.”

  From the darkened shadows stepped Delph, Petra and Harry Two.

  I revealed myself to them by turning my ring back around. “How did you get down here?”

  “Weren’t easy,” said Delph. “Some angry blokes with wands come through, and we decided where we were hiding wasn’t all that safe. They went through a door and we slipped in behind them before it closed. Finally worked our way down here.”

  “What’d you find out?” Petra asked.

  “There were lots of people on the train. And they went to that big room right over there where they were doing something to their minds. If you hadn’t called out, I think I would have lost my bloody mind.”

  “Messing with their minds?” said Petra, looking stricken.

  I nodded. I was actually thinking about the Omniall spell I had used back in the Quag to banish the mind of a creature called a wendigo. Was that what was happening here, a banishment of all those people’s minds?

  “Then what happens to ’em?” said Delph.

  “Maybe they come to live here, all docile-like,” I replied, the puzzle blocks tumbling into place in my head. “Maybe that’s why it’s so peaceful here. Why blokes get along and all. And why even people scrubbing stones are smiling like they have the life of leisure.”

  After I made us all invisible again, we headed back the way we had come until we could see the train once more. Then some cloaked figures holding wands appeared and we darted into the shadows.

  Behind us I could hear the train gathering more and more steam. I looked out from our hiding place and flinched. The group of cloaked and wanded figures was heading our way. They had to be Maladons. They were dressed like the blokes at Saint Necro’s.

  In as low a voice as I could manage and still be heard I said, “They know someone who shouldn’t be is down here.”

  The Maladons were walking side by side, spanning the entire passage and waving their wands in front of them. Light was coming out of the end of each. Their plan, evidently, was to find whoever was down here by magic!

  I ducked back down and eyed the open train carriage door directly behind us. It was our only possible escape. “This way, quick!” I hissed.

  We moved backward and onto the train carriage and then flitted inside. Thankfully, it was empty.

  And then I looked out the window and saw the Maladons heading our way.

  “Blimey, it’s like they know where we are,” I blurted out.

  “Where do we hide?” exclaimed Petra.

  We hurried to the rear of the train and shrunk back against the wall.

  The Maladons entered the train and looked around.

  After looking around, it seemed that they were satisfied that the train was empty. All had turned to leave save one. Inexplicably, he took a long whiff of the air, and his features turned puzzled. And then they turned suspicious. I looked desperately around and then gazed down at Harry Two.

  Invisibility did not shield our smell. Perhaps the accursed bloke was sniffing out my canine.

  Before the Maladon could do anything I pointed my wand and whispered, “Confusio.”

  The spell hit him and he immediately went funny in the face.

  One of his mates turned, saw him, gripped him by the arm and pulled him off the train, cuffing him on the head for good measure.

  With a lurch and a long rasping noise, the train pulled out of the station.

  I let out a long breath that very nearly turned to a shriek, so happy was I. And then my thoughts ventured to all those people in that room having their minds emptied and filled up with nothing but tosh, and my smile vanished.

  It was like my life in Wormwood — filled only with lies.

  “Vega Jane, who do you suppose is driving this here train?” asked Delph.

  “Dunno, do I?”
/>
  “And where do you suppose we’re heading?” asked Petra.

  “Same answer,” I said irritably.

  WHEN WE WERE clear of the station, the train gathered speed and we were soon roaring through the dark countryside. I gazed out the window and was stunned at how fast a train could go.

  I was also wondering why we were the only ones on it. Yet maybe there were people in the other carriages?

  As a group, covered by the invisibility shield, we searched the rest of the train, but every carriage was empty.

  But one of the carriages was different from the others. There were no windows, and, ominously, there were chains attached to each seat.

  We looked at them silently for several long moments and then glanced anxiously at one another before hurrying back to our carriage.

  As we settled down in our seats, Delph said, “I wonder who they put in chains?”

  I shook my head. “Not the ones that they’re taking their minds from. I think they stay in True. And you don’t need to chain people who can’t think for themselves.”

  Petra added, “Well, they apparently all stayed in True tonight, since there’s no one on this bloody train.”

  Delph looked up ahead and said, “But some bloke’s got to be steering this thing, don’t he?”

  I took out my wand, pointed it toward the front of the train and said, “Crystilado magnifica.”

  There were two males sitting in comfortable seats. They weren’t wearing cloaks but blue uniforms with caps, like the blokes I had seen directing the motors on the cobbles. In front of them, set into a large wooden board, was a vast array of shiny buttons and levers. And behind little bits of glass built into the wood were small arrows wavering between sets of numbers. One of the blokes lit up a pipe and smoke started seeping from it. He and the other man were chatting aimlessly, it seemed to me. In front of them was a large window showing what was in front of the train as it sped along.

  I relinquished the magnification spell and looked at the others, who had seen what I had.

  Delph seemed relieved. “Well, at least someone is steering.”

  “But I wonder where we’re going?” asked Petra.