The Story of Cirrus Flux Read online

  Instantly, Cirrus was back at the window, peering outside. The figure with the lantern—if it had been a lantern—had gone and the tree was a stark silhouette, a solitary shadow by the side of the road. Cirrus quickly scanned the fields, but they were empty also. There was no sign of the mysterious stranger.

  “What’re you looking at?” asked a timid voice from behind him. Tobias was sitting up, watching him with moist eyes. “Is it Aaron’s ghost?”

  The other boys began to laugh, moaning and groaning like phantoms beneath their sheets, but Cirrus ignored them and padded over to the young boy’s bed.

  “It’s nothing,” he said gently, tucking him in. “You’re safe here. Now go to sleep.”

  Shivering slightly, he stepped back to the window, looked out once more and then, when he was absolutely certain no one was there, returned to his bed, near the unlit fireplace in the corner. Beside him, Bottle Top was muttering something under his breath, something to do with Jonas and the Gallows Tree.

  “How about you and me sneak off tomorrow and show him, eh, Cirrus?” he said.

  But Cirrus wasn’t listening. He was thinking of other things: of the strange figure beneath the tree and the ball of flame that had hovered momentarily in the air.

  The Girl Behind the Curtain

  The following morning Pandora was cleaning one of the upstairs windows when she noticed the two boys sneaking away from the hospital. They climbed the apple tree near the back of the garden, tied a rope to one of its overhanging branches and jumped over the surrounding wall, disappearing from view.

  She watched for a while, then caught sight of her reflection imprisoned in the glass. A girl with a mutinous expression and ghastly hair—the victim of another of Mrs. Kickshaw’s haircuts—stared back. Pandora glowered in response. Why did she have to look like this, dress like this and do the same tedious housekeeping, day in and day out, while the boys were free to roam outside? It wasn’t fair.

  She picked at the scarlet ribbon on her coarse brown uniform and found the answers lining up in her head like obedient schoolchildren: because she was a girl; because she was a foundling; because the Governor had kindly taken her in, fed her and clothed her since the week she was born; and because she had nowhere else in the world to go …

  A small sigh escaped her and she watched as her doppelganger faded in the dull glass. Then, remembering the cloth in her hand, she halfheartedly began to wipe her sigh away.

  Without warning, footsteps approached and the door opened. Instinctively, Pandora backed into the folds of the heavy, half-drawn curtain and made herself invisible. She grasped the keys in her apron pocket to keep them from jangling and peered cautiously round the edge of the curtain.

  Mr. Chalfont, the Governor, looked in. A portly gentleman with spools of woolly white hair, he swept his eyes round the dimly lit chamber, misjudged it to be empty and stepped aside to admit the most breathtaking person Pandora had ever seen.

  A tall, graceful woman, dressed entirely in silvery blue, strode into the room. A thousand tiny frost flowers seemed to shift and shimmer across the surface of her gown as she moved, and Pandora longed to stroke the fabric, wondering whether it would sting her fingers with cold. Then, with a shock, she drew back. The woman’s hair was coiled in an intricate system of loops and curls that stayed in place on their own; it was the most extraordinary thing she had ever seen.

  Pandora blushed, touching her own scrub of curls, and felt the damp rag brush against her skin. There was no time now to dash the duster round the room, pretending to look busy. Nor could she politely excuse herself and leave. Mr. Chalfont would surely suspect that she had been up to no good: napping, thieving or, worse, evading her chores … when all she had been doing, really, was gazing out of the window, wishing she could be somewhere, anywhere, else.

  Yet here she was. Trapped.

  Fortunately, neither Mr. Chalfont nor his visitor appeared to have noticed the gently swaying curtain or the hyperventilating girl now safely concealed behind it. There was only one thing for her to do: remain hidden.

  Hitching up her skirts, Pandora climbed onto the window seat behind her and knelt on the plump velvet cushions. She pressed her eye to the partition in the fabric, curious to see what would happen.

  “The boy,” said the woman presently, as Mr. Chalfont drew the dark wooden door shut behind them. It closed with a soft, furtive click. “Is he here?”

  “Cirrus Flux?”

  “You know very well the boy I mean. You received my letter, did you not?”

  Mr. Chalfont moved toward the fire, though the day was neither wet nor cold—merely overcast and murky. Embers snoozed in the blackened hearth, but, brandishing a brass poker, he managed to prod them into life. Shadows began to prowl.

  For a dreadful moment Pandora feared the Governor might open the curtain to let in more light, but he appeared to have other things on his mind. He kept his voice to a whisper and his motives to himself.

  “I fear, dear lady, that we cannot oblige you,” he said, removing a letter from his frock-coat pocket and unfolding it in his hands. “Cirrus is but a child, and not the most agreeable child at that.”

  His eyes drifted toward the window and Pandora cringed in her hiding place.

  “I confess that, even now, he is most likely running off in the fields, causing trouble,” the Governor said. “Indeed, we’ve had a most difficult time placing him with a master.”

  “Which is precisely why I have come for him now,” said the woman. Her eyes narrowed. “To offer him a position. A trade.”

  Mr. Chalfont said nothing. Instead, he gazed into the hearth and, with a casual flick of his fingers, dropped the letter into the flames. The paper flared for a moment, then curled into a tight crimson fist.

  The woman, in the meantime, stepped over to an ornate table clock.

  “You do know who I am?” she remarked, removing the casing and inspecting the dial.

  Mr. Chalfont inclined his head. “Of course, Mrs. Orrery.”

  “Madame Orrery,” said the woman sharply. “Of the Guild of Empirical Science.”

  The man glanced up.

  “Of the Guild of Empirical Science,” she said again. “Do not think for a moment, Mr. Chalfont, that my origins—or my humble sex—should ever thwart me. I am accustomed to getting what I want.”

  “I was under no such illusion,” the man murmured to himself, averting his face so that only Pandora, listening very carefully, could hear. He began to fumble with the ends of his lace jabot, which was knotted round his neck.

  “Yet even so, Madame Orrery,” he continued, “I am afraid you seek the impossible. You see, here at the Foundling Hospital, we endeavor whenever possible to apprentice young boys to masters, not mistresses, and Cirrus”—his eyes darted this time to a side door, as though he wished he, too, could escape—“Cirrus is not like other foundlings. His is a special case. His circumstances were … are … exceptional.”

  Mr. Chalfont almost choked on his choice of words, and his meager smile came slightly unraveled.

  Madame Orrery studied the man closely for a moment, her powdered face pinched with suspicion. Then, pursing her lips, she calmly extended a hand, which was dominated by a large oval ring. She smoothed her fingers over its flat, moon-colored surface and somehow retrieved a miniature key from its secret compartment.

  “I knew his father,” she said softly, her words shivering in the air before melting into silence.

  Mr. Chalfont turned pale. “I see,” he said, mopping his brow with a large linen handkerchief and sinking into the arms of a waiting chair. “I do not suppose he is … still alive?”

  Pandora did not hear the response. Like most foundlings, she longed to know where she had come from, exactly who her parents had been, and at the mention of the boy’s father she had plunged her hand deep into her apron pocket, past the loop of keys, searching for the scrap of fabric she always carried with her. A patch of pink cloth with a single word embroidered across its fron
t:

  It was the only memento she possessed of her mother, a token of remembrance she had found in the Governor’s study and taken without permission. She studied its gold lettering carefully, trying to draw solace from its simple message.

  When at last she looked up, Mr. Chalfont was squirming in his chair. The woman had withdrawn a delicate silver object from the folds of her gown and was winding it very slowly, using her tiny key, all the while staring intently into the man’s face. A pocket watch. Pandora could hear the instrument whirring and ticking, spinning time.

  “Yet, even so, Madame Orrery,” she heard Mr. Chalfont repeat feebly, “Cirrus is a special case. His circumstances are exceptional.”

  He ground to a halt, too tired—or else too dejected—to continue.

  A sudden rap on the door caused them to turn round.

  Madame Orrery snapped the watchcase shut and returned it to a pocket, while the Governor glanced up, bleary-eyed and confused.

  “Yes, what is it?” he said as a stout, middle-aged woman looked in.

  “Begging your pardon,” said the woman with a curtsy, “but there’s a gentleman to see you, sir. Come about a child.”

  “Good, good. Show him to the waiting room,” said Mr. Chalfont. “I’ll be with him shortly.”

  “As you wish, sir,” said the woman, giving Madame Orrery a suspicious stare. “Are you all right, sir? You look a bit peaky.”

  “Yes, yes, never better,” said Mr. Chalfont, blinking hard. “Just a twinge of the old gout, I’m afraid.” He smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Kickshaw. That will be all.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Kickshaw, with another curtsy, and closed the door.

  Madame Orrery stood for a moment before the fire and then turned to face the Governor. “Are you certain there is nothing I can do to change your mind?” she said. “About the boy …”

  Mr. Chalfont held up his hands apologetically, but shook his head.

  “Very well,” said Madame Orrery. “I shall not test your patience further, Mr. Chalfont. Good day.”

  She moved toward the door.

  Mr. Chalfont appeared to have wakened from a disagreeable dream. He blustered to his feet.

  “Madame Orrery,” he gasped, rushing to detain her, “if you merely seek a child to assist you in your work, then why not consider one of our other foundlings?”

  He crooked his arm round her ruffled sleeve and escorted her back toward the fire. “We have female children—girls, even,” he said, his tongue tripping over itself in an attempt to make himself useful. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to consider one of these? We are always eager to place them.”

  The woman paused. “A girl?” she said, as if tasting the foreign flavor of the word.

  “Very obedient girls,” said Mr. Chalfont, regaining some of his composure. He leaned back on his heels and revealed the full globelike girth of his belly. “Trained in sewing and cleaning and general housekeeping,” he continued, unable to stop. “Indeed, we have several in need of employment, ranging in age from ten to—”

  “Enough!” said Madame Orrery.

  Mr. Chalfont held his tongue and gazed down at the floor like a scolded dog, the hopeful expression on his face wavering just a little.

  Madame Orrery considered him for a moment and then said, “Thank you, Mr. Chalfont. That is an agreeable suggestion.”

  Her eyes searched the room and a thin smile spread across her face like a ray of sunlight on a very cold day.

  “If you do not mind, I think I shall take the girl hiding behind the curtain.”

  Blackguards!

  “Don’t look like no head to me,” grumbled Bottle Top as he and Cirrus reached the Gallows Tree. They tore off their matching brown woolen jackets, tossed them in a heap on the ground and stared up at the dark, interlacing branches. The clump of shadow was clearly a nest of some kind: a messy bundle of sticks and twigs, patched together with mud.

  “What d’you suppose built it?” wondered Cirrus aloud, scratching at the flea bites on his neck. “It’s too large for a rook.”

  “Dunno,” said Bottle Top, “but I can find out.”

  He peeled off his shoes and stockings, tucked his shirt into his breeches and approached the Gallows Tree. The ancient oak had once been struck by lightning, and a cindery smell still clung to it like a shadow.

  “Here, tip us a hand,” he said, placing a grubby foot against the trunk, which was thick and knotted and scaled with green ivy—the only sign of vegetation on the long-dead tree.

  Cirrus moved in beside him and helped heave his friend up to a long, sinewy branch.

  “That Jonas!” said Bottle Top suddenly. “Thinks he knows everything on account of he can read. Well, I can show him a thing or two!”

  With tremendous agility, he pulled himself up to the next-lowest branch and quickly squirreled across to another.

  “Never mind Jonas,” said Cirrus, glancing behind him. “It’s Mrs. Kickshaw you ought to be worried about. She’ll start ringing the bell if we’re not back soon.”

  “Well, I for one ain’t in no hurry to return,” said Bottle Top, taking a moment to survey the surrounding land. “Did you see the way she was looking at me? Means to duck me in the cold bath, make no mistake.”

  Cirrus picked at the scabs of black bark with his fingers but said nothing. He could see dark clouds rolling in from the horizon.

  “And she’ll be after you, too,” said Bottle Top, “with them scissors. You mark my word. First sign of a master, she’ll be trying to make you look persentable.”

  Cirrus brushed a hand through his curls, which were growing back in worse waves and tufts than before. He could well remember the last time Mrs. Kickshaw had tried to trim his hair. “Just look at the state of ye!” she’d exclaimed, chasing him around the kitchen with a pair of barbaric shears. “Face of an angel with the horns of a devil! What’s to become of ye, I’ll never know!” He grimaced at the thought.

  “Soon as we’re apprenticed,” continued Bottle Top, clambering further up the tree, “we’ll need never take a cold bath again. There’ll be plenty of hot water and fine clothes and all the food we can eat. We’ll be proper gen’lemen, Cirrus, you wait and see.”

  Cirrus felt a warm glow of satisfaction. Unlike the other boys, who were content to be tailors and drapers in the city, he and Bottle Top were going to seek their fortunes abroad, traveling the world and sharing adventures.

  “Nor will we have to listen to any more of Jonas’s stories,” said Bottle Top, glancing up at the nest, which was wedged in a fork between branches. “Aaron’s head, my—”

  Just then, several crows that had been bickering over a nearby dunghill let out a savage croak and disappeared in the direction of Black Mary’s Hole, a row of thatched huts clustered round a disused well on the far side of the neighboring field. It was, Jonas told them, an area notorious for murderers and thieves.

  Cirrus watched them go and then bent down to retrieve a stick that had fallen to the ground. “D’you believe what Jonas says?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. “About Billy Shrike?”

  A giggle snaked down from above.

  “Are you afraid of him, Timid Flux?”

  “No,” said Cirrus, remembering the cloaked figure he had seen the night before. “But suppose—”

  “S’pose nothing,” said Bottle Top. “Don’t believe a word Jonas says. A baseborn liar is all he is. No wonder he ain’t yet been apprenticed.”

  Cirrus swiped his stick through the air, making it whistle.

  “P’rhaps,” he said, unconvinced.

  He fingered the little brass medallion he wore on a string round his neck—a disk embossed with the image of a lamb, marking him out as a foundling—and turned to face the hospital. All around it new buildings were beginning to appear, eating away at the surrounding countryside, but the hospital remained as it was: a refuge for unwanted babies.

  He ran his eyes along the solid brick ramparts until he spotted the row of windo
ws directly beneath the eaves of the west wing. The boys’ dormitory. But suppose Jonas was right? he was tempted to say. Suppose someone like Billy Shrike had been watching them all along?

  Unable to shake off the suspicion, he moved away from the tree and stepped toward the road.

  Something crunched underfoot.

  He glanced down and noticed a few thin shards of bone strewn on the ground in front of him, in a patch of grass that looked as if it had been recently burned. He knelt down and examined them more closely. The brittle fragments were rolled up in brown peaty parcels—like owl pellets, he thought, only larger. Scattered among them were several pale gray feathers, so light they almost flew away when he breathed on them. They had a faint orangey tinge, like the fading glow of embers. He brushed one with his hand. The soft downy fluff disintegrated at his touch, leaving a dark residue on his skin. He sniffed his fingers. Ash.

  Puzzled, he craned his neck and studied the nest more carefully. “Can you see what’s inside?” he called up to Bottle Top, who was nearing the top of the tree.

  “Almost!”

  Bottle Top had twined his legs round a slender branch and was inching his way into the canopy. Nearly a head shorter than Cirrus, he was made for climbing and could scale almost anything—including the balusters of the great wooden staircase in the hospital, a stunt that often got him into trouble with the Governor.

  As soon as he was on a level with the nest, he reached out and dipped a hand inside.

  There was an almighty din from above.

  Kraa-aak! Kraa-aak! Kraa-aak!

  The crows were back. This time, six or seven of them, darkening the sky with their wings. They circled the top of the tree and then lunged at the small boy, cackling viciously. Bottle Top let out a squawk of surprise and dropped through the branches, trying to get away, but the crows were too fast. They surrounded him in an instant, an angry mob, and began pecking and tearing at his clothes.

  “Shoo! Get away!” he screamed, thrashing at them with his arms, while they hopped from branch to branch, out of reach. Then, all of a sudden, he slipped. He lost his footing and fell, tumbling all the way to the ground.