The Gracekeepers Read online

  The violins fattened into a rhythm: from a dirge for loss, to a tango for love. North reached into the shadows and pulled the bear into the spotlight. He seemed confused, standing hunched at the edge of the light. She took his paw in her hand and turned, pirouetting into his arms. They swayed together, boy and bear, now girl and bear, but always lovers. North’s bear had brought her back. She had returned to him, as she would always return to him.

  They circled the edge of the spotlight together, North twisting in and out of the bear’s grasp as they turned. In the center of the stage they stopped, North’s back to her bear’s front. She brought her ankles together and stretched out her arms, lifting the bear’s paws with them. They stood, white on black, aping a cross.

  Then the bear folded his front paws around her, enclosing her in fur, his darkness covering every bit of her. Gripping his paws, she rolled her body up into his grasp, and they exited the stage to a chaos of violins. But no matter how loud the music, how bright the lights, none of the crowd could have failed to see the bear’s peeled-back lips or hear his steady growling.

  Red Gold swept past them to the stage, patting North and the bear on their shoulders. North’s heart was beating so hard that she felt sick, but she forced her mouth into a smile for the ringmaster. She glanced past the curtains to Bero, hoping for a wink of reassurance, but he was hunched over the gramophone, fiddling with the needle. His thick beard hid his expression. From the stage came the boom of Red Gold’s voice announcing the next act.

  North pulled her bear into the salty embrace of the curtains. In the narrow confines of behindcurtains, circus folk were all around her, preparing for their acts. Everything was the flash of colors and movement and frantic whispers. The growl still vibrated in the bear’s chest. His jaw was clenched, his teeth bared. North still held the razor blades in her shaking hands. The bear’s canines were as long as North’s fingers. The scent of his meat-rot breath grew as he growled louder. She raised her hand. She hesitated.

  Then she tucked away the blades, unclipped the bear’s chains and stroked her hands along his broad neck, murmuring platitudes, soothing him with familiarity. His growl died down and he dropped to all fours. He seemed ready to lie down and sleep, right there among the curtains. North wished he could; she wished they both could.

  A hand on her shoulder. She spun round, fists raised, teeth bared, ready to shout. Melia and Whitby backed away, eyes wide.

  Sorry, mouthed North, lowering her hands. Sorry. Tense. The show. She nodded toward the stage. Funeral waltz.

  The acrobats smiled and squeezed North’s hands consolingly. She hoped they couldn’t feel how badly she was shaking. Our second act. Clown military, they mouthed to her. The clams will love it. They nodded toward the crowd.

  North knew how Melia and Whitby felt about the military acts. It was one thing to parody the resurrection; although the revival boats were getting popular, most people weren’t religious, and those who were often didn’t speak out for fear of being thought strange.

  But to mock the military? It was suicidal. The Excalibur’s crew had spent time on a prison boat for it before, and there was no way to know how these landlockers would react. North hoped that Red Gold knew what he was doing.

  North nodded to the acrobats to show her support, then turned back to her bear. Her hands still shook and her head throbbed with panic. No matter what went wrong in the acts, a happy crowd mollified Red Gold. But North was not worried about the ringmaster. She was not worried about the military or even the prison boat. She was worried about her bear. They’d done the funeral waltz before, but not like this.

  He was not supposed to lift her.

  He was not supposed to roar.

  Did he understand that it was just a show? When she was lying in his arms—when she would not speak or move or open her eyes—did he know that she was only pretending?

  Not for the first time, North wondered what would happen to her bear when, inevitably, she could no longer do her act—whether she married Ainsel and moved to land, or was forced off the Excalibur by Red Gold. Either way, the ringmaster owned her bear. She doubted anyone else could learn to perform with him. He could not be used for farming or kept as a pet. He was meat for dinner, a fur coat, claws and teeth perfect for weapons.

  North led her bear back to their boat. She would wash the colors off their skins, and they would be themselves again. Alone in their coracle, they were not performers, not burdens, not dangers, not weapons, not food. They were family.

  —

  After the music had stopped, after the performers had taken their final bows, after the crowd had applauded until the big top’s canvas started to droop, and—most important—after her bear was lost in sleep, North climbed across the coracles to the mess boat. It was late, but the crew would congregate there to eat and drink away the night. The canvas was bright with lamps and she could hear the laughter from three boats away. She pulled back the edge of the canvas and climbed inside.

  The Excalibur had been allowed to dock overnight on the island, which meant that the landlockers had enjoyed the show. No one would be reporting anything to the military. Red Gold had been right. When it came to judging the wants of crowds, he was right more often than he was wrong—although the consequences of wrongness were much more serious. North did not like to gamble.

  “North child!” boomed Red Gold as North refastened the canvas over her head. He was still in his stage makeup and paper shirt, holding court at the head of the long metal table with his wife perched on his lap. Her smile was brittle.

  “Good evening, Jarrow,” said North.

  The mess boat was five times the size of North’s coracle, but it was packed with the entire circus crew. A warm glow filled the boat; though the seal-fat lamps stank in the small space, they lit up as bright as sunshine. That old superstition about fire on a boat only had to be observed on the wood-hulled Excalibur. There were no windows in the metal-shelled coracles, and the need to see was more important than superstition. As long as the flames didn’t reach as high as the canvas, they were safe, because almost everything in the coracles was made of metal or bone.

  Spotting Melia and Whitby in the corner, North made her way over to them, but was stopped by Red Gold’s hand on her wrist.

  “Sit by us, my little Stirling-to-be.” He pulled her on to the pitted bench beside him, where a tin cup and plate were screwed on to the table. If she didn’t drink, Red Gold would want to know why—and she was going to tell him, she really was, but not in front of the entire crew. And definitely not in front of Avalon.

  North unscrewed the cup and lifted it to be filled. Bero the fire-breather, who also manned the gramophone, and was also the cook, also the barman, filled her cup with a clear liquid. Its smell burned the inside of North’s nose.

  “Thank you, Bero.” She tipped the cup so that the liquid touched her closed lips. No one would notice whether the level went down or not.

  “I saw your act this evening, North.” Avalon’s tone was prim, clipped, but she managed to fake a kindly expression in case Red Gold was looking.

  North bought some time by standing up from the bench and blowing Avalon an elaborate air-kiss, then curtseying like she did after a maypole performance. She took her seat again with a wink to Red Gold. It was cheeky, but he was drunk enough to love it; he cheered and applauded, his meaty arms squashing his wife each time he clapped.

  North hoped that this would count as a response, but Avalon wasn’t letting go that easily.

  “Your act seemed a little different to last time,” she said. “I don’t recall your bear roaring before. It all seemed less controlled. Louder. Wilder.”

  “That’s how we like it, eh? Got to give the islanders a good show if we don’t want empty bellies!” Red Gold raised his cup to the canvas ceiling. “Cheers, cheers, cheers! That’s three cheerses so we all must drink.” He drained his cup, and then, with a tenderness only seen in the very drunk, he rested his free hand on Avalon’s belly. “
Except for you, my flower bride. You cannot drink, so we drink to you. To Avalon! To my darling baby!”

  There was a wordless roar as the rest of the circus crew raised their cups to toast the baby. North knew that most of them had gossiped and sniped that the baby was not Red Gold’s, that Avalon lay with her horses, that she wasn’t even really pregnant, that she wasn’t even really a woman, that she was just a parcel of devils wrapped in skin. But Red Gold told them to drink, so they drank.

  “To the baby,” whispered North. She wrapped her hands around her cup so that she wouldn’t press them to her belly.

  When people are cruel it’s often said that they have no heart, only a cold space or lump of ice in their chest. This was never true of Avalon. She had no heart, everyone knew, but there was nothing cold about her. In her chest burned an enormous coal, white-hot, brighter than the North Star. North knew the truth about Avalon: she was made of fire, and she would burn them all.

  Red Gold tipped Avalon back over his knee, smothering her with kisses. She struggled out of his grasp and slid on to the bench beside him, her chin raised, proud as a cat. She was probably trying to look noble, but the effect was spoiled by the gold glitter smeared across her cheek.

  North took her chance to slip away and creep over to Melia and Whitby. When they weren’t slick-haired and wrapped in ribbons for the maypole, it was easy to tell which was which. They had matching turquoise hair, but Melia’s sat in neat pin curls while Whitby’s was a mass of braids and dreadlocks. North took two steps toward them, and stopped.

  Ainsel had unfolded himself from the bench and was standing in front of her, blocking her way. He was dressed all in black and his lips were stained red.

  “Hello, Ainsel,” she said.

  He took hold of North’s shoulders—surprised, she jerked her hands up, ready to hit him—and he pecked a kiss on her lips.

  “I look forward to our wedding, North,” he recited. All in one motion, he let go of North, sat back down, and drained his cup. The whole thing took less than a breath. After a few half-hearted whoops and table-slaps, the crew returned to their conversations.

  North was glad that she hadn’t hit Ainsel. They’d kissed plenty as children, lips too wet, eyes and mouths shut tight. Since Red Gold had decided that they were to be married, they’d been alone together just a handful of times—and most of them were spent discussing how to get out of the marriage. As children they’d pretended to be pirates and octopuses and priests; stolen the skin-diving helmets to explore the night-dark sea; crept to the blackshore to share a stolen plum, its flesh softened to the color of meat. She didn’t know what had gone wrong between them. Perhaps nothing had; perhaps she’d never liked him. The close quarters of the Excalibur could make it seem that two people were close, when really they didn’t have a choice.

  As he’d kissed North, Ainsel had been looking over her shoulder to the head of the table, where Red Gold and Avalon sat. Was this some test that he had to pass—a challenge, an agreement, proof of his intentions for North? She felt as cold and functional as the metal bench.

  She took a seat beside Melia. “That damn family,” she muttered.

  “Your damn family, you mean,” replied Whitby, his eyes only slightly unfocused. “You’ll be one of them soon enough. Not long now until the wedding. North-East 19 isn’t so far.”

  “How did you know we were getting married there?”

  Melia rolled her eyes. “Gossip is the blood of the Excalibur.” Whitby groped around for an unclaimed cup, and handed it to North. She tapped the rim of her cup against his, then screwed it to the table without even pretending to drink.

  “So everyone knows everything about everyone,” she said.

  Melia and Whitby shrugged in unison. In every group of people there is a hierarchy, and the circus was no exception. The acrobats were right in the center; half the time they were allowed to tell others what to do, and the other half they had to do as others told them. Red Gold was at the top of the pile: lord of their tiny kingdom. Avalon was his lady, and then came Ainsel—at least, officially, though everyone disobeyed Avalon behind her back and Ainsel right to his face. He never complained to his father. Melia said it was because he didn’t want to look bad in front of Red Gold, but North thought he was too self-absorbed to care what anyone else did.

  Next came North—she wished this was because of her bear, but knew it was due to her betrothal to Ainsel—and then the fire-breather and the acrobats. Bero was above Melia and Whitby, because as the cook he also caught fish for their meals. The three glamours were at the bottom of the pile, but they had the sort of haughty beauty that meant they had to care for little else. And then the three clowns, who were their own separate fiefdom. They didn’t follow anyone else’s rules, but didn’t expect others to follow theirs either. They were given some leeway for being the skin-divers, tasked with collecting seaweed to supplement their meals. If the water was shallow and unpopulated enough, sometimes they could also find tiny caches of coral or mother-of-pearl to trade for better food. North was a little scared of the clowns, though she’d never admit it. The clowns loved the military acts and would have done them on every island, given the choice. In choosing their performances each night, in denying them what they most wanted, Red Gold had saved them a hundred times.

  Melia and Whitby were the best company on the Excalibur, and North wanted to talk with them, drink with them, pretend that things were normal.

  “North!” Whitby leaned forward and tapped her on the nose, as he’d seen her do with her bear. “Drink up. No time to mess about. There’s a storm coming soon, you know.”

  “And we should all get as pissed as stoats in preparation?” said Melia.

  “Well, it’s as sure as tides that we don’t want to be sober.”

  North lifted her cup and let a drop of the liquid on to her tongue, enjoying the burn as it went down her throat. Such a tiny amount wouldn’t matter, and if she didn’t drink it then she’d have to explain herself to the acrobats. Instead of a dizzy joy, the alcohol only made her feel sick. She had to tell someone. She couldn’t deal with this alone. That night on the shore, and the secret growing inside her. She’d tell them everything.

  She practiced the words in her head: Melia. Whitby. I have to tell you something. It might not make sense, but—listen.

  But she could see that they were in no mood to hear confessions. Whitby had reached over the table and was trying to tickle Melia, so she’d shoved handfuls of her hair into his face as a distraction. He backed away from the onslaught, raising his hands in surrender.

  “Mercy, mercy! I’d rather choke on my drink than on your hair.”

  “Well, I’d rather you choked on my hair than said another word about that storm.” Melia, seeing that her cup was empty, took a gulp from North’s. “It’s not like we’ve never got through a storm before.”

  “It’s been ahead of us for days, Melia. See how it taunts us? We may need the good grace of the sea, but she couldn’t care less what we do, or whether we’re alive when we do it.”

  Melia shrugged. “Serves us right for being daft enough to sail into it. We could stay here.”

  “Stay!” Whitby snorted. “I’m sure the clams would love that. Staying still is not for us, my love. We’re sharks. We move forward or we die.”

  —

  North climbed into her coracle long before dawn. The party was still going, but all she wanted was the comfort of her bear’s heart beating against her back. She crawled in beside him, still in her day clothes.

  How silly to think that she could have confessed to the acrobats. They were her friends, but they weren’t her family. The clowns on the Excalibur were the children of clowns on the Excalibur, and their children would be clowns on the Excalibur in turn, assuming they lived long enough to make children—but not Melia and Whitby. They’d bought their way on to the Excalibur, adopted it as their newest home. Who knew how many families they’d had before this one? North was born on the Excalibur’s d
eck, and she’d never known another life. The acrobats wouldn’t understand. There was only one creature alive that loved North unconditionally. She lived in a family of two—soon to be three. It would be fine. Her bear was safe. He loved her, and he would learn to love her baby too. She let the coracle rock her to sleep, with her bear’s heartbeat at her back and the laughter from the mess boat sounding an echo.

  4

  CASH

  The clowns were hungry. Every day the feeling grew. All damplings hungered—but Cash, Dosh and Dough wanted more than food.

  Stuck under the swollen thumb of Red Gold—which was really the icy thumb of his horse-bitch wife—the clowns could not fulfil their true purpose. Clowns are mind readers, megaphones, shouting out the things that the clams think but don’t dare say. There’s power in saying what no one else will. They wanted to scream and rage and have the whole world listen. They wanted sex and death and power. They were silenced, and it was starving them.

  Cash broke away from working on Dosh’s face and snorted.

  “What?” mumbled Dosh, keeping still to avoid smudging the white paint.

  “Red Gold lets us do the military act one night, and not the next,” said Cash. “Where’s the logic in that? Why does he get to choose when we’re free and when we’re chained? He should let us decide. We know better than anyone that the clams love it.”

  “They love to hate it,” chimed in Dough, succinct as ever.

  “Even better! Who wants to be loved? Hate is a much stronger emotion.”

  “Finish. My. Face,” mumbled Dosh, lips pursed so the makeup wouldn’t crease. Cash was getting frustrated. It was always hard to get more than a sentence out of Dough, but Dosh could usually be counted on to join in. Not tonight, it seemed.

  “There are more important things here than our painted faces! There’s no point if we can’t use them to speak. Is this really enough for you?” Cash motioned around their coracle. It was sparse and scrubbed, the walls painted matte black, everything packed neatly in chests made of lashed-together seal bone. “Is this all you want our lives to be? Parading our muted voices, flashing our fly-by-night skin, nothing but flesh for clams? We have things to say. We need to say them.”