B00DW1DUQA EBOK (45 page)

‘He does. Nathaniel was born here and has never been outside. The same with most of us. He genuinely thinks you’re ill and need his help. He’s a good person.’

‘You like him don’t you?’ asked Diane.

His sister looked down at her feet, saying nothing for a moment. ‘I do. But it could never work out. Helping people with their delusions about Engn – as he sees it – means everything to him. He’s devoted his life to it. We could never really be honest with each other.’

‘Have you asked him?’ said Diane. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think he secretly wants to believe the stories are true. He just can’t bring himself to admit it. I feel sorry for him.’

‘No,’ said Shireen. ‘He was born and raised in here. His parents ran the Sanatorium before him. This is his whole world. He’s happy here. Outside he’s … not so good.’

‘But how did you get in here?’ asked Diane.

‘Very occasionally, they need people from outside. The population of the Directory is small and closed off. They need fresh blood from time to time. I was very young when I came here, young enough for them to mould me. Also, I had the recommendation from someone back home. A friend of Engn with contacts here.’

‘Who?’ asked Finn.

‘Connor’s mother. Her family has some connection with Engn. Did you know I used to read to her sometimes, when you were still a baby? She’s never been well, spends all her time in bed, staring out of her window. She always used to say how much she loved my visits. She never had a daughter, of course. Then, when I was taken, she sent a message about me to Engn, and when I arrived I was brought to the Directory.’

‘So all this time you’ve had to pretend you didn’t believe in the outside?’ asked Finn.

‘Yes. To be honest I often doubted my own memories. That’s why I find it so hard to talk about all this.’

‘You could have left at any time, you know,’ said Diane. ‘There’s a tunnel.’

‘I know. What would be the point? The Ironclads know very well that the outside world is real.’

‘Why should we believe you?’ continued Diane. ‘Everyone here is lying to us. You’re probably still doing what they tell you, trying to befriend us. Playing some game.’

Shireen shook her head. ‘I’m not. I understand why you would say that but I’m not. Believe me. This place, all of this, I despise it.’

‘Why?’ continued Diane. ‘Look at you. You’re trusted here. You’re important. You have a comfortable life. Why should we believe you’re ready to destroy it all, after all this time?’

‘Mrs. Megrim said she was with us,’ said Finn to Diane.

‘Mrs. Megrim is miles and miles away,’ said Diane. ‘She doesn’t know what’s really going on here. She doesn’t know what your sister is like now.’

‘You’re right,’ said Shireen. ‘You don’t know you can trust me. But I assure you, ever since I came here, all those years ago, I’ve done what I can to bring about the destruction of Engn.’

‘Why?’ said Diane.

His sister reached out to stroke Finn’s hair. A memory came back to him of her doing just that when he was a boy. ‘Don’t you see?’ she said. ‘Don’t you understand what Finn meant to me? I was his sister, of course, but I’m a lot older. I was more like his mother at times. I looked after him when our parents were busy. He was my boy, my baby. I loved him more than anything in the world. And they took all that away from me. His growing up, everything. I thought I’d never see him again and I hated them.’

Finn looked into her eyes. It had never occurred to him she would have missed him. Too concerned for himself. He couldn’t think what to say. At least he’d had their parents, their home, all those years she’d been here.

He touched her hand and she smiled at him. He wasn’t that little boy any more. She’d never really have him back now. ‘They’re still alive,’ he said to her. ‘Our parents. They’re here, outside the walls. They came for us.’

‘Ah,’ she said, nodding. Tears filled her eyes. ‘I’d heard they’d left home.’ She looked at him for a moment, a fond smile on her face. Then she turned back to Diane, wiping her eyes with the palms of her hands. ‘Come on. There’s something I want to show you. I know you don’t trust me but I can at least prove to you that I believe in the outside still.’

She stood and picked up the flask from the tray on the table. ‘We’ll pour this down the sink to keep Nathaniel happy. It really is just a sleeping draught like he said.’

Diane nodded.

‘And I’ll lock your doors in case anyone comes by,’ said Shireen. ‘If we make a hump in your beds with a pile of clothes and towels anyone glancing in will just think you’re both asleep.’

‘How far are we going?’ asked Finn.

‘Not far. We’ll only be gone a few minutes. Best be careful though.’

She opened the door, stepped outside and turned to look at them. ‘Coming?’ She was looking mainly at Diane.

Diane paused for a moment then followed her outside, Finn right behind her.

They walked down the familiar, bare stone corridor but, instead of descending to the ground-floor when they reached the stairs, Shireen began to climb. Neither of them had been up there before. Finn suddenly felt they were in very dangerous territory. If they were seen, would his sister be able to protect them or would they all be in danger? They climbed the stone stairs as quietly as they could, listening out for voices or footsteps. The only sound was the distant, muffled hum of Engn; the hum you only noticed when you made an effort to listen. Once, a door slammed shut somewhere down below, but they saw no-one else.

They climbed past three or four identical landings, corridors leading off to rows of rooms like their own. They all looked deserted. Had they once been full, all these rooms? Perhaps, in the old days, there had been many in the Directory struggling with their delusions of an
outside
.

Finally they reached the top floor, a dead end that led only to a final line of doors.

‘We need to go higher,’ said Shireen. She looked up to indicate a square cut in the ceiling, barely visible. ‘It’s a hatchway that leads on up to the top of the tower. They don’t like anyone going up there. You’ll see why.’

‘How do we get up there?’ asked Finn. The ceiling was high above them, with no way to climb up.

‘It’s a bit tricky. If you climb onto the banister you can just about reach up with your fingers and open it.’

‘You’re serious?’ asked Diane.

‘It’ll be easier with the three of us. Ready?’

Diane looked unconvinced, as if all this was some elaborate ploy.

Shireen, seeing this, stepped up onto the rail of the balcony, leaning with one hand on the wall to steady herself. She pushed off from the wall to stand upright on the narrow handrail, balancing as if on a tightrope. She began to make small, sideways steps. She took it slowly, deep in concentration, wobbling a little. If she fell forwards onto the landing she would be fine. If she fell backwards she would either hit the flight of steps or plummet down the central shaft to the distant floor. Finn wanted to reach out and hold onto her, but was too afraid he’d overbalance her. Both he and Diane watched in silence as she edged her way along.

Finally, reaching the hatch, she reached carefully up and pushed. The square lifted and she worked it sideways, revealing a dark hole in the ceiling.

‘Mind out,’ she called down. ‘I’m going to jump up and haul myself in.’

Shireen sprang upwards, legs flailing around as she got an elbow then her arms up through the hatchway. She hauled herself inside. Finn was impressed. The thought of teetering on that narrow banister, the great drop gaping beneath him, filled him with alarm, reminded him of too many other events. Shireen had clearly done it on her own, and more than once by the sound of it. He thought he’d been the one for adventure and getting into trouble. Perhaps they were more alike than he’d imagined. He looked across at Diane again. ‘Do you believe her now?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Here,’ called Shireen from above. ‘This will make it easier.’

The end of a rope snaked down towards them, its end bent slightly like a snake’s head as it searched for them. Finn grabbed hold and climbed onto the banister. When he was underneath the hatch he began to climb, feeding the rope between his legs and working his way upwards. Through the hatch, he found himself in a dark, hushed room that smelt of wood and dust. Shireen was a disembodied voice beside him.

‘Let’s get the rope down for Diane. We’re safer once the hatch is shut. No-one will know we’re here then.’

‘What if they find out we’ve gone?’

‘We’ll be OK for a while. They don’t think we can really
go
anywhere after all.’

‘OK.’

Diane clambered up next and Shireen lowered the hatch back into place. Once more they found themselves in utter darkness.

‘Where are we?’ asked Diane.

‘The Sanatorium has a steeple,’ said Shireen. ‘I began to wonder whether you could get up inside it, right up to the top. That was when I found the hatch.’

‘So we can go higher?’ asked Finn.

‘There’s a ladder. It’s pretty old and rickety. We should go up one at a time.’

‘How far?’

‘One hundred and fifty three rungs.’

‘And what’s at the top?’ asked Diane. ‘Why are we going up there?’

‘There’s just a little platform. Nothing much. A part of the scaffolding they used when they constructed the building, I suppose. But there should be room for three of us up there.’

Shireen climbed first, Finn holding the bottom of the bowing, swaying ladder as she ascended. As his eyes adjusted he could just make out a dim light filtering down. Not enough to see by, but he could make out Shireen as a shadow, occasionally eclipsing the glow as she climbed. Once she reached the top she called down to them.

‘I’ll go next, shall I?’ said Finn.

‘OK.’

The wood of the ladder was soft and soapy beneath him. It sagged alarmingly. He wondered how long it had been there. He could see nothing save the glow from above but he had the clear sensation the walls were closing in around him as he climbed. At the top, Shireen reached down for his arm to guide him up. She knelt on a little wooden platform right in the apex of the spire. A series of small, semicircular openings at floor-level, like half-open eyes, were set around the platform, letting in the dim, indirect light. Finn huddled up next to his sister and called down to Diane to follow. The top of the ladder began to buck as she came up after them.

When they were all together, Shireen spoke. ‘You know, you were right not to trust me, Diane,’ she said.

‘Why?’ asked Diane, wariness clear in her voice.

‘You thought I’d forgotten about the outside world, that I’d convinced myself Engn was everything. The truth is, I have often thought that. Living in the Directory, it’s hard not to. No-one tells you what to think but everyone assumes there is nothing else. They don’t even try and persuade you. They simply assume you think the same way. And there have been times, quite a few times, when I’ve doubted it all too. So I come up here.’

‘Why?’ said Diane again.

Shireen lay down on the small circular platform so that her eyes were level with one of the semicircular openings. She peered through.

‘I come here to remind myself. See for yourself. It looks stormy over the mountains today. The Silverburn will be in full spate tomorrow.’

Finn and Diane lay down alongside her to peer out through the openings. They were very high up. He could see clear across the walls of the Directory, out over the steaming, turning, pumping workings of Engn, out across the great grass plain and all the way to the steel-grey mountains he recognized. Somewhere over there, beneath those storm-clouds, he had been born and raised. Somewhere over there was home.

‘I couldn’t see any of you, of course. But I could come up here to remind myself it was all real. That you were all real. So far as I know this is the only place in all of the Directory you can see the outside from.’

Finn craned his neck around, trying to see more familiar detail. Through the machinery he could see the Drop Tower. Some way beyond it, glimpsed through the spokes of a vast turning wheel, a dome that looked very much like the one near the dormitory, where the figure had beckoned to him all that time ago.

He peered downwards, to the stone ground just visible over the Directory walls. Knots of Ironclads and masters worked their way among the engines, some of them accompanying blue-clad workers.

He sat up and looked at his big sister. Had she ever seen him out there? Glimpsed him as a distant dot, coming across the plain perhaps or making his way along the walkway, the night the Ironclad had hurled him off? Probably not. Still, it pleased him to think she might have been there all along, watching over him.

‘OK,’ he heard Diane say quietly beside him. ‘Let’s talk about how we go about destroying Engn.’

‘Not now,’ said Shireen. ‘We should get back. The longer we’re up here the more likely someone will notice.’

They took turns to work their way back down the sagging ladder, then dropped through the hatchway onto the landing. There was no-one around. Shireen led them back downstairs and locked them in their rooms. Finn lay on his bed. He stared at the ceiling and thought about everything that had happened. Diane, burning with enthusiasm now, lay on the other side of the grille and talked. It was good to hear the excitement in her voice, but he was in no mood for conversation. Probably the medicine. Diane was still talking as he drifted off to sleep.

Shireen didn’t come to them the next evening, nor the next. Diane now took her sleeping draught without objection. Matilda, watching her glug it down, smiled with satisfaction. Diane simply smiled back as she placed her cup on the tray. Even so, after two days of seeing no more of Shireen, they both began to worry. Perhaps someone had found out about their excursion up the spire.

‘What do we do if she doesn’t return?‘ Diane whispered through the grille.

‘We need to find Connor,’ said Finn. ‘He’s the key. He must be here somewhere. Perhaps we could climb back up the spire and try and spot him. If we took turns one of us might see him.’