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Authors: Kiran Millwood Hargrave

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CHAPTER
TWO

O
ur street ran in a straight, steep line down to the Western Sea, and all the houses were built the same: a long row of mud huts with straw roofs that Lupe thought looked sweet. I thought that they looked as if one good gust of wind would send them all tumbling into the water.

I normally ran to the market square, skidding downhill on my heels, because the ravens liked to fly low and running put them off. Today, though, I settled for a fast walk – after all, I was almost at the top of the school now. It didn't seem right to run like a little child.

Masha, who lived across the street, was standing in her doorway. I waved, trying to see past her into the house.

‘Looking for someone?' She smiled, her lined face crinkling like old paper. ‘Pablo's already left. You know the Governor likes them to be at work before dawn.'

Masha's son Pablo had been born when she was already
old, her belly swelling even as her hair turned grey and her face creased with age. Masha called it a miracle, and Pablo
was
miraculous. Gabo and I had always been in awe of him, as all the villagers were, because of his strength. Aged ten, he could lift his parents, one over each shoulder. Having a piggyback from Pablo felt like flying, but it had been a long time since I'd seen him.

Two years ago, when his mother's back got too bad, Pablo left school and took her place as a labourer, although Masha pleaded with him not to. Now fifteen, he pulled carts as if they were paper, and cared for the Governor's horses too.

‘He took the present for Lupe,' Masha added, wrinkling her nose. I knew she didn't understand why I chose to be friends with the Governor's daughter. ‘I told him to hide it like you asked.'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘Maybe I'll see him tomorrow?'

‘Maybe.' But her voice was not hopeful. He was always up before sunrise, home after dark.

I waved goodbye, shouldered my satchel and started down the hill.

From this high up Gromera looked like a wheel, or a starburst, with the market square at its centre and streets like spokes spiking outwards, some ending at the wide, calm harbour that bottlenecked into the sea, ripe with fish. On a clear night, the stars settled on its surface like water lilies.

The Governor's ship was moored there, as always. Da
said it was carved from a single Afrik baobab trunk. The baobab must be an enormous tree, because the hull nearly spanned the width of the port, the mast arrowing towards the sky, the sails stowed. It crouched over the fishing fleet like a mountain, huge and unmoving. Like everything the Governor had, it took up far more space than it ought to.

To the east, his house glinted in the sunrise. Built from black basalt and big as five ships, the mansion sat between the blue sea and the green forest, spreading out over the fields like a storm cloud. From here, though, it looked small enough to squash between my forefinger and thumb. Below it was the village, with the school halfway between.

The old school building had been small but bright, and we had painted the walls rainbow colours with whatever dyes Da could spare. But then the Governor had knocked it down – Lupe had decided she'd had enough of being taught alone at home and demanded to be sent to the local school like the rest of us.

Governor Adori had rebuilt it from stone, twice as big, because if his daughter was going, it had to look grander.

‘Not for me, you understand,' Lupe had said with a sad smile. She adopted an even posher voice to add, ‘To uphold the family honour.'

We weren't allowed to paint the walls of the new school. A lot of children were unkind to Lupe because of that, but I knew it wasn't her fault.

Behind the Governor's house, closest to the forest, was the orchard, where I had never been. I squinted at the
ant-like specks of the labourers there, and wondered which one was Pablo. To the west, the black sand of the beaches was almost covered by the incoming tide. We were not allowed to be on the beaches at high tide, and no one was allowed in the water unless they were launching one of the Governor's boats. My toes itched. Da had described being in the sea but it was not the same as trying it for myself.

Above the beaches were the clay mines, which I tried not to look at because it brought back one of the few clear memories I had of Ma – the day she took Gabo and me to the mines. She taught us how to tie ourselves with vines to a dragon tree –
You knot like this, and then rub the sap into your hands for grip
– and lowered us one by one into the gorge. Gabo got scared and wriggled so much the knot broke. When he landed on the soft mud at the bottom it made a very rude noise, and he was filthy when Ma climbed up with him from the darkness. I laughed so hard it hurt.

I remembered that, that ache in my belly. How it came back two months later, when Ma died. Only then it was sharper, and there was no one carrying anyone out of that darkness. Three years on the same sweating sickness took Gabo. Three years after that, the clay mine memory still made my throat feel tight.

Lupe always met me by a barrel at the edge of the market square so we could walk to school together, even though it
meant she had to get up almost as early as the labourers. When I got to the square a queue was already forming for the well. More and more people used it since the River Arintara began drying up.

All the stalls were open, selling fish and grain and leather. Most of the stalls belonged to the Governor, their cool blue awnings like a patch of sky, with the honey stall a bright sun-yellow in the middle.

As I made my way towards the barrel someone grasped my wrist. I jumped, stumbling against a nearby stall, and vegetables tumbled to the dusty ground.

‘Hey!' the stall keeper growled. ‘What do you think you are doing?'

I turned to see who was gripping me. It was a woman dressed in green robes, which meant she worked in the orchards. She should already be there – latecomers were sometimes whipped.

‘I'm sorry,' the woman said to the stall keeper, without taking her eyes from my face. ‘Isabella Riosse?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Who—'

‘Something has happened.' She clutched my wrist harder. She was so small, her face almost level with mine.

‘What do you think you are doing?' the stall keeper repeated, stepping out from behind his piles of potatoes.

‘Cata,' hissed the woman, ignoring him. ‘Have you seen her?'

I frowned. ‘Cata Rodriguez?' Cata was in my class at school, but we had only spoken a couple of times before.

The woman nodded fiercely. ‘I'm her mother. She said you were friends. I thought maybe you knew where she was.'

I shifted uncomfortably. It was true that I was nicer to Cata than anyone else, but she was very quiet and mostly people ignored her. ‘I'm sorry,' I began, ‘I haven't—'

‘I've looked everywhere. She wasn't there when I woke up, I—' The woman broke off, breathing hard. Her hand fluttered to her chest, as if she could not fill her lungs.

‘You! What are you doing here?'

Cata's mother jumped. One of the Governor's men was striding towards us, the crowd parting like wheat before his blue tunic.

‘If you see her, send her home,' the woman said to me hurriedly, face twisted with worry. And then she was gone, running in the direction of the Governor's estate.

‘What a mess,' tutted the stall keeper, starting to pick up the vegetables. ‘No, don't help. You've caused enough trouble already.'

Dazed, I walked to the corner of the market square where Lupe and I always met. Something in the woman's face had shaken me, right to the bones. I hoped Cata was all right.

‘Isa!'

I spun around as Lupe came running across the square, satchel flying. The other villagers shrank back from her. The Governor's daughter did not have many friends. Not that Lupe cared.

‘I don't give a fig,' she'd said to one of the girls teasing her about the fussy plaits her mother insisted on. ‘Isabella likes them, and that's enough for me.'

We made an odd set, Lupe and I: she as tall as a near-grown boy, and I barely reaching her shoulder. She seemed to have got even taller in the month since I had last seen her. Her mother would not be pleased. Señora Adori was a petite, elegant woman with sad eyes and a cold smile. Lupe said she never laughed and believed girls should not run, nor have any right to be as tall as Lupe was getting.

She squeezed me tightly and then drew back, eyeing me up and down.

‘Still so short!' she said enviously, then frowned. ‘What's wrong? You've gone all pale. Did your da not let you out in the sun this summer? Mama does that, but sometimes I sneak out—'

‘Cata's missing.' I pushed the words out. ‘I just saw her mother.'

‘Cata?'

I rolled my eyes impatiently. ‘The girl who sits at the back.'

Lupe shifted from one foot to the other. She had that look on her face, like Pep sauntering away from a broken dish.

I stared at her. ‘What?'

‘What, what?' said Lupe, pulling her satchel higher on to her shoulder.

‘You know something.' I stepped forward.

‘No, I don't.' She stepped back.

I raised my eyebrow the way Da had taught me.

Lupe wilted. ‘I'm sure it's nothing. It's just, she was working in the kitchen this summer, and I asked her to go to the orchard for me yesterday, to get some—'

‘The orchard!' The sick feeling in my stomach was back. ‘Lupe, you know we're not allowed.'

‘Yes, of course I know, but I hadn't had dragon fruit in
ages
. I needed to have them on my birthday, didn't I?'

I had never had dragon fruit and was not even sure what they looked like, but I did know they were Lupe's favourite, grown in the Governor's orchard at the edge of the forest. Out of bounds to everyone except his guards and a few of his servants.

‘Lupe, you know that if Cata got caught, she's probably in the Dédalo right now.'

Lupe waved her hand dismissively. ‘Still on about that place? I've never seen it, and I live there.'

It was typical that Lupe should not notice something right under her nose. And the Dédalo – the labyrinth –
was
right under her nose, because Governor Adori had built his house directly over the natural tunnels that were now his prison. Masha's husband had served a decade there before he died.

Lupe flung her arm around my shoulders. ‘Come on, grumpy guts. Cata will be fine!' She began to propel me along the narrow street towards the fields. ‘She'll already be in class, probably stuffing her face with my dragon fruit. I'll
let you have some, they're so delicious. And don't forget the fireworks tonight!'

Lupe hated the dark, but she loved fireworks. They
were
extraordinary, with their beautiful colours and falling-star-shine, but they scared Pep too much for me to like them.

‘Papa's let me pick the colours. There're gold ones, a blue one, two red ones . . .'

I let Lupe's voice wash over me as we took our shortcut across the fields. She was probably right. Even if Cata had been caught, surely the Governor's men wouldn't have thrown a girl into the Dédalo just for stealing fruit? I promised myself I'd be extra nice to Cata at school, maybe even invite her to watch Lupe's birthday fireworks from my garden. ‘Oh, and you haven't seen this,' said Lupe, stopping suddenly and jerking me to a halt.

‘What?'

Lupe untucked a thick gold chain from her dress and held it out on her palm. A gold locket glinted in the sunlight, engraved with a shape I recognized.

‘That's Afrik, where Papa is from,' said Lupe. ‘He gave it to me for my birthday. It was my grandmother's.'

‘What's inside?'

Lupe shrugged. ‘Da says I'm not allowed to open it until I'm older. He's the only one with the key.'

‘It's lovely.'

‘It's heavy,' said Lupe. ‘But I like it. It was all I got, though.'

She looked at me expectantly. I tried to pretend I didn't know what she was waiting for, but she was grinning so
stupidly I couldn't keep it up. I took out a scroll from my satchel.

‘Happy birthday,' I said, grinning too.

‘A map! Marked with an
X
!'

It was a very simple map, with no star lines and a compass that was only an arrow with an
N
on the end. I hadn't had time to make it a proper hunt with lots of clues.

‘Treasure.' I squeezed Lupe's fingers.

‘No point just standing there,' Lupe shouted, bounding ahead. ‘Race you!'

With her long legs Lupe should have been the favourite, but she was as uncoordinated as a one-legged rabbit and so we ran together. My lungs filled as I ran across the dry field, bag slapping my side.

Cata will be at school, Lupe will get her dragon fruit, and everything will be all right
.

At last Lupe reached the
X
, the abandoned rabbit warren where Pablo had hidden the present for me. Inside sat a small twist of blue paper. She unwrapped the simple plaited bracelet, made with leftover thread I had begged from Masha. Woven in amongst the multi-coloured strands was a single thread of gold I had stolen from Da's study. He never made special maps any more, so I didn't think he would notice.

BOOK: The Girl of Ink & Stars
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