This must have been something important, she thought, looking at the ragged remains of the blanket tied around her waist. I brought it here for a reason. Why? But try as she might, she could not recall and, seeing it so faded and torn, she let it fall to the dusty ground, where the wind-blown sands were gathering. Next, she placed the seashell into the pouch of her hoodie and opened the tiny notebook. Maybe it would remind her of what she had forgotten.
She read the words: I’ll never forget her. Whatever it costs. I saw her, asleep in the bluebells. And with that came the memory of looking through a crack in the ground, and seeing a girl, asleep in the woods—
Daisy, thought Fay. My Daisy. Her eyes were blue, and I loved her. And once more, she remembered why she was there, and raising her voice to the hard grey sky, she said in a voice that rang across the desert like a summons:
‘The first was bees. The second was Dream. The third was Death. Now come to me; I will sing you a song the like of which you have never heard, and you will give me my daughter back, and then my tale will be told.’
For a time there was no reply from the dusty plains of Death. And then Fay heard the sound of laughter behind her, and turned to see a man standing there on the turbulent shore of Dream. A man – she could not in fairness say if he was a friend or a stranger – his face, his handsome profile both well known and unfamiliar. His hair was dark and shoulder-length; a gemstone gleamed on one pale hand.
Had she met him before? Perhaps. So much of her memory was gone. Her passage through Dream; the Night Train; the sky-vessel of Norrowa; the court of Nethermost London; the singing tiger; the travelling girl; all these things were like images from a half-remembered dream, falling away as she opened her eyes into a different reality.
‘You must be the Hallowe’en King,’ she said.
He turned to her and smiled. ‘Must I? Then I suppose you must be right. Well met, Queen Orfeia,’ he said, and held out his hand in greeting.
But Fay did not take it; instead she watched in horror as he faced her, the illusion of beauty falling from his person like a garment. For the Hallowe’en King was handsome only in profile: one side of his body was that of a well-proportioned, fine-looking man, the other was shrunken and skeletal; and the hand he held out to greet her was nothing but a handful of bones under the rings of silver. One eye was dark as honeycomb in the living part of his face; the other shone blue as glaciers in a socket of burnished bone. For Death has two faces; the face of memory and Dream, which endure in spite of everything, and that of darkness and despair. And now Fay remembered the tailor bee’s words: Take nothing, not even a handshake from him, for if you do, you and your Daisy will stay in his kingdom for ever.
And so she smiled at the Hallowe’en King, and knelt to kiss the hem of his robe (making sure to keep to his living side), and said: ‘I come not as a Queen, my Lord, but as a humble supplicant. You have my daughter Daisy. I am here to plead for her return, just as she was taken from me.’
The Hallowe’en King gave his tilted half-smile. ‘It has been some time since Death surrendered one of its people. What do you have to offer me?’
‘Anything you want,’ said Fay.
The Hallowe’en King raised an eyebrow. ‘And what do I want, my Queen?’ he said. ‘I have everything my heart could desire. My kingdom is a thousand times greater than any realm that has ever been. I have wealth beyond the dreams of any lord of the living. I can see into every World; every antechamber of Dream. Whatever you have will one day be mine: every thought; every memory. Knowing this, how can you hope to seduce me into doing your will?’
The King was right, thought Fay to herself. She had nothing to offer him. And yet, the King in Alberon’s tale had managed to reach his cruel heart. She summoned a smile, although she felt very small, very wan in his presence. ‘Music is my currency,’ she said, remembering Alberon’s tale. ‘I can sing a song so gay that even the dust will stand up and dance. I can sing a song so true that even the dead will listen. Let me sing for you, my King, and if I can make you weep—’
‘I have heard this claim before,’ said the Hallowe’en King, with a smile. ‘That tale has been told, and the riddle, too. Such child’s play may have brought you here, but if you hope to win my favour, you cannot expect to do so with a tale that has been told a thousand times before.’
‘Oh,’ said Fay in a small voice.
The King went on, his golden eye shining with amusement. ‘But yes, my Queen, I know of your voice. And I do so love a challenge.’ He smiled again, and once more Fay saw both charm and horror in his smile. ‘Very well. You may sing for me. But I too am accounted to have something of a musical flair. You shall match my voice with yours in contest, and we shall see whose is the most eloquent. We shall sing three times, my Queen, and if you win, you shall have your way. But if I win’ – his blue eye glittered like ice – ‘then you shall stay here, in my realm, and share my throne for ever.’
Fay took no time to consider it. ‘Done,’ she said, and the Hallowe’en King put out his living hand to shake. ‘Have no fear,’ he said, seeing her pause. ‘This is no trick. The ruler of the Land of Death can never break their word, for fear that all the Worlds be thrown into chaos and disarray.’
Fay took his hand (it was long and cool and pale, and laden with many silver rings). ‘I agree to your bargain,’ she said. ‘If I win, my daughter goes back with me to the land of the living. If I lose, I stay here with you. Now let the contest begin.’
And at that, the King lifted his hand, and once more, the mournful scenery changed, and Fay found herself in a banqueting hall, filled with the trappings of the dead.
Four
At first glance, the banqueting hall was not unlike that of King Alberon. But where the court of London Beneath was lit with living torchflies, the cavernous hall of the Hallowe’en King was garlanded with foxfire. The ceiling was vaulted with fungi that shone with a ghostly greenish light, and the walls were alive with curlicues of bioluminescence. In its undersea light, she could see the bone-white throne of the Hallowe’en King, and among the pillars that lined the hall, she could see the ranks of the dead, standing there like an army of shadows. She could hear their voices, too: a kind of rushing, whispering sound, not unlike the sound of the sea. All sounds resemble the sound of the sea, when multiplied to infinity, and the gathered dead were like grains of sand endlessly shifting and moving, until the air was alive with the sound and the restlessness of their presence.
And now she could see that the hall was all bones: there were skulls lining the portals, and spines along the architraves, and set into the smooth pale polished floor was a mosaic of finger-bones. On the walls there were tapestries of rich and marvellous design, spun from the hair of a million dead, depicting scenes of dancing, and battle, and feasting and merrymaking. And, as in the court of King Alberon, there were tables laden with dainties from all the known Worlds: delicate fruits from Fiddler’s Green; sea urchins from Atlantis, served on a bed of luminous seaweed; flower-wines from Tír na nÓg; spiced pastries from Antillia.
Fay was so hungry she felt almost faint. But even so, she knew not to touch of the food of the Land of Death. Not a drop of wine, not a seed could safely pass between her lips. She looked neither left nor right as she passed between the laden tables, moving towards the end of the banqueting hall. Behind her, she heard the sounds of the tables with their tempting wares crumbling back into the dust, but she did not spare them a second glance, nor did she stop until she was standing at the foot of the throne, where the Hallowe’en King awaited her, flanked by two of his servants.