3 LONDON
I was born to faun.
It’s obvious. I’ve always felt the vibrations of people, plants, pots and pans, but now that ability is on steroids. The second my hooves hit the dirt, the earth turns into a thrumming bass speaker. Roots, soil, tectonic shivers—it all hums straight up into my bones.
But the loudest frequency in this whole damn forest?
Her.
Wump—ppp.
There it is. My favorite soundtrack, dialed right in.
I’m trying to match my hoof-feet to the rhythm of its funky tempo, but that funny, broken duh-duh-duh bit in her chest makes me have to skip-ball-change while leaping over the roots.
Not the easiest thing in the dark, especially as the black branches are reaching out, trying to catch my hair with their wooden fingers.
Not today, Twiggys.
This seems like an occasion where an adventurer like me should follow the North Star, but sadly the clouds have decided to make that a no-go.
Follow your gut, boy.
Was that you, Nan?
Oh, there is a pull in my belly. A little golden string tied straight to my navel, tugging me deeper into the thick of the brush. Clever Nan. That’s the way to go.
Behind us, the prison air is still screaming, but the sirens are fading into a dull, rhythmic roar now. Good thing, too—my poor lugs were nearly bleeding from the racket.
As my hooves fly over wet moss, the golden string is vibrating inside my stomach. I like it. It reminds me of leaning against Nan’s fridge while she’d bake an eel pie. Actually, she never baked an eel pie—potatoes were more our speed—but eel sounds much more interesting.
One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four.
My lungs feel very unhappy with me. Sorry, lungs. I make a mental note to start practicing holding my breath. The longest breath ever held by a human is twenty-nine minutes and four seconds. That’s going to take some serious work to beat, but we might as well start training.
Oh. My lungs don’t like that idea at all. They want to just expand and contract in their regular, noisy fashion. OK, that’s fine. But don’t stop working until I’ve found Shane and Burt. Deal?
Deal.
A sound ten yards to my left makes my faun-senses wiggle.
Skitter-snap.
I skid to a halt, my hooves furrowing the damp earth.
Something is in the thicket. It smells like a diggery-do if it was a diggery-don’t.
A shadow detaches itself from a cluster of birch trees. At first, I think it’s a bear, but the proportions are all wrong. It’s too long, its limbs spindly and hairless in patches, its spine arching in a way that makes my own bones ache.
And its vibration is totally flipping bonkers. Upside down, inside out.
Mad as a hatter.
Like, I know that vibration quite well, but this guy?
He doesn’t have any happy—he just has cross, cross, cross.
Oh dear. I think he’s going to make me late, and I’ve a very important date.
The monster screams and lunges.
I take a leap and jump over its head-thing, and land behind it. “No time to say hello, goodbye.”
It’s not taking on what I’m saying, silly sausage. Beasty tries to slash at me with claws that look all kinds of ouchy. Not quite sure what to do, but when in doubt, dizzy it out.
So I start running in circles around the creature, faster and faster. Put me a vat of milk and you’d have butter in no time.
The funny little head on top of its frankly ugly body goes all twitchy. “Please fall over, Mr. Monster. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”
Monster man snaps, teeth scraping across my shoulder. Not nice. My vision blurs a bit, and I let my own crossness take over.
There’s some back and forth. My teeth are not as long as his, so I don’t bother using them, but I’ve got a heck of a wallop to give out.
So that’s what I do. I catch its neck and wham bam its throat.
The thing thrashes around, and then… it just stops.
I stumble back, my shoulder stinging as I watch all the magic leave the corpse. It’s like watching a balloon deflate. The distorted limbs shrink, the elongated spine snaps back into place, and the patches of fur dissolve into thin air.
Lying in the mud is a man.
He looks like someone’s dad.
Not my dad.
But someones.
I don’t feel bad for the dad.
I’m just a lad not a cad.
And I’m on a mission.
Following Kitten’s wishes.
Ooh! Shane!
His odor is quite…spicy, and I just got a whiff. As I gallop to the south it gets stronger, but so do other odors.
One might be Burt but the rest are unknown. Maybe Burt and Shane have already made new friends. There’s really no need because they have me and Kitten.
There’s a huge ridge ahead but I make short work of it, the propulsion my goat legs give me is a thing of wonder.
Cripes, the Guinness Book of Records is going to need a whole special edition for all the magical creatures now.
I’m pretty sure I could do a single-handed handstand for twenty days.
Maybe twenty-one. The thought of all those blue certificates I could get makes me do a little mid-air click-heel as I bound right over the lip of the ridge.
Then down, down, down the other side I go. Deceleration takes a little work, but my hips and backward knees are tied together with elastic, so don’t complain at all when they’re stretched into odd angles. I like it.
Beside a stream I drop low and sniff.
Sniff, sniff.
Oh, the spicy, shivery Shane is close now, and his vibrations are not moving.
But the pong and pulse of Burly Burt is getting stronger.
It’s coming right up out of a dark, rocky crack in the hill. “Peek-a-boo, I’ll soon see you,” I whisper to the stones as I hop across the stream. Any second now…
AHHH!
His massive shape explodes out into the moonlight, all jump-scary and riled up looking. But my magnificent horns soon pull him up short. As he stares, I do a twirl, making sure he gets a good view of my elastic hips.
“Where the fuck is Rory?” he growls.
“Bert!” I throw my arms around him. I’ve missed my bestie.
“Fuck off.” He gives me a play shove, so I shove him back and before we know it we’re in a total shove battle. Like conkers with bodies.
“London! Stop! Where is Aurora?” His voice is battling between a whisper and boom, like it doesn’t know what to do.
“Diddle-ti diddle-ti dumpty, the cat's stuck up the plum tree,” I tell him, so he won’t be worried. “Where’s Shane?”
“Who? What the fuck—speak English.”
Oh, Burt. Being burly doesn’t always give you brains.
“She’s safe as houses, but wants you and her shivery man, so I said I’d come fetch you.”
Burt lets out a long breath. With that chest, I bet his lungs are ginormous. “You’re sure she’s safe?”
“Yeppers, it will take more than half a crown to fetch her down. Now, let’s get Shane and make like a banana.”
He’s looking me up and down like he has questions, but I’ve no time for them. I want to get back to Kitten. “Come on then, don’t dawdle.” I take a leap and follow my nose down a muddy slope until, aha, Shane’s cave.
“You're a faun,” Burt mutters behind me, “of course you’re a fucking faun.”
“And moon-certified,” I boast.
I mean, the moon gave me a wink, so that’s as good as a certificate isn’t it? Oh, wow. Maybe I want to collect moon certificates, not world-record certificates.
As I poke my head in the cave, Burt puts one of his very heavy hands on my shoulder, making me give a little bleat. Definitely ouchy where the dad scratched me.
“You're bleeding. What happened?”
“Met a fellow in the bushes. Not a happy chappy at all. He’s dead now, so hopefully that will cheer him up.”
Burt makes a noise like a harumph. I don’t think he’s trying to be an elephant, though.
Ooh, new vibrations in my ears. “Don’t want to be a bother, but we should go now. Now, Burt.”
I start tapping my hoof impatiently. I really don’t want anything delaying my return to Kitten and if Burt doesn’t hurry…
Burly lifts his head. “I can hear sirens in the distance, but they’re getting louder.” Poor Burt, he can’t help being slow. Time for London to step in.
“Let's get Kitten, then come back for Shane.”
I pivot on one hoof and bound up the slope. Bounce, bounce, bouncy bounce.
The WEE-ooo, WEE-ooo is getting a wee too close now. The moon is flashing her silver-alert warnings. Double-time time.
I cast a quick look over my shoulder and see Burt scrambling in the mud.
That’s a lad. I’d like to shout out encouragement, but if any of our chasers have got lug-holes like mine?
Well, they’d hear us—duh. Talking of noises, a funny wet, cracking one sounds from behind me and a second later I’m running beside a wolf. A wolf that is as tall as me.
Burt!
Oh, I wonder if he’d let me ride him like a pony sometime?
The rest of the journey is so fun. We leap over streams, duck and dive around pine-town.
After we hop, skip and jump down the path of twiggy-fingers, we’ll be there!