Beyond Platform 13 Read online

  ‘You make a good point,’ Lina said.

  They sat in silence for a moment, watching the harpy with the pigeon-feather hat pick something out of her teeth with a talon.

  ‘Normally this waiting room would be full,’ Odge said sadly.

  The harpy fixed her eyes on the blank space where Lina sat. Lina held her breath, unsure whether or not the harpy could see her. Perhaps she had overheard Odge’s not-at-all-subtle chat with her about chairs.

  ‘Isn’t it marvellous to see such an empty room with only the right kind of creatures in it?’ the harpy said.

  Odge swallowed hard, seemingly pushing down what she really wanted to say. ‘Yes, glorious,’ she managed.

  ‘NUMBER NINE, WE’RE ALL FINE. THAT’S NUMBER NINE,’ chimed the sweaty harpy guarding the gump.

  The harpy sitting across from them checked the pillow she was holding. A large number nine was scrawled on it in minty toothpaste. She flew off, her head held high.

  ‘Bleugh,’ Odge said as soon as she was gone. She scraped her tongue with her finger as if to remove the word she’d just uttered. ‘It is not glorious.’

  Lina watched as the little harpy stepped on to the edge of the gump and straightened up her hat. The stars inside the vortex grew blindingly bright before the gump whipped her off her feet and pulled her inside, folding in on itself momentarily as if it were digesting her.

  ‘NUMBER TEN, mmmwellenwhen. NUMBER TEN,’ the harpy called.

  ‘She can’t rhyme anything with ten,’ Odge said, rolling her eyes. ‘Come on.’

  Lina reluctantly followed as Odge wobble-walked towards the gump, struggling to keep Ray in line with her head. Lina wondered how it would feel to fall through the gump. Would it be like tumbling down a hill or being shot into space? She obsessed over the details, watching the stars inside it swirl, and wondering if one could potentially poke her eye out.

  The harpy guard eyed Odge’s ‘hat’ suspiciously. ‘WAIT!’ she cried, spraying Lina with spit. ‘That on your head – I know what that is.’

  Lina’s legs turned to jelly. If the harpy discovered Ray, it was all over.

  ‘I can explain—’ Odge began, but the harpy held up a spindly talon to silence her.

  ‘You can’t get past me with that. It’s a floating hat, and I do believe floating hats are banned.’

  Odge shot Lina a worried glance as the harpy consulted her rulebook. ‘Hats … hats … hats … Ah, here we go—’

  ‘It’s not a floating hat,’ Odge protested. ‘Your eyes must be wonky. You’ve been working too hard.’

  The harpy kicked Odge, sending her tumbling. The fluffy tufts of Ray’s head stayed firmly in the air.

  ‘See – it’s floating,’ the harpy said, running her talon down the rulebook. She snapped it shut, as disappointment flashed across her face. ‘Ugh, you can go through. It’s talking hats that are banned. Floating ones are fine.’

  Odge turned to Lina as she stepped on to the swirling edge of the gump. ‘Mist is calling,’ she said with a wink.

  Different gumps deliver you to the Island of Mist in different ways. Every magical being and human in on the secret knows that the gump on platform thirteen at London’s King’s Cross station is the one to take if you prefer a gentle sail to the Island. The one on Tokyo’s Shibuya street crossing is the best option for those who like to arrive by cloud. And the gumps in Vienna are perfect for those who enjoy tunnelling underground.

  Despite its frantic swirling appearance, Lina was surprised to find the fall through the gump was gentle. (The speed had been altered many years ago after the Witches Society of Teeth Fixers – fondly known as the Maggot Teeth Twelve – protested against the speed of the gump, claiming that at least 4,000 witch teeth a year were lost as a result of its reckless swirling. You’d think teeth fixers would be delighted with that – more teeth to fix – but the problem is that witches’ teeth are unique and almost impossible to replicate. So the Teeth Fixers had to replace them with human teeth bought at an extortionate price from the Corporation of Tooth Fairies. Understandably, the tooth fairies protested against the protest against the gump speed change, but they were smaller and harder to hear, so they lost.)

  How long does it take? Lina wondered as she fell gently down next to Odge and Ray, passing stars and streams of mist as she went. She wished it would last forever. The air around them began to thicken, and then came the smells of salty seas. A deafening roar of thundering waves grew louder and louder until they landed with a squelch on a mattress of strange jelly creatures.

  ‘That’s how long it takes,’ Odge said, peeling herself off the slimy lump before helping Lina to her feet too.

  Lina prodded one of the slimy creatures with her finger, making it wriggle away. They reminded her of edible jellies – all you would have to do was remove the eyes and replace them with a crown of whipped cream, and the resemblance would be uncanny.

  ‘What is it?’ Lina whispered.

  ‘Oh, are you from the north of the Island?’ Odge asked. ‘That’s a brollachan – they’re everywhere in the south. Such gentle creatures, and excellent for breaking falls or hiding secret entrances.’

  ‘A brollachan,’ Lina repeated quietly.

  It was dark where they’d landed, save for a few small lanterns hanging on the wall, and all Lina could make out was the rocky walls of a narrow tunnel. A little arrow scratched into nearby rocks read:

  Lina could see the words ogre, wizard, mermaid and fairy had all been scored out, as if someone didn’t want those sorts finding their way there at all. It wouldn’t be the most pleasant welcome, she imagined, if you were one of those creatures.

  Up ahead, Lina could just make out the harpy from the waiting room earlier. She was walking slowly, her back hunched.

  ‘No flying is allowed in the tunnels,’ Odge explained when she spotted what Lina was looking at. ‘Health and safety.’

  The harpy clawed onwards, hitting the wall angrily as she did.

  ‘They’re terribly lazy and hate to walk,’ Odge said. ‘Not many harpies take the Vienna gump. Actually, not many harpies take any gump – they like to stay put on Mist and pretend it’s the only place in the world.’

  A strange sensation spread up Lina’s legs, as though she were being dipped in sticky rice.

  ‘Ah,’ Odge said. ‘You’re coming back. The magic of the Island wipes away fernseed fairly quickly. But never mind – we’re almost there.’

  Lina wasn’t so sure – the tunnel weaved on for what looked like miles, and the harpy wasn’t nearly at the end yet. She felt a tug on her backpack and fell sideways, straight through a wall of slimy brollachans.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but Odge’s boots.

  ‘Welcome,’ the hag said, hoisting her up and revealing the crowds of magical creatures, ‘to the most hidden part of our island, and your home for the next few days. Welcome, dear Lina, to the Undermist!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BEN

  The makeshift city of Undermist was more magical than anything Lina could’ve imagined. Beyond the hidden brollachan entrance lay houses carved into rocky walls, filled with banished magical creatures spilling from every window. Winding streets trickled on for miles and were lined with brollachans wearing pretty rock decorations on their heads as if they were perfectly pruned shrubs. Fairies walked in deliberately elaborate patterns across the walls, creating glitter art to brighten any dark corners not already illuminated by the witches, who had set their hair on fire to light the way.

  Lina had finally found it – the place in the world where the magical creatures were hidden!

  ‘Most of the magical beings you see here normally live above ground in Centre Mist,’ Odge said. ‘The harpies seized power right before the gump opened. They’d been planning it for years. On the night the gump opened, they attacked, and some of us managed to hide down here. The harpies don’t know about this place. It sits right under the old palace, which they destroyed. The whole town up above g
round is nothing but rubble.’

  ‘How long have you been down here?’ Lina asked.

  ‘Seven days,’ Odge said. ‘But the gump will only stay open for two more, and then, as you know, it will close and won’t open again for nine whole years. We need to stop the harpies and get all our banished friends back through the gump before then. We have to bring them home before it’s too late. But that’s why you’re here.’

  Lina stopped and threw her hands in the air. ‘ODGE, I REALLY NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING.’

  At the sight of the small girl with the mistmaker backpack shouting with her hands in the air, the creatures around her turned and began to clap and cheer.

  ‘SHE’S HERE!’ Odge cried triumphantly, scaling a rock to address the crowd. ‘I’VE BROUGHT HER HOME!’

  A skinny young man with a mop of brown hair pushed his way through the crowds. Lina was confused by his appearance – he was taller than the average teenage boy, and perhaps his eyes were a little more blue than most, but, aside from that, he was entirely human from what she could see. Apart from her, he seemed to be the only human there.

  He came to a stop in front of them and gave Odge a big hug. ‘I’m so glad you’re all right, Gribs. We expected you earlier than this, and I got worried.’ He looked around hopefully. ‘Where’s Hans?’

  ‘Slight problem with the quantities of fernseed,’ Odge said, just as Ray began to un-vanish behind her.

  The boy stumbled backwards. ‘Is that … Ray? Odge, what did you do to him?’

  Odge shifted her feet awkwardly. ‘I … He heard music … The piano … We had cake … But look how much more cuddly he is now!’

  Lina could tell Ben was fond of Odge because he couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘And anyway,’ Odge went on, ‘I brought the mistmaker master, didn’t I?’

  Ben looked to the brollachan entrance. ‘Where is the mistmaker master? Was she far behind you?’

  ‘She’s here,’ Odge said in a tone that suggested she thought him quite mad.

  Ben looked at Lina and then back to Odge again. ‘I don’t want to be rude, but there’s no way that’s the mistmaker master.’

  Odge sighed impatiently. ‘She has a mistmaker backpack, and she was on the platform. There’s no way someone who wasn’t the mistmaker master would be on the platform at the time we agreed, wearing a mistmaker backpack!’

  ‘She speaks so badly to the Prince,’ a witch whispered to another, their hair ablaze.

  The Prince, Lina thought. Of course. He was the one Magdelena had mentioned – the prince Odge had saved.

  ‘Odge,’ Ben said, pulling the hag aside, though still very much in earshot of Lina. ‘She’s a child. The mistmaker master is not a child. She’s a one-hundred-and-one-year-old creature.’

  ‘Lina could be one hundred and one,’ Odge protested. ‘I haven’t asked her age – it’s rude. And, anyway, some people age well, you know.’

  ‘I’m … I’m not,’ Lina said.

  ‘Hang on, Lina,’ Odge said. ‘I just need to speak to Ben.’

  ‘No, Odge. Listen – I’m sorry, but I have been trying to tell you. I’m not … I’m not—’

  Ben turned to Lina. ‘It’s all right – I’m Ben, and I am the prince of this island, and I am now officially in charge, as of a few days ago when my parents were banished back to the human world by the harpies.’

  ‘He thinks he’s in charge,’ Odge whispered. ‘But everyone knows I’m the one that makes the decisions. The good ones, anyway.’

  ‘My parents were sent to London and told never to return,’ Ben went on, ‘and I went into hiding here in the Undermist. The harpies don’t know I’m still on the Island. The night the gump opened, the harpies attacked and seized power, and that’s when the mistmaker creatures began getting sick. They have almost completely stopped producing mist, and it’s the mist that keeps our island protected.’

  ‘So, the harpies are killing the Island,’ Odge added. ‘And we have until tomorrow night when the gump closes to stop them.’

  Ben sighed. ‘We’ve been trying to stop the harpies in any way we can, but our numbers have been dwindling fast. Many creatures have been thrown out through the gump, and many more are fleeing.’ As he spoke, he guided Lina to a rocky cave where an old witch was using an even older fairy like a pen to draw on the wall. Glistening slug-like trails formed what looked like a blueprint plan.

  ‘This is where we plan and record resistance activities,’ Ben said as the witch and fairy scrawled FAILED next to everything. ‘And where we list plans that have so far failed.’

  Lina could see that on the second day of the takeover, Odge had gone to seek the help of the mutant mermaids to stop the harpies.

  ‘We lost because we couldn’t get the harpies into the sea, so the mermaids could only splash them from afar,’ Ben said.

  ‘I think it annoyed them, though,’ Odge argued. ‘Their handbags got wet. It’s a small victory.’

  Ben forced a smile and patted the neighbouring section of the wall. ‘The next day, the mistmakers started growing weaker. We tried everything to make them better – I whistled tunes and played the flute for hours, because that usually makes the mist pour out of them, but it didn’t work. That same day, the harpies set their sights on the mountains and defeated our troll friends up there.’

  Odge groaned. ‘That one wasn’t my fault. I had no idea ogres and trolls were so severely scared of sharp talons.’

  Lina noticed the witch and fairy had written USELESS TROLLS next to that one.

  ‘By the seventh day, Odge and I had fallen out,’ Ben said. ‘I was getting really worried about the mistmakers and the fact that if the gump closed when my parents were in the human world it would be years before I saw them again. Odge had no sympathy for me and said I was giving up.’

  ‘You were giving up. It was infuriating.’

  The writing witch and fairy turned slowly to face them.

  ‘No,’ Ben said quickly. ‘Don’t record that.’

  ‘What happened yesterday?’ Lina asked, running her hand over a drawing of a swirling gump and crying creatures.

  ‘That’s when the harpies went full steam ahead on evicting the magical creatures,’ Ben said sadly. ‘Our friends were vanishing through the gump, the mistmakers were fading fast, and we couldn’t think of any way to defeat the flying harpies. Then I had a thought – perhaps fixing the mistmakers was the key to beating them. Those evil creatures fly high in battle, but if the mistmakers were better at producing mist it would be so cloudy that they wouldn’t be able to see! We’d have an advantage – they’d be flying blind. I’m convinced we have to make the mistmakers better to defeat the harpies—’

  ‘And that’s exactly why I make the decisions,’ Odge butted in. ‘I told Ben, I disagreed with him. I think the mistmakers are so sad about what’s happening that they’re giving up, just like Ben. This island has become horrible under the harpies’ rule, and they no longer want to protect it, so they’ve stopped producing mist. And because they’ve stopped producing mist they’re dying – and our island is dying with them. The only way to help them is to defeat the harpies. If we make this island good again before the gump closes tomorrow night, the mistmakers will be restored to their former glory. Look how happy Ray was off the island in Vienna! He puffed up to the size of a furry uncle!’

  ‘I told Odge, somewhat crossly,’ Ben said, his voice losing its measured tone, ‘that she could very well be right, but she couldn’t be certain – she wasn’t an expert.’

  ‘So I wrote to you, Lina – an expert – and said I would meet you the next morning at Vienna Central Station,’ Odge said. ‘I didn’t like seeing Ben so sad, but also I really wanted to prove that I’m right.’

  ‘So you went all the way to Vienna to win an argument?’ Lina said, who couldn’t really see what they were arguing about at all.

  ‘Of course,’ Odge replied.

  ‘I’m in hiding, or else I’d have met you myself,’ Ben said.
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  ‘So, the big question is, do we need to save the mistmakers to defeat the harpies? Or do we need to defeat the harpies to save the mistmakers? We agreed that the mistmaker master would guide us,’ Odge explained.

  They both stared at Lina.

  ‘But,’ Ben said slowly, ‘I’m guessing what you’ve been trying to tell Odge is you’re not the mistmaker master at all?’

  Lina pulled awkwardly on her jumper. ‘I did try to say. But I got distracted by the procession of magical creatures in the hotel, oh, and by the cake before that, and the giant mistmaker and the ghost rat, and then suddenly I was invisible and in a gump! And now I’m here.’

  ‘WRONG ONE!’ the writing witch shouted, and she and the fairy quickly got to work drawing the latest failure on the wall.

  Lina turned slowly to see Odge was standing with her jaw practically on the floor in shock.

  ‘Not again,’ she finally said.

  ‘Again?’ Lina whispered to Ben. ‘This has happened before?’

  ‘Mistaken identity is Odge’s speciality,’ Ben said with a soft smile.

  Odge began hitting her head against a brollachan, making a squelching noise in perfect harmony with her screaming. She stopped and began pacing instead, then stood on something that made her stop.

  ‘Great,’ she groaned, lifting up a tiny, perfectly round stone. It glistened, and through a tiny crack a weird liquid dribbled on to the floor.

  ‘Cor’s enchantment,’ Ben said with a smile. ‘He was our wizard friend. He was very old and sadly passed away last year. But he left enchantments for us all across the Island – little things to remember him by.’

  The enchantment cast a stormy raincloud above the hag’s head, and rain began beating down on her. She clenched her fists in frustration.