Another whistle.
“Yes, of course we’ll wait.”
Yorick Cavea disappeared for a minute in his house, emerging in an old-fashioned khaki safari suit and swinging an unbrella.
“Wait,” said Deeba. “You can’t bring that.”
The bird sang a few questioning notes.
“Sorry old chap, rules of this particular engagement,” the book said. Cavea stood still for a moment. In the cage-head, the little bird sang on its swing. “It’d take too long to explain, but she’s right, it’s for the best.”
Cavea threw the unbrella back in the house and closed the door, complaining in vociferous avian tones.
“Don’t worry,” the book said. “We’ll keep watch for Smog. Half up front. That’s only fair.”
Deeba tucked a wad of the cash into Cavea’s inside pocket. They followed the book’s directions into the UnLondon afternoon, through different landscapes of the abcity, at last into a warren of narrow streets.
Deeba tried to make conversation with Cavea, but while it was obvious that the bird in the cage could understand her polite questions, she didn’t understand any of its whistled answers. Mr. Cavea took the book under his arm. The bird plumped its plumage and warbled.
At some points the streets were crowded: at other times they were the only people they could see, and Cavea’s lovely singsong was all they could hear, apart perhaps from the tiniest whisper of houses. Hemi and Deeba walked side by side.
“What you looking for?” said Deeba. Hemi was examining chalk- and scratch-marks on some of the houses they passed.
“Just seeing who’s who and what’s what round here,” Hemi murmured.
“What you on about?”
“There are signs only a few of us know how to read,” he said. “For stashes, caches, emptish houses, that sort of thing.”
“Signs for who? Ghosts?”
“No, for…” He scratched his chin. “Alternative shoppers.”
“Thieves?!”
“Right then,” the book interrupted.
They were by an anonymous brick terrace. The houses were three stories high, in conventional red brick with black slate roofs. Shoppers milled where the road met others, and people leaned at several of the front doors, chatting to neighbors. If it weren’t for the eccentric look of some of the inhabitants, it could almost have passed for a residential street in London. Almost.
“We’re here,” said the book.
“We never are,” murmured Hemi.
One house was bursting with leaves. They pressed up against the glass of every window from the inside, blocking off any view within. They squeezed out from below the panes, and through the gaps at the top and bottom of the front door. A little plume of ivy poked from the chimney.
The caged bird on top of Mr. Cavea’s body began singing fervently, the book interjecting.
“Come come,” the book said. “I’m not denying it’s dangerous. That’s ridiculous. There were no false pretenses. Well then there’s no problem— just walk away. Of course. But then there’s no payment. And you won’t be part of the expedition that gets deep into the forest.” Mr. Cavea hesitated, the bird fluttering in agitation.
“No one’s asking you to do anything much,” the book said. “Honestly? All we want you to do is engage someone in conversation. Aha. That’s right, you’ve got it.”
The bird stared at the money, its head cocked on one side.
“You’re not heading in, are you?” The speaker was an elderly man, sitting on the doorstep opposite. He was dressed in a skirt of animal tails. He scratched his beard and sipped a hot drink and shook his head wisely.
“I’d not,” he said. “See them there?” He pointed at a rope stub emerging from behind the front door. “That was where the last lot of explorers set off. That’s where they set up a base camp, they did, but never saw ’em again. Heard rumors though. Heard noises at night. It’s a rum[18] place, the forest, full of noises. No one knows its paths. I’ve lived here near on fifty years, and I’ve never been in nor never would. No, if I was you—”
Cavea squawked an interruption.
“I agree,” muttered the book. Mr. Cavea’s human body yanked open the front door. “He says he’d go in even if we weren’t paying him anything. Just to get away from that bloke.”
Deeba followed them. The utterlings and Hemi went with her. The old man opposite was left watching openmouthed as they hurried into the dark interior of the house, and into the forest.
62. Into the Trees
Deeba stepped into a realm of rustling hush, and warmth, and green light. The door closed behind her. She gaped.
“Oh my gosh,” she said.
To either side were walls in bright wallpaper, and some way ahead she could just see stairs leading up on the left, and a corridor on the right. It was hard to make out the details of the inside of the house, because everywhere around them, filling it, were plants.
The carpet and the floorboards were rucked with lichen, moss, ferns, and undergrowth. Ivy clotted the walls. The corridor was full of trees. They were old, gnarled things that twisted around themselves to fit into the cramped space. Vines hung from them, and from the ceiling, and trembled as little animals and birds scampered up them.
Deeba could only just see through trees and bushes to where thick brambles and creepers plaited through the banisters. She could hear the call of birds, the whisper of leaves, wood knocking gently against wood, and somewhere, the gurgle of running water.
Light shone greenly through leaves from a bulb Deeba glimpsed hanging from the ceiling.
“We should get going,” the book said. “It isn’t that long till dusk.”
What happens at dusk? Deeba thought. She didn’t say anything. They were all too busy dragging themselves through the thickets.
The utterlings were making the most of their new freedom, roaming and foraging as the little group made their way. Diss snuffled enthusiastically and rooted around in the tangles and thickets and leaf mold, emerging from piles of old vegetation wearing temporary hats of compost. Bling leapt from tree to tree with ostentatious springs and backflips. If they strayed more than a few feet from their cautiously progressing companions, Cauldron would click his little fingers and beckon them back.
Having the forest wedged into the house seemed to have done something to the space. The walls’ dimensions didn’t work quite as they should. Deeba felt as if she couldn’t see as far as she should be able to, and as if shadows sometimes fell in odd directions. It took them a long time to reach the base of the stairs, and Deeba didn’t think it was just that the plants were so thick they impeded their progress— although they were.
She was quickly exhausted. She ducked under branches, climbed over others, held them gingerly in front of her and let Bling and Diss and the others pass, so the thorns wouldn’t spring back and whack them. Sometimes, when they were confronted by a particularly tangled thicket, Deeba saw Hemi roll up his sleeve or trouser leg, strain his half-ghostly muscles, and pull his flesh right through the blockage.
It was warm. The leaves were rubbery and thick. Deeba gripped a vine, and a tree frog crawled over her fingers, making her jump. Strictly speaking, she thought, this place was a cross between a forest and a jungle.
“This is a jorest,” she said to Hemi.
“Yeah,” he said. “No, it’s a fungle.” They grinned.
She hopped over a rotted stump jutting from the carpet and wiped sweat from her face. Mr. Cavea leaned against the stair’s bottom rail, the bird in his cage-head staring at her. Through a gap in the forest canopy, Deeba saw the lightbulb, the air around it dusted with midges.