Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

of the many places she saw. And as far as anybody knows, she never ceased to be wayward and brilliant, but travelled the world with her tiger, scandalizing right-thinking folk and beautiful ladies everywhere.

59

T

HE

N

IGHT

T

RAIN

There is a story the bees used to tell, about a train that passes through every station between Hel and Pandaemonium, without ever stopping. The stations are places from legend, and run from the topmost branches of the World Tree to the cliffs of Damnation; to the Northlands, always in darkness; to the Southlands, always in flame, and thence to the shore of the River, where the bees first discovered the nectar of dreams and took it back to their Queen as she lay in her fortress of velvet and honeycomb.

The train is built from the bones of the dead; bound together with runes and sheathed in a casing of polished black steel. The engine runs on the dying words of men who have ended their lives in regret; compressed into shining coals, that, when burnt, release their cries and complaints to the wind, so that the train can always be heard, although its wheels are silent, rushing through the night to the sound of distant, relentless sobbing.

They say that no one alive has ever seen the Driver of the Night Train. His cab is hidden behind a door, sealed with lead and inscribed with runes. No sound ever comes from behind it. And all the passengers are dead, staring out at the scenery; lost souls too fearful to enter the Kingdom of Death; now doomed to ride the train forever on its journey through the Worlds.

All but one: a boy of the Folk, who boarded the train from the islands of Dream, and now, unable to leave, remains, watching the signals, ever alert for a red light in the darkness. For the red light would mean a stopping-place—maybe a chance for him to escape. But in all the years of his service, the boy has never known the Night Train to stop, or to take on a living passenger.

On the night of each New Moon, the snack trolley trundles down the train. The boy feeds on ancient sweetmeats; cakes long past their sell-by dates; wrapped in plastic; crystallised; slices of eternity. Sometimes he writes little stories, just to pass the endless time. He writes them on scraps of paper and throws them out of the window. The scraps of paper sometimes catch in the bushes along the track. He hopes that someday, someone might read one, and come aboard. Until then, he rides the train; doomed to watch the Worlds pass by; moving ever closer to whatever awaits at the end of the line.

All this is true—or at least, it was. Trapped in his nightmare, the boy from the train had no idea that change was afoot. But in another world, events were aligning, like two distant stars coming into conjunction.

60

D

REAMS OF THE

B

AREFOOT

P

RINCESS

There are many different ways to reach the River Dream. One is Sleep; but certain dreams thrive best in the waking world, and these are among the most powerful. The Driver and the Barefoot Princess were both in pursuit of one of these dreams; and here, at the junction between two Worlds, it seemed to the Engine Driver that Dream must only be a whisper away.

“That’s how you found me,” she told the Princess. “And that’s how we’ll find the Lacewing King.”

The Princess looked uncertain. “How?”

“When I was young,” said the Driver, “I used to believe in stories. Now you have made me believe again that stories are real, and dreams can come true.”

And then she kissed the Barefoot Princess by the side of the broken-down train, with the bees humming all around them:

“Up above and down below,

Down below and up above,

The Worlds are honeycomb, my love

The Worlds are honeycomb.”

The Barefoot Princess had read about Love. But in the Lacewing King’s library, Love had seemed very far away. Now it felt close, as close as Dream, and sweet; as sweet as honeycomb.

She looked at the Engine Driver. “Will you follow me?” she said.

“Anywhere,” said the Driver at once.

“I haven’t even told you where,” said the Princess with a smile.

The Engine Driver shrugged and said, “I’ve worked this line for twenty years. I know exactly where it leads. And I’ve always known there were other worlds, other stations along the line. And then you came from another world, and I knew that together we could go anywhere, even to the end of the tracks.”

The Princess smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’m going to tell you a story.”

“A story?” repeated the Driver.

“That’s how we find our way into Dream. That’s how the bees have always found their way. Because, what else is a story but a dream that has been shared with the world?”

And as the Barefoot Princess spoke, the cloud of bees began to dance. It was the ancient dance of the honeybee, leading its folk to the nectar. It was a complicated dance, and the Princess watched in awe as they twisted and turned in the rapturous air, making a kind of spiral.

“A honeycomb has many cells,” said the Barefoot Princess. “They look like separate chambers, but really, they’re just part of the whole, linked by a narrow wall of wax. All we need to pass through the wall is to listen to the bees.”

And then, the Barefoot Princess began, in the words of all the best stories: “There is a story the bees used to tell, which makes it hard to disbelieve.…”

61

T

HE

H

ARLEQUIN

’

S

K

ISS

Meanwhile, in another World, the Lacewing King and the Harlequin were locked in a close and cruel embrace. She who had once been the Hallowe’en Queen might have lost her kingdom, but the Harlequin’s gaze still had the power to open the gateways to the Worlds. And now, as she clasped her enemy tightly in