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

was the only place where they could find acceptance. Down among the forgotten things, no one was ever unwanted; no one ever was turned away. Outcasts found their way down here to a different kind of life; the broken came to be mended; the unloved, to search for love. And many of them found it—for here, nothing was impossible. One man’s trash can sometimes be another person’s heart’s desire. And so the folk of the city below lived more happily than most of the Folk who dwelt on the surface.

It was here that the Lacewing King, blind and abandoned by everyone, rediscovered his memory, broken piece by broken piece—although what good was memory, when all that remained to him was regret? And yet, he was himself again, after a long estrangement, and it felt good to know who he was, and to feel his strength returning.

He drank a little more of the sweetened spirit in the flask. Then he sat up and carefully began to explore his surroundings. He found that he was in a kind of narrow corridor, the walls of which were made of all kinds of disparate objects, all stacked on top of each other. With his fingers, he could feel the spines of books; the edges of cardboard boxes. He felt his way along to the end of the narrow passage, which then opened up into a broader space, too large for him to touch the walls.

For a moment he stood uncertainly, hands outstretched in front of him. Then, in the darkness, he heard a voice; harsh, and somehow familiar.

“Your Majesty, welcome,” said the voice.

“Who are you?” said the Lacewing King. “How is it that you know me, when I barely know myself?”

There came a croak of laughter. “I’ve followed you across the Worlds. Others may have forgotten you, but even here, I remember.”

“Who are you?” said the Lacewing King.

“A friend,” replied the voice, and the King heard the sound of beating wings, and felt something land on his shoulder. Sharp claws dug into his flesh: soft feathers brushed his face. “I am the one who remembers. I am the only one you can trust. All the others are dead: your friends; your courtiers, and your family. Only I remain, as I was right at the beginning.” And now the creature started to sing the ancient song of the honeybees, and the Lacewing King would have wept, if he could, at the familiar melody. Instead, he simply sighed and said:

“My mother?”

“Dead,” said the harsh-voiced bird.

“My people?”

“Also dead,” said the bird.

“And the Barefoot Princess?”

“Dead; wandering the plains of Hel. All of them dead; their names unknown, forgotten, except in stories. And when you join them—which will be soon—even those stories will be gone, washed away, like footprints on the seashore.”

The Lacewing King gave another sigh and sat down on the dusty floor. The joy of regaining his memory had given way once more to despair. Why had he survived so long? What use was his life to him now, if everyone he cared for was gone? A dry sob racked his body; he raised his voice in an anguished cry, and his heart—the cold and cruel heart that had survived intact for so long—was finally, fatally broken. He sank to his knees on the ground and wept, and genuinely wished for Death. And at that moment, his Aspect shattered into a million pieces. A million stuttering fireflies scattered like fireworks into the air; scrawling his grief in letters of fire across the Labyrinth of Forgotten Things.

From the heart of the Labyrinth, people saw the fireflies, rising like stars into the sky. Mostly, they ignored them. The people of the Labyrinth were used to unusual happenings. But one man saw the trail of stars and felt his heart quicken abruptly. He turned to the woman at his side—a woman of marvellous beauty, with a face unlined by Time, although she was many centuries old—and said:

“At last. We’ve found him.”

85

T

HE

S

TORY OF THE

H

ALLOWE

’

EN

K

ING

There is a story the bees used to tell,” said the Hallowe’en King to the Barefoot Princess. “But mine is not that story. This is a story not even the bees have ever had the chance to tell, and that is because I have never told anyone—not my wife, nor my infant son—the tale that you are about to hear.”

The Barefoot Princess smiled and tried not to let her anxiety show. Time works strangely in Hel, and although she knew that the hour had not yet passed, she also sensed that the Hallowe’en King was trying to trick her into missing the Train. But there is a power in stories. Power to cross into other Worlds; power to live alternate lives; power even to raise the dead. And so she listened to the tale, as, far across the plains of Hel, the Driver of the Night Train checked the sand in his hour-glass and looked out into the darkness.

“Far away, among the Folk, there lived a boy unlike the rest. A foundling, brought up by the Folk, and yet not of their people. Handsome, with hair like a moth’s wing, the boy was ambitious from the start, and though his parents were humble folk, he knew that he was born to be King. His mother indulged these fantasies, but they annoyed his father, an honest, dull, hard-working man, who did not believe in Destiny.

“ ‘The boy needs to learn a trade,’ he said. ‘What use is he otherwise?’

“But the mother, who doted on the boy, said, ‘He was always different. Why should my boy soil his hands with work when he was born for greatness?’

“The father sighed and shook his head. ‘That boy was born for nothing good,’ he warned. ‘He’ll come to a bad end, mark my words.’

“The boy grew into a handsome young man, but he was never popular. Folk found him proud and arrogant, and women mocked his ambitions. But the man who would be King was