Aurabel Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Lorali

  ALSO BY LAURA DOCKRILL

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Aurabel

  The Sea: Heavy the Head

  Mermaid and Mermen Appreciation Tribe – Aka ‘Mamat’

  Lorali: I Remember

  Aurabel: Blood Pearl

  Lorali: The Petrified Forest

  Aurabel: First Day

  Lorali: Gold

  Aurabel: Sienna

  Lorali: At Midnight

  The Sea: Bloody Pearl

  Aurabel: Heart on the Earth

  The Sea: A Place for Dreaming

  Lorali: Two Minds

  The Sea: Adventure

  Aurabel: Amusement

  The Sea: Oops … One Moment

  The Sea: Tanked Fish

  Aurabel: Tapestry

  The Sea: Murray

  Lorali: A Cow-Skin Rug

  Part II: One Month Later

  The Sea: Teardrop

  Aurabel: The Metal Tail

  Lorali: China Doll

  The Sea: The Missing Aurabel

  DNA MAG

  The Sea: Bound

  Mermaid and Mermen Appreciation Tribe – Aka ‘Mamat’

  The Sea: The Sabre Tower

  Lorali: Only the End

  The Sea: Welcome Home

  The Sea: Muddy Waters

  Aurabel: One Mer at War With the World

  The Sea: The Sensitive Soul of a Selkie

  Aurabel: A Fish in a Net

  The Sea: Gush

  Mermaid and Mermen Appreciation Tribe – Aka ‘Mamat’

  The Sea: A Crown Without a Head

  Aurabel: Iron Lungs

  Part III

  Lorali: Blue Thread

  The Sea: Autumn

  The Sea: Pin

  Aurabel: Lorali

  The Sea: Headhunted

  The Sea: Tippi

  Aurabel: Walkers

  The Sea: Jumping the Gun

  Lorali: Little Creatures

  The Sea: Flynn

  The Sea: Victor and the Tips

  Aurabel: Hunting

  Lorali: Aurabel’s Net

  Aurabel: Revenge

  Lorali: Saving a Hero

  The Sea: The Mysterious Male

  Lorali: Back on the Wheel

  The Sea: A Tail Between the Legs

  Aurabel: Silver Platter

  SAS – Selkie Appreciation Society

  The Sea: A Little Too Late

  Lorali: Watching a Monster Kill Some Monsters

  The Sea: Nevermind

  Lorali: Meeting Nevermind

  Aurabel: Finding Nevermind Paradise

  Part IV

  The Sea: Gathering Slowly, Old Moonshine

  The Sea: A Good Day for a Good Day

  The Sea: A Joint Resolution

  Aurabel: The Chain

  Lorali: Home

  The Sea: Solve

  Lorali: Patchwork

  The Sea: Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Laura Dockrill

  Copyright

  Praise for Lorali

  I love Laura’s writing. This book turns your brain into an octopus of words.

  Gemma Cairney

  A fantastic read that is raw, beautiful and bursting with fiercely gorgeous prose.

  We Love this Book

  It’s just as crazy and unpredictable as you’d expect.

  The Bookseller

  A crash-bang-wallop of vivid storytelling and fun!!!

  Nicole Burstein, author of Othergirl

  This was the best mermaid book ever!!!

  Maddie, Heart Full of Books

  Being inside Laura Dockrill’s imagination is a wonderful thing.

  Jessica, Jess Hearts Books

  … deliciously bizarre …

  Kelly, Diva Booknerd

  The world Laura writes just begs to be read about and I found myself unable to put the book down.

  Kirsty, Overflowing Library

  ALSO BY LAURA DOCKRILL

  Lorali

  Ugly Shy Girl

  Mistakes in the Background

  Echoes

  For younger readers:

  Darcy Burdock

  Darcy Burdock: Hi So Much

  Darcy Burdock: Sorry About Me

  Darcy Burdock: Oh, Obviously

  Darcy Burdock: Angrosaurus Rex

  For Daisy and Hector

  PROLOGUE

  Ah, there you are. Where were we …?

  ‘Do you remember anything?’ Carmine asked him. She knew more than him; she had watched the young thing grow through the eyes of her Walker friend, Iris. Gutted to see him here now.

  It had been a year exactly since the waves stole his soul and drowned him. Carmine had thought, ambitiously, that the date might’ve meant something enough to stir up a response in the boy.

  But he was lost in the wooden maze of the petrified forest; borrowed by both Mer and Walkers, taking turns to disguise itself; a damaged, desolate, barren land for Walkers when my waters washed away only to awaken the sleeping beauty: a tranquil, tropical paradise for Mer to roam and remember.

  The boy let his fingertips brush the soft faces of forest trees. Carmine trusted the trunks for contact; let impressionable nature behave as an empty canvas, a love letter, a dial-up telephone.

  ‘What are these marks?’ he asked at last.

  ‘They are conversations, memories.’ Carmine had to let him explore it himself, discover in his own time. She could lead him to the salt-tear-slicken wrapped letters and notes pinned to the trunks, the engravings. She plucked a silver quill from the tree. It came away with a click. But she couldn’t say any more. It wasn’t her place. Even though she had seen Iris walk with the boy many times before, even though he was friends with his grandson, she had watched him grow. He was no stranger to her. But she had to pretend they were.

  So she circled the trunk, knowingly carving lettering of her own. The boy watched, curiously; he’d never seen any Mer do this before.

  ‘Conversations with who?’

  ‘With who we were; those we left behind.’

  ‘Behind?’

  Had she said too much? He was too young. His tapestry was as white as the moon and as blank-faced too: unformed and premature.

  I was beginning to wash away, level and become shallow, my tide crawling backwards. It was time to leave; soon this wouldn’t be a place for them.

  ‘We can come back, another time perhaps?’

  ‘Will you bring me back though? I won’t be able to come alone.’

  This didn’t surprise Carmine. Zar was extra-protective over him. But the boy was right to find the forest magical and enchanting, even if he couldn’t engage fully with its purpose yet. ‘Of course,’ she said, although it was hard to hide her disappointment, ‘we can come back.’

  And so they left. Carmine’s heart panged. Soon he would be resolved and then it would be harder. She was so certain he would have felt a tug. Make sense of the miracle as moments flickered back like seeds of a dream in a hurricane.

  Carmine would just have to be patient.

  But that night, in the clutch of his bed, as he waited for sleep to capture him, he thought he once knew a girl. He once knew the feeling of something different. Something he wasn’t feeling here. The tactile recall of wallpaper on his fingertips. Of hot food in his stomach. Of, maybe, scribbly white noises coming from a grey box. Of the grip of tracks under the carriage of a metal train. Of headphones. Of coins in his pockets. Of white smoke in his lungs. Sugar rushing in his blood. The girl came back again; he could almost replay her laugh, the way she leant on him; it was like she was present now, hanging over him like a dense fog. And he stole himself out
of his bedroom, snuck away in the midnight darkness, back to where Carmine had taken him.

  To the petrified forest. Its towering limbs of bark.

  He wove through the labyrinth, lost, his heart pounding. He had to act quickly, before he forgot the feeling and let go of the hunch. But the forest seemed to only encourage the encounters, inviting him to dance with a history. He thought of the beach. Of an older woman with the same blood as his, smiling at him like she knew how to love him … Of … wait … that girl again …

  He wasn’t afraid, even though she was a spirit. Even though she came back to him like a memory. He chased the ghost of her through the trees, a game of hide and seek. Her laughter ricocheted from trunk to trunk. He laughed too, raiding the woods for the little twinkle … Who are you? Why do I feel like we’ve met before? But it felt like a cruel joke. Every time he got close to the girl, she vanished. Teasing. He looked like one of those stupid cats trying to snatch at the small yellow circle of light shining from a torch.

  It was not real. It was a trick. But he wouldn’t be disheartened. No, he had to ride this wave.

  What if he never got this feeling again? What if he never got this chance again?

  And so with the quill, as Carmine showed him, right there he pressed his hands firmly into the wood, just like Carmine did. Scratching his way in and, as hard as he could, he etched the words into the trunk.

  I REMEMBER.

  But something was watching him. A shadow. Up behind him. Creeping closer … lurking, the sinister smile of something sneaking up his spine. The thoughts were slipping away but the fear … He dropped the quill and fled, dashing and darting around the standing spikes as fast as his learning tail could whip. The chase of something after him, quick, snap, snap, snap. Fear, panic, caught hold of him, strangling in the throttled clutch of whatever hand was behind. Terrified to look back.

  ‘KAI!’

  The shadow lifted. The chase stopped. Whatever was behind him had rushed away, as a field of blinding yellow tumbled dramatically from the beacon of the octopus search lantern.

  Kai smashed into the chest of his father, the king. He looked angry.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he lied when his mouth could form a small sound.

  ‘You are never to come here again.’

  And he didn’t. He never came back.

  And neither did the memory of the girl he once knew.

  And it was then that Zar decided to sever off the lifeline to the past, by closing the petrified forest for good and taking their memories with it.

  And another year passes …

  We grow with many moons and changing suns. The shift of seas moving, grooving with the minute of a day, the taste of a breath, the climbing of a moment. The closure of the forest allows the unknown wilderness to mark its name. Bold emptiness hogs the boggy marshland, silence crawls, the teeth of hungry monsters lurk.

  Habits behave as a clock face in this timeless ocean and another year makes it two years since the boy was given to me; two years now since he was stolen from his walking world.

  PART I

  AURABEL

  ‘Morning!’ I wave to the faces as I rush about Tippi. Got three fish hooked on my hip, a jug of sea-cow milk and a sweet wedge of sap for breakfast.

  ‘You need a haircut, Aurabel!’ Titi shouts as she scrambles up her Merbies. ‘It’s too long now.’

  ‘Never! No such thing as too long!’ And I throw her a fish. ‘Here, feed the babs.’

  ‘Oh, Aurabel, you spoil me.’

  ‘Oi!’ cries Orina. She’s lounging on her decking, organising the plans for tonight’s meeting. ‘Chuck us a fish then.’

  ‘You know where the fish are!’

  ‘Don’t be tight, Aurabel!’

  ‘Don’t be lazy, Orina!’

  ‘It’s not laziness, Aurabel, some of us just don’t quite have the stamina you do. It’s honestly like your tapestry has an engine hidden inside of it!’

  ‘It’s all me!’ I wink.

  ‘See you at the meeting tonight?’

  ‘For sure. I’ve got an idea about how to use them shipping containers that dropped into the west. Could make a play centre for the Merbies, and was also thinking we could make a gallery, you know, for all the pictures we have – we could hang them on the walls … open it up, like an exhibition, could be fun, nice to share all the images, as inspiration, a bit of culture, something to do?’

  ‘I love it. What a great idea. You’ll fancy yourself for position of mayor!’

  ‘Dunno about that.’

  ‘Keep going the way you are.’

  ‘Stop trying to wrangle a free fish,’ I joke cheekily.

  ‘I wasn’t … but if you’re offering …’

  And I can’t help but throw her one too.

  ‘Love you!’ she shouts after me.

  My morning swim is my favourite swim of all. Throwing myself about my town where I know the names. This Tippi town is my home. We’re a poor place. Where we all live. Where they don’t. Closer to the Walkers. Closer to the beasts. In this sunken trench, still a way away underneath. Right before where the seabed stops the rocks begin, scooping back up like a hangnail. It’s all right though, we don’t complain. Even though we got shit vegetation because we can’t hardly grow any crops or nothing and they’ve taken all the males from us. All male Mer get to live in the Whirl. Or, the ones worth keeping, I guess.

  Precious males.

  SNORE!

  EUGH! Drop me RIGHT out! I don’t even know what the big deal is. They’re only good for one thing, if you ask me. And they can’t even do that half the time.

  I’m talking about hunting, by the way.

  If you didn’t know, Mer are a male-deprived species. To most of us it don’t make no difference – there’s plenty of Mer to make a mate or tessellate with, like, for company and whatnot. If you wanted a male mate, you could salvage, but salvaging is costly, especially for a Tip – just another mouth to feed. Plus then you gotta raise the bloody thing, train the dead human up to be Mer before you can even begin to think about touching tongues with them. That’s really time consuming. So only the superior in the Whirl can do that salvaging business. And even then, they encourage mostly male salvaging, really, because there’s a shortage. Sure, we were all salvaged once upon a time, long ago, before those in the Whirl got richer and we got poorer and life got harder, and so now we don’t. I’ve never wanted a male, to be honest. Nothing they can give me I can’t give myself. See, in Tippi, none of us has ‘parents’ for one reason or another – ours either left us for dead (realising we weren’t quite as special as they thought we were when they salvaged us) or died themselves. So, yeah, down here, we’re a pack. A pack of wild Mer that have made our own family out of the scraps we got. Orphaned off into this town as outcasts. We got to make do, as most of us just have what we came with: nothing.

  Our terrain is a raving splatter of clutter, of mismatched imbalanced wonky-tonk ripples and riddles of buildings all chancing themselves as make-do homes for us Tips. We’re a very competent bunch. Built ourselves gardens and a dump. And we help each other too. Like, if someone has a problem with their slam, one Tip will always try to help another. It’s just the way down here. But don’t get me wrong, like, we’re not soppy. Or weak. Mer are an alpha species and it’s definitely survival of the fittest. You have to be a bit like that in Tippi. There isn’t always enough to go round, see.

  Most slams are shacks all stacked up in blocks, cages covered in rags, odd ends of crates and skips and trucks and all sorts arranged as shops and markets and homes. It’s a buzzy little place, sky-high and crowded. We all build close together in these tight little stitches, see – keeps us safe and we like to hear each other, like if danger comes or whatnot.

  In the middle of Tippi there’s this grand square. It’s there we have a meeting point; that’s where the fallen plane is. Surrounding that, we have the crops that we can grow here, which aren’t many, as I s
aid – we don’t get as much light as the Whirl does and it’s pretty boggy down here but we got roots and some of them sprout flowers, which are well pretty; even though they aren’t that great to eat, they still look nice.

  My slam is an upturned car. Some of the idiots round here think that cars are meant to be that way. Driven that way up there on land. Like, with the wheels in the sky. IDIOTS. Course that ain’t how they use them. You don’t even have to know about Walkers to know that. Just plain common sense. It’s just how my slam landed. It didn’t have a dead body in it or nothing. Some of the others in Tippi who live in cars say that’s the real downside about making a car your slam – sometimes there’s a Walker who’s gone and died in it. You have to pull them out. Bury them, I guess, if you’re a nice, decent type. I would. But mostly they’d be fish food by then anyways.

  Murray, my girl, is working at the Findings Warehouse today, which is one of the projects that I invented. The warehouse is basically an old fallen ship; inside we keep all the things that fall from the surface, from them Walkers. Obviously we don’t always know what is what. What is useful. Valuable. Precious. So we have a system.