Shane Hegarty - Worlds Explode

“Nevertheless, it is with the deepest regret that we must conclude that Hugo is most likely …” Estravon cleared his throat, “… dead.”

Finn’s mouth flopped open.

Emmie’s head dropped.

Estravon paused, as if expecting a reaction or a follow-up question. All that came was a calm, stern instruction from Finn’s mam.

“Just keep reading,” she said.

“Under rule 123a, paragraph 14, it is required that an appropriate time must pass before a lost Legend Hunter is officially declared dead and a full-time replacement Legend Hunter brought in.”

“And the appropriate time is?” asked Clara.

“Forty-eight hours.”

Finn’s mouth flopped open a little more, so that his jaw felt like it might fall from its hinge.

“Two days?” exclaimed Emmie, but Clara simply put a hand up to quieten her, as if she was keeping her fury snarling behind a locked door for when she really needed it.

“A little less than two days, to be accurate,” said Estravon. “You know, with the gap between the news being passed to me and then me delivering it onwards to yourselves.”

“And what happens to us?” asked Clara.

“Reassignment,” said Estravon.

“Reassignment?” said Finn. “To another town?”

“No, no. Another house in Darkmouth. Where Steve and Emmie are at the moment.”

Steve appeared round the corner, a bounce in his step that suggested he had absolutely no idea what had just happened. “You all sunbathing?” he asked.

Clara’s glare hit him like a blastwave.

“What?” Steve asked.

“You wanted a Blighted Village to call your own and you finally got it,” Clara said to him, still remarkably calm on the surface even though her anger was so very clear.

“Actually,” said Estravon the Assessor, bumping his head on the car ceiling, “that’s not quite how it works.”

“Someone is going to have to rewind this conversation and start from the beginning,” said Steve, “because I have no idea what you’re going on about.”

“All those years of living with their rules, of living with their demands and restrictions,” added Clara, “and this is how we’re repaid. Eviction.”

“Reassignment,” clarified Estravon.

Clara ignored him. “So, congratulations, Steve; unless Hugo comes back within forty-eight hours, we’re swapping houses. I hope you like vacuuming corridors because you’re going to be doing a lot of it.”

Calculating that this was his moment to escape, Estravon took his chance and put his foot down so the car lurched on to the quiet road, paused at the corner and, with a belch from the exhaust, disappeared from view. They could hear the engine fading away into the town, the fumes of its exhaust still acrid in the air.

Finn had already gone into his house and was heading straight for the library. He had less than two days to find the map. To find his father.

It was the next morning, but Finn had no idea what time it was exactly. Neither did he notice Emmie’s arrival. He was at the door between the main house and the Long Hall. It was propped open with books, and the whole corridor to the library was strewn with pages, piles of paper arranged in haphazard order.

As Emmie approached, Finn disappeared into a side room before emerging with another armful of candidates to work through. Not able to see where he was going, he tripped over a mound of atlases, sending himself one way and paper the other.

“Have you been awake all night, Finn?”

Finn picked himself up, shaking off her helping hand, swatting a small hardback off his shoulder until he stood staring at the mess he’d created.

“No, of course not,” he said, sifting through the pages of tattered, yellowing books that had disintegrated as they hit the floor.

“Did you sleep here, though?”

“No! Well, a bit,” he admitted. “My mam forced me to bed eventually. I got up early. We’ve only three days to find something.” He stopped himself, looked at the watch given to him by the Assessor, the tiny daggers slowly working their way round an ivory face. “Actually, not much more than a full day now.”

“But you’ve been in the library pretty much since the Assessor said your dad was, you know, erm …”

“You can say it,” Finn said tersely. “You can say ‘dead’, Emmie. Go on. Because it doesn’t matter. It’s not true.”

Emmie didn’t say the word. “You must be exhausted.”

“I can’t stop,” he said, biting his lip. “Dad told me I wouldn’t. I can’t.”

Above them, a strip light flickered and died. Finn tutted and immediately headed to the narrowest door in the corridor which had S4 hand-painted on it. Emmie followed, hovering outside the door while Finn rooted around fretfully in search of a new bulb.

“We’re out. Do you have any bulbs at your house?” he asked.

“Come on, we’ll get breakfast before school,” said Emmie.

“We need to keep the place lit up, so we don’t miss anything,” he replied.

“Finn—”

“Can you get me a bulb from your house or can’t you?”

Emmie looked up at the Long Hall’s ceiling. “Doubt it. These are strip lights, like you’d have in an office or something. I live in a normal house. Not a crazy house like this.”

Silence.

They both paused for a moment to appreciate the inadvertent clumsiness of what she had said and the words that were left hanging there: she didn’t live in a crazy house like this for now .

Emmie coughed.

Finn felt his hopes sink even more.

Emmie looked at the lettering on the door and pushed her head in to find a room crammed with boxes, tools, dusty and rusting equipment. “So, what does S4 stand for anyway?”

“It’s a storage room,” explained Finn.

“Just junk and stuff?”

Finn stood with hands on hips, looking around, admitting defeat in the search for a new bulb. “Yeah, and stuff. Do you think I should just give up searching?”

“No, there must be one here somewhere,” said Emmie, squeezing past him and rooting through the overcrowded shelves. She pushed aside some boxes to see what lay behind before she belatedly realised what Finn had actually meant. “No, Finn, I don’t think you should stop searching for the map.”

“What if the Assessor’s right, though? What if there is no map?”

“They didn’t find one,” said Emmie. “There’s a big difference.” She kept rummaging through the clutter, as much to move on the conversation as in the hope of finding any light bulbs. She pawed at a couple of things as she went. A ship’s wheel with rusted wrenches taped to each handle. What might have been a satellite dish made out of a roasting dish, tinfoil and a spoon.

She knocked against something propped on a shelf and just about caught it before it hit the floor. A tin box attached to a circuit board, it had a couple of old brass light switches fixed on to it and what looked like an egg whisk protruding from one end.

“What’s this, Finn?”

“An egg whisk, I think.”

“No,” said Emmie, “what is this whole thing? What does it do?”

“Actually, my dad loves this,” said Finn, taking it from her and examining it. “It’s a Legend Spotter. It was used years ago, before they invented scanners to track Legends down. Come on, I’ll show you.”

He headed quickly to the library, pushing the door through a carpet of papers and books, and carefully picked his way to the centre of the room. Emmie followed.