The Starspun Web Read online

  ALSO BY SINÉAD O’HART

  The Eye of the North

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Sinéad O’Hart

  Cover art copyright © 2019 by Sarah Mulvanny

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in the United Kingdom by Stripes Publishing in February 2019.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781101935071 (trade) — ISBN 9781101935088 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9781101935095

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Sinéad O’Hart

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER, AND THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTH STRAND

  PROLOGUE

  Through the hollow darkness of a winter’s night, a man was running.

  “It’s all right, darling,” he murmured to the tiny baby bundled in his arms. “Not much further now.” Snow fell all around them, making dizzying patterns in the air; the going underfoot was slushy and the man’s feet were cold. His mind flashed with quick, sharp thoughts, made painful by anxiety. What had they done with his wife? How long did he have before they came looking for him? Would he have time to get the baby to safety? One thought was so urgent that it drowned out all the others: She’ll only be two worlds away—will it be enough?

  His thoughts were shattered as a sudden cry split the air, loud and shrill—a call of triumph. It came from behind the running man, from the far end of the street. He stopped, peering over his shoulder through the lacework made by the snow. Lights. Indistinct figures moved against the night, muffled tightly in scarves and hats, and another voice shouted. A face, pale in the darkness, turned in his direction.

  The man spun round and began to run once more. The tram wires overhead seemed to hum despite the lateness of the hour and he hopped across the tracks as he made a desperate dash across the road, landing heavily on the pavement at the far side. He paused long enough to catch his breath, feeling his heart hammering in his chest, and then he was off again.

  Through it all the baby—his daughter—slept, as though she were tucked safely in the nursery he and his wife had prepared for her, when things were different.

  Seconds later he came to a slithering halt outside a tall, narrow building on a street corner that faced a wide bridge over a streetlight-speckled river. It loomed into the night sky like a pale cathedral, its roof lost in the darkness. He gazed up, hoping he had the right place. Quickly he settled his child into the crook of one arm while he pulled an object smaller than his palm from a pocket with his other hand. He adjusted its face, listening for the click, and then rubbed his thumb across the object’s surface. A void opened at its center, the barest whir giving away the complex mechanism that powered it. He raised the object to his eye, peering through the void, and looked at the building again.

  He saw the differences straightaway—shutters closed where they had been open, a flowering window box where there shouldn’t be one—and his throat tightened. He glanced up, reading the words above the doorway. In this world, at this time, the building was an insurance company headquarters, but he had to hope that what he’d seen was true and that somewhere else it bore a different name. A place where she’ll be safe, he thought. A home.

  He knelt, the snow trickling through his thin trousers, and laid his daughter down as gently as he could in the alcove of the building’s front door. He checked one last time that the envelope thick with banknotes was securely tucked into her blankets, and he placed the object beside it, making sure it was hidden from view. Then he kissed the baby’s warm forehead. He sobbed, the pain of losing her so soon after his wife almost too much to bear, before gritting his teeth and getting to his feet. He turned his back on his baby and stepped out into the haze of the streetlights, snow pattering on his suddenly empty arms.

  “I’m here!” he roared, his tears hot. “Come on then! What are you waiting for?” The man strode into the middle of the road as the snow flowed around him, glancing down at the shadows of the street he’d just come from, where dark-clothed figures lurked. They were closing on him, not bothering to hurry now. They had no need.

  The man faced them down, his chest heaving, his throat aching and sore. Slowly they circled him, as though mocking everything he had lost.

  Finally he clenched his fists and ran straight for them. The sound of their truncheons raining down on his head and back made the baby’s eyes pop open in shock. She opened her tiny mouth to cry, but between taking in a breath and letting it out again, she vanished without a trace.

  THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1941

  In the basement of Ackerbee’s Home for Lost and Foundlings, two young girls were at work. One had a pair of glasses perched on her nose and her pet tarantula, Violet, perched on her head. In each hand she held a piece of thin wire that she was gradually—and very carefully—bringing closer together. The other was watching, breath held, and trying not to get in the way.

  “Steady,” said the first girl, her dark eyes fixed on the gap between the wires. “Almost there…”

  Unfortunately her friend—lost in admiration for the science taking place before her very eyes—chose just that moment to nudge some glassware with an unwary elbow and a round-bottomed beaker crashed to the floor.

  There was a sudden spark as the
wires the first girl had been holding met unexpectedly quickly, followed by a babble of apology from the other, who was already dropping to her knees to collect the shards of broken glass.

  “Sorry!” she said for the tenth time in as many seconds. “I really am! I didn’t mean to, Tess, I swear.”

  Tess sighed before joining her friend on the floor. “I know, Wilf. Your timing is perfect, though. As usual.” She picked up the larger pieces of beaker with the skill that comes from long practice; Wilf averaged two breakages a week.

  Wilf—who had discarded her given name, Wilhelmina, as soon as she was old enough to say it and long before she was old enough to know how to spell it—reddened. “I’m never going to be a scientist if I can’t stop destroying my equipment,” she muttered.

  Tess looked at her friend. “Don’t be silly, you goose,” she replied. “You’re already a scientist. Just think of it as a study of gravity. Or,” she continued, holding up a shard and peering through it, “an examination of the smashiness of glass.”

  “That’s not a word,” Wilf scoffed, though her green eyes shone with amusement in her pale face.

  “I just said it, didn’t I?” Tess retorted, placing the shard carefully in her palm. As she reached for the next piece, her tarantula stirred on her head. “What’s up, girl?” she murmured, glancing upward.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Wilf, but before Tess had a chance to answer, the door to their “lab” was opened. Tess felt Violet relax, settling back into the tangle of Tess’s hair.

  “Girls?” came a voice they both knew.

  “Miss Whipstead,” Wilf said, getting to her feet. “We’re down here.”

  “Ah. Wilhelmina. Another breakage?” their teacher said with a fond smile.

  “Just a small one,” Wilf replied, blushing again.

  “Never mind, eh?” Miss Whipstead said, throwing her a wink. “Now, Tess? Miss Ackerbee needs you upstairs.”

  Tess clambered to her feet. Violet began to thrum a bit, sensing her worry. “Miss Ackerbee needs to see me?”

  “As I said. Can you come now, please? It’s a bit of an emergency. Leave that clearing up to Wilf—I’ll come and give her a hand in a minute.”

  “An emergency?” Tess echoed. She took off her lab coat (really an old raincoat that she liked to imagine was white and that was equipped with many very useful pockets) and threw it over a nearby chair. Then she closed her experiments notebook, which had been sitting open on her workbench (really a spare classroom desk used mainly for detention), and folded it in two before sliding it into one of those very useful pockets. Violet skittered about a bit on top of her head. “Shush, girl. It’s all right,” Tess muttered to her, reaching up a finger for the spider to cling to. She met Wilf’s worried gaze and tried to give her a reassuring smile.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Wilf asked. Miss Whipstead glanced at her and shook her head.

  “Miss Ackerbee just needs Tess for now, Wilf. Don’t worry,” she lied in a too-bright voice.

  “See you later,” Tess said, giving Wilf’s arm a quick squeeze as she passed. Wilf nodded, frowning.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, girls,” said Miss Whipstead, holding the door open as Tess and Violet ducked under her arm. She glanced back at Wilf as they left the room. “You’ll be back to your experiments in no time, I’m sure.” Wilf sighed, turning back to the clear-up as her teacher closed the door.

  “Do you know we’re this close to doing it?” said Tess, turning to Miss Whipstead wide-eyed. The teacher smiled, even as she shooed Tess up the corridor. “Actually making a faradic spark—real electricity—from seaweed!”

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you pair,” said Miss Whipstead. “I have no doubt.”

  “What does Miss Ackerbee need me for?” Tess racked her brain quickly, trying to see if there was anything she’d done recently that she hadn’t yet owned up to.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Miss Whipstead reassured her. “You’re not in trouble is all I know. Though goodness knows you ought to be.” Tess glanced up at her, but the teacher’s eyes twinkled.

  They climbed the basement stairs into the house’s large kitchen and Miss Whipstead paused for a minute to evaluate Tess’s appearance. After telling her to clean her glasses, wipe her breakfast off her face and pull up that one sock that insisted on slipping down, Miss Whipstead deemed Tess fit to appear in the parlor. “Remember,” whispered Miss Whipstead as she knocked on Miss Ackerbee’s door. “You’re not in trouble.”

  “Thanks,” Tess replied, smiling up at her. Then she stepped through into Miss Ackerbee’s domain, feeling knock-kneed. There wasn’t often cause to stand in this room, and Tess found it was rarely a good thing for anyone to be summoned before the housemistress.

  “Tess,” said Miss Ackerbee, turning from a tall filing cabinet in the corner. “Why don’t you take a seat.”

  Tess did as she was asked, feeling somehow untethered, like she could just float right up into the corner of this tall room. She glanced out of the window, hoping that would help to keep her steady.

  “Now.” Miss Ackerbee sat behind her desk. A short stack of paperwork topped with a blanket was within her reach. She folded her thin brown hands and took in a deep breath. “I suppose I’d best begin in the most obvious place. A man came for you today, Tess. A man who has laid claim to you and wants to take you away from here.”

  Tess swayed in her chair. She grasped its arms, fearing she might fall headlong onto the carpet otherwise.

  “My—my father?” she croaked.

  Miss Ackerbee shook her head, closing her eyes momentarily. “No. I don’t believe so. In fact, I don’t believe he is any relation to you, despite his assertions to the contrary.” Tess listened, hauling breaths in and out, hoping she wouldn’t be sick. Violet reached down a forelimb to stroke her forehead and she began to calm.

  “So—who was he?”

  “Before we get to that, Tess, let’s have a chat. Have I ever told you properly about the night you arrived here?”

  “Well, you said I was found in a blanket, on the doorstep…” Tess’s words trailed away as her eyes found the blanket on Miss Ackerbee’s desk again. “That blanket?” She looked up at the housemistress.

  “This blanket,” Miss Ackerbee replied. “And it contained more than just you, though you were gift enough by yourself.” She smiled at Tess, who was too overwhelmed to return the smile. “There was an envelope full of money, which was useless as it was in a currency nobody had ever seen. And there was this.”

  Miss Ackerbee’s hand slipped between the folds of the blanket. When it reemerged, it was clutching an object small enough to nestle in the hollow of her palm. The object was made of metal but Tess couldn’t have said what sort—it looked dark, like brass. It was a short cylindrical thing like you might keep buttons in, though it was far too elegant for that, and the swirling weblike pattern that swept across it made it look like something that had been grown, not made. There were markings around its upper circumference, a bit like those on a clock face to denote the hours, or a compass to indicate direction, except there were eight of them. Each was a different color and one seemed to be discolored or tarnished somehow. It looked out of place.

  “Is it—is it for false eyeballs?” said Tess, her gaze fixed on the small metal box.

  Miss Ackerbee froze. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  “It’s just something I read once. A man kept his false eyeball in a tin exactly like that one.”

  Miss Ackerbee’s lips twitched. “I have no idea what this object is, Tess, but as far as I’m aware, it has nothing to do with eyeballs of any sort.” She paused to place it on the table in front of her. “And remind me to monitor your reading material a bit more closely,” she murmured, sliding the box toward Tess.

  “So—what is it?” said Tess, who hadn’t mo
ved from her chair.

  “I made a thorough examination of it when you arrived here,” said Miss Ackerbee. “In case there was a clue to your identity or your family. But when I discovered I had no idea what I was looking at, I put it away and it’s been in that filing cabinet for the past twelve years.”

  “And why are you giving it to me now?”

  “I had intended to give it to you when you reached eighteen, or as soon as you decided to move away from this house to forge your own life,” said Miss Ackerbee. “Along with every last note of the money we found with you, in the hope you could make use of it somewhere. But that’s just the problem.” Miss Ackerbee sighed, taking off her spectacles to rub at her eyes.

  “What—what is?” said Tess after a minute.

  “My dear, I don’t quite know how to put this.” Miss Ackerbee kept her eyes shut as she paused to think. Eventually she opened them again to gaze at Tess. “It is my considered opinion that neither you, nor the money you arrived with, nor indeed this object, comes from anywhere on this earth,” she finally said, settling her spectacles back on her nose and fixing Tess with a look that was, given the circumstances, surprisingly calm.

  Tess gaped at the object on Miss Ackerbee’s desk as Violet trembled in the midst of her hair. She wanted nothing more than to get up, walk out of the room, run up the two flights of stairs to her own snug dormitory and pull her blankets over her head.

  “I don’t…,” she finally managed to say, “I don’t know what you mean.”