The Wishbird Read online

  Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  1 LITTLE THIEF

  2 THE CRYING TREE

  3 THE TEST

  4 THE WALLED CITY OF NIGHTMARES

  5 THE STRANGE GIRL

  6 INTO SOULLESS

  7 THROUGH THE HOLE IN THE WALL

  8 THE IMPRISONED MOON

  9 PRISONER OF A DEMON

  10 THE GIRL WITH THE SINGING TONGUE

  11 THE TRICK OF THE TONGUE

  12 BOY’S SECRET NEST

  13 THE LADY BUTTERFLY

  14 THE PRINCE AND THE NIGHTINGALE

  15 THE FORESTS BURNED

  16 IT BELONGS TO HER NOW

  18 MELLOW

  19 BETRAYAL

  20 A NEW KIND OF LIGHT

  21 BIRD GIRL

  22 THE DOMED ROOM

  23 FLY AWAY, ORIOLE

  24 OLD ARDI

  25 TRUTH IN THE STONES

  26 FROM THE WATCHTOWER

  27 A KING’S TEAR

  28 THE ATTACK

  29 DEATH WISH

  30 GOLDEN NOTES

  31 THE BIRDS WILL RETURN

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gabrielle Wang is an award-winning author and illustrator born in Melbourne of Chinese heritage. Her maternal great grandfather came to Victoria during the Gold Rush and her father from Shanghai.

  Gabrielle’s first novel, The Garden of Empress Cassia, won the 2002 Aurealis Award, was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and was a CBCA Notable Book. The Pearl of Tiger Bay was shortlisted for the 2004 Aurealis Award and The Lion Drummer was a Notable Book in the 2009 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. A Ghost in My Suitcase won the 2009 Aurealis Award, was a CBCA Notable Book, was shortlisted for the 2011 Sakura Medal, and received a Highly Commended in the 2010 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

  Gabrielle’s first young adult novel, Little Paradise, received a Highly Commended in the 2011 Prime Minister’s Awards. Gabrielle’s picture book The Race for the Chinese Zodiac was a Notable Book in the 2011 CBCA Awards and was shortlisted for the 2011 YABBA and WAYBRA Awards. She has also written four books in Penguin’s best-selling Our Australian Girl series.

  Gabrielle is an ambassador for the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge.

  The Wishbird is Gabrielle’s latest book for children.

  www.gabriellewang.com

  OTHER BOOKS BY GABRIELLE WANG

  The Garden of Empress Cassia

  The Pearl of Tiger Bay

  The Hidden Monastery

  The Lion Drummer

  A Ghost in My Suitcase

  Little Paradise

  The Race for the Chinese Zodiac

  Our Australian Girl series

  Meet Poppy

  Poppy at Summerhill

  Poppy and the Thief

  Poppy Comes Home

  For Mum with love

  In the ancient Banyan tree, the Wishbird lay still and silent. His breath was thin, the thread between the King and himself growing ever weaker. Soon it would break, and when that time came, both would die, and so would the city, for its heart would be lost forever.

  But death did not worry the Wishbird. He had lived for a thousand years and more.  And he would go on living, in another shape, another form – in the clouds, in the earth, in the lakes and seas.

  What did worry him was Oriole. Sweet Oriole.

  On the edge of the Borderlands, in the City of Soulless, a small figure crouched in the shadow of the old wooden drum tower.

  His name was Boy, a name given to him by Panther who had plucked him off the streets. Being an orphan he had no idea how many years old he was. Somewhere between eight and ten winters, Rabbit had told him.

  Boy stood suddenly and, slipping from shadow into light, fell into step behind an elderly man. The man wore a hat with the brim low over his face, but it didn’t quite hide the hook-shaped scar down his left cheek. He stopped to buy a stick of candied cumquats, then paid the vendor and placed his drawstring purse back inside his sleeve.

  Now. Boy bumped the man as if by accident. At the same moment, his hand glided inside his wide sleeve and withdrew the purse with a touch as light as air.

  ‘Excuse me, Uncle,’ he said politely, slipping the purse into his pocket and melting away into the crowd.

  Panther won’t cane me this time, he thought, feeling the pleasing weight of the coins against his leg and wincing as the large red welts on his back twinged. Boy knew he should return to the shack where Panther would be waiting. But what if there was something else inside the purse – a small treasure that he could keep for himself?

  Every so often he found strange and beautiful objects when he light-fingered people’s pockets. The head of a cat made from glowing amber. A silver ring with a tiny blue stone like a mouse’s tear. And once a piece of red cloth edged in the finest gold thread. He had fifteen of these treasures buried in a box in the dirt beneath his bedding.

  So Boy walked past the well where women were washing clothes, under the archway that led into the market square, and along Palace Road. Finally he turned down Burnt Water Lane.

  At the sound of his footfall, a rat as big as a soldier’s boot scurried along a shallow ditch of putrid water. Boy glanced around, then slipped into a narrow passageway between two wooden buildings.

  With his back against one wall and his belly against the other, he sidled along until he reached a spot where several large foundation stones had fallen away, forming a little cave. Boy crawled inside and sat down cross-legged. Then he tipped the contents of the purse into his lap.

  Suddenly he grew very still. His breath caught in his throat as if someone had punched the air right out of him.

  There amongst the coins was a small, thin silver box. The lid was attached by two tiny hinges and at the front was a gleaming pearl clasp. He carefully snapped it open.

  Even more beautiful than the box was the object inside it. The thing fitted perfectly into its container and was a brilliant turquoise blue. He lifted it out carefully. On either side of the almost transparent shaft were soft filaments that separated at his touch then returned to their original shape.

  As Boy turned it slowly in his fingers a strange thing began to happen. A face appeared, drifting up from his memories. It was only faint, as though Boy was looking through the finest rice paper, but there it was – smiling eyes, soft, rose-coloured lips, gleaming black hair and a jade-coloured earring. His heartbeat quickened.

  Panther often told Boy the story of how he had found him on the streets, dirty and starving, and in the goodness of his heart had taken him in. But one day Rabbit, Panther’s friend, had shown him a house in a little laneway in a forgotten part of the city, and told him a different story.

  He told of how Panther had heard that yet another family had been taken away. It was good news. It meant an empty house and easy pickings: food and belongings left behind as if the family had rushed off and would soon return. But those who had been taken never returned.

  Panther and Rabbit had hurried to the house before the news spread. But when they were gathering the belongings they heard crying. It was Rabbit who found the small boy hidden in a trunk in one of the bedrooms and convinced Panther to take him in, convinced him how useful he would be when he was old enough to light-finger.

  Boy’s memories had always been like a constantly shifting mirage, a pebble dropped into a pond where the waters had grown muddy. Now, as he stared at this beautiful object in his hand, the memories gradually grew clearer.

  For the first time he felt hope that his mother and father might still be alive.

  ‘Your ata was called Master Rui,’ Rabbit had told Boy the first time he showed him the house
where he had been found. ‘And your ana, she was Madame Naa.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ Boy had asked. ‘Why did they leave me behind?’

  ‘Soldiers came an’ took them away in the Song Stealer’s Cart,’ Rabbit had replied.

  ‘What did they do wrong?’

  ‘I dunno. But we thought you was dumb or something ’cos you didn’t make a noise for weeks. Just sat in the corner like a scared little mouse.’ Rabbit had laid his hands on Boy’s shoulders. ‘You mustn’t tell Panther I brung you here. Swear in the name of the God of Honourable Thieves that you won’t tell Panther or he’ll punish me.’

  Boy had taken the oath and kept the secret close to his heart. But he often visited the house and stared up at its grand façade where weeds sprouted through the tiled roof like the bushy eyebrows of an old man.

  Once, with the edge of his sleeve, he had wiped the dirt off a small bronze plaque attached to the wall by the front door. Slowly, three characters had emerged. Boy had never learned to read or write so he asked Rabbit what they said.

  ‘Golden Note Studio,’ Rabbit had replied.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Boy asked.

  Rabbit had shrugged.

  Those few strange words were all that were left of his parents.

  A wind blew down the narrow passageway like an angry dragon lashing out with its tail, and Boy suddenly realised that the sun had dipped below the city wall, leaving the small alcove where he’d been sitting cold and dark. He had stayed too long.

  Panther will be furious. But at least I have a purse full of money. That should keep him happy . . . for a while anyway.

  He slipped the silver box with its precious treasure inside one of the many pockets deep in his sleeve and hurried back to the shack at the bottom of Ratskin Alley.

  While the wind whistled through the streets of the City of Soulless, far far away in a moonlit forest a huge nest swayed gently in the branches of an ancient Banyan tree.

  The nest was made from fragrant Sandalwood twigs and lined with soft moss. And there, curled up under a cloak of rainbow feathers, a girl lay sleeping.

  Ooop Ooop Ooop

  A Hoopoe bird with a magnificent crest of golden feathers landed on a nearby branch.

  Oriole opened her eyes. They were the colour of emeralds with small flecks of brown. She sat up and flicked back her long, dark hair. At the corners of her lips there was a whisper of a smile as if she was about to share a secret.

  ‘Good morning, Mellow,’ Oriole said in a melodic voice. She rubbed her eyes and stretched, then touched the bird on its cheek. ‘Are you feeling well? You look tired.’

  Mellow sighed. ‘Purplewing swallowed a pebble which he mistook for a seed. And Redbill and Droplet were fighting again, this time for the best position at Fern Pond.’

  Oriole laughed. ‘Everything looks like food to Purplewing. And Redbill and Droplet are quarrelsome by nature. They would fight over the moon if they could.’ She put her hand against Mellow’s other cheek. ‘But dear Mellow, that is not all that is troubling you today, is it?’ The Hoopoe bird’s feathers did not hold their usual lustre and it worried her.

  ‘It is the Peewee birds,’ Mellow replied. ‘They all had the same strange dream.’

  ‘All twenty-five of them?’

  Mellow nodded and the golden feathers on his head swayed as if stroked by a soft breeze. ‘As far as I can recall it has never happened before. Not just here in the Forest of Birds but anywhere in the Bird Kingdom.’

  Oriole sat back. ‘You taught me that dreams can show us the way forward. What is the meaning of their dream?’

  ‘Hmm . . . I need time to think about it,’ Mellow replied. ‘Meanwhile, why don’t you sing us one of your early morning songs? It would cheer me up immensely.’

  Oriole smiled. Singing was her most favourite thing to do. ‘This one came to me last night as I was falling asleep,’ she said. ‘Let me see now . . . how did it begin . . . ah yes. I have called it “Song of the Wishbird” and it is for you, dear Mellow.’

  The Song of the Wishbird rang out in the clear morning air. The birds of the Forest flew to the ancient Banyan tree and sat in rows, listening in rapt silence. Even Redbill and Droplet – who had begun quarrelling again – stopped and lifted their heads.

  Oriole’s song was about the rocks carved into strange shapes by the Wind, about the birds whose chorus filled every space in the Forest, about Fern Pond’s icy waters that bubbled up from the centre of the earth. And about her love for Mellow, the magical Wishbird who was older than the ancient Banyan tree itself.

  As Oriole finished, the Wind danced around the roots of the old tree. It, too, was listening. Then it laughed and whirled up into the sky, carrying in its breath the last beautiful song note. And a tiny new seed.

  A hush lay over the Forest when Oriole finished.

  ‘That was beautiful, child,’ Mellow said dreamily. And the birds all twittered and nodded in agreement.

  It was easy for Oriole to make up songs about Mellow for she loved him more than anything in the whole world. It was Mellow who had raised her from a small baby and given her dreams so that she would learn about the Outside, the world beyond the Forest of Birds. It was Mellow who had taught her how to speak as humans do, although when she did speak it was always in a musical voice – for Oriole had never known another human. The birds and the animals of the Forest were her family. And they were all that she needed.

  ‘How quiet the Forest is,’ Mellow muttered, after the other birds had flown away. He looked at Oriole. ‘I must go now and think.’ And with a flutter of feathers the Wishbird took flight.

  Oriole felt a sudden chill and wrapped her cloak of rainbow feathers tightly about her. The cloak had been a gift from the birds of the Forest for her tenth birthday. Each bird had plucked a feather from its body to use in the weaving of the cloak.

  Oriole climbed to the ground and began walking the narrow path to Fern Pond. The orb-weaving spiders were rebuilding the webs that had been damaged in the night. Dew dotted each fine strand so that they looked like sparkling necklaces made from tiny diamonds. It was from their silk thread that Oriole wove her dresses.

  ‘Good morning, Weavers,’ Oriole said as she passed, and the spiders shook their gold and brown bodies in reply.

  When she reached Fern Pond she washed her hands and face and entered a cavern in the rocks where she kept her supply of fruit, nuts, berries and roots. Grabbing a handful of berries she went back outside.

  Usually the trees were alive with colour as birds, some with long trailing tail-feathers, darted through the canopy. But on this morning not a leaf stirred. An ominous still­ness seemed to suspend time.

  ‘How quiet the Forest is,’ Oriole murmured to herself, repeating Mellow’s haunting words.

  As Oriole went about her daily chores digging for roots, collecting firewood and mending her nest, shadows seemed to stalk her. She could see them out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned they were no longer there.

  That night Oriole had a strange dream.

  She dreamed that she was in a city surrounded by high walls and towers. On a pile of wood sat a boy in ragged clothes. Oriole touched him on the shoulder, wanting to ask directions, but when the boy lifted his head she leapt back in horror. The boy had no mouth. Oriole screamed but no sound came out. She felt for her own mouth. It, too, was gone.

  She woke, her heart thudding in her chest. It was just a dream, she reassured herself. But never before had she seen such a terrifying vision. I must find Mellow and ask him what it means, she decided.

  Oriole found Mellow perched on Fire Rock, a distant expression on his face. She sat down beside him but did not speak. The Wishbird was pondering something important and Oriole knew not to disturb him during these moments.

  At last Mellow spoke. ‘Do you have a question, Oriole?’ he said.

  ‘I had a frightening dream, Mellow,’ she replied.

  ‘Tell me your dream, child.’

  S
o Oriole told Mellow about the walled city of mouthless people and about the ragged boy and how she tried to scream but found she had no mouth.

  The Hoopoe bird sighed and hung his head. ‘The time has finally come then,’ he said sadly.

  Oriole’s heart quailed at Mellow’s grave tone.

  ‘You know that I am old.’

  ‘Yes, Mellow, older than the Forest, older than the ancient Banyan tree itself,’ Oriole said.

  ‘You also know that as a Wishbird it is my job to mend the broken threads of the world.’

  Oriole nodded. She had heard this many times before. Wishbirds preserved the precious fabric of life.

  ‘But what I have never told you is that I was once the Wishbird for a long line of kings.’

  ‘Then why are you not with them now?’ Oriole asked.

  ‘I was sent away and forbidden to return.’

  ‘But why?’

  The last King of Pafir was mad with grief when he lost his only son. He ordered the forests in his Kingdom be cut down and all the birds killed. Music was forbidden. I was lucky. He let me escape . . .’

  ‘But birds are the most beautiful creatures on earth. And everybody needs music. Without it our souls would die,’ Oriole said, horrified.

  ‘That is true, Oriole, and it is the very reason why the city eventually became known as the City of Soulless instead of the City of Solace. The people came to forget how to sing and laugh and love.’ Mellow paused. ‘This morning I was visited by the Wind. She brought me bad news. My King is dying and a huge Barbarian Army from the Savagelands is advancing upon the city. Soon it will be at the gates. And then . . .’ Mellow turned away from Oriole. She gazed at his feathers and suddenly saw how dull and lifeless they had become. As if the colour was slowly leaching from them.

  ‘What, Mellow? What is it?’ she asked urgently.

  Mellow shrugged. ‘It will all be over.’

  ‘I do not understand . . .’ She had never heard the Wishbird talk like this before.

  Mellow ruffled his feathers and let them settle. ‘There is a thread, Oriole, a thread that binds me to the King as it has bound me to all the kings that went before him. But now he has turned his back on the city and his people, I feel that thread gradually weakening. When it breaks, the Wishbird dies and the fabric of life will be rent.’