Free The Navigator by Eoin McNamee Page B

away. Wesley said he was going outside to look at the damage to Boat. Silkie asked Owen if he would like to look around. He followed her up one ladder and then another, leading from room to room, most of them taken up with sleeping quarters. There were wooden beds and coverings stitched together from strange, rough materials that Owen did not recognize, with drawings of stars and crescent moons on them. The rooms shared by younger children had bright drawings on the walls and wooden toys that looked as if they had been made by the older ones. There were horses and dollhouses and many different versions of Boat in many sizes. Looking at Boat made Owen think of the question he had.
    “You know the blue stuff you see everywhere?” he said. “What is it?”
    “Oh, you mean magno,” replied Silkie. “I can’t tellyou just what it is, for I don’t know, but I can show you what it does.”
    She reached into her pocket and took out a small brass box. Inside was a little piece of the blue material held by two sturdy brass bolts. Silkie pointed it toward a lump of iron in the corner that looked as if it came from a ship and would take four men to lift. She gripped the box tightly. Owen saw the metal begin to rock backward and forward, then start to slide toward them, slowly at first, then faster and faster, and at the same time Silkie was drawn across the floor, her shoes slipping on it, almost out of control until it seemed that she must collide with the heavy metal. Quickly she slipped the lid back on the box and the lump of iron stopped abruptly in the middle of the floor.
    “It's a magnet!” Owen said excitedly. “You do everything with magnetism!”
    “I don’t know,” Silkie said, frowning. “All I know is that it is magno. It does lights. It makes Boat work.”
    At the top of the first building they crossed a makeshift ramp that led to the next building, Owen trying not to look down. Silkie opened a door at the far end and they stepped off the ramp. It was dark and it took Owen's eyes a little time to get used to it. After a while he saw that they were standing in a room that resembled the Starry at the Workhouse, where he had seen all the beds and the people still sleeping. This room was much smaller, but there was the same pale gleam, as if ofstars, from the ceiling. The beds were smaller because these were for children and young people, but, as in the Starry, some of them were still occupied, and on each pillow there rested a blue cornflower. Sign of remembering, Cati had said. In the corner two girls were sleeping. They looked like sisters. Silkie stopped by one bed. A small boy slept in it. He had the same sharp, freckled face as Silkie. She brushed his hair back from his face with a sad smile.
    “My brother,” she said. “He never was good at getting up in the morning.” Owen could see that she was trying to make a joke of it, but there were tears in her eyes. “Come on out of here,” she said gruffly.
    As he hurried toward the door, Owen stumbled slightly and his hand brushed against the forehead of a small girl. He had not expected the skin to feel warm. He looked down at her. The little face looked pinched and careworn. He wondered what she was dreaming about, or if she dreamed about anything.
    “Come on,” Silkie said shortly, and he hurried after her.
    Silkie brought him up to the roof of the building. Far below they could see that Wesley and others were busy repairing the broken oar on Boat, if oar it was, thought Owen, remembering the way the craft had almost flown across the water. The wind was cold, blowing hard from the north, but they sat in the lee of the parapet, where the sun had warmed the stone.
    “Where do you come from?” Owen asked.
    “Me?”
    “No, I mean the Raggies. Where are all the adults?”
    “The story we tell is this. That there was a man called Smith who was put in charge of all these children. And each child was given a gold coin for their future. But Smith was a bad