Impossible Creatures

The novel opens in medias res, or in the middle of the action: A freakish, dog-like figure with sharp fangs and flames for ears (a kludde) pursues an English boy named Christopher Forrester, who runs for his life.

Malum “Mal” Arvorian has been having a good day as she flies about with the help of her voluminous coat. The coat only allows her to fly when the wind is blowing; it is too big for her and looks like it has wings when it is in the air. Mal’s lovely day is ruined when someone attempts to murder her.

On the day before the animal attacks him, Christopher is waiting at the train station. He is on his way for an extended visit to Scotland, where he will stay with his grandfather, Frank Aureate. As Christopher sits on the bench, wild animals cluster around him, causing people to marvel. Animals have always been attracted to Christopher, no matter where he goes, and he encourages their attention because he loves wild things. He wears a coat that sparrows love to nest in and has a necklace made of all the bits that nesting birds have brought him, earning ridicule from his classmates. His mother, who died nine years before, was just the same. His father, an anxious man who guards Christopher closely, disapproves of Christopher’s affinity for animals. Now, as Christopher sits on the bench, he intuits that something incredible will soon happen, and he is ready for whatever it is. The narrator confirms that Christopher’s premonition is accurate.

Mal is known as an odd girl. Her coat came from a traveling seer who never got the chance to explain the workings of the coat. (Mal’s mother died around that same time.) Now, Mal lives with her great-aunt Leonor, a woman who forbids Mal from doing many things that she would like to do. Mal mostly ignores her great-aunt’s rules, especially the one about flying anywhere other than the yard around the house. Mal feels free whenever she is in the sky, far away from the questions of strangers and the awkwardness of social interactions. She uses her coat to fly high in the sky and visit with the wild beasts who are her friends. She tells them stories, including the one about how she found Gelifen, a baby griffin, and hatched him from an egg. Nowadays, she flies with him tucked under her arm. Whenever people see her flying about in her coat, they think of her with envy or wonder, but they all suspect that she has some strange, unknown destiny. Mal is such a visible figure in the Archipelago that the murderer, Adam Kavil, has no trouble finding her one day.

When Frank picks Christopher up at the station, animals mob the car. Frank is neither surprised nor upset about the animals’ attraction to Christopher and says that it is a good thing. Christopher feels a sense of exhilaration because the countryside seems much wilder than his home in England. Christopher hadn’t expected to enjoy this impromptu winter break with his grandfather. His father had reluctantly sent him to stay with Frank due to an unexpected work trip.

Mal lives in the isolated town of Icthus, which is located on an equally isolated island called Artidina. Strangers are a rare sight in the seaside city due to the island’s remoteness. On the morning that the murderous Adam Kavil finds Mal, she goes aboard the Sailsman, the ship of a smuggler who sells strange goods whenever he comes to town. Mal looks at a glamry blade, which can cut any substance, but she decides to buy a casapasaran, a compass-like machine that can always point the way home. Mal has no sense of direction, so this is the perfect tool for her. Mal intends to use the casapasaran to fly back home after she goes to a place deep in the forest: one that she had been avoiding because she fears getting lost. Kavil follows her as she takes flight.

Frank’s house is a big, old wreck that looks like it could fall at any minute. It sits at the foot of a steep hill. When they arrive, Christopher asks if he can use the car to explore the countryside, but Frank says that Christopher is too young to drive. However, he gives Christopher permission to wander anywhere except the top of the hill that looms over the house. This restriction comes from Christopher’s father and is nonnegotiable. When Frank asks Christopher to swear not to go to the top of the hill, Christopher merely acknowledges the restriction without promising to obey it.

Mal flies to the center of a forest to see if what she suspects is true—that the soil is turning gray and has become inhospitable to life. She marks out the margin between the gray soil and the black soil so that she can keep track of whether the gray patches are growing. She also sees other signs that something is wrong in the Archipelago. She keeps finding dead creatures—ratatoskas, unicorns, and a gagana—and she is not the only one who notices these oddities. The City of Scholars has already marked griffins as extinct because no one has seen one in two years. Mal doesn’t tell them about the soil because she fears that if she brings attention to herself, the scholars will take her griffin, Gelifen, away from her. Mostly, people ignore the signs of environmental collapse. Even Great-Aunt Lenore refused to come along when Mal tried to take her to the forest to see the graying soil.

Christopher walks up the forbidden hill the very next day, mainly because he is tired of his father’s attempts to shelter him from even the most harmless experiences. Christopher feels a sour taste in his mouth as he thinks about all that his father has kept him from experiencing. When a shutter bangs at the house below, he jumps, but his grandfather is nowhere to be seen. As Christopher gets closer to the top of the hill, the wind grows wilder, and the ground begins to shake, but Christopher doesn’t notice the shaking at first.

Mal returns home to a fine meal that Great-Aunt Lenore has prepared. They are having a peaceful time together when the murderer (later revealed to be Adam Kavil) bursts into the house. Lenore places herself between his knife and Mal, and Kavil stabs Lenore. Mal runs away in obedience to her great-aunt’s command, but not before the man cuts the back of the coat. This makes it impossible for Mal to fly away since the coat can no longer hold the air she needs to glide. Kavil pursues Mal right up to the wall that towers over the river. This path leads to an eight-foot drop to the river below, which is filled with lavellans, creatures whose poisonous bites can kill. Great-Aunt Lenore manages to throw an axe at Kavil, wounding and distracting him. He pursues Lenore behind the house, and the narrative implies that he kills her.

When Kavil returns, Mal pleads with him to explain why he wants to murder her. He says that a man is rising to power in the islands and explains that this man is the reason why the land and animals are dying. Kavil wants to take part in the man’s powers, but to do so, he must first kill Mal on the man’s behalf; everything depends on killing Mal. Kavil, a man who has been downtrodden all his life, will do anything to escape such oppression. With no other choice, Mal leaps into the river.