The Slanted Worlds

14

When he came forth from the Wood, Oisin Venn was changed. He dressed in fine clothes, laughed a cold laugh. Horses filled his stables, his sheep flocks increased, jewels studded his fingers. At diverse strange hours his house was lit with lights and music and the sound of revelry and merriment rang across the moor.

But the village folk locked their doors and brooded over their fires. For to have congress with unearthly spirits leads only to damnation and the gates of Hell. And they feared for their souls.

Chronicle of Wintercombe

THE SEVEN CATS slept and snoozed along the upstairs corridor.

The one on the window seat was the first to wake. It raised its head and opened its eyes, slits of green in the black fur. Around its neck on a silver collar, a small disc read Primo.

Dusk was falling; beyond the gloomy wood the sky was fading. Already the corridor had shadows moving down the walls, rain-patterns on the ornamental coving, the cobwebbed picture rail.

The cat listened.

A raindrop plopped into a bucket.

The cat’s fur bristled. It sat up, alert, and at the same time the other six woke too, and each turned a dark head to stare down the corridor toward the stairs at the end.

Footsteps.

They were as soft as a ghost’s; they walked up the wooden treads with barely a creak of the boards.

The cat jumped down; it sat with the others on the floor, a row of wide watching eyes, twitching tails.

The footsteps reached the top of the stairs; they paused, and then began to approach down the corridor, soft as dust falling in a disused chimney.

The cats spat.

In sudden panic they scattered, some behind the curtain, one flattened under the bookcase, another skidding to the dusty alcove behind a table.

The footsteps passed them, bare feet tiptoeing down the hessian matting, past the rows of bedroom doors to the locked room at the end.

Without pausing, they passed through the wall.

The seven replicant cats slid out and stared at one another. One turned and ran fast toward the kitchen. The others, very softly, tails held high, paced in a solemn line down the corridor and sat outside the door in a row.

As if whoever had gotten in should be kept there.

Venn was lying, fully dressed, on the bed.

It was an old four-poster, the curtains removed years ago. His eyes were closed, but he knew exactly when she came through the walls of the room.

He sat up slowly.

Summer was sitting at the dressing table.

The mirror had been removed, but he could still see her reflected, as in some magic looking glass. She smiled at him. “Tired, Venn?”

“Why are you here?”

“I can enter the house now, remember? I thought it would be nice to . . . visit.”

“I don’t want you here.” His voice was a low anxiety. “The Wood is your place. The Summerland. Not here.”

She ignored him. Reaching out, she took up the black-and-silver brush, and began to brush her shiny dark hair. “These things are Leah’s, aren’t they. She had lovely taste.”

“Get your filthy hands off them.”

“Oh. Not nice, Venn.” She put the brush down and opened a drawer. Taking out a jewelry box, she flipped it open. Her fingers danced over brooches and rings.

He came over quickly and shut it. “Get out.”

“You’ve kept her room exactly as it was. How quaint that is! You know, we sometimes wonder about mortals. We laugh and puzzle about them. How it must be to know . . . know all your life, that one day you’ll die.” She smiled up at him. “The strange thing is, most mortals seem to accept it. Except you, Venn. You won’t.”

He stepped back. “You know nothing about death. Or love.”

“True, but I know about you. And you can’t fool me with your talk of love, Venn. You don’t want Leah back because you love her. You want her because you will not be denied. You won’t be beaten. Not by death, not by time. You won’t give in. You’ve never learned how to lose. You think wanting her back makes you more human. In fact, it proves you are Shee.”

She stood close to him.

“That’s the choice you face, Oberon. The Wood, or the World. To be human, and die. Or to be with us and free of it all. Yet, you know, you’ll never be quite at home in either place. How difficult that must be!”

She raised her hand to his face. He stepped back. “You have no idea how I feel.”

“Yes I do. Once you were mine. I know everything about you.”

She stepped closer. His eyes moved away from her, obsessively, as if by long habit, to the painting where it hung on the wall, Leah’s face dark and intent, her eyes watching him as if she saw.

“There she is!” Summer twirled, glanced up. “My enemy.” Then her eyes widened, as if with a sudden brilliant idea. “Do you want me to be her, Venn? Is that it?”

Her hair grew longer, lustrous. Suddenly she was taller, her lips paler. The bones of her skull shifted. Her eyes darkened. “Is this better, Venn?”

“Stop it.”

“I can be her. Exactly the same. You need never know the difference.”

“Stop!” He backed off, then paused, fascinated. Because, before his eyes, Summer was transforming, and glance by glance, gesture by gesture, the turn of the head, the laughter in her eyes became Leah’s, and despite himself his heart gave a great leap of fear and joy.

“Is this better, Venn?” she said.

Even her voice was perfect.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think. She came and took his head, and her fingers were soft on his skin. Leah’s fingers. Leah’s lips lifted to his. Touched.

An explosion of knocking rattled the door.

“Excellency! Is anything wrong?”

Venn blinked. He stepped back.

“Excellency! There’s an intruder in the house! Are you safe, sir?”

With a convulsive movement Venn pushed the creature away and stalked to the window, dragging both hands up over his face and through his tangled hair. Then he turned, with a howl of fury. The room was empty.

Only a soft perfume and a softer laugh hung in the air.

“Excellency?” The door was flung open; Piers stood there with all the cats behind him like a row of guards.

His small sharp eyes darted around the room. “Is everything okay?”

Venn glanced up to the painting. For a moment he was silent with misery, but when he spoke, his voice was as cold as ever. “Nothing’s changed, Piers. Nothing is okay.”

Diary of Alicia Harcourt Symmes.

Of course, making the motion film had been such a thrill, I thought of very little else for days after!

David had gone; for a week and then a fortnight I saw no more of him. I dearly hoped he would return—meanwhile I had the film processed and then hid it carefully in a suitcase under my bed with my other precious things.

Because one day a boy from the future might come calling for it!

In the meantime I had a fabulous idea.

My séances were fakes and follies—good ones, but there was always a danger that soon I would be found out. But the mirror—this magical, wonderful machine!—maybe if I incorporated this into my act I would see more marvels. And make my fortune from them!

Father would not have approved. I was fairly sure about that. And yet in his day he had been a seeker after the occult, a man of secrets. Why should I not have adventures of my own, even me, a querulous and bespectacled spinster whom no man would marry?

And so I had the wiring put in order and affixed to the mirror, though the tradesman I employed had no idea what the contraption was and I heard him say to his mate that the old biddy was bats.

But I knew better.

I had new invitations written, and doubled my fees.

And prepared to see what the obsidian mirror would show my credulous clients.

Sarah dabbed the damp cloth on the cut carefully.

Gideon flinched and swore.

“Keep still.”

“It stings!”

She was horrified at his injuries. None was dangerous, none would kill him, and yet the Shee had pecked and torn at him, and his body was a mass of bruises.

“We need to get you inside. Piers . . .”

“Not Piers.” He was sour and terrified and shaking with anger. “Not any of those filthy creatures.”

She wondered at that. Did he mean Venn too? “All right. We’ll go up to my room in the attics. No one goes there.”

He was reluctant, but she made him. They slipped in through the side door and up the servants’ stairs, quiet as they could past the kitchens, where Piers hummed now and clattered saucepans. The wafted smell of cooking onions followed them.

Once, passing the corridor to the bedrooms, Gideon stopped, with a judder of fear that went right through him. “Summer’s been here.”

“She can’t . . .”

“She has! I can smell her.”

Once in her tiny attic room, he sat on the bed with a groan. She brought warm water and a towel and helped him pull off the green coat.

“Don’t. I can manage!”

He was savage with pain.

She stepped away, sat on the windowsill, and watched him dab at the cuts. After a moment she said, “Summer found out? About you going for Jake?”

He nodded.

“This is her punishment?”

“Oh, she has plenty of punishments. And it’s not just me. She’s merciless with any of them.” He looked up. “I won’t take it anymore, Sarah. I swear, I’ll go out now, this minute, and climb the estate wall and jump down into the World. If I dissolve into dust, if I get old and crumble and die all at once, it will be better, so much better.”

He tossed the rag into the water, red with blood, and stood up.

“Not until you’ve listened to me,” she said.

“Nothing you can say—”

“Listen. Then decide.” She looked down at the board under which the notebook was hidden. Janus’s unseen words mocked her. But she would win, she had to. She said, “At Christmas, I gave Summer an object I had brought from the End Time. Half a Greek coin, gold, hung on a chain. The face of Zeus. Remember?”

He shrugged. “So.”

“I need it back. I need you to help me get it.”

“Why? What does it do?” He was acute, she thought. Sharp as a pin. As if living there with them, he knew only how to watch, be aware, avoid danger.

She put her hands together, steepled her fingers. “The coin is powerful. I believe . . . if I can get both halves . . . bring them together . . . it will destroy the mirror.”

“The mirror!” He looked up, his green eyes narrow. “That machine! I could throw myself into it. Even without the bracelet I would emerge . . . somehow. Sometime.”

“And the Shee would be there waiting for you.” She had to convince him. She slid off the seat and crouched in front of him “For them all time is the same. You’ll never escape from her without our help. My help. Because where I come from . . . in that future . . .”

His eyes were fixed on her in disbelief. In hope.

She took a breath and said, “In that future there are no Shee.”

Before he could take that in, she changed, stood, walked briskly. “So. The coin. Do you know where it is?”

Astonished, Gideon watched her. “No Shee? That’s impossible. How . . . ?”

“First, the coin.”

He shook his head. “Summer keeps all her treasure in her House.”

“House?”

“Deep in the Summerland. It changes shape and size and appearance. I’m not allowed there.”

She came back and stood over him. “A real house?”

“Sarah, nothing is real in there, not as you know it. It’s a place. The Shee talk about it. They say that sometimes it looks like a cottage thatched with the wings of birds. Sometimes an underwater palace. Sometimes a castle. It is not easy to find and harder still to enter. In its heart is a box. They say the box is red as blood, and she keeps her most precious things there, locked tight with spells. The coin, if she values it, will be in that box.”

Sarah pondered. Could she even believe him? “Wouldn’t she be wearing it?”

“She has more gold and silver than you could dream. She wears none of it. She hoards it like a dragon. Some of it’s real, mortal-made, but other things are from far dimensions, mined deep in the otherworld. Some jewels are faery-forged from leaves or toadstools.” He pulled his shirt and coat back on, wincing.

Sarah said, “Then you have to take me there. We have to steal the coin.”

Gideon laughed, a sour, low humorless laugh. Then he looked at her. Hard.

“Don’t tell me you’re serious,” he said.

Rebecca, outside the attic door, stood and listened, her back against the wall.

“So let’s see who’s fooling who, Sarah,” she whispered.

In the pub Wharton took a long draft of the malty brown beer and set the glass down with a sigh. Froth slid down the sides.

“Fantastic.” He glanced over at Jake, then opened a packet of salt and vinegar chips. “Feeling better?”

“I’m fine.”

Wharton frowned. He knew that abstracted air, that closed-up, scarily intent concentration. “You’re not planning anything crazy, are you, Jake?”

“Of course not.”

Now he was seriously worried. But before he could ask, Jake sat bolt upright and said, “Look! Out there, in the street. Can you see them?”

Wharton turned his head. He wiped steam from the small panes of the pub window. The village street was a rainy darkness, the single lamppost a nimbus of orange. “What?”

“The children!”

Jake was staring at the patch of lit street under the lamp. Wharton said, “There’s nothing . . . I can’t see anything.”

Jake was silent. Because there they were, the three replicants of Janus, identical, their school blazers soaked, their gray socks around their ankles, their hair plastered to their small round scalps.

They waved at him, then turned and ran into the night.

Remember, Jake, their small mouths whispered. Remember us.