John Connolly - The Gates

“I still want to be a professional cricketer,” said Tom after their visit. “At least I can understand cricket. And nobody ever accidentally opened the gates of Hell during a test match…”

Eventually Biddlecombe began to fade from the headlines, and that suited everyone in the town just fine. They wanted their dull, pretty old Biddlecombe back, and that was what they got.

More or less.

Over at Miggin’s Pond, a boy named Robert Oppenheimer was throwing stones at ducks. It wasn’t that he had anything against ducks in particular. Had there been a dog, or a lemur, or a meerkat at which to throw stones instead he would happily have done so, but in the absence of any more exotic creatures, ducks would just have to do.

He had managed to hit a few birds, and was looking for more stones, when he was lifted up into the air by one leg and found himself dangling over the surface of the pond. An eyeball appeared on the end of an arm and, well, eyeballed him. Then a very polite voice said:

“I say, old chap, I do wish you wouldn’t do that. The ducks don’t like it and, frankly, I don’t much care for it either. If you persist, I will have no choice but to disassemble you and put you back together the wrong way. As you can imagine, that will hurt a lot. Do I make myself clear?”

Robert nodded, albeit with some difficulty as he was still upside down. “Yes,” he said. “Perfectly.”

“Now say sorry to the ducks, there’s a good chap.”

“Sorry, ducks,” said Robert.

“Right, then, off you go. Toodle-pip.”

Robert was put back, surprisingly gently, on the bank. He found that all of the ducks were watching him, and quacking. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought that they were laughing.

Over time, other people reported similar odd encounters at Miggin’s Pond, but instead of calling in investigators, or selling tickets, the people of Biddlecombe simply kept quiet about it, and gave Miggin’s Pond a wide berth whenever they could.

In the staff room at Montague Rhodes James Secondary School, Mr. Hume sat staring intently at the head of a pin. During the Halloween disturbances, Mr. Hume had been forced to lock himself in a closet while a band of six-inch-high demons dressed as elves shouted at him through the keyhole. The whole experience had shaken him a great deal, and when he had learned of Samuel Johnson’s involvement in the affair he began to consider that the boy might know something about angels and pins that he didn’t.

So he stared hard at the pin, and wondered.

And on the head of the pin, two angels who had been performing a very nice waltz, surrounded by lots of other waltzing angels, suddenly stopped what they were doing as one turned to the other and said:

“Don’t look now, but that bloke’s back…”

One night, almost a month after the events of Halloween, when everyone was getting ready for December, and Christmas, Samuel was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. Boswell watched him from the doorway, his leg still encased in plaster but otherwise his clever, contented self. Samuel had just taken a bath, and the mirror was steamed up. He reached out and wiped some of the steam away. He glimpsed his reflection, and, standing behind him, the reflection of another.

It was Mrs. Abernathy.

Samuel looked round in fright. The bathroom was empty, yet Mrs. Abernathy was still visible in the mirror. Her lips moved, speaking words that Samuel could not hear. As he watched, she moved forward. A finger reached out and began to write from behind the glass in the steam of the mirror. When she was finished, there were four words visible. They were:

THIS IS NOT OVER

A blue light flickered in her eyes, and then she was gone.

IN THE GREAT WASTELAND, Wormwood stared at the Aston Martin that had accompanied Nurd back to his kingdom.

“What is it?” asked Wormwood.

“It’s a car,” said Nurd. “It’s called an Aston Martin.”

Nurd was surprised that the car had made it to the Wasteland in one piece, although not as surprised as he was that he himself had done so with only minor injuries. After all, it wasn’t every day that one went the wrong way through an interdimensional portal wearing a blanket and driving a very fast car. He had already decided that if any curious demons asked him how the car had got here, assuming any of them could be bothered to investigate the Wasteland, Hell being a very big place with more interesting areas to explore, he would tell them that it had dropped out of the sky. After all, who would suspect Nurd, that most inept of demons, of being responsible for thwarting the Great Malevolence and his invading army?

“What does it do?” asked Wormwood.

“It moves. It moves very fast.”

“Oh. And we watch it move fast, do we?”

It sounded like fun to Wormwood, although not much fun. Actually, he was quite pleased that Nurd was back. It had been a bit quiet without him, and the throne hadn’t been very comfortable to sit on. Funny, that. For so long Wormwood had desired the throne and then, when he’d had it, it hadn’t been worth desiring after all.

“No, Wormwood,” said Nurd patiently. His trip to the world of men, and his encounter with Samuel, had mellowed him, and he was no longer immediately inclined to hit Wormwood for being a bit dim, although he had a feeling that this wouldn’t last. “We sit in it, and then we go fast too.”

Wormwood looked doubtful, but eventually he was convinced to sit in the passenger seat, his seat belt fastened and a concerned expression on his face. Beside him, Nurd started the engine. It growled pleasantly.

“But where will we go?” asked Wormwood.

“Somewhere else,” said Nurd. “After all, anywhere is better than here.”

“And how far will we get?”

Nurd pointed at one of the bubbling black pools that broke the monotonous landscape of the Wasteland.

“You see those pools, Wormwood?”

Wormwood nodded. He’d been looking at the pools for so long that they almost qualified as old friends. If he’d known his birthday, he’d have invited the pools to the party.

“Well,” Nurd continued, “what’s in those pools is remarkably similar to what makes this car go. Hell, Wormwood, is our oyster.”

“What’s an oyster?”

Nurd, who didn’t know either, but had seen the phrase “The world is your oyster” in the car showroom and had rather liked the sound of it, began to reconsider his decision not to hit Wormwood quite so often.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He took a paper bag from his pocket. The bag contained the last of the jelly beans that Samuel had given to him. Nurd had been saving them, but now he offered one to Wormwood and took the final sweetie for himself.

“To Samuel,” he said, and Wormwood, who had heard so much about the boy from Nurd, echoed his master.

“To Samuel.”

The multiverse was unfathomably huge, thought Nurd, but it was still small enough to allow two strangers like Samuel and himself to find each other and become friends.

Together, Nurd and Wormwood drove off, the car growing smaller and smaller, disappearing into the distance, until all that was left to indicate that anyone had ever been there was a throne, a scepter, and an old, rusty crown…

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK Alistair and Cameron Ridyard, who were the first two readers of this book. Graham Glusman, and Nicholas and Barney Mays, also came forward with kind words and encouragement at a very early stage. I’m grateful to you all.

Dr. Colm Stephens, administrator of the School of Physics at Trinity College, Dublin, very generously agreed to read this manuscript, and offered advice and clarification. In the interests of fiction I was forced to ignore some of it, and for that I apologize deeply. His input, patience, and expertise were greatly appreciated, and any errors are entirely my own. Thanks also to Sally-Anne Fisher, the communications officer at TCD, for her assistance.