Garth Nix - Grim Tuesday

Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then Arthur saw a very pale glow form around his knuckles. It was so dark it took him a little while to work out what it was. The light comforted him and he tried to concentrate on it, willing it to grow stronger. At the same time, under his breath, he kept repeating his instruction.

“Take me to the Front Door. Take me to the Front Door…”

His wrist clicked as his hand moved away, tugged by an unseen force. He felt the direction of his fall change from straight down into a shallower dive.

“Take me to the Front Door. Take me to the Front Door. Take me to…”

Far off, a tiny light caught Arthur’s eye. It was too far away to be more than a luminous blob, but Arthur felt sure he was headed towards it, that it would grow and grow until it became a huge rectangular shape of blinding light.

It had to be the Front Door of the House.

CHAPTER FIVE

To Arthur’s considerable relief, the light did grow and it did look exactly like the Front Door. Only this time he was approaching very slowly, so he had enough time to prepare himself for the shock of falling through to the other side – to the green lawn of Doorstop Hill, in the Atrium of the Lower House.

Once he was there, he figured it would be relatively easy to get to Monday’s Dayroom. Arthur wondered if it was called Arthur’s Dayroom now, or The Will’s Dayroom , or something else completely different. In any case, he would find the Will and Suzy there, and together they would work out what to do about Grim Tuesday and his minions.

Arthur was still thinking about that as he drifted gently towards the Door, when he was unexpectedly thrust forward by a tremendous force. Completely unprepared for what felt like a giant whack in the back, he tumbled end over end and crashed headfirst into the bright rectangle of light.

For an instant Arthur felt like he was being turned inside out, everything twisted in impossible and painful directions. Then he bounced on his feet on the other side and crashed down on to his hands and knees. Jarring pain in both told him he had not landed on soft grass. It was also completely dark, without even the soft glow of the distant ceiling of the Atrium, and certainly no elevator shafts illuminating the scene. Even worse, there was smoke everywhere – thick, cloying smoke that instantly made Arthur’s lungs tighten and constrict.

Before he could begin to feel around or even cough, someone grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him up and back. Arthur swallowed his cough and instinctively screamed, a scream that was cut off as some kind of fluid enveloped him. He started to choke, thinking that he was in water, but a solid clap on the back stopped that and he realised that whatever the fluid was, it wasn’t water and it wasn’t getting into his throat and nose. A moment later he was out of it and could feel air again. He had passed through some kind of membrane or fluid barrier.

Wherever he was, everything looked extremely blurry and there was too much colour, like he was standing with his nose pressed to a stained-glass window where the colours kept mixing up.

“Relax and blink a lot,” instructed whoever was gripping his shoulders – a calm, deep male voice that sounded vaguely familiar. It only took Arthur a second to remember whose it was.

The Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door.

Arthur blinked madly and tried to relax. As he blinked, the colours settled down and the blurriness eased, at least when he was looking straight ahead. It was still very blurry to either side.

“Are we inside some sort of multicoloured glass ball?” Arthur asked after a moment. They certainly were inside something spherical and there was light shining into it, light that kept shifting around and was diffracted into many different colours.

“We are in a temporary bubble inside the Door itself,” explained the Lieutenant Keeper. He let go of Arthur, stepped in front of him and saluted. As before, he was wearing a blue uniform coat with one gold epaulette. “One that lessens the effect of the Door on mortal minds. Now, we only have a brief respite before you must go through to the Far Reaches—”

“The Far Reaches?” exclaimed Arthur in alarm. “But I wanted to go to the Atrium of the Lower House.”

“The Front Door opens on many parts of the House, but the door you entered in the Secondary Realms leads only to the Far Reaches and the Grim’s railway station.”

“I can’t go there!”

“You must go there,” declared the Lieutenant Keeper. “You have already gone there. I snatched you back, but I cannot keep you inside the Door for any great length of time. You must go where you are going. That is the Law of the Door.”

“But…” Arthur struggled to think. “OK, if I have to go to the Far Reaches, can you send a message from me to the Will or Suzy in the Lower House?”

“That part of the Will is called Dame Primus now,” said the Lieutenant Keeper. “I am afraid I am not allowed to send unofficial messages to her or anyone else. I can hold a message for someone, but I cannot pass it on unless they enquire whether I have one.”

He unbuttoned part of his coat and reached in to withdraw a watch. It played a haunting melody as he flipped open the case and gravely studied the dial.

“Two minutes, then I must return you to the Far Reaches.”

“Can you give me a disguise?” asked Arthur desperately. The Lieutenant Keeper had helped him before with a shirt and cap, so he didn’t stand out in the Lower House. Arthur would need a disguise even more in Grim Tuesday’s domain.

“That I can do. I hoped you would ask.”

The Lieutenant Keeper reached out through the glowing walls of the sphere. When he pulled his hand back he held one end of a clothesline. He reeled it in. As the pegs dropped off, various items of clothing fell into Arthur’s lap, including a faded pyjama-like top and trousers, a strange hooded cape of some rough material the colour of mud, and a many-times-patched leather apron.

“Put the work suit on over your clothes,” instructed the Lieutenant Keeper. “You will need layers for warmth. Roll up the cape for later.”

Arthur put on the pyjama-like top and trousers, and then strapped on the apron, which was very heavy leather. As instructed, he rolled up the hooded cape. It was very thick and difficult to squash down. Arthur didn’t recognise the material.

“Stabilised mud,” said the Lieutenant Keeper as Arthur looked down on a rolled-up cape that was a quarter as big as he was. “Inexpensive and it offers sufficient protection against the Nothing rain in the Pit. While it lasts.”

“Nothing rain?” asked Arthur. He didn’t like the way the Lieutenant Keeper said the Pit either. He remembered that the Atlas had called it a huge sore in the foundation of the House .

“The Pit is so vast that clouds form partway down and there is constant rain,” said the Lieutenant Keeper as he reached back out through the barrier and retrieved a pair of wooden clogs stuffed with straw.

“The rain concentrates the Nothing pollution that pervades the Pit and carries it back down. Hence the name.”

“But what is the Pit exactly?” asked Arthur. All he knew from the Atlas’s earlier reference was that it was some sort of giant mine, and a danger to the House.

“Unfortunately, you will soon see for yourself. I fear you will have difficulty staying out of it. Once in, you should escape as quickly as you can. Now – put on the clogs. Keep your socks. They are not so different as to attract notice.”