David Mitchell - Slade House

We’re at a delicate stage. I need to coax Marinus up to the house without her sensing a trap, being crushed by remorse, or being spooked into running for the exit. “Look, real orisons are rare . Less than a single percent of your patients are real astronauts. The others, no — they needed drugs, they needed help. Get down off that cross.”

“That’s still … too many.” Marinus bites her lower lip and shakes her head. “So much for ‘First, do no harm.’ ”

“Orisons aren’t covered at medical college, Doc. Sure, you won’t be able to write all this up for the journals, but if you want to help your patients, look around. Explore. Observe. You’re a flexible thinker. That’s why I chose you.”

Marinus lets the words sink in. She takes a few steps over the lawn, looking up at the blank wet white sky. “Fred Pink — who until two minutes ago, I–I thought was delusional — Fred Pink thought Slade House was dangerous. Is it?”

I have Bombadil unzip his ski jacket. “I don’t think so, no.”

“But we — Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this — we just stepped from our reality into another. Didn’t we?”

I feign mild disappointment at Marinus’s timidity. “We’re astronauts; and yeah, it’s a riskier hobby than collecting Lego figurines. As it happens, I strongly suspect Slade House is now a deserted orison running on autopilot, but if you’d feel safer going back to your consultancy at Dawkins, dosing up future Fred Pinks on Izunolethe and visiting them in padded cells, knowing that you were the first and last clinical psychiatrist to chicken out of exploring a real live orison, then who could blame you? Have a safe drive home.” I walk off towards the sundial.

“Bombadil.” Marinus’s footsteps hurry after me. “Wait!”

Her social conscience is a collar. I hold the leash.

Droplets of mist cling to the lavender. Lavender, I remember, was one of the happier scents of Jonah’s and my childhood on the Swaffham estate in Norfolk, where the Chetwynd-Pitts’ tenant farmers grew several acres of the stuff for the London perfumeries. I pause while Marinus pinches and sniffs. “Smells like the real thing,” she says, “but why’s everything turning black and white? The camellias were red and pink but this lavender’s gray. Those roses are monochrome.”

I know exactly why: after eighteen years without fresh voltage, our Operandi is now too drained even to sustain color reliably. “Decay,” I reply. “If you ask me, the Grayer Twins have deserted this orison. The fog’s another sign. We can relax a little, Doc. We’re visiting a ruin.”

Looking reassured, Marinus unwinds her keffiyeh. “Human beings created this place? Every pebble, every twig, every droplet of mist, every blade of grass? Every atom?” She shakes her head.

“I’d lay off the particle physics, Doc, if I were you. But yeah, it’s people and not gods, if that’s what you’re getting at. If it helps, think of them as set designs. Careful, a bramble’s got you.”

Marinus unpicks it from the hem of her coat. “The thorns are real, too. How many of these places have you visited?”

I draw on Bombadil’s experiences. “This is number three. First was on the island of Iona, in the Scottish Hebrides. Quite a well-known orison, that one. It was awesome. Safe and friendly, too. It’s an apse in the abbey that’s not there unless you know where and when to slip through a certain archway. The time disparity was chronic, mind. When I got back after only a day away, two years ’d passed and Mum’d got remarried to a divorced Microsoft rep.”

“That’s”—the Mighty Shrink searches for words—“incredible.”

“I frickin’ know it is! Microsoft! My second orison was more hard-core. The Aperture was in a high school for the arts in Santa Fe. Yoyo, a mate from Houston, tracked it down. We went in together.”

Marinus asks, “What makes a ‘hard-core’ orison different to the one on Iona, or this one?”

“Unhappy endings. Yoyo never came out.”

Marinus stops. “He died in there?”

“No, he chose to stay inside — and he’s still there, as far as I know — but its creator was in residence and he had a bad-ass Jehovah complex. Named his little world ‘Milk and Honey.’ When I wanted to leave he accused me of apostasy and tried to, uh, kill me. ’Nother story, all that. But all this ”—I have Bombadil gesture about us—“peace and quiet is a welcome change. Look, wild strawberries.” The strawberries are the Banjax Jonah and I agreed on. If I can get Marinus to eat one now, it’ll save a sub-orison later. I pick a couple of the fatter fruits and pop one into my mouth. “ Awesome. Try one.”

Marinus’s hand begins to rise; but drops down. “Maybe not.”

Damn it. Damn her. I have Bombadil grin. “Scared?”

Marinus looks awkward. “Mildly superstitious. In all the tales, the myths, the rule is, if you eat or drink anything — pomegranate seeds, faerie wine, whatever — the place has a hold on you.”

Inwardly, I curse. “ ‘Myths,’ Doc? Are myths science?”

“When I’m in doubt — as I am now — I ask myself, ‘What would Carl Jung do?’—and act accordingly. Call it a gut instinct.”

If I push the Banjax too hard, she’ll grow suspicious. “Suit yourself,” I say, and eat the other strawberry. If Marinus weren’t so engifted, I could have just suasioned her to eat it; but then if she weren’t so engifted, she wouldn’t be here. “Awesome.”

The wistaria’s twisted boughs are dripping with blooms, never mind that it’s October in the world outside. But when Marinus reaches up to touch the flowers, her hand passes clean through. The only vivid colors left in the orison are the dyes in the clothes we came in with. Clothes. I’m nagged by the thought that I’ve missed something … What about? Clothes — possessions — what? It was a nagging thought that had tried to warn me before Sally Timms attacked Jonah nine years ago, but I didn’t listen closely enough. If Jonah weren’t having trouble projecting the orison I’d telegram him to pause it so I could stop and figure it out. As we emerge onto the upper lawn, a black and white peacock darting across our path just fades into the air, leaving a dying trail of Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Jonah must be running on empty. Luckily Marinus was busy watching the gingko tree loom up far too quickly for our cautious amble. “This is as far as I came yesterday,” I say, and stop: all of a sudden the fallen leaves fall upwards, all at once, and attach themselves to the tree. Marinus is enchanted by the sight, but I feel a queasiness in Bombadil’s stomach: this is malprojection, not whimsy. Jonah’s losing control. “It’s like a dream in here,” says Marinus.

My brother telegrams me: Get her inside, it’s collapsing.

Easier said than done. “Let’s look inside,” I tell our guest.

“In there ? The house itself? Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” I have Bombadil say. “Why ever not?”

An anxious silence is followed by a nervous “Why?”

Luckily, I think of a stronger force than her cowardice. “Look, Doc, I didn’t want to raise any false hopes before, but there’s a chance of finding Fred Pink alive in there.” I look at the upper windows.

“Alive? After nine years? Are you sure?”

Are you inside yet, Sister? telegrams Jonah. Hurry!

“There are no certainties when it comes to orisons, Doc,” I reply. “But time ran differently in the Iona orison, and Milk and Honey was habitable, so don’t we owe it to Fred Pink to at least give the place the once-over? It’s his thread, it’s his pain, it’s his truth that brought us here today.”