Catherine Fisher - The Slanted Worlds

“Edward the Third,” Rebecca breathed.

“Edward, King of England and France.”

He was exhilarated. He was making this up out of half-forgotten history lessons and both their lives hung on it, and yet the danger, the threat, as always, filled him with a wild, reckless excitement.

The horseman turned his head and beckoned.

Rebecca gasped.

Out of the crowd came a man in the strangest mask either of them had ever seen. Of loose gray fabric, it hooded the face, was slitted for the eyes. Out of it hooked a great beak like some vulture, dark as a crow, sinister and bizarre.

“Where are your medicines?” the signore demanded. “Where are your king’s gifts? Your entourage?”

“At Pisa, unloading from the ships. We came at once, before them. We hear that many are dying here already.”

He flicked a glance at the masked man. A pair of bright eyes stared back at him.

The Man with the Eyes of a Crow.

The signore nodded. “That is unfortunately true.” He considered, then said, “Il dottore will take you to the monastery. I hope you will be able to help us. But this sickness is not so great. It affects only the poor and sinful. It will pass, as all sickness does.”

Jake frowned. “It may become a great plague.”

The signore leaned from his saddle. “Let us hope not. I await your king’s gifts. If they do not arrive, you will pay for your lies.”

He smiled amiably, jerked his head to his men, and rode on. The armed men fell in behind and followed, gazing at Jake and especially Rebecca with curiosity. She tucked her hair up into her hat hurriedly.

Only the masked man remained. He beckoned, and turned into a dark narrow alleyway stained with pools of ordure. There he unlocked a small door and bowed; they went through before him, uneasy.

Inside was a dark room, lit by one candle. The bird mask turned to face them, was lifted off, and they saw a gray-haired man with an open, weary face staring at them with undisguised terror.

Jake could hardly breath. He whispered, one word, one syllable, and it was like a light coming back on in his heart.

“Dad.”

When Wharton finally slid and floundered as far as the buried sheepfold, he found Venn standing with folded arms looking at it with suspicion.

“Come out,” he snapped.

For a moment Wharton thought the man had really gone mad. Then Gideon stepped from the shelter of the dark stone. The changeling was pallid and shivering. His forest-green clothes seemed to have faded; they were gray here, becoming white, like a stoat’s fur changes in winter. And there was something fading in the boy too, Wharton thought. As if in some way he was becoming transparent, less solid.

Wharton said at once, “Where’s Sarah?”

Gideon pointed at the ruin. “She went in there. She vanished.”

Venn said, “What’s wrong with you? What’s Summer done to you?”

“Stolen my sleep. Stolen my dreams.” Gideon sat in the snow and dragged his hands through his tangle of hair. “The only place I could go to get away.”

Venn nodded. “She’s a mistress of torment.” He looked at the ruined byre, touched its black stone, trudged a complete furrow around it in the snow. Then he said, “Why didn’t you go in?”

Gideon looked up. “I . . . was going to. Then I saw you.”

“Liar.” Venn crouched and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “You know where she is because you led her here. Summer wants the bracelet, doesn’t she?”

“What bracelet?”

“The one Sarah stole from me.”

Gideon’s blank stare was only too convincing. “She doesn’t have it.”

Wharton said, “But . . . Are you sure? . . . Then who could possibly . . .”

The silence rumbled. It shivered and shook under his feet. As he and Venn glanced at each other it was as if the earth groaned, the mountain was ready to collapse on them.

“Jake,” Venn breathed.

Did the word start the avalanche? Was the weight of that knowledge the tiny trigger? Because as they all turned as one, the white wall of snow was already crashing toward them, coming like a line of foam, like a wave that would flatten and destroy anything in its path.

Venn seemed frozen. Wharton heard him whisper, “Not again.” Then he spread his arms wide, as if he would stand there before it, defy it, die.

“Oh no!” Wharton grabbed him and shoved him with all his strength toward the doorway of the ruin. Venn toppled in backward and was gone as if through a plane of light.

Wharton yelled at Gideon, “In!”

They had no choice. As the white mass hit, it filled the world with a roar that smashed them against each other, a tangle of limbs, and clutching of hands, a suffocation of snow as hard as marble. Just before it hit him Wharton felt the momentum alone fling him head over heels.

Into blackness.

My father stirred his tea .

He sipped it and then leaned back in the armchair with a sigh of pleasure.

“Cake?” I said.

“Oh my dear.”

“Éclair? Or Battenburg?”

“Éclair please. All that lovely squishy cream.”

I lifted one with the silver tongs and placed it on his plate. As he munched it and the cream fell on the napkin tucked under his chin, I sat back in my chair with as much satisfaction as I ever remember feeling in my life.

“And so this Moll lived with you for ten years?”

“She did. Little terror that she was. She ate my food and drank my whisky and developed into quite a beauty, if all be told. And she was up to every scrape and trick and strategy under the sun.”

I felt a squirm of jealousy, but suppressed it. “And all the time I was buried in that house in Yorkshire.”

“Your mother took you away. She didn’t trust me, I’m afraid. And then we were so busy searching London for the silver bracelet. We were so sure it must be there! Moll—poor girl—was also convinced that Jake Wilde would come back and take her to the future. But he never returned.”

“Did it break her heart?” I said, I must confess, hopefully.

“Perhaps. After a year or so she stopped looking out for him. But I don’t think she ever forgot. And then one spring morning she slipped out of my house and never came back.”

I sniffed. “Once a street girl, always a street girl.”

“Maybe.” My father looked thoughtful. “But maybe not. Six months later I received a letter with a roll of banknotes tucked inside it. Three hundred pounds sterling—a mighty sum. The note said simply TO JHS: FOR ALL WHAT YOU GIVE ME. It must have been her. I dare not think how she got it.”

“She could write?”

“I taught her. She was a remarkably able little thing.”

I had heard enough about Moll. I dismissed her from my mind and said, “I wish you could tell me more about the future.”

He seemed uneasy. “I understand now the reluctance of David, when he worked with me, to speak of it. I saw little—Janus kept me in the same room, and I was only there for a few hours. Even so, it was a cold, bleak place.” He leaned forward. “Do you know, I do not believe they eat?”

I recoiled in mock horror. “Not eat?”

“Never was I offered one mouthful. I believe they take a pill of some essential nutrients each morning. It would save a lot of time.”