Catherine Fisher - The Slanted Worlds

I flinched from the terrible implosion.

But nothing happened!

Janus seemed as surprised as the rest of us. The he laughed; a short, amused laugh. “Well. That is surprising. It seems you’ve been betrayed.”

“Betrayed?” David was frantically adjusting the silver ring.

“By Venn perhaps. Or by the scarred man.” Janus frowned, as if at an irritating memory. I gathered my skirts around me and stayed on the mat. I was rather shaken, but David’s anxiety was acute.

The mirror remained black, and solid.

Jake snarled, “You’ll never get the bracelet. We’ll throw it in the fire first.”

“Then you will have done what I want.” The tyrant had a flat, unpleasant smirk. It became annoying really quickly.

There was silence. But in the stillness I realized that the traffic in the street seemed to have stopped. There was distant shouting, a running of feet on the pavement outside.

I saw Jake’s eyes fix in what I can only say was utter alarm.

He was staring at my calendar; a sweet thing, free with the Daily Mirror, decorated with pictures of kittens and puppies. It was open on the date, 14th January 1941.

“Oh my God,” he breathed. He looked at me, hard, as if seeing for the first time my gray hair, my sadly advanced age.

Then he turned on his father. “It’s now!”

“What is?”

“The raid . . . the bombing raid! This is the date I came here. The day she dies. It’s today. It’s now!”

As if to answer him, up from the depths of the city rose a sound they started at, but which I had grown only too used to. The wail of the sirens, the eerie early warning of the coming waves of planes.

And far off, with the soft thudding of rain on a roof, the first bombs burst open on the East End, like murderous red flowers.

“Don’t do this.” Rebecca came toward him. “They need you. Venn and Jake and Sarah. You made an agreement with them.”

“That girl will destroy the mirror! I can’t let that happen. Without them . . .”

“You can’t leave Jake to die in some plague-ridden past. I won’t let you.”

Maskelyne stood like a shadow between her and the obsidian glass. As ever, it showed no image of him, as if he had never existed, as if he were only the product of her dreams, unseen by anyone else. Sometimes she felt she had invented him, created him, but now she realized that he was some mystery beyond anything she could make.

He smiled his dragging smile. “Don’t hate me, Becky.”

“Then don’t make me. You can help them, work with them. You can wait. The threat to the mirror comes first. From Summer. And from Janus.” She stepped forward, almost touching him. “Because who can save us from Janus if not you? I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re more powerful than any of us, maybe even than Summer herself. And I trust you.”

A gurgle behind them. She turned and saw the marmoset, Horatio, and the baby face-to-face, staring at each other in mutual fascination.

When she turned back, Maskelyne was watching her, his eyes dark as the glass.

“I think only you keep me human, Becky,” he murmured.

Sarah and Wharton scrambled through the Wood, torn by thorns.

“Can you see it?” she screamed.

He couldn’t. The bird was lost in the misty cloud that hung low over the treetops. And the Shee were coming now, swooping down from the rain, a dark birdfall onto the gnarled and lichened branches.

“Be careful!”

Her yell warned him just in time. The Wood fell away at his feet into a deep ravine; in its depths the river roared over stones hurtling toward the gray shimmer of the Abbey through the trees.

He skidded to a stop, sending soil and pebbles rattling down. Ancient gravestones rose from the saturated soil; leaning crosses and a languid angel with folded wings.

“Where is this?” he gasped.

“The green chapel. Some ancient part of the Abbey.” Sarah stared up hopelessly at the gray sky. The bird had fled, but Summer would surely find it, fall on it, tear it to bits with her fierce beak and talons.

And take the coin.

She wanted to howl with fury and despair. Instead she said icily, “I suppose you’re pleased.”

Wharton backed from the crumbling edge. He said, “Of course not. Not if Summer knows the power of the coin. What a weapon against Venn.”

They looked at each other, while the Shee fluttered down around them in a glittering flock. As each starling alighted, the trees were weighed with wings, rows of bright eyes, beaks pecking and squawking and fighting each other.

“And now you know it too,” he said. “Who told you? That changeling?”

“You did, George. I . . . overheard you and Jake talking.”

He grimaced. “Oh great.”

The soil slid. She turned, to cover her odd feeling of shame, then stared. “The whole hillside is moving.”

The graveyard shuddered. It slipped down toward the Abbey as if the weighted trees would crush the building, as if it would scatter stones and bones into the raging river.

Sarah gave a yell of fear. With a flicker of green coattails Gideon had risen up from the water and was being hurtled along down there, slammed against boulders and snagged timbers, then up again, gasping.

“We have to get to him!” A tiny trail running with rainwater led over the edge; without hesitation she was slithering down, grabbing brambles and gorse, ignoring the stings and scratches.

“Wait! Sarah!” Wharton scrambled after her, desperate at being so clumsy and breathless. As his feet slipped he looked up. And saw Venn. The man’s blond hair was slicked by the current; he was swimming strongly. As Sarah reached the shore and raced along it, leaping flood debris, he slid under the brown waters and dived for Gideon.

For a moment there was nothing but foam.

Wharton crashed down beside her. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know. Can’t see . . . There!”

Venn surfaced and he had Gideon with him. In a tangle of limbs they hit a half-drowned tree and hung on. In moments Sarah was there; she grabbed Gideon and hauled at him and he scrambled quickly out, collapsing on hands and knees on the bank, spitting water.

Sarah turned back to Venn. Their hands gripped, his eyes, blue as ice, met hers. But he was heavy, the current dragging at him, and she knew as his hand slid from hers she didn’t have the strength to hold him. She screamed.

Instantly Wharton was there, pushing her aside, solid as a rock in the water; Venn grabbed him and Wharton dragged, and through the terrible suck of the water hauled him out, sleek and soaked as an otter, and quite abruptly she knew he was safe, and sat down, weak with relief.

Beside her came a bitter, soft laughter. Gideon was pushing his long hair from his face.

“What?” she whispered.

“Did he think They would let me die? No chance.”

“Maybe for a moment she forgot about you,” Sarah snapped. “Maybe other things are more important.” She watched Venn and Wharton climbing up the rocks. All at once her failure came and crushed her; all her energy seemed gone, all her hopes lost.

Gideon stared at her. “What’s wrong?”

Her voice was numb. “I didn’t get the coin. And Summer knows. It’s all over.” The words seemed too weak for the weight of her despair; judging by his silence, Gideon was appalled too.