Catherine Fisher - Obsidian Mirror

Sarah, breathless, leaned on the stone wall and gasped. Wharton and Piers and Rebecca came racing in behind her.

The mirror was black and silent. The room was empty.

Wharton stared. “Did they? Oh my God, they haven’t…No, surely…Jake?”

Sarah was numb with anger. She whispered something, and for a moment he thought the words were: Me. It should have been me .

At that moment every light in the house went out.

If like a crab you could go backward…

16

There was always something strange about the boy. He laughed at shadows, he sang different songs. When the other children were merry, he was still and silent. More than anything he loved the music of pipes and viols.

His mother’s anxiety about the Shee made her stern. He was never to enter the Wood. He was never to stray from the cottage and the lanes.

But one winter twilight, when the stew was simmering on the fire, she went out to call him, and he was gone. It was said he had been seen hand in hand with a woman in a green dress.

He was never seen again.

Chronicle of Wintercombe

J AKE LAY CROOKEDand sore against a slimy brick wall.

His neck was bent at a painful angle; his right leg was numb. Something was sticky and wet on his fingers.

He moved, and groaned as pain shot from his ankle.

“He’s alive,” a voice said.

Jake froze. His first instinct was to open his eyes, but what he saw made him close them at once and play dead. There were two figures bending over him, and one had a knife. He’d caught the dull glimmer of the blade, the dirty thumb on the hasp.

He held his breath.

“Finish him.” Hands grabbed him, hauled him over, rummaged quickly through his pockets and jacket, a quick rough search all over him. He felt something—his watch?—dragged from his wrist.

“Useless.” A coin jangled on the wet cobbles. “Filthy foreign tin.”

“Take it anyway. The siller ring will fetch.”

Jake’s fear was becoming anger. Then, sharp as a squealing rat, a whistle pierced the air.

“Peelers.” The two men jumped up; Jake rolled instantly to his hands and knees and threw himself at the nearer, grappling for the knife that came slashing at his chest.

He got one good kick in before a punch cracked darkness into his eyes; when that had cleared, the alley was empty, except for a two-pence coin and a spatter of blood.

He picked himself up, cursing, and looked around.

He was in a narrow place, dark, with high buildings on each side. He took a breath and his eyes widened at the stench of the air. A fetid, gagging smell of sewage and old vegetables, of smoke and sweat, it almost made him retch.

Groping toward light, he peered out onto a tiny courtyard, and his hand felt a few words incised into the stone. He rubbed away soot and black moss to read: SOLOMON’S COURT.

It sounded familiar. Dizzy, he tried to remember where he had heard the name, but then the whistle came again, urgent and near. A group of black-suited men charged in from the street against a small door in the corner, burst it open, and ran inside, yelling.

Jake stood still, one hand still leaning on the wall.

He had to fight against astonishment. Keep calm. He had entered the mirror. He had journeyed. But where was he? He felt so sick, it was difficult to think, and his head throbbed. He took a few steps nearer the door.

Screams met him; a large woman hurried out, throwing on a shawl, and after her a stagger of wrecks and drunks fled into the night. Was this some sort of raid?

And instantly the memory of where he had seen the name came back—it was the place Symmes had written of in the diary, the place he had gotten the mirror.

Was this the same night?

At once, ignoring his blurred vision, Jake raced down the three steps, past the pentangled doorway and into the opium den.

It was in chaos. The police—if that’s what they were—were grabbing money and goods for themselves, rummaging in the pockets of opium-eaters too drugged to even notice. The sweet smell of the drug choked the close air. Remembering Symmes’s journal, Jake looked for the back room; he raced across, shoving a man out of his way, and burst in through the dingy curtain.

The room was empty. Beyond, a back door banged in the wind.

He made two steps toward it before a hand grabbed him. “And we’ll be taking you down too, sonny.”

He was swung around. A huge man in a dirty black uniform grinned at him. “See the duds on this! Come and take a look, lads. Here’s a gallimaufry.”

A few chortling faces grinned through the curtain. “Let me go,” Jake snarled.

The peeler snorted. “Very good, milord.” He opened his hand.

It was sarcasm, but it gave Jake an idea. He drew himself up, raised his chin, and fixed the man with a glare. “Take your hands off me, man. Don’t you recognize your betters when you see them. How dare you involve me in this disgusting farrago!”

Wharton, he thought, would have been proud.

The man’s face lost its grin. He said, “You mean…Lor love you sir, I…”

“I shall have you dismissed without pay for this…audacity.” Jake dusted down his clothes. He had too many bruises. Too much dirt for the part. But the man was cringing.

“I ’ad no idea, sir. In this den—”

“I’m not here for the opium! I’m looking for a gentleman. His name is Symmes. John Harcourt Symmes. Have you arrested him?”

“We ain’t nabbed no toff ’cept yerself, Mister…?”

Jake shrugged. “Jake Wilde. Son of Lord Wilde…Surely you know my father, man? The personal assistant to the Home Secretary?”

He had no idea if there even was a Home Secretary at this date, but it didn’t seem to matter; he was rapidly understanding that just to be haughty and speak in his crisp twenty-first-century English might be enough. As the peeler looked around hopelessly for help, he pushed past him. “He was here, in this room, minutes ago. It was he who had you summoned. He can’t have gone far.”

“We come on a nark’s word.”

“Nark?”

“Grass. Informer.”

Jake frowned. Symmes had set up the raid, he would have been ready. He’d have already taken the mirror in the cab. He turned quickly, past the peeler. “I have to find him!”

“Ah now sir, you can’t just…”

But Jake was already out in the dingy courtyard. The rattle of hooves made him turn; he saw the quick glimpse of a cab rattle past the archway; saw in the flash of the gaslight a plump, rather smug-looking man settling down inside.

Jake raced after the cab. Bursting out into the street, he saw it swallowed by fog. He took two steps after it and crashed into a small shape that burst from the alley and grabbed him to stop itself falling.

He looked down and saw the dirtiest child he had ever imagined. The girl wore a ragged blue dress over trousers and worn boots. She screeched, “Let me go!”

He dropped her, but the cab had gone; the fog was a silent, greasy swirl. He swore. Then he said, “Listen kid, what year is this?”

The girl stared. Her eyes widened. “You from the Bedlam, mister?”

He pulled out the two-pence coin and tossed it; she caught it, bit it, and pocketed it in one smooth move. “Foreign tin and no good.” She grinned. “But as I like yer face, I’ll tell you. It’s 1848.”

Two years.

Wrong raid. Symmes had had the mirror for two years. Jake swore again.

He said, “I don’t have much time. You live here?”

She shrugged.

“Two years ago a man came here. A gentleman.”

She rolled her eyes. “They all do.”

“Not for opium. He came to buy a mirror. There was someone in the back room, a man with a scar on his face…” He groped after the name. “Maskelyne. Do you know him?”