Catherine Fisher - Obsidian Mirror

Venn listened without comment, his spare figure looking even leaner in the dark Victorian suit.

When Jake had finished, he said, “You did well. And now we’ve lost it again.”

In the bleak stillness they heard the rattle of cab wheels above them, the iron clang of horseshoes on the cobbles of the street. A tiny grid in the roof above Jake dripped rain.

“What about you?” he asked.

Venn shrugged. “I think I must have arrived here about an hour or more after you. All I remember is grabbing your sleeve and then nothing. But we’ve discovered something—that it’s possible for two people to journey together, and arrive at least close in time.”

“Were you in the alley?”

“No. A dilapidated garden behind a public house. A dog was barking—I was disorientated, dizzy, but I managed to scramble out. I turned a few corners and walked straight into a scene from Dickens. It was the Tottenham Court Road, I think, but with stalls, and a fish market…I just stared.”

“Where did you get the clothes?”

Venn looked uneasy. “Well, obviously I had to go native. There was a…shall we say, very drunk gentleman trying to find a closed cab. I whistled one up and helped him into it. When I got down a few streets later I was wearing his clothes. I did leave him mine. In a neat pile.”

Jake couldn’t help a grin.

Venn met his eyes. For a moment they were both laughing.

Then, abruptly, dismay rolled back. Venn said, “Symmes could be doing anything up there.”

Jake glanced at him. His godfather’s face was suddenly taut with anxiety; he stood and paced and kicked in convulsive rage at the door. “A pompous, smug fool, and we let him do this to us. He could wreck everything—he could just vanish like David and leave us stuck here. We have to get out, Jake!”

“Don’t waste your energy.” Jake uncurled and stood. “That door is solid.”

Venn looked upward. The damp bricks of the roof oozed lime-white secretions; mold blossomed in green velvet clumps. “The pavement can’t be far above us. If we had some sort of lever, some tools…”

“We don’t.”

Venn swung around, his patience snapped. “Can’t you say anything useful? If you hadn’t had the stupid idea of entering the mirror, neither of us would be here.”

“I didn’t want you to come. You could have stayed.”

“Are you mad? David would never have forgiven me if…”

“Don’t talk about him as if he’s dead!” Jake’s frustration ripped out too. “You don’t care about Dad! All you care about is your guilt. Ending the way it makes you feel. Maybe you don’t even care about Leah!”

It was said before he knew he’d said it, and even in his cold fury he was appalled at himself. Venn stared stricken, disbelieving. For half a second the very darkness of the cellar seemed fractured, as if a stone had been thrown that had cracked the black glass of the world.

Then, in a whisper, the roof said, “Jake! Can you hear me? It’s me. Moll. Jake, where are you?”

He rushed to the corner where the grating was, stupidly grateful. “We’re here. How did you know?”

“Oh you really ’ave got no idea,” her voice said, acid. He could almost see the pitying shake of her small tangled head. “Did you think I’d just scarper with the dosh? No chance! I waited outside just to see if you’d come out. I didn’t trust that cove Symmes. Too smarmy. Too cocksure.”

“Well, you were right. He’s got the bracelet and we’re locked in down here. Can you get us out, Moll?”

She laughed. “Watch and learn, Jake. Remember?”

“Listen, don’t get yourself hurt.” But she was already gone.

He turned.

Venn was leaning against the wall, watching him. As if Moll had not even spoken, he said, “Do you really believe that? That my selfishness could be so gross? Is that what you think of me, Jake?”

Jake frowned. “I didn’t…”

“You must have really hated me. Far off, in your comfortable school in Switzerland.”

“You had your obsession. I had mine. I thought you’d killed him.” He looked away. “I had to blame someone. You were there. You were responsible. There was no one else.”

Venn nodded, slowly. He said, “I see now that I failed you. I never really thought about you. I just wanted you out of the way, because I couldn’t have interruptions. But you’re wrong about Leah. Yes, it will ease my shame and guilt—and believe me, Jake, they are terrible. But I’ll move hell and heaven to get her back, no matter who tries to stop me, or who gets hurt. Because Leah is a part of me. She’s my soul, Jake. They say the Venns have no souls, that they are half Shee, without remorse, ruthless. I was like that. Leah changed me. I’ll force the whole world and time and fate to do it, but I’ll get her back.”

His hubris was breathtaking. But for a moment Jake almost believed a man could do that.

Then, with a small scrape and rattle, the door was unlocked.

They spun around.

Moll stood there, hugely proud, hands on hips. “Can’t I leave you alone for a second, you poor sods?”

Jake grabbed her and swung her up. “You’re a wonder! What—”

A crash interrupted him. A vast, echoing crash, high in the house.

Venn leaped for the door. “The mirror!”

Sarah ran through the Wood. Even in her invisibility its power snagged at her. In the corners of her eyes were fragments of places that could not be here; the edge of a plowed field, the tilted plane of a city street. When she looked at them, they were gone. She was in a kaleidoscope, a place of pieces, a broken universe, all in random order; she felt terrified that some great upheaval would rearrange everything in seconds. This was like that old story of the girl who had gone through the looking glass into a world where cats grinned and eggs talked. But going through the looking glass was the one thing she hadn’t managed to do.

Breathless, she stopped. As she bent over, gasping in air, she wondered why the Shee weren’t following her, even trying to find her. Surely their curiosity would be intense.

Around her the Wood waited, silent.

And then, very faint and far away, she heard it; the sound that she had most dreaded. Even before she cried out in shock and clasped her hands tight to her ears, she knew it was too late, that in that sharp, brilliant instant the damage had been done.

The music was piercingly sweet. A single note, high and enchanting.

She screamed, “No!” and ran, hands crammed against her ears. If she stopped, if she listened, she was finished. It would haunt her forever. She crashed through bushes and brambles, ducking under two leaning oaks, and suddenly there was no ground but only water, and she fell forward, headlong, into it.

Bubbling, airless dark.

She came up with a scream, coughing, weeds plastered to her face. Between its strands she saw Gideon. He was standing on the bank, watching.

“Help me!” she screeched. Then she sank again, and there was no bottom. Long ribbons of weed tangled her; water slopped into her nose, down her throat; her cry was a gurgle of terror.

“Gideon!”

He stood on the brink. “I can’t! If I touch water…!”

“Help me!”

“I can’t…Summer says…”

“You’re not Shee. You’re human!”

She grabbed a branch; it snapped. Crowflowers snagged her clothes, daisies and nettles, long loosestrife, like dead men’s fingers. She fought desperately to stay up, to swim, but they had never taught her that in the Lab, and every movement dragged her down to gulp and choke, and in the pain of no breath she saw herself in a nightmare mirror, lying dead in the flowers.