Obsidian Mirror (31 page)

A ripple of movement stirred the dark red hangings of the landing.

She turned, but the stairs behind her were dark and empty. Not even a cat.

Suddenly, panic rose up in her. She turned and ran, heedless, breathlessly up, because she had to get back, find the mirror, find Venn. She hurtled into the Long Gallery, and almost crashed into the Replicant.

It was sitting with its feet on a chair, and it was so young! A slim soldier, hair tied back now, thin lips drawn in a delighted smile.

It was on its feet and had tight hold of her before she could twist away.

“How lovely to see you, Sarah,” it said.

The mirror stood in a fortified zone. Under Wharton’s orders, Rebecca and Maskelyne had dragged the heaviest furniture against the door, then retreated to the labyrinth, where the only weapon they had, the shotgun, was aimed at the entrance arch. Wharton kept it, and had the glass gun jammed in his belt.

“Because I don’t trust you,” he snapped, when Maskelyne asked why.

Rebecca shook her head in disbelief. “If that thing gets in here…”

“It wants the mirror. Not us.”

They sat, crouched in silence. Wharton breathed heavily.

Rebecca glanced at Maskelyne, a shadow in the darkness. She knew he was looking at the mirror.

He had realized with sickening speed that there was nothing he could do without power. To be so close to it must be so tantalizing for him, she thought. A torment. She said, “Can you feel it?”

“I can hear it.” His scarred face turned in the darkness. “I hear it sing. A single high note, beyond sound. So strange and far off, like a voice from eternities distant. But I can hear it, Becky.”

From behind, Wharton said gruffly, “I never got to hear how you two know each other.”

Rebecca was silent a moment. Maskelyne said, “Tell him, if you want.”

Wharton heard her sigh. “I don’t know how to. It started so long ago. I was maybe six, seven, when I first saw him. In dreams. A man falling and falling through dark space, a rectangle of sky. He was calling out to me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I told my mum, but she laughed at me. Nightmares, she said.

“Slowly, he came to earth. I began to see him land, crashing in slow-mo. Between dreams a month apart he might only have moved a millimeter. I got used to it. I stopped telling people, because they thought I was strange. But I used to lie awake on rainy nights, worried, in case he would get wet.”

She grinned at him. “Then one night, he was there, in my room. He was see-through, like a ghost. He sat on my window seat and whispered, ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m a friend.’ No one else saw him. When my mum came in to wake me the next day, she walked straight through him. He wasn’t there.”

Maskelyne said, “It was a drastically delayed manifestation.”

“Talk English,” Wharton muttered.

“Time, stretched out like elastic. I was coming through the mirror, but it was taking years.”

“What?” Wharton stared, appalled. “Might that happen to Jake?”

“Jake has the bracelet. I had nothing. I was lucky even to survive.”

Rebecca smiled. “I didn’t know any of that then. He was just my secret friend. He lived in my house and no one knew about him. Sometimes he was there and sometimes not, all over the farm, in the barns, in the fields, in the place down by the stream where I used to play.” She laughed, soft, in the dark. “I wasn’t scared of him. I liked him. Half beautiful and half ugly, like a man put together from pieces. He came out of my books, he was Heathcliff and Rochester and all those dark heroes. He was my shadow. I waited for him.”

“For me,” Maskelyne said quietly, “her entire childhood was only a few frail moments. I was there, then
gone, and when the world flickered back the girl who lived in it was a month, a year older, and it was summer, or a sudden autumn. I realized what must be happening, but what could I do? I was trapped.”

Rebecca said, “Do you remember the day I was ten, and there was a party? I had all these kids around, and it was fun, but then suddenly Maskelyne was there, in the middle of them, sitting like a ghost at the feast, among balloons and music and no one could see him but me. He looked so weary. I pretended to be sick and everyone got sent home. And then I made him go to sleep on the sofa.”

Wharton looked up. “Listen!”

They froze. After a while he said, “Sorry. Thought I heard something.” Still fascinated, he glanced at Maskelyne. “How long before you…arrived fully?”

“In Becky’s time, eight years. By the time she was fourteen I was here constantly, barely flickering. Then it got difficult—I took to living in an old mill—house on the edge of her father’s farm, up on the edge of the moor, because by then I needed food, warmth. Sleep. Slowly, I became a real person, not a ghost anymore.” He was looking at her, smiling sadly.

She said, “He told me about the mirror. So we started to research. We knew it must be close by. Then we realized Venn had it.”

Maskelyne said, “I went to Switzerland and found
Jake and you on the point of leaving. I followed you onto the plane and phoned Rebecca from London. She got on the train. I think you know the rest.”

Wharton gave him a hard stare. “So you want the mirror for yourself.”

Maskelyne glanced quickly at Rebecca. She said, “It was his. It belongs to him. And when he goes, I go too.”

Astonished at the change in her face, Wharton looked away. She wasn’t at all the ditsy girl who had nearly crashed that car. She was a young woman in love with a ghost.

Then Maskelyne said, “There it is again.”

Wharton wriggled out of the labyrinth and inched his way to the door; now he was leaning against it, his ear to the ancient wood. He looked up. “I can hear voices. Someone’s out there, talking to him.”

He turned his head and listened again, and his face darkened. He said, “I think…It is. It’s Sarah.”

Then he took the glass weapon and held it out.

Maskelyne’s fingers closed around it.

“Thank you,” he said.

S
ARAH STOOD RIGID.
The Replicant’s smile was charming. It held her arm in a tight grip. “You’re a little wet,” it said.

She threw a quick glance behind it. The door was locked—hopefully barricaded. But she was the one putting them all in danger. “Let me go.”

“Both of us having come all this way?” It shook its head. “I don’t think so. I have to say, I’m surprised. I presumed you were locked safely in there with them—the worthy teacher, and Venn’s clever genie.”

She looked stricken, but she thought fast. Venn and Jake weren’t back. But she couldn’t afford to wait for them.

“It would have been a shame to burn the place down.” It tipped its head sideways and smiled again. “All this ancient timber.” It took its hand out of its pocket and she saw it had a small lighter; a tiny blue flame flickered.

“I mean, look…” The Replicant wandered away to the curtain that hung over the door. “So much dust, so many old fabrics. What an inferno, Sarah.”

Carelessly it held the flame close to the curtain.

“Don’t.”

As soon as she said it she knew it was a mistake. Janus’s hand did not move. It said, “You could ask them to open the door.”

“They won’t. They know you’re here.”

“Yes, but now you are too.” It watched the edge of the curtain; with a shiver of fear she saw it had begun to smolder. “Tell them to open the door, Sarah.”

“Put that thing out first.”

Behind the spectacles, its eyes flickered to her. “Don’t defy me. Don’t pit your will against mine. Tell them to open the door.”

Smoke was rising from the worn fibers of the curtain. In an instant it would whoosh into fire. She clenched her fists.

“Put the flame out. Then I’ll talk to them.”

The Replicant did not blink. Its hand did not move. Red fire spurted in the damask folds.

Sarah ran. She snatched at the curtain and dragged it down, the worn cloth tearing as easily as tissue. Even as it fell it was already a mass of flame; small wisps scattered, scuttering down the bare wooden boards of the gallery. She stamped and beat at it, gasping, jerking back, heat on her face. Sparks danced around her hair.

The Replicant watched her. As she dragged the singed cloth into a hasty heap she saw from the corner of her eye how it lounged, waiting. When the last spark was out, she whirled around. It was even faster; it had her arm and had dragged her close, hauling her over to the door, and she felt the small silver click of the lighter; jerked away in terror from the hot glow under her ear.

“Listen to me, in there,” it yelled. “I have a friend of yours. Open the door.”

The flame was raised; she fought to pull away.

“Tell them.”

Gritting her teeth, she struggled, lashing out with her free arm, but it held the flame closer and the heat of it under her eyes made her gasp with terror.

Then, with a crack, the door unlocked.

“Let the girl go,” Wharton growled. “Or I blow you to kingdom come.”

Venn and Jake thundered up the stairs.

At the landing the butler came out of a room carrying
a silver tray; before he could jump back Venn had shoved him aside in a crash of china and raced past, Moll tight at his heels.

Jake glanced back. Hassan had dragged out a whistle; he blew it, three shrieking, terrified blasts.

Venn stormed down the corridor, flinging open doors, finding only bedrooms. The last door was firmly locked.

“That must be it!” Moll hissed.

Venn stood back. “Jake.”

Together, they shouldered the door, and burst through.

“Get away from there!” Venn yelled.

Symmes turned. He was standing before a complicated assemblage of brass; a creation of springs and oscillating pendulums. Some ornate construction made of bands of metal had been fitted to encircle the mirror, like the meshed orbits of tiny planets. The glass itself was held steady in a frame ratcheted to the floor.

Jake saw at once that Symmes was wearing the bracelet. He leaped forward, but Symmes moved first.

He caught a smooth lever that was set into the machinery and shoved it down.

“No!” Venn said.

“I have to.” Symmes was breathless. “You know. You—an explorer. You know I have no choice.”

And he was gone, into emptiness, a great silent
implosion that tore Moll and Jake into a rolling tumble of limbs, and made Venn cling to a chair as it was dragged across the floor.

The mirror rippled and closed behind Symmes.

Venn swore. He scrambled up. “Get that door closed!”

But Jake was too appalled to move. For a stricken moment his mind seemed as black as the glass; until Moll started dragging the chest of drawers across the door. “Don’t just stand there, Jake! Come on!”

He grabbed the furniture and hauled. Men were running up the stairs outside; a heavy fist pounded on the door. “Mr. Symmes! Sir?”

“Keep them out.” Venn stared at the mass of brass components in bewilderment. “What in hell’s name has he done to this?”

The door shuddered. The chest of drawers jerked, even with Moll sitting on it. “Come out of there! We are armed men, and if you resist, we’ll shoot.”

“Do something,” Jake muttered, his back braced against the barricade.

Venn grabbed the lever. With one firm jerk he put it into reverse.

The mirror spat. For a moment the whole room seemed to turn. And then it opened, like a black hole in the world’s heart.