Wormwood Gate (5 page)

The end credits started rolling to the tune of the ‘Marino Waltz', and the man with the eyebrows let out a long breath. ‘Good episode,' he said to himself, then he looked around, seeming to notice where he was for the first time. ‘Beg pardon,' he said to Julie, bowing slightly. He got up and turned the television off, and then bowed properly to her, and to Aisling, who was on the other side of the room, scrutinising the dresser. ‘Very pleased to meet you. How may we call you?'

‘I'm Julie,' said Julie, ‘and this is my – this is Aisling.'

The man with the moustache stood up, nodding, and bowed to them both. ‘Tis an honour, indeed. You can call me Jo Maxi. This telly addict here's called Prawo Jazdy. Mr Unpronounceable can introduce himself.'

The black man stood up, gave a bow that was by far the most graceful of the three, and said, ‘You can call me Abayomiolorunkoje. That means “People wanted to humiliate me, but God would not let them”.'

‘I see,' said Julie, though she didn't; not really.

‘I was rude, I know, but you must forgive,' said Prawo Jazdy, gesturing to the television. ‘Is only programme about this city. Is not very good, but is all we have.'

‘And he won't let us say a word while he's watching it,' said Jo Maxi, clapping Prawo Jazdy on the shoulder, ‘not even to introduce ourselves to a guest. So don't think we're always like that. Now, is there anything we can do for yous?'

‘Your name's not really Jo Maxi, is it?' said Aisling, as she sat down at the kitchen table.

The three men looked at each other with baffled expressions. ‘Of course not,' said Jo Maxi. ‘Sure, Aisling's not your real name either, is it?'

‘Of course it –'

‘What if it was?' said Julie, interrupting Aisling. ‘Is there some problem with using real names?'

The three men still looked baffled. Abayomiolorunkoje was the first to recover.

‘Names are powerful things,' he said. ‘There is magic in names. Give someone your true name and you give them power over you. Only the very powerful and the very foolish give out their true names to anyone who asks.'

No prizes for guessing which category we're in
, Julie thought grimly.

‘Well, anyway,' said Aisling, smiling sweetly, ‘maybe you can explain some things to us. We're new here, you see, and to be honest, we're finding this city a bit hard to understand.'

‘You are not only ones!' said Prawo Jazdy, sitting down at the other end of the table. ‘I've lived here five years now and I am still confused.'

Behind his back, Jo Maxi tapped his temple with a knowing expression aimed at Aisling, which prompted a disapproving look from Abayomiolorunkoje. For a disconcerting second, Julie thought there was something odd about his eyes, the way they glittered and refracted the light, almost like a fly's eyes.

‘What do yous want to know?' said Jo Maxi, sitting down next to Prawo Jazdy.

‘Well …' said Julie slowly.

‘The queen,' said Aisling. ‘We've heard that she's closed the gates and brought in a curfew. Why?'

Abayomiolorunkoje looked around the room fearfully, then sat down at the table on Jo Maxi's other side. Julie thought that made it look like Aisling was being interviewed for a job or interrogated by the police, and she didn't like that, so she walked over to the other end of the table and sat down next to her. Aisling gave her a brief grateful look before leaning forward towards the men and saying, ‘Well. Why? What's going on? Why is the city so quiet? Why is the queen shutting things down? Who is the queen, anyway?'

Jo Maxi took a deep breath. ‘This place has always had three queens – three queens for three castles, you see? The Queen-that-was, the Queen-that-is and the Queen-that-will-be. They turn and turn about and every one of them gets a go at being the Queen-that-is. The Queen-that-is dies, you see, and becomes the Queen-that-was, and the Queen-that-will-be becomes the Queen-that-is, and the Queen-that-was comes back to life and becomes the Queen-that-will-be, all in a circle. Do you follow me?'

‘Not really,' said Julie.

‘The queen is dead, long live the queen?' said Aisling.

‘Exactly,' said Jo Maxi. ‘It was a trick they played on Death when they were one person, to keep the City in decent hands. Split one life into three and play pass-the-parcel with the crown. Only nowadays … well, they had a small little difference of opinion that ended in one of the queens running away, one of them taking the throne, and one of them being locked up. All three of them alive at the one time.' He shuddered visibly. ‘It's not natural, so it's not! The Queen-that-was is hanging in a cage at the top of the Tower of Light, and there are worms crawling in her wounds and birds pecking at her flesh – but she can't die. The Queen-that-is won't
let
her die.'

‘If she were to die, the cycle would begin,' said Abayomiolorunkoje. ‘The Queen-that-is keeps her alive so that there will be no cycle any more, only one queen on the throne forever.'

‘That's horrible!' said Julie.

‘It is,' said Aisling, ‘but it doesn't explain the curfew.'

‘Will you let the priest say Mass?' said Jo Maxi, irritated. ‘I was getting to that bit!'

‘Sorry.'

‘Chiselers today have no patience. ‘N anyway, why they fought they never said. Not to the likes of us. But the gates were closed and the guards were raised against invaders and spies, so that was probably it.'

‘Invaders?' said Julie.

‘Is a pretext,' said Prawo Jazdy. ‘Is true the queen fears invaders, but she also wishes for no one to take the Queen-that-will-be out of the City. She wishes to capture the Queen-that-will-be, to imprison her like she imprisoned the Queen-that-was. That is why the curfew –'

‘Shh!' said Abayomiolorunkoje.

‘Walls have ears, you sap!' said Jo Maxi.

“I was not going to say her name!'

‘Don't even come close to saying it!' said Abayomiolorunkoje. ‘She can find those who talk about her!'

‘But I did not say her name! I am not stupid!'

‘Who are you talking about?' said Aisling.

All three men turned to look at her, and Julie did too, putting on her best pitying face. Aisling slapped her forehead. ‘Sorry. Stupid question. You can't talk about her. OK.'

‘Anyone the queen even thinks might be in league with the invaders, or with the Queen-that-will-be, or the Queen-that-was, or … your woman we can't talk about … gets grabbed by the guards,' said Jo Maxi. ‘The Tower's bursting with prisoners.'

‘What about the Wormwood Gate?' said Julie. ‘Is it really the only way out of the City? And if it is, how can we find it?'

The three men exchanged more wary glances. ‘Your woman would know,' said Jo Maxi. ‘She's good at finding things.'

‘She is also good at not being found,' said Abayomiolorunkoje. ‘No one even knows what forms she can take.'

‘There's one or two we know about – the dog and the butterfly –

‘But she has died at least eight times,' said Prawo Jazdy. ‘So what are six other forms? Nobody knows. She could be one of seagulls guarding the Queen-that-was.'

‘She wouldn't!' said Jo Maxi, scandalised. ‘She'd never – she made a
promise
.'

Julie leaned over and murmured to Aisling, ‘There was a horse when we came through the gate, wasn't there?'

Aisling nodded. ‘I'd forgotten, but you're right. It knocked us over, and then here we were. Well, not here, but, you know.
Here
.'

The men stopped their argument and stared at them.

‘What horse was this?' said Prawo Jazdy.

‘It was white, wasn't it?' said Julie, still looking at Aisling, who nodded. ‘With a red mane.'

The three men looked at each other in shock. ‘White, with a red mane – and it came through the Gate to mortal lands?' said Abayomiolorunkoje.

Julie tried to replay the scene in her mind. ‘Well …' she said hesitantly.

‘I think so,' said Aisling. ‘Though we weren't really paying attention. It had just knocked us over.'

Jo Maxi's face fell. ‘She can't. She wouldn't!'

‘She could come back,' said Abayomiolorunkoje.

‘But all the gates are closed,' said Prawo Jazdy.

‘Except the Wormwood Gate,' said Aisling. ‘And you said she was good at finding things.'

But Abayomiolorunkoje was shaking his head before she even finished the sentence. ‘The Wormwood Gate cannot be seen from the other side,' he said. ‘Even she … This is grave news,' he said, shaking his head sadly.

Jo nodded. ‘No point being careful now,' he said. He took a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wiped his forehead with it, then blew his nose with a trumpeting sound. ‘That horse was Molly Red, the Oathbreaker,' he said after he'd put the handkerchief away. ‘She used to work for the Queen of Crows and the Lord of Shadows. Then she worked for the Queen-that-was, and now …'

‘No,' said Prawo Jazdy, ‘no, no, no! She would not do that! Not Molly Red!'

‘She has only one life left,' said Jo Maxi, ‘and she's using it to escape the City and go to mortal lands. What else can it mean? She's left us behind. Molly Red has left us behind.'

Prawo Jazdy and Abayomiolorunkoje exchanged glum looks. ‘Then there is no hope,' said Prawo Jazdy.

‘No hope for us to get home?' said Julie, her heart sinking.

‘That too,' said Prawo Jazdy. ‘But I meant that there is no hope for the City. Without Molly Red, there is no one who will stand against the queen.'

3

Aisling had always liked the idea of travelling to a magical world, but the prospect of being stuck in one was less enticing, even if she was stuck there with Julie, who was easily the most attractive girl in their year and very good company when she wasn't in a bitchy mood. (Really, if she was honest with herself, she enjoyed Julie's company even when she was in full-on hyperbitch mode, which was probably evidence of masochistic tendencies or unhealthy attachment patterns or something.)

She listened to the three men talking for as long as she could stand it, trying to make sense of the situation they were all in. The conversation had revolved around Molly Red and somebody called the Lord of Shadows who they hated but were apparently obliged to be friendly to, and somebody called the Queen of Crows, who was definitely
not
the Queen of the City. (They had been positively offended at the question, which Aisling thought was a bit much. It seemed a reasonable thing to ask.) Her attention had wandered after her third futile attempt to get an explanation of who these people were and why they mattered. She could tell that all three of the men were pessimistic, Jo Maxi most of all, and that he in particular seemed to think that the City of the Three Castles had gone badly downhill lately and was doomed to destruction, but she got nowhere when she tried to figure out why he thought that. It was like watching a current affairs programme in a foreign country: the general shape of what was happening seemed to make sense to the people talking, but none of the details meant anything to her.

So she had taken out her phone and started fiddling with it. There was no reception, of course (wherever they were – and she didn't even have a theory about that – they were miles away from the nearest Vodafone tower), but more puzzling was the fact that the camera wasn't working. She could see a preview image if she held the lens up to the thing she wanted to photograph, but no matter what she did with the settings none of the pictures she took seemed to record.

She wanted to point this out to Julie and get her to experiment with her own phone, but Julie was writing in her notebook. Aisling leaned over to read what she had written and saw:

‘CITY OF THE THREE CASTLES

(city) (Realms Between [formerly Kingdom of Crows])'
and underneath that:

‘Ruled by three queens'

but that was crossed out, and underneath it she had written:

‘Ruled by a queen. Formerly ruled by a triumvirate of three queens serving in rotation.'

‘It should be “triumfeminate”,' Aisling murmured. ‘“Triumvirate” means “group of three men”, from
tres
meaning “three” and
vir
meaning “man”. You know, like in “virile”.'

Julie scowled, closed the notebook, and slapped her on the arm with it. ‘Nobody likes a hairsplitter,' she said. ‘Anyway, do you have any ideas? We can't stay here forever.'

Aisling turned to the men. ‘Excuse me,' she said, ‘would you mind telling me what hours the curfew applies?'

‘Sundown to sunup,' said Prawo Jazdy.

‘Prime taxi hours,' said Jo Maxi mournfully. ‘It's as if she's doing it to bankrupt me.'

‘Then we should stay inside tonight, to avoid the guards,' said Aisling. ‘The head of the house said we could.'

‘I'm getting sleepy,' said Julie. ‘Do you … are there, like, spare rooms? Or a sofa or something?'

Abayomiolorunkoje stood up. ‘Forgive our rudeness. Of course you must be tired. I will show you to the spare rooms.'

He picked up two candlesticks and lit the candles from the fire, then indicated with a jerk of his head that they should follow him. Aisling went first, looking around the kitchen as she left to fix its image in her mind. It wasn't what she'd imagined a kitchen in a magical land would look like, and that seemed important, somehow, because it meant it was more likely to be real. She would never have dreamed up anything as unremarkable as this.

Her room was dark and old-fashioned, with a four-poster bed and a huge chest of drawers in old mahogany. She took one of the candlesticks from Abayomiolorunkoje with a smile and a nod, and he nodded back and wished her a good night before escorting Julie to a different room.

Aisling set the candlestick on the bedside table and flopped down on the bed, lying the wrong way across it, on top of the covers. She was much too excited to sleep, but she was glad of the excuse to be alone. She did her best thinking alone.

Merhorses. Three massive fires. Jo Maxi and Prawo Jazdy. It was all familiar, though some of it was so distantly familiar that she wasn't sure she'd ever figure out where she'd heard or seen it before. It was plain to her that the City of the Three Castles was a half-place, a between-place, the kind of place she would describe as ‘liminal' if she thought anyone would understand what she meant. It wasn't quite real in its own right. It was made out of images and fragmentary memories, and there was no way of knowing what logic it was ruled by. Dream logic, probably, the kind of logic where a gate could be visible on one side only, and a queen could be three people and one person at the same time, and a woman could turn into a horse.

She stood up abruptly, grabbed the candlestick and strode out of the room. She needed –
they
needed– a lot more information if they were going to find a way back to Dublin without being turned into squid because they mispronounced somebody's name.

At the door of the kitchen, she hesitated. She could hear the men talking, their voices raised in – excitement? Anger? She pinched the candleflame to snuff it and leaned in, listening carefully.

‘… the game's worth the candle, but only if we get them both,' Jo Maxi was saying.

‘We will have to wait for dawn and curfew's end,' said Prawo Jazdy. ‘No use to bring intruders to the Tower if the guards will arrest us for breaking curfew.'

‘I am not sure about this,' said Abayomiolorunkoje. ‘Is this really a good idea?'

‘What else can we do?' said Jo Maxi, and there was a silence that seemed to weigh on them all, like the air pressure before a storm. Aisling held her breath.

‘Will it save us?' Abayomiolorunkoje said quietly.

‘It'll prove our loyalty to the queen,' said Jo Maxi. ‘We can name our own reward – we can ask for a gate to be opened just long enough that we can leave.'

‘Abandon the City?' said Prawo Jazdy.

‘Don't be getting all sentimental on me, now. Sure, you're not even from here!'

‘Jo Maxi is right,' said Abayomiolorunkoje. ‘The City will not last long if the queen does not fall, and now that Molly Red has gone, there is not much hope that she will. It is best to escape while we can.'

‘Then we are agreed,' said Prawo Jazdy. ‘We wait until dawn, and then we take the mortal girls to the Tower of Light.'

That was all Aisling needed to hear. Heart pounding, she inched away from the door, moving as slowly and gradually as possible so that her boots wouldn't creak and give her position away. She inched her way up the stairs too, for they were made of old wood and creaked even more than her boots.

When she got to Julie's room, she opened the door quietly, and when she saw the candle still lit and Julie sitting up in bed, she raised a finger to her lips and said ‘Sh!' and crept over towards her.

‘What are you doing here?' Julie whispered.

‘Put your shoes on,' Aisling replied, also whispering. ‘We have to get out of here. I overheard those three guys talking about what they should do about us. Apparently there's a bounty available for anyone who brings intruders to the queen. They're going to hand us over and collect the reward.'

Julie blinked and rubbed her forehead. ‘But they seemed so nice.'

‘Yeah, well … nice is different than good,' Aisling said. ‘Anyway, it doesn't matter. We have to leave before dawn or they'll take us to the queen, and then we'll be trapped for real.'

‘All right. Give me a second.'

Aisling nodded and looked around the room while Julie put her shoes on and tied back her hair. Aisling wasn't sure she wanted to risk going down the stairs, past the door of the kitchen where the men were probably still planning how best to kidnap the two of them. She sized up the window. If the sash worked properly, it should be big enough.

She shoved it upwards. It rose smoothly and stayed open. ‘Perfect,' she said to herself and gestured welcomingly to Julie. ‘After you.'

Julie gave her a baleful look but stuck her head out the window anyway. ‘How far down is it, do you think?'

Aisling stuck her head out beside Julie's and looked down. The windowsill was wide and sturdy, and the wall was well-supplied with drainpipes and Virginia creeper. Getting down would be easy.

Easy means predictable
, said a little voice in her head.
Predictable means easily caught
.

‘We're not going down,' she said. ‘We're going up.'

Julie looked at her like she'd grown a second head. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘It's dry out, and pretty warm too, so we don't need to shelter from the weather, but we do need to shelter from the queen's guards. Don't you reckon we'll be better hidden on the roof than on the ground?'

Julie smiled, and Aisling felt her stomach wobble.

‘Lateral thinking,' said Julie. ‘I like it! But will you be able to climb with those boots of yours?'

‘I hadn't thought of that. Do you think you can carry them over your shoulder, if I knot the laces together?'

‘They're huge … I suppose so. Take them off, then.'

Now it was Aisling's turn to fiddle with her footwear. While Julie waited, she bounced up and down or back and forth on her feet, humming or singing to herself as if she had too much energy to stay still. She had always been like that, as long as Aisling had known her.

When the laces and buckles and Velcro were all undone, Aisling handed the boots over to Julie, who tied the laces together in a strong knot and balanced them over her right shoulder with all the care of a milkmaid balancing a pail on a yoke.

‘Well,' Julie said, ‘here goes nothing,' and she climbed out onto the windowsill and started ascending the wall.

She made it look … not easy, exactly, but doable, not much harder than vaulting the fence of Stephen's Green, which Aisling had done more than once. Aisling considered calling out to her to say ‘I'm watching out for you' or ‘Are you OK?', but thought better of it. Best not to break her concentration. It was a long way down to the street below, and Aisling wasn't sure she'd be able to catch Julie if she fell.

Julie made it to the sill of the window above, and there she stopped. ‘Come up now,' she said, a little breathless. ‘It's easy.'

‘Easy for you,' Aisling muttered, too low for Julie to hear, then called up, ‘All right.'

She set her hands on the farthest edge of the windowsill and half-climbed, half-pulled herself out onto it, perching on the sill and steadying herself with both hands leaning on the windowpane. Looking up, she tried to remember what Julie had done, tried to picture herself doing it, made compensations and adjustments in her head (she was bigger than Julie and wearing socks and a long coat). When she noticed Julie shuffling impatiently on the sill above, she realised she was overthinking it and stood straight up, reaching for the top edge of the window with one hand and a nearby drainpipe with another, and dragging herself up to a big clump of creeper that looked old enough and thick enough to carry her weight.

Once she'd pulled her feet off the sill, she heard Julie calling to her in a low voice, ‘Are you OK?'

‘Fine,' she called back quietly, but not so quietly that Julie wouldn't hear her. ‘Let me concentrate. I'm not good at this kind of thing.'

‘Fair enough,' Julie replied, and then there was a silence which gave Aisling time to stare at the creeper, seeking out the places where the tendrils forked and combined, where they looked solidly connected to the wall. Slowly but surely, she made her way up, seeking out two new footholds before she moved to the next: a hole in the brickwork here, a brace on the wall there, and then the windowsill on the floor above Julie's bedroom. Carefully, carefully, she inched her way sideways, her heart quivering and thumping every time she shifted her hand from one hold to a new one. Finally, she put one foot on the windowsill, then the other, and she was at last able to crouch down and take a deep breath.

‘You make this look so easy,' she panted, and she had meant it as a compliment, but it came out sounding like an accusation.
I keep doing that
, she thought with some irritation,
and it is not helping
.

But Julie smiled. ‘There are so many jokes I could make right now, but I'm going to be the better person and not make any of them. Aren't you grateful?'

‘Yes. Yes, my heart is overflowing.'

Julie chuckled. ‘I'm going up. One more storey and we're on the roof, and then we can – GAH!'

Aisling shrieked at the same time as Julie, for the window behind them had opened. Aisling twisted her neck round, her heart pounding in her throat, and exhaled sharply when she saw who it was: not one of the three men, but the wizened old face (she couldn't tell if it was male or female) that had opened the door for them.

She shifted around to face it properly and her stomach lurched: it was just a face, or perhaps a head, with a shock of white hair with one red streak, floating in the air with no body attached. ‘What are yous two up to?' said the face.

‘Um,' said Julie, her face completely blank.

‘Er,' said Aisling, her mind racing to come up with an excuse.

‘Are yous trying to get out of paying the rent?' the face went on, ‘because I wouldn't advise that. No, I wouldn't advise that at all.'

‘We're not –'