The Slanted Worlds

by Catherine Fisher

  The bleak anger in him, the cold fury, was so clear she was almost afraid to speak.

  For a moment the only sound was the car’s tires, slurring down the muddy track; then she pressed the button that lowered the window, and smelled the twilight, rich loamy scents of the fields, the wet decay of the Wood.

  “Next morning, about five, a shout woke me. I stumbled over to the window and looked down. Venn was there. He’d thrown the main doors open; he was standing on the top of the steps. It was pouring with rain, and a wind was gusting, but he ignored it. He just stood there, Sarah, a little drunk maybe, and he called her. He yelled ‘Come to me, Summer. I need you. Are you listening, you witch!’”

  Sarah shivered. “He must be totally desperate.”

  “Or insane.”

  “Did she come?”

  “No one came. But they heard him. All the birds of the Wood rose up, starlings and crows and jackdaws, karking and laughing and flapping around the trees. They all streamed off westward. Then Piers came out with an umbrella and he and Venn had one great unholy row. I got out the car and left to find you at once. I just pray we’re in . . .”

  His voice faded into dismayed silence. The car stopped.

  “. . . time,” he said.

  The gates were wide open. Over the familiar lions on the pillars, ivy had grown. Sarah felt the seed of dread inside her grow to certainty.

  Wharton blasted the horn, twice. “Hang on!”

  The drive had always been overgrown. Now, Sarah thought, it was if the trees had taken a step forward, threatening, closing in. Beneath the faint light from the stars, the Wood seemed darker and denser than before, all shadow and gnarled, silent thickets.

  An owl hooted, somewhere close.

  She shivered. It was like coming back into a trap waiting to spring and catch her, the snare of Venn’s obsession. And it scared her, because if she fell into it—if just for a moment she allowed herself to feel sorry for him, allowed her resolution to waver—the world she had known, far in the future, would be destroyed, and all her life with it.

  The car struggled up the drive, jolted around the fallen tree, slurred swiftly over the gravel, and stopped. She looked up at the gray mullioned façade of the Abbey. It was in darkness. No lights showed.

  “We’re too late.” Wharton was already out and racing toward the building. Sarah ran after him; she overtook him and leaped up the steps. The front door was solidly locked.

  She rang the bell, then banged furiously with her fists. “Piers! Venn!”

  The house stood as dark and silent as a mansion in a dream.

  Wharton scowled. “Kitchen door.”

  They fled around the dark building, through shrubbery and toward the stables; then she stopped so suddenly he cannoned into her.

  “Listen!”

  A soft creaking sound drifted in the dark breeze. It made the hairs on his neck stir, because it was so alien. He had no idea what it was. A body hanging from a twisting rope? The wheels of a ghostly carriage passing in the night?

  “The lake.” Sarah was already running, so fast he couldn’t keep up.

  “Sarah! Wait!” He hurried after her. The Wood was black; he stumbled over briars and brambles, almost pitched into a sudden ditch. Then he shoved his way through bracken out into a dark path tangled with sprouting fungi, the smell foul.

  “Sarah!”

  Hurtling after her, he came out on the lakeside.

  Quite suddenly, as if they had all been lit at that moment, he was blinded by lanterns. They hung from the trees, floated on the water. Some seemed to be carried in the air like small moving stars. And their colors were the most gorgeous he had ever seen—turquoise and orange and emerald, each jewel-bright flame blurring and blending into another. Underfoot, as he hurried down to where Sarah was, he sank ankle-deep in a soft drift that he realized was petals; the heaped petals of a million roses, scattered with the abandon of a wedding. The scent of their clotted richness was so overwhelming that it made him gasp in a stifled breath—the perfume of summer in the coldest of spring nights.

  He stopped beside Sarah. “This is trouble.”

  “Yes.” Her voice was hard. “Look.”

  Venn stood at the edge of the lake, where the bank crumbled. He stood tall, his spare figure silhouetted against the moon. Coming toward him over the dark water was a small boat rowed by four of the Shee, canopied with silk, hung with lanterns, the oars creaking. Seated in it was a young woman, her hair short and black, crowned with flowers. She wore a long white dress, simple as a nightgown, that trailed out behind her in the dark water. Her face was Summer’s and her red-lipped smile was sweetly triumphant.

  The boat touched the bank. The faery woman stood, rocking slightly, and gathered up her dress. She held out one long white hand. Venn seemed to hesitate.

  Then he stepped forward. Their fingers reached for each other.

  “NO!”

  The yell of fury broke from Sarah before she could think; she ran down and grabbed Venn’s arm, forcing it down, physically pulling him away. “What are you thinking? Are you mad? Have you forgotten about Leah? About Leah, Venn!”

  Astonished, he stared at her. “Sarah. You came back.”

  “And only just in time. How could you betray—”

  “I don’t betray her. I do this to save her.”

  He had lost weight. His face was gaunt, his eyes colder and bluer in their pain. There was a terrible blindness in them. His hand was a weight in hers.

  She dropped it, stood back.

  “That’s not what she thinks.”

  Summer stood smiling, unmoving. And then in a bewildering instant she was on the bank between them, close to him, and her voice was girlish as she laughed.

  “Since when do you listen to children, Venn?”

  “I don’t.” But his gaze was dark.

  “You will!” Sarah wanted to push Summer aside but dared not touch her. Instead she walked around her and faced Venn again. “Yes, I’m back. I’m back to work with you on the mirror. To find Jake, get the bracelet, bring back Leah. That’s what you want, and that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Sarah, you can’t . . .”

  “You have no idea what I can do! What I know. Maybe I have ways, Venn. Maybe I know things from the future you can’t even guess at.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m saying nothing in front of her. Get rid of her. Do you seriously think you can ever trust her? You told me yourself . . .”

  “I have no choice.” It was a whisper of defeat. It infuriated her.

  “You do! I’ve been busy, researching. I’ve found Mortimer Dee’s page—it may tell us how he built the mirror, all the secrets he knew about it. You can have it! Use it. You don’t need this dark magic. This danger.”

  Summer sighed. A breath of breeze rippled the trees. The Wood seemed to stir with hidden unease.

  “Oberon . . .” she said.

  He ignored her. “How can I believe you, Sarah? You want the mirror broken.”

  “Yes. But not yet. That’s why I’m back. To get Leah. Remember what I told you. She’s my great-grandmother. If we fail, I’ll never have been born.”

  For a moment he stared at her with those ice-blue eyes, a shared intensity, an instant of consideration. Wind lifted his blond hair, flapped the collar of her coat.

  Summer snapped the silence like a twig. “She’s quite obviously lying. She’ll do anything to get her way. Come with me, Oberon. I’ll send my people through the Summerland to find Jake. It will be too easy.”

  He was silent.

  “Don’t ignore me.” Her voice had the tiniest edge of frost.

  Sarah’s gaze was steady.

  Venn looked down. Then, abruptly, he turned away. “I’ve changed my mind, Summer. You always ask too much. She’s right. I’ll do it without you.”r />
  The faery woman’s pretty face did not flicker; her red lips made no pout. But at once, and from all sides, a gust of wind lifted the petals and scattered them high into the darkness like clouds of dark ash.

  Sarah backed off. Wharton, close behind her, felt the sudden slanting chill of rain on his face.

  Summer stood barefoot on the soaking grass. Behind her the boat shriveled. Its flags became cobwebs, its canopy shredded to rags; the four boatmen lifted their arms and flew away, starling-dark, into the stormy sky.

  “Oh Venn,” she whispered. “I will destroy your house for this.”

  Venn pushed Sarah toward Wharton. “Get back inside. Now.”

  She couldn’t move. She stood mesmerized, like a mouse before a swooping predator.

  Because Summer was transforming.

  As they stared, her eyes darkened, widened, her pale dress shivered into feathers. She fragmented, fell to pieces, her fingers curled to talons, her small red mouth warped into the cruel hooked beak of an owl.

  “Move!” Venn yelled. He grabbed Sarah, forced her away. “Run!”

  The Wood was alive with crawling shadow. Tree-shapes stirred. A cascade of bats clattered up across the moon.

  The wind screamed.

  Sarah tore her gaze from the dissolving woman and fled, running blind into the darkness, Wharton puffing beside her.

  Venn came last. Glancing back she saw he too was looking over his shoulder; between the trees the lakeside was ablaze, as if all the lanterns had flared into a great conflagration. Lightning, swift as a silver dagger, stabbed from the sky.

  A branch above her cracked like a pistol shot; leaves and foliage crashed.

  Wharton’s hand grabbed hers. “This way!”

  Flying leaves blinded her. Then, far over the darkened countryside, thunder came, a low, angry, incredibly sinister rumble that seemed to shake the Wood and the landscape even to the horizon.

  “She’ll kill us,” she gasped.

  A snort behind her. She realized it was Venn’s bitter laugh. “Not yet.”

  They floundered through the undergrowth and out onto the black lawns. As suddenly as if all its switches had been pushed at once, the Abbey burst into light, windows blazing, its door wide open, a small figure in a white lab coat hovering anxiously on the threshold.

  Even as Sarah ran for the steps, the rain crashed down, a deluge that soaked her in seconds, plastered her hair flat, streamed in her eyes and down her neck.

  She scrambled up the wet stones, her hand slipping from Wharton’s, and stumbled into the black-and-white tiled hall.

  Breathless, she crouched on the floor.

  Wharton was bent double, gasping. Venn crashed in last; the wind gave a wild screech, snatched the door from his grip and slammed it in his face. Breathing hard, he shot home the bolts, top and bottom.

  “Do your worst, Summer!” he yelled.

  Outside, like a scornful answer, the thunder roared again.

  Piers, wearing a wine-red waistcoat under his lab coat, stood gripping his hands together. Venn turned on him. “Where were you? What sort of coward are you?”

  “She terrifies me.” Piers shrugged. “Sorry. Sorry. But there was no way . . .”

  “Shut up.” Venn swung on Sarah. “If you weren’t telling me the truth . . . If I’ve just lost my only chance . . .”

  “Relax.” She stood, wearily, pushing her wet hair back. “Like I told you, we don’t need her. I’ve got Dee’s page. Well, photos of it.”

  “And,” a low voice said from behind them, “you’ve got me.”

  Gideon sat, knees up on the stairs. He wore the green patchwork clothes of the Shee, and his eyes glinted with their alien brightness. But his ivory-pale skin was human, and his voice was full of scorn.

  “If you want Jake found, let me find him. I’ll go into the Summerland for you. And out the other side, into wherever he is.”

  Venn stared at him, intent. “If Summer knew, she’d destroy you.”

  Gideon looked at Sarah. “Let her. It would be a relief.”

  “What would?” she asked.

  He shrugged and leaned back, and she saw his bitterness was so deep now it burned him.

  “Death,” he said.

  5

  Tonight I try again. I have the table set out, and the cards, and the board. I have the mysteries of the tarot and the scrying ball. I have my father’s black mirror propped near the window.

  One of these things must have engendered the power, the thrilling, quivering power. After all these years, to see a spirit! Right there, Jane, in my room!

  No one will laugh at me now. The ladies of the League for Psychic Research will no longer titter into their handkerchiefs. Oh my dear Jane, my spirit guide even told me his name!

  It is David!

  Letter of Alicia Harcourt Symmes to Jane Hartfield

  “SIT DOWN.”

  The interview room held one chair, a stool, a table.

  Jake perched warily on the stool.

  The night in the cells had been a living hell of noise, fear, and hunger. He was sore from the straw mattress, itching from fleas, and had a bloody lip from stupidly yelling at a drunk to be quiet.

  All he wanted was some hot food and a bed.

  Instead he had to keep his wits alert.

  Inspector Allenby sat on the chair, a lean man in his neat gray suit. He said nothing. Instead, in an ominous silence, he took out from his pocket the small wallet they had found on Jake when they searched him. Opening it, he laid the contents out deliberately, one by one, on the table.

  Jake watched, trying to look unconcerned.

  A comb. Wooden, not plastic.

  A purse of money. Safely pre-decimal.

  The med kit. Tablets, a small glass syringe.

  “What are these?” Allenby’s nicotined fingers separated the painkillers and antibiotics.

  Jake shrugged. “My aunt’s prescription. Some stuff for her heart.”

  “I see. And this?” Allenby looked up.

  The gun.

  Jake’s heart sank.

  It was a lady’s tiny pearl-handled pistol from about the 1850s. Piers had found it somewhere in the Abbey’s storerooms, brought it down, cleaned it, loaded it. It looked ridiculous but it was deadly, because Wharton had insisted on him bringing a weapon. Jake sat back, silently cursing Wharton to hell.

  “Just an antique.”

  “Illegal.”

  Jake shrugged. “There’s a war on. My aunt wanted it. In case.”

  “In case of what? Nazi parachutists breaking into her house?”

  “I don’t know! The blackout. Burglars. Whatever. She was old . . . nervous. She got scared.”

  Allenby took out a cigarette and lit it. Shaking the match out, he said, “Tell me about your . . . aunt.”

  Jake didn’t miss the hesitation. With a feeling he was digging himself into a deeper hole, he dragged up the snippets of information he had glimpsed in the suitcase of documents.

  “Well, her name is . . . was Alicia Harcourt Symmes. She lived . . .”

  “I know where she lived. I also know she was an elderly woman of seventy-two and unmarried and an only child. What I don’t know is how she suddenly acquired a loving nephew.”

  Jake was silent.

  Allenby leaned forward, curious. “In fact, you really puzzle me, Jake. There’s something . . . foreign about you. Something alien. And here we are in the middle of a war.”

  He slid the cell phone across the table. “What is this?”

  Jake was sweating. “I don’t know. I found it.”

  “Found it?”

  “On a bomb site.”

  “Remarkably undamaged. What is it made of?”

  “Bakelite?”

  “What does it do?”

  He
kept his voice light. “Absolutely nothing, as far as I can see.” Which was perfectly true.

  Allenby sat back. He stared at the phone, down where it lay on the table between them. Tapping the cigarette on an ashtray full of butts, he said, “Shall I tell you what I think? Shall I cut to the chase?”

  Jake shrugged. It was better to say nothing at all.

  “We know what Alicia Symmes was. To all the neighborhood she seemed a dotty old lady who read tea leaves and held séances. Eccentric, well-off, harmless. Middle England in person. Lace handkerchiefs, tea with the vicar, no one you would ever suspect of anything. And yet we had a tip-off that she was the spider in the heart of a spy ring that maybe goes all the way up to the German Secret Police—to the SS itself.”

  Jake stared. He felt a terrible cold chill down his spine. “Now wait a minute . . .”

  “Three days ago she realized we were onto her. One of our watchers got too close, maybe. Maybe the spirits told her. She packed a suitcase and went to St. Pancras. We were following, all ready to close in. Maybe she knew that too, because she didn’t get on any train. She put the suitcase in the left luggage office and then went and had a cup of tea at the station buffet. She chatted, knitted, read the newspapers. The bloody infuriating old biddy wasted a whole afternoon of my men’s time. And then she went home for tea.”

  Amused, he stubbed the cigarette out. “I have to say I had a sneaking admiration for her.”

  Jake shook his head. “I don’t get it. You’re the police. Why not get the suitcase out . . .”

  “Oh, we did. We examined everything in there.”

  “So you saw. It’s just family stuff. Papers. A roll of film . . .”

  Allenby shook his head. “The film is too fragile to be playable. Those papers must be in some sort of code. Names, dates, operations. Maybe she wasn’t doing anything herself. But she was the center, the contact. We’ve known for some time that important information was being passed, from the offices of the Cabinet. So we slipped in some disinformation.”

  “What?”

  “False stuff. Just to see. It got through all right. So we checked for any connections between the ten people who had known of it—ministers, secretaries. Their wives. Turns out six of their wives regularly attended dear old Alicia’s séances.” He smiled, bleak. “What better cover? We posted watchers. We found that all sorts of people came to her house every week: civil servants, army wives, members of Parliament. What messages were passed, what information changed hands there, under the tilting table, in the fake voices of spirits?” He laughed. “She was a charlatan, they all are. But worse, she was a traitor.”