by H. G. Parry
I remembered the bank robbery too. The perpetrators, as Dorian had said, disappeared into thin air.
“Somebody’s taking them out of their books and putting them back in,” Charley said.
“Exactly,” Dorian said. He turned to look at us. Once again, I felt that peculiar wash of vertigo as his blue eyes caught mine, and looked away quickly. “Shortly after I noticed this pattern, the Street began to shift.”
“As it just did then,” Charley said.
“Exactly. Small tremors at first—rather like being on a fault line, in fact. Usually in the evening or the middle of the night. Small things began to change: the shape of a window, the color of a wall. Then we had a big one, at midnight, roughly two months ago. The Street heaved like a fish on the end of a line. It was most inconvenient for those with small ornaments or nervous dispositions. When the movement settled, the Street had grown.”
Charley frowned. “Grown?”
“The Street ran for about a quarter mile, before,” Millie said. “It stretches down that way until it hits another wall, this one impenetrable. The boundary moved farther away. We gained another hundred yards after that shift: some new houses and shops, and more road. I’ve been to have a look at the buildings, and they’re perfectly habitable. Nobody will go near them, of course. Since then, the shifts have been getting more frequent, and each time the Street’s grown or changed around us. It scares the living daylights out of everybody. Present company excepted, I’m sure.”
“I don’t really do living or daylight,” Dorian said. “I’m a Gothic masterpiece.”
“You think the Street’s being shifted by this mysterious person, don’t you?” Charley asked. “The same person who reads these people in and out. You think he’s trying to read the Street away.”
“Do you?” Millie asked.
Charley hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. This summoner, or whatever he is, must be involved somehow, or it’s too great a coincidence. But the Street grows; it doesn’t shrink, or give any indication it’s about to disappear. I just wonder if he’s trying to do something else entirely.”
Millie nodded thoughtfully. “Well, whatever it is, he’s dangerous. Anyone that can change the Street can change us as well—we’re just as fictional. And everyone out there knows it.”
“Now,” Dorian said abruptly. “I’ve told you who we’re looking for. Who are you?”
“Does it matter?” I asked, instantly on guard.
Dorian shrugged “What doesn’t matter is whether or not you tell me. Millie gave me your first names, I can guess your approximate ages by looking at you, and I assume you’re from around these parts. With that, I can find out who you are, and from that I can probably gauge your purpose in coming here. I do know you’re not literary characters. I would have seen you online first. I’m a practiced blackmailer, sir. It’s usually easier just to tell me what I wish to know.”
“Easier for whom?”
“Well, for me, primarily. But it will be difficult for you either way, so it may as well be easy for somebody.”
“I’m Charles Sutherland,” Charley said. He doesn’t believe in nonacademic arguments. “And someone tried to kill me with the Hound of the Baskervilles last night.”
I don’t think Dorian Gray is the sort to look surprised, but one perfect eyebrow raised. “Of course,” he said. “Dr. Charles Sutherland of the Prince Albert University English department. I should have recognized your photo.”
Charley is the sort to look surprised, when the occasion calls for it, and it did. “You know me?”
“I know all the staff of the English department, and a few other relevant people. Millie has had me watching that building for two years, but never saw fit to tell me on whom my attentions were focused. Something was going on, clearly. Disturbances at night. Figures seen at windows who disappear when the tireless security forces tromp up the stairs to investigate. That sword, a week ago—that was interesting.”
“Charley!” I turned to him. “You said you’d clean that up.”
“Security got there first,” he said. “It was nothing—they weren’t to know it was Excalibur. They just put it down to students playing pranks. I think it’s still in the storage closet. Have you been watching me?” he added, looking at Millie.
“Afraid so, old thing,” she said, wincing. “Or at least, I’ve had Dorian do so. Just to see if there were any disturbances. Do you mind?”
“I—no,” he said uncertainly. “No, I suppose not. As long as you haven’t been watching my house.”
“If we had,” Dorian said, “we would have seen the Hound of the Baskervilles. What did it look like?”
“Absolute evil,” Charley said.
“Glorious. We should all strive to be the absolute version of something.”
I looked out the crooked window at the Street below. I could see the far wall Millie had spoken of in the distance, and the buildings in front of it quiet and abandoned. I imagined them rising from the ground like a fish from the sea.
“So Uriah Heep was right,” I said. I forgot, for a moment, that Dorian Gray should probably not hear about Uriah Heep. “Something is coming.”
“It looks like it,” Charley agreed.
“Are you referring to the new world?” Dorian asked. For the first time, he sounded genuinely curious instead of mockingly so.
“You’ve heard about a new world too?” Charley asked.
“There have been rumors drifting around for a year or so now,” Dorian said. “They’re not terribly specific, or easy to trace. They simply say that a new world is about to come. A world for us, and those like us. Some characters—Heathcliff, for one—claim to simply know, which is admirable in its lack of specificity but not terribly useful.”
“Heathcliff isn’t much on specificity,” Millie said. “If he wants a boiled egg, he’ll hint darkly at the metaphorical properties of chickens, and rage at the body’s need for sustenance despite the ravages of the soul.”
“Darcy Three heard the rumor from a character he’d never seen before, who he thought was Scrooge,” Dorian reminded her. “But he, mysteriously, couldn’t be found and has never been seen since. And so forth. Perhaps it’s best not to meddle. A new world may be no bad thing.”
“We have enough trouble to be getting on with in the old one, as far as I’m concerned,” Mille said. “And I don’t like the Street growing or characters fluttering in and out of reality without a good solid explanation.”
“You don’t like anything without a good solid explanation,” Dorian said. He might almost have said it fondly.
“No, I don’t. Especially not whispers of something coming that we don’t understand, and as far as I can see aren’t meant to.”
Charley and I looked at each other. I didn’t mention Uriah Heep this time, but I knew we were both thinking of him.
Millie was, too, it seemed. When we were out of the house, before we went back through the crack in the wall that would return us to reality, she touched Charley’s shoulder lightly and lowered her voice. I leaned in to listen as well, even though I wasn’t sure I was invited.
“Listen,” she said. “Could you bring Uriah Heep back? Out of his book again?”
“Of course,” Charley said, startled into being decisive for once. “Why?”
“I’d rather like to talk to him. If I come to your house, say tomorrow morning at half past eight…?”
“You want me to read him out of his book again?” Charley gave me a quick, questioning glance; I shook my head firmly.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. He was bad enough the first time.”
“I’m sure he was frightful,” Millie said. “But we could be prepared this time. I just think—you realize how he knew what was happening, don’t you?”
“I assume it has something to do with the other Uriah Heep, at Rob’s work.”
“I rather think so too. The Darcys can read each other’s minds. Not completely, but in glimpses
—they always know where the others are, and what they’re seeing or feeling. Drives them completely mad at times, as you’d imagine. I think your Uriah Heep was picking up on Rob’s.”
“And you think if I summon him again, he’ll be able to tell us more,” Charley said slowly. “But what if he doesn’t want to?”
“We’ll see,” she said.
It felt better going back the other way. I think I could probably have done it without Charley’s help: the real world felt as though it were welcoming me back. I still held on to his shoulder tightly.
We were very quiet as we walked back to Charley’s parking space. I had been planning to take a bus home, but I was beginning to wonder if I really needed to walk for a while to clear my head. There was a lot to clear.
“You’re not really going to summon Uriah Heep again, are you?” I asked, after a while.
“I think so,” Charley said. “It makes sense. Will you come too?” he added hesitantly. “When Millie comes around tomorrow. I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course,” I said, with some surprise. “Did you think I wasn’t?”
“I wasn’t sure,” he said. The relief on his face was a little too strong for that, though.
“You’ve forgotten something. It’s the second Saturday of the month tomorrow. We’re going to Mum and Dad’s for lunch.”
He had indeed forgotten, even though it happened every month. “Oh, bother,” he sighed. “Still… Millie’s coming early, isn’t she? There’s probably enough time. And we can decide what to tell them later.”
“They’ll want to put a stop to you visiting fictional streets.”
“They can’t, really. I mean, I’m an adult. I don’t need their approval.” He didn’t sound very sure of any of those things.
We reached the death trap, which had been blown over on its side. Charley hauled it upright. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Make sure you buy milk.” I hesitated. “Charley?”
He turned to look at me, inquiring, his helmet not yet over his head.
“Doesn’t this, well… freak you out?”
Charley considered the question carefully, turning it over as though I’d asked him about the finer points of postmodernism.
“No,” he said. “I understand why you’re asking, but… it doesn’t. School camp freaked me out. Leaving for Oxford freaked me out. This feels fine. Is that strange?”
For the life of me, I had no idea how to answer.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
Charles Sutherland, age ten
Extract from diary (green and yellow stripes on cover)
Today was my first day of high school, and it was not as expected.
I thought people would want to learn in high school. Perhaps that was naive. It was naive. I’ve read enough books about high school to know better. In the future, I need to ask myself where my thoughts come from, and my feelings, too, so I’ll know in advance that they might not work out.
They don’t really want to learn here. Or I think they do, but they have no time to learn what’s being taught. They’re busy trying to learn themselves. That’s probably why they didn’t talk to me. They have their own complicated landscapes, and I don’t fit.
Rob fits. I watched him in history, which we have together, and he knows just how to talk and laugh and be effortlessly smart but not attract attention. The trouble is, he won’t talk to me either. At lunch I tried to follow him, and he waved me over to the Year Nine boys instead. I don’t know if I’m considered a Year Nine, and neither did they. When I walked over to them, they stared at me, and I heard them whispering something about the genius kid. They asked me questions, and laughed when I told them the answers, and one of them became embarrassed when I corrected him, and tripped me up when I tried to walk away. It didn’t hurt much, but I landed on my wrist wrong when I fell, and my new watch broke. The others became angry at the boy who tripped me then, and some of them tried to help me up. If I’d stayed, things might have gone better after that, but I couldn’t stay any longer, because I would have started to cry. I went away instead, and read my book down by the bike sheds until I got deep enough that nothing could reach me, but not so deep that I brought anyone out. I’d promised Mum I wouldn’t.
I learned I was embarrassing to Rob. That’s why he never lets me hang out with him and his friends. I was naive not to realize that too. It’s such a simple word.
I wish my hair hadn’t been cut. I feel too visible. I’d never thought about being visible or invisible before, but I think I want to be invisible for a bit now. Metaphorically. Not like H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man. Though I suppose that could be a metaphor too. I’ll have to think about it.
Yours,
Charles Sutherland
PS I just realized that The Invisible Man is a retelling of Plato’s ring of Gyges, which is really obvious and fits perfectly and I really need to reread it. But not right now, because Griffin is hell to catch if he comes out, for obvious reasons.
PPS I don’t usually say words like “hell.”
XI
It turned out I was the only one of the three of us who had not read David Copperfield. I’d held out a faint hope that perhaps Millie hadn’t, so for once I wouldn’t be the only one consulting Wikipedia at the last minute. But apparently you don’t live on a Dickensian street without giving yourself a thorough grounding in the classics.
“I would think you’d read all of Dickens in self-defense,” she said to me. “When your brother is a Dickens scholar with a tendency to bring his reading material out of books.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I never had time,” I said, which wasn’t really true. I always meant to read Dickens. But every time I set my eyes to the pages, I felt that I was getting deeper into Charley’s world, and I didn’t like how vulnerable I felt there. I didn’t like it now.
Besides, he could bring anything or anyone out from any book ever written. What was I supposed to do? Read them all?
We were sitting on the couch in Charley’s flat, waiting for him to dig out David Copperfield from his room and come downstairs. When we had arrived, he came running to let us in the door—or rather, the lack of a door. A tablecloth hung over the doorway, like an inept curtain. The door itself was propped against the wall inside after the battle with the Hound.
“Charley,” I had said—very calmly, under the circumstances. “What is that dog doing there?”
Charley glanced down at the enormous dog beside him. It was very large, and very black. I remembered it well, though it was less terrifying standing placidly on the doorstep than trying to break through a wall.
“Oh—this is Henry.”
“I know who it is. It’s the Hound of the Baskervilles.”
“Well, technically,” he conceded. “But the harmless version. Whoever summoned him obviously didn’t bother to put him back, because when I got up this morning he was in the kitchen. I mean, he destroyed the door while in monstrous form, so it’s not like I could have kept him out. I felt sorry for him, so I gave him some water and some Cornflakes, and I think he’s adopted me. I named him Henry.” He ruffled the dog on the head, which was at about waist height, and the dog looked up at him with his tongue hanging out gratefully. “Do you two want to come in? I’ll just be a minute.”
Then he had taken off upstairs, leaving the two of us waiting while he went to find the book that he probably should have had ready, considering it was why we were here. Sitting next to her, amid the usual muddle of hardcovers and paperbacks, I had no idea what to say to Millie. And now, it turned out, she knew more about Dickens than I did.
“Did things settle down in the Street after we left last night?” I asked. “Should I be worried?”
She raised her eyebrows. “For yourself? I doubt it.” The giant dog padded over to us; he ignored me completely and laid his head on Millie’s lap. She ruffled his ears. “But they’re not used to things changing. Some of them have been around for hundreds of yea
rs; even the ones who were read into existence this decade tend to be very set in their ways. You two arriving, on top of everything else—well, I just hope they don’t find out about your brother, that’s all.”
“Charley?” I said with a frown. I glanced up at the ceiling, as if I expected to see him through it. I could hear the occasional bump and thud. “What about him? I know what he can do is pretty unusual—”
“Unusual?” Millie said with a snort. “Rob—as far as we know, there are only two of his kind in the entire world. He has the power to shape our reality. He’s not unusual. He’s dangerous.”
There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs, and Charley appeared before I could say anything in reply.
“I’ve got it!” he called, holding up a massive tome that had to be David Copperfield. “Sorry, I thought I’d left it by my bed last night, but I must have put it on my desk instead, and then I think I moved more books on top of it when I was looking for it this morning.”
“Did you check the fridge?” I couldn’t resist asking.
Charley made a face at me, and dropped into the armchair. The book slipped easily into the crook of his arm, as though it belonged there. “Yes, actually, but I was checking it for milk. I thought you might want tea or something. Did I offer you tea or something?”
“No,” Millie said. “You opened the door, said you were just looking for the book, wait right here and make ourselves at home.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, did you want tea or something?”
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said. I hoped he wouldn’t.
“No, I want to,” he said. He said it a little too quickly. “I do. It’s the most logical line of inquiry. I’m just concerned. This one didn’t go so well last time.”