He turned the screen so that Wharton and Jake could read it. It said:
SEND HIM HERE. I’LL DEAL WITH THIS.
Wharton felt as if an arctic wind had blown out of the screen. He almost stepped back.
Jake didn’t flinch. “I’ll leave tomorrow. Thank you for all—”
“You’ll leave when I say.” The Head clicked off the screen and looked at him over it. “Can’t you tell us what this is all about, Jake? You’re a promising student…maybe even the brightest boy in the place. Do you really want to rot in some English comp?”
Jake set his face with the icy glitter Wharton loathed. “I told you. It’s not about the school. It’s about me.” He glared at the screen. “Me and him.”
The Head leaned back in his chair. As if he could see it was hopeless, he shrugged slightly. “Have it your way. I’ll arrange a flight. Go and pack your things.”
“They’ve been packed for days.”
The Head glanced at Wharton. “And you can pack yours, George.”
“Me? But…”
“Someone has to take him home. Have a few days off for Christmas while you’re there.”
“I can take myself,” Jake snapped.
“And I have a ton of work to do, Headmaster. The play…”
“Can wait. In loco parentis, I’m afraid.”
They both stared at him, and the Head grinned his dark grin. “I don’t know which of you looks the most horrified. Bon voyage, gentlemen. And good luck, Mr. Wilde.”
Outside in the corridor, Wharton blew out his cheeks and gazed desperately up toward the staff room. Then he looked at Jake and Jake looked at him.
“Better do as he says,” he said, gruff.
“I’m sorry.” The boy’s voice was still arrogant, but there was something new in it. “Sorry you’re dragged into this. But I have to go and get the truth out of Venn. To confront him with what I know.”
“And what do you know?” Wharton was baffled now.
The lunch bell rang. Jake Wilde turned and was jostled down the corridor as the boys poured along to the dining room in a noisy, hungry wave. In all the uproar Wharton almost missed his reply. The words were so quiet. So venomous. But for a moment, he was sure Jake had said, “I know he murdered my father.”
2
For this Abbey lies in deep countrie, a place of fey and wicked spirits, and the traveler there should be ware of the woods of that land, and the crossroads where the dead are buried…
Chronicle of Wintercombe
SARAH SCREAMED.
She was halfway out of the world; her hand and arm through in some other cold, empty place, when the darkness leaped on her and bit her with a sudden savage pain.
She kicked and yelled. Not darkness. A lithe shape, a snow-white wolf with sapphire eyes; its teeth in her shoe, her heel, the agony unbearable. She fought, jerked the shoe off, tore away, and suddenly came free; the wolf snarled but she was already falling, falling out of the dark, arms wide, crash-landing abrupt and breathless on her back under a brilliant scarlet sky.
Sore, she lay still.
The ground was boggy. A black bramble spread its briars above her; she sat up and saw wide moorland, windblown and sparse, the dying sun sinking into heavy cloud.
It was bitterly cold.
Elation made her shout; she’d done it. But where were the others?
She stood, turned a complete circle. “Max? Carla?”
Over her head a great flock of small dark birds streamed croaking to a distant wood.
She drew a cloudy breath. Face it. No one else had made it.
The wolf’s muzzle exploded out of nowhere; before she knew it, it had her sleeve, tugging powerfully. Only its head existed here, materializing out of the air as if through a slant of glass. If they got her back it was over—there was no way they would let her live.
Her feet slid in mud. She yelled, a wordless cry, but only the birds heard. Icy saliva soaked her arm.
Sliding, she hit a broken branch. She snatched it up, swung it.
“Let me go!”
The wolf flinched under the blow, eyes burning with fury. For a second it wasn’t even there, and then she was free, running and stumbling over the tussocky, squelching bog.
Soaked, hair plastered to her face, she snatched a look back. The moorland seemed empty. But the sun had set; long shadows leaned from rock and tree.
Furious with herself, she limped faster. She had to get away. Because it would come after her and smell out her trail. And they’d send a Replicant with it.
The moor was so cold! Ice cracked on the surface, and her shoeless foot was wet through and bleeding. Her dress clung to her body and arms. And there was a ringing in her ears, as if after some huge, silent explosion.
She was shaking with shock, but she was here, she knew this place, and she knew there was a lane. It should be ahead somewhere—no more than a track. But when she crawled through a hedge and slithered down into its shelter she was surprised at the dark, smooth surface, hardly broken by weeds.
Ahead was a cottage. From one of the chimneys a circular white dish sprouted like a mushroom.
The door opened.
Sarah dived sideways, into plants that stung her.
A young woman came out. She had a basket of laundry; quickly she pegged a row of clothes to the line. Trousers, dresses, a shirt.
A baby cried, indoors.
“All right,” the woman muttered. “Mummy’s coming!” She went in, slamming the door.
Sarah moved. Keeping low, she ran across the lane and crouched outside the garden. Through the gate she could see toys, a yellow swing.
And a vehicle.
It was black. It stood, all glass and metal, on the drive of the house. Fascinated, she inched through the gate, closer to it, and touched the icy metal. In its curved surfaces saw herself, warped and strange. Had she been altered? Become aged, unrecognizable? A thread of terror chilled her spine.
But then the wing-mirror showed the same cropped blond hair. The same sharp blue eyes.
Her relief was stupid.
The door opened. She leaped back around the corner of the house as the woman came out again, this time with a baby in her arms. Over the mother’s shoulder the baby saw her, and screeched.
“Don’t be naughty, now. In you go.”
The vehicle flashed and clunked. Its door was open; the woman strapped the child into a small seat, then climbed in after it.
Sarah watched. The vehicle exploded into a roar of sound so terrible she flattened herself back against the wall, because how could anyone bear that? And then with a slur of gravel and a choking stink, the car rolled down the lane and was gone.
It seemed to leave a hole in the air behind it.
Quickly she ran to the line and felt the clothes. The driest were a green woolen top and a pair of the same blue trousers the woman had been wearing; she snatched them down and changed into them behind the hedge, clumsy with cold, her hands fumbling over zips and buttons, desperately watching the bend in the lane.
The clothes felt soft and well-worn. They smelled of lemons, but she really needed shoes. She threw her own soaked dress in the green plastic bin, and as she slammed down the lid, she heard the Replicant arrive.
A footstep cracking a frozen puddle. A yelp in the lane.
Immediately she turned and fled through the winter garden, flinging open a gate, racing through a paddock where blanketed horses whinnied and scattered. She slipped, picked herself up, twisted to look back.
Shadows. One near the house, another around the bin, snuffling, long and lean. She stifled a hiss of dismay and slammed against a wooden fence, then leaped it, agile with terror.
Crossroads.
A weathered fingerpost leaned in a triangle of frosted grass.
EXETER 12 OKEHAMPTON 11
And in smaller letters underneath, pointing up a narrow lane:
Wintercombe 2
The wolf howled; it had her scent. She turned and saw it streaki
ng toward her, unleashed, a low shape hurtling through the twilight, eager to pin her down. She was running and it was behind her and she couldn’t stop the terror now, it rose up within her like a red, snatched pain, the frozen lane quaked with it, the hedges roared.
And then it slid alongside her—a vast scarlet machine, stinking of diesel.
She flung her hand up, grabbed a metal pole, and leaped on board.
“Hold tight, love,” the driver said.
The bus roared away. Bent double, she dragged in air. The driver, his eyes on the road, said, “Where to, then?”
“Sorry?”
“Where to? Where are you going?”
The lane dwindled behind her, the wolf snarling in the dark. She whispered, “Wintercombe.”
“One forty.”
Baffled, she turned. “I don’t have any…currency.”
His eyes flicked to her in the mirror. “I should put you straight off.”
“Oh give her a lift, Dave,” a woman said. “You were young once.”
People laughed. There were five on the bus, all elderly, all watching her.
“Okay. This once. And I still am young, compared to you lot.”
She said, “Thanks,” and went and crumpled onto a seat behind the pensioners. A man glanced at her, disapproving.
The moor was the same. But nothing else. She’d never seen a bus before, was alarmed at how it scratched down the lane, its windows clotted with dried mud. The rattling motion and the smell made her feel sick; she held tight to the metal rail in font of her, her bleeding foot braced on the floor. On the next seat was a discarded newspaper. The page was upside-down; she turned it quickly. It showed a picture of a blond girl in a gray dress. The headline was Patient still missing from Secure Unit.
She read the article carefully, feeling her heart rate thud to slowness. This was just what she needed. She folded it and dropped it under the seat.
The bus ran over a small humpbacked bridge and stopped on a street.
The driver peered around his screen. “Wintercombe.”
It was far sooner than she’d thought. She scrambled to the door, looked out cautiously, and jumped down. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” His voice was dry. Doors swished shut in her face. The bus roared away.
It was the village, but intact. People lived here. Over the huddled houses, the sky was already darkening. Shouts made her turn, fast, but only a few men came laughing out of the pub. The Replicant and his wolf could be here in half an hour. She had to hurry.
Avoiding the houses, she slipped down a footpath marked Wintercombe Abbey; it led into woodland. Great trees creaked overhead. She felt tiny under them, and uneasy because the wolf wasn’t the only danger. Getting into the estate would be difficult. Through the Wood.
It was so silent, the rustle of her own footsteps scared her.
The path descended into a deep hollow, banked on each side. Broken winter umbels lay snapped and trampled in the mud. After about a mile she stopped, holding her side, and listened. Everything seemed quiet. Then, as she turned to go on, she heard the sudden, excited howl.
Too close.
She ran, the momentum of the descent pulling her so fast that she almost tumbled out of the end of the path, and there were the gates, high black wrought-iron gates, streaked with rust, each of their pillars crowned with a sitting lion, one paw resting on a shield. She threw herself against them, but to her despair they were securely locked, and only a battered mailbox with WINTERCOMBE ABBEY. STRICTLY NO VISITORS leaned in the hedge.
She’d climb. As she put her hands to the metal, a click alarmed her and she stared up. A small white camera, mounted on one of the lions, had shifted. It swiveled down. The round blank lens scrutinized her.
“Let me in. Please! I need to speak to you. It’s urgent!”
A low growl. She spun around, back against the wet metal. Something was creeping through the dim undergrowth of the wood.
The gates moved.
A bolt slid. They shuddered apart, just a fraction, but it was enough, she’d squeezed through and was limping up the dark, overgrown drive, leaping logs, ducking under the untrimmed boughs of trees. The path twisted, all gravel and mud; above her a mass of branches tangled against the twilight. She looked back, saw the wolf’s snarling silhouette, stumbled and crashed headlong over a fallen trunk, sprawling in nettles and mud.
The wolf’s belly was low to the ground. Its eyes gleamed ice-cold, as if they caught the arctic sun.
“Go back,” she whispered. She groped in the leaf-litter; clutched a brittle branch.
The wolf slavered, its spittle hanging. Then, quick as a flicker of moonlight, its eyes darted to the left. She turned her head. And held her breath.
In the eaves of the Wood a shadow stood. A boy in a green coat, barely visible in the gloom. He leaned on a spear tipped with a flake of sharp flint. He wasn’t even looking at her, as if she didn’t matter at all, but he had fixed his gaze on the dog and his lips were curled in scorn.
One-handed, he swung the spear and pointed it. “Puppy,” he whispered. “Little scared puppy.”
The wolf whined. It cowered, hunkering down as if it wanted to sink into the earth. It scrabbled, panicky, at the mud.
Sarah said, “What are you doing? How are you doing that?”
The boy glanced at her. She scrambled up, watching the terrified beast abase itself in the dead leaves, watching it scrape itself backward. Then it turned and fled.
Amazed, she stared. “I don’t know who you are, but…”
“But I know you,” he said. “Don’t I.”
“No. You can’t. I…” Her eyes widened. There was no boy. Just tree shadows. Gnarled and twisted.
For a moment she stood there. Then, slowly, she turned and limped on down the path, to the house that waited for her in the moonlight.
Wintercombe Abbey was no burned ruin. It stood tall, a rambling manor house of gables and twisted chimneys, its darker, medieval stonework jutting out—the silhouette of a tower, a row of arcaded windows, all unlit. From gutters and gables waterspouts leaned, the long-necked griffins and heraldic yawning dragons she had imagined for years in her dreams. The house crouched in its wooded hollow; its murky wings ran back into gloom, and with a deep roar somewhere beyond, the river crashed through its hidden gorge.
She moved carefully from tree to tree, as if the house watched her coming.
There was a lawn of waist-high grass; she would have to cross that, and she would prefer it if no one saw her from the high dark windows.
It was time to become invisible.
Sore and muddy, she summoned up the small itchy switch in her mind, just as they had taught her in the Lab.
Done.
Now no one could see her.
She stepped out and limped painfully through the dead grasses until the house loomed above, the moon balanced on its highest gable, then slipped around the side of the building, over frost-blackened flower-beds, through a small wrought-iron gate.
She came to a window, ground floor, but higher than her head. It was ajar. A fragment of curtain gusted through it in the cold breeze. She waited, secret and shadowless, listening. Nothing. The room must be empty.
She stretched up and grabbed at the sill. Barely reaching, she gripped it, then had to scramble onto a narrow rib of stone and climb the brickwork, hanging by toes and fingers, until she could haul herself up and peer over into the room.
It was shadowy. A fire burned low in the hearth, flickering red on dark paneling and shelves of old books.
She edged the casement wider. It creaked. Carefully she pulled herself up, getting one knee on the crumbling stone. She squeezed her head and shoulders in through the wide bars.
Then she saw him.
He was reflected in a glass clock-face. A man in a high armchair with its back to her, legs stretched out, feet propped on a low table that was piled with documents, papers, books. In his hand was a glass of what might be whisky, but he wasn�
�t drinking it or reading.
He was listening.
She kept completely still, not even breathing. To see him was astonishing. As if a character from a book had come to life, there, right before her.
With a sudden lean unfolding, the man stood. He turned and his face was a sharp silhouette in the gloomy room. She caught the puzzled, wary tilt of his head. He put the drink down on the table, and said, “Who’s there?”
The curtain gusted between them. She was invisible but all her weight was on one hand and it was already trembling.
“Answer me. Is it you, Summer? Do you really think you can get in here?”
His voice was scornful. He came straight toward her; she had to move. She slid through the casement onto the broad wooden sill, and he stopped instantly.
His eyes, ice blue, stared right at her. He was so close she could see the shocked recognition come into his face, a spasm of stricken stillness. He reached out, till his hand was touching her cheek. He whispered, “Leah?”
She shook her head, devastated, her eyes blurry with tears. “How can you see me? It’s not possible.”
His hand jerked back, as if she’d slapped him. The shock went from him; replaced with a vicious anger that took all the life from his eyes. “Who the hell are you?” he snarled.
She jumped down and stood in the room in front of him, defiant, cold hands at her sides. “Sarah. And you must be Oberon Venn.”
He didn’t answer. All he said was “Your foot is bleeding all over my floor.”
3
I first met him on a remote glacier in the high Andes. A friend and I were climbing and had gotten into trouble; we had frostbite and the weather had closed in. We curled in a snow-hole, freezing. Late in the night I heard a sound outside, so I crawled out. The wind was an icy rattle against my goggles.
Through the mist I saw a man walking. At first I thought he was some creature of the snow, a phantom of the tundra.
I must have been in a state of delirium because I called out that he was an angel.
His laugh was harsher than the wind. “My name’s Venn,” he said. “And I’m no angel.”
The Obsidian Mirror Page 2