“I will tell you my story because it pleases me to do so,” Father Gregory said. “Because I sometimes wondered if this day would ever come. That you are sitting here now, in this place, is more than a miracle. My whole life has been leading to this moment. It is perhaps the very reason why I was meant to live.”
Scarlett didn’t interrupt him. The more he talked, the more passionate he became. She could see the coal fire reflected in his eyes, but even if the fire hadn’t been there, there might still have been the same glow.
“I was born sixty-two years ago in Moscow, which was then the capital of the Soviet Union. My father was a politician, but from my earliest age, I knew that I wanted to enter the Church. Why? I did not like the world into which I had been born. Even when I was at school, I found the other children spiteful and stupid. I was small for my age and often bullied. I never found it easy to make friends. I did not much like my parents either. They didn’t understand me. They didn’t even try.
“I was nineteen when I told my father that I wanted to take holy orders. He was horrified. I was his only son and he had always assumed that I would go into politics, like him. He tried to talk me out of it. He arranged for me to travel around the world, hoping that if I saw all the riches that the West had to offer, it would change my mind.
“In fact, it did the exact opposite. Everything I saw in Europe and America disgusted me. Wealthy families with huge homes and expensive cars, living just a mile away from children who were dying because they could not afford medicine. Countries at war, the people killing and maiming each other because of politicians too stupid to find another way. The noise of modern life; the planes and the cars, the concrete smothering the land. The pollution and the garbage. The people, in their millions, scurrying on their way to jobs they hated…”
Scarlett shrugged. “So you weren’t happy,” she said. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“It has everything to do with you and if you interrupt me again I will have you whipped until the skin peels off your back.”
Father Gregory paused. Scarlett was completely shocked but didn’t want to show it. She said nothing.
“I entered a seminary in England,” he continued, “and trained to become a monk. I spent six years there, then another three in Tuscany before finally I came here. That was thirty years ago. This was a very beautiful and very restful place when I first arrived, a refuge from the rest of the world. The weather was harsh and, in the winter, the days were short. But the way of life suited me. Prayer six times a day, simple meals and silence while we ate. We cultivated all our food ourselves. I have spent many hundreds of hours hacking at the barren soil that surrounds us. When I wasn’t in the fields, I was helping in the local villages, tending to the poor and the sick.
“A holy life, Scarlett. And so it might have remained. But then everything changed. And all because of a door in a wall.”
Father Gregory hadn’t touched his tea, but suddenly he picked up his glass between his finger and thumb and tipped the scalding liquid back. Scarlett saw his throat bulge. It was like watching a sick man take his medicine.
“It puzzled me from the start. A door that seemed to belong to a different building with a strange device – a five-pointed star – that had nothing to do with this place. A door that went nowhere.” He lifted a hand to stop her interrupting. “It went nowhere, child. Believe me. There was a brief corridor on the other side and then a blank wall.
“The monastery was then run by an abbot who was much older than me. His name was Father Janek. And one day, walking in the cloisters, I asked him about it.
“He wouldn’t tell me. A simple lie might have ended my curiosity, but Father Janek was too good a man to lie. Instead, he told me not to ask any more questions. He quickened his pace and as he walked away, I saw that he was afraid.
“From that day on, I became fascinated by the door. We had an extensive library here, Scarlett, with more than ten thousand books – although most of them have now mouldered away. Some of them were centuries old. I searched through them. It took me many years. But slowly – a sentence here, a fragment there – a story began to emerge. But in the end, it was one book, a secret copy of a diary written by a Spanish monk in 1532 that told me everything I wanted to know.”
He stopped and ran his eyes over the girl as if she were the most precious thing he had ever seen. Scarlett was revolted and didn’t try to hide it. The eyes underneath the white eyebrows were devouring her. She could see saliva on the old man’s lips.
“The Old Ones,” he whispered, and although Scarlett had never heard those words before, they meant something to her; some memory from the far distant past. “The diary told me about the great battle that had taken place ten thousand years ago when the Old Ones ruled the world and mankind were their slaves. Pure evil. The Bible talks of devils… of Lucifer and Satan. But that’s just story-telling. The Old Ones were real. They were here. And the one who ruled over them, Chaos, was more powerful than anything in the universe.”
“So what happened to them?” Scarlett asked. Her voice had almost dropped to a whisper. Apart from the flames, twisting in the hearth, everything in the room was still.
“They were defeated and cast out. There were five children…” he spoke the word with contempt. “They came to be known as the Gatekeepers. Four boys and a girl.” He levelled his eyes on Scarlett and she knew what he was going to say next. “You are the girl.”
Scarlett shook her head. “You’re wrong. That’s insane. I’m not anything. I’m just a schoolgirl. I go to school in London…”
“How do you think you got here?” The monk pointed in the direction of the corridor with a single trembling finger. Some sort of liquid was leaking out of his damaged eye, a single tear. “You have seen the monastery and the snow. You know you are not in London now.”
“You drugged me.”
“You came through the door! It was all there in the diary. There were twenty-five doorways built all around the world. They were there for the Gatekeepers so that when the time came, they would be able to travel great distances in seconds. Only the Gatekeepers could use them. Nobody else. When I pass through the door, I find myself in a corridor, a dead end. But it’s not the same for you. It brought you here.”
Scarlett shook her head. Nothing she had heard made any sense at all. She didn’t even know where to begin. “I’m not ten thousand years old,” she said. “Look at me! You can see for yourself. I’m fifteen!”
“You have lived twice, at two different times.” He laughed delightedly. “It’s beyond belief,” he said. “Finally to meet one of the Gatekeepers after all these years and to find that she has no idea who or what she is.”
“You mentioned there was an abbot here,” Scarlett said. “I want to talk to him.”
“Father Janek is dead.” He sighed. “I haven’t told you the rest of my story. Maybe then you will understand.” He nodded at her glass. “You haven’t drunk your tea.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I would take what you are given while you still can, child. There is much pain for you ahead.”
Scarlett’s tea was right in front of her. Briefly, she thought about picking it up and flinging it in his face. But it wouldn’t do much good. It was probably lukewarm by now.
“The discovery of the diary, along with all the other fragments, changed my life,” the monk continued. “I began to think about the reasons why I had come to the monastery in the first place. Did I really think that religion – prayer and fasting – would help me change the world? Or was I just using religion to hide from it? Suddenly I knew what had brought me here. Hatred. I hated the world. I hated mankind. And praying to God to save us was ridiculous. God isn’t interested! If He was, don’t you think He’d have done something centuries ago?
“My whole life had been devoted to an illusion. All those prayers, the same words repeated again and again. Did they really make any sense? Of course not! The cries for mercy that would never
come. Kneeling and making signs, singing hymns while, outside in the street, people were killing each other and trying to make as much money as they could to spend on themselves and to hell with everyone else. Do you never read the papers? What do you see in them except for murder and lust and greed, all day, every day? Do you not see the nature of the world in which you live?
“There is no God, Scarlett. I know that now. But there are the Old Ones. They are our natural masters. They deserve to rule the world because the world is evil and so are they.”
He paused for breath. Scarlett looked at him with a mixture of pity and disgust. She had already decided that this wasn’t about God or about religion. It was about a man who had nothing inside him. The years had hollowed out Father Gregory until there was nothing left.
“I will finish my story and then you must be taken back to your cell,” he said. “You will not be staying with us very long, Scarlett. You have a long journey to make. You will not return.”
Scarlett said nothing. She knew that he was trying to frighten her. She also knew that he was succeeding. A long journey… where? And how would they take her there? Would they force her through another door?
Father Gregory closed his eyes for a few seconds, then continued.
“When I came here, there were twenty-four brothers at the Monastery of the Cry for Mercy,” he explained. “Some of them, I knew, felt the same as me. They were disillusioned. Their life was hard. There were no rewards. The local people, the ones they were helping, weren’t even grateful. Gradually, I began to sound them out. I shared with them the knowledge I had discovered. How many of them would abandon their religion and turn instead to the Old Ones? In the end, there were seven of us. Seven out of twenty-four. Ready to begin a new adventure.
“We could of course have left. But I already knew that was out of the question. We were here for a reason, and that reason was the door. It had been here long before the monastery existed. Indeed, why was the monastery built in this place at all? It was because the architects knew that the door was in some way magical even if they had forgotten what its true purpose was. Do you see, child? The monastery was built around the door just as you will find holy places connected to the other doors all over the world: churches, temples, burial sites, caves.
“The seven of us agreed that we would stay here and serve the Old Ones. We would guard the door and should a child ever pass through it, we would know that we had found one of the Gatekeepers and we would seize hold of them just as we have taken hold of you…”
“What happened to Father Janek and the other monks?” Scarlett asked, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“I killed Father Janek,” the monk replied. “I crept into his room while he slept and cut his throat. Then we continued around the monastery and did the same to all the others. Seventeen men died that night and in the morning the corridors were awash with blood. But don’t mourn for them. They would have died happily. They would think they were going to Heaven, into the embrace of their God.
“We have been here ever since. Of course, with so few of us, the monastery has fallen into disrepair. Once, the villagers brought us food because they revered us. Now they give it to us because they are afraid. We have survived a very long time, always waiting, always watching the door. Because we knew that you would come. And recently we realized that our time had come. We were expecting you.”
“How?”
“Because the Old Ones have returned to the world. Even now, they are gathering strength, waiting to take back what was always theirs. Their agents have contacted us. Very soon, we will hand you over to them. And then we will have our reward.”
“What will happen to me?”
“The Old Ones will not kill you. You don’t need to be afraid. But they will need to keep you close to them and you still must pay for what you did to them so many years ago.”
“I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
He nodded his head sadly. “A great pity,” he murmured.
“I had expected more of you. A warrior or a great magician. But you really are nothing. A little girl, as you said, from school. Maybe the Old Ones will let me torture you for a while before you go. I would like that very much. To pay you for the disappointment. We will see…”
He stood up and went over to the door. He walked with a limp and it occurred to Scarlett that as well as the diseased eye, he might have a withered leg. It took him a while even to cross the room and she briefly wondered if she might be able to overpower him. But it wouldn’t have done any good. When he opened the door, the two monks who had brought her there were waiting on the other side.
“They will take you back to your cell,” he said. “They will also bring you food and water. I imagine you will be with us a few days.”
Scarlett stood up and walked past him. There was nothing else she could do. For a brief moment, the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Father Gregory reached out and stroked her hair. Scarlett shuddered. She didn’t even try to hide her revulsion.
“Goodbye, Scarlett,” he said. “You have no idea how glad I am that we have met.”
Scarlett let the two monks walk her away. She didn’t look back.
DRAGON’S BREATH
They took Scarlett back to the same cell she had occupied – but they had been busy while she was away. Someone had carried in a bed, although the moment she saw it she knew she wasn’t going to be allowed the privilege of a comfortable sleep. It was little more than a cot with sagging springs and a metal frame and she wouldn’t even be able to stretch out without her feet going over the end. There were just two coarse blankets to protect her from the chill of the night and no pillow.
They had also supplied her with a table, a chair and a bucket which she guessed she would be expected to use as a toilet, although she didn’t even want to think about that. A candle in a glass lantern now lit the room and they had provided her with a meagre dinner. A bowl of thin, vegetable soup, a hunk of bread and a mug were waiting on the table. There was a spoon to eat with – and if Scarlett had any thought of using it as a weapon, her hopes were soon dashed. It was flimsy, made of tin. They hadn’t bothered with a knife or a fork.
She didn’t feel like eating yet. If anything, the sight of the starvation rations brought home the full horror of her situation. These people were utterly merciless. They wanted her to live but they didn’t care how miserable or painful her life became – they had made that much clear. Scarlett sat down on the bed and sank her head into her hands. She thought she was going to cry, but the tears didn’t come. The Old Ones. The Gatekeepers. The twenty-five doors around the world. Everything that Father Gregory had said seemed to spin round and round her, sucking her ever further into a tunnel of misery and despair. How could this have happened to her? Could any of it really be true?
Somehow, she forced herself to go over it, to unpick the words. Much of what Father Gregory had said sounded completely insane. But at the same time, she had to admit that a lot of it was strangely familiar. There were echoes. There had been strange incidents in her life and they had taken place long before she walked through the church door.
The dreams, for one. Father Gregory had mentioned five children – four boys and a girl. Scarlett had been dreaming exactly the same thing for almost two years. And how had this all started? She had actually seen Matt, in St Meredith’s. He had been the one who had led her through the door, although now she wondered if he had really been there at all. He had been silent, ghost-like. It wasn’t that she had imagined him. But perhaps what she had experienced was some sort of vision. If he had really gone through the door, wouldn’t he be here now?
And then there was the door itself. Scarlett had tried to persuade herself that she had been drugged and kidnapped, but the more she thought about it, the more she accepted that it hadn’t happened that way. Father Gregory had told her the truth. She had gone through a door in London and ended up in Ukraine. There
had been no flight, no drugs. And if she accepted that, what choice did she have but to accept the rest?
She went over to the table and examined the food. It looked far from appetizing, but she made herself swallow it, the soup cold and greasy, the bread several days old. It was all she was going to get and she needed her strength. The candle in the lamp was only an inch tall and she wondered how long it would last. When it went out, she would be left in total blackness. The thought made her shudder. There was already so much to be afraid of but being on her own, locked up in the dark was somehow worse than any of it.
It would be better if she could sleep. She didn’t undress. It was far too cold to even think of taking off her coat. She climbed onto the bed and pulled the two blankets over her, burrowing into them like an animal in a cave. She lay like that for a long time and when sleep did finally come she didn’t even notice it. She only knew that she was no longer awake when she realized that she had begun to dream.
She was back in the strange, airless world that she had visited many times. She recognized it and she was glad to be there. She was desperate to see Matt and the other three boys. If anyone could help her, they could. At least they might show her a way to break out.
But there was no sign of them. While part of her slept, alone in her cell, the other part was stranded here, alone on the edge of a grim and lifeless sea.
Something in the dreamworld had changed. Scarlett became aware of it very slowly, not seeing anything but sensing it, a sort of throbbing in the air that was coming from very far away, from the other side of the horizon. She heard a faint rumble of thunder and saw a tiny streak of lightning, like a hairline crack in the fabric of the world. Her head was pounding. She noticed the water, the surface of the ocean, begin to shiver. A gust of wind tugged at her hair. The sand, or the grey dust, or whatever it was, spun in eddies around her feet, then leapt up, half blinding her and stinging her cheeks. She backed away, knowing that she needed to hide. She still didn’t know what she was hiding from.
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