House of Many Doors

by Ian Richards

  He let the threat dangle in the air between them, assessing her reaction with a cruel grin. Vanessa stayed silent, her arms at her sides. Eventually she realized that the fairy had no intention of saying anything more unless she asked him to.

  ‘What do you want?’ She kept her voice as neutral as possible. ‘You kidnapped Martell and now you’ve kidnapped me. Why?’

  ‘The Black Magician is no longer important. You needn’t worry about him. But as for you, Vanessa Kouris, you are here because you are to be blessed. You are to be honored. Two nights from now, when the moon is full and the preparations have been finalized, something very special is going to happen. You and I are to be married.’

  Married. The word struck her like a thunderclap.

  ‘Insane,’ she whispered. ‘You’re actually insane.’

  Firefox grinned and made his eyebrows dance. ‘Of course,’ he continued, parading back and forth now like a great orator delivering a speech, ‘I’m afraid that in many respects it won’t be a real marriage. For one, I don’t find you in the least bit attractive. And for another, my feelings towards you are completely and utterly non-existent. Ours is to be a marriage of convenience, my love. A hollow shell of a thing devoid of any affection or romance whatsoever. Much like most, really.’

  He then set about explaining the reasoning behind his plan. He told her about Marshwood, and the locked doors, and how marriage would finally deliver him the power he had spent years dreaming of. Throughout all of this Vanessa kept her eyes fixed on the creature. She felt ill. A growing nausea tugged at her insides. He was serious. He was completely serious about all of it.

  ‘What makes you think I’d ever want to marry you?’

  He laughed. ‘I don’t see why you wouldn’t. It’s not as if we’d have to live like a regular husband and wife. Our paths would rarely cross. Once the doors have opened I’ll be out exploring worlds. I’ll hardly be here.’

  Vanessa shook her head. ‘And what exactly am I supposed to do while you’re off travelling?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Firefox shrugged. ‘Wifely duties, I suppose. Cleaning. Gossiping. Generally milling around and looking after things—’

  The punch caught him flush on the nose, a real beauty that rocked him back to the soles of his boots. Vanessa went to follow it up with another but he grabbed her by her broken wrist and squeezed it hard, forcing her to buckle from the pain. She screamed aloud.

  ‘Little cow,’ he hissed, a thin line of blood already running from his nose. ‘I’ll show you what—’

  ‘Master Firefox.’ Silvertongue cleared his throat melodramatically.

  The creature stopped, then nodded, composing himself. He gave her wrist a final, spiteful little squeeze—she cried out again—then tossed her aside disdainfully. Vanessa fought to keep the tears from her eyes, but the pain proved too much. She watched the world turn into a blur. The lights on the wall prismed like stars, Firefox became little more than a shimmering shadow. She blinked, and clarity returned. Warm tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘You,’ Firefox said, pointing accusingly at her, ‘should be honored to marry me. Try something like that again and you’ll be sharing your cell with the Rag-and-Bone men, you see if you don’t. Come, Silvertongue.’ He threw his cape over his shoulder and made towards the door. After an apologetic look back—sorry, but what can I do? —Silvertongue followed him.

  ‘You’ll pay for this,’ Vanessa shouted after him. Tears continued to leak from her eyes. The pain. Her wrist felt as if it had been broken into a thousand pieces. ‘I’ll never marry you. I don’t care what you do to me, you still need me to say ‘yes’ and I never will. Do you hear me? Never.’

  At this Firefox stopped, as if considering the matter for the first time.

  ‘Yes, you will’ he said eventually. ‘I guarantee it.’

  And without looking back, he swept out of the room, followed by Silvertongue and another of his apologetic glances.

  The door slammed closed behind them.

  Then, after a momentary pause, presumably out of spite, both lanterns blew out, plunging the cell into darkness.

  33 - Madame Zelda

  Madame Zelda, an eighty-nine year old psychic with a hearing aid, was not what Tony had been expecting when Sir Roderick had promised to introduce him to a fairy. For one, she looked about as much like a fairy as he did. Her hair was white, for goodness sake, not fairy red. And her eyes—magnified by a pair of enormous moon-shaped spectacles—were blue, not green: the color of swimming pools and summer skies, not orchards and emeralds.

  He stood shivering in the doorway of her second floor flat as Sir Roderick embraced the old woman and rattled on about how it had been too long, how glad he was to see her again, how well she looked. He had begun to entertain doubts on the journey over (an unscheduled stop at an off-license for Sir Roderick to stock up on drink had set alarm bells ringing), but now he was here, being introduced to an elderly woman who was quite clearly not a fairy, he couldn’t help but feel his enthusiasm for the venture drain away. Madame Zelda looked as cheap and cheery as the bangles hanging on her wrists. When she smiled he saw lipstick smeared on her teeth. He thought back to the fairies woven into the museum tapestry, and couldn’t help but contrast their lithe, youthful bodies with the doddery skeleton in front of him.

  The insides of the flat were hellishly warm. Stepping across the threshold felt like entering the Kalahari.

  ‘Come in, come in, sit down, sit down.’ Madame Zelda’s accent seemed as wobbly as the rest of her: part Cockney, part old European. She led them into her flat whilst puffing furiously on a cigarette and gestured for them to sit at a circular table in the centre of the room. The smell of perfume, cigarettes and red wine hung in the air like a fog.

  ‘Listen,’ Tony began, ‘I’m very sorry, but I think there’s been some sort of mistake …’

  The old woman paid him no mind. She dismissed his objections with a vague wave of her hand. The bangles jingled loudly. ‘I can’t hear you, lovely. You’ll have to speak louder than that if you want me to understand what you’re saying.’

  So she was half-deaf, too. By now his resignation was giving way to a kind of bleak amusement. He glanced around the flat and wondered what exactly Sir Roderick had gotten him into. The walls were covered in drapes and decorations. Wind-chimes hung from the ceiling. The furniture was old and secondhand. It was as if an exotic Parisian apartment from the 1930s had somehow been compressed into a single-floor flat in East London.

  Madame Zelda sat at the table and cracked her knuckles. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You wanted a reading, is that right? You can pay me, I presume, darlin’?’

  Tony looked to Sir Roderick, who simply handed over the bottles of wine he had picked up on the way over. Madame Zelda inspected the labels and nodded, satisfied. ‘That’ll do nicely. Righto then. A reading it is. Which kind did you want? Horoscope? Tarot cards? Rosie Palms?’ She laughed a filthy laugh.

  ‘We want to speak with a fairy,’ Sir Roderick said, taking care to annunciate every word as loudly as possible. To Tony, he added, ‘I saw her do it once at a show in Highbury. Marvelous stuff.’ Turning back to Madame Zelda, he shouted again, ‘A fairy, Madame Zelda. You can do that, can’t you? A Fair-ree.’

  ‘A fairy? Been a bit of time since I’ve been asked to do that. But yes, sweetheart, I can. Do us a favor and grab my scrying dish, will you? It’s in the kitchen cupboard—the one next to the fridge. I’d get it meself only I was at me bingo earlier and I’m cream-crackered now. I need to rest up, see. Can’t be getting up and down all night at my age.’

  Sir Roderick disappeared and returned moments later with a large silver dish, the insides of which held a thin layer of water. Madame Zelda positioned it in the centre of the table, waited for the water to still, then began adding colored drops of liquid from a vial concealed in one of her necklaces. Somehow, each drip that fell held a different color from the last. Tony saw magenta, sapphire, lime, yellow, all hitting the dish wit
h a soft plip then dissolving into an oily, rainbowy swirl. While this was going on Sir Roderick bumbled around the flat, drawing closed the curtains and turning down the lights. When he rejoined them the room felt dark and ominous, ribboned with cigarette smoke and shimmering in the heat of the overworked radiators. Sweat had begun to form on Tony’s brow. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  ‘Okay, dearies. A bit of quiet now please.’

  With closed eyes, Madame Zelda moved her hands back and forth over the bowl, muttering words that Tony struggled to hear. After a few moments the water began to take on a strange, luminescent quality. An eerie, green glow painted the walls, transforming the darkened flat into an undersea grotto. Pinprick lights swirled softly in the centre of the dish.

  Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a face appeared in the water. It was feminine and ethereal, haunting in a way that Tony couldn’t quite explain.

  Madame Zelda smiled and opened her eyes again. She reached instinctively for her cigarette. ’There you go, a direct-line to Faerie. This is Mairead, an old mate of mine. You all right, Mairead, love? How’s tricks?’

  ‘Zelda?’ The face stared quizzically into space, as if unable to see them. ‘It has been a long time.’

  ‘I know, darling, what can I say, the demand isn’t there any more. I deal mostly in horoscopes these days. Tarot cards, too. It’s a different world, love. No-one really cares much for fairies now. Apart from this daft pair, that is.’

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Sir Roderick enthused, nudging Tony with his elbow. ‘Back in the day they ran a business together. The fairy appeared for Madame Zelda and she appeared to the fairy in return. It was profitable for both of them. Imagine it, a gang of fairies gathered around a bowl just like we’re doing now. And all to ask Madame Zelda about buses and cities and whether or not the Queen really was as evil as the rumors suggested.’

  Tony leant over the water and looked down at the shimmering fairy face. The woman was young and beautiful. Her hair cascaded past her shoulders in bright curls and she wore a diadem encrusted with jewels.

  ‘You wished to speak with me, child.’

  ‘I do, miss. If that’s all right. There are a couple of things I need to find out.’

  ‘Ask,’ the fairy nodded. ‘I shall answer.’

  He nodded. ‘Marshwood.’ The word came out with barely disguised venom. ‘How do I get there?’

  ‘The House of Many Doors? Oh no, young one. Why would you wish to visit such a place?’

  ‘Come along, fairy,’ Sir Roderick snapped, flicking the surface of the water with his fingers. ‘We ask the questions, not you.’

  Madame Zelda slapped him on the back of the hand. He withdrew it accordingly.

  ‘Marshwood,’ the fairy continued, ‘is a place of great dangers. It can only be accessed by the most powerful of magicians.’

  ‘Like who?’

  She shook her head. ‘There are none in your world who possess the ability to walk between worlds. Not now. That time is gone.’

  ‘Magic these days isn’t anything like it used to be, love,’ Madame Zelda explained sadly. ‘People don’t have the skill any more. You get one or two with potential, but most of them just crash and burn.’

  ‘Bloody weird lot they are too,’ Sir Roderick echoed. ‘Drug-smoking layabouts if you ask me. It would be magic if they managed to tidy up once in a while, that’s what I say.’

  ‘So there’s no way at all for me to get to Marshwood?’

  ‘Not without magic, young one.’

  He absorbed this news thoughtfully, disappointed but not surprised.

  The lamp. Everything kept coming back to the lamp.

  ‘But there are magical instruments that would get me there, aren’t there?’

  ‘Yes,’ the fairy smiled. ‘And you have some of them in your possession too, I can tell. Your aura is positively sparkling from the contact. But be warned, boy, Marshwood is a treacherous place. Few who travel there ever return.’

  What was that she said? You have some of them ...?

  He froze.

  Some?

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘You mean one of them, right? The lamp?’

  ‘There were others, also.’

  ‘I know, Martell had a whole collection. But they burned in the fire. They’re gone now. I saw them burn.’

  ‘Your aura says otherwise. I can see your sparkles, child. You have been close to at least one other magical item today. The trace on you is clear.’

  ‘But how is that possible? What could have survived the fire? The entire shop was destroyed.’

  The fairy shook her head, as if amused by his silliness. The water swirled and splashed accordingly. ‘What could have survived? Why, my dear boy, I presume something that was never there to begin with.’

  And suddenly it hit him, an idea that he hadn’t even entertained before that moment. There was another antique somewhere in Martell’s shop—one that could get him to Marshwood. He must have missed it the first time around.

  He grabbed Sir Roderick by the sleeve. ‘We have to go. Now.’

  ‘Now? You don’t get many chances to chat with a fairy, Tony, are you sure we’re finished here?’

  ‘I’m sure. Madame Zelda, thank you so much. You too, miss. You’ve saved my life.’

  ‘Be careful, young one.’

  ‘I will.’ He stopped then, suddenly remembering himself. The face in the scrying dish stared back vacantly, the water surrounding her jeweled with tiny lights. The image was beautiful, haunting, intelligent. He could have fallen in love with her right then.

  He shook away the thought. ‘Miss Mairead, I do have one more question.’

  ‘Ask, sweetness.’

  ‘There was a man—Thomas Lott. I think he might have found a way into Faerie. This would have been about thirteen years ago.’

  ‘The human? What of him?’

  So it was true. His dad had made it. He knew it. He knew he wouldn’t have run out on them without a good reason.

  ‘Is he still there? Is he all right?’

  The fairy shook her head. ‘I know only stories, child. Rumor and innuendo. There was a human who came here and found himself unable to return, but whether he is the man you seek I cannot say with any certainty.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Tony said. Because it was. He knew she was talking about Thomas Lott. She had to be. His dad had made it to Faerie. He was there right now. The thought filled him with excitement—excitement and not a small amount of dread. Did his father still think of him? Had he spent every one of those thirteen years struggling to find a way back to his son?

  ‘Are we done?’ Madame Zelda asked.

  Sir Roderick nodded. ‘It seems so.’

  ‘All right then. Goodbye, Mai. You look after yourself, do you hear?’

  ‘You too, Zelda. Sweet dreams.’

  Then the face vanished. All that remained was a dish of slowly swirling water.

  Madame Zelda reached for another cigarette. ‘And that’s your lot, gentlemen. Thank you, good evening, and see yourselves out. I’ve already missed the beginning of University Challenge tonight and I’ll be buggered if I’m going to miss any more.’

  *

  The journey back to Martell’s Antiques took less than twenty minutes. Sir Roderick hailed them a cab on the edge of Madame Zelda’s estate and handed the driver a large wedge of notes in exchange for getting them there as quickly as possible. The balding Iraqi behind the wheel didn’t waste any time asking questions. What cabbie worth his salt would? He slammed his foot onto the accelerator and shot them through the seedy London streets like a bullet. As they rocked from side to side in the back, Sir Roderick roared with laughter. Tony realized that his companion was actually enjoying the chaos of it all. Every screech of tires or sudden turn made him pound his fists against the leather interior with delight and yell further encouragement to the driver.

  ‘That’s it, my good man, faster, faster. We haven’t a moment to lose.’

 
They got to Martell’s Antiques as a bright moon emerged from behind a bank of clouds, spilling a torrent of silver light into the street. Tony found his key in his coat pocket and opened the door. Inside, the antiques clung to the darkness, a devil’s assembly of shapes and shadows that seemed to have suddenly frozen, as if disturbed by their arrival. The entire shop could have been holding its breath.

  Tony hit the light switch and ran straight to Martell’s secret hidey-hole. To his disappointment, he found nothing inside but deep, cold darkness. He checked the cabinet in Martell’s office next, then the drawers in his desk, even the shelf in Martell’s bedroom where his uncle kept his favorite books. Each time he found nothing out of the ordinary. Just old pencils, notebooks, a handful of paperclips, and a stack of Ray Bradbury paperbacks.

  Which was no surprise, he thought. Mr. Krook and Mr. Kepler had been here, too. If the missing antique, whatever it was, had been placed somewhere obvious then they would have taken it for themselves.

  Think, he said to himself. Why wouldn’t Martell hide this antique with the others?

  The answer came instantly. Because it’s too big to fit into the hidey-hole.

  He nodded. This made sense. Okay, so where is it …?

  Back in the shop Sir Roderick sat on a dusty chaise-longue, inspecting the surrounding antiques with a frown of incomprehension. When he heard Tony clattering down the stairs he jumped to attention.

  ‘Did you find it?’

  ‘Not yet. I think Martell must have hidden it in plain sight. What better place to hide an antique than in a shop overflowing with them?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Sir Roderick shouted. ‘The old man is a genius. I’d never have thought of doing that.’

  ‘Look everywhere,’ Tony cried. ‘Look for anything that could be magical—anything that doesn’t quite fit.’

  They started at opposite ends of the store. Sir Roderick inspected a cabinet filled with porcelain figurines while Tony worked his way through a table of old children’s toys: a doll’s house, a jack-in-the-box, wooden alphabet blocks, teddy bears, roller skates, a net of marbles, a wooden truck, a dog on wheels, a platoon of tin soldiers. He tried to be as methodical as possible, but the task ahead of them seemed enormous. There were thirty-five thousand antiques on this floor alone. A sudden terror seized him. What if they never found it? They could spend the rest of their lives in here, never knowing what they were looking for.