“Oh Loisa, it was so good of you to come. I didn’t know who else to turn to.” Elle sat down on the divan before the fire. “Let me ring for refreshments to be served here in the drawing room. There is much I need to tell you and most of it is not good news.”
Loisa settled herself in the chair opposite Elle and folded her perfect white hands in her lap. “Well, out with it then,” she said.
Elle took a deep breath and proceeded to tell Loisa everything that had happened, pausing only to pour the tea, which had arrived shortly after she had rung the bell pull.
“Mon Dieu!” Loisa muttered. “This is dark sorcery indeed.”
“He has now been missing for three days and so far I have not been able to find even the slightest clue as to where he might be,” Elle said.
“Well, then we have no time to lose. Where shall we start?” Loisa looked around the room as if for inspiration.
“Dearest Loisa. You must be exhausted. Perhaps you should get some rest. I will have something sent up to you for your dinner. Your coffin should be upstairs now, so please do go to ground.” Elle put her hand on her frien’ ”s arm and smiled. “Mrs. Hinges has Caruthers and Neville out looking by day. I will call you if there is any news. As soon as the sun sets tonight our search can begin in earnest.”
Loisa pressed her hand to her mouth and stifled a yawn. “Perhaps you are right. But what are you going to do all day while I rest?”
Elle smiled at her. “I think I have an idea. I’ll tell you whether it worked when you rise.”
CHAPTER 15
Back in her room, Elle stripped out of her morning dress and slipped into a set of comfortable silk robes. She had given instructions to Mrs. Hinges that for the duration of the baroness’s stay they would all switch to nocturnal hours. There were a few startled looks, but the promise of double wages to make up for the inconvenience seemed to placate the staff who were by now accustomed to the odd goings-on that pervaded Greychester house.
This was just as well, for Elle did not want to be disturbed. She pulled the brass lever and stepped back inside her secret chamber.
This time, she paused only to light the one fresh candle she had brought with her from downstairs. Last night’s foray into the Shadow Realm had not been particularly successful, but now she was ready to try again.
She closed her eyes and stepped into the circle.
Almost immediately, she felt the power caught in the barrier surge up and envelop her. She ceased hold of it and within seconds she was crossing the divide with a speed and force she had never experienced before.
Light and shadow swirled around her until she landed on the ground. She was back in the golden field, but the place had lost all its vibrancy.
The tiny jeweled flowers had dried and withered until they were completely drained of color and the light around her had turned from gold to bronze like the sepia of an over-exposed photograph. She did not pause to marvel at the changes in the place though, for time moved differently here and she could not waste a moment of it.
Elle twisted her wedding band round her finger and composed herself. “Well, Hugh, let’s see if these rings really work,” she said into the void. The world of Shadow swirled around her, brushing up against her skin. Ever so gently, she allowed her energy to reach out and find the fine thread that ran from her hand. There, under her fingers, the fine silk stretched out far off into the darkness.
Carefully, she lifted the thread and followed it, gently winding it around her fingers as she walked. The thread seemed to disappear into her own ring the moment it touched her hand and so she walked on. The question as to who was the fish and who was the fisherman was one she did not really want to consider.
She walked for what seemed like hours. The path wound through the strange and undulating landscape. Everything was completely silent, except for the sounds of her footsteps crunching on the dry ground underfoot.
As she walked, the brown sepia tones around her grew darker and the world changed to monochrome. Black-limbed trees grew thicker and thicker, their branches clawing at the sky, until she found herself in the middle of a dark forest.
Every now and then, she caught the flicker of eyes glinting through the thick mist that shrouded the trees. She was not alone.
The path through the forest twisted and wound itself this way and that. Elle tripped over tree roots and slid on slimy rotting leaves but she kept moving. Her only guide was the fine silver thread that stretched out before her.
After what seemed like days of walking, Elle stopped and rested against one of the trees. She was exhausted and close to despair. The fine strand stretched out before her, with no end in sight.
She studied the rotting stump under her foot. It looked exactly like the rotting stump she had tripped over a while before, but there was no way of telling whether this was the same stump or not. She was normally an excellent navigator, but in the Shadow all sense of direction was different and with a growing sense of dread, Elle realized that she might be lost.
And being lost in the Realm of Shadow was a very bad thing, because in this place it meant never getting out again.
The little creatures in the trees chattered and hissed, now closer than before. One dropped down from one of the branches. It was the size of either a very large, hairless rat or a small dog, depending on which way you looked at it. Elle flinched at the sight of its leathery skin and disconcertingly monkey features that were almost human. It hissed and chattered its razor-sharp teeth. Her despair was making them bold. They could smell her fear.
She lifted the silver thread and tugged it gently. It yielded and came toward her without any resistance. Was Marsh even on the other side of it? She signed and rubbed her face. For all she knew, she could have been following nothing.
“Lovely evening for a walk, don’t you think?” Someone spoke from the darkness to the left of her.
Elle felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up. “Who’s there? Show yourself,” she demanded.
She heard a soft rustle and an old man in a cloak stepped out of the mists.
“Who are you? What is your name?” she said.
“Those are bold questions to ask of a stranger,” he said. Carefully he opened his cloak to reveal the rather old-fashioned lantern he was carrying. The golden light that flickered behind the glass was warmly mesmerizing in this miserable place.
“Doesn’t hurt to know who one is dealing with,” Elle said, dragging her gaze away from the light.
The old man nodded slowly. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t. The name is Old Jack. How do you do.”
He was short in stature with a shaggy beard. The dark cloak that hid the lantern fell all the way down to his feet. And when he moved, his shadow rippled in the same way light refracted off the sheen of a soap bubble. In the Realm of Light, shadows were dark. Here, in the Shadow, it was the opposite.
Jack stood perfectly still as if he was waiting for her to say something.
“Eleanor,” she said.
He laughed. “Well, now that we have both lied to one another, I think the game may begin, girl-with-no-shadow.” He pointed at the ground to where her own shadow should lie, but there was none.
“There is no game and I shall be on my way in a moment, if you don’t mind,” Elle said.
He laughed and shook his head. “My dear girl, anyone can tell that you are completely and hopelessly lost. Are you not?”
“And what if I was? It is no business of yours, surely?”
He smiled at her and his face crinkled into mosaic of wrinkles and bad, yellowing teeth. “Oh, I don’t think that is entirely correct. You see, these are my woods and so anyone walking in them would be my business.”
“I am merely passing through here. And I am not lost. I know exactly where I am going.” She moved her hand behind her back so he would not see the strand.
But it was too late. “Ah yes, a strand of wyrd silk. I haven’t seen one of those in many years.” Old Jack looked down at her han
d. “The dib-dips told me someone was chasing a strand of light through here. But one should never listen to a dib-dip. They are all terrible liars. Will do anything to sink their little teeth into your flesh. Only fresh blood will slake their thirst.”
“Thank you for the advice,” Elle said drily.
“Are you sure of the love of the person who is on the other side of that?”
“Of course I am,” Elle said.
“And are you sure that you feel the same?”
“Absolutely.”
“Hmm. I hope for your sake that this is true, because unless your intentions are equally matched, the magic that binds you will not draw you together.”
Old Jack lifted his lantern so the light could follow the fine white thread that disappeared off into the darkness of the trees before them. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to say that your little thread looks a bit slack to me. I wouldn’t rely on this love if I were you, my dear.”
Elle stood up and straightened her robes. “I’m sorry, sir, but that really is none of your concern. Now, if you would excuse me, I shall be on my way. Thank you for allowing me the little rest here.”
Old Jack lifted his lantern and peered at her in the yellow light. “You shouldn’t be so hasty. I think you and I have much more to discuss before you go.” He smiled at her in a most sinister manner.
Elle took a step away from him. “If you don’t mind, I really am in a frightful hurry. So tell me truthfully: what is it going to take for you to leave me alone?”
“Oh, it’s not that simple, my dear. As I said before, these are my woods and you are trespassing. And if I order it so, you will wander round and round in circles here until you collapse, wyrd silk or not.” Jack scratched his shaggy beard. “And these woods are full of creatures who hunger for the flesh of the freshly dead. Don’t you, little dib-dips?”
The air filled with the sound of hissing and chattering in answer to Jack’s question.
Elle sighed. “All right, what will it take for you to give me permission to walk through your wood?”
Old Jack’s smile broadened. “Well, seeing as I am in a good mood, I will make it worth your while. I will let you pass unhindered, but in return, you must allow me a little holiday on the Light side. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to visit.”
“You know the rules,” Elle said.
“Yes, I must promise to do no harm. But what does that really mean? And how can you expect to do no harm when you are a creature whose very existence depends on it?”
Elle shrugged. This discussion was far too philosophical and Shadow creatures were notoriously illogical when it came to such things.
“How about this as a proposal?” she said. “Let me out of these woods and show me the way to the other end of this thread and I will agree to meet with you at another time to discuss a visit to the Light. I cannot promise that I will be able to find a way around the oath you will need to take in order to cross the barrier, but I can promise to see what I can do.”
Old Jack nodded. “A fair offer. It is wise to refrain from promising things that do not lie within one’s gift. But what you propose is not enough. Your end of the scales are still too light, my dear.”
“It is all I have to offer at this stage,” Elle said.
Jack shrugged. “Well, making sure that people get lost is so much in my nature, I am not sure I will be able to overcome it for your sake.”
“What else do you want then?” she said.
“Hmm, now there is a question I am not often asked,” Old Jack said. “A holiday to the Light side where I can do what I will, unfettered by rules and oaths. If that is not possible, you must agree that you owe me a favor. A favor I can call upon at any time.”
Elle considered his words. It was definitely a trick, but right now she was in no position to bargain. In her blind haste to find Marsh, she had foolishly wandered into the clutches of a Shadow creature and he could keep her here as long as it took to get what he wanted.
“There really is no point in delaying the inevitable,” Jack said as if he had read her thoughts.
“Very well, I agree that I shall owe you a favor,” Elle said.
She could deal with this Jack later. And who knows, the Fey had such a distorted view of time that he may even only decide to call up the favor a hundred years from now, when she was long dead. All in all it was not ideal, but it was the best bargain she could make right now.
Old Jack”’s smile grew wider and he held out a gnarled hand. “Then let us shake hands and be friends.”
Elle took the old man’s hand into hers and shook it calmly. She felt a little tickle of magic in her palm that told her that the bargain had been sealed. She let go of Jack’s hand as fast as she could.
“Come along, then.” He lifted his lantern and gestured toward the darkness. “It’s not far.”
They walked along through the forest in silence. The light from the lantern cast an eerie yellow glow on the path before them. And although her traveling companion was slightly odious, not tripping over things in the dark was certainly an improvement to before. As they walked, the trees grew thinner and shafts of light poured down to the ground.
Jack stopped walking and held up his lantern. “This is the end of my domain, Lady Oracle,” he murmured. “Walk on and be on your way. We shall see each other soon to discuss our bargain.”
“Goodbye Jack, and thank you for your help,” Elle said, but he had already disappeared.
She turned to survey the landscape. Before her lay a bleak open plane where the sky and the ground were both the color of bleached bone. The only other thing inhabiting this place was a tiding of very large and scruffy-looking magpies. They sat, huddled in the white branches of a dead tree. The sun and the shadow magic reflecting off their mother-of-pearl-black feathers, interspersed with the white. The magpies gazed at her with their unblinking, beady eyes.
“Dark! Dark!” One of the birds let out a rasping squawk that echoed across the emptiness. The sound made Elle jump, but she bit her lip and pressed on, all the while holding onto the filament she hoped would lead her to Marsh.
Apart from the magpies, there was nothing but the whistle of lonely wind. But as she walked, the wind brought with it a strange ticking sound.
Suddenly, the magpies startled. They rose up as one from the tree in a mass of black and white feathers, squawking wildly as they flew.
The ticking grew louder and louder, a macabre metronome that echoed across the landscape. Eventually it grew so loud that if felt as if the noise was resonating in her very bones. Elle looked around to find the source of the sound, but around her was nothing but bleakness. Jack’s wood was far away now.
The ticking was an unwelcome reminder of the awful dreams she had been having of late.
Elle swallowed down her fear and walked on, hoping desperately that she would find Marsh before she ran into whatever it was that made that sound, but they appeared on the horizon all the same.
At first, the figures were nothing more than a few smudges of dark and light on the horizon. Elle squinted in the bright, eerie light but it was almost impossible to make out anything more.
Time and space worked differently here in the Shadow and in the blink of an eye, they had crossed the dry shimmering distance that separated her from them.
They stood very still, in a huddle, not looking at anything. And all the while, the sound of ticking rose up from their midst. It was a terrible sound of mechanical unison. Un-human. Un-dead.
With a growing sense of horror, Elle realized that her fine silver thread led straight into the middle of these creatures.
She walked up as close to the huddle of blank bodies she dared. They did not move or acknowledge her in any way. Slowly she reached up to touch what looked like the outline of a shoulder, but her fingers slipped right through the image. These creatures were nothing but incandescent mirages. They were nothing.
How strange, she thought. Did that mean that thes
e were not creatures of Shadow? Was their presence here simply an imprint of what was happening on the other side of the barrier?
This was far beyond the reaches of her knowledge of these things, that she had no idea.
Gathering up all of her courage, Elle pulled at the filament between her fingers. The flock of undead wavered like sea grass under water. Some of the creatures turned and looked at her, but their faces were nothing more than blank spaces. It was as if the essence of whoever these people had once been was stripped from them, leaving only an empty husk behind.
She felt resistance give between her fingers and pulled again, this time with more force. The bodies moved again, and from their midst, one of the creatures stumbled. Its left arm was extended as if it had been lassoed.
Despite herself, Elle let out a small cry of despair. For there was no mistaking the height and dimensions of the body she knew so well. She had found her husband. Or at least she had found what was left of him.
The outline tilted his head to one side and reached out to her. In that moment, Elle wanted to wrap him in her arms and take him home, but she knew she could not. The infinite barrier of Shadow and Light that lay between here and home separated them. And with a growing sense of despair, Elle realized that there was nothing they could do but stare at one another from across the divide.
In the distance the magpies sounded the alarm. She saw them circle round and round as the sky overhead darkened.
Thunder rumbled overhead and in the distance, bright flashes of lightning split the sky.
“Run! Run!” the magpies squawked as they flew past.
Elle spun round. The horizon had turned gunmetal gray. Angry clouds boiled and multiplied with sinister speed. Something was coming. She felt the weight of it on her chest, threatening to push the air from her lungs.
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