by Frewin Jones
They heard the hollow reverberation of the front door slamming.
Tania took a deep breath and went into the kitchen. Connor had his head in the fridge. He looked up.
“There’s some stuff I have to tell you,” Tania said. “And it’s totally ridiculous and you’re going to think I’m insane, but—”
“I’m starved,” Connor said. “We’ve got frozen pizza.” He took a carton of orange juice out of the door and unscrewed the lid. He offered it to her. She shook her head. He took a long swig. “Would you and your friend like some pizza?”
“Uh…yes. Thanks.”
He opened the freezer compartment and pulled out a pizza box.
“‘A few minutes in the oven,’” he read. “That’ll do.” He pointed toward a drawer. “Fetch out the knives and forks, will you?”
“I can’t,” Tania said.
“What? You dieting?”
“No, I mean I can’t touch the knives and forks. I’m allergic to metal.”
“Really? You never used to be. When did this happen?” He walked across the kitchen, ripping the box open.
“A few weeks back.”
He turned around and stared at her. “Excuse me?”
Her frustration boiled up in her. “I need your help,” she blurted out. “I need some antibiotics.”
His face showed no reaction. “What sort?”
“I don’t know. Something that you’d use to treat someone with a really bad fever.”
Connor nodded. “You don’t know the specific nature of the disease?”
“Only that it’s like a really, really severe flu. People get feverish. Sweaty. There are headaches and sometimes they cough up blood.”
He leaned back against the work surface. “Okay,” he said. “You’d probably want to use some broad-spectrum antibiotics. I’d guess something like tigecycline or levofloxacin would do the trick. How many doses will you need?”
Tania couldn’t believe this. Connor was willing to help; she hadn’t had to talk him round at all.
“Uh…about…fifty or so…and…and—this is going to sound weird—but it needs to work really quickly, but you can’t use injections; you can’t use needles.”
“No problem,” Connor said with a smile. “You could use a gas-powered noninvasive injection device. It delivers the antibiotics without needles by blasting it through the epidermis at high speed.”
“And you can get one?”
Connor lifted his shoulders. “Sure,” he said. “Or you could get one yourself. Anytime. Just go to the hospital and ask for the chief medical consultant. He’ll give you a big box crammed full of them if you ask him nicely. No charge and glad to be of service.”
The truth finally dawned. Connor was playing her.
“What’s going on with you?” he asked, and now the light, casual tone had gone from his voice. “My folks have been telling me some weird stuff about you. Like, that you had a boating accident a couple of months ago. And that you went missing from the hospital, then turned up out of the blue with some story of having gone to Wales and back. And the latest is that you and your folks were abroad somewhere on vacation—which is kind of weird in itself, seeing you’re only just supposed to have come back from two weeks in Cornwall. Oh, and thank your mum and dad for the Cornish card, by the way. Nice scenery.”
Tania looked at him. She could think of nothing to say.
“Listen, Anita,” he said gently. “Are you okay? If you’re in trouble, just tell me the truth and I’ll do what I can for you. Are you feeling a bit messed up in your head, is that it? Concussion can do strange things.”
“I’m not crazy, if that’s what you mean,” Tania said softly.
“Crazy people never think they are,” said Connor. “That’s the problem with being crazy. And I don’t think you’re crazy—but you have to admit this is all a bit off the wall, know what I mean?”
“Tania, you must tell him the truth.”
Tania looked around. Rathina was standing in the doorway.
Connor gave her a hard look. “Who exactly are you?”
“I am exactly Princess Rathina Aurealis,” said Rathina. “And you must prepare yourself for revelations beyond Mortal imagination.” She turned to Tania. “Sister, place the yearnstone bracelet about his wrist. Reveal to him the truth; take him between the worlds.”
A look of alarm flickered across Connor’s face. “I think maybe I should give your folks a call, Anita,” he said.
“No!” Desperately as she longed to hear her parents’ voices, to pour out her wounded heart to them, she knew that it was impossible to involve them.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want them to know about this.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Connor said firmly. He glared at Rathina. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re playing at, but Anita is a friend of mine and I’m going to put a stop to this right now. Anita, I’m taking you home. Whether you like it or not. If I have to carry you downstairs and force you into my car, I will.”
“You know not what is at stake!” Rathina declared. “Think you that I would allow you to abduct my sister?”
“Anita doesn’t have a sister!” shouted Connor.
Tania didn’t raise her voice. “No, she doesn’t,” she said. “But Tania does.” There was only one sure way to convince Connor that they were telling the truth, and that was to give him the kind of proof that even his scientific mind couldn’t deny.
Taking a Mortal into Faerie was a huge decision to make, but what other choice did she have? Without Connor’s help the whole of Faerie could perish.
“Listen, Connor,” she said. “I know what you think, but you have to give me a chance to show you something. We need to be on ground level. Is there a garden to this house?”
His voice was guarded. “Yes.”
“Do you have access to it?”
He nodded.
“Take me down there please,” Tania said. “If I haven’t convinced you within two minutes that there’s something unbelievable happening here, I promise I’ll get into the car with you and you can take me wherever you like. Deal?”
For a few moments Connor’s expression was skeptical, but then he shrugged. “What the hell,” he said. He pointed at Rathina. “You’re definitely looney tunes, and you…” He looked at Tania. “I don’t know what’s going on with you. But let’s get it over with. I’ve had a long day. I really don’t need crazy stuff like this when I get home.” He walked out of the kitchen. “You know what? I was looking forward to blobbing in front of the telly with a microwave pizza before you girls turned up.”
Tania ran down the stairs with Rathina right behind her. She turned back. “Connor, come on; it’s really urgent.”
He followed them down slowly. “Yes, I’m sure it is,” he said.
“It is! You have no idea!”
A rickety door led to a narrow side alley and a small garden overhung with dense ivy and entirely consumed by lanky weeds.
Connor pushed his hands into his pockets. “Well? What are you going to show me, your spaceship?”
“Not quite,” said Tania. “Can anyone see us here?”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
Tania opened her bag and delved for the white crystal bracelet that Eden had given her.
“You think us either lunatics or liars, is it not so, Master Connor?” said Rathina.
“Not necessarily,” said Connor. “I guess this could all be a big setup.” He gazed around as if he was looking for hidden cameras. “You planning on filming this and putting it on YouTube? Goof of the week or something?”
Rathina smiled darkly. “Prepare yourself for marvels!”
Tania found the bracelet. “I want you to put this on,” she said.
“Whatever.” Connor took the bracelet and clasped it around his wrist.
“Hold hands with me.”
She caught hold of his hand. Rathina took her other hand.
Tania looked at Co
nnor, wondering how he would react to what she was about to do to him. “Okay, step forward on three, yes?”
“Fine.”
“One…two…three.”
The garden shimmered and they stepped into a place filled with trees.
XIV
“What just happened?” Connor sounded more amazed than scared.
“Did I not say to prepare yourself for marvels?” said Rathina. “Ahh! But it is good to smell the dulcet air of Faerie once again!”
“We just left your world and entered Faerie,” Tania told him.
Connor looked at her, his face incredulous. “Anita…my world? Don’t you mean our world?” Tania smiled as Connor gazed around himself.
They were in a dense oak forest. Evening sunshine penetrated the canopy of leaves, slanting down, splashing pools of light over the gnarled trunks and forest floor. Birds caroled in the branches. The air was rich with odors of damp earth and leaf mold, as well as the sweeter scents of leaf and shoot and bud.
“I don’t think we’re in Peckham anymore,” Connor murmured to himself.
“You’re in the Immortal Realm of Faerie,” Tania said. “I am Princess Tania and this is my sister Rathina. Our parents are King Oberon and Queen Titania and…and we’re Immortal.”
Connor lifted his hand and felt his head. “I’m just checking you haven’t whacked me over the skull,” he said. “Because if that’s not the case, then I’m in real trouble.”
“I know what you’re going through,” Tania said. “I felt exactly the same the first time I was brought here. I promise to take you back home as quickly as possible, okay? But we need your help, so we don’t have time for you to adjust. This is real, okay? Really real.”
Connor looked hollowly at her, shaking his head. “No…way.”
“Connor! Look around you!”
Rathina stepped forward and gave him a hard slap across the face. Connor jerked back with a yelp, his hand coming to his cheek.
“Rathina!” exclaimed Tania.
“Do you believe this is real now, Master Connor?” Rathina asked. “Or do you require more proof?”
“No,” gasped Connor. “Please. No more proof.”
“You will help us?” Rathina added. “Our need is great and there is little time.”
“If you…if…I…” He took a deep breath. “Listen, when we get a minute, will it be okay for me to curl in a ball and do some primal screaming?”
Tania smiled. “Later, maybe.” She looked closely into his face. “I have to tell you what’s going on and what we need you to do,” she said. “Are you in an okay state to take in what I’m going to say? It’s really important.”
He nodded, although he still looked shell-shocked.
“Okay,” said Tania. “Brace yourself. Here’s the thing….”
“How much longer must we wait for him?”
“Give him a minute, Rathina. It’s a lot to process.”
Connor was sitting under a tree, his legs drawn up, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
Tania knew how he must be feeling: like someone had reached into his skull and pulled his brain inside out.
But Rathina was right. Tania stared southward through ranks of ancient oak trees. Away beyond sight, where the land ended in high sea-lashed chalk cliffs, stood Veraglad Palace and the plague victims quarantined within its walls. For how much longer could Oberon hold the sickly Faerie folk in suspension? Days? Weeks?
Maybe only hours?
She crouched in front of Connor. “How are you doing?” she asked.
He took his hands away from his face and looked at her. His eyes were haunted and still full of disbelief. “This is actually happening?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not some kind of elaborate trick?”
“No.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “There’s no signal,” he said dully.
“No, there wouldn’t be.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “Different world, Connor.”
He put the phone away and swore quietly. Tania rested her hand on his knee.
“You have to pull yourself together.”
“Why?”
“Because we need you.”
Rathina stood at Tania’s back. “I hear a splashing stream close to hand,” she said. “Mayhap if his head were held under the water for a while, it would aid his recovery?”
Connor eyed her uneasily. “You have a rotten bedside manner, you know that?”
“Mooncalf!” Rathina muttered.
“Come on,” said Tania, dragging him to his feet. “What can we do to speed this along? You’re the doctor. What would you give someone suffering from shock?”
“Shock?” said Connor. “This isn’t shock; this is devastation. Do you really think you can lay all this on me and expect me to act like nothing’s happened? I’m in another world, Anita!”
“Yes, you are. And people are dying.”
Connor closed his eyes. When he opened them again, a fragile clarity seemed to have returned. “Okay,” he said. “You think your dad brought the illness here? How is he now? Better or worse?”
“I don’t know,” said Tania, trying hard to subdue the agony that hit her every time she thought of her parents. “I haven’t been in contact with my folks since I arrived in London. It hurts so bad not to be with them, Connor, but I didn’t even know what to say to them.”
“I can see that,” said Connor. “Listen, how difficult is it for you to get me back home?”
“Not difficult at all,” Tania said. “But there’s something else I have to tell you. Something you really need to understand.” She took a breath. He had to realize how serious this was. “We’re working on a deadline,” she told him. “The way I get from world to world—that’s going to stop working at first light tomorrow morning.”
“So we need to get back here tonight, yes?”
Tania looked anxiously at him. “That’s right, but if you come with us into Faerie again and don’t get out before dawn, you’re going to be stuck here forever.” She stared into his face. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? You won’t ever be able to get back.”
Taking him into Faerie was a desperate risk, but so many lives depended on it. Difficult as it was for her, how could she not ask him?
“So it’s a nighttime raid,” Connor said. “In and out before the sun comes up.” He frowned, his face uncertain. “You’re asking a lot,” he said.
“I know.” Part of her almost wished he would say no, so that the chance of his being stranded would be taken out of her hands.
He nodded at last. “Okay, I can handle that,” he said. “Now then, the first thing to do is to find out how your dad is doing—that should help me to try and figure out what illness we’re dealing with here.” He frowned. “It could be something really simple, you know? A cold, mild flu. I’ve read stuff about tribes in the jungle who got wiped out by explorers introducing them to the common cold. They had no natural immunity to it, you see? I think that might be what’s happening here.” He looked at Rathina. “In a world that has no disease even a relatively minor ailment could cause havoc.”
“Mum and Dad mustn’t know how bad things have got,” Tania said. “They’d lose their minds if they found out.”
“I get that. Listen, I’ll give them a call. I’ll say I’m just catching up. I won’t say anything about having seen you. I’ll say something about a lot of people having summer colds this year and ask how they’re doing. That should give me enough info to be getting on with. Then it’s a case of figuring out what drugs to use.”
“And remember: no needles,” said Tania.
“That’s not a problem. I won’t be able to lay my hands on a huge amount of stuff, but I think I know how I can get hold of a single air-jet inoculator and a couple of ampoules of broad-spectrum antibiotics. That should be enough to do a test run on a single patient.” He looked at her, and now his eyes were bright. “And if it works, you can just magic your
self into the hospital pharmacy and help yourself to as much as you need.”
“Steal it, you mean?” asked Tania.
“Leave money, if it makes you feel better.”
“I don’t have any; we don’t use money here.”
“Diamonds, then. Whatever.” He held up the wrist with the yearnstone bracelet on it. “Take me back. Let’s get this show on the road!”
Connor put the phone down, his face pensive. It had been agonizing for Tania to stand by while he had spoken with her mother. Every fiber of her being cried out to her to snatch the phone out of his hand. But she knew she mustn’t.
“How’s my dad?” she asked.
“He’s doing okay,” Connor said thoughtfully.
“You’re sure?”
“Mmm? Oh—yes, yes. No problem.” His face cleared and he smiled. “Wow, but your mum is cool. If I didn’t already know all that stuff you told me, I’d never have guessed there was anything weird happening with her.” His eyebrows rose. “So the question is what to do next?”
“Go gather your medicaments, Master Connor,” said Rathina. “And that full speedily!”
“Yes. Of course. Let me think.” Tania watched him anxiously. “Okay, here’s what we do,” he said after a few moments. “I’ll take the car back to King’s College. I know where the stuff we need is kept. I’ll slip in and borrow it from the emergency room dispensary. They’re used to me hanging around there, so they won’t be suspicious. Then I’ll come back here and pick up you two, and then we drive to Beachy Head. That’s where we need to be, right?”
“We should go with you,” said Tania.
“And how would I explain what the two of you were doing in the emergency room?” Connor asked. “No. Believe me, this will run a lot smoother if you stay put.”
“Okay.” Tania nodded. Would it really be as simple as that?
“Give me”—he studied his watch—“half an hour to be on the safe side. Make yourselves something to eat if you’re peckish. In fact, you can make us all some sandwiches. There’s bread and cheese and stuff. And we’ll take some drinks. It’ll be quite a long journey.” He stood at the door and took a last look at them.