Chapter 40
Hannah and Aunt Zo ran far too quickly into the forest, panicked, and within five minutes both were gasping and out of breath. It didn’t help that it was uneven underfoot, tangled with fallen branches and leaves and rocks. Aunt Zo was the first to grind to a halt. She put her hands on her knees and coughed for a while, sucking in deep breaths when she had a chance.
‘It’s times like this,’ she rasped, ‘that all the Marlboro Lites don’t seem such a great idea after all.’
Hannah was happy to stop. She didn’t think it made sense to keep running if you didn’t know where you were going. What if they were headed in the wrong direction – assuming, of course, there was a right way to go? But there had to be, didn’t there? One choice had to be better than the others. There had to be a way from here to Mom. You couldn’t be in the centre of nowhere, a place from which there was no road, no way home.
Could you?
They were a distance from the restaurant now, at least. You couldn’t see it behind. Nothing had come after them. The forest was silent in the way that only innumerable redwoods can pull off. Except for …
‘What was that?’
‘Don’t know,’ Aunt Zo said tersely. Her chest still rose and fell rapidly, but she forced it to happen quietly. They stood close and turned in a slow circle.
All they could see were ranks of trees in every direction. Redwoods enjoy clustering in groups, circles of five or more, like gossiping (and very tall) old ladies. The forest looked like a vast and infinite assembly of such women, amongst whom all conversation had suddenly ceased. It felt as if some of the trees could, at any moment, turn and show their ancient faces.
Was that what they’d heard? The sound of one of the trees starting to turn?
They heard the noise again – a whistling sound from above, getting louder. Then it changed to a rustling sound, still high above their heads, but getting lower and closer. It sounded like something moving high up in one of the trees nearby. They looked up, but couldn’t see anything.
‘What lives in redwoods?’
‘How would I know?’ Aunt Zo said. ‘I’m city folk. Once you get past “Trees have leaves”, I’d have to google it.’
The rustling got louder, and louder, until it was more of a crackling noise. And then …
‘Look out!’
Aunt Zo grabbed Hannah and yanked her out of the way as something came crashing down through the lower branches of the nearest redwood and smacked into the forest floor with a loud burping sound. It bounced several times in a hectic way before ending up in a bush.
Zo backed away, pushing Hannah behind her. ‘What the … heck was that?’
The bush moved. ‘That was awwwwwwwwwwwwwesome,’ a voice crowed. ‘I am so doing that again.’
Hannah frowned. ‘Is that …’
Vaneclaw came striding out of the bush, grinning gleefully. ‘Oh, wotcha. Fancy seeing you here.’
‘Oh,’ Aunt Zo said in a voice of quiet wonder. ‘It’s a giant mushroom. That talks.’
‘Don’t you start,’ the imp said.
‘You can see him now?’
‘I can see … something,’ Zo said, staring at Vaneclaw as though her sanity was on the verge of deciding this was the last straw. ‘Though I wish I couldn’t. It looks … very weird.’
‘Funny thing is,’ said the imp, ‘to me, you look like a shaved ape. With silly hair. Anyway – what a ride that was, eh?’
Aunt Zo smiled. ‘OK. I get it. That’s why I can suddenly see the … that thing. Duh. We should have realized earlier.’
‘Realized what?’ Hannah said.
‘This is a dream.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course,’ Zo said, very relieved. ‘A restaurant you’ve been to before, crazy receptionist who says your mom’s name, then we’re in a forest just like Big Sur, where we were only a few hours ago … Thank God. This is just a stupid dream.’
‘No it’s not,’ Vaneclaw said.
‘It is.’
‘Nope.’
‘It is,’ Zo insisted.
‘Hang on,’ the imp said. ‘Give us a sec.’
He went scampering off into the trees, and then slowed, his head – or the top part of his body – lowered, as if he was looking for something on the ground.
Hannah was confused. Was this just a dream? That kind of made sense, but if so, didn’t it mean it had to be her dream? Aunt Zo had never been to Bistrotechnical, so she could have no memory to get mangled and flipped into a nightmare, which is more what this felt like. So it must be Hannah’s. How could you tell if you were dreaming? She did the only thing she’d heard of, and pinched herself on the arm.
‘Ouch,’ she said. Nothing changed.
‘It’s a dream,’ Aunt Zo insisted confidently.
‘Daddy says you’re not allowed to do that in stories, though. The bastards won’t allow it.’
‘Who are the “bastards”?’
‘The people he writes stories for. You’re not allowed to have dreams and they’re not keen on flashbacks or voice-overs, either. Which he says is dumb because you’ve got a voice going in your head all the time and flashbacks are just like memories. But it’s not allowed. It drives him nuts.’
‘You can’t have made-up things in made-up stories. But in real life, you can.’
‘What?’
‘I know that doesn’t make much sense.’
The imp came running back holding something in his little hand. ‘Here we go,’ he said triumphantly. ‘And blow me down if it isn’t an old mucker of mine.’
He was holding what looked like a pebble. About an inch and a half round, dark grey, and smooth.
‘It’s … a pebble,’ Hannah said.
‘Aha, no,’ the imp said. ‘Oi, Sniveldash?’
Two little eyes suddenly opened on the rock. They swivelled round, taking everybody in. Aunt Zo blinked at it. A small mouth opened next, revealing sharp, scythe-like teeth. It yawned.
‘’Sup, Vane?’ Its voice was resonant and deep.
‘What … is that?’
‘This, my friends, is a soulcutter,’ Vaneclaw said. ‘One of your more prolific types of demonon.’
‘Did you say “demonon”?’
‘I did. Sub-class of demons. Don’t get me started on all that, or we’ll be here all night. And, to be frank, whatever I tell you will be almost completely and utterly wrong. But the key thing, your take-away bullet point, is that your soulcutters only exist in the real world. In the real world they’re all over the place. One or two in every garden. A few on every beach, which is why you always want to make sure you sit on a towel.’
‘Granddad mentioned soulcutters,’ Hannah said. ‘That sculpture in my bedroom was supposed to keep them away.’
‘Exactly,’ Vaneclaw said. ‘Your soulcutter, as a breed, prefers to do its work while you’re asleep. Don’t you, mate?’
‘Yeah,’ said the pebble very deeply. ‘We do.’
‘Come in through the windows, or up the water pipes. Or sometimes people pick them up and take them home, thinking they look nice. Which they’re not. They’re why some people feel grim first thing in the morning. Little paper cuts on the soul. But, and here’s my big point, soulcutters are only allowed in the real world, or the Behind, ’cos of a thing that they once … never mind. It was a long time ago, let bygones be bygones. But as a result, they’re not really allowed in stories – so you’re being a bit naughty popping up in this one, my son – and definitely not in dreams. Right, Snivel?’
‘Sadly, that is the situation that obtains.’
‘So, QED and thank you very much,’ the imp declared to Aunt Zo. ‘We’re in the Behind. This is not a dream.’
‘You’ll excuse me,’ Aunt Zo said imperiously, ‘if I’m wary of accepting existential advice from the fleshy, spore-bearing, fruiting body of a fungus.’
But Vaneclaw wasn’t listening. He turned around, peering into the trees. Hannah realized that in the time they’d bee
n talking, it had got darker.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’m not sure,’ the imp said, standing on tiptoe to look over her shoulder. ‘Something’s not right, though.’
The idea that things could become even more not-right caused Hannah to feel extremely nervous. ‘In what way?’
‘Don’t know. Think we should move on.’
‘To where?’ Aunt Zo was sounding nervous now too. ‘A different batch of exactly the same trees?’
‘Which direction was you headed?’
‘That way,’ Hannah said, pointing. ‘I think.’
Vaneclaw peered into the gathering dark. ‘Nah.’ He turned about thirty degrees. ‘I’d say we’d be better off going that way. Snivel?’
‘Depends where you want to go, mate, to be honest.’
While the entities had a short, heated debate, Hannah alternated between looking between the trees and glancing at her aunt. Zo had started to look twitchy.
‘Are you OK, Zo?’
‘Don’t know,’ Aunt Zo said. ‘There’s something … I don’t know. I thought I saw something running in the trees.’
Hannah saw something then too, far away in the woods. It was gone too fast for her to make out what it was. All she knew was that it made her feel ill at ease.
And panicky. ‘Something’s coming,’ she said.
Chapter 41
Vaneclaw came to stand with Hannah. They leaned forwards together, trying to see if there was anything in the shadows.
Aunt Zo and Sniveldash looked at each other. ‘I like your hair,’ the pebble said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Shh,’ Vaneclaw hissed.
‘I’m scared,’ Hannah said. ‘Where’s the Devil, anyway? Shouldn’t he be helping us?’
‘Not sure what occurred with him, and to be honest with you,’ the imp said, eyeing the trees cautiously, ‘you’re better off without him at this stage. I yield to no one in my respect for the big man, but bear in mind he is in fact the Father of All Lies. As such, his counsel can be misleading.’
‘But this is his place!’
‘Well, yes and no, as it happens. He can lay paths in here but he can’t actually make you do things.’
Aunt Zo caught her breath. Deep in the darkness between the trees, she’d seen a figure. ‘Someone’s here,’ she whispered.
‘Was it the chef?’
‘No. It looked like it was dressed all in black.’
‘Ooh, that’s not good,’ Vaneclaw muttered. ‘Wasn’t wearing a pointy hat, was it?’
‘I think so. Oh God – there’s another one.’
Hannah could see them now, and there were more than two. At first you weren’t sure if they were different to the other shadows. They felt like the emptiness in the last drawer you check when you’ve been searching for something you loved but which is now lost. They were like the silence that falls when you give someone a chance to reassure you that everything’s going to be OK, and they still love you, but instead they hesitate. Like that all the time, permanently, and forever.
There were six of them. No, seven. They were moving now, like a pack of animals. ‘Watchers,’ Vaneclaw said dismally.
Eight. Nine.
Hannah blinked. ‘The Watchers are real?’
Ten. Eleven.
‘Yes. My advice is we run away, very fast. Snivel – can we count on you?’
‘Always.’
‘Cheers, mate,’ the imp said, and tossed the pebble on to the forest floor between them and the tattered shadows hovering between the trees. He turned to Hannah and Zo. ‘Run. Now. Imagine nearly a dozen Fallen Angels are right behind you.’
‘Will that help?’
‘Might do. Also, it happens to be true.’
And so again they were running, crashing through the trees and darkness that seemed to be tugging at them as they passed.
Hannah glanced back and saw the pebble spinning on the ground, causing something to happen around it. The air went glassy. It looked sharp. It seemed like it would cut anything that came near it, but as though the wounds would be nowhere that you could see.
‘What’s it doing?’ she gasped to Vaneclaw, who was sprinting alongside her.
‘What he does best. He’s well harsh at it, too, but those things are miles out of his league. They’re out of everyone’s league. If they come after us … it’s bigly un-good.’
Hannah started running even faster.
Aunt Zo was ahead, trying to keep an even pace and to avoid twisting her ankle on the rocky ground, and at the same time fighting an impulse that horrified her – namely to run as fast as she possibly could and worry later about what happened to everyone else. She knew she couldn’t do that, but she wouldn’t have been human if the idea hadn’t occurred to her. She too risked a glance back, and was bewildered to see the pebble – now spinning so quickly it had become a blur – being joined by something that jumped down out of the trees.
It looked like a squirrel. One of those black ones, with the tufty ears. It landed next to the pebble and stood on hind legs, holding its paws up in front.
Then it opened its little mouth and made a sound like a storm cloud rolling over in its sleep, a deep boom that seemed to shake your bones from the inside.
‘Blimey,’ Vaneclaw said, very unnerved. ‘It’s all kicking off. Faster, people.’
And faster and faster they went through the trees but it was hard to keep going as the ground started to thump and shudder and cracks of jagged black lightning shot between the trees from the conflict behind them, turning everything they touched to ash and blood.
‘There’s something up ahead,’ Aunt Zo panted.
Hannah could barely see her now, it was so dark. ‘What?’
‘A light of some kind.’
‘Vaneclaw, what is it?’
‘Dunno,’ the imp gasped. ‘But we’d be better off spending the night up Beelzebub’s arse than stuck out here with that going on behind us. Head for the light, whatever it is. Quick as you like.’
And they ran, and for a while it seemed as if the light ahead wouldn’t get any closer, which gave Zo a chance to hope the imp really was as stupid as everyone said and this was a dream – or nightmare – after all.
But finally they started to gain on it, and Hannah shouted, ‘That’s my house!’
Zo saw she was right. Inexplicably, non-dream though this allegedly was, her niece’s house was ahead in the forest, lights blazing. That had to be a good thing, surely.
A very, very loud noise came from the forest behind, a sound that could mean nothing but destruction. It was the kind of rupturing crack a bad planet might make in the moments before splitting apart to let all the dead babies out.
Hannah found speed she’d never realized her legs were capable of, even managing to draw level with Aunt Zo, whose lungs were giving out on her again, and then they were only yards away from the house – her house. She sprinted for the door, hand outstretched, but stopped so abruptly that she skidded in the leaves.
‘Why aren’t you going in?’ Zo asked. ‘Open the door!’
The imp was trying to see what was going on behind them in the forest. ‘Yes. Seriously, love, it’s getting well out of hand back there. Open the door.’
‘But will it be safe?’ Hannah asked. ‘Will it be my actual house? The restaurant we were in wasn’t real.’
‘Yeah, it was. You was just seeing it from behind.’
Hannah looked at the windows of her house, glowing yellow and warm. ‘But what’s the Behind going to be like in there?’
‘Dunno, love. But if the Fallen get one tince more fractious, it’s game over. There’s a lot of posturing and push-and-shove with that lot, but sooner or later one of them will genuinely lose his rag and the universe will have a new black hole. You do not want to be in the middle of that action, trust me.’
Still Hannah hesitated. Another dull boom came from behind. A beat later, a hundred trees burst into flame.
‘If y
our mom’s going to be anywhere,’ Aunt Zo said gently, ‘it’ll be in here, don’t you think?’
Hannah didn’t know what to think. But home is home is home.
She opened the door.
Chapter 42
They all ran through it, and Aunt Zo slammed it shut again behind them. Hannah felt a wash of unbelievable relief at the idea of being back somewhere that she recognized, that was hers.
It lasted less than a second.
They weren’t in her house after all.
Instead they found themselves standing nervously in the middle of the junction of two dimly lamp-lit streets. The sky was low and cloudy, the same murky, suffocating ochre darkness Hannah had seen when they entered the Behind through the gate in Siberia.
‘Oh, bollocks,’ Vaneclaw said. ‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? Where the monkey nuts is this?’
‘Downtown,’ Aunt Zo said.
The door they’d come through had disappeared. The street now continued behind them towards another crossroads. The road and sidewalks in between were deserted. No cars, no people. Leaden silence. It was a place with all the life taken out.
‘Downtown?’ Hannah said. ‘Santa Cruz?’
‘Look.’ Zo pointed across the junction. ‘We’ve had dinner there, right? A few times.’
A family-friendly restaurant called Tinga, where they did pasta and pizza and some nights a glitter ball would drop from the ceiling and the staff would start suddenly dancing to disco music and spinning dough and then just as suddenly stop and go back to what they’d been doing before. Hannah had always loved it. Her mother grudgingly admitted it was ‘fun’. Her dad said it was how the restaurants would be in Hell. Maybe he’d been right.
‘So where is this place?’ Aunt Zo asked the imp. ‘Is it what it appears to be?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said the imp. He was still checking round warily, but seemed relieved to at least no longer be in the forest. ‘Everything always is. That’s the shocking thing.’
‘So we are in Santa Cruz? The real one?’
‘We are. But behind.’
‘What is this “behind” thing?’
‘It is what it is, love.’
Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence Page 24