Then I caught the faintest whirring, the sound of buzzing flies.
Yes. The bone mirror. It was somewhere close.
Reluctantly – because electric light hinders your Talent, and also draws the attention of any watching eyes – I turned my pen-torch on, swivelling it to its lowest, haziest beam. I swept it up and round me in a slow, smooth arc, taking in my surroundings. There was the catafalque, resting on an exposed mechanism of giant metal levers, black and bent like insect legs. It sat in the centre of a wide passage – its vaulted ceiling high, its floor strewn with debris. The walls – of stone and brick – were subdivided into shelves in many rows, and on most of these a lead coffin stood, pushed into its cavity to await eternity. Some shelves had been bricked up, some were empty; others were full of stones and rubble. Every twenty paces, side-passages cut across the aisle.
Everything was laced with a coating of thin grey dust. I thought of Joplin’s hair.
Turning the torch off, I used my memory to advance in darkness, watching and listening all the time, trying to gauge the location of the mirror’s buzzing. It wasn’t easy, particularly since the ghost in the jar had stirred again.
‘Can you feel them?’ its voice said. ‘The others. They’re all around you.’
‘Will you be quiet?’
‘They hear your footsteps. They hear the frantic beating of your heart.’
‘That’s it. You’re going in one of these shelves, soon as I find George.’
Silence. I adjusted the straps on the rucksack savagely and tiptoed on.
As I drew level with the first cross-passage, I heard a shout echoing through the dark. The sound was distorted, bouncing brokenly between the walls. Was it George? Kipps? Joplin? Was it a living voice at all? I couldn’t tell. But I guessed it came from somewhere to the right. Placing my hand on the bricks to guide me, I set off that way.
Instants later my hand touched something cold and smooth. I jumped back, switched on the torch: it was a dome of glass, placed on the shelf beside its coffin. Beneath the smudged dust where my fingers had passed I saw a display of dried white lilies. For a moment I wondered how long they’d sat there in the dark, these memorial flowers, in perpetual bloom. Then I turned off the torch, went on again.
The passage was long and narrow, and itself crisscrossed with other, nearly identical side-routes, all lined with coffins. I stopped at each intersection, then continued on. As much as possible I went in darkness, hoping to see Visitors as easily as they saw me.
Because Visitors were there.
Once, at an unknown distance down a passage to the left, I saw a faintly glowing form. It was a young man, wearing a suit with a high stiff collar. He stood motionless, with his back to me, one of his shoulders much higher than the other. For some reason I was very glad that he did not turn round.
From down another aisle came an urgent tapping. When I looked, I saw one of the lowest shelves aglow with other-light, the tapping coming most distinctly from its very small lead coffin.
‘This is jolly,’ the skull said. ‘But these wisps are nothing. My master is here too.’
‘Up ahead?’
‘Oh, yes, I think you’re getting closer.’ It chuckled softly. ‘Remember that shout just now? What’s the betting that was Cubbins looking in the bone glass?’
With difficulty, I swallowed my rage. If the ghost was talkative, perhaps it could give me information. ‘Tell me about the mirror,’ I said. ‘How many bones did Bickerstaff use to make it? How many ghosts did it take?’
‘Seven bones and seven spirits, if I recall.’
‘What do you see if you look in the glass?’
‘Oh, I took care never to do that.’
‘What about Bickerstaff? Did he ever look himself?’
‘He may have been mad,’ the ghost said simply, ‘but he wasn’t stupid. Of course he didn’t. The risks were too great. Tell me, don’t you think Cubbins may be busy dying? Aren’t you wasting time?’
Hurrying on, I came at last to what seemed to be an outer most aisle of the catacomb, onto which all the side-passages opened. And now another burst of noise sounded up ahead: angry voices, cries of pain. I speeded up, stumbling on the uneven ground. My boot caught on a loose brick. I tripped, reached out to correct myself, and my hand knocked a piece of stone or mortar from the shelf alongside. It fell, clinked and clattered briefly in the darkness. I stood motionless, listening.
‘It’s all right. No one heard,’ the ghost said. It left a dramatic pause. ‘Or DID they . . .?’
All seemed still, except for the painful thudding of my pulse. I continued, going slowly. Soon the passage began to bend round to the right, and here I saw flickering lantern-light stretching across the bricks, picking out the blackened pockmarks of the empty shelves. The noise of the mirror was louder now, and it was very cold – the temperature dropped lower with each step.
‘Careful,’ the skull whispered. ‘Careful . . . Bickerstaff is near.’
Crouching low, pressing close to the wall, I slipped near the edge of the light and peeped round the corner of the passage. After the darkness, the faint glow blinded me. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust. Then they did, and I saw what was in the room.
My legs felt weak. I supported myself against the wall.
‘Oh, George,’ I breathed. ‘Oh, no.’
27
I’d been wrong about the light. It wasn’t a lantern at all. A flickering gas-lamp did sit on a table, but its fragile beams scarcely reached the cobwebbed ceiling high above, let alone filled the rest of the room. But other things were there. Other things that glimmered with a very different kind of radiance.
Bad things.
A narrow circle of iron chains had been laid in the centre of the chamber, and inside this space rose a tall, thin three-legged stand – a tripod of black wood. At its top, slotted neatly into a narrow groove, was something small and roughly circular, covered by a gentleman’s silk handkerchief. From it came the familiar dark buzzing, and a wave of vicious cold that made me shiver even where I crouched across the room. Occasionally the handkerchief shifted slightly, as if blown by invisible currents in the air.
The bone mirror – in position on its original stand. Ready to be used.
The mirror wasn’t alone inside the circle. A group of faint shapes hung there, surrounded by a pulsing cloud of other-light. It was very hard to see them; they were clearest when you looked away. They were human forms, clothed in drapes and shapeless garments, and pressed so close together they actually overlapped. Their faces were blurry and indistinct – smeared grey blotches replaced the eyes and mouths. Without counting, I knew there were seven of them, for they were the spirits trapped in the making of the mirror. Their anger and their sorrow beat upon me; and from far off I heard their ceaseless calling:
‘Our bones . . .’ they pleaded. ‘Give us back our bones . . .’
On another occasion, the spirits and the bone glass would have been enough to transfix me with horror. I would have been unable to tear my gaze away.
But not today. For in front of the circle was George.