'No. I know what I'm trying to do, but these things never go smoothly. Especially with this.' He looked at the mask with naked hatred.
'Brigid tells me you can't get rid of it,' Caitlin said.
'It's like a damn drug,' Crowther replied. 'I wish I'd never picked it up.'
'How did you come across it?'
He shifted uncomfortably. 'I stole it… from the college in Glastonbury. That'll teach me, won't it? It came from some treasure trove of magical items the miserable old fool in charge of the college had been guarding for God knows how long. I don't think they really knew the value of it.'
'But you did.'
'I had an inkling. These artefacts of power often insinuate their way into plain sight, waiting for the right person to come along.' He laughed bitterly. 'Or the wrong person.'
'You're talking as if they're alive,' Caitlin said.
'You don't know how right you are.' Crowther weighed the mask in his hands before saying, 'I should have known there was no running away. After everything I've done in my life, I wouldn't be allowed to get off so easily. You'd better go back to your friend. And whatever happens, don't come near me until I've removed the mask.'
Caitlin returned to the sheltered spot with Matt, all thoughts of Crowther now obliterated by the screaming monkey noises emanating from the back of her head; her other selves were scared — apart from the one who resided at the very back, in the shadows. Emboldened, she was continuing her slow creep into the light. They watched and waited for almost half an hour until the sun was a blood-red incision on the horizon and the cacophony of bird-sounds in the forest had died away, leaving an eerie silence. Only then did Crowther lift the silver mask to his face.
He paused when it was just an inch away, as if overcome with second thoughts, and then the strangest struggle began; from the others' viewpoint the mask appeared to be fighting Crowther, or perhaps it was his subconscious fighting himself. But then, when the silver was just half an inch from his skin, bolts unfurled from the side of the mask where previously they had been invisible, rose out and rammed themselves into the sides of Crowther's head.
He screamed. There was a whirring noise as the bolts screwed themselves into bone and then the mask levered itself into position and clamped on tight. Crowther went rigid.
'Do you feel that?' Matt whispered.
Caitlin did; the air was heavy and infused with a steely sheen like the atmospherics before an electrical storm. Everything was so still and quiet it was as though all sound had been sucked out of the vicinity.
'Something bad's going to happen,' Caitlin/Amy whimpered.
Entranced by Crowther's display, Mahalia wasn't aware that Carlton had wandered away until she saw him just feet from the professor. She attempted to run to him, but Jack grabbed her wrist and dragged her back.
'Don't,' he hissed. 'It's too dangerous.'
'I don't care!' She wrenched her hand free. 'Carlton!' But by then it was too late. Carlton was by Crowther's side, reaching out, his fingers skimming the surface of the mask.
There was a sound like the swash and backwash of water or the beat of a heart in an echo chamber, rising slowly from somewhere near the horizon, but rushing closer, until it was all around them. Sh-ssh, sh-ssh, sh-ssh.
Light leaked from the ground, as if the illusion of reality was breaking apart to reveal what lay behind it. A few seconds later there was no forest or countryside, no sky, just a strange wan light with no up or down.
The six of them were suspended in nothing, Crowther still sitting cross-legged. Vertigo brought them to the point of sickness, until they suddenly adjusted as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
'What the hell's going on?' Matt said. 'This wasn't supposed to involve us.'
And then Carlton spoke, except his lips didn't move, his face bright with a broad smile. 'There's time enough for rest later. We have a job to do now.'
He pointed, and as they turned to see what he was indicating, the whole of Otherworld was suddenly spread out before them.
'Oh, God,' Mahalia gulped. 'We're standing in the air!'
'We think we're standing in the air,' Carlton said. 'We think a lot of things that aren't true. But this is the important thing now. Look.'
Ahead of them, the primal forest swarmed with darkness, but slicing through it was a ribbon of silver: the river. It meandered past a swamp, where a brilliant blue something lay partially hidden. The river continued through fields of green and gold and more clustering forest until it swung around on the edge of a small desert. On the rolling sands, they could make out strange piles of rocks — cairns — as if they were next to it. And beyond the desolate plain, the land itself appeared to fall away. There was mist, and colours fragmenting, before the inky-blue void of space scattered with a million stars. And right on the edge between what was solid and what was for ever stood an indistinct black shape: the House of Pain.
'You will find the cure for the plague in the heart of that place,' Carlton said. 'It's a dangerous journey. It takes us from the hard here-and-now through the changing climes to a place where everything we know starts to fall apart. There, on the edge, we will face true darkness; and we will look deep into ourselves. We will face death.' He took Caitlin's arm. 'If you want to find your son, that's where he'll be. The dead pass through that place, to the Grim Lands or other places.'
'My husband?'
'Already gone. I'm sorry.'
Caitlin's heart fell, but it rose again quickly when she thought of Liam and the chance that she might be able to bring him back.
'How can you speak?' Mahalia asked Carlton with tears in her eyes, yet as she said it, she was troubled that this wasn't how Carlton should sound. His words and tone made him appear much older, wiser; not a boy at all.
'Look over there.' The grim note in Matt's voice made them turn.
The purple haze brought an instant frisson of anxiety to them all. Bigger than they would have anticipated, it billowed close to the Court of Soul's Ease, but was unmistakably moving in their direction. Through gaps in the mist they could just make out the Lament-Brood, driving forward on their reptilian mounts, their numbers swelled.
'If we hesitate for a minute, they'll catch us,' Matt said.
'We're not going to waste any time.' Caitlin was defiant.
'Be brave,' Carlton said genially. 'Be true. The best of us can defeat the worst.'
'Wait,' Caitlin said, suddenly tense. 'Something's happening…'
They returned their attention to the House of Pain, and now they could sense in it a presence, skittering like an insect running from the light. It wasn't afraid; rather, it had seen them and was now sizing them up, moving this way, then that, looking at them from all angles.
In a twinkling the benign atmosphere changed. A ripple moved out through the scenery, gentle at first, but building until it was a tidal wave of destruction, distorting everything they could see. Finally it hit them and they were thrown off their feet, spinning through a world of broken shards and flickering colours, spinning round and round uncontrollably until… The storm crashed overhead as Caitlin swam through liquid clay. She was in a deep hole and as she rolled on to her back she saw an oblong of night sky, immeasurably distant and desolate. She knew where she was before the hands erupted from the earth on either side of her and folded across her waist in a mockery of a love-hug.
'You made me die,' the husky voice whispered through a mouthful of clay into her ear. 'If you'd been there to care for me, and love me, I wouldn't have suffered. The disease wouldn't have eaten its way through me and my final hours wouldn't have been filled with pain… and your son wouldn't have died. But you didn't love us. You only loved yourself. Your fault… all your fault…'
And the hands slowly began to pull Caitlin down into the slurping clay. She didn't resist, because the voice was right. In the confines of a sweltering attic, with only a thin shaft of sunlight for illumination, Mahalia huddled on an old sack, knees tucked into her chest, and stared into the blue face of a dead baby. Its voice sounded like pebbles on stone. 'No one will ever love you. This is a world where mothers give up their children to save their own lives, where everybody looks after themselves. Don't expect comfort, or security, or sacrifice, or tenderness. The only rule is to survive at any cost. You're on your own. You'll always be on your own.'