“Back!” she heard someone shout. “Back, you devils!” There were the sounds of a scuffle, a roar of pain, and then nothing.
Freya felt a hand on her shoulder and her heart chilled.
“Freya? Is that you?”
She fought to control her breathing and opened her eyes. It was Professor Stowe.
“Freya, good heavens! Are you mixed up in this?”
She opened her mouth and tried to speak.
“You’re in bad shape,” Professor Stowe said. “Come with me.
Stand close.”
She realised it was raining. Stowe shook out an umbrella and held it above her. Clinging to his arm, she huddled close and they walked away from the church.
He led her back down Banbury Road to his rooms in Norham Gardens. “We’re not staying here,” he said. “I just need to check on something first. Here, take this and dry yourself off.”
He handed Freya a towel and left the hallway. Freya pushed the towel through her hair-when had it become wet?-and looked around the small hallway. There was an engraving on the wall behind the door of a large tree, intricately detailed, its smallest leaves described. It spread its branches into the heavens, as if it were holding the sky in place or pushing it away from the ground.
Professor Stowe came back and led her out of the room and down the staircase. But instead of leaving through the front door, they descended another short set of stairs and exited through a back door. This placed them in a narrow, overgrown garden.
“Where are we going?” Freya asked.
“To a special place-the Old Observatory. I stay in this house by design, not chance. This house contains one of only a few routes into a forgotten building, which is now an important meeting place for an important group of individuals.”
“I-I just want to go back home,” Freya said, and meant it. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into her own bed and not to come out again, ever.
“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that.”
“Why?”
“Like your friend Daniel, you are just on the cusp of falling out of this world. I tried to reach him, but I was too late. There are forces that want to push you out of this world. Have you ever . . . experienced . . . anything like that before?” He shot her a sideways look.
Freya kept her eyes on the pavement in front of her.
“Freya? I’m talking about the feeling that you may have fallen through into another world?”
She wanted to tell him-had wanted to tell someone for so long, but all this time she’d stayed silent . . . she couldn’t.
“I suspected as much. Please do come with me. We can help you.”
Freya swallowed and ducked through the wild foliage that grew in their path. They came to a thin wooden door, warped with age, which hung in a narrow gap between two crumbling brick walls. Stowe took a key from his pocket and unlocked a padlock that hung from a shiny latch. Then he went through.
Freya paused instinctively, took a breath, and moved through the doorway-then back out again, and in and out several more times after that. This didn’t make her feel much more comfortable in the circumstances, but it didn’t make her feel worse.
She found herself in a small courtyard where tall hedges blocked nearly everything out of sight except for a small swatch of the sky above them. Professor Stowe had disappeared.
“Here we-Freya?” his voice called. His stepped back into view from between two of the hedges. “It’s just over here.”
She followed him down a red-bricked path that was almost completely grown over with moss and ivy and then was confronted by a squat door, stained black, set into a low arch. Professor Stowe searched his pockets for a dead bolt key and unlocked it. He stepped through and waited for Freya.
Freya stood rooted to the spot. She fought to keep the flood of panic from overwhelming her again.
“Freya? It’s okay,” Professor Stowe said, holding out his hand.
“Come on through.”
With a visible effort, Freya lifted her leaden feet and stepped through the doorway. Stowe was just about to close the door behind her when she hissed, “Wait!” and tugged at his sleeve. This was too important, she felt, to be embarrassed about.
She ducked out of the doorway, looked up at the sky, and crossed back in. She repeated this three more times and stood uncertainly inside the doorway.
“Okay,” she said.
“Are you alright?” Stowe asked her, less concerned than amused.
“Yes,” Freya replied, feeling calmer.
“Good. Come on upstairs, then.”
They walked down a short hallway with a claustrophobically low ceiling and came to a cold, square room that contained an iron spiral staircase. Freya felt a chill and looked up-the room rose several stories and finished in darkness. There were narrow, dirty windows in the walls that let in the last light of the evening.
“Not far now,” Professor Stowe said, mounting the staircase with Freya behind him.
“This is the Old Observatory?”
“Yes. This is a private place. That is, the university owns it, but I’d think the administrators have completely forgotten about its existence. It was appropriated many years ago by people of . . . our cause as a secret meeting room where we could discuss action against those who wish to invade this sphere.”
Freya’s hand tightened on the rail and she stopped. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I won’t be of any help. I’m sorry. You don’t want me.”
Professor Stowe turned and said in a low, comforting voice, “Don’t worry-it’s unlikely that you will be asked to join our group. I only asked you here so that you can further help us with what we know-perhaps fill in some blanks-and most of all to keep you safe. We can keep you safe.”
Freya started up the stairs again, reluctantly. They rose three storeys to a door that stood open, letting out a warm, electricyellow glow.
Stepping through the doorway, Freya was met with a warm blast of air and the rich, heady aroma of something burning in a fireplace. From the front hall, she could hear a soft susurrus of people talking in the front room.
“There is a meeting already in progress, so come through here,” Stowe said, and led Freya into the kitchen. “Put the kettle on while I tell them who you are. I shall return shortly,” Stowe said, leaving.
Freya filled the kettle at the sink and then replaced it in its holder and turned it on. The front room, adjoining the kitchen, was silent. From where she stood, she couldn’t see into it and didn’t want to. She was already feeling very self-conscious.
When the kettle boiled, she filled the mug and stirred it with a teaspoon from the dish drainer. There was a small refrigerator below the counter and she opened it to find that it contained a single bottle of milk in an old-fashioned glass bottle. She sniffed it-it seemed fine-and poured a little into her tea.
Professor Stowe returned. “Are you ready to meet the Society?”
“You’re a society?”
“Yes-the Society of Concerned Individuals. It’s a deliberately vague and eccentric title. This way, if you will . . .”
Steeling herself, Freya followed Stowe and stepped into a large octagonal drawing room. It was fairly well furnished-a large Turkish rug lay on the floor and thick drapes hung on the windows.
Where there weren’t windows on the walls, there were framed prints.
On one side of the room there was a wide, shallow fireplace that was cheerfully burning coal and warming the room nicely. There was a circle of mismatched armchairs clustered around a low coffee table.
Four of the chairs were occupied by three men and one woman who stared intently at Freya as she entered. She smiled sheepishly.