A small Devon long-house of whitened stone, its lichened roof below them in a fold of the hills.
“It looks quiet.”
“Not empty. The chimney.”
A thin wisp of smoke dissipated as he looked.
They hurried down the steep track. Opening the gate, Sarah walked up to the door and raised her hand, but before she could knock, it was opened.
Maskelyne stood there, winding a scarf around his neck. He wore a dark coat. She saw the livid scar that disfigured his face, and behind him, in the gloom of the interior, a table set with scattered pieces like an abandoned board game.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, his voice choked with eagerness. “Let’s go.”
10
I will arise when the Three shall call me.
And when the Wood shall Walk.
Tombstone in Old Wintercombe Churchyard
IN THE POLICE van driving across London, Jake was chained to the burly sergeant and squashed against the window. It was raining, a cold relentless downpour, and the streets were sloping sheets of gray, of tilted umbrellas and glossy slick awnings.
He had seen this era in black and white so often its colors surprised him now; the soft reds and greens of women’s clothing, the huge advertisements painted on walls, the navy uniforms of a file of schoolchildren crossing the road. The last in the line, a little boy, turned and stared at him.
“Shouldn’t those kids . . . children, be evacuated?” Jake said.
“Some of ’em come back. Others never left. Can’t stand the quiet.” The sergeant too was gazing out in a silence. Finally, shaking his head, he said, “Bloody war. God knows how it will end.”
Jake kept still. Like God, he did know how it would end. Looking at the shattered houses, the bombed streets, the weary defiance of the people, he was tempted to say something, to offer comfort, to just mutter It’s all right. You’ll win. It surprised him; usually he took care not to feel sorry for people. Also, it would be stupid, and just provoke the man’s scorn. So he kept his mouth shut and concentrated on his plan. Get close to the mirror. And then . . . if somehow he could activate it . . . But if Allenby was there, if Allenby saw . . .
He shrugged. Nothing he could do about that. Allenby would see a boy disappear into a pulsating blackness and hopefully would never know how it was done.
And then what? He would have journeyed blindly, without the bracelet. He thought of Maskelyne’s terrifying story of being stretched endlessly across centuries, of arriving agonizingly slowly, atom by atom, into a new and unguessable place, while time sped past him like a film on fast-forward. That would happen to him. He could end up anywhere.
He fidgeted against the big warm body squashed in beside him.
“Keep still,” the sergeant muttered. “Bloody nuisance.”
In the front, Allenby turned, the leather seat squeaking. “We’re nearly there. You look worried, Jake.”
“So would you,” he growled, “facing the gallows.”
It was hard to recognize the bombed-out street. He remembered it from Symmes’s time, a neat square with a garden in the middle where he had hidden with Moll. Now the place was a wasteland of bricks, a broken chimney sticking up, small bent people moving slowly over the surface, heads down, picking up anything they could find.
Jake said, “Her body . . .”
“Not found yet. Right, stop here. This is it.”
There was hastily erected white tape around part of the site. Three policemen stood guard. Inside that, over part of the demolished house was a green-gray camouflaged tent, its door fastened shut.
As Jake struggled out, rain spattered on the roof of the car, and far off over the dome of St. Paul’s the sun came out in a splash of blue sky between the floating barrage balloons.
The sergeant looked at Allenby, who shrugged. “Unlock the chain. Keep the handcuffs.”
Jake watched as the link between them was undone, tugged out, and disappeared into the sergeant’s pocket.
Allenby watched too. “This is your last chance with me, Jake. One more mistake, one more stupid escape bid and it’s out of my hands.”
He knew that.
They stumbled and picked their way over the bomb site. Jake glanced around, rapidly trying to take in everything in sight. Where was Gideon? Where was Venn? They had to be here. They had to be trying to save him.
The doorway to the camouflaged tent yawned before him like a dark portal.
He hurried toward it, eager, thinking he glimpsed within the black slab of the mirror.
Something smacked into the side of his face.
He turned, furious. “Hey!”
A small blue football bounced away into rubble.
“Sorry.” A small boy in gray shorts and a school blazer stood there gazing at him. Just behind, knee-deep among the bricks, two of the identical triplets smiled.
Jake stared. “You!”
The sergeant scowled. “Clear off, you kids.”
“No . . . Wait!” Jake made a move toward them. The handcuffs clinked. “You were the ones in the Underground shelter . . . You said . . .”
“Hello, Jake Wilde. Don’t forget the Black Fox.”
“You said that before. What does it mean . . .”
“Or the Man with the Eyes of a Crow.”
The third child came so close he could have touched him. “Or the Box of Red Brocade.”
Jake dropped his voice to a whisper. “Who are you? Where are you from?”
The tiny boy put his bullet head on one side and smiled up at him, spectacles bright with the clear, daunting stare of infancy. “Don’t you know, Jake?”
“Are you from Summer? Are you Shee?”
The boy smiled pityingly. He reached up on his highest tiptoes and put his lips to Jake’s ear; Jake had to bend to hear the words. “We are Janus, Jake. That’s who we are.”
He jerked back, heart hammering. The child nodded, poised and secret. “You see, Jake. We know all your problems. We can give you what you want, Jake. We can give you your father.”
Jake kept still. Made himself say: “And in return?”
The children drew together and held hands. They sang:
Don’t let Sarah destroy the mirror
destroy the mirror
destroy the mirror.
Don’t let Sarah destroy the mirror
ee I ee I o.
“Clear off, you kids!” the sergeant roared.
They fled, laughing and giggling across the brickfield.
Jake stared after them. Then he was grabbed and forced inside the camouflaged door.
Maskelyne walked into the brightness of the labyrinth and stared around, at the mirror festooned with cable, at Piers in his white coat, at three of the black cats sleeping in the tangle of malachite-green webbing.
Piers eyed him, sour as acid. “Oh great. So you’re back again.”
“You can’t do this without me.” The scarred man crossed to the desk and picked up the bracelet. He turned it, and in his fine fingers it seemed almost to move and rotate with delicate precision. “It’s about time you realized that.”
Venn was standing in an agitated stillness in the shadows. He came forward and faced Maskelyne, his hair a blond brightness in the strong lights. Maskelyne seemed a shadow before him, a dark copy, a reflection, thinner, barely there.