David had gone; for a week and then a fortnight I saw no more of him. I dearly hoped he would return—meanwhile I had the film processed and then hid it carefully in a suitcase under my bed with my other precious things.
Because one day a boy from the future might come calling for it!
In the meantime I had a fabulous idea.
My séances were fakes and follies—good ones, but there was always a danger that soon I would be found out. But the mirror—this magical, wonderful machine!—maybe if I incorporated this into my act I would see more marvels. And make my fortune from them!
Father would not have approved. I was fairly sure about that. And yet in his day he had been a seeker after the occult, a man of secrets. Why should I not have adventures of my own, even me, a querulous and bespectacled spinster whom no man would marry?
And so I had the wiring put in order and affixed to the mirror, though the tradesman I employed had no idea what the contraption was and I heard him say to his mate that the old biddy was bats.
But I knew better.
I had new invitations written, and doubled my fees.
And prepared to see what the obsidian mirror would show my credulous clients.
Sarah dabbed the damp cloth on the cut carefully.
Gideon flinched and swore.
“Keep still.”
“It stings!”
She was horrified at his injuries. None was dangerous, none would kill him, and yet the Shee had pecked and torn at him, and his body was a mass of bruises.
“We need to get you inside. Piers . . .”
“Not Piers.” He was sour and terrified and shaking with anger. “Not any of those filthy creatures.”
She wondered at that. Did he mean Venn too? “All right. We’ll go up to my room in the attics. No one goes there.”
He was reluctant, but she made him. They slipped in through the side door and up the servants’ stairs, quiet as they could past the kitchens, where Piers hummed now and clattered saucepans. The wafted smell of cooking onions followed them.
Once, passing the corridor to the bedrooms, Gideon stopped, with a judder of fear that went right through him. “Summer’s been here.”
“She can’t . . .”
“She has! I can smell her.”
Once in her tiny attic room, he sat on the bed with a groan. She brought warm water and a towel and helped him pull off the green coat.
“Don’t. I can manage!”
He was savage with pain.
She stepped away, sat on the windowsill, and watched him dab at the cuts. After a moment she said, “Summer found out? About you going for Jake?”
He nodded.
“This is her punishment?”
“Oh, she has plenty of punishments. And it’s not just me. She’s merciless with any of them.” He looked up. “I won’t take it anymore, Sarah. I swear, I’ll go out now, this minute, and climb the estate wall and jump down into the World. If I dissolve into dust, if I get old and crumble and die all at once, it will be better, so much better.”
He tossed the rag into the water, red with blood, and stood up.
“Not until you’ve listened to me,” she said.
“Nothing you can say—”
“Listen. Then decide.” She looked down at the board under which the notebook was hidden. Janus’s unseen words mocked her. But she would win, she had to. She said, “At Christmas, I gave Summer an object I had brought from the End Time. Half a Greek coin, gold, hung on a chain. The face of Zeus. Remember?”
He shrugged. “So.”
“I need it back. I need you to help me get it.”
“Why? What does it do?” He was acute, she thought. Sharp as a pin. As if living there with them, he knew only how to watch, be aware, avoid danger.
She put her hands together, steepled her fingers. “The coin is powerful. I believe . . . if I can get both halves . . . bring them together . . . it will destroy the mirror.”
“The mirror!” He looked up, his green eyes narrow. “That machine! I could throw myself into it. Even without the bracelet I would emerge . . . somehow. Sometime.”
“And the Shee would be there waiting for you.” She had to convince him. She slid off the seat and crouched in front of him “For them all time is the same. You’ll never escape from her without our help. My help. Because where I come from . . . in that future . . .”
His eyes were fixed on her in disbelief. In hope.
She took a breath and said, “In that future there are no Shee.”
Before he could take that in, she changed, stood, walked briskly. “So. The coin. Do you know where it is?”
Astonished, Gideon watched her. “No Shee? That’s impossible. How . . . ?”
“First, the coin.”
He shook his head. “Summer keeps all her treasure in her House.”
“House?”
“Deep in the Summerland. It changes shape and size and appearance. I’m not allowed there.”
She came back and stood over him. “A real house?”
“Sarah, nothing is real in there, not as you know it. It’s a place. The Shee talk about it. They say that sometimes it looks like a cottage thatched with the wings of birds. Sometimes an underwater palace. Sometimes a castle. It is not easy to find and harder still to enter. In its heart is a box. They say the box is red as blood, and she keeps her most precious things there, locked tight with spells. The coin, if she values it, will be in that box.”
Sarah pondered. Could she even believe him? “Wouldn’t she be wearing it?”
“She has more gold and silver than you could dream. She wears none of it. She hoards it like a dragon. Some of it’s real, mortal-made, but other things are from far dimensions, mined deep in the otherworld. Some jewels are faery-forged from leaves or toadstools.” He pulled his shirt and coat back on, wincing.
Sarah said, “Then you have to take me there. We have to steal the coin.”
Gideon laughed, a sour, low humorless laugh. Then he looked at her. Hard.
“Don’t tell me you’re serious,” he said.
Rebecca, outside the attic door, stood and listened, her back against the wall.
“So let’s see who’s fooling who, Sarah,” she whispered.
In the pub Wharton took a long draft of the malty brown beer and set the glass down with a sigh. Froth slid down the sides.
“Fantastic.” He glanced over at Jake, then opened a packet of salt and vinegar chips. “Feeling better?”
“I’m fine.”
Wharton frowned. He knew that abstracted air, that closed-up, scarily intent concentration. “You’re not planning anything crazy, are you, Jake?”
“Of course not.”
Now he was seriously worried. But before he could ask, Jake sat bolt upright and said, “Look! Out there, in the street. Can you see them?”
Wharton turned his head. He wiped steam from the small panes of the pub window. The village street was a rainy darkness, the single lamppost a nimbus of orange. “What?”
“The children!”
Jake was staring at the patch of lit street under the lamp. Wharton said, “There’s nothing . . . I can’t see anything.”
Jake was silent. Because there they were, the three replicants of Janus, identical, their school blazers soaked, their gray socks around their ankles, their hair plastered to their small round scalps.
They waved at him, then turned and ran into the night.
Remember, Jake, their small mouths whispered. Remember us.