The Obsidian Mirror

by Catherine Fisher

  She pushed back her hair and walked over to the fire; her bare foot left a trail of mud and leaves.

  The warmth of the glowing coals was such a wonder that she crouched by it, trying to stop shivering.

  “You’re not dressed for house-breaking,” Venn muttered.

  “You won’t tell him. Will you?”

  “Why not?” He was colder than she’d thought. Something had frozen hard inside him. She kept her voice low and calm. She said, “Because, for a minute there, you though I was someone else. You said Leah.”

  She thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he said, “My mistake.”

  “Don’t betray me for her sake. And because I’m invisible.”

  His eyes were as ice blue as the wolf’s. “But I can see you.”

  “You shouldn’t be able to. I can make myself disappear. I have this special power. Only this time it hasn’t worked. Perhaps it’s you. Perhaps you’re different from everyone else.”

  She had his attention now. A faint change came into his tight, controlled face; he stood up and walked toward her and she saw how thin he was, how gaunt and restless. “Are you insane?” he said.

  “That’s what they call it. But what if I’m not?”

  “Why did you break in?”

  “I’m running away. And I didn’t break in. The window was open.”

  “Don’t get smart with me. Who are you?” An anxious look flashed in his eyes. “Which one of them sent you? The scarred man? Or the Queen of the Wood?”

  She had no idea who either was, but she kept her face calm. “Hand me over and you’ll never find out.”

  Footsteps and voices came down the corridor; she heard the creak of old floorboards. Venn didn’t move for so long, she thought she’d failed. Then he said, “I used to think I could control what fate threw at me. I really used to believe that.” He stepped forward. “You’re on your own? No one knows where you are? What about your parents?”

  “I don’t have any.” With a pang of fear she realized that now, in this place, it was true.

  He stared at her as if a sudden burning idea had come to him, an idea so brilliant, it eased some deep inconsolable torment. Hastily, he pushed her toward a door in the paneling. “In there.” He tugged it clumsily open with his left hand and she saw the top joints of two fingers were missing. “Stay still. Silent!”

  Before she could answer, the door had slammed, and footsteps were loud in the study. Piers’s high voice said, “Detective Inspector…er Janus.”

  She spared a quick look around. This was some tiny storeroom, also heaped with papers and books. One small barred window showed sleet falling in the dusk on the neglected lawns. No way out. She pressed her ear against the door.

  Venn was saying, “I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “I’m new to Devon.”

  At the sound of the voice Sarah clenched her hands into fists and breathed in, frozen with dismay.

  They must be desperate to get her back. They’d sent a Replicant of Janus himself.

  “What’s the problem?” Venn was nearest, his back to the door. The oak panels were thick, the voices muffled unless she pressed close.

  “A missing persons inquiry. I’m sorry to disturb you—I understand you don’t like visitors.”

  “I don’t like anyone. Aren’t you a bit young for a detective inspector?”

  “Maybe I work hard.” The voice sounded amused, ignoring Venn’s rudeness. When it spoke again it was sharper. “A patient is missing from the High Security Psychiatric Unit at the Linley Institute, about twelve miles from here. A young woman, seventeen, short blond hair, blue eyes, wearing a gray dress and indoor shoes. You’ll have seen the local news…”

  “I don’t watch TV.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” The Replicant’s voice was smooth. “A girl answering her description was seen today boarding a bus to Wintercombe. Inquiries are proceeding in the village, but…”

  “Why would she come here?” Venn sounded bored. Floorboards creaked as if he had walked over to the desk. “What’s wrong with her? What was her crime? To lock up a seventeen-year-old girl in a place like that, it must have been something horrific.”

  The Replicant said calmly, “I gather she’s very disturbed. They don’t go into details, but some of the patients they have up there are a bit extreme. I understand your security is red-hot, but…”

  “Piers can see a beetle climbing the gate. No one gets in here.”

  Sarah scowled. He was taunting her? His answers were aimed at her, as much as the Replicant.

  Suddenly she saw that a small knot of wood was missing near the handle. She knelt and put her eye to the gap.

  “What’s her name?” Venn asked.

  “Sarah Stewart.” The Replicant was a shadow near the window, hard to see clearly. “If she turns up we advise you to inform us at once, and not to approach her.”

  “You make her sound like a wild animal.”

  A pause. Then Janus stepped forward and Sarah’s hands went tight on the doorframe. It was a young one. He was wearing a dark, almost military uniform and his hair was lank, and he was so slim! Twenty at most, she thought. But already he had the familiar grin, the small pair of round bluish lenses that hid his eyes. He said, “Mr. Venn, this girl is seriously ill. She has delusions about secret powers, fits of violence. I’d like permission to search your estate. There are so many barns and outbuildings.” He stepped closer, smiling mildly. “And then there’s the Wood.”

  Venn had seemed half hypnotized, but that word broke the spell. “If she’s in the Wood she’s beyond your help.”

  Sarah saw him glance at the door, as if he could see through it, see her pinned sideways like a moth on a board. She spread her hands on the varnished panel.

  “So I’ll just get our men in tomorrow.” Janus had seen. He did not look toward her, did not even flicker, but she knew.

  “No,” Venn snapped. “No one’s coming onto my land. If there’s any searching to be done, we’ll do it. If we find any mad girls, I’ll certainly let you know. Piers will show you out.”

  A bell clanked.

  In the dark, Sarah allowed herself a tiny whistle of relief. Venn was as arrogant as Janus. Then, in the doorway, she saw the Replicant turn. “I hope you don’t regret this.”

  Venn stood straight in the firelight. “So do I.”

  The door to the corridor closed.

  Silence.

  Very gently, Sarah turned the handle and tugged. It was locked. Then Venn’s voice spoke near her ear, cool and close. “I think you’ll be staying in there for a while, Sarah Stewart. As you’re such a dangerous ax murderer.”

  “Let me out. You can’t keep me here!”

  “I can do anything I like.”

  She slammed a fist against the paneling.

  “Besides,” he said, “what if you managed to make yourself invisible after all? I’d never be able to find you.” The icy humor left his voice. “I have a few things to see to. If Piers brings you some food, please don’t murder him. He gets everything wrong, but he’s useful.”

  Footsteps.

  She tried the door again and it opened, and she came out into the warm dark study and stood there, listening to the silence of the Abbey, a silence that had its own deep, velvety texture like the heavy brown curtains that hung to the floor, looped back at every window. Beyond, fractured in small glass panes, she saw her own reflections, multiplied as if in some dark kaleidoscope. Only the slow, oily swing of a pendulum in the clock disturbed the stillness.

  To be in this house again filled her with wonder, and with a terrible piercing sadness.

  It looked so crammed and dusty. So neglected.

  She crossed the room and tugged the curtains shut. They were heavy with dust; it drifted down on her lips and face. Then she crouched again by the hearth, comforted by heat. It was something familiar in this winter world.

  All at once she felt incredibly tired. She wanted to lie on the rug and sleep awa
y the heaviness in her limbs and eyelids. But the Replicant was out there in the dark, and it knew she was here.

  Making a huge effort, she scrambled up and began to walk about, forcing herself to stay alert and look at things. Now, while she had the chance.

  There were so many books and papers. They were stacked in untidy piles; she turned a few over but they meant nothing, were just columns of calculations, pages of algebraic formulae. The books were in many languages; some were old leather-bound volumes, their spines eaten away, but there were towers of softer, paper-covered books too, on mountain ranges and icecaps, with great curling maps that had tea stains and ink marks and scribble all over them.

  He obviously didn’t use them anymore.

  Quick and deft, she tried the drawers of the desk. Each was crammed full of junk—pens, keys, receipts, staples. In one a whole collection of fossils lay tumbled and disorganized. She picked up an ammonite, feeling the coiled ridges of the ancient creature. It had been dead for millennia, and yet here it was. Under it was a small gray notebook, the pages empty. Just what she needed. She slipped the notebook into her pocket.

  A coal slid in the fire. She glanced at it, shutting the drawer. As she did, her eyes caught a glint among the papers on a side table; the ruby red reflection of flame in metal.

  She inched the litter aside.

  A battered tin box lay beneath. It was dented, as if it had been dropped more than once, and the initials JHS were painted on it in faded white letters. She stared at it in astonishment, then dragged it out. Papers slid. A few books crashed to the floor.

  The box was not locked. Hurriedly, her fingers slid across the lid.

  A rattle of the doorknob. She shoved the box back, threw herself down by the fire, grabbed a book and just got it open as Venn came in with a tray.

  “Glad to see you’re not wasting your time.”

  She looked up. “Even lunatics can read.”

  “Upside-down, too. Incredibly clever.”

  She threw the book down, annoyed.

  “I’ve brought you some sandwiches. Cheese and ham.”

  She snatched the plate quickly. They were big and clumsy but the bread was freshly baked. She had never smelled bread so good. She ate with ravenous concentration.

  Venn watched her, leaning against the desk. “How long have you been on the run?”

  “A few days,” she lied, through a mouthful.

  He paced, turned abruptly. “Why were you in the Linton?”

  “My parents died. I couldn’t cope. Had a sort of…episode. I’m fine now.”

  She was afraid he’d ask again about her parents but he didn’t. Instead he came closer and said, “It’s a criminal institute, Sarah.”

  “Maybe I went a bit crazy. Smashed up the place I was living.”

  “What place?”

  “What is this? An inquisition?”

  He didn’t move. Then he said, “It’s an interview. For a job.”

  She realized then that he’d already been online checking her story. She said, “What job?”

  “When are you eighteen?”

  “Next month.”

  He began to pace again, long strides around the room, restless, moving papers. Seeing the box, he picked it up and put it into the lowest drawer of the desk, turning the key, preoccupied. As if it weren’t anything special.

  “You can see the state of this place. Piers does what he can, but he could do with some help.”

  She couldn’t hide her disappointment. “You want me to be a cleaner?”

  “To help out. With other things too.”

  She waited. He pulled the curtain back, gazing out into the dark. “I’m working on a project here. A very secret, very important piece of research. That’s what the gates are for, and the cameras. You won’t understand it, but it’s reached a critical stage, and I need another…subject. Another volunteer.”

  It was as if he was talking to himself, a low, rapid, passionate mutter. It scared her. “Another? What happened to the first one?”

  “He left.” He came and stood looking down at her. She got up and brushed the breadcrumbs off, because he was tall and there was a bleak, threatening urgency in him. He said, “I need you to work with me on the Chronoptika.”

  Her heart leaped.

  “It’s a device for…manipulating light. It’s faulty, but I know I can get it to work. I just need someone with no ties, someone who won’t be missed, won’t go out there and blab. Someone like you.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know anything about—”

  “You don’t need to know. You’re just the subject.”

  “In some experiment? With drugs?”

  “No drugs.”

  She shook her head. “No way. You’re not wiring me up with electrodes like some lab rat.”

  “No electrodes.” His voice had gone hard and cold. He stepped back. “Maybe I’m not making myself clear here, Sarah. You have two choices. Work with me, or I phone the police. Right now.”

  He took a phone from his pocket, thumbed a number in, and held it up. The faint square of light edged his face.

  “Wait.” She wanted to say That man wasn’t the police. Instead she said, “Turn it off.”

  “You agree?”

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  A gleam of relief was gone from his face before she could be sure of it. “There’s no danger. I promise you. And when it’s over I’ll give you a thousand in cash and a plane ticket to wherever in the world you want to go. You can do what you like with your life.”

  She knew he was lying about the danger. And that he didn’t care. “How long will it take?”

  He looked away. “A few weeks.”

  The house seemed to wait around her. Outside its windows, the vast Wood bent under the slant of sleet. She remembered the shadowy green-eyed boy who had commanded the wolf.

  “All right. I’ll do it. But I’m not a prisoner. I get my own room, and the run of the house. I’ll need some clothes too. And shoes.”

  “Tell Piers what you need. He’ll see to your foot.” He went to the door, then turned. “You can go anywhere except the Monks’ Walk. And don’t go in the Wood alone. It’s a strange, scary place.” He seemed to want to say something else, and for a moment she wondered if he might be grateful, show some welcome that she realized she longed for. But all he said was, “Come on. I’ll show you the attic rooms. You can choose one.”

  Later, in dry clothes and her stinging foot tightly bandaged, she sat on the small white bed in the attic and leaned back against the lukewarm radiator. Here they were, the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the window safely shuttered against the night. The room wasn’t so different. Barer, colder. The blue chintz curtains were gone. Sliding down, she crossed to the floorboard near the window seat and touched it gently with her foot. It creaked.

  She knelt, and felt for the tiny slot where her fingers had always fit exactly.

  They still did.

  She smiled, and carefully levered up the board. The cavity beneath was dark, full of dust. She put her hand inside and groped around but nothing was there. None of her secret writings, her private paintings.

  Leaving it open, she sat back on the bed and curled her knees up. Then she placed the stolen gray notebook on the flowered quilt.

  Next to it, carefully, from her pockets, she brought out the three treasures she had snatched from the Labyrinth.

  Half an odd coin, hanging on a gold chain.

  A small black battered pen.

  And, like a shimmering starburst, the diamond brooch. She stared at them, because it was hard to believe they had survived. That like her, they were really here. For a moment the memories of that terrible fight, the explosion of darkness seemed to close back in on her.

  She looked up at the familiar room, the warm fire. Then, suddenly urgent, she uncapped the pen and wrote three letters in ink on the first page of the notebook.

  JHS

  20th December. I’ve arrived. I’m insi
de the Abbey, and have even seen a box with these initials on its lid.

  Then.

  Is anyone else here?

  Is anyone left to read this?

  As she watched them, the letters faded slowly to invisibility.

  5

  No one could have guessed what Janus would become. As a young man in the Militia he was quiet and watchful. Never one of those in charge, though if asked he always had a clever plan, a considered comment. His sight was poor, he was slight and scrawny, considered a weakling by stronger, louder men.

  Which only goes to show how wrong they were.

  Illegal ZEUS transmission; biography of Janus

  THE TRAIN FROM London took hours, traveling deep into the West Country. The land was bleak with frost, the trees black, the distant rim of Dartmoor grim under a hanging curtain of dark rain.

  Wharton had to ask for them to stop at Wintercombe—a request stop, because hardly anyone used it.

  As he stepped down, Jake could see why.

  There was a concrete platform among trees and a rain shelter. Through a white gate a path led to a parking lot where one empty blue car waited.

  Wharton climbed from the train after him, followed by a girl with a small bag. A few carriages up, a man walked hastily through the gate, his back to them, not looking around.

  No one else. The train pulled creakily away.

  Wharton sighed. He was tired; he’d tried to sleep on the journey, but the endless jolting had kept him awake. Irritated he said, “No taxis.”

  “Are you going far?” The girl had walked to the car and unlocked it. She was not much older than Jake, very tall, her long red hair heavy with a glossy fringe that almost hid her eyes. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “Er…well, that would be kind.” Wharton looked at Jake, who shrugged. “We’re actually going to a place called Wintercombe Abbey. I gather it’s not far.”

  Her eyes widened. “The Abbey! Really?”

  “Is that a problem?” Jake muttered.

  “No. Honestly, I’d love to take you! Jump in.”

  But it had surprised her, he thought. More than that—startled her. He climbed into the front seat and Horatio put his head out of the bag and stared curiously around. The girl said, “Wow. Is he yours?”