The Obsidian Mirror

by Catherine Fisher

  “Do you know Janus?” she said.

  “What do you mean, he’s with you?” Baffled, Wharton lowered the shotgun.

  Rebecca eyed the slim glass weapon. “I’m sorry. It was me that let him into the house.”

  He stared. Even her voice was different. “He and I are friends. It’s a long story. But I know about the mirror, and well, Maskelyne’s not dangerous. He just wants what’s his.”

  “Don’t we all.” Wharton took a step closer. He looked closely at the man. “I remember you. You were on the plane. You followed us here.”

  “I did.”

  “Are you really the one in the journal? All that time ago?”

  Maskelyne shrugged. He looked wary.

  “Well, then you can operate this thing! Get Jake back?”

  “Maybe. At a price.”

  They exchanged a long glance. Wharton said, “I have no idea what to do here. They’re all gone, even Piers seems to have vanished. There’s only me left to guard this thing, and I don’t know the first thing about it. I need help.”

  Maskelyne faced him. His eyes were dark and troubled. “If I get them back, I take the mirror. It will be best—for Jake, and Venn.”

  “They won’t think so.” Wharton frowned, blew out his cheeks, glanced at Rebecca. “I must be mad to trust you two, but do it. Do what you can.”

  Rebecca laughed in relief. Maskelyne said, “I’ll try.”

  Wharton turned.

  “Where are you going?” Rebecca said, alarmed.

  “To get Sarah. I think we need to be all together.”

  Venn walked into the drawing room and saw a stout man in a red dressing gown standing before the fire in a hastily adopted pose. His mustache was bushy, his face florid.

  He held the visiting card in his hand.

  Venn said, “Mr. John Harcourt Symmes?”

  “Who on earth are you?” The voice was peevish and suspicious. Symmes held up the card. “What is the meaning of this? This is the card of a fellow member of the Royal Society; I know him well, and you, sir, are an imposter.”

  “My name’s Oberon Venn. We’re not acquainted. I’m an explorer and some say, a man of science.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard of you, so…”

  “I’ve come about David Wilde.”

  Symmes stopped in mid-bluster. He stared at Venn and then, as if in a sudden weakness, groped for the chair behind and lowered himself slowly into it. “Bless my soul,” he whispered. “Are you from…that is, have you journeyed?”

  Venn nodded. “I also have two companions with me and by now they’re probably causing havoc in your servants’ hall. Could you have them sent for, please.”

  It was a command.

  Symmes seemed helpless with surprise. He rang the bell, and even as the butler entered, Venn caught Jake’s voice from far off in the house.

  “You have some…people down there,” Venn snapped. “Bring them.”

  The man looked at his master. “Sir? These are an urchin from the streets and a young man in the most bizarre clothes. The girl at first pretended to be ill, and so…”

  “Fetch them,” Symmes growled. “Do it.”

  While they waited, he said, “I would appreciate…just a few words of description. Your time…how has London changed? Are there flying machines? Do women have the vote?”

  Venn said quietly, “David never spoke of it, then?”

  “He said it would be best if he did not.”

  Venn smiled. That was David. As the door opened and Jake strode in with a small ragged girl trotting at his heels, he suddenly saw the resemblance again between the boy and David, that sharp awareness. That rapid taking in of everything around them.

  Moll’s eyes were wide. She went straight to the fire and crouched there, almost purring. Jake faced Venn. “What’s going on?”

  “This is Harcourt Symmes. He met your father.”

  Jake said, “What?” He turned fast. “When?”

  Symmes’s answer devastated him. “Three months ago.”

  Venn sat on one of the armchairs and nodded to Jake to do the same. “I knew David would come here. He must have realized that if we managed to journey after him, you’d be the one we’d search out.”

  “So he said.” Symmes seemed a little more at ease. He settled comfortably in the chair, and began to talk, and Jake caught the self-satisfied tone of the man that he had read in the journal. “I, er, obtained the mirror and worked on it for two years with limited success. It was obviously a portal to some other existence; I sent inanimate objects through, and then a rat and even a dog, but I dared not use it on a human, least of all on myself. A scientist should perhaps be bolder, but…”

  Jake couldn’t wait. “Dad came through the mirror?”

  “Oh no. Not at all. In fact, like you, he simply knocked on my door.”

  Moll’s fingers slid over the table and took an apple from the bowl. She began, quietly, to crunch it.

  “It was last May. I saw a thin, rather worn man of premature age.”

  “Age! My father was forty-five!” Jake stared at Venn. “How could…”

  “I don’t know!” Venn’s impatience was savage. “We don’t know how long he’d already been living here. Let him talk.”

  Anguished, Jake sat back. His father was young, lively, always laughing. A joker. The thought of him growing old and alone in this squalid, noxious city, desperate and lost, was terrifying.

  “He told me he was a traveler from the future, from the twenty-first century, which I scoffed at, until he showed me a small object which he called a mobile telephone, and which, quite frankly, I found amazing. It did nothing, but he said that in your time he could speak to distant people upon it, and certainly I had seen nothing like it. Still, he might have been a Bolshevist or a Prussian spy, so I was about to hand him over to the police, when he described my mirror. My mirror, in my study upstairs, my greatest secret. That convinced me.”

  Venn nodded, bitter. “David can be convincing.”

  “He explained his plight. He wanted to get home, as he put it. He promised me access to untold secrets if I would help him do it. He said his son would be worried about him.” Symmes glanced at Jake. “I assure you, you were all he thought about.”

  Jake couldn’t speak. Moll whispered, “Told you.”

  “What happened?” Venn’s voice was dark, as if he guessed.

  “We worked together for two months. He did many things I didn’t understand. Finally he said the mirror was ready. He gave me a sealed paper and made me swear not to look at its revelations until he had gone. Then, we activated the device. I shook his hand—we were quite friends by then—and he strode into the black vacuum of the mirror.”

  Into the silence he said, “He has not come home?”

  “No.” Venn sat still a moment, then lifted his head. “The paper?”

  “Ah yes, the paper. I had fondly imagined it a list of the secrets of the future. It was nothing of the sort.” Symmes got up and limped goutily to the sideboard and opened a drawer. He brought the paper, but instead of giving it to Venn, he handed it to Jake, who snatched it and read it avidly and then was silent so long, Venn’s patience ran out.

  “What is it?”

  Jake looked up. His face was lit with a bitter happiness. “A letter. To me.”

  20

  Part of the charm and the fascination of the man lies in his obsessive nature. His great friend David Wilde once said, “Venn is like one of those ferocious jungle snakes that won’t let go once they bite. You have to kill them to get them off. He’s like that. If he wants something, he gets it. If he loses something, he’ll move heaven and earth to find it. If you’re his friend, he’ll never betray you.”

  Dr. Wilde’s own whereabouts at present are something of a mystery.

  Jean Lamartine, The Strange Life of Oberon Venn

  SUMMER SHOWED NO surprise on her pert pretty face, but Sarah knew the word Janus had hit home.

  She said quickly, “
You remember him? The god who looks both forward and back. The two-faced one.”

  “I know of him.”

  All at once, without a sign or a shiver, the Shee were there. They were sitting in the trees, on the garden chairs, on the grass, leaned in the crazily angled rooms. Their silver beauty was a mask; their eyes examined her incuriously. Sarah felt alone among them. Gideon, sprawled at Summer’s feet, lay silent, gazing up at the featureless blue sky.

  “Then you know how dangerous Janus is,” she said. “Well, he’s here. At least a copy of him. A Replicant. Venn is missing and in danger. All of them are, if you don’t help.”

  Summer laughed. “We don’t help. We take, we give, we sing, we feast. What can you even offer me?”

  “This.” Sarah put her hand in her pocket and brought out the diamond brooch. As she held it up, it caught the sunlight and the flash of the gems was brilliant; all the bird-sharp eyes of the Shee fastened on it, and she felt their instant greed. In fact, she was banking on it. They were lethal, but they were childish. Bright jewels, gold. What else would interest them?

  Summer had not moved, but her gaze was on the brooch. “You would give me that?”

  Sarah shrugged. “It’s a great price. But you must…”

  Summer stood. “Don’t tell me what I must do, human.” Her eyes slanted to slyness. “I don’t want your trinket.”

  “Then what? I’ll give you anything.”

  Gideon sat up, his whole lean body a warning.

  “Anything! What a foolish thing to offer.” Summer turned, a small graceful pirouette on the grass.

  “What power you give me, Sarah! Think what I might demand.”

  She was still with dismay. Stupid, she thought fiercely. Stupid!

  “Don’t worry! I won’t ask for the world. I’ll just have that.” Summer reached out and indicated the half coin on its chain. “Give me that, and I’ll consider.” She held out a slender hand.

  Sarah didn’t move. “Afterward.”

  “Are you mad? I can destroy you with one murmur.”

  That was probably true. Sarah didn’t let herself flinch. She closed her hand over the brooch and put it hastily away. “Afterward. After you’ve dealt with the Replicant.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the Dwelling,” Gideon said. “And a wolf.”

  Summer looked annoyed. “Too much work.”

  “Venn will be grateful. Think of that.”

  The woman shrugged. But the idea seemed to appeal to her, because suddenly she smiled archly and said, “Very well. Call me, when you need me, and I’ll come. If I’m not too busy.”

  It would have to do, though Sarah knew full well that the promises of the Shee were worthless. But if she didn’t get back soon, she would be trapped here in this endless realm like Gideon. He was shaking his head at her; she looked back at him while she answered Summer. “Keep your promise. I’ll keep mine.”

  And then, enjoying their complete astonishment, she made herself invisible.

  Wharton stared at the empty scullery in utter dismay. Who on earth could have let her out? The boy from the Wood? But why?

  He turned. Down the dark corridor an icy wind whispered. He had a sudden vision of wide-open doors and windows, the Abbey undefended, the enemy deep inside the house.

  He had to use army tactics now. Get back to the Monk’s Walk. Barricade themselves in. Ring of steel around the mirror. Without it Jake would never get back. And after all, he thought with wild hope, maybe Maskelyne had done it. Maybe Jake was back already, with Venn, even with David Wilde. Then he, Wharton, could go and spend a late Christmas in Shepton Mallet and pretend all this madness had never happened.

  He walked warily to the hall, then ran up the stairs. Halfway, on the wide landing, he turned.

  Something clicked below in the hall. He lifted the shotgun.

  “Sarah, is that you?”

  Snow drifted. The cold was so intense, he felt it was gnawing at him. He stepped up, backward, keeping his gaze moving. Something was here. Something strange, and close.

  Then as if his eyes had focused, as if it had blurred out of deepest night, he saw the wolf.

  It was slinking up the lower steps, against the banister, a white, sinuous thing with no shape or outline, hard to see, except for its eyes, small glowing sapphires in the dark.

  It gave a low, eerie growl.

  He whipped up the gun with both hands, pointing it at the beast.

  It came on, watching him.

  “Get back. Get back or I shoot.” He stamped and threatened.

  The wolf snarled, a terrible sound. Behind it, someone laughed.

  Wharton backed. “Who’s down there? Control this animal or I’ll be forced to! Do you hear me?”

  No one answered but the ice-animal. It leaped three steps and streaked toward him.

  Wharton gasped, missed his footing, fell backward.

  And fired.

  London, August 1848

  Dear Jake,

  I hope you finally get to read this in some archive of Symmes’s papers, sometime, if it survives. I just want you to know that I’m okay, and I’m still trying to get back. I know Venn will be trying to find me, but I don’t want—didn’t want?—either of you taking stupid risks.

  When I found myself in 1840s London I knew Symmes was my only chance, but I’m honestly beginning to think this thing only works one way. I mean backward. If I try again I may well just shunt myself back even further in time away from you. But I have to try. I don’t have any choice.

  Tell Venn I have calibrated it to the second and the twelfth. I don’t know if it’s even enough.

  Look kid, have a good life, or if you’re an old man now, I hope you had a good life. I hope you haven’t /didn’t /won’t waste it worrying about me. I hope you find a good woman and have kids and that somewhere, somewhen, I’m a grandfather.

  I love you, Jake. Tell O to forget me and find Leah. Tell your mother I’m sorry.

  Your lost, lonely, loving dad,

  David Wilde

  Jake watched Venn fold the paper slowly, his face bleak. He said, “Jake…”

  “Don’t talk to me about how sorry you are!” Jake’s snarl was savage. “You got him into this with your stupid, selfish obsessions! He would never have…”

  “It was his idea.” Venn turned. “He was as keen as I was.”

  “Only because he couldn’t stand to see your guilt! And you let him go! Don’t fool yourself, godfather—you’d do anything, sacrifice anyone, to get her back. Me, Dad, anyone on earth.”

  Venn’s face was icy, but before he could answer, Symmes said calmly, “Gentlemen. We are scientists and we must approach this problem in a scientific manner.”

  He was back sitting by the fireside and had lit a small dark cigar. He seemed to have recovered from his shock; now he was self-possessed, smoking and thinking, one knee crossed casually over the other. “I could never make the mirror operate fully before Dr. Wilde came, but that was because I did not have the other device—the bracelet he wore on his wrist. He never removed it and when he left, he was wearing it. You, I observe, have an identical one.”

  Jake, still simmering, glanced at Moll. She grinned. “Thanks to me he does, mister.”

  “Yes…” Symmes inhaled deeply. “So, with it, you may perhaps be able to re-enter the mirror and go home.”

  “Without my father?”

  “He is not here.”

  “I need to know how the mirror was calibrated.” Venn came and stood over Symmes, looking down at him. “I must see it. Now.”

  In the silence, the rattle of cab wheels was muted; the stench of the streets a faint tang.

  Symmes tapped ash on a glass tray. Then he squashed the stub in and stood up. “Very well. It’s in the cellar.”

  He tied the dressing gown cord firmly and glanced with sudden distaste at Moll. “Not the urchin, though. Surely we have no further need of her.”

  Jake muttered, “She saved me, and the bracelet
.”

  “Nevertheless…” Symmes looked at Venn. “I don’t intend to give beggars a tour of my house and valuables.”

  “I’m not a bleedin’ beggar!” Moll snapped.

  “We know you’re not.” Venn searched in the pockets of the stolen clothes he wore and pulled out a heavy handful of florins and shillings and pennies. “Here.” He dumped the lot carelessly in her hastily cupped hands. “Take it. Go and get yourself some good food. And some shoes.”

  Moll looked staggered. She had probably never seen so much money in her life. Jake wished he had something to give her too, but all he could do was wait until she had stashed the cash and take her small grubby hand and kiss it.

  She giggled. “Just like a lady.”

  “You are a lady. Thank you, Moll. I hope we get to meet again, sometime.”

  Symmes looked baffled, then amused. He rang the bell, and the butler came smoothly in. “Show this…child out.”

  The man went to put a hand on her, but she twisted away. She smiled at Jake—a wistful grimace. “I hope you get back home. And find your pa.”

  He said, “Thanks, Moll.”

  And then she was gone, the door closing firmly behind her small upright back, and Venn was turning impatiently. “Right. Where is it?”

  Symmes took a small key down from a hook on the wall and unlocked a door that was almost hidden in the paneling; it opened straight onto some wooden steps twisting down. “Wait. We need light.”

  As he crossed to a small oil lamp on the table, Jake caught Venn’s eye. But there was no time to speak; Symmes was back, and leading the way into a damp darkness redolent with the faint smells of spilled wine.

  They hurried down. Behind him, Jake heard Venn’s boots scrape on the stone; both their shadows, huge and distorted, flickered over the brick walls. Symmes held the lamp higher. “This was at one time my wine cellar, but I had it cleared and furnished as a laboratory, after the first attempt at burglary. By far the most secure location in the house.”

  “Burglary?” Venn’s voice echoed. “By the scarred man, the one you stole the mirror from?”

  “Maybe. But I did not steal it, Mr. Venn, I rescued it. I shudder to think for what nefarious purposes it had been used.”