As the body hit the floor, it turned into a viscous liquid, black, oil-like, which formed a pool about three feet across. Joni skipped backward to avoid touching it. It formed a perfect circle. Joni realized it was highly reflective, showing the wooden beams of the ceiling above. She leaned over cautiously and looked at her reflection.
Instead of her own face, she saw that of a child—Thai, perhaps, or Vietnamese—with a shaved head.
“Boo!” said the apparition.
Joni couldn’t stop herself shrieking a little. She’d known what to expect, but that didn’t stop her being freaked out.
Joni, Seb, and Mee had already spent a few hours with Fypp, but as that was later, in a universe which had either branched away separately or collapsed into non-existence ever since Joni reset. She’d also seen all of this twenty minutes previously. Joni had slightly more of an advantage than the T’hn’uuth staring up at her from the oily puddle could possibly know.
The pool began to move then, shifting and writhing like a living shadow. After a few seconds, it began to solidify and grow upward from the old, split floorboards, taking on the form Seb had described.
A few seconds later, the small, Zen nun-like child in saffron robes stood in front of Joni, looking up at her with an expression of frank puzzlement.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m Fypp. You seem to have the advantage of me, which is, in all practical terms, impossible.”
Again, Joni felt the strange sensation of something pushing against her. She knew it was coming from Fypp, as she had tried it at their other meetings. It reminded her of the time she was sick as a child. Manna had been used to try to help her, but her body had rejected it. This was a very similar sensation. Her body was throwing Manna back at its source. Whatever was trying to get through to her was being met with a firm, impregnable resistance.
“Well…” Fypp, for a moment, seemed to struggle to express what she was feeling. If Joni had known it was the first time in over eleven million years that anything like this had happened, she might have been more convinced by Fypp’s air of puzzlement. She was about to speak when the diminutive child stamped her foot.
“Shh! Let me just…” Again, the sensation of being pushed, even more insistent this time. Again, her body’s automatic resistance.
“Astonishing,” murmured Fypp. “What are you?”
Joni decided the occasion called for short, factual answers and absolute honesty. She needed this alien to focus. She needed her help. So she simply repeated the words Fypp had told her to say once she had reset and was meeting her again for the first time.
“I’m Joni, Seb’s daughter. I was conceived when his body was still partly human. This may account, in part, for the fact that I am protected from all Manna - whether the intent behind it is good or bad. We’ve had this conversation already. I am the only being you’ve ever met who could reset the multiverse. You once encountered a species which could detect points at which the multiverse was about to branch off significantly. They used their knowledge to avoid danger and to help them in trade and political negotiations, but that planet is long since gone. When you last visited, you assumed their ability must have finally failed them, as their world had, apparently, been eaten by some sort of trans-dimensional space-snake. At least, that’s how you described it to me.”
“When did I describe it to you?” Fypp was utterly unused to being surprised. The grin that had appeared on her face suggested she was rather enjoying it.
“When I first met you.”
“Which was when, precisely?”
“Now. And twenty minutes ago. Which was also now.”
Fypp took a moment to process this.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh. This is going to be fun, isn’t it?”
“Fun? Not really,” said Joni, “no.”
43
Joni, Seb, and Mee walked from the Keep to the cottage. Joni had timed her return to the Keep to match, as closely as she could remember, the moment when the three of them had visited Fypp first time around. The enormity of what was about to unfold weighed heavily on Joni’s mind, but she tried to keep her features neutral and her voice level as they made the trip through the snow.
The last time Joni had made this journey with them, it had ended with her dad dead, her mum crippled and she herself about to die at the hands of some kind of space witch. And, if Joni and Fypp’s plans proved not to be up to the task, it would all happen again. Joni’s last reset had been made just after leaving Fypp and coming back to the Keep. In theory, assuming she didn’t get fried by Kaani, she could come back and try again, and again, and again, but each window of opportunity would get smaller, and the time she would have to make changes would get tighter and tighter. And, of course, if Kaani killed her first, there would be no more opportunities.
In her gut, Joni knew that this was their best, possibly only, chance. She felt sick.
As they rounded the final bend and the crofter’s cottage came into view, Seb stopped walking. He turned to Mee and Joni, shrugging off the backpack and placing it on the ground.
“I’ll leave this with you. Just give me a minute.”
Mee raised an eyebrow. “That alien twonk took you away from me once before. I won’t let her do it again. We should go together.”
Joni let the scene play out exactly as it had before. She listened to her dad, careful not to allow her face to betray any of the fear flooding her body. She was very glad that Manna couldn’t uncover any of her secrets.
“She won’t do it again,” said Seb. “She’s billions of years old, Mee, she had no idea such a short period of time away—as far as she understands time, at least—could cause us such pain. But I need to speak to her alone.”
Mee looked unconvinced. An unconvinced Mee was a dangerous thing. Seb took her hands in his.
“Trust me. Please.”
Finally, Mee nodded. “If you’re not back in five minutes, we’re coming in. And I’m going to give her a piece of my mind. Arsing alien shitburger.”
Joni fought the urge to tell her mother how much she loved her.
We’re going to get through this, we’re going to get through this.
Seb disappeared into the cottage.
Four and a half minutes’ later, Mee grabbed Joni’s hand and they walked down the slight slope, across the yard, and into the cottage.
“Right, you, sling your hook. You lot love the final frontier, right? Well, boldly bugger off back to it.”
Mee wasted no time, fixing Fypp with her scariest look. Brave men had felt their testicles spontaneously shrink under the weight of that glare, but Fypp seemed not even to notice it.
“You must be Mee,” said the alien. She flicked the yo-yo back up her sleeve and held out her hand. Mee looked at it, slightly thrown by the polite gesture. Then, after a brief, but obvious, internal struggle between her feelings and her upbringing, her upbringing won. She shook the tiny hand, scowling.
“Hi, Joni.” Fypp repeated the handshaking procedure, giving Joni a nod.
Mee couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Are you two going to tell us what’s going on, now, or will I have—”
Fypp held up a hand, and Mee’s voice vanished. She was still speaking—shouting, if her demeanor was anything to go by—but no sound at all came out.
Seb looked at Fypp. “What are you doing?”
“Shh.” Fypp held a finger up to Mee. “You ‘shh’ too.”
After a couple of expletives which even a novice lip-reader would have blushed at, Mee stopped speaking.
“No more, please,” said Fypp. “I know Joni has asked you to trust her. I assume you said you would. I am telling you now that you must. Whatever happens from now on has to happen as if Joni has been with you all afternoon. Remember, I’m not asking you to trust me, I’m asking you to trust Joni. Right?”
Joni nodded. “Please, Mum. Dad.”
Mee’s shoulders slumped, and she nodded. Fypp pointed again.
“Got it,” sa
id Mee. “Sorry, Jones.” She closed her eyes for a moment as if settling herself, then opened them again. She stepped forward.
“Right, here’s your sodding Egg. Show us what you want to show us. But don’t take all day about it, we’ve got some more catching up to do.”
44
Joni and Mee watched Seb talk to Fypp in the yard. Their voices were low, and Joni could only assume Fypp was trying to repeat what she would have said if she had hadn’t been aware that a traitorous World Walker was hidden close by, waiting for her to Walk. And knowing that if she Walked where she originally intended, she would never arrive.
Fypp looked over at Mee and Joni in the cottage doorway, then back at Seb, who was shaking his head. Over Seb’s shoulder, she gave Joni one last trademark wink.
“I’ll be back sometime - this planet is just too interesting to stay away from.”
Joni unconsciously gritted her teeth at the slight change in what Fypp had said. She just couldn’t be sure how each tiny alteration in what they did or said might alter the outcome.
Without another word, Fypp turned and stepped into nothingness, leaving the yard, Innisfarne, and the planet behind.
The silence that followed Fypp’s departure seemed to last longer than Joni remembered. She had been as specific as she could about timings. If Kaani didn’t come at the same time…she felt the beginnings of panic, a hard lump in her stomach. Then Mee pulled her closer and called to Seb.
“Come inside,” she said. “Quickly! Something’s wrong. Something’s—”
The elm burst into flame.
When the tree was reduced to a blackened silhouette, and her eyes had recovered from the burst of light, Joni was slightly surprised to discover the witch was just as terrifying the second time around.
Kaani’s short conversation with Seb may not have been word-for-word the same, but Joni wasn’t sure she noticed any difference. It was hard to focus as she was counting in her head.
sixty-four, sixty-five, sixty-six
This was the crucial part, and it was all down to how well she had remembered this scene. She had helped Mum work with some of the domestic abuse sufferers who had come to Innisfarne for counseling, so she knew that extreme duress could mess with someone’s perception of time.
seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one
Watching your father being murdered by a witch must count as pretty extreme duress. Kaani was moving forward now. Fypp had said their best chance was to wait until she was at her most vulnerable, which would be the moment she attacked Dad. Too early, and she might escape. Too late, and Dad died.
hundred and six, hundred and seven, hundred and eight
Joni had guessed it had been just over two minutes between Kaani’s appearance and her attack on Dad. She had gone over the scene again and again in her mind until she was confident her guess was as accurate as she could make it.
That afternoon, she had been sure it was a pretty accurate guess.
Fairly sure.
But it was still a guess.
a hundred and fourteen, a hundre—
Kaani changed into the crackling purple lightning-rope, the atmosphere in the yard changing, getting hot, buzzing with unnatural, powerful energy.
Joni and Mee were slammed back against the cottage wall.
no
Joni fought through a wave of nausea. Her vision was blurred, and her hearing was muffled. She knew she was only stunned, and she fought to bring the scene into focus.
too early, she’s attacking too early
Her father’s scream was a distant sound, her head full of cotton.
she’s killing him
The distant screaming suddenly stopped, and there was a thud as Seb’s body hit the snow.
Joni made a huge effort and managed to push herself up onto her hands and knees before looking into the yard, blinking her vision back into focus.
Fypp was back. And she was formidable. She stood, arms by her sides, her expression serene and peaceful - completely at odds with the devastation she was wreaking. Her tiny body was surrounded by a corona of energy, the snowy forest scene behind her looking distorted and surreal.
Kaani’s rope-like form was blackened in places, and there was a smell like the aftermath of an electrical fire. A powerful hum was not only audible but could be felt through the ground and in Joni’s body as the vibrations rose and fell in intensity.
Joni looked back to where Seb had fallen.
oh God, is he dead?
Her father’s body lay on the ground. Intact, but covered in raw, bleeding lacerations as if his body had stretched and split, every visible patch of skin marked by terrible wounds. He wasn’t moving. This wasn’t how it ended the first time, but Joni knew it was all for nothing if he died anyway.
She looked over at her mother. Mee had already turned toward her, desperately checking that Joni was unhurt. Her expression filled with relief when she saw Joni’s face. Joni looked back at her, deliberately avoiding making the mistake she had made at this point the first time: that of looking at her mother’s twisted, mangled and broken back, horribly twisted and useless.
Mee must have seen something in her peripheral vision, because she turned abruptly away from Joni, looking back toward the battle in the yard.
The witch had been forced to turn her attack toward the last being she had expected to see. Standing next to the fire-scorched elm, Fypp was throwing everything she had at the renegade T’hn’uuth. Fypp still kept the appearance of the child nun, but there was a confusion to her presence, the space occupied by her physical body also seeming to hold another entity. Joni’s human senses could make little sense of it - her brain interpreted it as a constant rolling, coiling movement of green-blue streams constantly moving in and around each other like liquid snakes. At the same time, the child’s saffron and red robes whipped around her rigid humanoid body as if she were caught in a gale. Her features looked utterly calm, yet the energies that filled the air between the warring World Walkers were causing some kind of disruption that spread over an area far larger than the yard, as if Innisfarne was flying through the biggest electrical storm in history.
Joni looked back at Kaani and wondered if the darker patches were injuries. It was impossible to work out who had the upper hand in the struggle. At first, Joni had been sure that Kaani was being defeated, but the light around her twisting, rope-like body, having dimmed in the first seconds, was now visibly brightening. Conversely, the area around Fypp’s fluctuating form was darkening now, and Joni could see torn patches of skin on her face. There was no blood, just an absence of anything resembling flesh, or any kind of matter. Fypp was losing coherence. The Gyeuk had obviously helped Kaani in more ways than just allowing her to cloak her Manna signature.
There was no doubt about it now. Fypp was losing this fight. Kaani was pressing her advantage, hitting her opponent with a barrage of incredible energy. Farmers on the mainland talked for weeks afterward about the panicked herds of cows and flocks of sheep, who had been so frightened that night that they had stampeded out of their fields, breaking gates, tearing up hedges and causing havoc on the roads as they ran away from the coast.
Kaani’s attack was reaching a peak. Joni could feel it. She prepared herself to reset again, a terrible sense of the inevitability of this awful fate settling on her like a cold, wet blanket of fog.
Fypp’s eyes blazed with the light of every star she’d seen die in her billions of years of life. And yet it was possible to look into that light and not be blinded. It felt as if her defenses were being stripped away one by one. Joni struggled to look away until she heard her mother gasp beside her.
She looked back at her father’s body. It was glowing. Even as she watched, his face began to heal, his eyes losing their frightening, blank, dead stare, the light of intelligence filling them again.
He didn’t get to his feet, he rose from the ground like an avenging angel, his remade body pulsing with energy. He hovered about ten feet from the surface of the sno
w, facing Kaani.
Seb didn’t waste any time with words, he just held out his hands in front of his face as if cupped around an invisible ball. Then he slowly pushed that invisible ball outward, away from him. Toward Kaani.
At first, it seemed that his action would have no effect. Then there was a strange flicker in Kaani’s form, like a screen with a bad connection. The flicker became more pronounced, then the attack on Fypp stopped, and she turned her attention back to Seb. Five tendrils of crackling energy whipped toward him, pouring horrific pulses of destructive power into his body, which twisted as, once again, he fought to repel them.
He held out for three, four, five seconds. It was enough.
During those few precious seconds of respite, Fypp the child had disappeared, absorbed into a ball of pure white light. The light wasn’t just present in the yard, it stretched behind her and up into the clear night sky, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and, with one long stroke, had sketched a blinding white line reaching clear out of Earth’s atmosphere.
Riding that white line, arriving through the ball of white light, which opened up like a lotus blossom, something emerged in the yard of the Innisfarne crofter’s cottage, something that so patently didn’t belong in that place, that human senses simply could find no way to acknowledge its presence.
Joni closed her eyes and turned away as that unearthly energy flowed into the yard. If she had tried to look directly at what was happening, she felt sure the image that would burn itself onto her retinas might be the last sight her eyes would ever see.
There was an odd sound, indescribable, so unlike anything Joni had ever heard that her brain—searching for a way of categorizing it—abandoned the attempt within a second and turned its attention instead to pretending it had never heard it in the first place.
After a few more seconds had passed, Joni heard the song of one of the robins which had nested in the log store behind the cottage. It was such a reassuringly normal sound that she burst into tears. Cautiously, and blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she opened her eyes.
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 120
