House of Many Doors

by Ian Richards

  To his surprise, the feeling was a pleasant one.

  Tony slept.

  *

  Peach trees. A snowstorm of blossom. Hot sunlight playing on the grass. Arabian thunder. Spices. Babbling voices. Sandstorms. A rush of cold air. A burbling waterfall.

  Then silence.

  Blackness.

  Rest …

  *

  He awoke to a world that no longer made any sense. Where was he? His eyes were too heavy to open—almost if they had been glued shut—but he could quite clearly make out several different sounds that appeared to have nothing to do with each other. There was the slip-slap-slip of waves lapping against a shore, the steady drone of morning traffic, and a far-off car radio playing The Queen Is Dead by the Smiths at a thumping volume. He was outside, he had established that much from the cold wind breezing around him. Though this wind carried with it the smell of pollutants, somehow it remained fresh and sharp at the same time, another contradiction that added to his sense of disorientation. He couldn’t sure whether he was in the Swiss Alps or a car park.

  For several moments he lay motionless on the ground, lost in this jumble of conflicting sensations. His head throbbed, and though he tried to open his eyes the strain was too much for him. He focused instead on trying to reconstruct the night before. He remembered The Green Man pub—and racing back to the shop to find the antiques Martell had hidden there. He remembered Krook and Kepler chasing him out into the courtyard at the back of the shop. But everything that had followed that …? No, that was still in the dark.

  He tried to think about the situation logically. Everything about his present predicament told him that he must have hit his head. And he vaguely remembered trying to scramble over the courtyard wall … Had he lost his footing then, and knocked himself out on the way down? No, he couldn’t have. If that was true, if he had fallen into the filth and grime of the alleyway, why did he remember smelling peaches of all things?

  ‘You’re awake.’ Vanessa’s voice rang like a bell, clear and clean and reassuringly close by. He managed to creak open his eyes and saw her staring down at him, smiling. Though he wanted to smile back, to show her how glad he was to see her too, he couldn’t find the strength to do it. His head ached. It felt as if his skull had been smashed to pieces.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  He could only blink in response. He was too tired to do anything else.

  ‘Sore,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Sore. Well, I should say so. You performed a swan dive onto solid concrete, it’s a wonder you’re even breathing. Still, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by yet another near death experience in the life of Tony Lott. You’re a human version of Russian roulette. Every day you find new and inventive ways of almost killing yourself.’ She brushed back his fringe and peered carefully into his eyes. ‘Yes, you seem much better now. Your eyes are focusing again. Last night they were all over the place. I don’t think you knew where you were.’

  He still didn’t. The lapping water and smell of pollutants suggested the banks of the Thames, but the sky above him, which was grey and characterless, offered no evidence one way or the other.

  He moved to reply, then stopped himself.

  The thought came to him from nowhere.

  ‘The genie …’

  It was coming back to him now: the smell of peaches, that deep, soothing, sonorous voice.

  ‘Back in his lamp,’ Vanessa said, tapping its tin shell with her fingernails. ‘I’ve tried calling him out, but I think you’re the only one who can do that now. We’re lucky, you know, Tony. Krook and Kepler almost had us there.’

  He remembered.

  Krook’s knife slicing through the rain.

  The plumes of orange smoke.

  Forcing himself to sit up, he nursed his head in his hands and blinked away the last of the confusion. His guess as to where they were had been a good one. They were on a grass verge overlooking the Thames. On the opposite bank, tower-blocks and apartment complexes marked the skyline like an ECG reading—the beating pulse of the city contrasting horribly with the flatlining hopelessness of the river beneath it.

  Marshwood.

  The name shot through his mind like a lightning bolt. He remembered. Martell was being held in a place called Marshwood. This was where he had to go. And with a genie on board, with a box full of magical antiques …

  Vanessa seemed to sense what he was thinking. ‘We’re in a better position than we were yesterday,’ she said. ‘But don’t get your hopes up yet. Now that we’ve got these antiques Krook and Kepler are going to be on our trail. And just because you know where your uncle is, that doesn’t mean we’ll be able to find him.’

  ‘But we’re stronger now, Vanessa.’ He shook the box of antiques. ‘Look at this stuff.’ He began sorting through the collection: the pocket-watch, the old boots, the genie’s lamp. ‘These are seven-league boots, I’m sure of it. And this pocket-watch must be magical, too. We’ve got an arsenal on our hands.’

  If he had been hoping for a positive response he didn’t get one. Instead the look Vanessa gave him was tinged with pity.

  ‘How’s your head?’ she said softly.

  He frowned. ‘Better. Why?’

  ‘Because I’m fed up of sitting on a riverbank. We need to get moving.’ She stood up and wiped her hands on her sides. ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Good. I’m freezing. Let’s go.’

  *

  They spent the rest of the morning heading inland. The genie had deposited them on the outskirts of Docklands, and as they walked through its futuristic landscape neither Tony nor Vanessa had much to say to each other. All around them a kingdom of glass sparkled. Sunlight played across mirror-like windows as their own shabby reflections shuffled past, washed out with rain and exhaustion. This part of town was unfamiliar to them both. To Vanessa, who had grown up in a tiny village overlooking the Mediterranean, Docklands looked like something from the pages of a science-fiction novel. There were trains gliding past on elevated tracks. Towering skyscrapers and polished office blocks rising up like gigantic silver flowers. Tony had never ventured into this part of the city before either. Compared to Dover Street it felt sterile and artificial—eerie in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Still, he had to admit it was probably a safer place to be than any other part of London that morning. It was hard to imagine a Rag-and-Bone man lurching after them from the doorway of a Costa Coffee. And Krook and Kepler disguising themselves amongst the shoals of suited businessmen and women was a laughable idea, too. It would be like a couple of ghouls trying to blend in on a luxury cruise.

  When they reached Canary Wharf they took a bus west towards the British Library, where Tony intended to begin searching for information about Marshwood. Vanessa carried the box of antiques on her lap, occasionally poking through them with curiosity. Tony preferred to watch the city passing by through the window. It comforted him, knowing that finally, after weeks of inaction, they had a lead on finding his uncle. Martell seemed closer now. Almost within reach.

  At the library they searched through books, documents and atlases for any reference they could find to Marshwood. There were none. Similarly, thirty minutes in a shabby internet cafe off Tottenham Court Road revealed nothing of relevance either.

  ‘It can’t not exist,’ Tony said. For dinner they ate triangles of pizza bought from a street vendor in Covent Garden. They wandered through the stalls and sideshows of the market as a cold wind blew by. Vanessa’s hair whipped across her face. She brushed it back patiently.

  ‘It can not exist, chimney sweep. At least not in this world.’

  ‘You mean it’s in Faerie?’

  ‘Possibly. But possibly not. I really don’t know. But this is why I don’t think you should get too carried away with this box of yours. If Marshwood is somewhere else—and my best guess would be it almost certainly is—then none of these antiques are going to make a blind bit of difference. You need ma
gical training to travel between worlds, not magical tools. What you’ve got here is a box full of keys and no way to get to the locks.’

  ‘But you can show me how to use them, can’t you, Vanessa? You can give me lessons.’

  ‘Lessons,’ she laughed. ‘Tony, I’ve given you magic lessons already. Dozens of them. And each time you lose concentration or get distracted by something.’

  ‘I won’t this time, though. I promise.’

  She took a seat on a bench near a street entertainer who stood juggling clubs for the amusement of tourists. Tony sat beside her, his headache gone now. For a long time he waited for her response, but she remained silent, her eyes fixed on the twirling clubs. When she finally moved to speak her voice was soft and quiet.

  ‘Tony, I can’t travel between worlds. Only great magicians can do that, and I’m certainly not one of them. Centuries ago people used to jump back and forth all the time, but there was more magic around back then. These days there’s very little.’

  ‘Then what do we do? I mean, Martell—he’s still alive. Who knows what they’re doing to him? He could be in danger.’

  She had no answer to this, and as the wind began to pick up she slipped her arm around his and drew him to his feet.

  ‘Come on. We need to take your mind off things. Walk with me.’

  He did. Together they wandered deeper into Covent Garden, slowly losing themselves amongst the masses of Christmas shoppers and sparkling lights. Tony hadn’t realized how tired he was. The disappointment of starting the day with such hope only to end up no closer to finding Martell dragged at him like a weight. There had to be some way of getting to Marshwood. What if they tried following Krook and Kepler again? No, he dismissed the thought immediately—far too dangerous. What else then? What if he went back to The Gnarled Wand and searched through Ebenezer’s books? There might be some reference to Marshwood there, buried deep in the pages of some obscure magical tract. He would have to search to find it, of course—and given the number of books in the shop that could take days—weeks even—but what else could he do? Spend the rest of the winter drifting through the city and hoping Martell somehow managed to escape on his own? No chance.

  As they walked around central London, shivering in the cold, he wondered how best to broach the subject with Vanessa. She seemed tired, too. Worn out with narrow escapes and worries about the future. He decided it would be best to put his plans aside for the moment and instead try to pass a few hours together just taking in the sights. They needed a break. Ever since they had met, their lives had been either high-intensity drama or long spells of mind-rotting boredom. That was no good for either of them. They were young, healthy and alive. They were in one of the greatest cities in the world and they had an entire evening to themselves.

  And so they walked, following the crowds, chasing down every half-formed idea that came into their heads. Let’s go to Hamleys. Let’s visit Foyles. They saw Chinatown and Leicester Square. They passed West End theatres sparkling with glittery lights, restaurants, galleries, statues, billboards. Sometimes, when the cold became too much for them, they took themselves into nearby shops and browsed at the merchandise on sale, whether it be polished jewelry or replica football kits. For the first time since he had met her Tony felt as if the city was showing Vanessa its true face. The excitement, the adventure, the intrigue, the secrets. Christmas lights hanging in Oxford Street. Guitar shops in Denmark Street. It was dizzying—special—magical in a way that he couldn’t explain. He felt happy, and was surprised to find how strange the feeling was. It was almost intoxicating. As if the only thing that could ever matter was finding a way to make it last for as long as possible.

  Outside a comic shop in Covent Garden they stopped to watch an illusionist perform tricks with colored handkerchiefs to a crowd of bundled-up tourists. His clumsy sleights of hand were nothing compared to some of the things Tony had seen Vanessa do, but he found it hard not to grin at the man’s desperate enthusiasm.

  ‘I should turn his handkerchiefs into snakes,’ Vanessa whispered. ‘That’ll perk up his act a bit.’

  ‘Vanessa, don’t!’

  They were giggling now. They couldn’t help themselves.

  ‘But he’s terrible, Tony. He needs our help.’

  ‘He’s doing all right, the poor old sod. Look, he turned that handkerchief from red to white. That’s not bad, is it?’

  The act plodded onwards, a never-ending parade of colored handkerchiefs and substandard banter. Though most of the audience seemed indifferent—they applauded at the appropriate moments, but without enthusiasm—Tony and Vanessa savored every second. They stood side by side, their breath rising up into the cold night air, their faces marked with smiles, their fingers perilously close to touching.

  For a brief, wonderful moment it almost felt as if things were going to be all right after all.

  24 - The Guest

  Rain fell continuously on Marshwood that night: a light, drizzly rain that dripped through the holes in the ceiling and trickled down the walls. As had become customary, Martell spent most of his time in his room, filling notebook after notebook with thoughts, ideas, anything that might help him to untangle the riddle of Firefox’s mysterious box. On his first evening he had taken an unaccompanied walk around the house and found to his surprise that nobody came to intercept him or return him to his quarters. In that regard at least, Firefox had been true to his word. When servants did see him they simply lowered their gaze and scurried away. He suspected they were as helpless here as he was. Only Thomas Silvertongue once dared to offer a prolonged glance, and though he could not be certain, Martell thought that he saw sympathy in the slender fairy’s expression.

  During this initial exploration he discovered his new home to be just as dreary as he had feared. Marshwood was a dank, miserable place—a surrealist painting brought to life, a sprawling estate of endless corridors and eternally locked rooms. The few doors he had tried refused to budge, and though some of the windows could be pushed open—at once the icy chill of the rain slipped in like a phantom—the grim forest surrounding the house cut short any ideas he might have entertained about running away. The rising trees were wild and inhospitable. The forest seemed to stretch on indefinitely. If he made a break for it, he guessed that his body would give up long before his surroundings did.

  Throughout all of this the riddle remained in the forefront of his mind. As much as he tried to untangle its meaning he couldn’t make any headway. He examined the box repeatedly, each time assessing its properties and studying the details as precisely as possible. He noted its weight (surprisingly light), its smell (antique wood, some sort of varnish preserve), its dimensions (brick-shaped), its design (intricately carved; decorated with stars and moons).

  But if there was an answer to the riddle, he couldn’t see it.

  An attempt to carry out further research in the library proved futile. The books there were old and rotten with centuries of damp and misuse. Each one he removed from the shelf fell apart in his hands, a mess of sludge sandwiched between two decaying covers. Similarly, questioning the servants on what they might know about the box, the house, or the riddle yielded only more frustration. The few that bothered to answer him did so in indecipherable mumbles before slipping away again into the shadows. Often he found himself wondering what their stories were. Could they have once been human like him before the house had turned them into fairies? Or were they plucked from the Shadowlands and brought here to act as slaves? Neither option sat easily with him. And if the answer was the former, it raised uncomfortable questions about how long he had before he himself would begin to change. Was the process fast or slow? Would he wake up one morning to find himself transformed or would it be a painful, drawn-out affair? Imagine being conscious of the change—of seeing his humanity stripped away a bit more every day—his mind rotting like a diseased elm …

  He thought of Tony often. He wondered what the boy was doing and whether or not he was safe. He wished none o
f this had ever happened, that life could go back to how it used to be. Long, lazy days in Martell’s Antiques spent reading books and polishing antiques. Late night conversations about the wonders of the world, Greek mythology, the key battles of the Second World War, African countries, anarchism, religion, literature.

  That night he was reminiscing about the old days when the door to his room opened and Firefox’s assistant came in. Thomas Silvertongue was a thin, pale man with a bright shock of red hair and an old, wrinkled face. His spectacles glinted gently in the glow of the torchlight.

  ‘I’m retiring for the night, sir. Can I get you anything before I go?’

  Martell asked for some water, curious to see if his request would be met. It was. The elderly servant left and returned again with a jug of water that he set on the table next to Martell’s notebooks.

  ‘Anything else, sir?’

  Martell shook his head.

  ‘Very good, sir. Goodnight.’

  The fairy was almost out of the room when Martell called him back. Silvertongue stopped in the doorway, paused for a few seconds, then turned back.

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Be honest with me,’ Martell said. ‘What are my chances of ever getting out of this dump?’

  The hesitation was almost answer enough. ‘I believe the master can be trusted to keep his word, sir. If you solve the riddle, you will be free to go.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t think of him as the most trustworthy of people.’

  Silvertongue smiled. ‘Though you may struggle to believe it, deep down the master is a good man. I know that in his current state he appears a little unstable. Frightening even. But it is just this house, sir. The loneliness. It makes a man desperate.’