Moonlands

by Steven Savile

  "She was only joking, you know," Ashley said, spooning another mouthful of the stew into her mouth. It actually tasted pretty good for being brown.

  "That's what you think," Mel sighed theatrically. "She's probably put a hex on it or something. The first mouthful makes you small, the second makes you big," she said, misquoting Alice in Wonderland. "I wouldn't put it past her."

  "You do know she's a cook, not a witch, right?"

  "That's just what she wants you to think while she's hunched over her cauldron all day in your own kitchen. Such naïveté."

  "You're bloody mad, you. You know that?"

  "That's why we're such good friends. Two peas in a mental pod. Partners in the asylum. Flatmates in Barking. Not that I'd ever be seen dead in Barking…" Mel said, thoughtfully. She looked up from her bowl, setting the half-eaten goulash aside. "So," She said, another one of those mental juxtapositions that only made sense to her. "You never said why you were late today?"

  Ashley wasn't sure where to begin.

  She shrugged. Time for a bit of show and tell. "We had to go to the solicitor's for the reading of Aunt Elspeth's Will."

  "Oh, right, I forgot about that. Downer much?" Mel would try and do that whole American 'bitter much' thing every now and again, but it always sounded more Spoiled Little Rich Girl than Street.

  "Wasn't so bad, I guess."

  Mel made a face.

  "No, really. I mean… it was just… well he was a creepy old guy, but harmless enough."

  "Let's put it into perspective. He was a creepy guy who gave you presents… The two of which, together, are just… well… uncomfortable." Mel grinned. She pulled a face and hunched her back—doing her best to imitate how she imaged Smirke must have been. She looked more like she was having an epileptic fit. "Do you want a sweetie, little girl?"

  Ashley couldn't stop laughing as Mel got up and started swinging her right arm around like some sort of elephant trunk.

  It made absolutely no sense and that made it absolutely hilarious.

  That was how Mel's humour worked.

  Her favourite joke was: what's white and if it falls out of a tree will kill you? A fridge.

  That summed her up.

  By the time she'd stopped laughing Mel had grabbed the umbrella off the bed and was brandishing it like a pirate captain, doing the whole drunken Johnny Depp swagger as she lurched around the room. "This is brill," she said, carving a z in the air in front of her. "You could seriously injure someone with this. Maybe Andii?" Andii was one of the girls in their class. Her name was really Andrea Wilson, but she decided the whole double i thing made her sound more interesting. There were plenty of girls like her in Regents Park Girls School, and every other school up and down the land—normal girls who just wanted there to be one thing special about them. It was highly unlikely that a double i was ever going to be it, but far be it from her to tell them that. Of course, some of the boys from the neighbouring Primrose Hill Boys School called her Handy Andii, after the tissues, for reasons Ashley really didn't want to think about. "So, did you get anything else apart from the duelling brolly?"

  Ashley showed her the locket, and the goggles. For some reason she decided against showing her best friend the book, but she couldn't have said why.

  Mel wasn't interested in the locket, but she immediately put the goggles on. "Tally ho! Toodle pip! Chocks away!" Mel cried, then grinned, breathless. Sometimes—most of the time, really—it was difficult to keep up with her. She'd heard more than one of the teachers call her a poster child for Ritalin, which was cruel, but so very true at the same time. She was a nightmare to teach because she just couldn't sit still for more than five minutes at a time. The thing was she hardly ever got in trouble for it. Instead she ended up dropping Ashley or anyone else stupid enough to sit beside her in it. "Did your whole family escape from the loony bin or just you and your aunt? These are so cool. Dead steampunky. I wonder if you can see…" she didn't need to finish the thought. Ashley knew exactly who she meant as she skipped over to the window and pressed her face up against the glass. The still slightly hunky musician, not the old man in his grubby dressing gown, obviously.

  She stopped dead in her tracks, doing a double-take at something she'd seen through the window and pulled the goggles off. She tossed them aside. "Well that was useless," she said, sinking down onto the bed with a big deflated flump, but there was something about the way she said it and the way she'd suddenly broken off mid-sentence that made Ashley think something had just happened. She had no idea what and she wasn't about to ask.

  "What are we going to do now?"

  "How about some homework?"

  "God, Ash, you're such a buzz kill."

  "And yet you still come around every night."

  "Well it isn't like I've got a lot of options round here, is it?" Mel grinned. "It's you or the old perv across the street, and you've got a better wardrobe, babe. C'est la vie."

  "I'm touched."

  "I wouldn't be. It's purely selfish. He only seems to own that grubby old dressing gown, it's not exactly stiff competition."

  And so it went, back and forth and round and around, anything to avoid actually doing any of the homework they were supposed to be doing together, until it was 8:45 and time for Mel to go home and they hadn't actually managed to do anything apart from giggle, mock and otherwise entertain themselves.

  Ashley stood in the window and waved down to Mel in the street as she climbed into a cab and disappeared into the night city.

  She saw a line of big fat crows along the gutter of her neighbour's house. Their beady little yellow eyes seemed to be staring at her window.

  They gave her the creeps.

  She pulled the curtains closed, and turned the main light off in favour of the small lamp on her beside table. So much had happened to Ashley in the last twenty-four hours all she wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. But first she had to get ready for bed.

  She had a quick shower, but didn't wash her hair because she would have fallen asleep with her hair wet—a sure fire way to wake up with the worst case of bed-head ever—and put on her nightshirt. It was a long dark blue Betty Boop one, with Betty's smiling face on the breast pocket, which, she assured Mel, she only ever wore ironically. She didn't ever let on that Betty was her favourite cartoon character and she wasn't ready to grow out of her just yet.

  Ashley crawled into bed. As she leaned over to turn out the light, she noticed a corner of what looked like a loose page poking out of the leather-bound book she'd just inherited. She hadn't noticed it before, but it was hardly surprising with so many pages stitched into the binding that one might have pulled free. Instead of turning the light out, she reached over for the journal.

  She untied the leather string and opened the book, thumbing through to find the loose page.

  Only it wasn't a loose page at all, it was on a different kind of paper and unlike the rest of the book there was writing on it. A letter. It was written in a tight spidery scrawl she could barely read. She didn't know how she could have missed it the first time she looked inside the book, but she obviously had. It looked as though it had been written a long time ago. The ink was slightly faded and the paper itself had begun to yellow.

  She spread the letter open on her pillow.

  My Dearest Child,

  Please believe we never wanted this life for you. We had dreams of you growing up as a normal little girl and used to talk about what it would be like to watch you set off for your first day at school with that little satchel slung over your shoulder, and how we'd feel when the first young man asked you to the dance. That one always made me smile. I remember the excitement of still believing in everything. Still believing in the magic of love and the power of his eyes to melt your soul. Old Ephram always laughed at me for that, but I know the old so and so adored me every bit as much as I adored him, but such is life. We make sacrifices. All of us. I made mine, and now it is time for you to make yours.

  Of course, it is al
l too little, too late, I know, all any of us ever wanted to do was protect you, child, but if you are reading this it means that things have been put into motion. Events. I'm almost certainly dead. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean, I had always planned on living forever, but then don't we all? I just hope… well I hope that I went doing what I was put here to do… protecting you.

  This must all sound so strange to you. I am sure you are lying in your bed thinking who was this mad woman and what on earth is she going on about? I wouldn't blame you at all. You hardly know me, after all. We only met on two occasions, but that doesn't mean I wasn't watching out for you all the time. I was. And now it is time for someone else to.

  But remember this, you are not alone, dear heart. It is so very important that you remember that.

  There are others like me out there, people who have pledged their lives to your protection, each in their own way.

  They are the closest thing to family you could ever ask for, though most likely no kind of family you'd ever want, which I suppose makes them just like any other family you care to think of. You wouldn't recognise them if you saw them in the street, but believe me, they know everything there is to know about you, sweet girl.

  Think of them as more aunts and uncles, just like me, if that makes it easier.

  Each one would lay down their lives to keep you safe. That much is true.

  I cannot tell you more, not here, no matter how much I want to. This is just the start. I trust I know you well enough to know this isn't enough for you and that curiosity will take you further. You are your mother's daughter in that regard. But setting it all down on paper like this, that is not safe. There's no telling whose eyes might read my last words, no matter how private I intend them to be, so all I will say is this, and only this: find Marissa du Lac. Talk to her. She can give you more questions to ask, and perhaps even a few answers if you ask the right questions of her.

  I am sorry I won't be there to see this through to the end, but it seems my part in this is over. I hope I played it well.

  With all my heart, your loving aunt,

  Elspeth Grimm

  Ashley read the letter again. It didn't make a lot of sense, but then nothing that had happened to her since Smirke read her Will did.

  She looked at the second to last paragraph and the instruction hidden inside it. Find Marissa du Lac.

  Du Lac. Lake.

  Did she mean Miss Lake?

  Surely not?

  How could Aunt Elspeth have known Miss Lake? What could possibly link her crazy aunt to the librarian at her new school?

  She thumbed through the blank pages just to be sure she hadn't missed anything else in there.

  They were still blank.

  Ashley's head was spinning.

  And the worst thing was she couldn't talk to anyone about it.

  She really didn't think anyone would understand. How could you tell someone you went into an old bombed out ruin of a bank that hadn't existed for sixty years and emerged with some weird looking aviator goggles, a locket, an umbrella and a book with nothing written in it, the last gifts from a crazy old lady?

  Something else struck her about Aunt Elspeth's letter.

  Ephram.

  She'd never heard the name before, and now she'd seen it twice in one day.

  That was the third time today something had happened twice.

  What was it her mum said?

  There's no such thing as coincidence.

  Ashley was starting to believe it.

  With no one to talk to, it seemed obvious to Ashley she needed to start talking to herself—not literally of course, that way lay madness. She reached over to the bedside table, pulled open the small drawer and fished out a pen. It was a gold-nibbed Mont Blanc Meisterstück 149 fountain pen. It was a gift from her mum on her first day at school, not that she was ever going to take in a pen that probably cost enough to feed a small African village for six months.

  She uncapped the pen and turned to the first page of the leather-bound book, intending to turn it into a diary.

  In the top right hand corner she wrote the date.

  Beneath it she wrote her name, but even before she'd finished writing the last letter of Hawthorne her first name had faded to nothing. It hadn't left so much as a stain or a smudge of ink behind. In a few seconds it was as though she'd never written a word.

  She wrote it again.

  And again it faded, ever so slightly quicker this time.

  Ashley stared at the book.

  The date was still there in the top corner.

  She brushed the tip of her finger over it.

  It didn't smudge.

  It didn't make any sense.

  She reached over to the bedside table for a tissue and blotted the pen, making sure the ink was flowing properly, but that wasn't the problem.

  Chewing on the inside of her bottom lip Ashley wrote her name for a third time, spelling out each letter slowly and carefully in her best handwriting.

  This time the paper beneath it crinkled up as though her name were being scratched out, not simply being absorbed into the paper. The ink didn't fade. It blotted into the weave of the paper, forming veins that spread out across the page and then drew back to form new words. Words she hadn't written.

  That's not who you are.

  Without thinking, not even for a split second, Ashley hurled the book across the room and scrambled off the other side of the bed. She crouched down behind the bed, but didn't let the book out of her sight. It had fallen face up. She could see the five words there on the ivory page. That's not who you are. She breathed hard, her nostrils flaring, her heart beating against her ribcage as though it were trying to climb out through her skin. The writing didn't disappear this time. Those five words just stayed there like an accusation. That's not who you are.

  She moved sideways, edging along the length of the bed like a crab. She couldn't take her eyes off the book.

  And despite the fact there was no breeze, the pages fluttered.

  Ashley scuttled back. She reached instinctively for the nearest thing to hand to defend herself, at the same time not sure quite how she was supposed to defend herself from a book, and grabbed the handle of the umbrella she'd inherited from Aunt Elspeth. All the while, all she could think was: if the book's this strange, what's wrong with the other stuff? She felt the cold silver of the locket on her breastbone.

  The worst thing was there was no one else in the house.

  Paget was gone for the night, she'd heard the door close about ten minutes after Mel had gone home, and her mum wouldn't be home for another couple of hours.

  She felt utterly alone.

  And for once it scared her.

  The curtains stirred, and Ashley realised she must have left the window open—not wide open, obviously, but just enough for it to ruffle through the curtains and the pages of the book now it was on the floor. She let out a huge sigh of relief and stood up. She picked up the book and put it on the bedside table, then went to close the window properly. Her bedroom was so high up, and the old sash windows so old and poorly insulated that the wind seemed to be able to find its way through any crack. It whistled sometimes when the wind blew strongly enough. She drew open the curtains, and then standing on tip-toes, put all of her weight on the wooden frame, pulling the bottom window of the sash into place. Feeling like an idiot she closed the curtains and clambered back into bed.

  Her heart was still racing.

  She didn't look at the book as she reached over to turn out the light.

  She didn't want to think about those five words that had written themselves. The slightly open window couldn't explain that away, and it was going to be hard enough to fall asleep as it was.

  When the light went out, the stars above her head glittered and glimmered into life.

  These weren't the real stars, and it wasn't the night sky.

  Her dad had painted stars on the ceiling of the old house when she was a baby so that she'd alw
ays be able to see them looking down on her and feel safe. Painting a new Day-Glo sky on her bedroom ceiling was the first thing he'd done when they moved into the new place on Curzon Street because he wanted it to feel like her home. It hadn't worked, but she loved him even more for trying.

  She didn't realise she'd fallen asleep looking up at them until she felt someone leaning over the bed to kiss her. Daniel Hawthorne brushed aside his daughter's fringe and whispered, "Shhh, don't wake up, Ash. I'm just going to sit here and watch your world for a while." She rolled over and sank back into sleep while her dad sat on the windowsill and looked at her mural while she slept.

  She felt safe at last.

  NINE

  The Gates

  Blackwater Blaze leaned against the railings.

  He needed their support.

  His body was less than an hour out of the shift—the third transformation to wrack it since he had stumbled through the Moongate into this world. The hunger was upon him. He desperately needed to feed. The change demanded so much from his body and he wasn't taking on any sort of nutrition to fuel it. He was as weak as he could ever remember being. Dizzy. Lightheaded. All around him he could smell blood, could hear hearts hammering in chests, taunting him. The proximity to all of this food… this banquet of humanity… was killing him.

  Literally.

  Blaze stretched, working the kinks out of the muscles in his back. Every muscle burned. He just wanted this done. He wanted to leave this place. And because of that he was taking unnecessary risks. He'd broken cover and come far too close to the building for comfort, leaving himself exposed.

  But what other choice did he have?

  This was the only place he knew for sure the girl had ever been. There was nothing to say that she would return, but in his experience packs followed patterns of migration, and hunter's instinct told him she would be back.

  So he was here, and here he would stay, unless the pain became too great.