The Eighth Court

by Mike Shevdon

  “Yes, Lady.” I bowed, accepting the instruction.

  Blackbird frowned at me. “Don’t tease,” she said.

  “You’ll have to get used to it,” I reminded her. “A lot more people are going to be calling you that before we’re done.”

  “Don’t remind me,” she said, turning back to the mirror.

  I took my leave and went to find my daughter.

  Alex’s room was still at the end of the west wing. I’d offered to find her a room closer to ours, but she’d insisted on being left where she was. Still, there were more visitors these days and she was rarely there alone. I was also trying to be more accepting of her wishes and to treat her as an adult, even when she didn’t behave like one.

  As I passed along the hallway, Angela emerged and then retreated to her doorway so that I could pass without brushing against her – a courtesy and a necessity with a seer like Angela, since any contact could lead to her seeing flashes of my future – or in her case, my past. Teoth said her power was corrupted by her humanity, but I wasn’t so quick to judge.

  “Blackbird asked if you’d walk down with her.” I told her.

  “I was just heading there,” she said. “We have two new people coming in this evening. I was hoping Blackbird would spare the time to meet them?”

  “I’m sure she will if she can. You’ll have to arrange it with her, though. I’m going out with Alex and I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. It should only be a couple of hours, but you never know.”

  “I’ll try and catch her now, then,” she said.

  I walked on to the end of the corridor where Alex’s room was, and knocked quietly on her door. There was no answer. I knocked again more loudly, “Alex? Are you ready?” There was still no reply.

  I tried the door handle and the door opened easily. “Alex, honey, we’re going to be late.” I looked around the room. There were a few clothes laid out on the end of the bed, and an Alex shaped heap underneath the duvet. “Alex, are you OK?”

  I walked round to the side of the bed. All I could see was the top of her head. The curls of her dark hair spread across the white pillow were twitching with agitation. Alex’s hair had a will of its own and generally reflected her mood.

  “What’s wrong? I thought you were getting ready?”

  “I’m not coming,” said the muffled voice under the duvet.

  “Not coming? But I thought you wanted to see your mum? I’ve arranged it especially.”

  “I’m ill. Tell her I’m s-s-sick and I c-c-can’t come,” said the muffled voice.

  I could hear the lie in that, “Alex, come out from under the quilt,” I said firmly, “I’m not talking to the top of your head.” The duvet edged downwards until I could see her face.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I feel sick,” she said. From her voice, that at least was true.

  “Is it something you’ve eaten? What did you have for lunch?” I asked her.

  “I didn’t eat lunch. I felt sick.”

  “That’s probably why you feel ill, then. You need to have something in your stomach or you’re going to feel bad.”

  “If I eat, I’m going to throw up,” she said miserably.

  “When did all this start?” I asked her. “You were OK this morning.”

  “I can’t see Mum. You’ll have to tell her I am ill.” She tried to pull the duvet back over her head but I caught the edge of it, and after a moment she let go.

  “Is this about seeing your mother?” I asked her. She shook her head, but she couldn’t deny it. “Alex, you were keen to see her. What on earth could be the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel bad. Tell her I’m not well. Tell her I’ll come next time.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not going to see her without you,” I said. “You’re the one she wants to see, not me.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She pulled the quilt more tightly around her, hugging it to her.

  I sighed. “I spoke to her yesterday. She was excited about you coming to see her and she’s made special arrangements. If you’re worried about being spotted, don’t be. Your glamour will take care of it. No one will know you were there except your mum and Barry, and they’re not going to tell anyone.”

  “It’s not that,” she said quietly.

  “Then what is it?” I asked her. My question was greeted with a long silence.

  “Alex, your mum and me…” I sighed, and tried again. “Your mother and I both love you very much. When you disappeared, it was hard for both of us – harder than you realise. We thought… they lied to us, Alex, in the cruellest way imaginable. They told us we’d lost you, and it broke our hearts – both of our hearts. Your mum, she couldn’t cope with seeing your empty room every day. She didn’t know you were still alive.”

  Alex sniffed and wiped her nose on the duvet. I pulled a tissue from the box on the chest next to the bed and gave it to her. She blew noisily.

  “Maybe I did wrong. Maybe I should have told her that I’d found you, but I wasn’t even sure myself. I thought maybe I was cracking up – hearing your voice when it wasn’t there. And then, when I knew you’d been taken away, I didn’t know where you were or how to get you back.”

  A hand crept out from under the duvet and I held it in mine.

  “We cope with loss in different ways, and for your mum, having your things in the house with her every day was just too much. It reopened her wounds, and the only way she could cope was to clear it all out and try and move on. I know it was your stuff, but you have to understand – try and see it from her perspective. It wasn’t that she wanted to forget, it was that the memories were too fresh, and too painful to bear.”

  “How can I go back?” said Alex. “How can I go back there when there’s nothing left for me?”

  I squeezed her hand. “Things are not important. It’s all just stuff, Alex. You can replace it, or do without it. What’s there for you is your mum. I was wrong to keep you from her, and it’s time you re-connected with her. I’m not saying it will be easy. You’ve both been changed by what’s happened and you’ll have to work out where you are with her. You’ll both carry the scars for as long as you live, but she’s still your mum, Alex, and that’s what really matters.”

  She sniffed, and then said, “OK.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now, you have ten minutes to get up and dressed and be downstairs ready to go. I’ll wait for you at the Ways.”

  She sat up in bed. “Ten minutes! I can’t get ready in ten minutes! What am I going to wear?”

  I stood up and went to the door. “You have clothes on the bed. Your mother won’t care what you’re wearing. It’s you she wants to see, not your clothes.”

  “But–”

  “Ten minutes,” I repeated, and shut the door behind me.

  Outside I took three deep breaths and went downstairs to wait for her.

  The figure slipped into the open-sided barn, melting into the shadows within. “Are you there?”

  “Are you sure you weren’t followed?” The voice was almost a whisper.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Tell me,” instructed the voice.

  “What about my side of the bargain?”

  “All in good time.”

  “There’s nothing happening. Nothing significant.”

  “I’ll decide what’s significant,” said the voice.

  “The discussions are endless. The courts are in stalemate. Teoth and Krane are opposing them, while Kimlesh, Yonna and Mellion are in support. Barthia doesn’t know which side to choose. It’s the same as last time.”

  “That in itself is informative,” said the voice. “And you?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  The voice laughed softly. “No, you don’t. How is it?”

  “The same.”

  “Nothing is certain. The sooner the better.”

>   “I need to know.”

  “And risk exposure? The time will come soon enough. Have faith.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Are you there?”

  When there was no reply, the shadow slipped away.

  In the basement, ten minutes had come and gone. I paced up and down, wondering how long to wait before I went back up and tried to oust Alex from her bedroom. Going back up would re-set the clock and she would be at least another 15 minutes after that, but equally she could have retreated back under the quilt with no intention of appearing, leaving me to pace up and down.

  I glanced again at the door, steeling myself to go back up there, when it opened. Standing nervously in the doorway was an Alex I’d never seen before. She’d somehow tamed her hair into a style that framed her face with dark curls. There were gold studs in her ears, which I couldn’t remember ever seeing. She had a royal-blue sweater over a long, flowing maroon skirt that came down to her ankles, and she was wearing a pair of low-heeled court shoes.

  “What do you think?” I shook my head and she looked panicky. “You think it’s too much?” she asked.

  “No, no. It’s not you, it’s me. For some reason I thought I was the father of a young girl. Then this woman appeared and I… Your mother’s not the only one who’s got some adjusting to do.”

  She smoothed her hands down her skirt and smiled hesitantly at that. “We should go,” she said.

  I stepped forward to the Way-node, glancing back to her. “You know where we're going?” I asked her.

  “I'll be right behind you.”

  I stepped forward onto the Way and felt the power rise beneath me. In a moment I was whirled away across the deepest night.

  The advantage of using the Ways is that you can cross a great distance in no time at all. The disadvantage is that they don’t always end up where you want to go. While Alex and I were soon in the suburbs of London, we still had to walk to our destination.

  “How much further is it?” Alex asked me. “These shoes aren’t meant for walking.”

  “Aren’t they?” I asked her. “I thought you’d just, you know…?”

  “What?” she said.

  “I thought it was just glamour – all the clothes and make-up?”

  “It’s real,” she said. “Which is why I’m going to have blisters.”

  “I could give you a piggy-back,” I told her.

  “We are not doing piggy-backs, not when I’ve gone to all the trouble to look nice for Mum. Have you any idea how much this skirt will crease?”

  “No one has to know. You can hide it all if you want to.”

  “Mum will know.”

  “How?”

  “How the hell do I know? She just will, that’s all. It can’t be that far, surely?”

  “If we cut through here, it’ll be quicker,” I said, heading for a grassy pathway between some houses.

  “Dad!”

  “What?” I said, threading my way past the brambles that overhung the path. She stood at the entrance to the pathway, her hands on her hips in exactly the pose that her mother used when she was exasperated with me. “What?” I repeated.

  “You’re not expecting me to go through there in a skirt and these shoes, are you?”

  I glanced down the path. It was rather muddy in the middle and a self-seeded elderberry had taken most of the width of the path about halfway along.

  “OK, maybe not,” I agreed, returning to her. “I was just trying to save your feet.”

  “Next time,” she said, “We’ll ask one of the drivers to bring us down.” It made her sound just like her mother.

  When we reached the avenue where Katherine and I had once made our home together, I deepened the glamour around us. Given the changes in her these past few months, I thought it unlikely that Alex would be recognised as the girl who’d been killed in a tragic accident, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. I rang the bell and there was a long pause.

  “Maybe she’s gone out,” said Alex. “Maybe they were called away to attend to a sick friend. Maybe…”

  A shadow grew through the translucent glass and I recognised Katherine’s outline. She unlocked the door and opened it, standing back to let us in, and then stopped. I watched her look from me to Alex, and then back to me.

  “Hi Mum,” said Alex.

  “Alex? I thought, that is… come in, both of you.”

  In preparation for this moment, I had spent time with Katherine, briefing her, explaining a little about the gifts that Alex had inherited from me and what that might mean. She had greeted the whole thing with scepticism and had been adamant that it made no difference. Alex was still her daughter, nothing had changed. But now that her daughter was there in front of her, I could see that wasn’t true. Lots of things had changed. She pushed the door closed behind her, turning her back on it and assessing us both.

  “I was just… I need to finish getting your room ready.” The lie was apparent to both Alex and me. I’d warned Katherine that Alex would be able to tell if she was untruthful, but it clearly hadn’t sunk in.

  “What’s wrong with my room?” said Alex.

  “Nothing, darling. It’s just–”

  Alex turned and bounded up the stairs, despite the sore feet and impractical shoes.

  “Not yet!” said Katherine. “It isn’t… ready.” It was too late. Alex was upstairs before either of us could react.

  “I was trying to… you might as well come up and see for yourself.”

  She led the way upstairs to the room at the back of the house that had been Alex’s until the accident. I knew Katherine’d had it redecorated and fitted out as an office for Barry. I hadn’t expected what she’d done with it since discovering that her daughter wasn’t dead.

  Alex was standing in the room turning round slowly, taking it all in. Katherine watched her. From the doorway I could see the boy-band posters on the walls, the way the light from the new pastel-blue curtains caught on the sparkly headband on the mirrored dressing table. I could see the new bed with the matching duvet cover. She had gone to a great deal of trouble to re-create a teenage girl’s bedroom, only to have a young woman stand in it with an expression of complete bemusement on her face.

  “Ah,” I said, breaking the silence.

  Alex looked at her mother and must have seen something there because she leapt forward and hugged her fiercely. “Thanks, Mum.” She said. “It’s… lovely.”

  “Well, we can change things,” said Katherine hurriedly. “You can choose your own decorations. We’ll have a man in to do it properly, you’ll see.” She hugged her daughter back and kissed her hair. They were almost the same height, I noticed.

  “It’s a bit…” I started to say. Alex glared at me over her mother’s shoulder. “…smaller than I remember.” I finished. “But I guess you’ll get used to it.”

  “It’s fine,” said Alex, releasing her mother. “Right, Dad, it’s time you were going, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” I asked. “There were a few things I thought we should talk about,” I suggested.

  Alex side-stepped her mother and steered me towards the stairs. I found myself being propelled gently down to the front door. “You will remember to be careful,” I said to Alex over my shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be here, remember?”

  “I’ll be invisible,” said Alex. “You can come and get me in a few days. It’ll give Mum and me some time together.”

  “I meant to talk to you about Kayleigh,” I said, remembering that I hadn’t explained to Alex what Kayleigh knew.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll all sort itself out.” She opened the door pointedly.

  “OK, I give in. I’ll leave you to it.”

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. “Thanks, Dad.”

  I shook my head. “If you need me to come and get you…”

  “I’ll come back when I’m ready. Mum knows I’m not staying forever.”

  “OK.
Have a good time.” I stepped outside and she closed the door after me. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I’d just been evicted by my own daughter.

  I straightened my jacket and evaluated options. I would actually be better walking down to the tube station and then finding a Way-node in the centre of town. It would take slightly longer, but would involve a lot less walking.

  I turned out of the drive and set off for the station, only to have Katherine run out of the house after me. “Niall, wait!”

  I turned and waited for her. “That didn’t take long. What’s the problem?”

  “No problem,” she said, “but this came for you. It’s been behind the clock in the lounge for a week or so, but I didn’t have a forwarding address.” She handed me a white envelope with my name and Katherine’s address written out longhand in scrawling blue script. I turned it over and there was a serious-looking crest on the back of the envelope.

  “It looked like a summons,” she said. “You haven’t been speeding again, have you?”

  I slit the top of the envelope with my finger and pulled out a sheet of carefully folded heavy white notepaper. The crest was repeated on the letterhead – it gave the address as The Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London. The same scrawling hand had written the letter.

  Dear Niall, if that really is your name.

  Please forgive the unorthodox method of contacting you but I have no other way. I’ve checked the archives, and read the notes of my predecessors, and there’s no precedent for this. I got this address from Sam – you remember him, I’m sure. He said this was the last address you were known at. I hope to God it reaches you.

  It’s happening again. They’ve been here, I know it. It feels wrong and there are things in places where they shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be possible, but I swear it’s them.

  “Niall?” said Katherine. “Is it bad news?”

  “May I come in for a moment?” I asked her. “I’d like to use your phone.”

  I followed her back to the house. Alex was holding the door half open. “What’s wrong, Dad? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “May I?” I asked Katherine, nodding towards the phone in the hall.