The Road to Bedlam

by Mike Shevdon

  I placed my hand on the dark oak of the door and allowed the tendril of power to worm its way into the wood. In my mind's eye, it explored the crevices and cracks, tasting the bitter wood. Though there was no physical taste, my mouth still ran with saliva in reaction to the sensation. It wound around the knots, following the grain.

  Suddenly there was a hard jolt. I almost jerked my hand away. It felt sharp and hot. The tendril had discovered something embedded in the wood. It felt sour, a spike of harsh metal embedded in the door. I realised we must have encountered an old nail or a bolt, embedded in the wood. The essence of it had seeped into the surrounding wood, tainting the oak. The tendril curled around it, avoiding where it pierced the door.

  My power threaded slowly through the wood, searching for weaknesses and flaws, exploiting cracks. It was slow and difficult, worming through, looking for a way to release the lock, and it took all my attention. I realised that if anyone came looking in the small porch while I was there I would be discovered. I didn't have the concentration to hold my glamour, investigate the door and keep a lookout at the same time.

  Momentarily distracted, my attention came back to the tendril. While my mind was elsewhere, it had done something strange. It had branched. Where there had been one exploring tendril before, now there were two – no, three, four, it was branching quicker than I could count. The whole door was soon threaded through like ivy on a wall, woven through every crack and crevice. I could feel every nail, each knot and curve in the grain. It was still locked, though. How did Blackbird get doors to pop open?

  I could feel where the lock was screwed into the door. I tried extending the tendrils into the lock, but it was as sour and bitter as the nail had been. I could force my way into it, but all I could discern was the bitterness of the steel with no sense of the lock. Anyway, what was I intending to do, try and pick it? I had no idea how to pick a lock, even if I had tools and could do it where I could see it. There had to be another way.

  Using the power threaded through it, I felt the door and willed it to open. The wood groaned under my hand, flexing at my will. It pinged and creaked until I thought it would crack. Breaking the door wouldn't help: it would be obvious that someone had broken in. I wanted to be inside, but I didn't want anyone to know I had been there.

  I withdrew the tendrils of power from the door and dropped my hand away. Dispirited by my failed attempt I walked around the church again, looking for a way in. I could break in, but that would be vandalism. I didn't think Greg deserved that. I could wait until the morning and ask for his help, but I didn't want to explain what I was intending to do. He was far too good at seeing the truth in things. I could contact Blackbird and ask her how she did it, but I was hoping she would be asleep by now, tucked up with horseshoes for comfort, and if I asked Garvin he would likely tell me that I shouldn't be there in the first place.

  I returned to the porch and sat on the bench that lined one side. It was ridiculous to be defeated by a simple locked door. I had watched Blackbird do this a number of times. What would she say if she were here?

  You're trying too hard. Relax, let it come.

  That was all very well, but it wasn't happening.

  You don't catch a pigeon by chasing it.

  That wasn't much use, either, was it?

  A cake is a cake, a mouse is a mouse, a door is a door.

  What had she been talking about when she said that? She had been baking, something I never expected of her, but which made her happy even when she was throwing up from morning sickness. The smell of cooking had woken me and I had come down to find her in full production. While her back was turned I stole a small bun dotted with currants, still warm from the oven. She had smiled when the crumbs on my cheek had given me away, but then frowned when I asked what it was made of.

  "Cake," she said.

  "I meant, what were the ingredients."

  She picked up a bun and examined it critically. "Cooking is like magic. A cake is more than butter and sugar and flour. When you bake them they become something else. A cake is a cake, as a mouse is a mouse and a door is a door. You can't unmake it and get sugar, butter and flour back. It's made of cake."

  How did that help me open a door? A cake is a cake, a door is a door.

  I had once sealed a door in my flat by imagining the door nailed shut. That had worked fine, so why didn't it work when I wanted a door open?

  You're trying too hard.

  I placed my hand on the door. It was a locked door. I wanted an open door.

  It was an open door.

  There was an answering clunk. I tested the handle and the door swung open. Success! I had been trying to unravel the door into a lock, wood, nails, handle and everything else that went into it, instead of treating it like a door that was either locked or open. Chalk up one to me. I closed the door behind me and stood in the darkened transept. Inside, the church had a silence only buildings made of solid stone can muster. Placing my hand back on the door, I re-locked it. I didn't want to be disturbed.

  I clicked on the torch, being careful to keep the beam low so it wouldn't show through the windows and attract unwanted attention. The photo board in the corner was what I wanted. I already knew that Karen wasn't dead, so maybe the others weren't either. That would still leave the mystery of where the skulls had come from, but maybe that was a different question.

  I needed a link with the girls to find them and the photos from the board might provide that link. Asking Greg if I could borrow them might prompt questions I didn't want to answer. Besides, they weren't really his photos.

  Maybe with them I could discover whether the girls really had bunked off, as Geraldine in the café had said, or if, instead, they were lining the walls of a cave by the shore. I selected photos that were good clear pictures of the girls and removed them, taking care to note their positions and leaving the pins in place.

  I looked around for a mirror. I couldn't see one in the body of the church, but then weren't mirrors symbols in themselves? I recalled that I had been told once that mirrors were the domain of the father of lies, Satan himself. An image of a Baptist minister who had visited my school when I was a young child popped into my head. He had talked of brimstone and fire and everlasting damnation until the teacher had thanked him coldly for his time and ushered him out. He wasn't invited back. I wondered what he would think of me now, with my affinity for mirrors and ability to change my appearance at will. It would have been enough to give him apoplexy then, but he would be an old man now, if he was still alive. Maybe he had mellowed, though somehow I doubted it.

  Wandering around slowly, I deduced that even if mirrors were the symbol of the devil, you still wouldn't want to stand up in front of a congregation without combing your hair first. A door marked 'Vestry' provided the answer. I entered and found a room with a rack of vestments hanging on one side and on the other a mirror at head height. On a night-stand under the mirror was a small bowl containing pot-pourri, adding a homely touch.

  I set the bowl aside and, taking the photos, laid them out on the night-stand below the mirror. The smiling faces of Debbie Vaughan, Gillian Mayhew, Trudy Bilbardie and Helen Franks looked out at me. I set Debbie's picture on top and looked at it, trying to get a feel for the girl from the photo. In the dim light of my torch the face was bleached out, but maybe the photo had been overexposed. Her eyes were bright and she seemed excited about something. Maybe it was a birthday celebration, or a party.

  I set my hand on the mirror and focused on the photo. "Debbie? Debbie Vaughan?"

  The mirror chilled under my hand and the glass clouded. A soft glow crept into the vestry. Whereas before it had felt enclosed and small, it now felt as if it had expanded. I had opened a window to somewhere else and the sounds from that place were drifting through. There was a breeze, and a clock chimed distantly. Then it veered, the clock chime dimming as if we were moving away fast. There was a motorbike sound, but we passed it as if we were speeding in the opposite direction. It hovere
d, the sound of cars somewhere below.

  "Debbie? Where are you?" My voice was like a whisper on the breeze.

  The sound suddenly focused and burst into the room. The heavy beat of dance music, driving bass over a thumping electronic drum beat. I released the mirror, suddenly conscious of the cacophony and worried I would attract attention, but not before I had heard voices. A female voice shouted over the music.

  "Yeah, a'right?" The accent was unmistakable. I had found Debbie.

  I listened intently, expecting any moment for thumping to sound on the outer door with demands to come out and show myself. The church stayed silent. Wherever Debbie was, she sounded as if she was having a good time. I was beginning to think the whole missinggirl scenario was a wild goose chase to keep me busy while they dealt with Altair and his entourage back at the courts.

  I swapped the pictures over, replacing Debbie's face with Gillian's. She looked relaxed and comfortable. Her frizzy hair framed her face as she leaned forward to speak to someone. The picture looked as if it had been taken without her knowledge and I could imagine her being shy and not wanting to be photographed.

  My hand returned to the mirror. "Gillian? Gillian Mayhew?"

  The sense of opening repeated, shifting the ambience. It sounded close: the wash of waves and the distant screech of gulls echoed around. Was she here in Ravensby?

  The sound expanded as if we were rising, the waves receding and the breeze stiffening. It diffused until we were far above the landscape. Was she up in the hills? The sound continued to expand, until everything was faint and diffuse.

  "Gillian?"

  Under my hand, the sound dissipated and faded to nothing. The mirror dimmed, then cleared.

  I tried again. "Gillian? Are you there?"

  The mirror clouded under my hand momentarily, then cleared. No sound emerged.

  My mind sifted through the possibilities. Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she was unconscious, or in a coma in a hospital somewhere. Maybe she just couldn't be reached.

  Or maybe her eyeless gaze flickered in candlelight over a darkened pool in a cave by the beach.

  TEN

  I took my hand from the mirror. I'd thought this would give me some certainty, not leave me with a gnawing doubt. Surely I would be able to tell if someone was alive? I slid the picture of Gillian towards me and looked down at her. If I couldn't find her through the mirror, where was she?

  I swapped her photo for the one of Trudy Bilbardie. Trudy was pressed between two other girls, all in long dresses, bright smiles for the camera, flowers in their hair and dressed up in finery, perhaps for a party or a summer ball. I knew which girl was Trudy because she was in the other photos pinned to the board in the church, but this had been the clearest and the best. I wondered whether the two other girls missed their friend and what they thought had become of her.

  I placed my hand on the mirror and murmured to the glass.

  "Trudy. Trudy Bilbardie. Where are you?"

  The result was the same as for Gillian. The soundscape of Ravensby opened up and expanded until it dissipated into nothing. After that, no amount of trying would persuade it to focus. Was it the pictures? If they had changed their appearance, dyed their hair, changed their look, would that prevent me from finding them through the mirror? While part of me hoped that might be the explanation, another part came to a simpler conclusion.

  I swapped pictures again. This time, Helen Franks had simply posed for the shot. She was smiling, but with that slightly forced look that people have when the photographer waits a little too long.

  "Where are you, Helen Franks? Are you there?"

  The mirror around my hand misted and then went milky white, spilling moonlight on to the photos. Background sounds shifted and wavered. Then the sound suddenly focused. It became muted and soft as if it were close or contained, matching the ambience of the vestry. Then came a whine, some way off, like a small animal. It grizzled then paused, then grizzled again. Suddenly it developed into a full-blown wail, a baby's insistent cry, a repetitive insistent yell that would not be denied.

  Soft rustling followed, then another voice emerged. "All right, I'm coming, I'm coming. Mummy's coming. I can hear you."

  There was a shuffling, shifting noise and the wail was briefly muffled, then came again, even louder.

  "There, I've got you. I've got you. There, there. Shhhhhh. There's no need for that, is there? It's all here for you."

  There was a snuffling, mumbling noise and then a soft rhythmic slurping.

  "There, then. That's better. You were just hungry, weren't you? All better now. All better."

  Feeling as if I was spying on something deeply personal, I gently removed my hand, not wanting to disturb that moment of quiet intimacy, even slightly. Wherever Helen Franks was, she was probably sleepdeprived, irritable and wondering whether she could cope, but that was motherhood. I had found her and she was well. I didn't want to intrude any further.

  I placed the photographs of Helen and Debbie on one side and returned to the pictures of Trudy and Gillian. I'd started with five young women who were missing. I had Karen, who was living in Hull with her husband, Helen, who was a nursing mother, and Debbie, the party girl. Even if no one knew where they were, they were OK, and that was all that was important. As Greg had said, you had to figure out what people needed before you tried to help them. If Helen and Debbie didn't want their families to know where they were, then maybe they had their reasons. They were young women, not children.

  That left me with two who were still missing. I looked up into the mirror. The bags under my eyes spoke of too many late nights and early mornings, but there was one more thing I could try. I placed my hand gently on the mirror and whispered softly into it.

  "Alex?"

  The glass cooled and clouded again, bringing a stillness into the room. No sound emerged, no hint of space or location, just deep silence. The glass under my hand chilled and moonlight crept into it, until it glowed from within. Still no clue emerged, but I knew she was there somewhere. With Gillian there had been a sense of dissipation, of dilution beyond any ability to hold the link. This was different. I couldn't reach my daughter, but I knew she was there. I dropped my hand again before my unconscious desire to find her intensified the connection and set off alarms as it had before. I would find her. It was just a matter of time.

  It meant something, though. It meant that the two missing women were not unconscious, or somewhere in a coma, or protected from me. I couldn't find them because they weren't there to be found.

  That thought stayed with me while I collected the pictures, replaced the bowl of pot-pourri and went back out into the church. I carefully placed the photos back in the positions they had occupied and, checking I was leaving everything as I'd found it, I locked the door behind me and returned through the darkened streets to my room at the Dolphin. The night was quiet. As far as I could tell, no one saw me leave or return, if indeed anyone cared.

  Finally done for the day, I undressed and brushed my teeth and crawled into bed. With the light out, the glow from the window reflected a rectangle of orange on to the wall opposite. I thought of Blackbird, sharing watches throughout the night, surrounded by iron horseshoes, listening for any noise that might be an unwanted visitor, knowing that, by the time they heard it, it might already be too late.

  My mind drifted to thoughts of Karen, tucked up with Ahmed above the café. Was she happy? It wasn't fair to have to choose between your family and your husband, but then life wasn't fair. I had found myself liking Karen, perhaps because she'd made her choice and was determined to be happy with it. A glimpse into Debbie's life and the contrast couldn't be more vivid. The quiet contemplation and study of the Qur'an were a long way from the pounding music and adrenalin rush of the dancefloor. What time would it be before Debbie made it home? Maybe after first light? If that was her choice, did it make it any less valid?

  Was Helen happy? Had anyone known she was pregnant? Is that why she'd disappeared so
suddenly, faced with a situation she felt unable to share with anyone? Did she wonder whether she could ever come home? If it were me, it wouldn't matter. An unwanted pregnancy was a serious matter and would affect the lives of more than just the mother and the baby, but it could be accommodated. It was nothing like the hopeless empty loss of a daughter that wouldn't or couldn't be found. Then again, I knew from past experience that not everyone felt the way I did. For some people the public disgrace of an unexpectedly pregnant daughter meant more to them than their child's safety and happiness, an attitude I found incomprehensible. Still, I knew it happened, the parents whose attitude and actions harmed the girl, the baby and ultimately themselves. Was that what Helen feared?

  The fey were more pragmatic about such things. They had so few children now that every babe was treasured beyond sense or reason, except by the Untainted. Fey like Raffmir believed that children who were half-breeds, mixtures of fey and human heritage, were an abomination, an affront to nature and a pollution of their racial purity. They thought that humans with fey ancestry would be the downfall of their race, their bloodlines diluted until it made no difference who was fey and who was human. They had tried to prevent the mixing of the races through diplomacy, failed, and then tried to kill all the half-breeds in one fateful night. They failed, and as a result Altair had taken them into exile to another world, an exile he was now trying to end though negotiation.