The Hidden World Read online

  There was another splintering noise, and then another. Then Jessica heard panting – high and harsh and hungry – and she knew at once what was following them.

  ‘It’s a wooden wolf!’ she gasped.

  Renko looked quickly around them. ‘I don’t see anything. Come on, we’re falling behind.’

  The sound of crackling wood was coming closer and closer, and the trees on either side of them began to jostle and sway, as if something heavy were barging its way through them.

  ‘It’s a wooden wolf, Renko, I promise you.’

  ‘Vorbesti de lup si lupul la usã,’ panted Elica. ‘When you speak of the wolf, the wolf’s tail will appear.’

  ‘Do you have a proverb for “She who is lost in a forest full of carpets should save her breath and run like fun”?’

  The light was so far ahead of them now that Jessica glimpsed it only infrequently, like distant lightning. The forest grew darker and darker and the crackling sound of the wooden wolf was so loud that she felt as if it were right behind her, with its two mouths open and its hundreds of splintery teeth exposed. Even Renko turned around, and then dragged her through the trees even faster.

  Suddenly the tree trunks parted with a thunderous rumble and a huge jagged shadow came bursting out at them. Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica saw a broken shape pounce on top of Elica and throw her to the ground. Elica cried out, ‘Aaaahhh!’ and tried to twist herself away, but the wooden wolf had taken hold of her dress and was wrenching her sideways so that it could take a bite at her throat.

  Renko snatched the banister rail out of Jessica’s hands, lifted it over his head and whacked the wooden wolf right behind its ear. It turned, snarling, and it was only then that Renko realized what he was up against. Four foxy eyes, two gaping jaws and a terrible heartlessness, because it was made of nothing more than shattered wood.

  The wooden wolf circled around Renko, rattling deep in its oesphagus. Its claws tore at the decorative fabric of the forest floor. Renko clutched the banister rail in both hands, twisting it, weighing it up, balancing it, watching.

  The light-fairy must have realized now that they weren’t following, because it had stopped seven or eight trees away, its light flickering up and down like the rays from an old-fashioned movie projector.

  Elica said, ‘Renko—’ and stepped back toward him, but as she did so something black and fluid poured out of the trees beside her. Jessica lifted her hand and warned, ‘Elica – stay still. That’s a shadow cat.’

  More and more shadow cats emerged from the darkness. They were all different sizes and shapes – some of them sliding like oil across the forest floor, others loping through the trees like bristling hunchbacked jackals. Soon Jessica, Renko and Elica were surrounded by them, dozens of them, all of the shadows that had ever made them feel frightened all their lives. The shadow of a bedhead, or a chair, or a lampshade hanging from the ceiling.

  The wooden wolf snarled and growled at Renko, but it was obviously unsettled by the sudden appearance of the shadow cats. It backed off a little way, and as it did so Renko struck its upper mouth with his banister rail. ‘Get out of here!’ he shouted at it. ‘You’re firewood, that’s all you are!’

  He beat the wooden wolf again and again, while the creature snarled and shook its head in rage. Fragments of oak and walnut flew in every direction. Jessica shouted, ‘Renko! Be careful!’ But Renko was in a frenzy, and he kept on cracking the creature’s faces in a blizzard of splinters.

  But then the wooden wolf took three or four steps back, crouched down, and let out a screaming roar like a circular saw tearing through a cord of timber. It reared up on its hind legs, and it was only then that Renko realized how tall it was, nearly eight feet of teeth, claws and fur-patterned veneer. He backed away, but tripped on the rumpled carpet of the forest floor, and the wooden wolf literally collapsed over him, both of its jaws gaping.

  At the last second, Renko rolled sideways, so that the wooden wolf crashed down right beside him. As it twisted its head around, trying to bite at his arms, he pushed one end of the banister rail into its lower mouth, and forced the other end into its upper mouth, so that both of its jaws were wedged wide open.

  The beast screeched even more furiously, but not in triumph this time. It rolled over onto its back, its legs thrashing, shaking its head wildly from side to side. It was then that the shadow cats went for it. The light-fairy was quickly coming back, and already Jessica and Elica were too brightly lit for the shadow cats to attack them. But the wooden wolf was still struggling helplessly in the darkness, and the shadow cats preferred to go for a helpless prey.

  As it rolled over again, three of the bristling shadow cats leaped onto the wolf’s back, while one of the oily, slug-like ones slid right into its wide-open mouth, followed by another and then another.

  The light-fairy came back around the last few trees, and suddenly the forest was lit up like a stage-set. ‘Hurry,’ it urged. ‘We don’t have any more time to waste.’

  ‘Renko!’ called Jessica. Renko climbed to his feet and came after them, brushing the splinters of wood from his sleeves.

  Elica turned and looked back at the wooden wolf, still snarling and writhing from side to side, almost completely buried in the black shapes of the shadow cats.

  ‘What will they do to it?’ she asked.

  ‘They will do what shadows always do,’ answered the light-fairy. ‘They will tear it to pieces, and swallow it in darkness forever.’

  The light-fairy started to glide back in the direction from which it had come, and the teenagers followed it. But they had hardly covered twenty feet before they heard a hideous scream – a scream of pain, despair, utter terror. The wooden wolf exploded into hundreds of chunks of wood, and the shadow cats pounced on its remains. Although Jessica knew that the creature had only been made of walnut and oak, she was still sickened by the greedy crunching noises that the shadow cats made as they devoured it.

  ‘Please, hurry,’ said the light-fairy. ‘We are nearly through the forest now, but we still have to get to the house. It could be too late already.’

  House of Mirrors

  After five or ten minutes Jessica began to see twilight through the trees, and soon they were out in the open, climbing a hill that was covered with fine purplish grasses. The air was fresh and chilly, and the stars were beginning to come out, one by one, like the streetlights in a very distant city.

  The light-fairy circled around them, and it was obvious now that its electrical charge was beginning to fail. ‘There is nothing more I can do for you now. You must carry on by yourselves, if you are still set on saving those children.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jessica. ‘We couldn’t have come this far without you.’

  ‘You may not have cause to thank me when you encounter the Stain.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Renko assured it. ‘If we can whup a wooden wolf I don’t think there’s much that any old stain can do.’

  ‘Be fearful,’ said the light-fairy. ‘The Stain can drain away all life as you know it.’

  The light-fairy circled once more, then drifted off toward the east, its light dwindling as it went. In less than a minute it had disappeared altogether, and they were left on the hillside by themselves.

  They carried on. On the horizon they could make out the steely shine of the ocean, with the moon reflected in it. The hill gradually descended, and they saw trees silhouetted against the sky like black lace, but so far there was no sign at all of a house.

  ‘Maybe we make mistake,’ said Elica. ‘Maybe we should go back.’

  ‘We’ve come too far now,’ Jessica told her, although she was beginning to feel frightened too. Her ankle was throbbing painfully and her hip hurt from limping. Renko tried to support her, but the ground was too uneven and most of the time he ended up making it even more difficult for her to walk.

  ‘There is no house,’ said Elica, and there was panic in her voice. ‘Where is the house? If we cannot find house—�
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  ‘Hold on,’ Renko interrupted her. ‘There’s some people walking toward us. Look – down there!’

  They stopped and strained their eyes. Renko was right. There were three figures standing in a clearing beside the trees. Renko waved and shouted, ‘Hello! Are you the Pennington kids? Hello!’

  One of the figures waved back, but that was all.

  ‘You’d think they’d make the effort and, like, meet us halfway,’ Renko complained.

  They carried on walking. It looked as if the three figures had taken the hint, because they carried on walking too. Jessica waved both arms and one of the figures waved both arms back at her.

  Renko stopped again. They all stopped, and the figures stopped too.

  ‘That’s not the Pennington kids,’ said Renko, in exasperation. ‘That’s us.’

  ‘Then this must be the house,’ said Jessica. ‘When the angel said “house of mirrors”, I thought she meant it was like one of those carnival houses, with loads of funny mirrors in it. But it’s all mirrors. Look – you can just about see it now. The walls, the chimneys, the windows. It’s all mirrors.’

  They started walking toward the house as fast as they could, and the figures in the house began to hurry too. Because it was twilight it was almost impossible to tell where the house ended and where the sky began, but as they came nearer its outline became clearer – a small two-story building with a verandah and a mansard roof. It shone like a mirage, a mirage with black reflected trees and violet reflected grass and twinkling reflected stars, but it was real. There was even a garden around it, with crazy-paving pathways made out of fragments of mirror, and crushed green bottle-glass instead of grass.

  Jessica climbed the steps to the front door, and that was a mirror too. She could see herself standing on the verandah with one hand raised to knock, and Renko and Elica right behind her. There was a knocker hanging in the middle of the door that looked like a circular hand-mirror, with a face engraved on the glass, a woman’s face with sightless eyes and a single tear on her cheek.

  Jessica had already raised the knocker when the door clicked open. A small voice whispered, ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

  ‘Phoebe? It’s us – Jessica and Renko and Elica. We’ve come to save you.’

  ‘It’s too late. The Stain’s coming.’

  ‘We know that, Phoebe, and that’s why we really have to hurry.’

  ‘We’ll all die if we go back through the wallpaper.’

  ‘No, you won’t. I went to the doctor. There’s a cure for spotted fever. He can make you all well again.’

  ‘Papa made us promise not to leave until there’s a cure.’

  ‘There is a cure, I promise you. Why would I lie?’

  Phoebe opened the door wider. She looked white and tired and her cheeks were blotchy. She was wearing a short blue dress with white polka dots on it, with a bow at the back, and very worn-out black sandals.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  Jessica stepped inside. The interior of the house was the same as the outside, with everything mirrored – the walls, the ceiling, the floors, even the stairs and the stair rails. There were fingerprints all over the mirrors, all the way up the stairs, like flocks of ghostly butterflies. Jessica could faintly smell antiseptic, and something that reminded her of lilac.

  There was an umbrella-stand in the hallway, and when Jessica looked into one of the side rooms she could see armchairs and couches. They were heavy 1930s-style, and all upholstered in brown diamond patterns. There was only one picture on the mirrored walls, the black-and-white photograph of a stern-looking man in a suit, with his hand on the shoulder of a sad, wide-eyed woman.

  ‘Where are your brothers and sisters?’ Jessica asked Phoebe. ‘You’re not alone here, are you?’

  ‘They’re all upstairs. They’re not very well. They’re never very well, none of us is.’

  ‘Well, let’s go up and see them, shall we? We need to get out of here as soon as we can.’

  ‘Tickity-tock, tickity-tock,’ said Phoebe.

  Jessica put her arm around her shoulders and said, ‘You’ve been here such a long time, Phoebe, feeling ill all the time. Come on, we’re going to get you out of here.’

  ‘Is my mommy still alive?’ asked Phoebe, looking up at her. For the first time Jessica noticed that she had a smattering of cinnamon-colored freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  ‘No, Phoebe, she’s not. It’s been such a long time. Years and years and years, but living here, you haven’t ever noticed.’

  ‘My mommy’s really dead?’

  Renko glanced at her, but Jessica said, ‘I’m afraid so. I’m sorry. And your daddy too.’

  Phoebe looked one way and then the other, as if she couldn’t decide what to do. Jessica said, ‘If it helps, sweetheart, I lost both of my parents too, not more than a year ago, in an automobile accident. You can learn to handle it. You can. So many people will help you, me included. And Renko. And Elica.’

  Phoebe stood for a moment at the foot of the mirrored stairs, bowed her head and covered her eyes with her hand. Renko tapped the dial of his wristwatch to indicate that they should get moving, but two large tears were sliding down Phoebe’s cheeks and Jessica waved her hand to say, Give her a moment, allow her just a moment of grief. She had probably always realized that her parents must be dead, but this was the first time that anybody had confirmed it, somebody who knew for sure.

  After a minute, Phoebe smeared her eyes with her fingers. ‘All right. I’ll take you up to see the rest of them.’

  They climbed the mirrored stairs, and sometimes there were four of them, and sometimes eight, and sometimes thirty-two, depending on the mirrors they were looking at. At the top of the stairs, there were three mirrors at an angle, and hundreds of reflected images of all of them went curving off into infinity.

  Phoebe said, ‘Have you ever wondered what it’s like in there?’

  ‘In where?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘In there, in the mirror? Does it go all the way round, in a circle?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think about it,’ said Phoebe. ‘It frightens me. I can see all those mes. Which me is the real me? I mean, if I leave here now, will I have to leave all the other mes behind?’

  ‘You don’t have to be frightened of anything,’ Jessica told her. ‘And the real you is you. None of those reflections would move or smile or wave or do anything unless you did.’

  Phoebe took Jessica’s hand and led her into a mirrored bedroom. Two plain old-fashioned iron beds stood side by side, and on each bed sat a boy. They had cropped 1940s haircuts, with protruding ears, and they both looked very thin and pale, with the same crimson blotches on their cheeks as Phoebe. They both wore big flappy sport coats and gray flannel pants.

  ‘This is Martin,’ said Phoebe, tugging Jessica’s hand and leading her toward the taller of the two boys. Martin was lanky, with sensitive brown eyes and thick brown eyebrows, and Jessica could see that he took after his mother.

  ‘Martin, these are the people I told you about,’ said Phoebe. ‘They said that Daddy and Mommy are dead.’

  ‘I know they’re dead,’ said Martin, quietly. ‘They would have come for us, wouldn’t they, if they weren’t?’

  ‘Hi, Martin,’ said Renko. ‘Listen, we kind of know what’s happened to you, how you got stuck in this wallpaper situation and all. We came here to take you back to the real world, right?’

  ‘Is there a cure?’ asked the younger boy, sharply. He looked more like his father, with wide-spaced eyes and a turned-up nose.

  ‘This is David,’ said Phoebe proudly, sitting beside him on the bed and taking hold of his hand. ‘David’s eleven next birthday, aren’t you, David?’

  ‘Is there a cure?’ David repeated, aggressively.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jessica. ‘There is a cure. It’s called doxycycline and it was invented just after your parents stopped coming to see you. They never would have known about it. They did their best.�
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  David said, ‘I hope you’re not lying to us, because if you’re lying to us—’

  Jessica pointed a finger at him. ‘Listen – you called out to me and I heard you and I came to save your life.’

  David said, ‘My mom said she would come to take care of us. Then my dad said that everything was all right. And what happened? Nothing. They never came back. And that was a whole week ago. Or maybe it wasn’t a week ago. Maybe it was longer. I don’t know. A month?’

  Jessica reached out and took hold of his hand. ‘David, it was fifty-two years.’

  ‘I knew it was fifty-two years,’ said Martin. ‘I told you it was fifty-two years. That’s why the Stain is starting to leak out.’

  David looked into her eyes, and even though his mouth was shaping itself up all ready to deny it, she could tell that, in his soul, he believed her.

  ‘Fifty-two years?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes. We have to go. And I mean we have to go now.’

  ‘I’ll wake up Maggie and Joel.’

  ‘Thank you, David. Really.’

  He pried her hand away from his shoulder. ‘You don’t have to thank me. If it wasn’t for the Stain, none of us would want to go back.’

  ‘But none of this is real, is it? You’re living inside a wallpaper pattern!’

  ‘Of course it’s real. You can see it, can’t you? You can feel it!’

  ‘Please – call the rest of them,’ said Jessica. ‘We have to get out of here as soon as we can.’

  David was about to start arguing again, but Martin turned to him and said, ‘That’s enough, David. Let’s get everybody ready to go.’

  Without any warning at all, tears began to run down David’s blotchy cheeks.

  Night of the Stain

  In a smaller bedroom upstairs, surrounded by dozens of mirrors, in a silver-painted cot with tattered lace curtains, they found little Joel, no more than three years old. He was flushed and feverish like his brothers and sisters, but he was quiet and almost surreally calm. Jessica lifted him out of his cot and stroked his sticky blond hair. He stared up at her with his pale blue eyes as she changed him out of his teddy-bear pajamas and dressed him up in a brown corduroy romper suit with a fur-lined hood.