The Hidden World Read online

Into the Light

  She tried to run faster, but her ankle was so weak that she kept twisting it and falling onto her knees. Again and again she managed to pick herself up and keep on hobbling forward, but now the first wooden wolf was only a few bounds behind her and she knew with a rising feeling of desperation that she couldn’t escape it. Its voracious breathing sounded like somebody sawing furiously at a table leg, and she could almost feel its teeth tearing into her back muscles.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see the second wooden wolf already keeping pace with her, still fifteen or twenty metres away but gaining on her all the time.

  She wrenched her ankle yet again, really badly this time, and fell sideways. She tried to crawl away but it was no use. The first wolf came circling around her, panting, and the second wolf quickly came up to join it.

  ‘You’re not real!’ Jessica shouted at them, almost screaming. ‘You’re part of my dream, that’s all! You’re doors! You’re nothing but doors! You can’t be wolves!’

  But she knew it was futile. She had never had a dream in which she could feel the wind in her face, and the grass under her knees, and such an agonizing pain in her ankle.

  The wooden wolves creaked closer and closer. They were so near now that she could even smell their breath: vinegary, like the inside of old cupboards.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she begged. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’ But how could a wolf understand what she was saying, let alone a wolf made out of nothing but splintered wood?

  Just as she thought the wooden wolves were going to jump on her, though, the fields all around them were abruptly lit up by a blinding white light. It was still night, but the grass all around her was illuminated as bright as day. The wooden wolves swiveled their hideous heads around, this way and that, and one of them started to back away nervously.

  Jessica shielded her eyes with her hand. Peering between her fingers, she saw what looked like a thousand-watt electric lightbulb slowly bobbing its way toward her. The wooden wolves obviously found it frightening, because the second one backed away too, and then both of them turned and crackled off toward the brow of the hill. In only a few moments they had disappeared.

  The dazzling light came nearer, and when Jessica tried to look at it she saw dozens of green blobs floating in front of her eyes. It stopped only a few feet away, wavering slightly.

  ‘You can get up now,’ said a voice. ‘They’ve gone now, and they won’t dare to come back for you while I’m here.’ The voice was high-pitched, with a metallic, pinging quality to it, more like a music box than a voice.

  Jessica slowly lowered her hand, although she still had to keep her eyes squinted against the brilliance. Gradually she began to make out what the light was. A slender, transparent creature that floated in the air – a creature made of glass, with crystal wings and a shining glass globe for a head. Inside the globe, Jessica could see a face that was formed out of filaments of pure light – sly, elfin eyes, a spiky nose, and a mouth that was pursed up in self-satisfaction and amusement.

  ‘What are you?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘You’re the one who’s supposed to know all about fairies,’ the creature retorted.

  ‘You can’t be a fairy. There are no such things.’

  ‘There are no such things as wolves made out of closet doors, either; or trees that grow hats; or rivers made of silk.’

  ‘There are. I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Seen them or dreamed them?’

  ‘This isn’t a dream. This is real.’

  ‘If this is real, then I’m a real fairy, aren’t I? Fairies aren’t all butterfly wings and sparkly wands and ballet skirts. Fairies come in all shapes and disguises, most of them ugly and some of them highly dangerous and all of them as spiteful as monkeys. The very word “fairy” means fate.’

  As the creature spoke, another light came floating toward them across the grass, and then another, until the slope was so brightly lit that Jessica felt as if the whole world had become an over-exposed photograph.

  ‘These are the best friends that anybody could ever have,’ said the creature. ‘The fairies of light and brilliance. These are the fairies who illuminate your room at night and turn the monsters back into bathrobes and the skulls back into table lamps. Without them, the darkness would be swarming with all kinds of demons and misshapen creatures. But they keep their distance, mostly, because they fear reality, you see, and truth; and most of all they fear being seen for what they really are.’

  The light-fairies clustered around Jessica and escorted her slowly down the slope, not hurrying her, treating her almost as if she were royal, or very precious to them anyway, dipping and curtseying as they went.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ said the creature as they crossed the overgrown garden and reached the pattern of Jessica’s bedroom wallpaper.

  ‘I have to come back,’ said Jessica. ‘I know it’s asking a lot, but will you help me again, if I do?’

  ‘Oh no, you shouldn’t come back. Stay on your own side of the wall, where it’s safer.’

  ‘But there are children here who need me to save them. They’ve been begging me.’

  ‘There are many people here who beg for this and beg for that. Some beg for chocolate cake, or puppies. Some beg to differ, and some beg to die.’

  ‘But the girl I saw – Phoebe – she wants me to come back and rescue her. She said that something called the Stain is coming to get her.’

  ‘The Stain will get us all in the end. There’s nothing that one lame girl can do about it. Fate, remember!’

  ‘What is it, the Stain?’

  ‘The Stain is what makes the world frightening and the dark dark. The Stain is all the horror you could ever think of, and even more horror that you couldn’t. The very best thing that you can do now is forget all about Phoebe and everything you’ve seen on this side of the wall, and go back to where it’s cozy, and if you ever think about what you saw here, persuade yourself that you once had a nightmare, and this was it.’

  ‘I can’t leave those children. They’re so scared.’

  ‘Of course they’re scared. They have every reason to be. And you have every reason not to return.’

  Jessica looked back toward the brow of the faraway hill. It was already beginning to grow light, and she could see the silhouettes of storks flying high above the trees, except the storks were the patterns on her grandmother’s spoon handles, and the trees were the lace curtains halfway down the stairs.

  The light-fairies were gradually dimming, and one by one they switched themselves off, leaving only the first one, who had saved her from the wooden wolves. There was a smell of burning leaves in the air, and somebody in the distance was playing a whistle, the kind of regretful lament that makes you stop, and listen, and wonder why you feel so sad.

  ‘Don’t come back,’ said the creature gently. ‘Some people are destined for some worlds, and others are destined for different worlds altogether. This world – this isn’t yours.’

  Jessica reached out to touch the creature, but its glass head was much too hot, like a real lightbulb. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t chased those wolves away.’

  ‘Better not to think about it. Blood, you know; and having your lunchpipes torn out.’

  Jessica turned to face the wallpaper pattern. But she hesitated and said, ‘Supposing I can’t get through? What then?’

  ‘Oh, you can get through,’ the creature reassured her. ‘You are one of those who will always get through.’

  Jessica closed her eyes, took a deep breath and stepped smartly forward. Just as before, she felt for one panicky moment as if she were battling her way through a sheet hanging on a washing-line. For a few suffocating seconds she was all tangled up, and then suddenly she was clear of it, and standing on the rug in the middle of her bedroom.

  Her bed lay cold, with the sheets twisted up just as she had left them. The sun was already gleaming behind the trees, and the house
was beginning to fill with light. For a split second she thought she could still hear somebody playing a whistle, very far away, but then the music was gone, and there was silence.

  She crossed over to her dressing-table. The girl in the mirror stared back at her very solemnly. ‘I went through the wall,’ said the girl in the mirror. ‘I went through the wall and I met roses that talked to me and wolves made of wood.’

  As soon as she said that, she whipped around and looked anxiously at her closet, with its walnut veneer. The wolf faces were still there, but smooth and varnished, and showing no sign of sudden life. All the same, she didn’t attempt to touch them, and in the morning when she opened the closet doors to get her clothes out she snatched at the handles very quickly, and stepped well back.

  She met Renko and Elica by the lockers at school. Sue-Anne was there too, chattering to her friends, and she made a point of turning her back when Jessica arrived. She sniffed loudly, although she didn’t dare say anything because Renko was there.

  Elica was wearing a colorful scarf on her head so that she actually looked like a gipsy. Renko had his favorite sweatshirt on, emblazoned with the colors of the Connecticut Huskies. His hair was sticking up as if he hadn’t combed it since he got out of bed, but Jessica thought that made him look cute, rather than scruffy.

  ‘I went through!’ she said, quietly but excitedly.

  ‘You went through what?’ frowned Renko.

  ‘The wallpaper. I stood on my bed and walked right through.’

  Renko looked at Elica and Elica looked back at Renko.

  ‘You went through the wallpaper? Like, to where? Solid-brick Land?’

  ‘You have dream,’ Elica suggested. ‘You want this so much lot, you have dream you go.’

  ‘Elica, I was wide awake. I went through and there’s a whole world in there. It’s like … Patternworld. Everything’s made out of patterns from the real world. The grass, the trees, the birds, the sky, everything. Look – see this –’ she took her geography workbook out of her locker and held it up in front of them – ‘this paper has a grass pattern on it, right?, with poppies. Last night I walked through this grass. I walked through this grass until I came to the edge of the book and then I went down a hill and—’

  Renko was staring at her very seriously with his pale-gray eyes. ‘Jessica,’ he said.

  ‘What? You don’t believe me? Renko, I swear to you. I swear on the Holy Bible I went there. I went through. You heard those children calling for help. I saw one of them. I actually saw her. She was down by this river and she said her name was Phoebe. Only these wolves came after me and I had to run.’

  ‘Wolves?’

  ‘Well, not real wolves. Wooden wolves, from my closet doors.’

  Renko slowly shook his head. ‘Come on, Jessica. Maybe the Sheriff was right. Maybe that blow on the nut … Look, I’m not saying you don’t, like, genuinely believe this stuff, but nobody can walk through wallpaper, and there’s no world with wooden wolves in it, I promise you.’

  ‘I have to go back. The Stain’s coming to take those children, and if I don’t save them then nobody will.’

  ‘Jessica, have you heard yourself?’

  Jessica suddenly found that her eyes were filling up with tears. ‘I thought you believed me. You heard those children yourself.’

  ‘Hearing some kids’ voices down a chimney isn’t the same thing as walking through a solid wall.’

  ‘You don’t cry, Jessica,’ said Elica. ‘You have a dream of this place, so what? Is bad? This is good to dream of other place. Like my father dream of America and always say, one day I will take you to this place with happy people and kindness and golden arches.’

  Jessica wiped her eyes with a tissue and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t sleep very much, that’s all. But I was there, Renko, I absolutely promise you. Look,’ she showed the pinprick marks in her hands that the hatpins had made, marks she had taken care to conceal from Grannie at breakfast.

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Renko, and put his arm around her shoulder – a gesture which didn’t go unnoticed by Sue-Anne, who gave a dismissive toss of her curls and said, ‘No taste, some people!’

  They left the lockers and started to walk along the corridor to their English class. Jessica said, ‘Listen … how about sleeping over tonight?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you both sleep over, I can prove it to you. I can actually take you there.’

  Renko stopped. ‘You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, let’s put it this way: if it’s real, I want you to see it. But if it’s only that knock on the head, giving me delusions, then I want to know about that, too, so that I can go to the doctor.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Renko. ‘Anyway, won’t your grandmother worry about – you know …?’

  ‘Please,’ Jessica begged him. ‘What have you got to lose?’

  Down By the Sea

  Grannie apologized because she hadn’t been expecting visitors and she had only corned-beef hash for supper. Renko didn’t seem to mind: he cleared his plate and asked for seconds.

  ‘You’re sure it’s OK if Renko and Elica sleep over?’ Jessica asked her as she helped Grannie to dry the dishes.

  ‘I couldn’t be more pleased, sweetheart. You don’t want to be spending all of your time with old relics like us.’

  ‘You’re not relics. I love you, both of you.’

  ‘All the same, we’re old, and you need to be mixing with young folks, with young ideas. Your Grandpa Willy thinks garage music is what they play at the filling-station. Just you be sensible.’ And she gave Jessica a meaningful glance.

  ‘Yes, Grannie,’ Jessica replied.

  After supper they went upstairs to Jessica’s bedroom. ‘I’m supposed to meet Phoebe by the ocean,’ said Jessica. ‘I don’t know how to get there, but I guess the roses might help us, if we can find them.’

  Renko sat in the swivel chair in front of Jessica’s desk, swinging himself from side to side. He didn’t say anything, but she could tell by the expression on his face that he still didn’t believe her at all. Elica stood in front of the mirror and pinned up her hair with some of Jessica’s sparkly barrettes. ‘I look like princess, yes?’

  ‘We’ll have to take my flashlight, just in case the wooden wolves come after us.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Renko. ‘Wouldn’t like to be eaten alive by a closet door, would we?’

  ‘Please, Renko. Don’t make fun. You have to believe you can do this, otherwise you won’t be able to.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ He nodded toward the wallpaper. ‘What time are you planning on going?’

  ‘As soon as my granny and grandpa have gone to bed. I don’t want them coming in here and finding us gone.’

  Elica said, ‘You believe this so much. I don’t want you to have disappointment.’

  ‘I don’t think I will, Elica. And I don’t think you will either.’

  They talked and played music until well after ten, when Grandpa Willy came in to wish them good-night. ‘Don’t stay up all night, kids. It’s school in the morning, remember.’

  Grannie came in behind him with milk and home-made cinnamon cookies. ‘I used to love slumber parties when I was young. My mother used to make us a whole picnic, with fried chicken and jellies and everything.’

  She kissed Jessica good-night and then followed Grandpa across the landing.

  ‘Did you let the cat in?’

  ‘I thought the darn cat was in already.’

  ‘You know she wasn’t in. You put her out yourself.’

  ‘I know I did, but I thought you let her back in again. She never stays out long in the snow.’

  ‘I can’t trust you to do anything.’

  ‘I can trust you, though. I can trust you to nag me into an early grave.’

  Grandpa went down to let the cat in, grumbling all the way, and then he came back up again, still grumbling. At last Jessica heard their bedroom door close. She turned to Renko a
nd Elica and said, ‘OK … we can go now. Are you ready for this?’

  Renko approached the wall, and knocked on it. ‘Seems pretty solid to me.’

  ‘The wall is, yes. But the pattern on the wallpaper isn’t.’

  ‘Right … you’d better show us how it’s done.’

  Jessica came and stood beside him, her nose only centimeters away from the wallpaper. ‘There’s nothing difficult about it. All you have to do is take a breath and step forward. Like this.’

  She took a single step toward the wall and felt it give way. A moment’s struggling against it and she was through, standing in the overgrown garden under a pale morning sky. She turned around and she could dimly see Renko and Elica standing in her bedroom, their mouths both open in stupefaction. She could even hear them talking, although their voices were very muffled.

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘I am not knowing, Renko. She disappear like poof!’

  Jessica went back to the wall and shouted at them. ‘I’m here! I’m inside the pattern! All you have to do is take a step!’

  ‘I can hear her,’ said Renko. ‘She must be there, I can hear her!’ But still he wouldn’t step forward.

  ‘Come on!’ Jessica shouted. ‘It’s easy!’

  Renko didn’t move and Elica even backed away a little. Exasperated, Jessica plunged her hand in between the roses and took hold of Renko’s sleeve. She pulled him and, like somebody stepping through a curtained window, he appeared in the garden.

  He looked around him and slowly shook his head. ‘You were right. Holy Moly. I can’t believe it. You can get through.’

  ‘Now you, Elica!’ called Jessica. She pushed her hand through the wallpaper again, caught hold of Elica’s arm and pulled her into the garden too.

  ‘Is magic,’ said Elica, wide-eyed. She looked back at the wallpaper and touched it, just to make sure that she was really on the other side.

  ‘Look at these bushes,’ Renko enthused. ‘They’re all made out of that leaf pattern on your grandma’s couch. And these apples … I saw those same apples on the supper plates on her dresser. Only those were painted, and these are for real.’