Then there were five— first Killer, and then Lacey and Alan. Who was next?
At last there was silence.
“Have you all finished?” Jerry asked in that strange English drawl he now had. He got no reply. “Good show! Right, then, I agree that winged horses are a pagan symbol, Maisie, I agree that the unicorns did not have wings and therefore we were tricked, I agree that the children are not qualified to fly horses at ten thousand feet— who is?— and I will even admit that I was not surprised when they were taken from us. I point out only that there is nothing we can do about it now, and also that it was the innocents who were removed, and therefore I still think it was a rescue and not a demonic plot.”
“So now what?” Carlo demanded.
Jerry studied him for a moment and then turned to look at Graham. “You two chaps don’t even need a shave, do you?” he said, and rubbed the gilt stubble on his own face. “Are you hungry?”
“Not especially,” Graham said. “I could eat if you put it in front of me, but no, not really.” Carlo shook his head.
“I thought as much,” Jerry said. He turned without a word and strode back up the slope into the trees.
The others followed, shouting questions, and he pushed ahead angrily, ignoring them for a while. Finally, without slowing down he said, “As to where I am going — I am going back to the road in the hope that I may find Killer waiting there— if I can find the spot. As far as the shaving and hunger thing is concerned— well, never mind, it’s only a guess, and my guesses aren’t working too well.” Nevertheless, they all knew now that he had a better grasp on what was likely to happen in this looking-glass world than any of them did, and they were going to stick to him like paint.
Maisie in particular was having trouble with her footwear, with the sweater, and the children’s discarded coats that she was clutching; they were constantly getting entangled in branches. Graham still had his suit coat over his arm and looked hot and angry, as did Carlo. Ariadne was discovering that her Meran outfit had astonishing versatility— it never snagged on thorns or attracted burrs, it showed no trace of the blood which had been splattered on it, and the soft felt boots seemed to be not only waterproof but also tough enough for any terrain.
In a small space among cypress trees, Jerry came to a stop and let the others catch up with him. He looked them over thoughtfully, and she decided he had just administered a small lesson— they were all out of breath and more docile.
“The road has gone,” he said. “You noticed?”
“Perhaps we’ve been going in circles?” Maisie said and he shook his head. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the sun. The vegetation is changing, too— drier and fewer trees. That frondy gray-green thing is an olive, I think.” He pointed. “Mountains? They’re new.” Sure enough, rocky peaks glimmered far away and blue in the heat haze.
“So where do we go now?” Graham asked.
“Downhill. You may be all right, but I need food and water. People tend to live in valleys, not on hilltops.”
He turned to go, and Ariadne put a hand on his arm. “Jerry,” she pleaded, “explain this hunger thing. I’m not hungry either and I know I should be.” He looked very weary— the way they all should, after so long without food or drink since their solitary cup of coffee for breakfast. “I think you four have been put on hold,” he said. “The men don’t need a shave, and their bruises still look fresh and new— they aren’t changing color.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. It was all true, and she had not noticed until he mentioned it.
He was obviously worried and not saying everything he was thinking. “Neither do I, but I suspect you four are in a different category from me. It’s as though judgment has been suspended: you could be put back in the real world at the time and place you left it and you wouldn’t have changed.” He pointed at Graham’s pants. “Those bags of yours— they’re frightfully filthy, but you haven’t torn them at all. That’s curious.” The others looked at one another, and there were no arguments except that Carlo said, “The hell I haven’t changed,” and put a hand to his face.
Jerry frowned and looked as guilty as Al caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Ariadne didn’t think he need feel guilty— Carlo had deserved it.
“You and Graham were in the front seat, weren’t you?” he asked. “Maisie, you were in the back?”
“What has that got to do with anything?” Graham demanded.
Jerry shrugged. “I told you, it’s only a theory. But somewhere back in reality you have a car, probably wrapped around a fir tree. Front seat passengers often get facial damage, don’t they?” Graham snorted with derision. “You mean we wake up with mild concussion, and this is all a dream, like a fairy tale?” Jerry flushed angrily. “I wouldn’t count on it if I were you, but it might be one alternative. Have you another explanation for that chin of yours?” He turned and set off down the hill without waiting for a reply.
Soon they were plodding down a rough little valley, its sides bearing a few oaks and what Ariadne thought might be chestnut trees. There was very little else except grass and a few animal droppings. There was no shade to shelter them from the cruel and scorching sun. The enchanted unicorn forest had been free of insects, but now hordes of flies had appeared, although they weren’t bothering her much. If Jerry had been hoping to find a stream, he was being unlucky. They stumbled along and sweated, with Graham periodically shouting to Jerry to slow down for Maisie’s sake, although the problem lay less with Maisie herself than with her impractical shoes; her legs were a good deal longer than Ariadne’s— probably one of her qualifications for matrimony, she decided cattily. Far overhead floated a solitary hawk, or possibly a kite or a vulture.
Tiring of the others’ grumpy silence, she moved forward beside Jerry and said, “Sorry.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For being such a quarrelsome and ungrateful idiot,” she replied. Then he had to apologize to her, and they had a conversation going. She learned how he had arrived in Mera, bailing out of a crippled bomber in a fog bank, low over the North Sea, drifting down through it and emerging in sunlight below… “not quite what I expected”… and settling gently on the grass outside the North Gate, where his now good friend Gervasse was waiting for him, asking what had happened to his balloon.
He pointed then to black dots on a patch of hillside visible over the valley wall. “Goats!” he said. “Notice how they’re overgrazing everywhere? They’re going to have a serious erosion problem here soon.” Then he edged her gently into her history, and she told him of music, scholarships, auditions, and then pregnancy and marriage; of motherhood and then another attempt at music; of her terminally ill marriage, of another pregnancy, of gin and divorce and gin and legal battles and gin… “And, yes,” she admitted, “everything Graham said last night was true. I got so I would do anything for the stuff. Fortunately I don’t remember the worst bits.” The valley, now almost a gorge, took a sudden bend. He laid a hand on her arm to stop her and they waited for the others to catch up. She had not noticed, but he had been watching.
“There’s a building ahead. I’ll go on and scout, if you like, while you wait here.” She felt very uneasy at the thought of being separated from him; he seemed so much more competent than any of the rest of them. The others were feeling the same, frowning, and shaking their heads.