I stared at not-Anne for a second. ‘You’re not getting possessed at all, are you? When Anne has these blackouts and the jinn takes over … you can think and remember. She’s the one who can’t.’
Not-Anne looked at me.
‘What happened in Anne’s flat today?’
‘I told you. Do your own legwork.’
‘Damn it!’
‘You really need to relax more,’ not-Anne said, walking over to the windows. She turned and sat on one of the sills, crossing one leg over the other. The distant clouds formed a backdrop to her head and shoulders. ‘Look, Alex, it’s not like we’re on different sides here. You want Anne healthy and happy and alive. So do I. Haven’t you noticed that the only time I’ve pulled the trigger on this has been when we really, really need it? Would you rather those Crusaders had managed to get us today? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘This was the better option. But I’ve got the feeling that this isn’t going to stop.’
‘Who wants it to stop?’ not-Anne said. ‘I don’t know about you, but the way I see it, having a jinn in your back pocket is a pretty handy last resort. Besides, stop acting so high and mighty. It’s not as though you’ve never got your hands dirty.’
‘That’s not the part that worries me,’ I said. ‘Remember the first time we talked? You told me that one thing you and Anne agreed on was that you’re not going to be a slave again. What’s going to happen when you call on that jinn one time too often and it decides it doesn’t want to leave?’
‘I don’t know, Alex, what do you think’s going to happen?’ Not-Anne tilted her head. ‘What terrible thing do you think that jinn’s going to do to that other Anne, the one you care about so much? You think maybe it’s going to take control? Lock her away in her own mind, in some prison where she could never see anyone else again? But hey, who’d do something like that?’
I was silent.
‘You know what it’s like to be a prisoner?’ not-Anne said, and her voice was hard. ‘Shut away in the dark, only let out when she needs you to hurt something, like an attack dog on a leash? So yeah, when that jinn first showed up with his offer, you’d better believe I said yes. Because I am done with being chained up in the basement.’
I didn’t have a good answer to that. From her perspective, this arrangement really did suck. And I could see how she could grow to resent it. Anne relied upon her other self to survive, but she wasn’t willing to let it out.
But while I did feel sympathy, I wasn’t totally naïve. When you spend time in Elsewhere you learn to trust your instincts, and my intuition told me that if not-Anne ever got fully loose, it could be really bad news for everyone around her. ‘What do you think about Dr Shirland’s solution?’ I said. ‘The two of you becoming integrated?’
Not-Anne gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘You don’t agree?’
‘Alex, don’t take this personally,’ not-Anne said. ‘But you really don’t understand me or Anne as well as you think you do.’
I paused. ‘When that jinn came to you, what was its offer?’
‘Is that all you care about?’ Not-Anne walked to the bed, grabbed a pillow off it and threw it at me. ‘Figure it out yourself.’
I caught the pillow and lowered it. Not-Anne was sitting on the bed, her face turned away from me, and there was something different about her pose. I didn’t think she was trying to produce an effect this time. ‘It’s not the only thing I care about,’ I said quietly.
‘Do you know what it feels like to have your skin pulled off in strips, layer by layer?’ Not-Anne didn’t turn to look at me; her voice was cold and distant. ‘Having your body violated with hooks and scalpels? Knowing that it won’t end until you’re nothing but a torn and bleeding pile of flesh?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Though I’m not sure you’d want to trade your experiences for mine.’
‘Like it matters.’
I looked at not-Anne for a long moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last. ‘I should have come earlier.’
‘Just—’ Her voice wavered, steadied. ‘Just go away.’
I paused. ‘Is that really what you want?’
‘Yes, I—’ Not-Anne took a deep breath. ‘Not now.’
I stood looking at not-Anne a little longer, then turned and let myself out. I took a last glance as the door closed behind me; she was still facing away, looking out at the distant sky.
It was the next day.
The bell above the door went ding-ding to announce another customer. The sounds of the Camden street outside swelled, then became muffled as the door swung closed once more. It was another bright sunny day, and the shop was bustling.
‘I’m worried,’ I told Luna.
‘I got that part.’
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Why are you asking me?’
We were in the Arcana Emporium, or maybe I should call it the Arcana Emporium Mark 2. It looked cleaner than it had been when I’d owned it, but then that’s what you expect from a building that’s just been renovated. The walls were bright white, the tables and shelves covered with pale green cloth, with the same old merchandise lined up neatly upon them: crystal balls, wands, daggers, statuettes of stone and glass. There was even a herb rack, placed in more or less the same position as the old one. You really couldn’t tell that the place had been burned down.
The clientele hadn’t changed at all. Teenagers in jeans and T-shirts, men with beards and women with big handbags, a pair of Americans in baseball caps. Most would be tourists or window-shoppers; some would be there because they thought they knew about the magical world; a much smaller fraction would be there because they actually did. And rarest of all, you’d have the ones who genuinely needed something: an adept, perhaps, or a novice. But those sorts of customers usually arrived very late or very early. The middle of the day was tourist time.
Luna was standing behind the counter, waiting at the till. The number of customers in the shop waxed and waned, but relatively few spent any time buying anything. Mostly they were there to look and point, and there was plenty of room for me to talk, as long as I did it quietly.
‘I’m starting to realise how big a problem this is,’ I said. ‘Up until this year I figured it was something we could solve with magic. Like, figure out the connection to the jinn, shut it down, fix things that way. Talking to her, though, it made me realise that it’s not that at all. That other part of Anne’s still going to be there, and she’s still going to be watching and waiting. And the thing is, I can see her point. She has been treated pretty badly. If I were in a position like that, I’d probably grab on to the first chance I got too.’
‘I guess.’
‘But it’s not like we can just give her what she wants and make her happy. Because from what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure that the kinds of things that make her happy are really unlikely to make anyone else happy. She’s got all of the parts of Anne that Anne doesn’t want to face. What happens when all the stuff that’s been sealed up like that for so many years gets to have—’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ a voice broke in. ‘How much are the crystal sphere things?’
Luna and I looked up to see a smiling and round-shaped woman in a hat. ‘The crystal balls?’ Luna asked. ‘Ten pounds.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean the large ones. I meant the ones one size smaller.’
‘Those are nine pounds.’