Soon, she began to see the faces of the Shee at the window, and hear, every night, their soft tapping at the door.
She grew afraid in her heart.
Chronicle of Wintercombe
JAKE COULDN’T MOVE.
The hand in the mirror was a gray fragility, but it gripped him tight.
He stared into the glass, so close his breath misted it. “Dad?” he whispered.
The face blurred beyond the mottled surface. It was his own, and yet its edges were worn, its eyes terrified, its skin ashen.
“Jake,” it said.
“How can it be you?” He grabbed the mirror with the other hand, flattening himself against it. His legs went weak; only the frame held him up. His father’s voice was as fogged as the mirror between them.
“Venn…need to…trapped…”
He couldn’t understand. He pressed closer. “Are you dead? Are you a ghost?”
Was he saying it, shouting it? There was movement in the mirror; a swirl of snow. The plane of glass was flat and smooth and yet it was deep; if he moved a millimeter he might fall into it and never stop falling.
The hand dragged him close. In his ear the lips whispered, “Venn…”
“I can’t hear you.” His cheek was against the glass. It was ice on his skin. “I can’t hear you. Say it again. Tell me what I have to do!”
“Venn…”
“Did he do this? Are you really dead?” The words came out in a wild cry he barely recognized.
Then Sarah had hold of him; she was pulling him away, but he clung on and his own reflection was yelling “Dad!” to himself, and the mirror toppled and wobbled and he let go and staggered back.
It fell with a terrible crash. A black star of cracks fractured it. He felt the sting of flying glass, tasted blood.
Sarah scrambled over and grabbed the mirror and turned it to the wall. Then she spun and stared at him.
Jake knelt, huddled. He had a stunned, bruised look, as if someone had punched him. His face was flecked with tiny cuts. “Are you okay?” She squatted next to him.
“It was him.” He looked at her. “You saw, didn’t you? He spoke to me. My father!”
His own disbelief was raw. He couldn’t take his eyes off the scatter of broken glass. She moved in front, so he had to look at her. “Your father? He’s dead?”
“Yes. He’s gone. Do you think that was his ghost?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.” She sat back, thinking of her own father, rotting in one of Janus’s prisons.
“But you saw him.” He had hold of her arm. His need for reassurance was suddenly embarrassing to them both. Jake let go, quickly. She shrugged. “I thought…”
A door closed softly somewhere close in the house. They both stared up the Long Gallery. As if the sound had broken the terror, Jake pulled himself to his feet. “My father is missing and Venn’s responsible. This proves it.”
“A face in a mirror doesn’t prove anything.” She scrambled up and went and sat on a window seat.
“It had hold of me!”
“Don’t be stupid. You imagined that. You panicked.”
He glared at her. “I don’t panic! You don’t even know me! Or anything about me.”
“Then tell me,” she said.
For a moment she thought he wouldn’t. But he paced up and down restlessly, obsessively, and the words came out as if the shock had triggered them.
He told her the story of David Wilde’s disappearance. She saw the anger and bewilderment that burned in him, the terrible betrayal he squirmed away from. He turned quickly and pulled out a small leather wallet. From it he took a piece of paper and gave it to her. “Look. Read it for yourself!”
She read his father’s scrawled words.
Sorry not to have called, but we’ve been incredibly busy with the Chronoptika…
Her fingers went tight on the paper. She looked up and interrupted him in mid-sentence. “What do you know about this Chronoptika?”
He stared, annoyed. “Nothing.”
“He never said anything else about it? About their work here?”
“Obviously Venn swore him to secrecy.” He came closer. “Have you heard of it?”
She shook her head, rereading. He was silent, so she looked up and saw he was staring down at her.
“Because if you had,” he said softly, “we could work together. You could help me.”
She gave the note back and stood up. “I’m sorry about your father, Jake, but I don’t think Venn killed him.”
As she turned away he said, “But you saw him in the mirror. You heard him speak.”
She didn’t stop or look back. “I just saw your reflection. I just heard you.”
Then, afraid he would come after her, she had to walk all the way up the Long Gallery with his angry stare at her back.
Wharton put his head around the door and looked in. It was a small side hall, as cold as every other room here. He was wearing a coat and scarf, because he made a point of taking a walk every morning, and the grounds would probably be warmer than inside. Now all he had to do was find a way out.
The Abbey was a confusing building, but he remembered this hall from last night. He walked over the stone tiles, clearing his throat. On the walls the eyes of the few remaining portraits watched him pass, and one of the black cats that seemed to infest the place sat washing, its pink tongue working rhythmically.
He was already regretting his offer to stay for Christmas. Despite Piers’s admirable cooking, it promised to be a cold, comfortless, and embarrassing time. After all, the boy was Venn’s responsibility now. And good luck to him, because Jake could be intensely irritating. Also sullen, simmering, and mixed-up. But hadn’t there been a faint relief through the sarcasm last night? As if he was quite glad not to be left here alone?
Wharton stopped at a glass cabinet. It housed a small collection of pottery figures, elongated and crudely painted. He recognized them as Cycladic, very ancient. One of Venn’s areas of expertise. Venn was another mystery. How could a man who had seen so much and traveled so restlessly bear to shut himself up in this cold, silent house?
Wharton shook his head. Then he saw the newspaper. It lay folded on a small table by the door; Piers must have gotten it from the village, because it was today’s. The local rag, but something. He flicked the pages. He’d read it when he came back, with a cup of tea. It would probably be the highlight of his day.
Then his hand held the page still.
It was her.
He had only seen her briefly, when she’d brought in the breakfast tray, and the photo was very small, but surely that was Sarah. She was dressed in different, dull clothes and her hair was longer. The byline said Still no sign of missing patient.
He glanced around.
Then he folded the paper, tucked it inside his coat, and went out.
Sarah sat on her bed, knees up, and wrote quickly with the black pen.
Will certainly try to find JHS’s box again. It has to be the one recorded in the files…. When will Venn re-activate the mirror? A boy called Jake Wilde has arrived…claims to be Venn’s godson. He’s already disrupting things. Today there was a strange…
She stopped, searching for the right word. Vision? Ghost?
The writing faded. Suddenly, out of nowhere, panic and a terrible loneliness seized her; she wrote franticly, in a wild scribble. Are you left, any of you? Max, Evan, Cara? ANYONE? What’s happening back there?
One by one the letters died away.
She felt numb and empty.
But then, just as she went to close the notebook, something started to appear. A few words, emerging slowly, as if they struggled through some immeasurable distance. Cold with concentration and a growing horror, she watched them form.