Then he turned and walked into the shadows of the shop.
Outside, on the wet pavement, I gazed at the thing in my hand. It was one half of a gold coin—a Greek stater, with the face of Zeus, his nose and eyes cut jaggedly away.
Jake said, “What do you mean? Journeyed where?”
But before he could ask any more, a glitter of light flashed deep in the Wood. Gideon leaped up—a movement so fleeting that he seemed to vanish and reappear in the same instant. He grabbed Jake and hauled him down among the nettles and bracken. “They’re coming! If they see you here, they’ll take you. Don’t even breathe.”
Astonished, Jake curled in the bracken. The urgency in the boy’s voice was all too real. He kept still, cold mud soaking his knees and fingers.
No one came. He glanced at Gideon; in the moss-green gloom he seemed perfectly camouflaged, though they crouched right next to each other. Gideon pointed, through the trees.
Jake turned. A tiny shimmer caught his eye. He stared at it; saw a patch of glossy leaf, a lichened tree trunk.
And it became them.
He breathed in, felt Gideon’s warning grip.
They were almost people.
Where they had come from he couldn’t tell; they were so much part of the shadow and the foliage. Tall and pale, male and female, it was as if they had always been there, and just some adjustment of the light had revealed them to him. Their faces were narrow and beautiful, their hair silvery-fair.
They sat and lounged and leaned on branches or fallen logs, their clothes a crazy collection of fashions and fabrics, green and gold, modern and aged and patched. Their speech, from here, was the murmur of bees.
“Who are they?” he whispered.
Gideon was silent. Then he put his lips to Jake’s ear. “Don’t be fooled. They look like angels, but they’re demons. They’re the Shee.”
Jake had no idea what that meant. But he did know, quite suddenly, that this was no longer his world. The twilit Wood was impossible, because it was only midday, and the moon that hung here unmoving should not be so young. His glance flickered. He saw oak leaves and rowan berries, and the flowers of creamy meadowsweet, all together, every season at once.
And yet it was winter.
Then, along the path, a young woman came walking. She strolled out of mist, wearing a brief, simple black dress. Her hair was black too, cropped short. Silver glinted at her ears. Her feet were bare, her lips red. She seemed about eighteen.
Behind her, to Jake’s astonishment, strode Venn.
The girl came to the Shee and turned lightly on her toes. She sat on a fallen log with her knees up and smiled as Venn stood over her and snapped, “If that’s all you’ll do for me…”
“Why should I do more? What do I care about any human woman?”
“She’s my wife.” His voice was low, as if he fought to keep it steady.
“Was. She was.” The girl smiled, heartless. “And as you boasted yourself, you don’t need me anymore. You have your precious machine.”
He shook his head. “I was wrong to say that. The machine—”
“Is a failure.” She laughed, stretching out her bare foot. “I know. A chaos of forces that you have no chance of controlling. It’s already cost you your friend…now you’ll experiment on this new girl. How long before she too disappears from your world?”
“I don’t care about the girl.” He watched her, his eyes cold. “Are you really still so jealous?”
“Of a dead woman?” She laughed again, and some of the Shee laughed with her. It was a sound like the ripple of a hidden stream, and there was no humor in it. It chilled Jake. “Why should I be jealous?”
She stretched out her hand and touched Venn’s face. “I could bring you back to us at any moment I choose. Is that what you want, Venn? To come home?”
He stepped back. He said quietly, “I don’t need you, Summer. Leave the girl alone. The boy too. Leave all of us alone.”
She stood, graceful and slender. “How can I do that, Venn? Light and Shadow. Sun and Moon. The winter king and the queen of summer. We belong together and we always have. You know you can never exist without me.”
He glared angrily at her, but at the same instant Jake’s hand slid in the mud. A twig cracked.
The Shee turned like cats.
Summer was still. Then she took a step forward on her bare feet and lifted her hand and pointed directly at him. “Who dares to spy on me?”
It was a whisper of venom. The hairs on Jake’s neck prickled. Her eyes were dark as an animal’s, without anything he recognized as human.
Then Gideon muttered, “Leave a window open for me,” and stood up, leaves and dust falling from him. He walked out among the Shee.
“I do, Summer. Just me.”
Summer watched him. She let him come close, with no change of expression. She said softly, “Anyone else, Gideon, would pay dearly for that.”
“I know.” He glanced at Venn. “I’m sorry. Just curious.”
“Well, as it’s you, I forgive you. As the cat forgives the sparrow. As the owl forgives the mouse.”
Gideon gasped. As Jake watched, he crumpled as if the breath had been struck out of him by a terrible blow; with a cry he fell on hands and knees into the forest mud, gasping and retching.
Venn said, “Stop that!”
“So you do have some feelings for them.” Summer came and stood over Gideon. “I envy you, Venn. Most times, they just bore me.”
Gideon kinked and squirmed in agony. His fists gripped mud. Jake wanted to leap out and stand there shouting “Not him. Me,” but he didn’t, because Gideon gave a low, dragging moan and lay still.
Summer bent over him. She put her arms around him. She kissed him, over and over, on the hair, the forehead, the eyes, and her remorse was sudden and baffling. “Dear child. Sweet child. Help him, everyone. Help him up.”
The Shee clustered like flies. Their thin hands pulled at Gideon, tugged leaves from his hair. Their fingers, delicate as antennae, felt and picked at his clothes.
Then Venn dragged him away. “Get your vermin off him. Let him alone.”
Gideon dragged in a breath. He seemed still dizzy with the shock of pain, but he stood upright and tense, as if ready for anything that might come next, and Jake realized that there was no such thing as safety in Gideon’s world.
Summer’s mood changed with breathtaking speed. “Time to go.” Now she was coy and amused. She took Gideon’s hand and tugged him down the path. “Come away, oh human child, to the waters and the wild…. Good-bye, Venn.” She blew him a kiss, walking backward. “Guard your lovely machine, Venn. Guard your darling children. Lock your doors and enchant your thresholds, Venn. Because one day, very soon, we will get in.”
He said, “Not on my watch.”
She vanished. They all vanished.
Jake just couldn’t see them anymore. It was as if they had turned sideways and slipped through some slit in the air, even Gideon. Become sunshine and shadow.
Only Venn stood in the clearing, ankle-deep in nettles.
For a moment he waited, as if making sure he was alone.
Then he turned toward Jake. “Get up,” he snarled. “Let’s get out of here.”
Sarah flicked over a few pages, desperately impatient. The paper had been rubbed with finger marks, as if it had been read over and over. The writing was spiky and jagged with excitement.
…dank and dismal. Even with my experiences of the filthy rookeries of the city, I found it fouler than foul. The cabman I had hired said, “Are you sure about this, guv?”
“Sure,” I said. “But remember. Thirty minutes, no more. My life may depend on it.”
He nodded at me and said, “Trust me, I’m no tommyflit.” Then he turned the cab, and it clopped away into the night.