Ella knelt on the floor close by, fondling Abraxas’ ears. “Whatever happened to Julia, it took her spirit to pieces as well as her body. There are so many spirits like that – spirits who can never understand what happened to them, or where they are. That’s why they try so hard to find the people they used to know in their previous life … and, when they do, that’s why they try so hard to take on their previous shape.
“Usually, ectoplasm doesn’t last. There’s a dried-up shred of it, in a bottle, at the London Society for Psychical Research; and some French professor managed to cut a lock of hair from an Egyptian princess who was raised up by Eva C. But when you’re gone, you’re gone, no matter how much you want to come back.”
She stood up, and took Josh’s hand. “Come here,” she said, and led him across to the sink. The remains of Julia’s lung had almost completely disappeared, except for a thin twist of white membrane, and even that appeared to be melting away.
She turned off the gas under the saucepan, and strained the contents into three small thick-bottomed glasses. The liquid was pearl-colored, with a strange shimmer to it.
“We’re not supposed to drink it, are we?” asked Josh.
“Just a sip.”
“But, Jesus, this is like cannibalism. This is like the goddamned Donner Party, boiling children’s lungs to make soup.”
“There’s no other way, Josh. Julia gave you a message and this is the only way you’re ever going to know what it was.”
The glasses were so hot that they could barely hold them. Ella lifted one up herself and said, “Drink to the sights that the body can bring. Drink to the songs that the spirit can sing. Julia Winward, talk to us. Julia Winward, guide us. Julia Winward, we need to hear your voice.”
Josh lifted his glass closer to his lips. To his surprise, the steam vanished and the glass felt suddenly cooler. Ella chanted, “Julia Winward, open our eyes. Julia Winward, show us a sign. Julia Winward, Julia Winward, Julia Winward.”
Josh felt his gorge rising again, but he swallowed hard, and took a deep breath, and drank. The potion tasted of nothing but herbs, mostly rosemary, although there was something faintly spicy about it, too, like cloves. Nancy hesitated, but then she drank, too, and Ella followed her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever—” Josh began. But then he was walking quickly along a crowded street on a bright sunny day, with cars and buses all around, and the clouds flickering as quickly as a silent movie. He could hear the beeps of car horns and the sharp shuffling of feet on the sidewalk, but nobody spoke. He tried to look around to see where Nancy had gone, but the people behind him were strangers, none of them interested in anything else but pushing their way through the crowds.
“Where am I?” he asked, but his voice sounded deep and blurred, as if he were talking inside an empty metallic tank. “N-a-a-a-nnnnc-y-y-y, where ammmm I?”
He passed a stone pillar with a rampant bronze dragon on top of it. He passed a church. People wove around the sidewalk in front of him as thick as flies. Gray suits, pale faces, blank expressions. He turned a corner and began to walk beside a long iron paling. He reached another corner, and another. The light came and went, came and went. One second it was sunny and the next it was shadowy and cold.
Now he was making his way up a narrow alley with tall soot-blackened buildings on either side. The sharp shuffling of feet had died away, and all he could hear was his own footsteps echoing, and the distant rumbling of traffic. He didn’t feel frightened. In fact he felt almost elated, as if something exciting was going to happen to him. He wasn’t worried about Nancy any more. He was sure that she could find him. After all, this was probably a dream and he would wake up in a minute and Nancy would be lying right beside him, as still as death.
He followed the alley until he reached the corner. There was a narrow niche here, cluttered with rubbish and dead leaves. He paused, and peered into it. It was quite deep, as if it had been a space between two buildings, but it was bricked up, leading nowhere. All the same, he stepped into it, and made his way cautiously to the very end, where the leaves and litter were at their deepest. There, on his left, was another niche, just as narrow and just as deep, and equally cluttered with old newspapers and cigarette packets and leaves and broken twigs. That appeared to be a dead end, too, but he turned into it, and trod through the rubbish, until he found another niche, off to his right.
He looked up. The buildings on either side were very tall, with black-painted drainpipes running all the way down their black scaly brickwork, and window ledges clustered with diseased-looking pigeons. It was curiously silent here. He couldn’t hear the traffic. He couldn’t even hear the pigeons. The sky was gray, completely neutral, so that it was impossible to guess what time of day it was, or even the season. He carried on trudging his way forward, until he reached yet another niche, on his left. This niche wasn’t bricked up. At the far end, he could see people walking backward and forward, and he could hear traffic again.
He began to make his way out of it, high-stepping over the rubbish. But before he was halfway to the end, a tall dark figure appeared in the entrance to the niche, wearing a long black overcoat and a tall black hat. He stood facing Josh as if he were waiting for him – as if he had known all the time that he was coming. There was no drumroll, but Josh felt as if there ought to have been.
“Hallo?” called Josh. His voice sounded weak and flat. The figure didn’t answer.
Josh came closer and closer. He wasn’t sure why, but the figure disturbed him deeply. He was reminded of having to go to his father for a punishment, when he was small. He was reminded of a black robe that used to hang on the back of his door at his grandparents’ house – and which, at night, became a vampire. The inaudible drumroll grew more insistent: maybe it was the blood rushing in his ears.
As he came nearer, the figure spoke. Its voice sounded like somebody dragging a dead body over a concrete floor. “You came? You don’t know how delighted I am.”
Josh said, “Yes.” He turned around and looked behind him, wondering if he ought to run back into the niche – right, left, right – and back to where he had come from.
But he was too close now. In fact he wasn’t even conscious of the last six steps. The figure laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “Welcome to your new job. And welcome to your new life.”
Josh looked up at him. His face was difficult to see, because the bright gray daylight was behind him. But then he stepped to one side, and Josh saw that over his head he was wearing a rough hessian hood, with torn-out slits for eyes. Over the slits were painted two larger eyes, black and slanted, like the eyes of a demon or a huge predatory insect.
Josh’s fear was so overwhelming that he felt as if his knees were going to give way.
“Trust me” said the figure, leaning so close that the brim of its hat almost touched Josh’s forehead, and he could see its real eyes inside its hood, glittering and greedy.
Ten
“Trust me,” Ella repeated, and there was a sudden rumble of thunder.
Josh blinked and stared at her. The three of them were still standing facing each other in her Earl’s Court flat. Outside it was raining hard. The window was open a few inches so that they could smell the ozone, and hear the clattering of water down the drainpipe.
“That was … unreal,” said Josh. He reached out for Nancy’s hand, and squeezed it. Nancy looked as bewildered as he did.