‘Actually -’ Henry began.
But Mr Fogarty cut him short. ‘I’ll tell you why it is. Life’s a lot different when you’re dead. You see things differently. I don’t just mean you change your opinions about things – although you definitely do that all right – I mean your perception of the world is different. You can see time, for heaven’s sake. That was my biggest surprise: took some getting used to, I can tell you.’
That meant he could see the future, Henry thought with a sudden surge of excitement. He could tell what was going to happen, how they might get Mella back, exactly when the Haleklinders were going to invade. He opened his mouth to ask a string of questions, but Mr Fogarty cut him short again.
‘And before you start wittering at me with all sorts of stupid questions, that doesn’t mean I can tell you the future,’ Mr Fogarty said. ‘When you’re dead, you see time like a huge field. People go wandering all over it. You can see where they’ve been, but they decide where they’re going, so everybody’s future changes all the time depending on where you decide to go. I can tell you what might happen, not what definitely will, but I could do that before I died. You could do it for yourself if you ever bothered to think.’ He coughed, as if clearing the throat he no longer possessed. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to get sidetracked. The point is things change when you die. You change. Things that used to be important just aren’t important any more. Don’t get me wrong: people are important – you still love them or hate them – but what happens to them isn’t as important as they think it is because you see where they’ve been and where they could be going and how they could double back and so forth.’
Henry glanced at Blue again. This wasn’t making very much sense to him. ‘Mr Fogarty,’ he said, ‘this isn’t making very much sense to me.
I -’
‘You die twice,’ Fogarty told him.
Henry blinked. ‘You what?’
‘There’s a second death,’ Mr Fogarty said. ‘You die once – your body dies – but it doesn’t actually kill you. You get to fart around as a ghost, sometimes in your old familiar physical world – great fun that, nobody can see you – sometimes in the dream worlds. Hard to say how long it lasts: time’s weird when you don’t have a physical body – that’s why I keep asking you how long it’s been. From your point of view it could be hours or years, from mine it’s almost like time doesn’t pass at all. Except it does; and mine’s nearly up.’
Henry held himself completely still. Despite the threat to Mella, despite the impending war, he was suddenly focused on a different, chilling fear.
‘The thing is,’ Mr Fogarty went on, ‘the ghost body you’re in doesn’t last forever. It dies as well, exactly like your physical body. The second death. Mine’s coming close.’
‘What happens to you after…?’ Henry asked. ‘What happens to your
…’ He wanted to say soul, but it sounded prissy and Mr Fogarty had never been a religious man, ‘… consciousness?’ he finished softly.
‘Don’t know,’ Mr Fogarty told him shortly. ‘But in the circumstances, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for me to raise you another army.’ Henry thought there was genuine regret in his voice as he added, ‘Or help you about Mella, come to that.’
Forty
Mella sat on her chair, staring thoughtfully at the floor. She should have felt happy. The man who said he was her uncle would take her home soon and restore her memory. Soon she would know who she was and how she’d got here. Soon she would be able to get on with her life; and it sounded like an interesting life if she had a Lord for an uncle. What more could she ask for? Yet she felt uneasy and, when she tried to talk herself out of it, she continued to feel uneasy. Uncle or not, there was something about Lord Hairstreak that repelled her.
She heard the sound of the securities before the door itself opened and Hairstreak came in. There was a woman behind him. Both were smiling. ‘Time to get going,’ Lord Hairstreak said cheerfully. He held out his hand to her.
‘Who’s she?’ Mella demanded suspiciously. The woman was pleasant enough looking and very well dressed, but she had much the same effect on Mella as Lord Hairstreak, although that might just have been because she was with him and they were obviously friends.
Hairstreak looked around to smile benignly at the woman. ‘This is your aunt Aisling,’ he said.
Mella stared at the woman. She was very slightly overweight, with a self-satisfied expression behind her smile. Uncle Hairstreak and Aunt Aisling. ‘She’s your wife?’ Mella asked. Aunt Aisling looked too young to be Lord Hairstreak’s wife – far too young.
Lord Hairstreak’s smile broadened. The woman’s smile metamorphosed into a simper. ‘Not… yet!’ Lord Hairstreak said. Aunt Aisling giggled like a schoolgirl.
Mella found herself wondering if either of these people was telling the truth. How could she be sure Lord Hairstreak was her uncle? How could she be sure this Aisling woman was her aunt? How could she even be sure that Hairstreak was a Lord, or that his name was actually Hairstreak? He could be anybody, anything. He might be a brigand or an axe-murderer or some horrid pervert who liked young girls. The woman might be his accomplice. What better way to set a victim at ease? First you have her memory wiped, then you introduce yourself cosily as her uncle and auntie. Lull her suspicions. Except Mella’s suspicions were definitely not lulled. She had no proof this creepy pair were who they said they were, no proof at all.
Mella ignored the outstretched hand. After a moment, Hairstreak (if his name really was ‘Hairstreak’) shrugged and said, ‘Aisling, dearest, perhaps you would take her out to the ouklo. You know what to do when you get there. I shall have Ysabeau make sure there is no one to see you except our own guards.’
The self-satisfied expression was momentarily replaced by a frown. ‘Ouklo?’
‘My carriage,’ Lord Hairstreak explained. ‘It’s what we call a flying carriage in the Realm. You can’t miss it – it’s gold plated.’
‘Ooooh,’ Aisling said. ‘Gold plated!’
Mella’s mind was working at top speed. Why did Aisling have to have the term explained? Even with her memory wiped, Mella knew what an ouklo was. And why say It’s what we call it in the Realm as if Aisling wouldn’t know what things were called in the Realm? Did she come from somewhere else? She was clearly no shape-shifter, so it couldn’t be Hael. The only other possibility was the Analogue World. But what was a woman from the Analogue World doing with a so-called Lord of the Realm? And that answer of Hairstreak’s – Not yet – suggested that if they weren’t married now, they soon would be. (The woman had looked so pleased by that prospect.) Why would a noble of the Realm choose to marry someone from the human realm? It just didn’t happen. Or hardly ever. There was something wrong with this couple, something very wrong.
‘Aunt’ Aisling (who couldn’t possibly be Mella’s aunt) put on a (phoniest of phony) smile and walked across to take Mella firmly by the arm. ‘Come along, dear,’ she said. ‘The sooner we get you home, the quicker we can fix your memory and then you won’t feel so confused and miserable.’ She was surprisingly strong. Mella found herself virtually frogmarched from the chamber, noticed Aisling gently stroking Lord Hairstreak’s back en passant, wondered if she should struggle, but decided not yet. What was the point of staying locked up in a little room? If she went with Aisling, there was always the possibility she might escape. Actually (the thought suddenly occurred to her) if she went along with their little charade, if she pretended to buy into their story, she might lull them into a feeling of false security, which would surely make escape a little easier.