He tried to go back to sleep; his department chair could find someone to cover first period. What was it? The Stamp Act? Anyone could fake that – hell, the kids could read the chapter and talk about it on their own. No one would begrudge him a few extra minutes of sleep. Didn’t they know what he’d been through, following Steven Taylor on a doomed quest to save a foreign world? Didn’t that merit an extra two or three minutes of snooze?
But there were things out of place, even in the shambled disarray of his bedroom. He knew when something wasn’t right. On the far wall, between the closet and his old poster of Roger Clemens, was a shelf. The clock, the paperbacks, the old baseball and the pocketknife all belonged up there, but that snake did not. It was slithering through the one-size-fits-all strap on the back of a Denver Broncos hat, its tiny orange rings matching the Bronco hue exactly. Its head had been crushed and its slippery skin was rotting away: it looked as though it had been run over by a car.
And the green sweatshirt on the wall, that might have been there before; Mark had gone to college in Fort Collins, but this looked too large for him – and it had been shot full of arrows. He tried to think of anyone from Fort Collins who might have been shot to death by an archer. A voice, thick with beer and stupidity, clamoured in his head and then was gone. She’s the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him too. He was tough in his day.
‘Who said that?’ Mark sat up, wanting to be angry but still too groggy, a little behind the beat.
I told you I had a present for you.
‘What? Do I get to stay here at home? Great, thank you. I’ll remember you on your next birthday – do you wear sweaters, or should I get you a DVD?’ He kicked back the covers, put his feet on the floor.
Alas, this is all temporary, but necessary for me to show you your gift.
‘I can’t have it back in the swamp?’
You can’t see it in the swamp. You have it already.
‘All right, I’ll bite. At least it isn’t hot in here.’ Mark stood and stretched. His legs felt strange, as if he had spent two months on crutches. ‘What do I have to do?’
Come over here to the mirror.
‘Over here?’ The idea that whoever was holding him hostage might be near the mirror intrigued him. He had to move a wooden longbow out of the way; he didn’t remember owning one, but perhaps it was Steven’s. He closed the closet door to see the mirror and noticed a quiver of homemade arrows stacked behind his fishing waders, next to an old pair of skis. He expected to see his captor in the mirror, protected behind some sort of Lewis Carroll force-field, and wondered what would happen if he just shattered the thing into a pile of jagged shards. ‘Take that, Alice,’ he said aloud.
What’s that?
‘Nothing. Now, what is it that you’re so-’
It was him, but at the same time, not him. He was there, seeing his own eyes as they rolled up and down, checking the length and breadth of the mirror, searching for any sign of Mark Jenkins. When he looked up, his eyes – the eyes, those eyes – looked up. When he looked down, they followed suit. He raised a hand to his face and ran a finger across his cheek; the young, muscular black figure in the mirror did the same. ‘Holy shit,’ he said. ‘Where am I? What did you do with me?’
With you? Your body, Mark, had a nasty, purulent sore. Major Tavon ordered it burned.
Mark fell forward and gripped the sides of the mirror. Bracing himself, he stared into the unfamiliar face. It was the man from the pool, the sorry bastard who had drifted past the row of marble columns and into the dark place. The tadpoles were snacking on him right now. ‘So who is this? Who am I?’
His name was Redrick Shen. He was a sailor from Rona, a South-Coaster. I thought you might like to know that I had found a likely replacement: young, of dark skin, strong and healthy, and with no open sores on his hands.
It was true; Redrick Shen had been killed before being taken. Except for some painful-looking bruising on his neck and a swollen jaw, Mark could find nothing amiss. ‘But why?’ he asked, bemused.
Why what?
‘What difference does it make? Did you think I wanted to be a black man? That being a black man would somehow make this easier for me than being a white woman? Are you fucking nuts? It isn’t enough that you made me a black man, you dope – you want to make me happy, go find me and put me back inside my body.’
I can’t do that, Mark. Major Tavon -
‘I know. She had it burned.’
I hoped you’d be pleased.
Mark shook his head, the stranger’s head. ‘You still haven’t answered my question. Why? What difference does it make what skin colour I wear now?’
Mark, you disappoint me. I thought you had it all worked out: Vienna, the Gloriette, that patch of sunshine you’re trying so hard to reach.
He turned away from the mirror, checked the snake on the shelf and watched as his room began to change. The floor bowed and creaked, warping into the irregular rise and fall of a swampy riverbank. The walls cracked, the sheetrock popping and bursting as thick lengths of coiled, snakelike vine writhed into the room, covering the walls. Ferns crept up around his feet and he heard the sound of mud slurping and sloshing through the floorboards.
They were going back.
‘Why did you bring me here? Why did I need to see this?’ His feet were wet; he searched the room for whatever might transmogrify into the stone bridge or one of the last three columns.
I have plans for you, Mark Jenkins, big plans. I just thought you’d be more comfortable in something familiar.
The air was all at once heavy and dank with decay. As if welcoming him home, a deer-fly bit him on the neck and Mark slapped it dead, wiping the broken wings and gore on Redrick Shen’s leggings. The lights were fading and he had not yet seen the coral snake. Maybe it was stuck in Colorado – it would freeze to death there at this time of year. Before being plunged into darkness, he made a cursory check of the ground cover, mud and ferns.
‘Nothing there?’ he said, and dived for the next column.
‘Two to go, shithead,’ Mark said as darkness fell.
A FOLLOWING SEA
Jacrys lifted his head, blew hard enough to clear a lock of hair from his face and considered the stairway. It might have gone on for ever. He had been up and down these same stairs countless times over the Twinmoons but had never before realised how steep and precarious the crooked slats nailed into sloping cross beams were. They could not be more than a breath or two away from collapse.
‘I can’t make it,’ he wheezed. No one heard; the others were wrestling with bags and a heavy trunk. ‘Thadrake,’ Jacrys’ voice rattled, ‘Thadrake, I can’t make it up there. All that time on Carpello’s yacht and I never imagined I wouldn’t be able to make it up the steps at my own safe house.’
‘What’s that, sir?’ The young officer dropped the bags and walked into the foyer. Thadrake was back in uniform since negotiating their safe passage through the naval blockade early that morning. With his leather polished to a shine and his jacket brushed to within an inch of its life, he looked as if he expected to encounter Prince Malagon strolling along the quay at any moment.
Jacrys gripped the one handrail that looked sturdy enough to support his weight. ‘I said, there’s no way I can make it up these stairs. I never-’
‘Mirron and I can-’
‘Don’t interrupt me when I am speaking!’ Droplets of blood sprayed from Jacrys’ lips and his head bobbed in time with his laboured breathing. He inhaled as deeply as he could, hollow tree, coughed a wet, throaty spasm, loose gravel, and said, ‘Don’t interrupt me, Captain. Remember your place.’