Other Worlds

What the Darkness Is-2

“Yeah,” said Gem. “A beautiful young woman with crap tattoos. You know what your problem is?”

“I'm sure you'll tell me.”

“You always see the best in people. You always want to help people, be nice to them. Honestly, Abi, the world doesn't work that way. People like you get taken for a ride.”

“And people like you die a lonely, bitter death, afraid of everyone around them.”

“I'm not lonely. Unless you're planning to move out.”

“No,” said Abi. “'Course not.”

That night, Gem's screams roused Abi from sleep. Nightmares had always plagued her friend. They were common enough in the Home. Abi's had faded over the years and while her dreams were always vivid and often alarming, she no longer woke up sweating. For Gem it was different.

Abi tapped gently on her friend's door. Sometimes Gem didn't wake up, but tonight there was a low snuffling sound coming from within. After a few moments the latch on the door unclicked. Abi found Gem sitting on her bed, quilt grasped around her knees.

“A nightmare?”

Gem nodded. “There were shadows moving in the room, creeping across the walls toward me. They had teeth, somehow I knew they had teeth, and they were coming for me. They were sniffing. Hunting.”

Abi did what she always did, putting an arm around her friend. “Shall I tell you a story so you can go to sleep?”

They'd been sharing these night-time tales for many years, something neither mentioned in the day. Gem nodded, and Abi settled in beside her to begin her story. Within ten minutes, Gem's breathing was slow and peaceful. Rather than disturbing her, Abi curled up beside her, just like when they were children.

The shadows came for Abi a day later. She was walking home from school along the ring-road, past a red-brick wall covered in tattered fly-posters. The flickering movement had been there for some time before she became aware of it. Shapes on the wall beside her, patches of darkness that followed her. A shadow-play she was a part of: her silhouette was among the shifting shapes, as if there were creatures all around her she couldn't see.

She tried slowing and they slowed. She hurried on, telling herself it was some weird reflection, or her overactive imagination. She crossed the road, out of the bright sunshine. There were no shadows there; she'd left them behind.

She made herself breathe slowly and deeply to calm her pounding heart. The stench of something foul reached her nostrils, the smell of rotting flesh. Then, in a shop window, she saw the reflections. Huge, dog-like beasts crowding in on her, snarling teeth bared. A low growl made the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

Someone grasped her wrist, hurting her. “Quick, we must get away from them.” It was the old man, the tramp who sat on the street, the red birth-mark vivid on his cheek.

Abi fought him. “What are you doing? Get off me!”

The old man let go. His gaze darted around, not looking at her. “You can see them, can't you? The gore-hounds.”

“What?”

“They're coming. They've found you at last. Sixteen years is more than I hoped for. Please, I can hold them off a few moments but they are strong.”

He looked so terrified, like an old broken bird, she lost her fear of him. “What are they?”

“Her hunters. Time is short. Come, I have made plans for this day. We must go to the High Street; we have to travel further in.” He set off, striding with surprising speed, his little dog slinking along beside him.

“But I don't want to do any shopping,” she called.

The old man turned to study her. “Then your story will stop here. An unsatisfactory ending, frankly. No shape to it, no circle closed.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means those things will rip your flesh from your bones if they reach you.”

“Why would you even say a thing like that?”

“Because it is the truth. I'm sorry, but this is not my story. I'm merely a part-player. A character.”

Abi looked around. There was no one nearby to hear this craziness. “They're shadows. Why would they want to kill me? I'm just a girl.”

“Because you're the only one who can save the world.”

She could only laugh. “Me? Save the world. Gem was right, you are crazy. How the hell am I going to save the world? It's a major triumph getting out of bed in the morning.”

“I'm not talking about this world. I'm talking about the real one.”

“The what?”

“Look, come with me and I'll explain, I promise.”

“If you are an abuser, this is a pretty bizarre approach you've got.”

“Please, Abha, I'm trying to help you. As I have ever since I brought you here.”

“Wait, what? You brought me here?”

The old man made no attempt to hide his impatience. “Yes, as a baby. Must we discuss this now?”

She had to swallow the lump in her throat. “So, you're saying you're my, like, father or something?”

“No, no, your father died. I promised I'd watch over you, that's all. Please, can we hurry? They'll be upon us soon.”

Movement flickered in the corner of her eye but disappeared when she looked directly at it. The old man's dog growled, ears flattened against its head. The High Street would be busier. Surely she'd be safe there.

“This had better be good,” said Abi.

They stopped outside the video game store, its windows filled with colourful boxes and posters. The old man peered inside through cupped hands. “This will keep them guessing for a while.”

“What do you mean?” asked Abi.

“Our escape. She'll expect me to use books, won't she? In a story, the unexpected is always good.”

Shadows were flickering on the pavement at her feet, overlaying her own. There was a weight to them, a thickness, that hadn't been there before. There was a rush of hot fetid air on her ear. She raced after the old man into the store.

Inside, he was studying the cases of three different games, shaking his head as if in disbelief. “Such detail, such huge worlds.”

“Yeah, they're cool.”

“This one,” he said, holding out one of the boxes.

“War of the Witch King. Sorry, why are you showing me this?” she asked.

“You know it? You have played it?”

“Sure, we have it at the Home. I'm a Level 12 Weatherworker.”

“Then I can draw on your knowledge. Can I hold your hand?”

“What?”

“Please. It will make it easier when I begin the telling. I mean you no harm, I promise you.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I'll bet they all say that.”

“I can leave you to the hounds if you like. They will tear you to shreds if they can. They're becoming more real with every moment.”

The whole thing was ridiculous, crazy, but there was something in it that made her stomach tingle. Glancing around to make sure no one she knew was anywhere in sight, she held out her hand. His skin was rough in hers. He gripped her tight and his lips began to move.

Dizziness washed over her a moment later …

… and she sprawled onto wet grass. The air was colder, the edge of a chill to it. Water chortled somewhere nearby.

She climbed to her feet, head still spinning. They stood on the shores of some vast lake, tendrils of mist threading through the air over it. Except it wasn't a lake, it was a river, encircling that whole world. The water flowed, carrying sticks and birds and clumps of some sweet-smelling flower along with it. Abi recognized it from the game. “What have you done? How the hell can this even be possible?”

The old man shrugged. “Worlds within worlds, stories about stories. What explanation is needed?”

What did that mean? There were no other worlds. You imagined them when you were a child but you grew out of it. She'd once delighted in imagining all sorts of impossible lands but now she knew better.

And yet, there she was.

“What happened to your dog?”

The old man ran a hand through his straggly hair. “I couldn't bring both of you. I shall miss him, my only friend in that world. Perhaps there will be a way to go back for him later.”

“And why … why have you brought me here?”

“To escape Lady Lillian's hounds. I hid you for sixteen years in a world reached through a book and I have kept watch over you all this time. Now we've taken another turning through the maze. Hopefully, an unexpected turning. If she takes another sixteen years to find us, I'll be happy.”

“I don't get any of this. It's all insane.”

“I will tell you everything I know, give you the story so far. Perhaps it will help.”

When he'd finished recounting the tale, Abi closed her eyes, her back against the rough bark of a tree, trying to make sense of it all.

“Why does she hate me so much?”

“You are a threat.”

“But these words of Making and Unmaking. I don't know anything about them.”

“Vanda said you spoke them without thinking when you wanted the ball. I think you only have access to them in the real world. Or perhaps they will come at the right moment, when you have the understanding to use them.” The old man – the Chronicler – smiled his sparkling smile. “At least, that's what would happen if I were telling the story. Right at the last moment, in the nick of time.”

“But what about Gem? And everything else. You know, my life?”

“It's all still there. It's like a book that has been closed. The pages will still be there when you open it up again. Now, I suggest we find something to eat. No point dying and doing Lillian's work for her, is there?”

“Those creatures, the gore-hounds. They'll come again. We'll need to be ready.”

“Yes. Are there many books in this world? Many stories we could escape into?”

“I don't think so. There's an island where some witches live that has lots of books of history in tunnels beneath the ground.”

“I suppose that might do. Again, it might be too obvious.”

“Most of the time people sing songs here to tell the old stories. You know, to pass ancient sagas down.”

“Ah. That sounds more promising. Tell me, Abha, can you sing?”

“No. Don't make me. Seriously.”

The Chronicler seemed pleased with himself. “Just as well I have an excellent voice. We must learn these lays as we go about the land. When the time comes and the Lady finds us, we can use one for our escape. A song can conjure up a world as well as a story.”

In the end, their stay lasted only three years. This time, Abi heard the howls before she saw the shadows. As the Chronicler keened the song they'd chosen, Abi felt the same dizziness she'd experienced the last time.

The stone walls around her faded away.

They stepped from world to world for another seven years, always going deeper, one step ahead of Lady Lillian. A painting in a castle gallery depicting an imaginary city, streets thronged with merchants and priests. In that city, a mummers' play performed by torchlight, conjuring up visions of sunlit islands scattered across a sparkling blue sea.

There, she met Aydan and lost her heart to him. His smile made her melt and fizz inside, both at the same time. They would lie together on the soft beach and listen to the unending hushing of the waves. She loved the way the drops of seawater sat upon his smooth skin, the miniature worlds glimpsed within each. He loved to trace the lines of her tattoos, fascinated by them. Fascinated, too, by her wild tales of other worlds. For three years they shared a simple life of fishing and eating, loving and sleeping. Gemma and Gladwell House seemed an impossibly far distance away. The Chronicler kept to himself, watching and waiting.

She and Aydan walked the whole circuit of their round island, hand-in-hand, the twin lines of their footprints a braided line in the sand. Abi liked the sensation of returning to the place they'd started, the familiarity of it as well as the disorientation of seeing it from a different angle. Sometimes they talked about where she'd come from, leading them to the one subject painful to both of them.

“Will you go back to the sky with the other angels?” he asked. It amused her when he called her an angel. Many of the things they did together were surely things no angel had ever done. Still, she liked it.

“No. We will have to move onwards, go deeper.”

“Why does this demon pursue you?”

“Only I can speak the words to unravel her magic. She has frozen her world in perpetual night.”

Aydan gazed over the sparkling waters and shook his head. “When will it be?”

“I don't know. Not for a long time, I hope.”

“We could have children.”

She stroked his face. “I'd like that. Truly. But not with this hanging over them.”

They were both silent for a time, lost to their own thoughts. Then the sun filled their eyes once more and they ran together for the splash of the sea.