The Slanted Worlds Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the black landscape. “So, George. Did you ever get home? To Shepton Mallet?”
    â€œNot yet. I will.”
    â€œThen why the car?”
    â€œHad to get something. You know how the Abbey is miles from anywhere.” He turned at a crossroads, knowing she was ready to ask the question he had been waiting for.
    â€œWhat’s it been like?” she said quietly.
    Wharton changed gear. He glanced out at the passing small squares of light that were cottage windows, the sudden flicker of a pub sign.
    â€œLike? Sarah, it’s been like living in a besieged castle, with the enemy all around. For a start, the Shee. You can’t see them, can’t hear them, but you know they’re out there somewhere. Every time you go near the Wood you feel watched. Not only that, the defenders inside with you are silent, preoccupied, and feverishly working at a bizarre and broken machine. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m the only sane man among lunatics. It’s as bad as being back at the wretched school.”
    She couldn’t help grinning. “Surely Piers . . .”
    â€œPiers is hardly normal. Besides, Venn works the man like a slave.”
    She said, “And how is my . . . how is Venn?”
    â€œObsessed. Sleepless. He scares me. And it’s worse, since Jake went.”
    â€œTell me about that,” she said.
    As he drove deep into the dark land, he was glad to; glad to finally get the story out, to speak it aloud to someone, as if doing that would dissipate it like breath, release the tight hard ball of terror it had become inside him.
    â€œThree weeks ago—on the Wednesday, it must have been—Piers came hurtling into the kitchen where Jake and I were working. As you know, that’s the only warm room in the place. He was yelling, tremendously excited.
Come at once, come now, His
E
xcellency says!
Why he gives Venn that ridiculous title . . . Anyway, we ran. Jake first, of course. Turns out they had made some breakthrough—the mirror was suddenly, inexplicably active. They were prepared, though, I’ll give them that. The plan had been formed for months—to
journey
to the 1960s—and Piers was so confident they could do it. Jake scrambled into a suit of clothes that was utterly nondescript—it was designed to be unnoticeable for almost any era, and was packed with everything he might need—money, a med kit, a souped-up phone-thing that Piers hoped might be able to communicate with him. And a weapon.”
    â€œA gun?”
    â€œI insisted, Sarah. Of course I didn’t want him to go, but you know Jake. He put me firmly in my place, the arrogant little sod . . . and then Venn made it clear my opinion counted for less than the dirt on his shoe.”
    â€œSo Jake put the bracelet on.”
    The car splashed down toward the Abbey, the headlights picking out ghostly trees, a field gate, a spindly signpost pointing into the dark.
    â€œAnd?” she said gently, because he was so silent.
    â€œYou know better than anyone. It worked all right. The mirror’s huge energies erupted, that dragging, terrible pressure, the implosion that seems to suck all your life—your spirit—right out of you. When I staggered up, Jake was gone. Simply no longer there.” He changed gear, his voice harsh. “We waited. Time went by so slowly. Time, Venn’s archenemy, seeming to mock him, and us. An hour, then two. The night. The next day. Venn just sat there, slumped in a chair, watching the mirror, watching his own dark reflection till he seemed to harden into its black stone. I have never seen a man so sunk in despair. Finally I couldn’t bear it anymore. I went up to my room and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, and because I knew—knew, Sarah—that they had lost him, just as they lost his father. And of course, the bracelet with him.”
    The bleak anger in him, the cold fury, was