The Hidden World (13 page)

Twenty or thirty metres below the crest of the slope stood a wooden gate with an arch over the top of it – the same gate that appeared in the stained-glass windows in the kitchen. Beyond the gate ran a zigzag path, making its way between the trees, over a small green hill and round a cottage with white-painted walls and smoke looping out of its chimney.

The air was noticeably chillier than it had been when they first arrived in the overgrown garden, and Jessica noticed that the sun had already moved halfway around the sky. She thought for a moment that she could hear that sad fluting music again, but the breeze made a ruffling sound in her ears and she couldn't be sure.

There was no need for them to open the gate because it stood on its own in the middle of the slope. ‘Pretty useless kind of gate,' said Renko. ‘Like having a front door with no house.' But Jessica was reminded of what Mrs Crawford had told her, about the door standing alone in the desert.

They walked around the gate and kept on going until they reached the zigzag path. It was made of knobbly yellow glass, exactly like the path that appeared in the kitchen window. How many times Jessica had imagined walking along it, between the trees and over the little hill, and now she actually was. For some reason it made her feel regretful, as if she had lost something by walking along it in real life. She had lost the dream that she had always had about it when she was little, when her father and mother were still alive. In those days it had seemed like a comforting imaginary world to which she could escape when she felt unhappy. Now it was leading her who knew where.

Elica sang a gipsy song as they walked, about a man who made himself a wife out of old clothes and straw, and when he kissed her she came to life. The wind blew stronger and stronger, and paper seagulls wheeled over their heads. They reached the white cottage. It had a small front garden crowded with brightly colored glass flowers that tinkled like wind-chimes, ruby-reds and sapphires and purples. Its windows were made of opaque yellow glass out of which a warm light shone, as if everybody inside the cottage was cozy and safe.

‘Maybe we should see if there's anyone home,' Renko suggested.

But Jessica could see that they didn't have long before it grew dark. ‘No … we'd better keep moving. I don't know what the robes are, but I didn't like the sound of them at all.'

T
hey walked through a copse of tall blue stylized trees from the living-room curtains, and then they found themselves on the seashore. The beach was wide and flat, so that there were scarcely any waves, and in the distance the ocean glittered the palest green. Elica shivered and said, ‘Is cold here. Where is this girl?'

‘There,' said Jessica, and pointed. About a hundred meters away, five dining-room chairs were arranged on the sand. In one of the chairs sat Phoebe, still wearing a long white nightgown and a white cotton face-mask, and swinging one leg. The other four chairs were empty.

It seemed to take them forever to cross the beach. All the time the sun kept edging further and further down toward the horizon, and their shadows grew longer and longer, with wide ankles and tiny heads. At last they reached the chairs and Phoebe looked up at them, shading her eyes with her hand. With her face-mask it was impossible to see what she looked like, but she had long shiny blond hair and wide brown eyes with plum-colored circles underneath them, and where the wind blew her nightdress against her they could see that she was pitifully thin.

‘You came,' she said in a muffled voice. ‘I didn't think you would.'

‘I want to help you, that's why. These are my friends Renko and Elica. They want to help you too.'

Phoebe stared at the visitors' brightly colored clothes for a moment. ‘We only have two days and two nights left. Tickety-tock, tickety-tock. Then the Stain will be coming to take us.'

‘“Us”?' said Renko. ‘Where are the rest of you?'

‘They're not very well. None of us is very well.' She gave a hard little cough, as if she were straining to prove it.

‘What's the matter with you?'

‘Spotted fever. I was the last one to catch it, so I'm not so bad. But the others are pretty sick.'

‘Spotted fever?' said Renko. ‘I never heard of it.'

‘A lot of children in Litchfield County caught it. Three of my schoolfriends died.' Phoebe coughed again, and this time she went on coughing and coughing until Jessica thought that she would never stop. ‘We've been sick like this for as long as I can remember. If you can't find a way to wash away the Stain, and it comes to take us, at least we won't be sick anymore.'

‘How did you get here?' asked Jessica.

‘Our mother and father brought us here, when we first caught the fever. They said we had to stay here or else we were all going to die. They kept on bringing us different medicines, but all of the medicines tasted horrible and none of them worked, and then one day our mother and father stopped coming.'

‘How long ago was that?'

Phoebe kept on swinging her leg. ‘I don't know … time is kind of different here. Not long ago, but ages and ages.'

‘How come you've only got two days and two nights left?'

‘That's what the Light People told us. Did you meet the Light People?'

‘Yes, I did. They saved me from the wooden wolves.'

‘The Light People say that good times always pass quickly; bad times always go extra-slow. A happy year can feel like it's all over in a week; but the Stain is so evil that it takes fifty-two years before it leaks out. One year for every week.'

‘But now it's going to leak out?'

‘At seven minutes past eleven tomorrow evening. That's what the Light People told me.'

‘Can't you just come with us?' asked Renko. ‘We can take you to a doctor as soon as you get back through the wall.'

‘Our mother told us not to go back until she brought us a cure. She hasn't come, so there can't be a cure. You don't think she would have left us here if there was, do you?'

‘Wait,' said Jessica. ‘If we've never even heard of spotted fever, then maybe there is a cure. I mean, maybe they found a way to wipe it out years ago. Maybe your mother stopped coming because, well – maybe she just couldn't, for some reason.' She didn't want to say ‘maybe she died', but it was hard to think of any other explanation. Days went by so quickly in this world behind the wallpaper that it was quite possible that Phoebe and her brothers and sisters had been here for years.

‘We go back to find out what is spotted fever,' Elica suggested. ‘Then we come back, give you medicine.'

‘I think that's all we can do,' Renko agreed. ‘But if this Stain thing is going to take them tomorrow, we'd better do it quick.'

It was almost dark now, and the wind was blowing even colder. On the horizon, Jessica could see a ship with black sails, and even though it must have been miles away she could hear its timbers creaking and the sinister rumble of its canvas. In the real world, the ship was embossed on the metal coal scuttle in her grandparents' living-room, but here it was a pirate galleon with a crew that could only be guessed at. She said to Phoebe, ‘Will you be all right until tomorrow? I'll talk to Dr Leeming and see what we can do to help you. I promise you, Phoebe, we'll do everything we can to save you.'

The tide was sliding in, and the water began to wash against the legs of Phoebe's chair. She kept on swinging her leg, swinging her leg, so that her toes went
splish, splash, splish, splash
. Renko took hold of Jessica's hand and said, ‘Come on, I think we'd better get back. There's nothing else we can do tonight.'

They left Phoebe on the beach and walked back the way they had come. By the time they had reached the blue stylized trees it was very dark, and even though they had Jessica's flashlight to guide them they stumbled several times. There were no lights shining in the cottage windows, because of course it was only a window made of stained glass and the sun had set.

As they neared the end of the zigzag path, Jessica thought she could hear a rushing sound, like scores of people running through the bushes. The sound was coming toward them, louder and louder, and it was coming very quickly.

‘Stop!' she warned. ‘Renko, Elica – can you hear that?'

They stopped and listened. ‘Sounds like somebody's in a hurry,' said Renko.

‘Who can it be?' asked Elica in alarm.

Jessica shone her flashlight up ahead of them. At first she couldn't see anything except the trees and bushes and the gleaming glass surface of the zigzag path. But suddenly she saw something bobbing, and then another, and then another, and before she could cry out a warning more than a score of dark shapes came running at them out of the darkness.

She recognized at once what they were, and so did Renko and Elica. Every child would have recognized them from those fear-filled nights when the wind sucks under the bedroom door like a hungry monster and the morning seems like a hundred years away. ‘The robes,' said Renko, and his voice was filled with such dread that Jessica instinctively started to run.

They all ran. And behind them, close on their heels, came all the grotesque creatures that take shape at night from robes that hang on bedroom doors, or clothes that are carelessly tossed over the backs of chairs. Some of them were headless, but others had hoods that contained nothing but darkness, or hideous faces that were formed from crumpled cloth. As they came closer they began to howl and scream, and Elica screamed too, out of sheer terror.

When you see them, the rose had warned them, you'll know that running's no use. And it wasn't, because the robes ran so fast, their sleeves waving, and as they ran they made a loud flurrying sound, like a hundred blankets being furiously shaken out.

Jessica, limping, started to fall behind. Renko grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her along faster. ‘Don't look back!' he panted. The robes were only a few feet behind them now, and their howling was even more blood-curdling.

They ran past the darkened cottage, and there stood the gate. ‘Through here!' Jessica gasped.

‘Go around it, we don't have time!'

‘No! Through here!' Jessica insisted.

They reached the gate. It had a rusted metal catch and Renko had to knock it with his fist to try and open it. At that moment, in a hideous rush, the robes caught up with them. A hooded robe seized Jessica by the shoulder, and even though its arm was only toweling she could feel its long bony claws through the fabric. She tried to pull herself free, but it caught hold of her with its other claw and twisted her around.

‘Get off me!' she screamed. ‘Get off me!'

The robe was tall, much taller than she was. It towered over her, its hood raised, and inside the darkness of its hood she could just make out the glitter of agate-yellow eyes, and the gleaming of shark-like teeth. Its claws wrenched at her T-shirt and scratched at her arms.

Elica was screaming too. A hunched-up beast that looked like a black jacket had pulled her to the ground, while five or six other robes clustered greedily around her. She kicked at it but it caught her ankle and held onto it, and began to pull her toward its gaping zipper.

‘No!' cried Elica, in panic. ‘No! If you hurt me, my father kill you!'

The jacket dragged her closer, its sleeves flailing like a beached walrus. Inside its leathery body cavity crawled masses of spiders and beetles, thousands of them. They even dropped out of its sleeves into Elica's hair. She thrashed and struggled, but the jacket was far too strong for her. It was invested, like all of the robes, with the terrible power of nightmares.

Renko tried to wrench away the robe that was tearing at Jessica, but the creature knocked him away with a single thunderous flap of its sleeve. He got up again, winded, and came back to try again, but Jessica shouted at him, ‘Open the gate! Renko – open the gate!'

Renko hesitated, unsure of what he should really do, but again Jessica shrilled, ‘Open it!' and he turned around and gave it a kick. It didn't budge. He kicked it again, and again. Elica was screaming and spitting at the same time, because spiders and beetles were showering into her face. Jessica wasn't screaming any more: her teeth were clenched with pain and effort as she tried to pull the robe's claws away from her arm.

It shook its hood and it howled at her, a howl that sounded as if it had come directly from every dark cellar that ever was. It bared its teeth and arched its hood back like a cobra, and she realized that it was about to tear her head off.

‘Renko!' she panted. She didn't have the strength to scream. Renko gave the gate another desperate kick, and then another, and then he took three steps back, ready to rush at it. As he did so, however, a blood-red robe caught hold of his arm and tried to pull him away.

But Renko took judo classes. He rolled onto the ground, so that the robe toppled over his shoulder, and its full weight collided with the gate. With a loud clang the gate swung open.

I
nstantly, the night was flooded with brilliant sunshine. The red robe let out an appalling screech like a thousand chalkboards being scratched by ten thousand fingernails. It tried to climb upright, and for an instant Jessica could see its distorted, malevolent face, formed out of creases and folded lapels. Then it collapsed onto the ground and it was nothing but a robe – flat, empty, and harmless.

At the same time, the hooded robe that had been clawing at her collapsed too; and so did the jacket that had been trying to pull Elica into its bug-infested insides. All around them, in the sunshine, the robes dropped to the grass. There were dozens of them, and they looked as if luggage had fallen from a passing airplane and spilled all over the hill.

They turned toward the open gate. On the other side of it they could see a bone-white desert, with diamond-shaped bushes and diamond-shaped mountains in the far distance.