Chapter 16 #3
Sam settles his hands once again on my shoulders. “There are days even now when the world is too loud, too bright…too everything, and I feel like I’m drowning.”
I grasp his hand and turn to look over my shoulder.
His dark eyes trace over the spilling tears. “I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? And lonely. There aren’t many people, other than maybe Tristan, who understand the weight we carry.”
I rise slowly to my feet, feeling strangely light now that the pain is all but gone. Turning so I face him, I stare into the dark depths of his eyes as he lifts his hands to cup my cheeks and uses the pads of his thumbs to wipe away my tears.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I whisper.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he says quietly. “I like you, Prickles, and I want to get to know you.” He breathes in. “And because I feel like maybe you would get it, what it feels like to move through a world of people who have no idea what’s really there.”
My heart pounds. I do get exactly how he feels, and more surprisingly, he understands what it’s like to be me.
With that realisation comes a sense of surprise. Maybe I’m not as alone in the world as I thought.
“Sam,” I murmur, and lean towards him, unable to help myself. He’s like a black hole. I’m drawn into his gravity well, not knowing what lies on the other side but powerless to stop myself falling.
He shifts forward, his soft-looking lips millimetres from mine. I so desperately want to kiss him, to know how he feels against me, to know how he tastes. He watches me, his fingers tightening slightly on my face, a slight tremble running through his hands.
He wants this as much as I do, I think wonderingly.
Our lips barely graze when we’re startled apart by the sudden blaring of my phone in the still room.
Sam chokes back a laugh at the song playing loudly.
I wince. “That’ll be Tristan.”
“You set his personal ringtone to the Ghostbusters theme song?”
“It was that or The Exorcist. At least this is more upbeat than the sheer creepiness of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells.”
“Prickles,” he says admiringly, “you are a man of many layers. Should I ask what my ringtone is?”
“No,” I say flatly. Turning away, I wipe the tear tracks from my face and take a calming breath in an effort to push the almost kiss to the back of my mind and focus.
Once I’ve settled a bit, I pick up the phone, which is still ringing determinedly, and greet Tristan with a polite, “Hello, Tristan. What can I do for you?”
“Hey, Harrison, a lot’s been going on. I thought I’d bring you up to date.”
“Sure, go ahead.” I once again resume my seat at the workbench and sip my barely lukewarm tea.
“Okay.” He blows out a breath. “So, Madame Viv is living with me and Danny for a while. The creepy chaos entity in the bookshop is making it impossible for her to remain there. On the way out, she gave me a whole box of papers, which look as if they’re all written by Cornelius Crawshanks.”
I perk up in interest. “What sort of papers?”
“All sorts of things. It’s a bit hard to make sense of at the moment, but I think some of them are journal entries and others are notes that didn’t make it into his published edition of his Guide to the Recently Departed. There may be some letters in there as well.”
“I’d love to go through them for you, if you’d like,” I offer, and not altogether altruistically. Even though the others don’t know it yet, Cornelius is my family, and I’d like any chance to study the man.
“I’d kind of like to go through them myself, but you can come and help me if you like,” he offers, speaking loud enough that I’m almost certain Sam can hear too. “After we’ve averted this potential apocalypse though.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Oh my god, so much information. I don’t even know where to start, but the short version is that the magic doorway in Madame Viv’s bookshop is the crux of this whole fiasco.”
“You mean the portal?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” I can hear the frown in his voice.
“Anyway, as you know, Death’s twin or counterpart, Chaos, is on the other side, trying to break through into our world, and he is nowhere as well behaved as his brother Death.
If he manages to get to our side, he’ll bring all kinds of chaos, the really bad kind.
Hence, potential apocalypse. Even Death is kinda worried about it, and the guy’s facial muscles barely work.
I’d have thought he’d been Botoxed to within an inch of his life if he hadn’t actually smiled after his and Chan’s date. ”
“Oh, that’s right,” I murmur as I watch Sam settle onto a stool near me and pick up Elias Black’s book. He begins to read in interest while he sips his coffee, content to let me carry on speaking to Tristan and not announce his presence. “How did the date go?”
“I’m going to let Chan fill you in on the details or we’re going to get off track.”
“Okay.” I smile and then straighten self-consciously when I notice Sam staring at me as if he’s never seen me smile before.
Which, to be fair, I’m not sure he has. Clearing my throat, I turn back to my conversation with Tristan.
“So we can all agree Chaos making it through the portal in the bookshop is a bad thing.”
“Yeah. I still have no clue how it came into existence in the first place because I’ve been there and it’s a great big, huge stone archway on a dais in a massive cavern. However, I did find what looks like a journal entry of Cornelius’, which might give us a clue as to its origins.”
“Yes?”
“So, when they were kids, Cordelia, the older sister, had this book of magic. She called it The Book of Lala Khal.”
My stomach jolts. Knowing that Sam is sat right beside me, I try not to give away my surprise at the name of the book Cordelia had retrieved after her brother freed her from the asylum.
“Apparently, she stole the book from a village they were visiting back when they lived in India. Cordelia always hated that she’d been forced to leave the country she loved, the one place she’d considered her home.
So much so that she, along with her sister Constance and her brother Cornelius, tried to open a portal so that she could escape back home. ”
I release a slow breath and see that Sam has now abandoned the book and is watching me intently.
“So Cordelia tore a rip in the fabric of our world with the intent to open a corridor between the Crawshanks house and her previous home in India?”
“That about sums it up,” Tristan says, and Sam’s eyes widen.
“Did they attempt to close it?”
“They tried to, but they were kids. I can’t imagine they did a good job of it,” Tristan muses.
“It would have been next to impossible.” I frown. “Once it’s been damaged, it will always remain a weak spot.”
I think back to the dream where Cordelia had hidden the book inside the tear, and I know for a fact it was never closed. That Cordelia had continued to use it without her siblings’ knowledge.
“I was wondering if that was the foundation of Bruce’s magic door.”
I sigh. “Tristan, it’s an incredibly powerful interdimensional portal to another world, maybe more than one world, I think referring to it as a magic door is kind of underselling its importance.”
“Now you sound like Death.” He laughs.
“Not a ringing endorsement.” I huff. “But you may be right. I have to admit, I had begun to wonder if magic was the cause of it opening. On Cordelia’s admittance form to the asylum, it mentioned something about her ‘delusions’ of witchcraft and magic.”
I don’t mention that I know for a fact she was a real witch, a very powerful one at that. I’ve always suspected that potent magic ran down my mitochondrial line, but it’s quite a jolt to have it confirmed.
“So, what do you think?” Tristan asks. “Do you know of any spell—or whatever it is you do—that would close the gateway again?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I sigh apologetically.
“I’m sorry. When I first began to suspect days ago that magic was tied to this, I immediately began searching, but there’s nothing.
Maybe if I had more time, I could find out something.
But right now, I can’t figure out how to close it even temporarily, and without the proper information and research, I could potentially make things worse, unless…
I don’t suppose you have the book of magic Cornelius mentioned his sister smuggling back from India? ”
I know it’s a long shot asking about The Book of Lala Khal.
I know that it would have had to be prised from Cordelia’s cold, dead fingers.
There was no way she was letting it out of her sight once she’d found it again, but as I don’t know what happened to her yet, it’s possible the book has lain hidden in the bookshop.
“Not here,” Tristan replies. “The box I have is full of loose papers. It’s possible it’s buried somewhere in the bookshop.
I got a brief look when I was there helping Viv pack up to move over here.
I don’t think the family ever threw anything away.
Seriously, there are rooms upon rooms filled with boxes of history from the last hundred and fifty years.
Even if it is in there somewhere, it’s unlikely we’ll find it in time. ”
“Damn it,” I mutter. “I’ll keep searching, but I’m not optimistic that I’ll find something before the eclipse tomorrow.
It would be really helpful if we knew how the gateway was re-opened a second time and by whom.
Any magic I use has to be tailored to counteract the circumstances of its creation—magic isn’t a one-size-fits-all.
It’s incredibly complex. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life studying it and still wouldn’t know everything. ”
“Unfortunately, I think there’s only one person who can answer most of your questions, and he currently has amnesia.” Tristan huffs in frustration, and I assume he’s referring to Bruce.
“I know,” I commiserate. “I’ll keep looking and call if I find anything.”
Tristan makes a moue of acquiescence and after a brief goodbye hangs up the phone.
“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” Sam says, finally breaking his silence. “We’re running out of time.”
“I know,” I mutter, feeling the weight of it crushing down on me. “I know.”