Chapter Five

 

Ivy tiptoed into the library and heaved the oak door shut. The shutters were closed, and it was pitch black inside. She let her eyes get used to the darkness, but the images remained fuzzy. She inched along the walls, feeling for a light switch with her fingertips, and Don did the same along the opposite wall.

 

The bookcases ran along the wall in a solid block, but their glass doors came as a cold surprise to her touch. Her fingers also skimmed the smooth wood of the bookcases and their decorative carvings. The darkness heightened her other senses. The beeswax polish tickled her nose. The carpet was plush and springy under her bare feet. The room was warm with the acrid sweetness of wood smoke.

 

Anxiety at being trapped in the darkness gripped her throat, her breathing shallow and uneven. Pain crawled across her chest. She stumbled back towards the door, but he grabbed her and drew her back into the library. “Wonderful. Never seen anything like it,” he gasped.

 

She needled him with her elbow, but he kept a firm hold of her arm. His touch calmed her. He seldom engaged in physical contact with others, but whenever he did the effect was pronounced.

 

As her eyes adjusted, she made out the faint outlines of the bookcases on the far side of the room now. Slipping a book down from the nearest shelf, she turned it over in her hands. It was heavy and dry. The ancient spine crackled as she eased its cover open. A History of Ancient Peoples on Seven Continents by Augustus Molle.

 

“What d’you see?” he asked. "Tell me exactly, because I don't think we're seeing the same thing."

 

She longed to describe the library in the patronising tone she reserved for when he was behaving like an idiotic younger sibling. This was the tone he returned in spades whenever she asked him anything about technology. But the place had unnerved her. "I saw some books about mixing cocktails. The sort of stuff I used to serve down at the country club. You?'

 

When Don didn't reply, she edged away from him across the room. She slipped out into the hallway with relief. The white plastered walls were hung with pikes and swords. In broad daylight, there was a grim sort of certainty about them that was much less disturbing than the murkiness of the library that had just engulfed her.

 

He came out of the library, gleefully rubbing his hands. “Radclyffe back yet? Like to ask her what she sees in there,” he said.

 

Ivy frowned. What does he see inside the library, and why is he so fascinated by the difference between our personal experiences? But it was like Don to be mysterious when he was at his most unsure and, over the years they'd known each other, she'd learnt to let him take his time about being more forthcoming.

 

In the kitchen, they found Radclyffe unpacking bags of flour and sugar from the basket underneath the stroller. Ivy lifted them out and set them down on the oak worktop. The twins were asleep in their pushchair with their heads touching.

 

“No one seems to have picked up on your arrival. Hellhole gossip flies around, but no one said a word about you when I was shopping. I was worried the tale would be all over the village. Wouldn’t have ended there, I can tell you,” Radclyffe said.

 

As he hopped from one foot to the other, Don's cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled. Ivy had never seen him so excited. “What’s your library like?”

 

Looking him up and down, Radclyffe was bemused by his energy and his question.

 

Brett’s wife was much more warm and approachable when she smiled. It lit up her face and made her look much closer to her real age. Ivy could barely believe Radclyffe was only a year older than her when she appeared so beaten down with family responsibilities.

 

Radclyffe replied, “Few history books and dusty magazines. Brett says there’s a good range of farming manuals. His brother Toby practically lived in there as a child. I can’t imagine what he found to amuse him, cos farming’s not really his thing. I wouldn’t have imagined it was yours, either.”

 

Tugging at Ivy's sleeve, he pulled her out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “I’m going back in there. Wait here for me,” he replied.

 

She felt sick at the idea of letting him go back in the library alone when she thought of the sinister power brooding inside the room, playing with them by showing different sides of itself to catch the visitor off guard. She tried to hug him, but he wriggled away before she could tell him to be careful in there.

 

*

 

Don stepped away from the door and looked up at the library ceiling, turning in time with the revolving stars. His neck ached as he craned to take in constellations he’d never seen before. He shivered. He was up there with them! Inching forward one step at a time into the blackness, he saw lights stretching away for miles.

 

It hadn’t surprised him to discover Ivy’s experience in here was different than his. Nothing much about Blackacre surprised him. The place had a malevolent feel to it: protecting those it called its own, but tormenting them, too.

 

The Flints were no better. Brett was very disturbing. Radclyffe seemed decent, but the twins worried him. The dark-haired one shot evil glances at his mother and brother. The albino one was kind and gentle, but even so there was still something not quite right about him.

 

As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he stopped turning and tried to get his bearings. He told himself the room wasn’t actually moving. He focused hard until he could ignore the rotation of the stars and keep his attention on the room instead, but it wasn't easy. Opening his mind, he let the visions in. With his inner sensitivity to the universe to guide him, the power generating them was an entity he believed he could trust.

 

The presence of someone powerful arose inside his head. During his combat with the Master, he’d experienced something like this with a more painful intensity than now. Back then, his opponent penetrated so far inside his brain it felt like the Master was a part of him, but it was different now. It wasn't the Master probing his thoughts. He enjoyed a peace he’d never known before, and he absolutely trusted whoever it was. He gave himself up to what was happening, letting their identities merge.

 

He shared the other’s knowledge as their mind unity deepened. He saw the same stars as usual every night but experienced them from another perspective. The Earth was a dot. On its surface was Blackacre. He closed his eyes and focused. When he opened them again, he was just the tiniest speck. He clung to an atom as it bounced around. He couldn’t tell what it was a part of. It could be a grain of sand, or molecule of water, perhaps. When he’d had enough, he wished to go back to the library.

 

It was broad daylight. The library was dusty and smelt of wood smoke. Ivy rushed into the room and threw her arms around him. He shook her off, turning away coldly, but when he caught sight of her pained expression and realised how concerned she had been about him he relented. “Let me try again. Don’t pull me back this time,” he said.

 

As he spoke, the library dissolved around him. He tried to focus on the visions he’d seen just now, willing the entity to let him back in, but it resisted him. The anonymous force didn’t accept him with as much trust now. It was very suspicious of Ivy.

 

A light materialised. It shone up from the floor and illuminated the whole area. It rotated very slowly. Images formed around it, and it pulsed as it generated them. A desperate urge to reach out and touch the light arose in him, and he yearned to be a part of its brightness and of its warmth. He longed to be one with the force generating these images, but it was too soon to try. He was still drained from his combat with the Master, and in the past he’d learned the hard way to be cautious. Right now, he needed to regroup and understand more of what was going on here before he tried anything more. It had taken him years to prepare for his showdown with the Master.

 

The images circling the main light crystallised into a recognisable object: the mountains of Ubersneller in Austria. It felt good to see a little more of the location for Ivy’s mission. With the Master weakened, now was the time to strike. He steeled himself to the necessity of losing the father he had never known.

 

The second image was unfamiliar, a research station in the polar wastes. Inconceivable human suffering was happening inside. This was his own mission, to be completed while Ivy was out in Austria.

 

Other images formed. Outwardly innocuous, there was a dark tinge to them. The malevolence lurking within the walls of Blackacre permeated outside, too, infecting his visions with a sinister undertone. There was a temple in the east, an island populated with weird creatures, the jungle, a desert city carved out of the rock and a boat carrying tormented souls. He shared an immense connection with the whole world. Through the web of these images, he understood how humanity was interlinked. This knowledge overpowered him, and he became suddenly overawed by his youth and inexperience.

 

The lights brightened as they rotated faster. They mesmerised him. He longed to jump into the images as if he were a part of them. He tried to resist, but their lure was intoxicating. The spinning images slowed, disappearing into a single point at his feet. A wooden box materialised in its place, and he bent to pick it up. “What’s this?” he asked the room.

 

“I am your guardian on the journey," a gentle voice replied. "These images will become as familiar to you as your own face. Welcome to the Seven, Don Allwood.”

 

*

 

When Ivy and Don went into the kitchen, her concern about him increased. The blood had drained from his face back in the library, and the colour had not returned to his cheeks. His hands were still trembling. She took the wooden box from him and gently laid it down on the table. “What does it mean?” she asked.

 

“Dunno.”

 

After doing some baking, Radclyffe was making a start on lunch while the twins napped upstairs. Ivy left him sitting in the parlour to fetch a mug of tea and a big plate heaped with rock cakes. As he munched away, his colour returned and he lost himself in the pleasure of eating.

 

“Didn’t this guardian tell you more?” she asked.

 

“Let’s ask Brett about it.”

 

She swallowed her misgivings, pulled on big gumboots and took down a waxed coat from the pile hanging in the corridor. He stared in disbelief at first but finally followed her example with a wry look on his face. They exchanged glances of amusement at their strange apparel. “Can’t believe this place is for real,” he said.

 

“Tell me about it. And I thought the Metropolis was full of horrors.”

 

“Blackacre’s horrors aren’t subtle,” he replied. "I've been here before, so I know."

 

As they walked along the winding path overshadowed by giant rhododendron bushes towards the farmyard, she mulled over the wisdom of this remark. Lives in the Metropolis were difficult and challenging. It wasn’t any easier here, but at least in the country the threats felt a little more obvious. The farmhouse didn't scruple to push forward its dark force to catch them unawares and unsettle them. It was evidently enjoying the power play of having new faces under its roof.

 

Ivy was still overcome with fury at Janus for betraying them. After everything they’d worked for, for so long, he tossed it all away just when they finally overthrew the authorities and had a real chance to improve the lives of millions of ordinary people.

 

Janus would be weakened by Don's absence. If only his ego hadn’t got in the way and made him blind to how much they all needed each other. The authorities would start to fight back and ruthlessly exploit divisions within the ranks of the resistance.

 

They found Brett tinkering with the combine harvester’s engine. The radio was blaring away. He wore an oily blue boiler suit with ‘Slimeport Tractors’ embroidered on the lapel in what was once white thread. His boots were caked in mud. He had his head inside the engine, but he pulled back, wiped his hands on a rag from his pocket and grinned at them. When he smiled, it made him look more like Gerald than ever. She looked away sharply, a blush rising to her cheeks.

 

“That trouble you’ve been having last winter with your combine? It was the starter motor,” Don said smugly.

 

Brett took off his tweed cap and scratched his head. "How d'yer know that?"

 

Don shrugged. "I just do somehow. I can tell things, sometimes, without really knowing how."

 

"Sounds like a blessing and a curse," Brett muttered, "though I guess yer have got used to it, lad."

 

The radio burst into news of the Metropolis, and Ivy turned up the volume. The presenter’s voice was steady, but there was an unmistakeable underlying tension belying the calmness with which the words were delivered.

 

“Crowds are gathering in all central squares to celebrate the overthrow of the authorities and demand political freedom. Janus Fidens, the UK’s new leader, will make a statement at four o’clock. In the meantime, he urges everyone to remain quietly at home.”

 

So Janus was having trouble down in the capital, was he? People were out on the streets yesterday protesting for political freedoms denied for too long. He was presumably beginning to discover how tricky it was to keep a lid on people’s desire for political freedom. All this had broken out in the hours since Don and Ivy had left the Metropolis, but this was what Gerald was driving back into, if the radio reports were accurate.

 

The weathercock on the clock tower blew back and forth from east to west. Everything was unsettled, and it was spitting with rain. As Brett wiped his hands on the rag and slammed the engine cover shut, he glanced up at the sky. It was clouding over, and an image of a woman’s face formed inside them. “Nothing for yer to worry about. Just Toby’s mother reminding me that he’s coming for the twins’ birthday tomorrow,” he said.

 

A fork of lightening snaked out, striking the ground next to the combine and setting fire to a small pile of straw. He stamped it out, but a smoky cloud evaporated and listlessly drifted upwards until it dispersed into the damp air. “You met my mother last night when you arrived,” he added.

 

This sickened Ivy to her stomach. It was repellent that Brett was talking about the tentacled creature that had slithered out of the fetid well in front of the house.

 

Their host grinned in a way that hinted he could read her thoughts but didn't care what her reaction was. Draping his tweed jacket over his arm, he locked up the combine. "Take us as yer find us this far north," he said. “I'm going in for an early lunch. If yer want to explore yer can today, but my brother and his wife are coming to tea tomorrow. Yer two can make yersels scarce while they’re here.”

 

Once he was out of earshot, she whispered, “I don’t want to stay here. This place is horrible.”

 

Don shook off her remark. “We need to use the library to begin our missions," he said. "I don’t know another way in. This voice I heard in the library? I’ve never heard from him before. We’re here, and suddenly he’s inside my head. I don’t know what any of it means, but I can see the good in what we’re about to do. Better than sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves, anyway. Whatever ill befalls Janus, we can’t prevent it. Blackacre is the key. Back to the library, whatever you or I feel about it.”

 

*

 

As Gerald regained consciousness the darkness lifted, but when he tried to move his head banged and nausea rose inside his throat. He lay back down again, groaning. He rubbed his temples gingerly until the pain subsided, but when he opened his eyes again the brightness still blinded him. He listened out for sounds, but it was eerily quiet.

 

The room reeked of ammonia. The place was chilly. The air felt damp, and there was that musty smell he always associated with old-fashioned air conditioning units recycling stale air.

 

When he sat up and opened his eyes, everything swum round. He collapsed back onto his bed and vomited all over the floor. Terror clutched him in its clammy embrace. This is Janus, he thought, or perhaps the Master's servants are fighting back.

 

*

 

Against her better judgement, Ivy followed Don back into the library. He stroked the walls just like he was looking for cracks, but the surface was completely smooth. He pulled her into the centre of the room, took her hands and squeezed them firmly. “Close your eyes. Visualise somewhere safe,” he said.

 

She screwed her eyes shut, trying to imagine where Gerald was now, but no matter how intensely she ached to know where he was, she got nowhere with it. All she was doing was remembering him driving off. Don shared her experience through contact, and his mind entered hers. He took from her thoughts without giving anything back in return.

 

No matter how frantically she tried, the images just wouldn’t form. Her apartment wasn’t safe now. The country club where she’d worked for a year and got to know Gerald wasn’t any better. There was nowhere safe she could think of to visualise, and that terrified her. It was like being snatched from her parents and dumped in the western slums all over again.

 

Don's proximity, imbibing her despair and dislocation, was profoundly empathic, and this helped her calm down. Her wave of panicky attempts eventually subsided.

 

When she focused as clearly as she could on somewhere she’d been safe recently, this time a vision of a field with the stars overhead swum before her. Overjoyed, she leapt into it and gave herself up to the experience. Just for a moment she was back there, revelling in the faintest sensation of Gerald being with her. She could even smell the damp hay and feel the chill of the night air on her skin. But just as quickly it was gone again, and she was back in the library, rubbing her forehead and wondering what on earth had just happened.

 

“Try again,” Don whispered.

 

Closing her eyes, she visualised the kitchen as clearly as she could. Things she hadn’t realised she’d noticed in the last twelve hours rose in her mind. Radclyffe’s shopping list on the fridge door, the vet’s bill on the table, the crockery on the dresser and the squeak of the pantry door. Even the pervasive warmth of the stove was present, astonishingly real and comforting.

 

The kitchen materialised one detail at a time until she was standing there rather than in the library. Brett was shovelling beef stew into his mouth with a big spoon, but he choked and splattered his lunch everywhere as she appeared right in front of him.

 

As her concentration wavered, the lure of the library reached out to her once more and she was back there again. Her head ached, and she collapsed onto one of the plush, red-velvet chairs and curled up in a ball. Don bent over her in concern and squeezed her shoulder, but she pushed him away.

 

Their host stormed into the library. “What the hell d’yer think yer doing?”

 

Don pointed at Brett until the man's outline turned pale and fuzzy. As he faded away completely, there was a very sly expression on Don’s face that she had never seen before. It sent a chill deep into her soul.

 

“Please tell me you’ve sent him back to the kitchen. You haven’t done anything awful to him, have you?” she pleaded.

 

“Popped him down to the village. A wet, five-mile hike home will give Brett Flint time to think about what happens to people who stand in my way,” he said.