ZOYA HAD ARRIVED AT the school gate, set in a low wall and still with its usual padlock. Visitors during the day couldn’t access the playground, they had to go around to the office. The school looked deserted. Where the hell was Jas? Now was not the time for niceties. She jogged up to the gate and vaulted it, then walked quickly over to the school buildings. “Hello?” she called. She could see movement inside. She went up to one of the classroom doors and it was quickly opened.
Charlie, Jas’s teaching assistant, leapt out, grabbed her, and pulled her in. “Quickly!”
Inside, Zoya found a bunch of adults, teachers, teaching assistants, and even school dinner ladies, hunkered down behind upturned tables. They were clutching various implements, from carving knives to hammers, and they looked very determined. “Oh,” she sighed. “They shall not pass. Whoever they are.”
“You have to get down,” said Charlie, trying to lead her into cover. But Zoya shook off her grasp.
“Where’s Jas?”
“With the other children. Mrs. Williams has them in the main hall, behind some improvised defences. It’s in the middle of the building. We thought it’d be safest.”
“What do you think you’re doing? What are you defending them from? You’re scaring them with all this rubbish.”
Mrs. Cotton, the deputy head, poked her head up from behind one of the tables. She was wearing a teacher’s expression so fierce that Zoya immediately wanted to say she was sorry and wouldn’t do it again, whatever it was. “We have intruders on the grounds. Very strange intruders. Several members of staff have seen them. 999 doesn’t work. Shaun Mawson is on his way over. I assure you this is real. And you’re right, they shall not pass. Not while we have anything to say about it. Now get under cover.”
Zoya folded her arms, a little perturbed by the woman’s certainty. “I didn’t see anything.”
“And you can’t feel it?” said Charlie. The teaching assistant put a hand to her own head. “You can’t feel the . . . weird stuff that’s out there right now?”
“With what, my psychic powers? What? What are you all looking at?” Zoya had suddenly become aware that all of them were looking past her to the window behind her. Their faces were pictures of shock and dismay. Okay. She’d play along.
Zoya slowly turned to see what all the fuss was about.
* * *
Autumn was watching Trill, who’d put his fingers on the artery at Lizzie’s throat, a look of concentration on his face. Fairies didn’t seem to need all the words, gestures, and sacrifices that humans did in order to perform magic. He’d told them that if he could feel this infected blood doing anything weird to him, he’d stop. The blue liquid pulsed in Lizzie’s throat, then suddenly started to flow into the space between that throat and Trill’s fingers. Her skin remained unbroken. The blood was hissing from her pores, Autumn realised, pouring from her in a mist. As Autumn watched, the colour of her friend’s face started to return to normal.
* * *
Zoya couldn’t see what the teachers were gawping at.
She turned and walked toward the window. “See?” she said. “Nothing.” She looked back over her shoulder at them. “You’re all bonkers mental.”
Charlie got up with the obvious intention of trying to make her retreat, but one of the others pulled her back. “You really can’t see it?” she whispered.
“No. What can you see?” Zoya turned back and put her hand up against the window. These ridiculous individuals. Still, it was weird that they were all having the same hallucination at once. Maybe some passing shadow out there had set them off? Was there anything out there at all?
“No,” called Mrs. Cotton, as if to something outside the window. “Don’t!”
Zoya felt something strike her. She put a hand to her chest. It was like she’d had a sudden cramp in a place she hadn’t been aware it was possible to have one. Pins and needles started to radiate out from her collarbone. Her mum had had a word for when you got a sudden ache you couldn’t account for, she remembered. She’d called it being “fairy struck.” She waved her hand in front of her. Was she touching something? Was there something sticking in her? She couldn’t see it. She could barely feel it. And yet . . . and yet she was feeling . . . very weird.
She turned back to the classroom and pointed at the teachers angrily. “What is this fu—?”
And then the darkness rushed into her head and she fell.
* * *
“Understand this, you hypocritical sack of shit, we’re going to be rid of you!” Cummings was shouting, advancing on Lizzie. She was slowly backing away, but now she was cornered against the front row of entranced fairies. She fell and he loomed over her, filling her vision with his snarling features. “Oh, are you thinking about running, maybe going to find the fairy king? Please do. The boss is right there with him. He’d barely notice you as his presence extinguished you. No, we’re finally going to be rid of all of you. And nobody is coming to save—”
He suddenly stopped, an odd look on his face. There had, Lizzie realised, been a sound, a thump, like a piece of wood hitting something.
Cummings fell aside, his eyes closing as he hit the forest floor, unconscious.
Behind him stood a young woman with very short hair and very loud makeup. She held in her hands a sturdy piece of wood. “As I was saying,” she yelled, in what sounded like a Russian accent, “what is this fuckwittery?” She seemed to reconsider in the moment as she saw Lizzie’s clerical collar. “Reverend?”
Lizzie opened her mouth to answer. But she realised that she was feeling weird again. She started to form some sort of reply, but then—
She woke up again.
And she was back in Autumn’s shop and staring up at Autumn.
Oh God. She had so much to say. “Thank you. You brought me back.”
“Any time,” said Autumn. “Every time.”
Lizzie had to bite her lip. She wanted to say more, but actually there was Luke, and . . . also a fairy in pyjamas and wellies. “Shit,” she said. “I’m still dreaming.”
“No,” said Autumn, “he’s real. I have a lot to tell you.”
Lizzie sat up. “I have a lot to tell you, and you need to hear mine first. Yes, you do. No, shut up. Does anyone here know any Russians?”
And now Autumn was looking at her like she was mad. But then Autumn’s phone beeped with an incoming text. She looked at the screen. “The school say they’ve just had a fairy attack. With a . . . Ukrainian victim. Could that be—?”
“Oh,” said Lizzie. “Can we not tell her I thought she was Russian?”
* * *
Autumn quickly packed a bag with everything she could think of that might help, while she, Luke, and Trill listened to Lizzie explain that David Cummings seemed to have the fairies and their king asleep in a dream world and was controlling their bodies here through infected fairy blood.
Trill told her to stop, concentrated for a moment, then nodded, looking angry. “I can’t feel the presence of the king,” he said. “Not at all. Not like he’s dreaming. Nothing. What’s that about? Is that to do with why I’m not being controlled like these others?”
“No idea,” said Autumn. “We need more information.”
“We will have revenge,” said the fairy. “How dare another nation meddle in our affairs, to the point of leading us?”
“You’re sounding less like me all the time,” noted Luke.
“They grow up so quickly,” said Autumn.
“That’s the mistake people make,” said Trill. “People and demons too. We enjoy being influenced. Just like humans do. But we are actually strong enough to assert ourselves.”
“Unlike humans,” said Autumn.
“Not all humans,” said Luke.
“Influence and belief,” continued Trill, “are the underpinnings of all the worlds, all the realities, as you’d say. Except perhaps this one, which has this physics thing, which I agree is a terrible idea, if I may say so.”
“That’s fascinating,” said Autumn. “After this is over, I want to hear all about that, with my notebooks handy. And probably a stiff drink. But. Moving on.”
Lizzie finished her story, taking it up to the moment of the satisfying impact of wood on demon skull. “What does that woman knocking Cummings out even mean?” she said. “He was surprised I was awake, so I guess humans could do things in that dream world he didn’t expect. Though I don’t think he was lying about how impossible it would be to help the king. But is that woman’s mind safe there when Cummings wakes up? What does ‘waking up’ there involve?”
“Let’s see if we can get her out of there before he does.” Autumn grabbed her keys and led them out of the door. She hoped her gait looked much more confident than she was feeling.
* * *
As the clock in the church tower struck noon, Autumn and her party marched toward the school. They could move with reasonable speed, given that Trill would be able to warn them of approaching fairies. But it occurred to Autumn that that was a two-edged sword. “If you can sense them, they can sense you,” she said.
Trill looked uncertain. “I’m not so sure. I’m not getting any response back from them. I feel rather like I’ve put a glamour on myself, like I’m invisible.”
“Also,” said Lizzie, “if they’re using that map I saw to navigate through the town, they’ll be a bit all over the place. If ‘post sender’ was what leapt out from the post office, that’s like they’re getting vague thoughts from people here and using them to navigate. ‘Post’ wouldn’t mean anything to fairies.” She looked to Trill. “Would it?”
“Only so many people need posts,” said the fairy, “and where do they need to be sent?”
“My case rests,” said Lizzie.
Autumn was pleased that they were once again working together pretty well. But it worried her that they still hadn’t got to the heart of what the problem had been in the first place. Lizzie now seemed to be displaying a slightly exaggerated niceness to Luke, as if she was making up for an issue she still felt but didn’t want to express. But later for all that. (She hoped there would be a later for all that.) “Anyway,” she said, “if Trill senses a fairy nearby, and if they start moving toward us, we head in the other direction. Okay?”
It took them another ten minutes to get to the end of the footpath that connected to the main road going past the school. “They must be able to come and go through this barrier themselves,” said Lizzie. “They wouldn’t have set up a wall the rest of their forces couldn’t pass through.”
“But why have a wall at all?” said Autumn. “Doesn’t an invading army want people to run away and let them have the territory?”
“They’re not invading,” said Lizzie. “That Picton woman talked about transforming the world, making it into a land like the magic one she came from. And Cummings’s boss seems to have similar plans. Cummings said they were going to rip up our reality.”
As they approached the school, they slowed down, but Trill shook his head. “There aren’t any fairies nearby. They’ve gone.”
“What were they after?” wondered Autumn as they climbed over the locked gate into the deserted playground. From the texts she was getting from inside the building, there had been only the one casualty, this Ukrainian woman. She texted back to tell the teachers that the enemy had departed.
“Oh,” said Luke, the sound of realisation in his voice. “It’s about you.”
“What?” said Lizzie.
“These are commando attacks against individual targets. What? I read a lot of military history. They weren’t here to storm the school or terrorise it, they were just here to take out this Ukrainian woman. Mission accomplished, so then they left. But before coming here, they tried to take out you two.”
“And there was another target,” said Trill, “they went toward this ‘not about magnets any more’ direction thing of yours first, and this is not that.”
“So I reckon that’s what the wall is for, to stop you two getting away. Maybe this woman here too. The three of you, plus maybe this other target to the north, must be the ones who can stop whatever huge transforming magical shit they’re planning.”
“Oh my God,” said Autumn, flattered and terrified at once. She could see the same emotions on Lizzie’s face too.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” said Luke. “You’re pretty awesome.”
“So how is the Ukrainian awesome?” said Autumn.
“Awesome enough to thump Cummings around the head in dreamland,” said Lizzie.
* * *
The teachers thankfully let them inside, and they found the young woman with the short hair whom Lizzie recognised from the dream world still unconscious and being kept warm in the staff room. “Do you want me to do the thing again?” asked Trill.
They watched as he drained the fairy blood from the young woman’s body. The teachers looked on in awe, although they were at the same time taking turns to make cups of hot soup. From the noise further inside the building, it became clear that a general evacuation of children had started. “We were telling parents to stay away,” said Mrs. Cotton, “but now they’re arriving to take the children home. We’ve got a lot of couples where one of them was caught outside this wall thing. They must be worried sick.”
Lizzie just nodded. She was very much feeling the responsibility now. Especially if this was all about the two . . . or three . . . of them.
“So you’re going to do something about this, right?” That was another teacher, a thin man with a beard. “I mean, we don’t deserve this. It has to stop.”
“Go and see to the evacuation, please, Mr. Moore,” said Mrs Cotton. After a moment’s hesitation, the man seemed to see the steel in the deputy head’s eyes and left. “You’ve met a few like that, I should think,” she said to Lizzie.
“Thank you,” said Lizzie.
The young woman, who they’d been told was called Zoya, coughed, opened her eyes, and immediately sat up. “Where’s Jas?”
Mrs. Cotton told her she was safe with the other children and that Zoya could see her as soon as she wanted. Zoya nodded, closed her eyes in relief, then opened them again and pointed at Lizzie. “You. You were there. Oh fucksticks. All this bollocks is true, isn’t it?”
“Depending on which bollocks, but yes, probably,” said Lizzie. “What happened after I left?”
“I looked around. Rows of . . . those guys,” she said, pointing at Trill, startled all over again.
Trill waved.
“It was like the auditions for bloody Lord of the Rings. But no pyjamas. Then I heard that guy who was yelling at you start making little waking up noises, so I found the bit of wood and hit him again. I had to do that three more times. I got bored. I looked at my phone, but it was just a sort of prop phone, and I couldn’t get any reception because I was in Lord of the Rings, so I’d have only got I don’t know, Bugger Baggins anyway, but no, stop, just tell me what the fuck is going on!”
Which had reached a sort of panicked existential yell by the end of it. As quickly as possible, with Autumn doing most of the talking and Lizzie making the odd interjection, they provided her with a Previously On Lychford.
Zoya stared at them. “Holy shit.”
“Sums it up in two words,” said Lizzie.
“I was rained on too. Why don’t I have these extra senses? I want my money back.”
“No idea,” said Autumn. “There must be some good reason why they attacked you as well as us.”
“And they went north and might have attacked someone up there,” added Luke.
“But nobody else appeared in the dream world,” said Zoya. “Not while I was there, anyway.”
“Good point,” said Autumn. “If you are a target, we think it’s because you might be able to hurt them, so could we please ask—?”
“No magic powers.”
“Not even with the rain,” said Autumn. “That is weird. But we need to make sure you’re okay. Can you stick with us?”
“If I can bring Jas,” said Zoya, “I’m with you ladies. But what can we do about that twat in dreamland and all these . . . bad elves?”
Lizzie realised that Autumn had been staring over at where the teachers were filling the kettle. “Where,” said Autumn, “is that water coming from?”
* * *
Autumn, going after a sudden new hope with the thought in her head that it might evaporate, quickly found a teacher who was in charge of the school garden, and had an allotment, and knew all about water tables and where the reservoirs were. “Nearest of those,” he said, “is over in Faringdon. We’re connected to the mains running down from there. Nothing to do with the river.”
“So,” said Autumn, feeling very pleased with herself. “We’re not actually trapped.”
“Why?” asked Luke.
“Because the wall hasn’t cut off the pipes underground. So it’s a dome, not a sphere. So if I dig down . . . and I’m guessing the water pipes need maintenance, so they can’t be very deep . . .”
“Do you mean we can get everyone out?”
This was going to be the hard bit. “No. When he wakes up, and I think we should assume he already has, Cummings would notice. His surveillance isn’t great, judging by what Lizzie saw, but it’s good enough to see that. He’d get his boss to send the archers to fire at the escapees. Because yeah, part of his plan does seem about taking the three of us out, but he also seems to want to keep everyone else here. I’m talking about one person sneaking out. Me.”
“And going where?” asked Lizzie.
Autumn pointed at Trill. “You told us your king was the heart and soul of fairies.” She pointed at Lizzie. “You felt the king was there in the dream world. But we can’t get to him there. So I’m going to go into the land of fairy, find his physical form, and wake him up.”
* * *
Lizzie helped the teachers get the remaining children to their parents, though half a dozen were left with all their carers presumably outside the wall and not able to answer calls. Lizzie hoped that was the case, anyway. Those children were going to be looked after here by the staff, and presumably taken home with them at the end of the day. Lizzie had watched these wonderful people do their absolute best to keep things as normal as possible while the impossible had invaded their town. She could hear the sounds of a Pixar movie playing on a screen in the main hall. That was where Zoya had gone to find her daughter.
These people were professionals, though. And even among their number there had been some who weren’t dealing, some whose idea of support was to pile pressure on herself and Autumn. What the people of Lychford thought they deserved . . . well, the extremities of that were something she’d been navigating ever since she came here. A tiny part of her was glad that the locals were going to have to deal with whatever came next. Perhaps it would bring the wisdom that she’d thought the rain would have brought. But that thought was an entirely unworthy one, born of stress and danger and . . . whatever was gnawing away at her.
Autumn had told them she was going to go to the school science lab to prepare a few things for . . . for this incredibly dangerous mission she’d decided she was going on. Now, Lizzie went to find her. She entered without knocking because if she had, Autumn would have yelled at her to go away. There was her friend, busy at the sink. Lizzie took a moment to really look at her. She was mixing some concoction, which had, as usual, put a powerful smell in the air. Only this time that smell was . . . the strongest scent of coffee that Lizzie had ever encountered. And, given her own predilections, that was saying a lot. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” said Autumn, not looking round, tolerating her presence.
Lizzie went to sit on a stool. “So you’re going into the land of fairy.”
“Yep.”
“The place that once scared you so badly it changed the course of your career and entire personality.”
“I guess.”
“And you’re going right into the middle of it, to see the king, who was the single biggest reason for how terrifying the experience was last time.”
“Lizzie, if you’re just here to remind me of my fear, I don’t need that, okay?” She still hadn’t looked round.
“You do, because you’ll face it better if you’ve thought about it beforehand. You know that’s true.” Lizzie knew where this was heading, but she couldn’t help it, and the little dismissive noise Autumn made now finally set her off. “And don’t treat me like I’m an amateur who hasn’t been standing right beside you as you’ve dealt with all this shit.”
Which finally made Autumn stop and turn around. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Lizzie put a hand to her own head, immediately regretting her anger. “Sorry. You saved my life. You rescued me. When I was told that was impossible. I don’t have the right to—”
Autumn put down the saucepan she was holding and marched over and embraced her.
Lizzie held on for a long minute.
“What is it?” Autumn finally said. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Lizzie was being as honest as she could be. “I don’t know what it is.”
Autumn paused. Like she had some ideas as to what the problem might be, but didn’t want to share them. “Don’t you?”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve got someone. And it’s been a long time for me. And that’s an awful selfish thought. I really am glad for you. And please stop saying it’s because I’m worried about sex before marriage because my whole belief system is about not being judgmental, whatever a lot of my people are actually like, because we’re all just stupid human beings and please don’t argue with me about that right now.”
“Okay.” Autumn was silent again for a while. Then she said, carefully, “You know me doing this is our only shot?”
“I don’t know that. Neither do you.”
“They’re going to make some sort of bigger move soon. This is our move. This is our chance. I have to take it. I need to be brave. I need to do what needs to be done.”
“At least let me come with you. I’m better than you at being brave.”
“No you’re bloody not.”
“The two of us could do this better.”
“Then who’s going to look after the innocent bystanders when the shit goes down?”
“Damn it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry we’ve been . . .”
“That’s over now. Probably. Or we can deal with it later. Just let me finish making this—” She meant the concoction in the beaker by the sink.
“What is it?”
“Every stimulant I can find, and I’m going to add some from the chemist on my way out of town, packed into a bottle that I’ve enchanted for alarm and emphasis. It’s a wake-up potion for the king.”
“Keep some for me when you come back.”
“No.”
“Just come back.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Lizzie grabbed Autumn’s face and made her look her in the eye. “If it all goes pear-shaped, you run out of there and you get back to me. To us. You promise me.”
She was suddenly on the verge of tears. And so was Autumn. “I promise.”
“I lost you for too long. I was apart from you too long.”
“I promise.”
Lizzie was at least convinced she was going to try. She held her again. “How has Luke reacted to your plan?”
“He thinks he can persuade me not to go. Which is why I’m going to sneak out without telling him.”
“No,” said Lizzie, with the patience of someone who knew she was going to win an argument, “you’re not.”
* * *
From a distance, at the end of a corridor, Lizzie watched that parting play out. Luke made big gestures with his hands. No, absolutely not. Okay, so if she was determined to go, he was going to go with her. Autumn touched him, implored him, held up her bag to show him she was prepared.
“What are they doing?” said a young voice beside Lizzie.
Lizzie looked down to see that Jas, Zoya’s daughter, was standing there. “My friend Autumn is going to do something very brave,” she said. “Her boyfriend doesn’t want her to. He wants to come too. But that wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“She has to go,” said Jas, as if it were the most obvious catchphrase from a beloved storybook.
Zoya poked her head out of a door, saw what was going on, and came over. “Jas, are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Zoya looked at Lizzie. “Are you okay? Reverend.”
Lizzie wished she’d stop calling her that. The way she said it was a barrier between them, but obviously the background she came from made her say it every time. The worst of both worlds. And she felt they’d already shared more than that. In both worlds. “Jas here was just telling me something that’s true,” she said. And she watched Autumn finally detach herself from Luke, look meaningfully at her for a moment, and then go on her way.
Lizzie sent all her prayers with her.
* * *
Autumn met with Trill at the edge of the school playground. “Thanks,” she said. “I want you to come with me down by the river, under the bridge, and up into the woods. You’re my fairy assassin detector.”
“And I suspect my invisibility to fairies covers those nearby too. So I’m doubly handy. Hey, I could come with you into the land of fairy. I can lead you straight to the throne.”
Autumn really wanted him to, but she shook her head. “I’ll be able to sense the way. I want you back here, letting Lizzie know when there are fairies around. I’ve told her you’ll come to find her at the church.”
“The church?”
“The big pointy building with the bells.”
“Oh. That thing.” Trill, looking uneasy, nodded, and they set off.
* * *
The staff and teachers of the school locked up as quickly as they could and headed for home, taking the children with them that didn’t have anywhere else to go. Lizzie asked Luke, Zoya, and Jas to come back to the Vicarage with her. “I’m trying to reach out with my extra senses,” she said, “to see if I can feel even a slight flutter from any fairies. Trill gave me the same vibes Finn always did, but that was only when I was in the same room with them. At least I know what I’m trying to sense.”
“What does it feel like, to have extra senses?”
“You get used to it,” said Luke. “Handy around the house. Particularly for fixing plumbing.”
“I can always feel something in the distance. And I feel like something good is watching over me.”
“Me too.” Which Lizzie realised had come out sort of wry.
“I didn’t mean . . . I’m not religious.”
“People do feel able to say two things like that back to back, don’t they?”
“Let her off the hook,” said Luke.
“Yes, let me off,” agreed Zoya, who was studying Lizzie like she’d seen her for the first time. “Reverend. So, hey. Why didn’t I get the whole deal with the rain?”
“I think,” said Lizzie, “finding out why you weren’t affected might turn out to be very important.” Her phone buzzed with a text, and she looked at the screen. It took a moment of effort, knowing that a child was within earshot, to moderate what she said next. She scrabbled to hit the phone button.
* * *
Autumn was marching through the forest. She’d left Trill a few minutes before. He’d given her a last long-range forecast and all-clear. So it looked like they were right about this not being a mass invasion. They’d be massing on the border otherwise, right? She was, by her own reckoning, about half a mile from the point where the paths ahead were only perceptible to those with extra senses, where true fairy began. The invisible wall should be a lot closer, and indeed, now she was looking, ahead she could see a line of split and ragged trees.
Her phone rang. The display said it was Lizzie. Autumn had a momentary pang of awkwardness. They’d had such a nice parting, she hoped this wasn’t going to be Lizzie telling her of all the extra reasons she’d thought of why she shouldn’t go. She answered it. “Hi.”
“You have to get out of there.”
“Lizzie, there’s nothing you can tell me—” There was a sound approaching, an enormous sound. What was that? Autumn put a hand over one ear and tried to concentrate on what Lizzie was yelling at her now. “What?” The sound was now getting closer, forcing her to look up. In front of her, she realised, the enormous trunks of the trees were bending, being forced to bow in her direction. As she watched, their branches began to explode like firecrackers.
“The wall!” bellowed Lizzie from the phone. “It’s moving inward!”
Autumn realised that in a few seconds she’d be in danger from flying wood splinters. “Okay, got it!” she yelled, switched off the phone, and ran back the way she came. She stopped, panting, after a hundred paces or so, and looked back. Wait. The wall was moving slowly, seemingly being given pause as it pushed itself against trees and either heaved them over or made their trunks crumble with that weird explosive force it had.
So standing here she had a few minutes.
This . . . this was actually better. Now she didn’t need to go sideways. Just down. She quickly pulled from her bag the camping spade she’d been given by the outdoor goods shop, extended its handle, and started to desperately dig.
* * *
“What’s at the centre of the town?” asked Lizzie, still staring at her phone and trying not to panic. In his text to her, the one that had made her call Autumn, Shaun had said he’d already told the Lychford WhatsApp and Facebook groups about the contracting wall, but she worried that still left literally hundreds of people at risk, in all directions. What happened when the wall started to hit houses?
“The church, of course,” said Zoya. “Isn’t that how it works in Britain too?”
“Oh,” said Lizzie. “Yes, that’s . . . probably true. Okay. Change of plans.”
She found the first in her list of people to call and started sending out the word.
* * *
Jake Tasker was one of the two burly sons of Erica, who was the landlady of the Folly pub, at the edge of town. He was a member of the rugby club, worked behind the bar, there and here, and was also a DJ for hire. He had a way with the crowds and he knew it, unafraid to play the whole of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” yeah, from the start, when the mood was right. At this moment he was sitting at his mum’s kitchen table, exhausted, quickly munching a bacon sandwich he’d thrown together while Mum took her turn with the crowds outside. They’d started using the chalk display boards to communicate with the masses, and now the authorities, the serious authorities, including someone yelling that he was from the Ministry of Defence, were out there. So they were a bit taken aback at what to do. When Jake had left it, Mum was trying to get through to the vicar and the witch to ask one of them to come down here. Jake still couldn’t get his head around the idea that either of those two were the experts about all this. He felt that what the man from the ministry was probably going to reveal was that this was all some military operation gone wrong, some secret weapon that had misfired. All this stuff about invisible arrows . . . well, he didn’t know anyone who’d got shot at. There was a USAF base a few towns away, you sometimes saw the bombers going over, and it was probably summat to do with them. That rain had probably been them all being gassed. Mind you, that might not be what anyone was revealing right now. That might take a big lawsuit. He’d argued about this with his elder brother, Nate, who believed in any old shit that drifted into his head, Jake often thought. He was absolutely on for this being magic and elves and ancient powers. Jake had told him to tell it to the dolphins when they showed up, ’cos it couldn’t be long before they got in on this action.
Jake was just taking the first bite of his sandwich when he heard the weird sound from the wall behind him. It was as if it had started singing. It was sustaining a sort of high-pitched warbling. He looked over to the hearth. It was an old building, but he’d lived here all his life and he’d never heard anything like that. He put down his sandwich, went over to the fireplace, and put a hand to it. He could feel a tingling sensation, moving slowly up his arm. Not the whole arm, just a tiny bit, like his arm was moving through a scanner at the airport, though you couldn’t feel those.
That was when his mum and his brother burst in. “Jake, get back!” shouted his mum, “It’s the invisible wall, it’s moving through the house!”
Jake realised that he could feel it on the front of his body now. It washed over his face. It must be a few feet in now, back from the fireplace. He wasn’t afraid, because there was nothing to be afraid of. “It’s all right,” he called. He took an experimental step forward and felt the sensation wash completely over and past him. “I’m through,” he said. “I’m on t’other side.”
His mum and brother looked at each other, not sure they could trust this. “Well, stay there,” said his mum.
“I’ll walk behind it,” said Jake. And began to do so as it crept forward. “It’s not hurting the house, then?”
“No,” said his brother, “it’s gone straight over the stones we put down in the road, but it’s messing up the grass on either side, so I dunno what the difference is.”
“I’m hearing that from all over,” said his mum, looking at her phone. “It’s the same, the houses are fine.”
“And I’m fine,” said Jake. “Maybe we should all just walk through while we can?” He heard another sound from the chimney and turned to look. A cloud of debris had started to drift into the room. “We’d better keep a record of all the damage. So we can get the insurance onto this.”
“You see if you can get through too,” said Mum to Nate.
Nate nodded and stepped gingerly forward. He reached out a finger toward the barrier.
“Come on, you great tosser,” said Jake. He grabbed Nate and hauled him through.
Nate screamed. That was all Jake was aware of in that second. A second later he was coughing, retching, stumbling, waving his arms blindly through a mass of burning debris that was all over him. He could hear his mother screaming too.
And as Jake slowly realised what had happened, he couldn’t help but begin to cry out with her, to cry out in horror and despair, a sound he’d never heard himself make before.
The disintegrating mass of charred meat that was falling apart around him had, a moment ago, been his brother.
* * *
Zoya didn’t like the way that the reverend was looking. Lizzie had stopped in the street and was staring at the messages she was getting on her phone. “Some people are getting through the wall and some . . . aren’t. Some . . . some really aren’t. Oh my God.”
Zoya looked over her shoulder and saw a photo she didn’t want Jas to see. “It’s sorting us. Into what? Is it an ethnic thing?”
“One of two brothers . . . one of them . . . he . . .”
“Keep it together, Reverend. We need you to—”
“Call me Lizzie. Why can’t you call me Lizzie?”
“It’s a sign of respect.”
“But you don’t feel that respect. You just think you should. And that’s not the sort of respect I want, and you’re obviously going to be someone important in all this and you were able to thump David Cummings. So. Call me Lizzie.”
She’d only looked at her for the last part of that. Zoya realised that here was someone who’d also had to deal with quite some shit. And who had a shitload more on her shoulders right now. And who had a vibe about her that said there was something going on with her that she was still keeping inside. “Sorry,” she said. “Call me Zoya.”
“Like the Sorting Hat,” said Jas.
“Yes, like that,” said Zoya, looking to her. She looked back to Lizzie. “Only more dangerous.”
“Well, the Sorting Hat was dangerous, sociologically—”
Luke loudly cleared his throat. “Is it time for that, do you reckon?”
Lizzie seemed to realise what she was saying and that her next words probably should be “in this essay I will” and visibly shut that shit down. “Sorry. Yes. It can’t be genetic if it’s one of two brothers. It must be something about the people. Something about their minds.”
* * *
Autumn was digging deep. Literally and metaphorically at the same time. She was working the spade down through top soil, then through packed, dense earth, then into hardened tree roots. She kept going, though she could feel the sound of crashing trees getting nearer and nearer.
How would she know when she’d gone deep enough? Oh God, she wouldn’t. The effect of the wall seemed physical. It couldn’t be heaving soil and bedrock along down there, but it was definitely shoving small plants along in front of it, disintegrating them too. So it was being somehow selective. Maybe interrogating living things like plants as it went and easing its way through soil and stone. Like the arrows through the walls had been selective about the kinds of materials they could pass through. God, she was finding technological similarities in what the fairies would call “magic.” Even if the laws of physics differed across the various lands next door to Lychford, she was still assuming that scientific principles, different versions of science, but still all based in rationality, applied throughout. That was what they’d found so far. Lizzie liked to say that Autumn had faith in the scientific method, but Autumn felt that if she encountered proof that this wasn’t the case, some completely mixed-up world where no laws at all applied, or they varied moment to moment . . . anyway, Autumn knew she’d change her opinion when she encountered the evidence. To believe in and reach for the beyond was Lizzie’s thing, and it suited her and was beautiful for her, an opinion of Autumn’s which she didn’t think Lizzie had ever quite believed she held. To ask the beyond some serious questions was Autumn’s thing.
She was still digging while she was thinking, and she realised she’d got distracted. The sound and the feeling were looming above her now. The wall was right beside the hole. She still had a moment in which she could scramble out and run.
No. She had to go for it. Or she’d just have to dig another hole. She was pretty sure this one was deep enough. Pretty sure.
She flung herself flat, then spun, to be face up, because if she was going to get squashed, she didn’t want it to happen arse-first. For some reason.
Then it was too late. She felt the great presence of the wall slide . . . oh God, it was touching her brow. She hadn’t dug down far enough. She frantically tried to push herself back down into the soil as she felt something like a solid edge start to push into her scalp. Before she knew it it was past her eyeline. Sitting up now wouldn’t be possible. And the back of her skull was flat against solid ground. But her nose was in the way of this thing. She couldn’t turn sideways. The wall was shoved down too tight against her scalp. She couldn’t help but reflexively try to scrabble and squeeze like a trapped animal to try to get out from under it, as it pushed hard at the bridge of her nose. There was a fizzing sense to it, an ozone hiss in her extra senses, as the wall seemed to make awful decisions about every particle of matter it encountered, and she was one of those particles, a small animal before this alien science that thought of itself as ancient and magical and important.
Oh God, the pressure was increasing. Was she going to lose her nose? She tried to get herself under control. Then she’d just have to take the pain. There wouldn’t be too much blood, would there? Were there major arteries there? She hoped this thing would push down her breasts or she could squeeze under it or something.
She realised, as the pressure continued, that actually . . . was it . . . inside her nose now?
Yeah. The fizzing was inside her nose. She really wanted to sneeze. She held it in.
It was passing through her nose, harmlessly. And what was this feeling that went with it, something she’d actually felt from a few feet away from the thing, but hadn’t interrogated at the time, the sensation that . . . it welcomed her? Approved of her, even? What the hell was that? A second later, it was out the other side of her nose. She panted with relief. She felt the wall slide past her chin and raised her head a little. She gritted her teeth and let it slide through her boobs, very much not appreciating the feeling of being judged at the molecular level, thank you, even if—no, especially if—the verdict were positive. Then she had the muscles of her shoulders free to work with and started slowly to pull herself back. And as it moved on, she could pull herself up, and finally out.
Autumn stood at the side of the hole she’d dug, gasping, on the other side of the wall. That thing had allowed her through. What was that about? She had no idea, and no time to interrogate the concepts. She looked back for only a moment more, then turned and started up the hill toward the land of fairy.