LUCY SWUNG THE DOOR into the unlit lobby, unveiling a house that felt as if it had never been lived in.
Apart from the colours – drained by whatever negative force in this world saps their vibrancy, plus everything being mirrored to the way she was familiar – all that Lucy’s eye fell upon looked recognisably the same.
She placed a tentative foot inside the door, then turned to face the others. ‘Come in,’ she sang, inviting them to follow, briefly forgetting this wasn’t actually where she lived.
They all slowly wandered in through the door and looked around. The house seemed to be furnished, but somehow, it felt more like a show home than anything lived in, a sense that the chairs had never been sat on, the tables ungraced by an elbow or knee. The floors having never, until that moment, been laden with so much as a single footstep.
‘Sam,’ Lucy called, ‘this furniture. I recognise this furniture?’
‘So do I,’ he replied, trying to place at what point in his past the memory lay.
Lucy’s face suddenly lit up. ‘This is the furniture that was in the gatehouse when we first moved in,’ she recalled, ‘it had been in there for decades. Remember?’ She strained to resolve her faded memories. ‘We ended up moving it all out, and storing it in the stables. Do you remember?’
‘That’s right,’ he agreed, ‘me and Dad helped.’
He walked across the living room to the window. ‘Hang on. This sofa, I remember this sofa. It was broken.’ He inspected it. ‘Do you remember? Dad ended up smashing it into firewood.’ He leaned a leg against it, and gave it a healthy shove. ‘There, look, this one’s coming apart in the exact same place.’ He showed her, it jerked her memory.
‘Yeeeees, you’re right. I do remember.’ She turned and looked Sam hard in the face. ‘What is going on here? What the fuck is this place? How can it exist like this?’
Sam ambled about the room, working his mind. He lifted a heavily tarnished candlestick off a side table and turned it over. The base was stamped, but all the letters were back to front. But he could make out one of the words – ‘Silver’.
He looked across to Lucy. ‘I think, at some point in the past, someone, somehow, managed to create a sort of parallel world, an exact copy of our one.’ He knitted his thoughts some more. ‘Or maybe, they just created a passage to a parallel world that already existed?’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, I don’t really have an answer, but I’m almost certain it has to be something like that.’
He peered about the room. ‘Look. Look at all this furniture, it’s all really old. I reckon it is the furniture that remained in the gatehouse when your family took over Hobswyke, it must’ve been left over from when that guy owned it before. That French guy. The weirdo who did witchcraft.’
‘Mallette,’ Lucy murmured, turning her face to the wall.
‘Yes, Mallette, him.’ Sam paced the room some more… ‘I think Mallette must have created this place, for whatever reason. But whatever the reason, it’s not going to be for anything good, we know that much.’
Lucy was wiping a thick layer of dust from a mirror on the wall above the fireplace, revealing her face looking back at her. She smiled into the reflection.
Sam looked through one of the heavily streaked windows, out over the decay and neglect outside. It seemed to be getting darker by the minute.
He turned his attention back into the room. ‘But this isn’t an entire parallel universe, it’s just a small piece, a fragment that exists alone, but why?’
Lucy was still staring at herself, playing her fingers through her hair, then wiping a hand across the contours of her face. ‘Do you think I’m beautiful?’ she asked in a faraway voice.
Sam had to take a moment to consider the question, being at such a disconnect from the current conversation. ‘What?!’ he murmured.
‘Am I beautiful?’ she repeated, gazing deep into the mirror. ‘I am, aren’t I? You think so, you think I’m beautiful.’
‘What the fuck has that got to do with anything?’ he barked. But she didn’t hear him, too engrossed in her own visage. ‘Hey! Are you listening to me? You bloody moron! Are you going to answer me or what?!’ he spat.
Lucy heard nothing, just rolled her face, eyes fixated on herself.
‘Will you get your face out of that damn mirror!’ he shouted, gnashing his jaw. ‘I’m talking to you, you fucking idiot! Get your face out of that bastard mirror before I-I…!’ He stopped himself, staggering back out of a billowing cloud of rage, straining to rein himself in… But he had to fight to subdue an anger that was building up inside him.
He’d never spoken to anyone that way before, especially Lucy. He could feel himself changing inside, morphing into someone he wasn’t.
He sensed his inner rage closer to the fore than he had ever felt it, bubbling just beneath the surface, ready to erupt. ‘We have to get out of here,’ he said, ‘Lucy, we need to leave, this place is changing me.’
‘Hmmm?’ Lucy responded, distant eyes still admiring her reflection.
Sam strode to the mirror. He could feel the anger trying to break free again. He fought to push it back. ‘Lucy, please,’ he insisted, taking her arm and turning her from the wall. ‘We have to leave. Now!’
He suddenly shied away from her, startled. Lucy’s eyes had changed.
She smiled an empty smile, peering through his shocked expression with distant eyes glowing vibrant orange. ‘Okaaay…’ she agreed, in a voice rapidly detaching from reality, slowly rolling her face back towards the mirror.
Sam grasped her by the arm, and dragged her toward the door.
He called to Jill and Jack. They appeared at the top of the staircase. ‘Come on, we have to go,’ he insisted. They looked at each other, then trotted down the stairs.
Sam strode with conviction towards the big house, towing Lucy by her arm. The children had to run to keep up.
He was aware of the rage brewing, he could feel it swelling inside him, inflating, unsure how long he could contain it.
‘Do I look young, Sam?’ Lucy asked. ‘People say I do. Do you have a mirror I can use? I need to see.’ Lucy was acting as if she was unaware of anything else that was happening around her.
They reached the clearing that led to the steps. Sam knelt before Jill and Jack. They looked confused at the changes they were seeing in their new friends’ emotions. ‘Listen, we can’t just leave you here, we’re going to take you across with us to our world.’
Sam had to strain briefly to force back the anger swelling in his gut. He took a breath… ‘We can’t stay here any longer, we have to go now, but you’re coming with us.’ He looked up at the house. ‘I don’t know what, or-or who it is you’re afraid of, but I’m going to get you away from here, okay?’
The children agreed.
‘Come on,’ instructed Sam.
They all ran across the gravel towards the steps, Jack and Jill darting concerned eyes up to all of the windows overlooking the clearing.
They reached the staircase. Sam straddled the railing, helping Lucy over to the side of the pool. ‘Lucy, go. I’ll deal with the kids. Just go, and be careful.’
She started across the stone carvings, carefully placing her feet as before. She began to swing over towards the midnight sheen of the waiting pool.
‘Come on,’ urged Sam, taking hold of Jack who’d been watching Lucy’s path down the wall with astonishment.
Sam tried lifting him over the handrail, but he struggled. He adjusted his grip and tried again, but it was as if someone was holding him back.
He looked to see if Jack’s clothes were caught on the ironwork, but there was nothing obvious snagging him. He tried lifting him again, but it felt like an invisible hand was holding him fast, some force unseen.
Jill suddenly screamed, sinking to the ground, her eyes fixed towards the house.
A tall, dark figure loomed behind one of the top-floor windows, its drawn, emaciated face pressed up against the glass, watching them.
It raised skeletal arms and placed its bony hands flat against the pane… It screeched a piercing scream spiked with more rage than Sam has ever witnessed in his life.
The thing turned from the window and vanished into the murk.
They could hear it crashing through the house, thundering along the corridors and down the staircases.
The air filled with echoes of smashing wood and shattering glass. Livid shrieks of unbridled anger erupting from the walls.
‘Quick, come on!’ cried Sam, trying to pull Jack over the handrail, his shaking grip tugging in vain, but he was unable to overcome whatever force was holding the child back.
‘Go. Just go!’ shrieked Jill. ‘We’ll go to that place, the one we just came from, Him won’t find us there. But please, just go, you have to go now!’
They both sprinted towards the trees, darting petrified looks back towards the hall.
The large double doors crashed open. The tall, dark figure stood looking at Sam, seething… The Thing was long and gangly like an insect, with thin, taught muscles stretched tight across its bones like cables, knotting at the sight of the intruder to its world.
It began striding towards him, its ferocity boiling, and gradually broke into a sprint, its twisted limbs cascading towards the pool.
Sam turned to run down the wall, but Lucy was still there – hanging above the surface – gazing at her reflection. ‘Lucy! Go! We have to leave now!’ he yelled. He shook her frantically to snap her out of her trance. ‘Goooo…! For fuck’s sake, go!’ he screeched at the back of her head. She finally heard him and dropped away into the fluid.
The twisted figure’s spidery legs clattered down the staircase, a deep hollow wail gusting from its gaping mouth.
Sam could hear its breath above him. He sensed an arm reaching down to catch him!
He stumbled down the wall, stepped to the surface, and dropped his head beneath the onyx sheen, black tides lapping across his back, and with a final determined stride, he was through!