By this time she was standing right beside me, looking out. She made a shocked, disgusted sound. I nodded.
“Nasty, aren’t they? And dangerous with it. We can’t risk their getting through the Merlin Glass.”
“Are you suggesting we shut the Glass now?” said Molly. “You are, aren’t you? You’re prepared to sacrifice both our lives to save a bunch of nobodies. Because they’re innocents.”
“It’s the job,” I said.
“That’s why I love you,” said Molly. “Because you’re the one true thing in my life.”
“No,” I said. “Together we’re one true thing. Hold everything.”
“What now?” said Molly.
“I mean, hold on; I have an idea.”
“I love it!” Molly said immediately. “It’s a wonderful idea and I want to have its babies. What is it?”
“If we can’t go to the Merlin Glass, we’ll bring the Glass to us.”
I concentrated, reaching out to the Glass through my armour. And the Glass surged forward and enveloped Molly and me in the doorway I’d opened; and then we were standing on the grassy hill outside town. Through the doorway I could see horrible things charging into the Hall, and I slammed the Glass shut in their awful faces. And finally it was over.
I shook the Merlin Glass down to normal size and put it away, and armoured down. A gusting breeze swept past me, smelling of grass and earth and flowers. I’d never smelt anything so deliciously normal. I sat down suddenly as the last of my strength went out of me. I hadn’t realised I’d been running on adrenaline for so long. Molly sat down beside me and cuddled up against me.
We were sitting on top of a pretty steep hill, looking down at the great dark circle where Little Stoke used to be. The rescued survivors were sitting or standing in small groups on the hillside below us, talking animatedly about what they’d been through. Several were lying on their backs on the grass, staring up at the perfectly normal sky with ecstatic faces. Happy to be in a world that made sense again. The vicar sat not far away from us, running his hands through the thick, tufty grass as though he’d never seen anything so wonderful.
And as Molly and I looked down the hillside at the dark circle, it suddenly began to shrink. It fell in upon itself, the sides rushing in faster and faster, until finally the whole thing collapsed and disappeared. The town was back, or at least the buildings were, looking for the most part untouched and untransformed. Made me wonder how much of what we’d experienced inside the town had been “real” in any sense.
“Such a bad place had to be inherently unstable,” said Molly. “It was always going to collapse in on itself, eventually. That was probably what the conspiracy intended all along. Leave nothing behind to show what they’d done. Only the Arimathea stone prevented that from happening: the one true thing in all that chaos. Once we removed that . . .”
“Excuse me,” said the vicar, moving diffidently forward to join us. “But can you tell me what just happened?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to excommunicate you. All details are classified. National security. You know how it is.”
“Ah,” said the vicar. “Yes . . .”
He turned away to round up the survivors and lead them off. Though hopefully not straight down into the returned town buildings. I wanted my family to check the place over thoroughly before we let people back in. No telling how much psychic contamination remained. . . . The survivors made it clear to the vicar that they weren’t ready to be moved yet. They were talking excitedly among themselves. Already the worst of their memories were fading. The untrained human mind isn’t equipped to deal with such things. Soon enough they’d be arguing over what they’d seen, or thought they’d seen, or experienced. In the end . . . all they’d be left with were some bad dreams.
Hopefully.
“They’re going to talk, some of them,” said Molly. “I would.”
“Let them,” I said. “See who believes them. With the dark circle gone and the buildings returned, they have no proof, no evidence. The rest of the townspeople are still missing . . . but the usual authorities will never find them.”
“You think they’re dead, don’t you?” said Molly.
“It seems likely,” I said. “The family will do everything it can to find them, but . . . the conspiracy is too far ahead of us. By the time we catch up . . . it’ll be too late for the poor people of Little Stoke.”
“What if the survivors go to the media?” said Molly.
“Let them,” I said. “It is, after all, a very cynical and disbelieving world. They might get a briefly bestselling paperback out of it, maybe a television movie, but that’s it. The best we can do for them . . . is make sure this never happens again. Ethel? Can you hear me now?”
“Of course,” her voice said, right in my ear. “I’m receiving all kinds of fascinating recorded information from your torc. Come home now, Eddie, Molly. You need some rest, both of you.”
“Rest,” I said. “That does sound good.”
“Time for bed,” said Molly.
“She said rest.”
“Eventually,” said Molly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Getting Down with the Damned
There’s a lot to be said for saying to hell with it all and hiding in your bedroom until everything’s calmed down again. Molly and I stepped through the Merlin Glass directly into my room at Drood Hall. Partly because we were both exhausted and running on fumes, but mostly because neither of us was T in the mood to make a formal report to the Drood Council. I barely had time to shut down the Glass and put it away before Molly was sprawled on her back on my bed, stretching luxuriously as she sank slowly into the deep goose-feather mattress. I dropped down beside her, groaning out loud as my muscles were finally able to relax. We lay there side by side for a long time, snuggled together, enjoying the luxury of not having to worry about anything for a while. It felt good to be back in my own room, among familiar things, with no more duties or responsibilities.
“I like it here,” said Molly, after a while.
“Really?” I said, after another while. “I thought you preferred your own private woods.”
“It’s nice there, too,” said Molly. “But mostly . . . I like it wherever you are.” She turned her head on the pillow to look at me. “Are you sure someone from your family isn’t going to come charging in here, demanding we make a full report on everything that happened inside the dark circle?”
“Ethel will have told them that I’m back,” I said calmly. “But she’ll also have told them that I am more than ready to punch out anyone who pesters me, and then Riverdance on their head. And no one would even think of barging into another Drood’s room. It isn’t done. When you’ve got this many people all living together under one roof, privacy is nonnegotiable. They wouldn’t even knock unless there was a major emergency. We’re safe. Anyway, Ethel has all the readings and information my armour picked up and stored in my torc. She’ll have passed that on to the Armourer.”
“I didn’t know your armour could do that,” said Molly.
“The old armour couldn’t,” I said. “This new strange-matter armour is far more sophisticated. We’re still learning all the things it can do. The Armourer keeps bugging Ethel for an operator’s manual, but she says it’s important we learn these things for ourselves. Enough about my family, sweetie. Let them take care of the world for a while, while we take care of each other.”
Molly smiled. “Help me with this zipper, would you?”
Quite a while later, Molly and I were drowsing quietly, lying naked on top of the sheets, entwined in each other’s arms and legs, when Isabella Metcalf appeared very suddenly out of nowhere to stand at the foot of the bed. I was half-asleep, and half-convinced I was dreaming, until Molly sat up abruptly and said something very rude.
