“Nowhere,” said Merlin quietly. “Somewhere. An in-between place. Vivien?”
It was cold, and becoming colder with every passing second. Susan shivered.
“Vivien!” Merlin spoke more urgently, his breath a cloud of white.
“We are atop a low hill, in the spring, when the air is neither warm nor cool,” said Vivien, gesturing with her hand, as if indicating a vista for them to gaze upon. “Under a crescent moon in a clear sky, so bright with stars we can see our way.”
Susan blinked. The sky had lit up with stars, and a slim sliver of moon hung there, and in the sudden light she could see they were indeed standing upon a low hill, of purple heather and fallen stones. But beyond the hill and the sky there was intense darkness, a total absence of light and detail.
The intense feeling of increasing cold disappeared. Their breath was invisible now, no longer frosty billows of white.
“The old road follows the ley, the old road shows us the way,” intoned Vivien, once again gesturing. Her silver hand was brighter now, as bright as the stars and moon, while Merlin’s had dimmed to a faint glow.
A road sprang up ahead of them down the hill and across the dark void. A straight, welcoming road, of dirt and not enough gravel and numerous potholes, with wildflowers growing on the grassy verges. But to either side of the road there was nothing but the dark.
“Susan, keep holding Merlin’s hand and stay close behind me,” said Vivien. She stepped onto the road and began to walk, holding her hand up in front, as if she needed to feel the way or might come upon some unseen obstruction.
Merlin’s right hand gripped Susan’s left. She was comforted by his touch. His skin was warm, hers still icy. But she did not move.
“Where are we going?” she asked quietly.
Apart from their voices and footsteps, there was no noise here at all.
“Silvermere,” said Merlin, his voice also low. “Where the Grail-Keeper resides. It can be reached through any body of water, but usually we pass through at the lake in the old quarry at Wooten, where Merrihew fishes for the ancient carp. The Greats open the way, and lead whoever’s going there. Viv and I have never done it by ourselves before.”
“How far . . . how long do we walk through wherever this is?” asked Susan. She tried to sound calm, but she wasn’t. There was something eerie and deeply troubling about the space around them, beyond the road.
“It varies,” said Merlin. Susan noticed his eyes kept flickering to either side, alert for something in that nothingness, beyond the narrow way.
“It won’t be long,” said Vivien, with confidence. She was only a few steps in front, but she didn’t pause or turn her head behind to talk. “Remember to keep walking along the road, no matter what.”
“Like the old straight track in Highgate Wood,” said Susan to Merlin. “Does that mean there’s something like the Shuck out there?”
“Not like the Shuck,” said Vivien, momentarily reassuring Susan before she continued. “But there are entities entirely unrooted from the world, who might seek to return by using us as vessels,” replied Vivien, her face set on the road ahead. “They cannot harm us if we keep to the way and do not respond to their beguilement.”
“Uh, okay,” said Susan. She sped up a bit, to keep closer to Vivien. The darkness beyond the road felt even more inimical now she knew there definitely were things in its dark reaches that might wish her harm.
“I need to tell you quite a lot,” said Vivien. “We might not be able to talk in Silvermere. I’m not sure what will happen there. Time moves strangely and it’s weird in other ways. When I’ve been before, some of the people I was with didn’t seem to be there at the same time, even though we went together. And some came back separately as well.”
“What do you mean?” asked Susan nervously. Her mind immediately leaped ahead to being left in this dark void alone. Would the sky be bright, and the road here, if it weren’t for Vivien and her shining right hand?
“The Grail-Keeper decides what occurs in Silvermere, who may come and go, and on what terms,” said Vivien. “Don’t worry, we’ll definitely get there and it is much easier leaving, the Grail-Keeper sorts that out. But we might not be able to all talk together and we might be separated coming back. So you need to know what I learned from Aunt Helen and Aunt Zoë; a great deal of information has finally come in, and even though I don’t know what it means yet, at least we’re finally getting to grips—”
“You got through, then?” interrupted Merlin. “Thurston and Merrihew didn’t commandeer the call?”
“Thurston cut in right at the end, in a total flap, ordering us to surrender to the nearest police station and wait for ‘older and wiser counsel,’” said Vivien. It was weird her speaking without looking back, thought Susan; it almost made her voice seem disembodied. “But I talked to Zoë and Helen first, and they have dropped everything to work on this. Susan, the library card was in the name of ‘Coniston comma Rex.’”
“Rex!” exclaimed Susan. “So my dad’s name is Rex?”
“Not exactly,” continued Vivien. “As soon as she saw that, Helen remembered where she’d seen the drawing on the cigarette case. It’s—look down!”
Susan obeyed. She had a split-second glimpse of a vast shadow blotting out the moon and stars, and two brilliant and strangely fascinating violet eyes before she refocused on the back of Vivien’s shoes. She kept looking at them. The shadow
