In the wake of another roar of thunder, I hear Ross’s shout. I don’t look out the window as I run for the cupboard, lift up its latch, drag the stool over, climb up inside. The lights flicker, and I turn on my phone’s torch, close the cupboard door behind me. The light throws deep shadows; they advance and retreat as I reach up to slide back the two heavy bolts. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can’t stop it, I don’t even want to. For just once I have to trust myself. I open the door to Mirrorland, step down onto the wooden staircase. Freeze when I hear another bell, twice and short. Ross is in the kitchen. He shouts again, closer this time. A jangling, nervy bell. A moment’s silence, and then another. Both muffled, but still my old muscle memory wins out. Drawing Room. Dining Room. He’s running out of places to look.
I close the door, but that’s all I can do. Ross knows it’s here. And he knows that just like the cupboard door, there are no locks on its inside, nothing to wedge up against it. Vertigo has me groping for a hand that isn’t there, and I stop, breathe through it. I move into the dark, stepping down onto the next step and the next, and all I let myself think of is Ross swinging up through the skylight in the washhouse roof like a chimpanzee. Escaping into the day. I whisper the words I thought in this very place eleven days ago. I’m no longer a child. This time, I won’t be too afraid of climbing, of falling.
The rucksacks were too bulky. They dragged and scraped against the staircase walls. El’s hand held mine, too tight, too hot, our torchlight dancing angry spikes. Grandpa roared above us. Mum’s protests soon turned into screams. And when an almighty crash shook the walls, El pulled me down faster. Come on, come on. Quick.
A high, polite tinkle like an old-fashioned clothes shop door. The Pantry. It has to be – the only bell I’ve never heard, not once. Because Grandpa never came into the pantry. He thought it was a narrow, cold schoolroom. Up until that last night, he didn’t even know Mirrorland existed; didn’t know there was a way into the washhouse that wasn’t padlocked or chained. I look up and over my shoulder, but only for a second – the darkness is too thick and the steps too steep. And Ross will be behind me soon enough anyway.
CHAPTER 27
I reach the bottom of the steps, and flail around for the bulb’s dangling cord, pull down hard when I find it. This time, the light is neither immediate nor strong. It flickers, browns, settles on a muted butter glow.
When El pulled down on that same cord, flooding Mirrorland in cold silver, I dropped my rucksack, cringed from an overhead bang loud enough to vibrate the wooden rafters. What do we do now? And I hardly cared that it was the wail of a child, or that El thought so too, pushing me towards the border between the Shank and the Satisfaction. What Mum said. Come on!
Now I run along the alleyway to the washhouse, wrench open its door, shine my light up towards the ribs of its roof, searching for the skylight. All I can see are deep-braced shadows and old cobwebs.
Please, please.
I see it. Not a skylight. But a square of pale new wood. It’s gone. The skylight is gone.
I whirl my light around the icy space. It stutters over that stern lantern and its hook screwed into the eastern wall. It’s not the same lantern, of course. I know that now. The lantern that caved in Grandpa’s skull must be sitting in an evidence locker somewhere. But just like the lantern under the Clown Café bed, it frightens me. Reminds me that I’m not okay. I’m not safe.
I run back into the alleyway; my light stalls this time over the bricked-up wall at its end. I’m trapped. I feel sick and afraid. My head pounds and my stomach twists with poison. I suppose I expected to know what to do once I got here. Perhaps I expected Mirrorland to tell me. Instead, it’s more of a prison now than it ever was.
I stumble into the wide three-wheeled pram as I fight off another wave of dizziness. My light catches the white faded label in the corner of its cover in the instant that I remember it. Silver Cross.
My fingers are unsteady as I pull back the hood. Lying across a mouldy pillow is a blank postcard with a tack hole in its corner. I pick it up, turn it over. Recognise Ross’s handwriting. And then the butter-yellow light goes dark with that familiar metallic thud. And he bangs through the entrance to Mirrorland.
He comes down fast, too fast for me to do anything but hide. I hunker against the wall beneath the staircase, wince against the thunder of his boots as he shouts my name. He sees me straightaway, although I can’t see him. His face is obscured by a hurricane lantern. In place of a candle stub, a kerosene flame dances and splutters.
‘What the hell are you doing down here?’ His voice sounds normal, bemused.
