“Not a robot—a synthetic. Human in everything but name.”
I took a deep breath. I had to lay my cards on the table. “She’s missing, isn’t she?”
There was a flicker of consternation on Landen’s face. “Not at all. Her absences are quite long, admittedly, but we’re always in constant communication.”
“From the BookWorld?”
He laughed. “That old chestnut! It was never proved she could move across at will. I think you’ve perhaps spent a little too much time listening to deranged theories.”
It sounded like a cover story to keep the real nature of the BookWorld secret. I didn’t expect him to tell me anything. He didn’t know who or what I was, after all. But he had to know.
“I’m the written her,” I told him. “She may have spoken to you about me. I was the tree-hugging version in the Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco, who then took over from the evil Thursday who was deleted with Pepys. I run books one to five now—less along the lines of the old Thursday, but more how the real Thursday wanted them to be. Less sex and violence. It explains why we’re out of print.”
If I thought he would be surprised or shocked, however, I was mistaken. I guess when you’re married to Thursday, the nature of weird becomes somewhat relative. Landen smiled.
“That’s a novel approach. Mind you, there’s nothing you’ve told me that I couldn’t find out by rereading First Among Sequels. Goliath has access to that book, too, so if you were one of the synthetic Thursdays, I’d expect you to come up with something like that.”
“Commander Bradshaw of Jurisfiction sent me.”
He stared at me. The relevance wasn’t lost on him. Jurisfiction and Bradshaw were never mentioned in the books.
“I’m not yet convinced,” he said, giving nothing away, “but let’s suppose Thursday is missing—you want my help to find her?”
“If she’s missing, then you and I can help each other. I’ll be going home in less than twelve hours. Any information learned out here might be helpful.”
He took a deep breath. “She’s been gone four weeks, that much is common knowledge. Everyone wants to find her. It’s a national obsession. The Mole, The Toad, Goliath, SO-5, the police, the Cheese Squad, the government, the NSA—and now you claim the BookWorld, too.”
“Do you have any idea where she is?”
He poured the boiling water into the teapot.
“No. And the thing is,” he added, looking at the clock, “we need to resolve this one way or another pretty soon.”
“Because of the police and the NSA and whatnot?”
Landen laughed. “No, not them. The kids. Friday won’t get away from his shift at B&Q until six, but Tuesday will be home in two hours, and although my mind has been rendered as supple as custard when it comes to things Thursday, the kids are still at an impressionable age—besides, I don’t think the doors in the house will take much more slamming.”
And he smiled again, but it was sadder, and more uncertain.
“I understand.”
“Do you? Can you?”
“I think so.”
“Hmm,” he said, pondering carefully, “does anyone else know you’re here?”
“Cordelia Flakk’s the only one we need to worry about.”
“That’s bad,” he murmured. “Flakk’s the worst gossip in the city. I’ve a feeling you’ve less than forty minutes before the press starts to knock at the door, two hours before the police arrive with an arrest warrant and three hours before President van de Poste demands you hand over the plans.”
“What plans?”
“The secret plans.”
“I don’t have any secret plans.”
“I’d keep that to yourself.”
He poured out the tea and placed it in front of me. He was standing close to me, and I felt myself shiver within his proximity. I wanted to take him in my arms and hug him tightly and breathe in great lungfuls of Landen with my face buried in his collar. I’d dreamed of the moment for years. Instead I did nothing and cursed my restraint.
“Does Thursday know the president?”
“He often seeks her counsel. Thursday?”
“Yes?”
“How like her are you?”
I rolled up my sleeve to reveal a long scar on my forearm. “I don’t know how I got that one.”
“That was Tiger.”
“Was Tiger a tiger?”
“No, Tiger was a leopard. Your mother’s. Only Mrs. Next would name a leopard Tiger. May I?”
“Please do.”
He looked at my scalp where there was another scar, just above my hairline.
“That was Norman Johnson at the close of the 1989 Super-Hoop,” I said. “Something Rotten, page 351.
He went and sat at the other end of the table and stared at me for a while.
“You even smell like her,” he said, “and rub your forehead in the same way when you’re thinking. I have a lot of respect for Goliath, but they never got synthetics this good.”
“So you believe I’m the written one?”
“There’s another possible explanation.”
“Who would I be if not Goliath or the written one?”
He looked at me for a long time, an expression of concern on his face. I understood what he was trying to say.
“You think I might be Thursday, but suffering some sort of weird delusion?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“I’ve spent my entire life in books,” I explained. “I’m really only five years old. I can remember popping out of the character press as plain old D8-V-67987, and my first day at St. Tabularasa’s. I did well, so I was streamed into the First-Person fast-track program. Long story short, I look after the Thursday books one to five but also work for JAID—that’s the Jurisfiction Accident Investigation Department. I can tell you about Sprockett and Carmine, and how Lorina/Pickwick doesn’t approve of her bringing goblins home and likes to bore us stupid by quoting Latin mottos, and the new book that arrived in the neighborhood. And there’s Bradshaw, and the metaphor shortage, and Jobsworth wanting me to go up-country to help deal with Speedy Muffler in the peace talks on Friday. That’s me. I’m not Thursday. I’m nothing like her. Show me a frightening situation and I’ll run a mile. Square will vouch for me.”
And I called his name, but there was no answer.
“Right,” I said, wondering where he’d gone. “That makes me look stupid.”
We both fell silent, and Landen stared at me for a long time once more. I saw his eyes moisten, and mine spontaneously did the same.
“I so want to be her,” I sniffed as my eyes blurred with tears. “But I’m not.”
Before I knew it, I had discovered what crying actually means when you do it for real. He gave me his handkerchief and hugged me, and I responded by wrapping my arms around his neck. It felt wonderful. Natural—like two parts in a jigsaw. When I had calmed down, he gently took my hands from around him and held them in his, gazing into my eyes.
“Here’s the thing,” he said at last. “If you’re not the real Thursday, we must come clean to the kids and explain that you’re not. I can’t have them being disappointed again. But if you are the real Thursday, you must stay so we can look after you. It’s possible that you just think you’re not Thursday. All that stuff about the BookWorld—it could be Aornis up to her tricks again.”
“Aornis, sister of Acheron?”
He raised an eyebrow. “How many children do Thursday and I have?” he asked.
“Two.”
“That’s in your favor as the written Thursday. Aornis gave the real Thursday a mindworm so she thought she had a third child—another daughter—and Thursday was always worrying about her. We helped her by pretending there was, and occasionally, in lucid moments, she would realize what was going on. Then she’d forget and was worrying about her missing daughter again.”
I tried to imagine what it might be like having a child who was a figment but could not. If Aornis was
anything like the written Acheron, she was pretty unpleasant. Still, I was kind of glad I didn’t know about the extra daughter. I had an idea.
“T minus pumpkin in ten hours,” I said, consulting my watch. “If you see me vanish in front of your eyes will you believe I’m from the BookWorld?”
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll believe you. But if you don’t vanish, will you believe that you might be Thursday except . . . well, nuts?”
“I could be the missing Goliath synthetic Thursday,” I said, “with a well-researched cover story.”
Landen smiled. “Being married to you has never been boring.”
I was pondering over the consequences of being either mad or synthetic when Thursday’s mother arrived.
“Thursday!” she squealed, having let herself in. “You naughty girl! Where have you been?”
The real version of my mother was quite different from the written one. The real one was a lot older—at least seventy, by my guess, but didn’t seem to have lost any of her youthful vigor. She was a little gray, a little hunched and a little odd.
“Here for long?” she asked.
“Only until midnight,” I managed to mutter.
“Shame!” she said, then turned to Landen. “Is this one of the synthetics?”
“The jury’s still out.”
Mrs. Next walked up close and peered at me through her spectacles, as one might regard a stubborn stain on the carpet.
“It’s very lifelike. Does she have the scars?”
Landen nodded.
“I know how to check,” she said, and cut me a slice of Battenberg cake. “Here,” she said, and handed it over. “Your favorite.”
I took a large bite, and even though it had some paste inside that was almost indescribably nasty, I smiled politely and tried to eat it as quickly as I could.
“Very nice,” I managed to say.
“Hmm,” said Mrs. Next, “that doesn’t sound like her at all. Thursday hates marzipan.”
“Is that what it was?” I said, running to the sink to spit it out. I knew I didn’t like it, I just didn’t know what it was. I had thought Marzipan was the name of a boy band.
“Hmm,” said my mother, “this doesn’t really help. Hating it does make her Thursday, but pretending to like it to spare my feelings definitely does not make her Thursday.”
“It’s a tricky one,” agreed Landen.
They eyed me for a long time as they tried to figure out what to do and how best to tell if I was the real one or the written one. Nothing I could say would convince them of either alternative, and the only way to truly know—if I vanished at pumpkin hour—was a bit pointless, since by then I would no longer be around for them to answer any questions I might have, which was a bit like devising a 100 percent destructive test for counterfeit tenners.
The doorbell rang.
“That will be the first of your fan club,” said Landen, and he went off to answer it.
“So,” said Mrs. Next, “loopy, fictional or synthetic. Which would you prefer?”
“Loopy, I guess,” I said sadly.
“Me, too. But the shitstorm that will be unleashed when you get back is not something I’d like anyone to face. President van de Poste won’t be able to make his Anti-smite Shield without you and the secret plans, and as a key witness in the Stiltonista cheese-smuggling trial, you’ll need round-the-clock protection. And that’s before we get into the fun Goliath has in store for you.”
“She made a few enemies, right?”
“Only a few thousand. Start causing trouble amongst the criminal fraternity and no end of unfair retribution starts coming your way. Would you excuse me? I must avail myself of the facilities. The bad plumbing needs to meet the bad plumbing, so to speak.”
And she tottered off in the direction of the downstairs loo.
I sat there for a moment unsure of what to think or do. I called out to Square but to no avail, then heard a noise. I looked up and noticed that the broom-cupboard door was ajar. Looking at me through the crack were two bright eyes. The door opened a little farther, and a small girl aged about eight stepped out. She was like the spirits I had seen around the place—that is to say, mildly transparent. I could see the bottle of Brasso on the shelf directly behind her.
“You’re the last person I want to see,” I said as my heart fell.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” said the girl.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re the mindworm.”
“I prefer Jenny,” said Jenny indignantly. “Who are you?”
“If I can see you, I guess I’m the real Thursday—just insane. Still, at least this way I don’t have to worry about Carmine and the goblin anymore.”
“You’re not insane,” said Jenny, “and you’re not Thursday either.”
“I could be making you up,” I remarked, “and making up your denial, too.”
She shook her head.
“Creating figments like me takes a serious amount of effort, and you’re not that good.”
“Thanks. Insulted by someone’s else’s delusion.”
“Jenny.”
“Jenny, then. So how can I see you?”
“You’re not seeing just me, are you?”
“No,” I said, “there are others. Lots of them.”
“Then you see what I mean. What does Landen think you are?”
I shrugged. “The real Thursday mad, I think.”
“Don’t upset him,” said Jenny. “Thursday wouldn’t like it.”
“Thursday could be dead.”
“I know for a fact that she isn’t.”
“How?”
But at that moment Landen came pacing down the corridor, and Jenny jumped back into the broom cupboard.
“That was your old buddy Lydia Startright, wanting to get an exclusive before the network vans turn up. I told her you weren’t here and I had no idea where you were.”
“Did she believe you?”
“She’s an excellent journalist—of course not.”
We sat in silence for some moments. I didn’t think I would tell him I’d just seen Jenny, but the seeds of doubt had been sown. I could be the real Thursday. And even though the ramifications of being someone suffering bizarre delusions were not good news, the possibility that I would be with the man I loved was some consolation.
“Ask me some questions,” I said finally. “I want to convince myself I’m not her.”
“What’s my middle name?” he asked.
“Is it . . . Whitby?”
“Not even close. Where was our first date?”
“At the Alhambra. The Richard III thing.”
“No, that was later. Where did I lose my leg?”
“You’ve lost a leg?”
Mrs. Next came back into the room. “You never told me you’d bought a gold-plated toilet.”
Landen frowned. “We don’t have a gold-plated toilet.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Next. “I think I’ve just peed in your tuba.”
She then muttered something about “the shocking price of dodo feed” and went out without saying good-bye to either of us.
“Daft as a brush,” said Landen, “and just a teeny-weeny bit repulsive.”
“Plock.”
I turned. A dodo stood at the open door. It was nothing like the Pickwick/Lorina back home. This dodo was old. Her beak was worn and scaly, she had no feathers, and her left foot had a tremor. She was dressed in an all-over body warmer made of fleecy material and was regarding me curiously.
“Pickwick?”
“Plock?” said the dodo, cocking her head to one side. She walked unsteadily up to me and looked very closely at me for a long time.
“Plock, plock,” she said, and rubbed her beak affectionately on my trouser leg before walking over to her water dish.
“Pickwick thinks you’re real.”
“Pickwick has a brain the size of a petit pois.”
“True.”
The doorbell went again. r />
“That will be the Toad News Network.”
As soon as he had gone, the broom-cupboard door opened again.
“Has he gone?” asked Jenny.
I nodded.
“Right, then. I’ll show you what I mean about Thursday not being dead. Come with me.”
22.
Jenny
Places to Eat #15: Bar Humbug, 68 Christmas Carol. Very cheap food served in an authentically austere and utterly miserable Dickensian atmosphere. Waifs wait at tables, and portions are notoriously small. People with silly names particularly welcome, and those with an archaic job title (beadle, proctor, sexton, etc.) can eat for free.
Bradshaw’s BookWorld Companion (5th edition)
Jenny opened the back door and checked to make sure the coast was clear.
“Why do you do that?” I asked. “Check that no one’s coming? Only I can see you, right?”
Jenny looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “When you’re illusory like me,” she said, with great clarity, “it pays to keep an eye out for imaginary foes.”
She checked again and beckoned me out. I followed her down to the end of the garden and opened the door that led into the garage behind. I knew that my car would be kept here, but Thursday’s figment had no time to waste and hurriedly led me down the rear access road until we came back out onto the same street. Landen had been correct. Parked outside the house was a large Toad News Network van, complete with transmitter dish ready for bouncing a live feed to a handy airship.
“Landen will be surprised to find me not there.”
“Nothing could surprise Landen. This way.”
“Miss Next?” asked a man who had just gotten out of a car opposite. “May I have a word?”
I looked around, but Jenny seemed to have vanished. “I suppose so.”
“I just heard about your return. I’m a huge fan of your work. Adrian Vole of the Wapcaplit and Vole Advertising Agency. We understand you travel in Fiction, and we were wondering if you wanted to do a bit of product placement around the written world.”
“I hardly think that’s appropriate, do you?” I said, adding quickly, “Even if there is a BookWorld, which is by no means proven.”
“Thirty grand to plug the Toast Marketing Board in the Thursday Next series. You can introduce it how you want.”