“You do like the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” said Gayle. “I’ve never met a man that didn’t. I could warn you till I’m blue in the face, and you still wouldn’t hear a damn thing you didn’t want to. Listen to me, Toby; please. You don’t matter to me, except for the danger you represent. I don’t love you. I never will. But no, you’re right. I can’t make you forget. It would be the safest, sanest thing to do, but there’s no arguing with a man who thinks he’s in love. Just remember, when everything’s gone to shit and I’ve had to abandon you to die horribly for the sake of both worlds, I did offer.”
“Why offer, if you don’t care for me?”
“Because I am more than I seem. I have responsibilities. Even to complete idiots who won’t be told what’s best for them.”
“It’s more than that,” said Toby remorselessly. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“All right!” Gayle threw her hands up in the air. “I collect strays. It’s a weakness of mine. But in the end you mean no more to me than some sad old torn with fleas and a chewed-up ear. You’ve got about as much sense. Why risk your life, your security, to be a focal point, when you’re incapable of understanding what that means, and what it’s worth, if anything? There’s no guarantee that anything good will come of this, especially for you.”
“You’re cute when you’re angry,” said Toby. “Don’t hit me! Look; don’t think this is entirely about you. I’ve never been important before. Just once, I need to feel that I’m worth something, that what I do matters. That’s worth dying for. Hell; that’s worth living for.”
“Let me ask you a serious question,” said Gayle. “What value do you think one ordinary man can have in a magical world? What can one mortal man bring to the affairs of immortals?”
“Beats me,” said Toby. “Maybe whoever chose me to be a focal point knows the answer. Or maybe we’re supposed to work it out for ourselves.”
Gayle sighed heavily, and looked down into her empty teacup for a long time. Toby let her. It meant he could adore her beauty uninterrupted, while at the same time concentrate on ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach. He felt more and more that he had just jumped in at the deep end in lead-lined boots, and that someone had thrown a shark in after him. For all his brave words, he wasn’t at all sure he was doing the right thing. The thought that there were people, and perhaps things not at all people, who would cheerfully kill him just for existing, scared the crap out of him. Part of him wanted to go straight home, hide under the bed and not come out until it was all safely over. But he’d meant what he said. Gayle mattered more to him than his own safety, and perhaps even his life. Love could be a hard old bitch, sometimes.
Love was supposed to come to you when you were a teenager, when both of you were already half crazy anyway, driven out of your heads by raging hormones and ready to do six irresponsible things before breakfast. When you had your best years still ahead of you, and lots of time to learn from your mistakes. It shouldn’t barge its way into your life when you’re well into your thirties, and used to the idea that you’re always going to be alone. But this, all of it, was what he’d dreamed of, prayed for, wanted so desperately for so many years: his dreams come true. So; suck it in, square your shoulders, take a deep breath and get on with it. Because anything was better than going back to his old, nothing, nowhere life.
And if he had to fall hard for someone, he was just glad it was someone as beautiful and special as Gayle. It would be nice if she cared something for him, just a little bit. But then, you couldn’t have everything.
“Tell me,” Gayle said suddenly, fixing him with her gorgeous eyes so that his heart jumped in his chest again. “Have you ever had any kind of supernatural experience before? Seen anything strange, encountered anything you couldn’t explain in safe, rational terms?”
“You mean before today?”
“Of course before today.”
Toby thought hard. All kinds of people came into Gandalf’s bookshop, looking for all kinds of books, some of them so esoteric they had to be ordered specially from foreign publishers. Some of the stranger tomes even came with little locks and keys. Toby had always been willing to listen while these people talked, but he’d never taken any of it particularly seriously. In all his life he’d never once seen a ghost, or had a strange feeling in an old building. He’d never seen a UFO or a black helicopter, or one of those big feral cats that were supposed to roam the countryside. He’d never got a message on a Ouija board, never experienced déjá vu, and never once been abducted by little grey aliens keen to play amateur proctologist—even though there was practically an epidemic of those, according to what he read in the papers. No: for Toby the world had always been a simple, sane and boringly normal place.
Until now.
Since it obviously meant so much to Gayle, he tried hard to think of something to say. There had been that time in Sally in the Wood, that long, winding road leading down a steep hill through the great swathe of ancient forest on the Wiltshire and Somerset border. The area had long been said to be haunted by the ghost of an old gypsy woman called Sally. There was one particular sharp curve on the hill, where cars and lorries were always shooting out over the edge and into the long drop, despite all the warning signs, crash barriers and its infamous reputation. An accident black spot, said some. Sally, said others, usually in a hushed voice, as though Someone might be listening.
And once, just once, coming back from a party in Bath in the early hours, in the back of someone’s car, Toby could have sworn he saw … something, standing in the trees at the side of the road, in the woods, a tall dark shadow with eyes brighter than any eyes had a right to be. Toby was drunk, and by the time he had roused himself to say something, the car had swept past the corner and left it behind and the shape, or the shadow, or whatever it had been, was gone.
Toby related all this to Gayle, and looked at her hopefully, but she was already shaking her head. “It’s hardly the Blair Witch Project, is it? Much more likely you saw a deer. There are still a few running wild around there, mostly because they’ve learned to stay out of the road when there are cars around.” She sighed again and shook her head. Toby was getting really tired of that sigh. She looked him straight in the eye and her expression softened. “I know this is hard for you, Toby, thrown in the deep end without warning, but you can’t get away with just treading water. There are bad things in the water with you. There are forces and influences in the magical world, and it’s best to tread softly so as not to wake them. Especially in Bradford-on-Avon, a town with far too much past for its own good. I think we’d better start our grand tour right now, while the Waking Beauty is the only one that’s noticed you. in fact, I think we’ll start with her. Maybe she can talk some sense into you.”
She frowned suddenly, and her gaze turned inwards. “I’d been planning to make the rounds soon, anyway. There have been strange currents and dark undertows in the ether just recently. Maybe you’re the disturbance everyone has been sensing … Damn! Everything’s such a mess! Why did I give in to such a stupid impulse, to open a door between the worlds just to get out of the rain? What was I thinking of? And how the hell did I manage to avoid seeing you standing there? I’m always so careful …”
Toby shrugged happily. “Carys said there are no accidents. That some things are meant to be.”
Gayle looked at him. “Now that really is bullshit.”
FIVE
SECRET HISTORIES
They left the house together, after Gayle had spent a certain amount of time looking for her good coat and her mobile phone, decided she didn’t need either of them after all, checked her appearance in two different mirrors and finally bustled out without looking back to see whether Toby was following. She waited impatiently for him to step out of the front door, and then slammed it hard, making sure the lock had caught properly. You can’t be too careful these days, she muttered, and Toby nodded solemnly. Determined as he was to keep in her good graces, at that point he w
ould have agreed to anything, up to and including his own evisceration, provided it wasn’t too imminent. He was also observing her closely, without being too obvious about it. The door they’d just passed through was supposed to translate them out of Veritie and back into Mysterie, though Toby couldn’t honestly say he’d felt anything, and he was curious to see if Gayle would look any different now, as Carys Galloway had in the shadowy corner of the Dandy Lion. But no; she still looked exactly the same: utterly magnificent. Gayle caught him looking at her, and smiled briefly.
“What were you expecting? That I’d suddenly sprout wings and a halo, or horns and a tail? This is me, Toby, whatever world I’m in. I’ve put a lot of thought into my appearance, and it hasn’t changed for centuries.”
Toby raised an eyebrow. “Centuries?”
“Yes. Now do you begin to understand why there can never be anything between us?”
“I’ve always preferred the more mature woman,” Toby said calmly. “Especially when she looks as good as you. Tell me about these doors of yours, that allow us to pass between the worlds. How does that work, exactly?”
“It works because I want it to,” said Gayle. “If only people could be so reliable. Now follow me.”
“To the ends of the earth and back again, and all points in between. Where are we going?”
“First, to the Dandy Lion.” Gayle glared at Toby. “If only to find out why Carys Galloway thought it necessary to inflict you on me. She’d better have a really good reason, or I’ll hit her with a rain of frogs again.”
“She was very insistent that we needed to meet,” Toby said diffidently. “I didn’t have to bribe her, or anything. She gave me the distinct impression that she knows something about what’s going on here.”
“Oh, Carys always knows what’s going on,” said Gayle, setting off down the street at a fast pace, her long legs striding away as though half hoping she could leave Toby behind. He stuck close to her elbow, so she couldn’t slip suddenly into a side alley and lose him. Gayle scowled, looking straight ahead. “The problem with Carys is getting straight answers out of her. She does so love to hint and tease, and play at being mysterious. I think she was an oracle once, and she’s never got over it. Well, she’ll talk straight to me or I’ll bounce her off the nearest wall till her ears bleed. Don’t dawdle, Toby. If you really are what you’re supposed to be, we’re going to have to cover a lot of ground this morning, and I don’t want to miss my soaps this afternoon.”
With Gayle striding away as if she was in a race, and Toby hurrying to keep up with her, it didn’t take them long to reach the Dandy Lion. Gayle barged straight through the swing doors and then stopped so abruptly it was all Toby could do to keep from bumping into her. He peered over her shoulder to see what the hold-up was, and was astonished to see that everyone in the now silent pub was staring openly at Gayle. As Toby watched, they all fell to one knee and bowed their heads to her. She could have been their love, their queen, their goddess. None of them looked afraid. Most looked radiantly happy, eyes filling with tears of joy. Some were actually wringing their hands. Gayle slowly shook her head and moved forward into the bar.
There was awe and wonder on every face as she approached them, open joy that she should be gracing them with her presence. A few were actually weeping, as though they’d never thought to see such a day. It occurred to Toby that he should feel jealous, but the emotions beating on the air in the crowded bar were just too big, too overwhelming to be any threat to the simple everyday feelings in his heart. Everyone here clearly loved her, but as they’d love a Pope, or a saint. They worshipped what she was, rather than who, and Toby had to wonder if perhaps he would worship her too, once he finally found out what Gayle really was.
It wasn’t a comfortable thought.
Gayle advanced slowly, with Toby all but forgotten behind her, and people came forward to greet her in quiet, reverential tones. Some tried to kiss her hand, or the hem of her dress, but she wouldn’t let them. She was polite but firm, and no one tried to argue with her. Some looked curiously at Toby, obviously wondering what the hell a scruff like him was doing with someone like her, but no one said anything. Which was just as well, as right then Toby was damned if he could have justified his presence. It felt a bit like he’d wandered into a urinal at the Vatican, and looked round to find the Pope splashing his boots beside him. Whoever or whatever Gayle might be, Toby just knew he was well out of his depth.
But then, that was true with most women, where Toby was concerned, and especially with Gayle. It was a bit like finding out that your blind date was actually Madonna.
Finally Gayle shooed away the last of her admirers, and drew up a chair opposite Carys Galloway, still sitting in her dark corner under the stairs. Toby pulled up another chair, and sat down beside Gayle. She didn’t look at him. Behind them, the buzz of conversation in the bar slowly started up again.
“This is why I prefer to stay real,” said Gayle. “I love them, of course, I care for them all; but I do hate it when they get so clingy. Carys, talk to me. Why did you presume to send love’s young dream here to see me? What’s going on that I don’t know about? And why am I so absolutely sure that I’m not going to like the answers you’re about to give me?”
“We can’t all bury our heads in the sand,” said Carys, utterly unmoved by Gayle’s presence or the roughness of her manner. “Some of us take our responsibilities seriously. I’ve never understood why you limit yourself to being human, when you could be so much more. When you could be doing so much more. It’s perverse. If I had your power, your capacities …”
“You’d interfere far too much,” Gayle said flatly. “It’s a human world now, so let the humans run it. I have abdicated.” She looked sharply at Toby, and he almost jumped in his seat. Her voice was calm and cool as she spoke to him, as though he was a stranger. “The trouble with the Waking Beauty is that she could have been so much more, but she never had the nerve. Could have been a repository for a whole people’s history, but settled for being a gossip and an agony aunt. Even I don’t know how old she really is. Certainly she’s been around far longer than any human has a right to be. She lives here, in Bradford-on-Avon, because more ley lines cross in this place than in any other part of the British Isles. She subsists on the tiny amount of energy she’s able to draw from the lines of power, like a happy little parasite.”
“Ley lines,” Toby said tentatively. “I’ve heard of those. Invisible lines of force that criss-cross Britain, following the ancient roads?”
“The roads follow the ley lines,” said Carys. “The lines are older than man, older than any civilisation. They were here before us, and they’ll still be here when we are all gone. And the power they carry dwarfs anything your modern science could produce. It’s because so many lines converge on this town that it’s so special. Such power and possibilities attract magical beings of all ranks and station. Things are possible here that are only dreamed of in the great cities of the world. And that’s why I stay here. Why travel, when all the wisdom and wonders of the world will come to me?”
“If these lines are invisible,” Toby said cunningly, “how can you be sure they’re really there at all?”
Gayle turned to him, her face suddenly cold and expressionless. “Do you want to see them?”
“No!” Carys said urgently. “You mustn’t do this! He isn’t ready! He’s only human, damn you!”
“He wants to see them,” said Gayle. “He needs to know what he’s getting into. Take your first step into a larger world, Toby.”
Her left hand slammed down on top of Toby’s right, where it rested on the table, and before he even had a chance to enjoy the contact, a sudden force tore through him, swift and merciless. His back straightened with a snap, his head jerked up and his breath caught in his chest between inhale and exhale. A horrid relentless pressure built behind his eyes, as though trying to force them forward out of their sockets. Toby cried out in shock and hurt, but couldn’t even hear his own v
oice. He tried to pull his hand away, but Gayle, implacable, held it in place. His whole body was rigid now, his muscles stretched so tight they screamed. He felt a sudden helpless horror, of something huge and unendurable bearing down on him. His teeth were chattering, his mouth stretched in a mirthless grin, and still the pressure built behind his eyes, until finally it swept forward, through his eyes, and Toby saw what had been hidden from him.
The lines of light were everywhere, great beams of shimmering blue-white, blasting through buildings and furniture and people, unseen and unnoticed, burning with so much naked energy they were almost impossible to look at directly. Never beginning, never-ending, criss-crossing in a lattice of unworldly energies, it was like looking at the building blocks of the world, the lines on God’s architectural plans. Beautiful and terrifying and utterly alien, the light was so bright Toby could almost hear it, the lines so powerfully present he could almost feel them. It was light to make the stars seem dim, beautiful enough to make the rainbow nothing more than a gaudy smudge. And they burned him, inside and out, like a moth held in a flame.
Ley lines.
Gayle took her hand away, and the lines were gone. The everyday world crashed back in upon Toby, and he slumped in his chair, shuddering all over. He slowly turned his head and looked at Gayle. Sweat ran down his face and dripped from his chin.
“How could you do that to me?” he said, his voice rough with shock and pain. “You didn’t have to do that to me.”
“Yes I did,” said Gayle, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “You only think you know what you’re getting into; what just being around me can cost you.”
“I won’t leave,” said Toby. “No matter how much you hurt me.”
“Wonderful,” said Gayle. “You know, if I’d wanted a stalker, I’d have advertised. Toby; I collect stray cats, not puppy dogs. I’m sorry you were hurt, but I’ll hurt you again if you stay. It’s inevitable. I’m just trying to spare you further suffering.”