Gayle walked right up to the impressive front door, a great solid slab of oak, and banged firmly with the black iron knocker. The sound carried loudly, but there wasn’t even a twitching of the lace curtains at the downstairs windows. Still, Toby had a strong feeling of being observed by unseen eyes. He hoped they were friendly, though just how dangerous a bunch of Mice could be … He looked up sharply as the huge door before him swung slowly inwards, silent as a breath. There was still no sign of anyone, and only darkness within. Gayle strode straight in, without waiting for an invitation. Toby shook his head, squared his shoulders and followed her in.
Just inside the door there was a sudden flash of light, revealing the farmhouse’s interior, and Toby stumbled to a halt. The door closed silently of its own accord behind him as he stared about him, open-mouthed. Just when he thought he’d grown accustomed to all the curves Mysterie could throw at him, it came up with a whole new approach. All the interior structure of the old Manor farmhouse had been removed; all the walls and the first-floor ceiling, and all the rooms were knocked through into one, so that the whole place was now one big barn. Or one very big mouse cage. The vast open floor was covered in straw, much of it days old and well trampled down. There were piles of food all over (mostly raw vegetables), left dotted here and there with no discernible pattern or purpose. An old stone horse trough had been dragged in and filled with water. Brightly coloured objects of all shapes and sizes were scattered here and there, as though picked up and enjoyed, and then just dropped carelessly wherever they happened to land.
And everywhere, scampering across the floor, running up the walls and even across the high raftered ceiling, laughing and snuggling and fighting and eating and drinking: the Mice. Six foot tall, vaguely human, Mice.
There were lots of them, covered in fur of varying shades, with muzzles and twitching whiskers, clawed feet and long tails, but still just human enough to make it clear that they were no natural creatures. They spoke, or rather chattered, in human voices, though their movements were swift and entirely animal-like. Mice so large should have been disturbing, even scary, especially to Toby, who had a morbid horror of rats, but somehow they just weren’t. If anything, they were sweet, even charming, just as Gayle had said.
They were like fairy-tale mice, magical in form and character. The Mice ran up the walls and along the ceiling with equal ease, as though gravity was just a matter of convenience for them. Most were too busy playing together to pay any attention to their new visitors, but eventually four Mice came pattering over to meet them. Two were brown, one grey and one was pure white with rather fetching pale pink eyes. Even up close, the oversized Mice weren’t in the least bit disconcerting. They were just bumbling, cartoon-like creatures, with kind eyes and wide, happy smiles. The four Mice squatted down on their haunches before Gayle, lifting their twitching muzzles to her in open adoration. They managed a few quick head bobs in Toby’s direction, so he wouldn’t feel left out, but it was clearly Gayle who fascinated them. Toby could understand that.
“All hail, most noble—” began the grey one, only to be immediately interrupted by the darker brown one.
“That’s not the right form of address, Tidy! Not right at all!”
“You’re always arguing about things like that, Bossy,” said the lighter brown Mouse, patting his front paws together. “And you’re always wrong. You carry on, Tidy. You’re doing very well.”
“I think we’re supposed just to call her Lady,” said the white Mouse diffidently. “But of course I’m just Sweetie, so I’m probably wrong.”
“Exactly,” said Tidy crushingly. “Now I—”
“You look very lovely today, Lady,” said the lighter brown Mouse. “I dreamed you were coming here …”
“Ooh, you did not, Dreamy!” said Bossy at once. “You’re always claiming you dream things, but somehow you never remember to mention them in advance. Ignore her, Lady. She’s been at the Red Leicester again.”
“I did dream her, I did!” said Dreamy, stamping all her paws in quick succession.
“All hail, most noble Lady,” said Tidy doggedly, and then Sweetie turned suddenly to look at Toby. He just had time to smile at her before she launched herself at him, and knocked him to the floor. The straw soaked up most of the impact, but Toby still found himself lying on his back with a Mouse’s face staring into his.
“You’re cute,” said Sweetie.
“That’s nice,” said Toby. “Now do you think you could get off my chest, please? I have a feeling I’m going to need to breathe again in the near future.”
Sweetie backed off, and allowed Toby to sit up before immediately cuddling up against him, and holding him in her white furry arms. “I like him,” she said to the others. “Can we keep him?”
“Actually, he’s with me,” said Gayle. “Try not to damage him, Sweetie.”
The white Mouse shrugged, but continued to hold Toby close to her. Toby decided that if he could handle a thirty-foot troll, he could handle being groped by an oversized Mouse. Even though it did absolutely nothing for his dignity. Tidy sighed resignedly, and fixed his attention on Gayle, but he’d hardly got two words out before Bossy interrupted him again, and there then followed a long, rather confused argument as to whose turn it was to be the official spokes-Mouse. It didn’t help that they weren’t actually sure what day it was, anyway. They almost came to blows over that, until finally Tidy and Dreamy slammed Bossy to the floor and sat on him till he shut up. Bossy subsided reluctantly, clinging to as much dignity as he could with his face peeking out from under Dreamy’s furry rump. He made apologetic eyes to Gayle, who nodded to show she quite understood. Tidy bowed yet again to Gayle, a little breathlessly, frowned as he tried to remember where he’d got to and then shrugged and started again.
“Welcome to Manor Farm, Lady Gayle. Yes. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have cleaned the place up a bit. The others are just animals, you know. No sense of order, they just drop things everywhere. I keep telling them, we may be Mice now, but we can still have standards. This lot would piss in the sinks. If we had sinks. Be still, Bossy, or I’ll groom your fur the wrong way again.”
“Bully,” said Bossy, indistinctly.
“Things have been happening in Mysterie,” said Dreamy, in a soft hesitant voice. “I see them in my dreams. Things call to me, from the natural world. The banished Son has returned, and we are all endangered. Sweetie, leave the human alone. And stop licking his hair, I think it’s supposed to look like that. Who is the human, Lady Gayle? He smells very interesting. I think I may have dreamed of him.”
“That is Toby,” said Gayle. “He’s a newcomer to Mysterie. And a focal point.”
Sweetie let go of Toby so fast he almost fell over. Tidy and Dreamy got up off Bossy, and all four Mice huddled together to give Toby a good looking-over.
“Bit small for a focal point, isn’t he?” said Tidy. “I’d always thought they’d be more impressive.”
“Size isn’t everything,” said Toby.
“How true,” said Sweetie.
“I suppose you brought him here to hear our story?” said Bossy, pawing at his rumpled fur. “Fair enough. I shall tell it. It is an interesting, cautionary and instructional tale, and I do so love to tell it.”
“Never knew a tale you didn’t like to tell,” said Tidy. “Sometimes I swear you’d rather talk than eat. Though you have been known to do both simultaneously and I do wish you wouldn’t. All right, get on with it, but don’t drag it out. There’s still lots to do today.”
“You mean there’s lots you want to do,” said Dreamy. “I don’t know why you make such a fuss. The whole point of becoming Mice was so we wouldn’t have to bother with doing things any more.”
“I like to keep busy,” said Tidy defensively.
“Then you should have become a bee,” said Sweetie.
It took a while, but eventually Gayle got them all settled down, sitting in a semicircle facing herself and Toby. He was a little hesitant ab
out sitting on the bare straw, but couldn’t figure out how politely to avoid it. In the end he gritted his teeth and sat down beside Gayle, making a mental note to fumigate and if necessary burn his trousers later. Luckily the story turned out to be so fascinating he quickly forgot about everything else.
Once upon a time, back in the sixties, in what passed then for the real world, the Mice had all been human, young men and women embracing the spirit of the times. Hippies one and all and proud of it, living the marvellous new dream of peace and love and freedom. They turned their backs on the old ways, of insane wars and corrupt politics, and looked for a more spiritual path. They also believed in sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, preferably simultaneously. They dropped out, turned on, tuned in and thought they could change the world by their example. It was, in many ways, a more innocent time then.
The world did change, if slowly, for the better; but mostly as a result of direct action. The old order might be going down, but it was going down fighting. Still; it was a grand time to be alive. When to be young was everything, and you could watch your dreams come true. Unfortunately, it didn’t last.
The sixties became the seventies became the bloody eighties, and one by one the dreams died. The hope and joy of the hippies became the savage nihilism of punk, which became the self-interest of Generation X. We shall overcome became No future and Greed is good. Drugs that were meant to free the mind instead enslaved the body. And one group of ageing hippies decided they’d had enough. They gave up on the failed world of Veritie and moved en masse into Mysterie, where dreams still came true. They changed, willingly giving up their troubled Humanity to become Mice, warm, loving, furry animals who lived only for the day, and for each other.
Toby couldn’t decide whether it was a sad story or not. Looking round at the other Mice, he didn’t think they knew either. Most were still running around the cavernous interior of the old farmhouse, immersed in the moment, not even interested in listening to their own story. Here and there they cuddled together and fell asleep in great flurry clumps, as the mood took them. No work, no duties, no responsibilities, driven only by animal needs and thoughts and emotions, but with just enough of a human overlay to enable them still to appreciate it. Toby was irresistibly reminded of the old novelty song about a whole bunch of mice who lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam.
Except, what did the Mice have to live for, any more? Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning, don’t they? Toby suddenly realised that Bossy had finally stopped talking, the story over, and he quickly tried to think of something intelligent to say, to prove he’d been paying attention.
“So … what do you all do, now you’re Mice?”
“Doing isn’t important to us any more,” Dreamy said patiently. “It’s enough just to be, and be happy.”
“We think,” said Tidy. “We dream, we philosophise and watch the world go by. We have a good scratch. We ponder the mysteries of Mysterie.”
“And we make love like you wouldn’t believe,” said Sweetie, grinning. “Sometimes we go out at night and frolic in the moonlight. Sometimes we sell tickets.”
“That’s just in Mysterie, of course,” said Bossy. “In Veritie we keep to ourselves. We can still be human there, when we have to. We remember our old bodies, and pull them on like coats for the few occasions when we still have to deal with the real world.”
“They can change more than their shapes,” Gayle said to Toby. “They can change their size as well: very useful side effect of the spell they bought. They can become ordinary-sized mice at will, which can be very useful if someone needs a little surreptitious spying done. They do things for me sometimes. No one notices a few more mice coming and going.”
“We know everything,” said Sweetie, clapping her pink paws together.
“Funnily enough, practically everyone I’ve met in Mysterie claims to know everything,” said Toby drily.
“Well,” said Sweetie, shrugging. “We know everything we care to know. People care about such silly things.”
“I knew you were coming,” said Dreamy. “I knew you were a focal point too.”
“Ignore her,” said Tidy. “She’s just desperate for attention.” He turned to Gayle. “Are you sure about this, Lady? Focal points are usually preceded by signs and portents, and we’ve seen nothing.”
“The Waking Beauty vouches for him,” said Gayle. “And that’s good enough for me, though I’d never tell her so.”
The Mice muttered respectfully at the mention of the Waking Beauty’s name and looked thoughtfully at Toby—even Sweetie.
“We know Carys Galloway,” said Bossy. “She’s one of the reasons we came to settle here in Bradford-on-Avon. That and the ley lines. And the fact that this little town is practically Spook Central for the whole country. There’s more weird shit goes down here than in any number of cities.”
“Got that right,” said Bossy. “We lived in London for a while, in happier times. Had a nice place down in the old docklands, an abandoned warehouse right by the river. We were still human as often as Mice in those days, so we got out and about in the big city, following our noses and crashing every party that was going. Now you’d think that London would be one of the main supernatural centres in England, and mostly you’d be right. London is an old city, older than you’d think. It was already a seat of power when the Romans occupied it and called it Londinium. There are many special people and places in and around and under London, most of them pretty damned dangerous.”
“Oh yes,” said Dreamy. “There’s lots to be found under the streets of London, apart from the Underground.”
“The Soul-trading Centre of Cheapside,” said Sweetie. “The Temple of Lamentations, the Running Tigers of Old Bond Street.”
“But it all went bad, over the years,” said Bossy. “The real movers and shakers moved out long ago, looking for fresh pastures and less corrupt sources of power. Too much bad magic polluting the path of the Thames, and filling the aether with black static.”
“This town is older than any city, but somehow it’s still largely uncorrupted, for all the Hob’s attempts to dominate it,” said Tidy. “Powers and Dominations have always been drawn here, from all the many worlds. And not just because of the ley lines. This is a place where things happen. Important, interesting things.”
“So we came here because we wanted to see them,” said Sweetie.
Toby frowned. There was a question he felt he had to ask. “You said you can become people again, when you have to deal with the real world. Don’t you find you miss being human?”
The Mice all laughed quietly, and Tidy looked at him almost pityingly. “Do you miss being a child? We have moved on, not back.”
“The only thing we miss is the sixties,” said Dreamy. “Even the real world seemed magical then. The sixties was the last time people dreamed they were awake.”
Toby looked at Gayle. “Am I supposed to understand that?”
“Not yet,” said Gayle. “You’ve got a lot of waking up to do yourself yet.” She turned back to the Mice. “Talk to me, honoured friends; of Hob’s return and of his connection with Angel. I have been asleep myself, for a long time, and I have missed much.”
“Hob,” said Dreamy, in a faraway voice. “Was it he who brought the plague to Bradford-on-Avon, in 1752?”
“The Serpent’s Son has sunk himself in Blackacre,” said Tidy.
“Bad place,” said Bossy, his tail lashing restlessly. “Dead a long time, but now enlivened by the Hob’s presence.”
“He must be very lonely,” said Sweetie. “He is the only one of his kind. Even one such as Angel could never really hope to understand him.”
“He is evil,” Bossy said flatly. “He is death and destruction and the passing of all good things.”
“But what choice has he ever had?” said Sweetie. “He is what he was made to be. His father’s weapon and instrument in the worlds of men. Abandoned by his violated mother, for ever dominated by his absent father. It’s eas
y to love the lovable. To love one’s enemy is harder.”
“Hob wouldn’t know love if you injected him with it,” said Tidy. “He is a predator, and everyone else is prey.”
“But now he has Angel,” Sweetie said stubbornly. “Another outcast, thrust into a world that can never understand her. Perhaps they will be good for each other.”
“You always were a helpless romantic, even when we were all still human,” said Bossy crushingly. “All those two have in common is that they’re both monsters.” He looked at Toby. “As Mice, we’re linked more closely than most to the natural world. We feel changes, in Veritie and in Mysterie. With Hob and Angel in residence, Blackacre has become a stain upon nature. An open sore, oozing corruption …”
“The point,” Tidy said heavily, “is that ever since Hob thrust Blackacre out of Veritie and into Mysterie, nothing natural can get anywhere near it, in either world. Birds and beasts and insects all avoid the area. To cross into that dark territory now is to imperil your soul. Hob has put his stamp on the burned land.”
“There are dead men in the dead woods,” said Dreamy. “Raised up by the Hob’s power. Death surrounds him, drawn to him. People died at his hand, at the railway station last night. I saw them die in my dreams, heard them cry for help that never came. So sad.”
Gayle frowned. “The Reality Express. I heard it running last night.”
“The thunder godling was there too,” said Dreamy. “You should talk with him. It is his business to find the answers to questions.”
“Excuse me,” said Toby, just a little desperately. “But am I ever going to understand any of this?”