“It all comes down to the dimensional engine, Alpha Red Alpha,” I said. “Has to. That damned machine was created to be used only as a last-ditch defence. To save the Hall in a time of crisis, by rotating it out of this dimension, this Earth, and dropping it down in some other dimension, some other Earth, where it could wait safely until the threat here was over. The Armourer, our Armourer, told me that the first and only time it was used before, the Hall ended up materialising in some utterly alien Earth, surrounded by a whole jungle of vicious killer plants. They were lucky to get back alive. That’s why Alpha Red Alpha was never used again, until I persuaded my family to wake it up, to give us access to Castle Shreck in the Timeless Moment. What’s happened here has to be the result of our using Alpha Red Alpha.…”
“Okay, hold the lecture. I get it,” said Molly. “How about this: Someone found a way to override the machine from outside, and use it to send the Hall somewhere else. And this Hall, this other Hall, was rotated here to take its place. It was vulnerable because all its shields were down! Whoever’s behind this…must have seen it as the perfect way to get rid of your family and cover up what they’d done! No one would even think your family was missing, with this ruined Hall to look at. Even you wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t accidentally activated that recording.”
“At least Uncle James was still alive in that family,” I said. “We didn’t kill him there. Maybe…because we never met in that world? It was good to see him, to hear his voice again.…”
“Life is too short to sweat the small shit,” Molly said briskly. “Given a potentially infinite number of other dimensions, an infinite number of choices and outcomes is always going to be possible. If it comforts you to think of that two-faced, treacherous bastard being still alive somewhere else, feel free to do so. After everything that man did and would have done to you, I don’t give a rat’s arse. We’re all alive, we’re all dead and everything in between, on the Wheels of If and Maybe.”
“Strangely, I don’t feel at all comforted,” I said. “You’re weird sometimes, Molly.”
She shrugged. “Just trying to be helpful.”
“So,” I said. “Questions…Where is my family now? And who was responsible for their…abduction? And if they are trapped in…some other place, how can I find and rescue them and bring them home? We need information, Molly. And where better to find that than in a library?”
Molly laughed and clapped her hands together. “Or, more exactly, an old library! The secret, carefully hidden and very thoroughly protected Old Library! Do you suppose this family even knows it exists? Your family didn’t until you found it for them.”
“Let’s go take a look,” I said.
We found the official Drood Library easily enough and exactly where it should be, but there wasn’t much left of it. The door had been broken in, and all the shelves were empty. Ransacked, stripped clean. The Immortals had done their best to torch the place when they left, but the flames hadn’t taken much of a hold. Molly and I walked between smoke-blackened and half-charred wooden stacks, with the blackened and twisted remains of unwanted books left lying here and there on the floor. But finally, right at the far end of the library, there it was: hanging untouched on the wall, protected by ancient and unsuspected defences, a very old painting of the Old Library. I let go of a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding as I saw the flames hadn’t even touched the portrait.
“There is an especially hot place in Hell for people who burn books,” said Molly.
“You’d know,” I said generously.
It was a good-sized painting, eight feet high and maybe five feet wide, the bright and vivid colours seeming to glow in the gloom of the burnt-out library. Centuries old, artist unknown, the portrait depicted a view of the fabled Old Library. The original repository of all Drood knowledge, long thought lost or even destroyed until I found it. I took a key out of a special inside pocket. A key my uncle Jack had given me.
“Will that key fit this portrait?” said Molly. “There are differences between this world and ours, after all.”
“Only one way to find out,” I said. “If they key doesn’t work, there’s always the Merlin Glass.”
“Not too sure about that, either,” sniffed Molly.
“You want a slap, girl? I’ve got one right here in my pocket.…”
Molly batted her eyelashes at me. “Later, sweetie…You know I’ve got to be in the right mood for a spanking.…”
I laughed despite myself and leaned forward to study the silver scallops that lined the rigid steel frame enclosing the portrait. And sure enough, there it was: a very small keyhole hidden in the details of the silver scrollwork. I eased the key into the lock, turned it carefully and then relaxed as I felt the mechanism turn. I pulled out the key, and just like that the painting before us was no longer canvas and paint and a work of art, but an actual view. A doorway into the Old Library.
It was dark and gloomy in there, with not a light to be seen anywhere. This Hall’s family had never found their Old Library. Molly conjured up some witchlight, a cheerful golden glow that surrounded her hand as she held it up. The light shined out into the Old Library, challenging the shadows and pushing back the gloom before us. I stepped carefully over the frame of the portrait and into the Old Library. Molly was right there with me, holding her glowing hand high above her head. The air was cold and stale but perfectly breathable. The old protections had preserved the place perfectly. Clearly, though, no one had been here in ages.
I called out, anyway, to William the Librarian and his assistant Ioreth. Because you never knew…My voice seemed a very small and weak thing in such a huge and silent place. There wasn’t even much of an echo; the sound was soaked up by the rows and rows of book-packed shelving, stretching away for as far as I could see into the general gloom. There was no reply…I even called out to Pook, but no one answered. I think I was actually a little bit relieved at that.
“One of these days,” said Molly, just a bit tartly, “you are going to have to tell me the whole story about this Pook thing.”
“I’m not sure I know the whole story,” I said. “Or that I want to.”
“This setting feels longtime empty,” said Molly. “Look at the dust everywhere…just like when we found the original Old Library.…What, exactly, are we looking for here, Eddie?”
“Maybe…that,” I said, pointing. “Look…”
Not far from where we were standing, an old-fashioned brass reading stand was set up, supporting a single large leather-bound volume, its pages open to one particular place. Just waiting to be read. I took a good look around and then approached the reading stand cautiously. Molly stuck close behind, all but treading on my heels. The book looked as though it had been deliberately set out and arranged. (I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland, and wondered if I should look for a sign saying READ ME. As a kid, I never liked Alice. Far too spooky.) I leaned in close to study the open pages, careful not to touch anything. I read for some time, fascinated. I could feel Molly hovering impatiently behind me.
“What? What?” said Molly, when she couldn’t stand the suspense one moment longer. “What the hell is it?”
“It’s about the Maze,” I said. “This is a history of the Drood family hedge Maze.”
“Maze?” said Molly. “What bloody Maze?”
I finished reading, shuddered briefly and then made myself smile condescendingly as I turned back to Molly. Partly so she wouldn’t get too upset, and also because I knew that particular smile drove her crazy.
“This book tells you all you need to know, and some things you’d be better off not knowing, about the massive hedge Maze standing in the Drood grounds,” I said with exaggerated patience. “It covers half an acre. You must have noticed it.…”
“Don’t you get snotty with me, Eddie. I know where you’re ticklish. All right, you’ve got a Maze! Big deal! Whoop-de-do! What makes it so special?”
“The hedge Maze is one of the great mysteries of the Drood family,” I s
aid, carefully not looking back at the open book. I still hadn’t decided whether it was a gift or a trap. “One of those disturbing bits of family history that just fell between the cracks and disappeared. The hedge Maze was put in place a long time ago, so long ago that no one now remembers who had it designed and constructed. Or why. There are indications the knowledge was deliberately suppressed at some point. All we know for sure is that the Maze was constructed to contain something really nasty. Too powerful for us to destroy, something so bad it could only be imprisoned…”
“What could be so powerful that even your family couldn’t destroy it?” said Molly.
“Good question,” I said. “No one alive today knows the answer.”
“And you think this…evil thing is still trapped inside the Maze?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s still in there. Every now and again the family takes someone they really don’t like and throws them in the Maze to see what happens. None of them ever come out again. And don’t look at me like that. If you knew the kind of people I’m talking about, you’d be first in line to kick their arses through the Maze entrance. And…when I had my near-death experience just recently…When I was wandering inside the Winter Hall, I looked out the top-floor window and saw something moving inside the Maze, raging back and forth, still trying to break out, after all this time.…”
“I am being very patient,” said Molly. “Look! This is me being very patient! But if you don’t tell me why this is suddenly so important…”
“Relax,” I said. “It’s the book. It describes exactly what we put inside the Maze and why. And I think…it’s something we can use.” I looked around the rows of silent stacks, holding dark shadows between them, and at the greater gloom that surrounded them, beyond the reach of Molly’s witchlight. Was Pook out there, perhaps? Being helpful? “But it’s not something I feel comfortable talking about in a place like this.”
“But what is it?” said Molly. “What are we talking about?”
“Moxton’s Mistake,” I said.
Something moved out beyond the light. A cold breeze blew suddenly through the Old Library, disturbing air that hadn’t been breathed in centuries. Molly shuddered despite herself.
“Okay, I can take a hint,” she said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
There was the sound of something moving out in the dark. Something large and heavy.
“Try the Merlin Glass,” Molly said quickly. “We’ve got to give it a trial run sometime, and this is looking more and more like a really good time. Get us out of here, Eddie.”
“Cross your fingers,” I said. “And anything else handy.”
I took the Glass out of its subspace pocket and subvocalised the activating Words, praying they were the right ones for this Glass. Something in the dark said my name in a not-human voice. All the hairs on the back of my neck went up, and Molly grabbed my arm with both hands. The Merlin Glass glowed with a sudden fierce light, coming alive in my hand, as though eager to be used. I shook the hand mirror out till it was the size of a door and it automatically locked on to the coordinates I had in mind. Bright sunlight from the Drood grounds shone through the new doorway, pushing back the dark of the Old Library. Molly snuffed out her witchlight, and together we stepped quickly through the Glass, out of the Old Library and into the open air of the Hall grounds.
I shut the Glass down immediately, shook it back to hand-mirror size and put it away. And then I just stood there, looking out over the extensive grassy lawns, breathing in the sweet and pure open air. Molly stood there with me, both of us quite happy not to talk about whatever it was that had just spooked us. Sometimes…you just know you’re in a bad place. After a while we went for a walk across the lawns, taking our time. Without actually discussing it, we both kept our backs to the ruined Hall. It was easier that way. It might not have been my family, my Hall, but they were still Droods, and I had known people very like them. I would avenge their deaths. After I’d rescued my family. I couldn’t risk losing them twice. Molly turned her head abruptly to look at me.
“Eddie, I have to wonder…What happened to the other Eddie? Their Eddie? I don’t think he was there when the Hall was attacked.”
“Seems like he was declared rogue,” I said. “Much like me. Only I met you and came back. He never did. He might not even know this has happened yet.”
“How terrible,” said Molly. “An Eddie Drood out there in the world, all on his own. An Eddie who never met me.”
“Yes,” I said. “How terrible.”
We shared a smile and kept on walking. There was still something we needed to do, but we weren’t ready to do it just yet.
“Or,” I said, “he could be where we are right now; standing in the grounds of his world, wondering what the hell happened to his Hall. There could be nothing but a bloody big hole in the ground where his Hall used to be.”
“Or,” said Molly, “there might be another Hall. A third Hall, rotated into place to replace his…”
“Please,” I said. “Let’s not complicate this more than we have to. Instead let’s talk about who could be responsible for all this. Our enemy. It isn’t the Immortals here; I was there when we wiped them out. The Spawn of Frankenstein occupy their castle now, and the few survivors are on the run, keeping their heads well down and hoping not to be noticed. No way any of them could be responsible for . . . this. But who is powerful enough to seize control of Alpha Red Alpha from a distance and use it against us? And strong enough that once it started happening, my family couldn’t wrestle control away from him and stop it from happening?”
“I have another question,” said Molly, determined to be difficult, as always. “Once your family realised what had happened, that they’d been rotated out of our world and dumped somewhere else, why didn’t the Armourer just fire up Alpha Red Alpha again and bring everyone home?”
“I’ve been wondering that,” I said. “It could be that controlling the machine from a distance was enough to damage it. Or at the very least, scramble its coordinates. The Armourer would have more sense than to just activate the machine at random, over and over again, hoping to get home. Remember the alien Earth the first experimenters ended up in? Uncle Jack was very open about the fact that he had only limited control over Alpha Red Alpha in the first place. And on top of that, who knows what kind of Earth they were rotated into? Could be somewhere even worse than a jungle full of nasty killer plants. My family could be fighting for their lives right now, right here, somewhere else…even as we speak.”
“Easy, Eddie,” Molly said immediately. “Take it easy. We can’t worry about every possibility. It’s just as likely they arrived in some paradise world and they aren’t in any hurry to come home. For all we know, they could all be sprawling on a nice beach somewhere, working on their tans and sipping cold drinks. We can’t know anything for sure, so let’s concentrate on what we can do. We are your family’s only hope, Eddie. We owe it to them to think it through and not just rush into things.”
“The wild witch of the woods, her own bad self, Molly Metcalf, preaching patience and self-restraint,” I said, smiling. “Maybe I am in some other world, after all. You’re right, as always. I’m not going to give up hope, not after just getting it back again. They’re out there somewhere and I will find them and bring them home. But we have to start with: Who could have done this to them?”
“Run through the usual unusual suspects,” said Molly. “Have there been attacks on the Hall before? And, no, I don’t mean the bloody Chinese nuke back in the sixties that your family won’t stop talking about, which leads me to suspect they got a damned sight closer than your family is willing to admit.”
“Breathe, Molly. Breathe. There were a whole series of attacks on the Hall just before I met you. This awful cancer creature broke into the Sanctity and attacked the Heart. Killed several Droods before we drove it off. We never did find out who sent it, or why; or who was behind the other, earlier attacks. I’d pretty much decided it was down
to the traitor in the family, the original traitor who brought in the Loathly Ones, back in World War II. And who’s been working against us in secret ever since.”
“If there is a traitor inside the Hall, he probably disappeared along with everyone else,” said Molly. “So I doubt this is down to him.”
“There is something else,” I said slowly. “When I was in the Winter Hall, when I thought I was dead…I asked Walker, If this is a place of the dead, why haven’t I seen my parents? And Walker said to me, Whatever makes you think they’re dead?”
“I know,” said Molly. “I remember. But one thing at a time, Eddie. Yes?”
“It’s just…If my parents could be alive, so could yours.”
“Yes, Eddie. I know. And we will talk about this later. But first things have to come first. So what do you want to do first?”
I looked out over the wide-open grounds of Drood Hall, the green grassy lawns and the lake and the hedge Maze in the distance. It was all so quiet, so peaceful. It didn’t seem possible there could have been so much death and suffering so close at hand in such a peaceful setting.
“The Drood grounds contain a marvellous selection of wildlife,” I said. “Natural and supernatural, the living and the dead, and lots and lots of really wild things. Why don’t we go and ask them what they saw?”
CHAPTER TWO
When the Droods Are Away
You don’t realise how much you miss a thing until it’s gone. The grounds were almost unnaturally quiet as Molly and I strode across the wide-reaching lawns. Where were the peacocks that always strutted so grandly and noisily in front of the Hall? Where were the gryphons, who should have been the first to sound the alarm because they were psychic and could see a short distance into the Future? (Given how ugly the things were, and how much they loved to roll in dead things and then come up to you and rub affectionately against your new suit, I’d be hard-pressed to name any other good reason to keep them around.) (All right, I like them, but it’s already been established that I’m weird.) If the peacocks and gryphons had all been killed during the attack, where were their bodies?