The Door in the Moon by Catherine Fisher Page B

without the bracelet, it was a terrible journey. It broke him to bits. His mind, his memories. He’s all shards and slivers.”
    Venn came and stood beside her. “You should look for a human lover, Rebecca. He’ll never make you happy.”
    She looked at him, straight. “You’re hardly the one to give me that advice.”
    His laugh was dark and bitter. He lifted the bracelet, laid it on the bench. “Piers. Take a look.”
    The little man was there in a second. Lovingly he fingered the exquisite silver band, the snake’s head and tongue. Then he touched the amber stone of the eye.
    â€œOh yes. Definitely. All sorts of odd currents. Not sure if . . . no. Well, maybe this . . .”
    It opened.
    Silently, on a minute silver hinge, the amber stone opened like a tiny door, and at the same time there was the softest chime of sound, so melodious that Gideon shivered, remembering the songs of the Shee.
    He stepped closer, peered over Piers’s shoulder.
    The mirror rippled.
    Maskelyne, deep in his coma, murmured a word and then lay still.
    Venn said, “What is that?”
    Inside the tiny cavity under the stone was a spiral fossil, an ammonite, marked with tiny numbers. They seemed to spiral inward, growing smaller and smaller, into the heart of the coiled creature, so impossibly infinitesimal that even when Piers prised it out and put it under the microscope and they took it in turns to stare in, there was no end to the sequence. Gideon looked up, dazzled. “It goes on forever . . .”
    â€œMaybe it does. Maybe we’re looking at infinity right there.” Venn walked back to the mirror and stared at his warped reflection. “I saw it once before, in a bottomless crevasse on Katra Simba. White and deadly and never, never, ever coming to an end.” He turned. “Can we use this?”
    â€œOoh, I think so.” Piers was agitated with excitement. “Because you may not have noticed this, Excellency, but . . .” He ran over and dragged a stool to the mirror, stood on it, and examined the top of the frame. “
Yes!
Right here . . . do you see? There’s a small cavity. I’ve spotted it before, but it’s quite empty and I never had a clue what it was for. Maybe that little spiral galaxy would fit in . . .”
    â€œBe careful!” Gideon muttered. Fear had made him nervous; it was that word
infinity
that had triggered it, his buried terror of being with the Shee forever and ever, coming back now like a pain in his bones and teeth. He hugged himself tight. He would not give in to it.
    â€œHe’s right.” Rebecca watched, uneasy. “It might do anything.”
    â€œPiers?”
    â€œI think it will tell us things.” Piers sounded almost greedy. “We’ve never been able to configure the Chronoptika accurately. As if there was always some component missing, something we hadn’t done right . . . but now. We can be exact. Know where Jake is. Snatch Leah with seconds to spare . . . Please let me try, Excellency. Please!”
    Venn hesitated. He said, “Why didn’t Maskelyne suggest it? It may be dangerous.”
    â€œMaybe there’s a price to pay for accuracy,” Rebecca murmured.
    â€œOr it could just blow the whole house up.”
    â€œVenn.” It was Gideon’s voice, so amused they all turned to him, surprised. “Venn, the house is being eaten. Devoured by the Wood. The doors and windows won’t close, ivy is tangling inside, there are saplings sprouting in the outhouses, splintering the cloisters . . . If you don’t do something,
there will be no Abbey
. No Dwelling. Just some ruin lost in the Wood, a place of legends, a place sliding into the Summerland. And Summer will rule here.”
    For a moment Venn looked at him. Then at Rebecca, who nodded.
    Then he said, “All right. Do