The Door in the Moon Read Free Page A

in?”
    â€œNo idea.” The little man was hopping with anxiety, his white lab coat inside out.
    â€œShee?”
    â€œDoubt it.”
    â€œWhere’s Venn?”
    â€œAway.”
    Wharton scowled. He knew what
away
meant. “You mean in the Wood?”
    â€œWhere else!” Piers looked sour.
    â€œAnd Jake? Gideon?”
    â€œNo sign.”
    â€œOkay. Move.
Move!
”
    They raced down the corridor. The door to the Monk’s Walk was wide; Wharton swore, backed, swung in, and held the shotgun steady.
    The corridor was empty.
    Piers whispered, “Oh hellfire. If the mirror is gone I am
dead
. Worse than dead.
Eviscerated
.”
    Wharton shook his head. “Not just you. How the hell could anyone get in here?”
    He moved from cover to cover, dodging down the stone cloister, through pale slots of light. The short summer night was black; the moon had risen; he could smell the warm stirring leaves of the Wood.
    At the arch, he waited, listening. Nothing. He yelled, “You in there! Put your hands up and stand still! Or I’ll blast you to kingdom come!”
    Still nothing.
    He exchanged a glance with Piers. The small man, or genie, or whatever he was, crouched behind a pillar and shrugged.
    So Wharton took a breath, breathed a prayer.
    And went in.

    High in the highest attic of the Abbey, Gideon had no dreams. He lay in the hammock Piers had set up for him, one long leg dangling over the side. His eyes were closed but there was no sleep for him anymore, because Summer had stolen his sleep, and now he had nowhere he could go to escape from the terrible fear of his endless life. The Shee, those faery creatures of the Wood, had stolen more than his dreams. They had stolen
him
once, long ago, made him their changeling, taken him into that place they called the Summerland, the unplace where time didn’t exist.
    He was mortal, but ageless.
    Young, but old.
    He loathed them. And even here, in this house, they still had him trapped.
    Even though he kept all the windows of the room firmly locked and barred, even though he didn’t want to, he could hear the moon anoint the leaves with silver. The faintest stir of branches came to his Shee-sharpened senses. Out there green buds unfurled, insect wings of finest gossamer unfolded. And then, slowly at first but growing in the dark like a wave of sound, just as they did every night, the nightjars began to sing, an eerie rasp, like a choir of sinister voices.
    He opened his eyes.
    They were singing for him. The Shee were calling him, taunting him, mocking him through beak and bill, tormenting him with their songs of the wood, of the sweetness of the Summerland, the long unchanging days of music and hunting and cold laughter.
    He hissed with despair.
    Then the alarms exploded. He leaped out of the hammock; at once, swift and light as a shadow he was out and running, down and down the stairs, along the corridors, skidding into the labyrinth just as Wharton was threatening the last cobwebbed corner of the room with the shotgun.
    â€œWhat is it! What’s happened? Is it the mirror?”
    â€œDon’t ask me.” Wharton seemed reluctant to put the weapon down. He prowled around in bewilderment; almost, Gideon thought, disappointment. “Don’t understand it all. No one here. Nothing missing. No damage—just this flask smashed on the floor. Piers, if one of those blasted cats of yours has set off that alarm, I will personally . . .”
    He stopped.
    The black cat had leaped up onto the workbench and was sitting right in front of Piers. It made a few urgent mews.
    Piers stared.
“What!”
    The cat mewed again, at length. Then it began licking its tail with furious concentration.
    Piers’s face was as white as his coat. “Forget eviscerated,” he breathed. “I’ll be hanged, drawn, and quartered.”
    â€œTell me,” Wharton said. “Tell me!”
    Piers absently made his