The Slanted Worlds Read Free Page A

gaunt as the ancient oaks in Wintercombe Wood.
    She stared, fascinated. The confusing perspectives, the slanted worlds, reminded her of something . . .
    And then she remembered, with a sudden chill of fear.
    The Summerland.
    The kingdom of the Shee, in the heart of the haunted Wood.
    She frowned, brought the magnifier closer.
    In the curved surface she saw her own blue eye, made huge. As sunlight slanted through the window, one of Dee’s smallest, darkest drawings held her attention.
    Ruined buildings, black and smoking, silhouetted against a lurid sky. Searchlights swiveling like pale cones in the darkness.
    Sarah’s heart thudded.
    Had Dee managed to
journey
into the future? Had he seen what Janus’s tyranny had done? That place where her parents were chained, where the black mirror pulsed with uncontrollable power, collapsing endlessly inward to a black hole that was devouring the world?
    She blinked, pulling back.
    She had to decipher this. This single page might give her the information she needed. It might solve her problem, her obsession, her mission.
    It might teach her how to destroy the mirror.
    Too agitated to keep still, she turned and gazed down at the crowded court below. More tourists were queueing for coffee.
    And, outside the bookshop, she saw a man. A big, stocky man, his hair neatly combed, his coat an old no-nonsense ex-army parka, his scarf the colors of Compton’s School.
    Her eyes widened. “No! It can’t be!”
    He was talking to an attendant and she breathed his name in a whisper of dismay.
    â€œGeorge Wharton!”
    Jake’s tutor was unmistakable. But what was he doing here?
    The attendant nodded, as if in answer to a question, and pointed up at the window. Wharton turned and looked. Before she could move, he saw her.
    Their eyes met; a second of startled recognition.
    Instantly he was running for the stairs.
    Sarah jumped up so quickly the magnifier slid over with a thud. She snatched her bag, grabbed her coat, and raced for the door.
    â€œI’m so sorry! Emergency! Just realized. Have to go!”
    â€œWhat about the papers!”
    â€œI’ll be back!”
    Shrugging into the coat she ran out, turned left in the corridor and then right, found the stairs and raced down them, praying desperately Wharton wasn’t thundering up. She had to get out. H
ow on earth had he known where she was?
    Since leaving Wintercombe on Christmas night, she had kept herself hidden in London. There was no way they could have found her . . . it must be sheer coincidence . . .
    Unless he had been looking for Mortimer Dee’s papers too.
    She stopped. Far down the stairwell heavy footsteps were thundering up. She glanced over the rail.
    â€œSarah!”
    He was a flight down. His face was lit with satisfaction. “I knew it was you!”
    She turned, hit a door marked
Fire Exit
and crashed it open, bursting into a huge echoing space packed with people. Colossal Egyptian statues frowned down at her; she ran between gods with crocodile heads and jackal faces into a gallery so jammed with excited and chattering schoolchildren she had to fight her way between their small warm bodies.
    She glanced back.
    Wharton was at the door. Over the heads of a class in green blazers he yelled, “Wait! Sarah! Wait!”
    She twisted away, shoved on, muttering “Sorry . . . Excuse me . . . Sorry . . .” getting caught in photos, bumping into tourists deafened with audio guides.
    Plate glass stopped her, a wall of it. She almost slammed against it, spread her hands and saw, beyond it, the mummies.
    They lay on their backs in gaudily painted cases, blind eyes staring upward, their shrunken desiccated bodies wrapped in tight bands of ancient linen. For a fatal second she stopped, staring in awe, because these were travelers from a time so distant she had no words for it, fragile
journeymen
her father would have loved to