The Hidden World (16 page)

‘Run to Mrs Crawford's house,' said Jessica. ‘Knock on her door and tell her what's happened. Maybe her phone's working.'

Elica got up and ran as fast as she could through Mrs Crawford's snowbound garden. Jessica could hear her banging frantically at the doorknocker. Meanwhile Epiphany coughed and more blood poured out of the side of her mouth.

‘Hold on, Piff. Elica's gone for help. Please hold on.'

She saw Mrs Crawford opening her front door and Elica explaining what had happened. Mrs Crawford went back inside for a while and then she reappeared wearing a black overcoat and a ratty fur hat and carrying a fawn trenchcoat over her arm. She and Elica came hurrying over.

‘Oh dear God,' she said when she saw Epiphany. ‘And the car didn't even stop? Some people are totally inhuman.'

‘What are we going to do?' asked Jessica. ‘Renko's phone won't work and there's nobody around anywhere at all.'

‘My phone won't work either,' said Mrs Crawford. ‘You're not supposed to move people after accidents, especially when they're bleeding, but I don't think we have any choice, do you? We can carry her in this raincoat, that should make a sort of a stretcher. Renko – is that your name? – do you know where Dr Leeming's surgery is? Run and get him as fast as you can.'

‘We've just come from there,' Jessica told her. ‘He's out making house-calls.'

Epiphany coughed again, and groaned, but she still didn't open her eyes. Mrs Crawford took hold of her wrist and felt her pulse. ‘Very thready. She needs help now.'

‘She will not die?' asked Elica.

‘I think she's been hurt quite badly.'

‘We can't let her die,' said Jessica. ‘We can't!'

Mrs Crawford put her hand over her mouth and thought for a moment, and then she said, ‘There's only one thing we can do. We'll take her back to your house, and we'll take her through the wallpaper.'

‘What?' said Renko.

‘It won't cure her, but she won't get any worse, and she can stay there until we can call for an ambulance.'

‘This is nuts.'

‘Yes, maybe it is, but do you have a better idea?'

Renko frowned. ‘Well … no, I guess I don't.'

‘Let's get on with it, then. Jessica, if I lift her up a little, can you slide the raincoat underneath her … and then Renko and Elica, can you pull it through from the other side?'

Mrs Crawford took Epiphany in both arms and raised her as gently as if she were her own baby. Jessica pushed the raincoat underneath her back, and when Mrs Crawford tilted Epiphany the other way Renko and Elica were able to drag it through. Now Mrs Crawford and Renko took an epaulet each, while Jessica and Elica held onto the coat-tails, and between them they were able to lift Epiphany off the snow and carry her, like an African explorer being toted through the bush by native bearers.

Epiphany was only a skinny girl, but as they trudged along the road toward Jessica's house she felt heavier and heavier, and Jessica had to twist the raincoat and grip it with both hands to stop herself from dropping it.

‘What are you going to tell Piff's mother?' Renko panted. ‘She's not going to let you take Piff into the wallpaper, is she? And I don't suppose your grandparents are going to be too understanding about it either.'

‘I've thought about that,' said Jessica. ‘We'll go in the back door and up the servants' stairs. Grace should still be in the kitchen, and Grannie and Grandpa Willy usually have a cup of coffee in the living-room about now.'

‘I'm going to have to lay her down for a moment,' said Mrs Crawford. ‘I'm not a spring chicken anymore.'

They had reached the gate that would take them through the garden and up to the back door. Mrs Crawford leaned against the gatepost, her face white but her cheeks flushed with pink, and a drip on the end of her nose. She wiped the drip with her woolly glove and then she said, ‘All right. I think I can make one more effort.'

Between them they lifted Epiphany up again and carried her across the garden. The snow came up to their knees, so they had to high-step like circus ponies. In the middle of the garden the statue of Pan watched them and grinned. The god of unreasonable fear, the god of panic. Jessica thought: We can't panic, we have to be calm. We can't let Epiphany die.

They opened the back door and carried Epiphany into the black-and-white-tiled scullery, where Grannie kept her old-fashioned twin-tub washing-machine, and sheets and pillowcases hung damply from the ceiling to dry. After she had closed the door behind them, Jessica listened, but all she could hear was Grace singing in the kitchen.

‘Come on,' she urged. ‘As quick as we can.'

Climbing the staircase was almost more than they could manage, and twice Mrs Crawford lost her footing and nearly fell. What was more, the staircase groaned loudly with every step they took, and the door to the living-room was half open, so Jessica expected her granny to appear any moment and ask them what on earth they were doing.

Epiphany murmured something as they turned the bend in the stairs, and half lifted her hand, but there was nothing Jessica could do to comfort her: it was all that she could do to hold onto the raincoat.

At last they managed to reach the landing and shuffle across to Jessica's bedroom. Renko pushed the door open with his shoulder, and they carried Epiphany inside and laid her on the bed.

‘She looks bad,' said Mrs Crawford. Epiphany's face was an ashy gray and she was breathing with a choky catch in her throat. ‘Try your cellphone again, Renko – and Jessica, try the ordinary phone.'

Renko prodded at his cellphone again, listened and shook his head. Jessica tiptoed to her grandparents' bedroom and picked up the old white telephone on the nightstand, but there was still nothing but an endless sizzle, like somebody frying bacon.

She came back to her bedroom and said, ‘The lines are still down. I won't be able to send an e-mail, either. We'll have to take her through.'

‘What about the Stain?' asked Renko. ‘It's supposed to leak out at eleven o'clock tonight.'

‘That's not for hours. The phones will be working before then. Just as long as we can keep Piff comfortable until we can call the paramedics.'

‘The Stain?' said Mrs Crawford. ‘What's that?'

‘There were these beings behind the wallpaper,' Jessica explained. ‘They were like very bright lights. They called themselves the Light People. They said that there's something terrible called the Stain which is going to leak out tonight and take over the whole world inside the wall. They said it's the worst thing in the world, the worst thing you could ever imagine.'

‘Well, I did warn you, didn't I, that there are all kinds of dangers inside the wall?'

Elica began to say, ‘Yes, we saw cats – cats like shadows—' But Jessica gave her a quick warning look and shook her head. This wasn't the time to be telling Mrs Crawford about what had happened to Mrs Fellowes.

Mrs Crawford said, ‘Now then, let's get this poor girl into the pattern, without any more delay.'

Between them, they lifted up the raincoat again, and carried Epiphany toward the flowery wallpaper. Jessica and Renko pushed through first, and Elica and Mrs Crawford followed. There was a moment when Epiphany was half in and half out of the wall, and Jessica could only dimly see Elica and Mrs Crawford in the bedroom they had left behind. Then they were all standing in the overgrown garden, in brilliant sunshine, under high white clouds that were formed from crumpled pillowcases.

They laid Epiphany down on the lawn, amongst the daisies. She seemed to be sleeping now, and the bleeding from her mouth appeared to have stopped, although Jessica was still worried that she might have been injured internally. At least she wouldn't get any worse, not while she was here inside the wallpaper.

‘Maybe we should put her in the shade,' Renko suggested. ‘Under that tree would be a good place.'

But they were just about to pick her up when five or six tall blue irises came walking toward them through the long grass, swaying gently as they approached, like very thin nuns. Like the roses', their petals formed faces, although these weren't crumpled and cantankerous like the roses were. They were serene, detached, as you would expect the faces of nuns to be, the Sisters of the Holy Flag.

‘Your friend is hurt,' said one of the irises, in a watery, clearly enunciated voice.

Mrs Crawford looked startled, but Jessica said, ‘It's all right. All the flowers talk here.' Then she turned back to the iris. ‘We've brought her here because it's snowing back in our world, and we can't get help.'

‘Then you must take her to the proper place,' replied the iris. ‘A place where she will be watched over, and cared for.'

‘Where's that?'

‘Follow us, and we will show you.'

The irises began to walk off in slow procession, singing as they went, a song that sounded almost like a hymn. Jessica said, ‘I suppose we'd better follow them,' and so they picked up Epiphany yet again and carried her through the garden, between rows of dark green bushes that smelled strongly of eucalyptus. Each bush was dotted with different flowers from Grannie's summer dresses, pink, white, yellow and scarlet.

It wasn't long before they arrived in a neatly trimmed garden surrounded by hedges. Actually it looked more like a private cemetery than a garden, because there were granite markers and stone crosses, and benches where people could sit and contemplate. In the very center of the garden stood the angel that had presided over the memorial to the Pennington children – or another angel that was very much like her. The irises led them toward her, and then said, ‘You can lay your friend down here.'

Jessica shaded her eyes against the sunshine and looked up at the angel standing on her plinth. She had such a sad, beautiful face, and long robes, and feathered wings that almost touched the ground. Jessica was about to turn away when the angel opened her eyelids and smiled at her. It gave Jessica such a shock that she felt as if centipedes were scuttling down the back of her neck.

‘Don't be afraid,' said the angel. Even though her eyes were open, her eyeballs were as gray as the stone from which she was carved, so that she looked as if she were blind.

‘I'm – I'm not afraid,' said Jessica.

‘I will take care of your friend, I promise you, until you can find help.'

Elica crossed herself, and even Renko was shaken.

‘I must warn you, though, that the Stain will soon appear and darken this world forever, and so you must be quick.'

‘Don't you know how to stop it?'

‘There is no way to stop the greatest evil that man can ever commit.'

‘I have to find the Pennington children, too. I've found out how to cure them. I can take them out of here before it's too late.'

‘There may not be time,' said the angel.

‘But I can't leave them here, can I, if the Stain's going to take them?'

‘You have no choice, my darling, if you wish to leave this world alive.'

J
essica looked up. Already she could see that the sun had passed its zenith, and that the pillowcase-clouds were beginning to thicken. A chilly breeze blew through the garden, and there was a feeling that night was approaching much faster than it should have done.

‘I promised,' she said. ‘They're waiting for me to come back and save them.'

‘Then you will have to travel as far and as fast as you can,' said the angel. ‘The Stain is already starting to leak out from the east, and you won't be able to go by the most direct route. If it cuts you off, you will never be able to get back here before the Final Darkness and you, too, will be swallowed up.'

‘I can try,' said Jessica. ‘I have to try.'

‘We come with you,' Elica asserted. ‘We say, ha, Stain! Who cares about you? We spit on you!'

‘You might as well spit into the widest and blackest of oceans,' said the angel. She had such a tired, regretful voice, she sounded as if she were going to cry. ‘The Stain is what happens when evil goes unrepented and unpunished.'

‘What evil?' asked Mrs Crawford. ‘What could possibly have happened here in this house to create something like the Stain?'

‘Only the flowers on the wallpaper know what happened,' said the angel. ‘Only the bronze eyes of the great god Pan and the stone eyes of seraphim.'

‘So
you
know? What did happen?'

‘After the Pennington children were carried here, their father and mother did everything they possibly could to make them well again. However, they could never find a medicine that cured them. When year after year went by, and there was still no cure, Martha Pennington began to think that it would be better to give them something to help them to die. She couldn't bear to think of them being ill forever and ever, and she was terrified about what would happen when she and her husband grew old and passed away. Their children would be castaways, never ageing but eternally ill, in a world inside a wallpaper pattern.

‘Her husband disagreed with her furiously. He said that they should never give up hope. But one night, while he was asleep, Martha Pennington passed through the wallpaper and gave each of her children an overdose of a very strong sedative, telling them that it was a miracle cure.

‘They had already fallen into a deep coma when her husband woke up and discovered where she had gone and what she had done. He believed that she had killed all five of their children, and he pursued her, past the river, up the hill and back through the overgrown garden. She just managed to get back through the wallpaper, but her husband caught up with her.

‘Who witnessed what happened next? Only the shining brass face of the clock on the mantelpiece. Only the roses, irises and blessed thistles. Only the wooden wolves in the closet doors and the shadow cats in the darkest of corners. Only the robes.