The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(168)

“Er, forgive me, sir,” replied Elmer, attempting to summon the unflappable composure befitting his station. “I shall do my best, sir, though I fear I still may not make any sense. It is the servants, sir: they have just informed me that the mirrors have stopped reflecting, er . . . reality.”

“And what are they reflecting?” asked Murray.

“Well . . . I am not sure I can tell you, sir. There seems to be some disagreement: Billy, the stable boy, assures me that his mirror shows a knight slaying a dragon, while Mrs. Fisher, the cook, claims to have seen a group of hoofed children playing panpipes. For his part, Ned, the assistant butler, glimpsed a man with a falcon’s head, while Mrs. Donner, the housekeeper, says she saw a sinister vehicle driving round a snow-covered field, blowing flames out of an enormous tube . . .”

Murray and Doyle exchanged glances, then hurried toward the circle of mirrors. Once they got there, they could see for themselves that it was true: none of the mirrors reflected the banal reality in front of them; they all seemed to be dreaming of other worlds, each more incredible than the last.

“My God . . . ,” whispered Murray. Then he turned to the butler and commanded: “Elmer, go back to the house and calm the servants.”

“Calm them? Why, of course. At once, sir,” Elmer retorted, and he went off to carry out his master’s simple command.

After he had gone, Murray and Doyle took a closer look at the miraculous reflections, but they soon realized that the phenomenon wasn’t confined only to the mirrors. Outside the circle, a few yards away, translucent trees had started sprouting from the lawn. They emitted a faint glow, as if the light were passing through them.

“What the devil is going on, Arthur?” exclaimed Murray. “I ordered those trees to be cut down when I bought the house.”

“Then in some other world you decided to leave them there,” Doyle mused, gazing in astonishment at the horizon, where two red moons were now hovering. “Good God . . . the infinite worlds in the universe seem to be closing in on one another, or even overlapping . . . Is this the end of the world that the old lady predicted?”

“What old lady?” Murray asked.

“What do you mean, ‘What old lady?’?” Doyle snapped. “The old lady who gave the book to Inspector Clayton, of course. Damn it, Gilliam, didn’t you hear a word I said? When Wells and I went to see Clayton, he told us that . . .”

But Murray was no longer listening. One of the mirrors had caught his attention. The glass had misted up suddenly, turning into a bright, silvery haze that instantly evaporated to reveal the bedroom of a house, where a woman was frantically packing a suitcase while a man stared in horror out of the window. Murray moved closer to the mirror until his face was almost touching the glass.

“I know those people,” he murmured, somewhat startled. “It is Mr. and Mrs. Harlow, Emma’s parents.”

Doyle glanced over his shoulder at the image. Judging from the horrified expression of the man looking out of the window, the end of the world, or whatever the hell it was, was happening there, too. Their voices were distorted yet audible.

“What is going on, dear?” the woman was saying as she grabbed more clothes out of the wardrobe.

The man did not answer immediately, as if he was having difficulty interpreting what he was seeing.

“I think . . . they are attacking New York,” he said at last, in a somber voice.

“My God. But who?”

“I don’t know, Catherine.” The man paused. “The buildings are . . . going hazy. And our garden . . . oh, God, it’s like someone is drawing another garden on top of it.”

The woman looked at him, trying to understand what he was saying, and then she shouted, “Emma, if you’re done packing, come and give me a hand!”

Doyle felt Murray shudder. At that moment, Emma entered the room.

“Oh, my God . . . ,” Murray whispered.

The girl began to help her mother squeeze all the clothes she was rescuing from the wardrobe into the suitcase, from time to time casting worried glances at her father, who remained transfixed by the scenes outside. She was dressed in black, her face still stricken with grief.

“Do you think we need take all this with us, Mother? And where are we supposed to be going, anyway?” they heard her protest.

“We’ll follow the Brittons down to the sewers,” her father replied without looking at her. “We’ll be safe down there.”

Then Murray breathed in, cleared his throat, and called her name:

“Emma!”

And his voice must have reached her, for she instantly raised her head and turned very slowly toward the mirror in the room and opened her mouth in astonishment. Her parents also looked at the mirror, bemused. For a few seconds, none of them spoke or did anything. Then, very slowly, the girl began to approach the mirror. Murray watched her walk toward him with faltering steps, her face reflecting a tumult of emotions. When at last she reached the mirror, the two of them stared into each other’s eyes.

“Monty . . . ,” she whispered in a muffled voice. “I knew you’d come back, I just knew it . . .”

“Yes,” said Murray, unsure whether to laugh or cry. “I always do, you know that, although sometimes I arrive late.”

“And now I can hear you!” said Emma with childlike glee.