A Long Day in Lychford (Lychford #3)(20)

She turned and looked at Marcin. He was swimming with colour, all the flavours and influences that had made him. She could see his family, their history, the big moments of his life, intimacies that she shied away from and regretted seeing, but . . . okay, overall feeling, here was a good guy, so thank all the gods she didn’t believe in for that at least. She didn’t know what the individual threads meant, she’d been seeing stuff at random, had no idea how to discern that part of it. That would be the next level of this deep structure, that lived underneath their own special senses, that Judith knew about and could access if she wanted to, but that she’d never bothered to . . . no, when had Judith not done what had to be done? It must be more like she’d never needed to examine it.

It was like Autumn had a tube map, but without any of the names of lines or stations.

Still, hell of a map.

She heard a sound behind her that she was pretty sure she couldn’t have heard before, because the warning signal flared in her new sight too, a sudden burst of threads into her eye. She spun round.

And there was the creature. Right beside her. It had the shape of a man, but was almost a silhouette, a few lines of a sketch. Only it was stark white. It had no features, but Autumn knew it was looking at her.

Suddenly, it hopped from one side to the other, then back again. That was something that predators did, wasn’t it? It was getting its eyes lined up on her, and it wasn’t sure how strong she was.

Neither was she.

Slowly, keeping her eye on it, she reached down and helped Marcin to his feet. “You’re . . . seeing a thing?”

“Yes, and it’s real and it’s right in front of us.” She managed to get him upright, and was about to reach down to pick up the biggest nearby stick when she realised she was trying to get her hand past one of the coloured threads to do it, that she could feel them now, by touch as well, feel them wrapped around her like she was covered in a sort of . . . electric pullover.

This ability to see and feel the threads wouldn’t last long. But it would last longer than they would if that thing attacked. However, it was planning to do that. She could pick up the stick or . . .

She didn’t know what any of the threads meant or where any of them led. But now she could see how they fitted together. So if she just—

The creature leapt forward.

Autumn grabbed the nearest thread and heaved.

*

Lizzie had tried calling Finn’s name into the microphone, and all the other names she’d heard associated with him. She’d waited, but no response had come. Of course, it was perfectly possible that he could hear her, but couldn’t get inside the knot. Given how he’d walked into her house, however, despite the collapse of the borders into new shapes, she rather doubted that. The problem had previously been that he hadn’t been able to find where this was.

So she’d started to describe their location, both geographically, talking about the old barn and the track that led up the hillside, and temporally, trying to precisely describe where the full moon was. Because, and a quick peep outside the barn had confirmed it, that moon was staying put.

Now she was elaborating on those details. The bemused DJ was looking on, convinced that she’d flipped. And yeah, maybe a lack of faith in her sanity right now would be appropriate. A shout came from outside. Then a whole bunch of yells and cheers and even screams.

Lizzie got up from the mike and ran for the door as the DJ did also.

Outside, the crowd were staring at . . . oh, there was a circle of day, bright summer day, blazing into the night of the woods like a searchlight. Lizzie squinted, blinked; she could just about see something in the light. Figures. Oh, and now the light was expanding, as if heaving against something. Great, this must be Finn; they were being rescued!

Suddenly the light burst through, and the night collapsed around them like a stage curtain, and they and the barn and the generator were all standing not in the woods, but in a bright, open summer meadow in broad daylight, with the most beautiful, invigorating fragrances blasting into their nostrils.

But Lizzie was now not so reassured. Because they weren’t home. She knew this exaggerated version of her own world from distant sightings. This was the place Autumn had been left so scarred from visiting. This was a meadow in the land of fairy. And standing in it wasn’t, as she’d hoped, a relieved and/or petulant Finn, but a trio of strange, thin beings who seemed to be reflecting the sunlight in mad, angular ways. She could just about perceive that they were wearing armour, an armour of green and gold, and had in their hands swords that were making the air around them sing with their sharpness, that were somehow breaking the very air that drifted across them.

She saw all of this with the new senses given to her by the well in the woods. She had no idea what the others were seeing, but whatever it was, it was making them huddle together and back away in alarm.

She took a look behind them. More of the same endless summer meadow, around a circle of mulch from the forest floor. The knot had collapsed, or been forcibly demolished, more like, and they’d been dropped into the middle of fairy.

The shouting from around her made her turn back. The three figures had stepped forward. Their shadows had suddenly lengthened and fallen over the cowering humans, deliberately, a show of force. Where the hell was Finn? He must work so hard, she thought, must have observed Autumn and the rest of them so closely to even pass as human. Because these fellows of his who weren’t trying . . . they were something completely Other.