Slade House

Oink Oink, 1997

“Five,” pronounces Axel Hardwick, Astrophysics postgrad, corduroy-clad, hair short, black and curly, real name “Alan” not “Axel,” but he thinks “Axel” makes him sound more Guns N’ Roses. Axel looks at us as if we’re the ones who haven’t bothered turning up. “Some shrinkage is inevitable as the dead wood drops out, but a head-count of five, at this point in the term, is frankly dismal.” There’s a beery racket booming up the stairs from the main bar below and my mind sort of floats off, and I wonder if I’d have met more people if I’d joined the Photography Society in Freshers’ Week instead of the Paranormal Society, like I meant to. But then I wouldn’t have met Todd.

Todd Cosgrove, second year Maths, a shyish elfish guy, black coat, white T-shirt, maroon jeans, Camel boots, vice president of ParaSoc, fan of The Smiths. Across the table from me, Todd sips his Newcastle Brown Ale. His hair’s brown, too, like strong stewed tea. Todd lives with his parents here in town but he’s not creepy or helpless, he’s bright and kind and strong, so there’s probably a good reason. My mouth and brain seize up if I try to speak with him, but when I shut my eyes at night, he’s there. It’s crazy. But like every love song in the history of love songs says, love is crazy.

“The walk may have deterred some of the waverers,” opines Angelica Gibbons. Definitely more “Gibbons” than “Angelica,” she’s a second year studying Anthropology, has floppy indigo hair, Doc Martens, dresses like a fortune-teller, and is as big-boned as me. I thought we might be friends, but when we only scored 18 percent on the telepathy test she blamed me and said I had “no psychic potential whatsoever.” It was the way she said “whatsoever.”

Axel scowls. “The Fox and Hounds is a twenty-minute walk from campus. Tops. I refuse to eat into ParaSoc’s budget by laying on fleets of buses for a two-mile walk.” He starts spinning a beer mat. A leprechaun on an enameled Guinness ad over the fireplace catches my eye. He’s playing his fiddle for a dancing toucan.

“I completely agree, Axel,” says Angelica. “I’m just saying.”

“Maybe a gang of them are coming, but got lost en masse, like.” Lance Arnott, final year Philosophy, dandruff, Pink Floyd The Wall T-shirt, pongs of hamburgers. Lance made a pass at me at the Roman ruins at Silchester. Frightmare on Elm Street or what? I lied about a boyfriend in Malvern, but he thinks I’m just playing hard to get. He turns to Fern: “Where’s that mate of yours this week, Ferny?”

Fern Penhaligon, first year like me but doing Drama, Rapunzel hair, model slim, Cornish-born, Chelsea-bred, Alexander McQueen jeans, Union Jack parka and here to “research the supernatural” for a stage version of Ghost that she’s starring in, curls her lip. “It’s ‘Fern’; and which ‘mate’ do you mean?” She sips the Cointreau she let Lance buy her, but he’s a bigger dick than he acts if he thinks he’s in with a chance.

“The one who came to Saint Aelfric’s. The one with the huge gazonking—” Lance mimes a pair of breasts “—personality. The Waylsh one.”

Fern swirls ice cubes round her glass. “Yasmin, you mean.”

“Yasmin. Get a better offer tonight, did she? Eh? Boyo?” Lance gurns at Todd. I send Todd a telepathic message saying, Ignore Lance, he’s a plonker. And lo and behold, Todd ignores Lance, so maybe it’s actually Angelica who has no psychic potential “whatsoever.” I try again: Look at my fingernails, Todd, I painted them peacock blue. But Todd’s got his apple-pip brown eyes on Fern, who’s explaining that her absent friend Yasmin was underwhelmed by the last field trip.

“ ‘Underwhelmed’?” Axel stops spinning his beer mat. “By any standard metric, Saint Aelfric’s is England’s most haunted church.”

Fern shrugs. “She was hoping to catch a glimpse of an actual ghost instead of catching a head-cold.”

“Paranormal entities don’t come when you whistle,” Angelica tells her. “They’re not like live-in Filipino maids.”

I’d be stung by that, but for Fern it’s water off a duck’s back. “It’s ‘Filipina,’ for females, you’ll find — and I’d know, of course, being so awfully, frightfully posh.” Fern places one of her Gauloise cigarettes between her lips and lights it. Angelica’s squished like a bug and I think, Direct hit! and Fern gives me a knowing look.

“Well, I’m not hanging about any longer for any latecomers,” says Axel, passing around a thin wodge of print-outs headed Paranormal Society Field Trip Briefing, 25 October 1997 and subtitled The Slade Alley Vanishings. Underneath are two photographs. The top picture’s actually split into two: the left half is a grainy school photo of a boy, about twelve, with geeky hair and a nose on the wrong side of large; the right half shows a strict-looking woman in her late thirties, dark hair bunched up, thin, wearing a blouse with a frilly neck, pearls and a cardigan. Mother and son, you can tell at a glance. Neither was comfortable looking into a camera. The caption reads, Nathan and Rita Bishop: last seen in Slade Alley, Saturday, 27 October, 1979. The bottom picture shows a man of thirty or so, grinning at the camera, sinking a beer and dressed like a cop from Miami Vice, though he’s going bald and he isn’t thin. His caption reads, Detective Gordon Edmonds: last seen in Slade Alley, Saturday, 29 October, 1988. So I was right: he is a cop. At the foot of the page is Copyright Axel Hardwick 1997. That’s it.

“ ‘The Slade Alley Vanishings,’ ” reads Lance. “Cool.”

“Uh, I think we can all read the title,” says Angelica.

“The case study would have taken an age to write down in all its detail,” says Axel, “so I’m going to brief you all verbally.”

“It was a dark and stormy night,” says Lance in a comedy Somerset accent.

“If you’re not serious about this,” Angelica tells him, “you—”

“Just cranking up the atmosphere a bit. Go on, Axel.”

Axel stares at Lance to tell him, Grow up. “It begins eighteen years ago, in early November 1979. A pissed-off landlord was banging on the door of a property he was renting to Rita Bishop, divorced mother of Nathan, pictured here. The rent check had bounced. Again. A neighbor told the landlord that he hadn’t seen either Rita Bishop or her son for at least ten days. Hearing this, the landlord notified the police, who found out that Nathan hadn’t been at school since the last Friday in October. A half-arsed search ensued. Why half-arsed? Because Rita Bishop had dual British-Canadian citizenship, an ex-husband living in Zimbabwe-slash-Rhodesia, and mounting debts. The police assumed she’d done a runner to a new credit rating, and filed the case in the WGT file.”

Fern flicks her mane of hair. “ ‘WGT’?”

“It stands for ‘Who Gives a Toss?’ ” Axel sips his bitter while Angelica acts all amused. “Next, fast-forward to September 1988. A patient named Fred Pink wakes up from a coma in the unit at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, nine years after being knocked into oblivion by a drunk taxi driver on Westwood Road.”

“Westwood Road’s this road, right?” I ask.

“It was on tonight’s rendezvous sheet,” says Angelica.

Stupid moo. I sip my Diet Coke, wishing I were Fern so I could administer a barbed put-down. And pull guys. Like Todd, for example.

“Fred Pink began working through all the back-copies of the local newspaper, to see what he’d missed during what he calls his Big Sleep. Pretty soon, he found a picture of the missing Rita and Nathan Bishop. They looked familiar. Why? Because back in 1979, just before the minicab driver hit him, Fred Pink had spoken with Rita Bishop at the Cranbury Avenue entrance to Slade Alley, one street up from Westwood Road. She’d asked if he knew where Lady Norah Grayer lived. Fred Pink said no, walked down the alley, and at the far end got knocked down by the taxi.”

“Bang! Crash! Wallop!” Lance rearranges his genitals without a flicker of embarrassment.

“No disrespect to Mr. Pink,” says Todd, “but how trustworthy a witness was he?” His voice has a soft yokel twang but it’s actually quite sexy.

Axel’s nod means, Good question. “The police were sceptical too. This neighbourhood isn’t rough, but it certainly isn’t rich. If a genuine ‘lady’ had her ‘residence’ here, she’d stick out like a very posh sore thumb. Even so, CID didn’t want Fred Pink to feel brushed off, so they sent a man to give Slade Alley the once-over. Enter Detective Gordon Edmonds.” Axel taps the second photograph on the A4 sheet. “On October twenty-ninth, 1988, he entered Slade Alley and found a door in the wall. It was open. He went in, and found a garden and a ‘substantial property’ called Slade House.”

“And living in Slade House was Lady Grayer?” asks Angelica, looping her finger through her indigo hair.

“No. By 1988, the owner was a young widow called Chloe Chetwynd. Edmonds’ brief report — my primary source for tonight’s field trip — makes it clear that Chloe Chetwynd knew nothing about a Lady Grayer or the missing Bishops.”

“Ah, but she would say that, wouldn’t she?” Fern stubs out her cigarette. “In racy Victorian novels, beware of young widows.”

“Pity no one told Gordon Edmonds that,” says Axel. “The following Saturday he went back to Slade House. Apparently he’d recommended a security contractor to Chloe Chetwynd to fix that garden door, and she asked him to check the workmanship. A witness saw him park his car on Westwood Road at 6 P.M.”—Axel can’t resist a dramatic pause—“but Detective Edmonds was never seen again.”

“When a cop goes missing,” says Angelica, “the fuzz don’t rest until they’ve found their man. The media join in, too.”

“True,” replies Axel. “And Gordon Edmonds did make the front pages, for a few days. Theories about an IRA kidnapping or a suicide pact kept the story on the boil for a while, but when Edmonds refused to show up either dead or alive, pictures of Lady Di’s arse or the Poll Tax riots or the Divorce of the Day began to reclaim their rightful place on the front page of the News of the Screws.”

Angelica asks, “What was Chloe Chetwynd’s version of events?”

“In a curious twist to the tale,” says Axel, “Chloe Chetwynd was never tracked down by the investigators.”

We look at each other, wondering what we’ve missed.

“Hang on a mo,” says Lance. “So who answered the door at Slade House when the cops went looking for Gordon Edmonds?”

“In yet another curious twist”—Axel sips his beer—“Slade House turned out to be just as elusive as Chloe Chetwynd.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” says Lance. “The house disappeared?”

“Big stone houses,” says Fern, “don’t normally melt into the fog.”

Axel sniffs. “Last time I looked, we’re the Paranormal Society.”

Down in the bar a fruit machine vomits out a slug of coins.

“Proper X-File, this is,” says Lance, teetering on his chair.

“What if,” proposes Fern, “Gordon Edmonds made Slade House up in his notes — and invented Chloe Chetwynd, too?”

“Why would he risk telling such a flimsy lie?” asks Angelica.

“No idea,” asserts Fern. “Nervous breakdown? Serial fantasist? Who knows? But which is likelier, people, really: fabricated police records or a house going poofff, in violation of the laws of physics?”

“What did that security contractor guy say?” asks Todd.

Axel’s pretending not to enjoy this but he is. “He swore blind that nobody ever contacted him about a Slade House: neither a Chloe Chetwynd, nor Detective Edmonds.”

“Murderers have been known to lie,” says Angelica.

“CID investigated him,” says Axel, “and every locksmith, builder, whatever, in the area too — and found zilch, nada, niente, sod all. Nobody had worked at any ‘Slade House’ in, or near, Westwood Road.”

Todd asks, “Was any Slade Alley connection made between Gordon Edmonds’ disappearance in 1988 and the Bishops’ disappearance in 1979?”

Axel shakes his head. “The factoid was suppressed. The cops didn’t want Slade Alley to become a magnet for true-crime nuts.”

“Typical of the fascist pigs to repress the truth,” says Angelica.

I’d like to ask Angelica how safe she thinks she’d be in a society without any police at all, but I don’t have the nerve. Todd asks, “How did you link the two disappearances, Axel?”

“An informant brought it to my attention,” Axel looks a bit cagey, “and suggested that ParaSoc take a closer look.”

“What informant?” Lance picks his nose and deposits his bogie under the table. I may be fat but he’s repulsive.

“An uncle of mine,” admits Axel, after a short pause. “Fred Pink.”

“Fred Pink’s your uncle?” Angelica gapes. “No shit! The window-cleaner in the coma? But you’re a Hardwick, not a Pink.”

“Fred Pink’s my mother’s brother. My mother is Hardwick née Pink. Slade Alley is Fred’s obsession, I’m sorry to say.”

“Why ‘sorry’?” asks Fern, the question I wanted to ask.

Axel wrinkles his mouth. “Uncle Fred feels … Oh, ‘chosen.’ ”

“Chosen for what?” presses Fern. “By whom?”

Axel shrugs. “Chosen to find out the truth about Slade House. He had a hard time adjusting to real life after his nine years in a coma, and he’s, uh, in care now. Out beyond Slough. In a … unit.”

“Too bloody brilliant,” declares Lance, holding up a palm to indicate he’s about to belch; and he belches. “All the supernatural yarns need a realist explanation and a supernatural one. Like, is the hero really seeing ghosts, or is he having a thermonuclear breakdown? I love this case. I’m in, Ax.”

“The more the merrier,” says Axel, unmerrily.

Angelica sips her pale ale. “It’s an intriguing case study — but how are the six of us s’posed to find this Slade House and all these missing people when like a gazillion cops failed?”

“The question’s not how,” says Axel, “it’s when. Look at the dates, people.” He taps the A4 sheet. “Use your gray matter.”

I look again, but all I see are the man, woman and boy staring out of their inky Xeroxed images. Little did they know. My fingers find the jade pendant that arrived from my sister in New York this morning. It’s a symbol of eternity and I love it.

Todd the mathematician gets it. “Christ, I’ve got it. The Bishops vanished on the last Saturday in October 1979; fast-forward nine years, and Gordon Edmonds vanishes on the last Saturday in October 1988; fast-forward another nine years, and you get …” He glances at Axel, who nods. “Today.”

“Last Saturday in October 1997,” says Lance. “Shitting scoobies, Axel. Today. Today!” Lance is able to take the piss and be sincere all at once. “A mystery house that only blinks into existence one night every nine years. God, I’ve got a hard-on as big as Berkshire. Drink up!”

Westwood Road’s street-lamps have orange haloes of fine drizzle. Cars dash from speed bump to speed bump. A St. John’s ambulance trundles past us, not in a hurry. The guys lead the way, with Lance airing a theory that Slade House could be the mouth of a miniature black hole. Angelica and Fern are arguing about whether or not When Harry Met Sally is offensive to women, which leaves me bringing up the rear. My customary place. I look at the rooms with undrawn curtains and see sofas, lamps, pictures and look — a girl practicing the piano in a room as blue as July. She has short hair, a blue and gray school uniform and let’s call her Grace. Grace looks upset because she can’t get her piano piece just perfect, but as her elder sister, I’d be a gifted pianist and I’d help Grace out. I’d never tell her, “You’d feel better about yourself if you lost a few pounds.” Mum’s making dinner in the back, not for a dozen bitchy Shell Oil Wives but just for Dad, Grace, me and Freya, who didn’t jet off to New York as soon as she graduated, but who works in London so she can hang out with me every weekend. Mum’s not cooking fusion, demi-veg or faddish, she’s cooking roast chicken with potatoes, carrots and gravy. I’m stirring the gravy. Dad’s walking home from the station because he’s not a £190k-a-year-plus-share-options oil exec — he works for Greenpeace, but only for £40k. Okay, £60k. Grace senses me watching, looks up and out at the street, and I do a little wave, but she draws the curtain. You never know if they’ve seen you.

“Are you okay, Sally?” Jesus, it’s Todd. Standing right next to me.

“Yes,” I say, jolted into acting normal. “Yes, I …”

The others are watching me and waiting.

“Sorry everyone, I was, uh …”

“Away with the faeries?” suggests Fern, not unkindly.

“Maybe,” I admit, “but I’m back again now.”

“Wagons roll, then,” says Lance and we’re off, but Todd stays by me. He’s got a baggy duffle-coat and there’s room in his pockets for both our hands. Telepathically I tell Todd, Take my hand, but he doesn’t. Why is it only slime-balls like Lance who hit on me? If I were slimmer, and funnier, and sexier, I’d know what to say to Todd now so before we even found Slade Alley, Todd’d be saying, “Look, Sal, I vote we grab ourselves a Chinese take-out and then head back to my place for coffee,” and I’d reply, “You know, I vote we forget the take-out.” We step aside for an Afghan hound trailing a woman in a long coat and sunglasses. She ignores us. I mutter, “Charmed, I’m sure.”

Todd makes a “Mm” noise to show me he’s on my side.

We walk a few paces. There’s something between us. I hear a grunting noise like sex getting louder and louder but it’s only a jogger running by. He’s wearing black and glow-in-the-dark orange like he’s escaped from an acid rave somewhere.

“Sal,” says Todd. “I don’t want to sound too forward—”

“No, not at all,” I answer nervously. “It’s fine. Of course.”

He pauses, confused: “But I haven’t asked you, yet.”

Sally Timms, you stupid oink. “I just meant ‘Ask away!’ ”

“People, I’ve found it!” Lance calls out, a few paces ahead, and the moment’s gone. Todd shines his torch up at an easy-to-miss plaque: SLADE ALLEY. The passageway’s dark and narrow, only a bit wider than a pushchair. Lance says, “Spooky as hell, or what?”

“Of course it’s spooky,” says Fern, lighting another of her French cigarettes. “It’s nearly night, and it’s an enclosed space.”

“I feel,” says Angelica in a wavery voice, “presences here.”

One part of me thinks, Yeah, yeah, sure you do, but another part kind of … knows what Angelica means. Slade Alley cuts through black shadow before turning sharp left under a feeble lamp that pulses dim beige. If I was a “presence,” this is the kind of place I’d be drawn to.

“Who’ll disturb the presences first?” asks Lance, deadpan.

“You’d be less cocky,” says Angelica, “if you had the Sight.”

“Fred’s my uncle,” says Axel, “so I’ll lead the way. Ready?”

Lance, Angelica, Fern, me and Todd follow Axel, in that order. I feel safe with Todd behind me, and trail my gloved fingers along the bricks on each side: Slade Alley can’t be more than three feet across. A properly fat person — fatter than me, I mean — couldn’t get past someone coming the other way. “It’s cold,” I murmur to no one, but Todd hears: “Sure is. The air’s like a knife against your throat.”

“Cool echo,” says Lance. “Balrogs of the deep, I summon thee!”

“Mind who you’re invoking,” says Angelica, schoolmarmishly.

Lance bursts into an echoey recital of “Bohemian Rhapsody” before Axel tells him, “Put a cork in it, Lance.” He’s reached the corner under the lamp, and seconds later the six of us are huddled there. After the left turn, Slade Alley runs on for forty or fifty paces — it’s hard to see — until it turns right under another high-up, flickery lamp. “Always a bad sign,” says Lance, “those buzzing bulbs. Anyone seen Candyman?” I actually have but I don’t say so. Slade Alley’s just an alley in an ordinary town, but its brick walls are as high as two men and block any view of anything. The sky’s just a long strip of dusk over our heads. My back’s pressed against Todd, who smells of damp wool, warmth and mint. First chance I get, I’ll ask him what he was about to ask me back on the street. Then he’ll pluck up the courage to ask me out. “No sign of a gate,” says Lance. “It’s just one long wall.”

“Two long walls, you’ll find,” says Angelica, annoyingly.

“Okay,” says Axel. “This alley may be a POS.”

“What’s a POS when it’s at home?” asks Lance.

“Paranormal Occurrence Site, which explains why Angelica’s picking up presences.” God, Angelica looks so pleased with herself. “Lance, Fern, Todd; I need you to scan the right-hand wall, every square inch. All the way to the far end. Angelica, Sally and I’ll take the left. We’re looking for PAIs. Which is an abbreviation of — anyone?”

Todd clears his throat: “Psychic Anomaly Indicators.”

“Excellent,” says Axel, and I kind of feel pleased too.

“Remind me what a PAI looks like, exactly,” says Fern.

“Items, signs, writing,” says Axel. “They manifest themselves in many different forms. Anything that’s out of place could be a PAI.”

“I’ll search for rips in the membrane,” says Angelica.

“What membrane?” asks Fern, just as Angelica hoped.

“The membrane between worlds. You can’t see it, though. It’s only visible to those of us who are empaths with suitably developed chakra vision.”

“Ah, of course,” says Fern, as if she’s profoundly impressed. “That membrane.”

“Open-mindedness is a wonderful thing,” says Angelica. “Try it sometime.”

Fern lights another cigarette. “If you’re too open-minded, your brain falls out.” I can’t see Angelica’s face in the shadows, but I’m pretty sure she’ll be firing death-rays at Fern. “Not sure if this is a PAI,” Lance calls out a few yards ahead. “But it is a gate.” Everyone joins Lance who crouches next to a small black iron door. At least, I think it’s a door. It’s low and very narrow, like it was built for skinny hobbits, but it’s got no handle or latch or sign or anything.

“PAIs are often camouflaged as normal objects,” says Axel.

“Looks solid.” Fern raps her knuckles on it. “Feels solid.”

“Don’t knock!” Angelica tells Fern. “You may wake a hostile entity.” She presses her palm against it. “Emanations. Definitely.”

“Odd that none of us noticed it from the corner,” I say.

“It’s a narrow door,” says Fern. “From an obtuse angle.”

“No keyhole,” says Lance. “The lock must be inside.” He presses the doorframe at various points.

“What’s that in aid of?” asks Angelica.

“Release latches.” But the door stays shut. “If I stood on your shoulders,” Lance says to Axel, “I might just be able—”

“Not before my skeleton collapsed.” Axel turns to Fern — not to lardy-arsed Sally Timms, obviously. “Fern, could you climb—”

“Forget it,” says Fern. “If Slade House is on the other side of this wall, this titchy door can’t be the only way in. Why don’t we just follow the alley out to the street, and walk round the other side until we reach the main gates?”

This makes a lot of sense, but Lance isn’t having it. “Ah, but if it was that simple, the police would have found it, yeah? Inter-dimensional wormholes don’t have ‘other sides’ or ‘main gates.’ This is the door all right.” There’s something mocking about how Lance says this, and a voice in my head says, Don’t trust him, he’s toying with all of you. Then something strange happens: my hand decides to press itself hard against the door, and a zap of heat goes through my palm. I let out a yelp of surprise like a trodden-on puppy and the small black iron door opens. Like it was only waiting to be asked. It waits, ajar …

“Bugger me,” says Lance. “Not literally, Axel.”

“Looks like Sal’s got the magic touch,” says Todd.

“It was probably open the whole time,” says Angelica, but I’m so spooked, I don’t even care.

We emerge from a shrubbery and stare up a long lawn at a big old stone house. A Virginia creeper, dark crimson in the twilight, grows up one side. Faint stars shine through the gaps in the cloud. The sky’s a little lighter and the air’s a little warmer than it was in the alley. “Viewed through my non-psychic eyeballs,” says Fern, “Slade House looks more Rocky Horror Picture Show than ‘a membrane between worlds.’ ” Angelica can’t rise to the bait because Fern’s right. We are looking at a student house, mid-Hallowe’en party. “Novocaine for the Soul” by Eels thumps out, Bill Clinton and a nun are canoodling on a bench, and a gorilla, a Grim Reaper and a Wicked Witch of the West are sitting around a sundial thing, smoking. “My, my, you’re a crafty one, Axel,” says Lance.

“Huh?” asks Axel, vaguely; then, sharply, “ ‘Crafty’?”

“You’ve lured your poor followers to a piss-up.”

“I’m not luring anyone anywhere,” snaps Axel.

“Hang on,” says Fern. “Is this the same Slade House that the collective brain of the Thames Valley Police failed to locate?”

Axel mumbles, “Apparently so, but …” His “but” fizzles out.

“Good,” says Fern. “And while this fit of sanity lasts, could we rule out the theory that we just passed through a black hole?”

“Fern?” It’s the Wicked Witch of the West, walking over. “Fern! I thought it was you!” The witch is American and her face-mask is green. “We met at Professor Marvin’s seminar on Jacobean drama. Kate Childs, Blithewood College exchange student. Though right now,” she gives a twirl, “I’m moonlighting for the forces of evil. Gotta say, Fern, your performance in The Monkey’s Paw blew — me — away.”

“Kate!” Fern the future A-lister forgets us, her embarrassing taggers-alongers. “So glad you gave a monkey’s about Monkey’s.”

“You kidding?” Kate Childs takes a long drag on her spliff and releases a plume of dope smoke. “I literally died of envy.”

Lance asks, “Are you smoking what I think you’re smoking, you wicked wicked worstest witch?”

“That depends,” the American girl gives Lance a dubious look, “on what exactly it is you think I’m smoking.”

“Shut it a sec, Lance,” says Angelica. “Excuse me — Kate. We’d just like you to settle something: is that building Slade House?”

Kate Childs smiles like it might be a trick question. “Unless they’ve renamed it in, like, the last half-hour: yes.”

“Thank you,” Angelica continues. “And who lives here?”

“Me, and about fifteen other Erasmus exchange scholars. You guys are here for the Hallowe’en party, right?”

“Definitely,” says Lance. “We’re six psychic investigators.”

“So just to be clear,” says Angelica, “the university owns Slade House, this building, where you live?”

“Technically, the Erasmus Institute owns it, though a university groundsman mows the grounds on his shit-on mower. There’s a sign round the front that — Christ, did I just say, ‘Shit-on mower’? I did, didn’t I?” Kate Childs bends over with silent laughter, which vanishes as quickly as it came. “Sorry. What were we saying?”

“The sign,” says Axel. “The sign round the front.”

“ ‘Slade House, Erasmus Scholarship Center, Sponsoring Cross-Cultural Understanding in Education since 1982.’ Walk past it every day. It’s by the”—she jabs a finger over the roof of Slade House—“big gates. So if that’s all settled …” Kate Childs points to the big house. “Eat, drink, be merry: tomorrow we …” she waves her hand to shake out the last verb, but gives up and offers Lance her spliff.

Lance turns to us. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“I’ll lodge a formal apology on ParaSoc’s records,” says Axel, as he, Angelica, Fern, Todd and me approach the house. “My uncle swore that Slade House had never been found.” Axel slaps the stone wall of the building. “Either he’s a liar or delusional. Who cares? My first error was to believe him.”

I feel bad for Axel. “He’s your uncle. Don’t feel guilty.”

“Sal’s right,” says Todd. “No harm’s been done.”

Axel ignores us. “My second error was a failure to reconnoitre the locale. A short stroll down Cranbury Avenue would have done the job. It was unforgivable.” Axel’s near tears. “Cavalier. Amateurish.”

“Who cares?” says Fern. “Looks like a slinky humdinger of a party.”

Axel adjusts his scarf. “ParaSoc is suspended until further notice. Goodnight.” With that, he walks down the passage around the side of Slade House.

“Axel,” Angelica rushes after him, “hold your horses …”

Todd watches them disappear. “Poor guy.”

“Poor Angelica,” says Fern, which I don’t understand: I thought Fern hated her. “Well, when in Rome …” She trots up the steps and slips inside. Todd turns to me and makes a What a night! face. I make a Tell me about it! face. He readjusts his glasses. If I were his girlfriend I’d make him get frameless ones to let his doomed-poet good looks shine. “Todd, you wanted to ask me something.”

Todd looks all hunted. “Did I?”

“Earlier. On the street. Before Lance found the alley.”

Todd scratches his neck. “Did I? I …” I deflate. Todd’s pretending to have forgotten because he’s got cold feet. It’s all these waif-thin girls gyrating their skinny bodies around. “Maybe if we go inside and chat, Sal,” Todd’s saying, “it’ll come back to me. I–I mean, if you’ve got no other plans tonight. A quick drink and a chat. That’s all.”

“Just the one sister,” I tell Todd a second time, louder, because “Caught by the Fuzz” by Supergrass is pumping on the stereo. We’re huddled in a corner by an oven with a noisy fan. The kitchen’s crammed, misty with cigarette smoke and smells of bins. Todd’s drinking a Tiger beer from a bottle and I’m drinking shit red wine from a plastic cup.

“Your sister’s older than you, I’m guessing,” says Todd.

“Was it a fifty-fifty guess, or can you really tell?”

“An eighty-twenty hunch. What’s her name?”

“Freya. She lives in New York these days.”

Laughter explodes nearby; Todd cups his ear: “Wassat?”

“Freya. As in the kick-ass Norse goddess of … um …”

“Love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, war and death.”

“That’s the one,” I say. “As opposed to ‘Sally,’ a doomed pit pony, or a tart in the East End docks in a Dickens novel.”

“Not true!” Todd looks hurt. “Sally’s a sunny name. It’s kind.”

“All the research suggests that Freyas go way farther in life than Sallies. Name me one famous Sally. Go on. You can’t, can you? My sister won every medal going at school; picked up good Mandarin in Singapore; fluent French in Geneva; graduated in journalism from Imperial College this June; moved in with her boyfriend in Brooklyn, who is of course a hotshot Chinese — American documentary maker; and got a job with a photo agency on Bleecker Street. Not an internship: an actual paid job. All within a fortnight of touching down at JFK. That’s so Freya. If I sound jealous, I am. God, Todd, did you spike my wine with truth serum?”

“No, but don’t stop, Sal. I love hearing you talk.”

I actually heard him perfectly well but I love hearing Todd saying the words “I,” “love” and “you” in close quarters so I ask him, “Say that again?”

“I said, I love hearing you talk. Maybe Freya’s jealous of you, too.”

“As if! Here’s my potted biog, since you asked: Sally Timms, born Canterbury in 1979.” Todd’s paying close attention, like he really wants to hear this. “Dad was a Shell Oil Man and Mum was a Shell Oil Wife. They still are — Shell’s like Hotel California: you can check out but never leave. Dad got promoted to the Singapore office when I was eight, and we all moved out. Singapore’s all rules, every square yard’s hemmed in. When I was twelve, I had a, kind of … breakdown, and …” I hesitate, wondering if Todd’s admiring my honesty or thinking, Head-case, head-case, pull back, pull back; but his beautiful brown eyes encourage me to carry on. “My parents decided I wasn’t culturally adaptable, so I ended up at a girls’ school in Great Malvern, in Worcestershire. Six years of English weather; of crap English food; of Singaporean girls, ironically; lots of internationally rich people’s problem daughters, too. Like me.” But slimmer, prettier and bitchier. “I should’ve fitted right in, but I … Actually, I loathed it.”

Todd’s unfazed. “Did your parents know you were so unhappy?”

I shrug. “It was a matter of making my bed and lying in it. Dad got promoted to Brunei, Mum stayed in Singapore, Freya left for Sydney — this was all pre-email, of course, so we all had to … to build our own lives, pretty much independently. We reconvened for summers and Christmases, but while Mum and Freya were like long-lost sisters, I was the … well, I’d like to say ‘black sheep of the family,’ but black sheep are kind of cool. Todd, I can’t believe you want to listen to me whinge on.”

“You’re not whingeing. You had a tough time.”

I sip my shit wine. “Not compared to an AIDS orphan or any North Korean or a Shell Oil Wife’s maid. I forget my good luck.”

“Who doesn’t?” says Todd, and I’m about to say, “You don’t, I bet,” but a black guy with hair dyed white opens the oven door next to us: “ ‘Scuse us, ‘scuse us, boys ‘n” girls.” He slides out a tray of garlic bread and offers us a slice: “G’arn, g’arn — ya know ya want to.” I don’t know if it’s a real London accent or a Cockney piss-take, but the garlic bread smells authentically gorgeous. I hesitate. Todd says, “I will if you will.”

“Mum’s blind,” Todd tells me when we’re on our third slice, “as a matter of fact.” Actually I’m on my fourth, but I stop chewing. “Todd.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal. People live with worse.”

“It’s not not a big deal. Is that why you live at home?”

“Uh-huh. I got accepted at Edinburgh, and Mum and Dad were all, ‘Go on, son, it’s your life,’ but Dad’s not getting any younger, I’m an only child, so I stayed. I don’t regret it. I’ve got my own granny flat above the garage, all mod cons, for—” Todd realizes that if he says “girlfriends” it’ll look like he’s hitting on me “—for, uh …”

“Personal space and independent living?” I offer, wiping a dribble of butter off my chin as sophisticatedly as possible.

“Exactly. Personal space and independent living. Can I use that?”

I dare to say, “Only with me.” I try not to gawp as Todd grins and licks garlic butter off his fingers. “If it’s not too personal, Todd, can I ask if your mum was born blind, or if it came on in later life?”

“Later life. She was diagnosed when I was eleven. Retinitis pigmentosa, or ‘RP’ to its friends. She went from about 90 percent vision to less than 10 percent in a year. Not the best of times. These days she can tell if it’s night or day, and that’s about it. But we’re still lucky. Sometimes RP ushers in deafness and chronic fatigue as well, but Mum can hear me swear from a mile away. She works, too, transcribing audiobooks into Braille. She did that Crispin Hershey novel, Desiccated Embryos.”

I say, “Cool,” but don’t add that I thought the book was massively overrated. I imagine Todd with his parents at their kitchen table discussing life. Todd’s knee’s almost touching mine. If I were drunker, or Fern, or Freya, I’d put my hand on it and tell Todd, “Kiss me, you idiot, can’t you tell I want you to?” and I’d sound so classy. But if I tried it, I’d come over like a drunk podgy sad-sack slut — like a female Lance — and I can’t, won’t, mustn’t, don’t. “Cool.”

“You and Mum’d get on.” Todd stands up. “Really well.”

Was that an invitation? “I’d love that, Todd,” I say, inserting “I,” “love” and “Todd” into the same sentence. “God, I’d love to meet her.”

“Let’s make it happen. Look, I’m going to track down the bathroom so you promise not to go anywhere?”

“I do. Most solemnly.” I watch him vanish among the bodies. Todd Cosgrove. A good name for a boyfriend. “Todd” is kind of classless while “Cosgrove” is borderline posh. Nice balance. “Sally Timms’ sounds like a shat-upon events organizer, but “Sal Cosgrove” could be a rising star at the BBC, or an interior designer to the stars, or a legendary editor. Sal Cosgrove isn’t fat, either. She’d never wolf down a family-size bag of Minstrels and make herself vomit it up in the toilet afterwards. True, I only properly started talking with Todd half an hour ago, but every undying love was only half an hour young, once.

Behind me, Darth Vader’s slagging off his Sociology lecturer to a thin-as-a-rake Incredible Hulk while in front me, the Grim Reaper’s scythe slides to the floor as he, or she, flirts with a black angel with crumpled wings. I open my handbag and get out my Tiffany compact mirror — a “sorry” present from Freya for being too busy for me to stay with her in New York in August. The girl in the mirror fixes her lipstick. With Todd as my official boyfriend, I’ll stick to my diet, I’ll only eat fruit for breakfast, I’ll only eat half my present portions. Mum and Freya’s jaws will drop when they see me. God that’ll feel good! So now that’s decided, I walk over to the food counter. Popcorn, more garlic bread and two Wedgwood cake-stands piled high with brownies. One cake-stand has a little flag stuck into the topmost brownie, saying: “HASH BROWNIES,” while the flag on the other one reads “NO HASH BROWNIES.” Apart from a Snickers bar before my Chaucer seminar, plus the tube of Pringles I had at the library, I haven’t eaten a thing since lunch. If we gloss over the garlic bread. Plus, I burned skads of calories walking to The Fox and Hounds. One tiny no-hash brownie won’t hurt …

… Holy hell, my mouth actually froths, they’re that delicious. Dark chocolate, hazelnuts, rum and raisins. I’m about to eat a second one when this tanned blond blue-eyed Action Man body in muscle-hugging black appears and asks in a twenty-four-carat Aussie accent, “Didn’t we meet at the Morrissey gig?”

I would have remembered. “Wrong girl, I’m afraid.”

“Story of my life. But seriously, you’ve got a doppelganger. I’m Mike — Melbourne Mike, as opposed to Margate Mike. Nice to meet you … Question Mark?”

We shake hands. “I’m Sal,” I say, “from Singapore, I suppose, if I’m from anywhere.” Singapore’s more exotic than Malvern, as long as you’ve never actually lived there.

Melbourne Mike lifts a man of mystery eyebrow. “Singapore Sal. I think I drank three of those one night in a cocktail bar. All on your ownsome, Sal?”

Of all the guys who’ve hit on me and who haven’t been drunk, which isn’t actually all that many, Melbourne Mike’s the best looking by light years. But I’ve got Todd, so I give Mike an apologetic smile. “ ‘Fraid not.”

Melbourne Mike does a courtly bow. “Lucky bloke. Happy Hallowe’en.” Off he goes, and screw you, Isolde Delahunty at Great Malvern Beacon School for Girls and your platoon of body-fascist Barbies who spent eight years calling me “Oink” like it was just a friendly nickname and saying, “Oink, Oink, Oink!” when you passed me on the stairs or in the showers after hockey and I had to smile as if it were all just a funny joke but you knew it wasn’t, you knew it hurt, so screw you Isolde Delahunty and screw all of you, wherever you are this evening, because I won, Oink just turned down a bronzed Australian surfer demigod, who now returns, still smiling, and points at the two cake-stands of brownies: “By the way, Singapore Sal, some joker may have switched those signs over.”

I stop chewing. “But that’s really dangerous.”

“Some people, eh? Proper turd nuggets.”

At the foot of the stairs, a possibly Indian girl in an all-silver Tin Man costume reads my mind: “Bathroom’s this way, turn right, go along, it’s there. Love the nail-varnish, by the way. Peacock blue?” I get stuck between saying “Yes” and “Thanks” so it comes out “Yanks.” Embarrassed, I follow her directions to a TV room where a bunch of guys are sitting on sofas watching The Exorcist, but I’m not staying for this. The Exorcist was on at the party in Malvern where I lost my virginity to a temporary best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s friend called Piers. Not a memory I cherish. Isolde Delahunty told the whole school about Oink Oink’s Big Night, of course, and publicized what Piers had said about me afterwards. Now I’m in a blue-lit corridor booming with Björk’s “Hyperballad.” I pass a pair of tall doors and peer in to find thirty or so people are dancing in a big sort of ex-ballroom, lit by dim orange lamps. Some of the dancers are wearing stripped-down half-costumes, others are in only T-shirts or vests. I see Lance, sliding his hand over his own torso and neck. He tosses his dandruffy mane, spots me at the door and beckons me inside with a sex god’s “Come hither” finger. I hurry off down the chilly corridor before I puke, around a corner, up some stairs and down some more until I find a bay window that gives a view of what might be the front of Slade House, with two big gateposts, though the streetlights and tree shadows and lines are blurred by mist and the fogged-up mullioned window, and to be honest I left my sense of direction in the kitchen. “Hyperballad” has turned into Massive Attack’s “Safe from Harm.” Fern says my name. She’s draped on a giant sofa in an alcove, French cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other, like she’s doing a photo shoot. “Hello. Are you enjoying the party?”

“Yes, actually. Have you seen Todd?”

“I’ve seen how besotted he is with you.”

I so, so badly want to hear this that I join her, just for a moment. The leather sofa’s cold. I sink deep into it. It makes that dry squelchy noise like new snow or polystyrene that someone needs to invent a proper adjective for. “Do you think so?”

“Big time, Sal. It wasn’t for paranormal experiences that Todd showed up tonight. When are you guys going to hook up? Tonight?”

I act cool, but I’m happier than I’ve been for … Ever, actually. “That depends. These things have their own … pace.”

“Bollocks, girl.” Fern’s cigarette hisses in her glass. “You set the pace. Todd’s a keeper. Lovely guy, really. Reminds me of my brother.”

Fern’s never mentioned a brother — not that we’ve talked much. “Is your brother a student, or an actor, or …?”

“He’s not anything these days. He’s dead.”

“Oh God! I’m famous for my big mouth, Fern, I—”

“It’s okay. It’s fine. It happened, um … five Christmases ago. It’s history.” Fern stares at the body of her cigarette bobbing in her drink.

I try to fix my blunder. “Was it an accident? Or illness?”

“Suicide. Jonny drove his car over the edge of a cliff.”

“Bloody hell. I’m sorry. Why — I mean, no, forget it, it’s not—”

“He didn’t leave a note, but the cliff was a field away from the road to Trevadoe — our ancestral pile near Truro.” Fern acts a smile. “He chose Daddy’s vintage Alfa Romeo as his sarcophagus, too. The act was the suicide note, you might say.”

“I didn’t mean to probe, Fern, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot, I—”

“Stop apologising! Jonny was the idiot. Well, that’s not fair, Daddy had died two years before, Mummy had gone to pieces, so Jonny was juggling the legal mess, the death duties, a degree at Cambridge of course, and battling depression — unknown to us … His ideas about poker debts and honor, though, they really were idiotic — utterly, utterly idiotic. We could’ve just sold off an acre or two.” We watch the misted-up night through the misted-up window. “That’s why I joined ParaSoc, if I’m honest,” says Fern. “If I could just see a ghost, just once — a Roman centurion or a headless horseman or, or Nathan and Rita Bishop, I’m not fussy … Just one ghost, so I know that death’s not Game Over, but a door. A door with Jonny on the other side. Christ, Sally, I’d give anything to know he didn’t just … stop, that stupid afternoon. Anything. Seriously. Like”—Fern clicks her fingers—“that.”

I unpeel my face off a big cold leather sofa in a dark alcove. “Safe from Harm” is still on, so I can’t have slept long. Fern’s gone, but sitting a foot away is a guy dressed in a furry brown dressing gown and not a lot else, judging by his hairy legs and hairy chest. Right. He’s not eyeing me up. Actually he’s just staring at the blank wall — I thought there was a bay window there, but obviously not. The dressing-gown man’s not that old, but he’s going bald. He has sleepless owlish eyes, and an almost-monobrow. Do I know him? Don’t see how. It’s strange that Fern would just vanish like that, straight after spilling her guts about her brother, but that’s actresses for you. Maybe she was pissed off that I nodded off. I ought to find her and put it right. Poor her. Her poor brother. People are masks, with masks under those masks, and masks under those, and down you go. Todd must be back in the kitchen by now, but the sofa won’t let me get up. “Excuse me,” I ask Mr. Dressing Gown, “but do you know the way to the kitchen?”

Mr. Dressing Gown acts like I’m not even there.

I tell him, “Thanks, that’s really helpful.”

His frown deepens, then, in slow motion, he opens his mouth. Is it supposed to be funny? His voice is dry as dust and he leaves big gaps between his words: “Am … I … still … in … the … house?”

Jesus, he’s stoned out of his Easter egg. “Well, it’s not Trafalgar Square, I can promise you that.”

More seconds pass. He’s still talking to the blank wall. It’s bloody weird. “They … took … a … way … my … name.”

I humor him: “I’m sure you’ll find it again, in the morning.”

The man looks towards me, but not at me, like he can’t place the source of my words. “They … don’t … e … ven … let … you … die … pro … per … ly.”

So far, so loony tunes. “Whatever you smoked, I’d steer clear of it in future. Seriously.”

He cocks his shaved head and squints, as if hearing words shouted from a long way off. “Are … you … the … next …”

I actually giggle; I can’t help it. “What, the next Messiah?”

The sofa vibrates to the giant bass in “Safe from Harm.”

“Get a big strong black coffee,” I tell Mr. Dressing Gown.

The man flinches, in pain, as if my words are pebbles hitting his face. Now I feel bad about laughing at him. He screws up his red eyes like he’s trying to remember something. “Guest,” he says, and blinks about him, Alzheimer’s-ishly.

I wait for more, but there isn’t any. “Am I the next guest? Is that what you’re asking? The next guest?”

When the man speaks again he does this utterly incredible ventriloquist’s trick where he mouths his words a second or two before you hear them. “I … found … a … wea … pon … in … the … cracks.”

His sound-delay trick’s amazing, but his mention of weapons triggers a warning light. “Okay, thing is, I don’t need a weapon, so—” but from out of his dressing-gown pocket the sad, half-naked stoner produces a short silver spike, about six inches long. I half recoil in case it’s a threat, but actually he’s offering it to me, like a gift. The non-spiky end’s decorated with a fox’s head, silver, small but chunky, with jade eyes. “It’s lovely,” I’m saying, twizzling it. “It looks antique. Is it some kind of a, a geisha’s hairpin or something?”

I’m alone on the cold leather sofa. Nobody’s in the corridor. Nobody’s anywhere. Mr. Dressing Gown’s long gone, I sense, but I’m holding his fox hairpin. God, I zoned out again. This isn’t a good habit. “Safe from Harm” has turned into The Orb’s “Little Fluffy Clouds.” There was a blank wall here, I thought, but actually there’s a small black iron door, exactly like the one in Slade Alley, only this one’s already ajar. I go to it, crouch down, push it open and peer out, just my head. It’s an alley. It looks very like Slade Alley indeed, but it can’t be because it can’t be. My knees are still on the carpet, in Slade House. It’s dark, with very high walls and no people. It’s as quiet as the tomb, as they say. There’s no “Little Fluffy Clouds” out here; it’s as if my head’s passed through a soundproof membrane. About fifty meters away to my left, the alley turns right under a flickery street-lamp. To my right, about the same distance away, there’s another lamp, another corner. It can’t be Slade Alley. I’m in a corridor in the house, fifty, eighty, a hundred meters away — I’m no good with distances. So … Drugs? Drugs. If one frickhead put hash into no-hash brownies, another frickhead-to-the-power-of-ten could have sprinkled something trippier in the punchbowl. It happens. Two students Freya knew in Sydney went to Indonesia, ate some kind of stew, and thought they could swim home to Bondi Beach. One of them was rescued, but not the other. What do you actually do if you find an impossible alleyway in an acid trip? Go down it? Could do. See if it takes me back to Westwood Road. But what about Todd, waiting for me, right now, in the kitchen, wondering where I am. No. I’d rather get back. Or …

Or …

What if Slade House is the hallucination, and this door’s my way back? Not a rabbit-hole into Wonderland, but the rabbit-hole home? What if—

Someone touches my back and I jerk back inside, into the corridor in Slade House, to the music, to the party, startled twice over to find the Wicked Witch of the West peering down. “Hey, Sally Timms.”

My heart’s going like an engine. I can’t get a reply out.

“You okay down there? You lost something?”

“Hi”—I search for her name—“Kate.”

“Are you feeling all right? Did you lose something?”

“No, no, I was just wondering where this door led to.”

The witch looks a bit puzzled. “What door?”

“This door.” And I show Kate Childs — the blank wall. The doorless blank wall. I touch it. Solid. I get up, wondering how I bluff this, trying to buy time. My thoughts revolve. Yes, I’m hallucinating; yes, I ate or drank something with drugs in it; no, I can’t handle telling Kate that someone’s drugged me. “Look, I’m sloping off home.”

“But the night’s still so young, Sally Timms.”

“Sorry, it’s this head-cold. My period’s started.”

Kate removes her knobbly Wicked Witch mask to show an anxious sisterly face framed by Barbie-blonde hair. “Let me summon you a cab, Sally, it’s a genuine magic power I was born with. Click of the fingers.” She starts patting herself down like at airport security. “I just happen to have an extremely handy state-of-the-art cell-phone in one of these … witchy pockets.”

A taxi would be nice, but I’ve only got £2. “I’ll walk.”

She looks dubious. “Is that such a great idea, if you’re ill?”

“Positive, thanks. The fresh air’ll do me good.”

The unmasked witch isn’t sure. “Why don’t you ask Todd Cosgrove to get you home safe and sound? One of the last gentleman in England, is Todd.”

I didn’t know Kate knew Todd. “Actually, I was just looking for him.”

“He’s looking for you. Up in the Games Room.”

Tonight feels like a board game co-designed by M.C. Escher on a bender and Stephen King in a fever. “Which way’s the Games Room?”

“The quickest way’s back through the TV room, down the hall, up the stairs and keep climbing. You can’t go wrong.”

Everyone’s glued to the screen the way people are when something major’s happened. I ask a half-turned werewolf what’s happened. “Some girl’s been abducted, like.” The werewolf’s a northerner. He doesn’t look at me. “A student, a girl, from our uni.”

“Jesus. Abducted?”

“Aye, that’s what they’re saying.”

“What’s her name?”

“Polly, or Sarah, or …” the werewolf’s drunk. “Annie? She’s only been missing five days, but a personal item was found, so now the police are afraid it’s, like … A real kidnapping. Or worse.”

“What kind of personal item?”

“A mirror,” mumbles the werewolf. “A make-up mirror. Hang on, look …” The TV shows our student union building where a female reporter’s holding a big pink microphone: “Thank you, Bob, and here on the city campus tonight the mood can best be described as grim and sober. Earlier today the police issued an appeal for any information on the whereabouts of Sally Timms, an eighteen-year-old student last seen in the vicinity of Westwood Road on Saturday night …” The reporter’s words all gloop together. Missing? Five days? Since Saturday? It’s still Saturday! I’ve only been in Slade House for an hour. It must be another Sally Timms. But a photo of my face fills the screen and it’s me, it’s me, and the Sally Timms on the screen is wearing exactly, exactly, what I’m wearing now: my Zizzi Hikaru jacket, and Freya’s Maori jade necklace that arrived today. That I signed for at the porter’s lodge only twelve hours ago. Who took that photo of me? When? How? The reporter thrusts her big pink microphone at Lance, Lance Arnott, who, apparently, is dancing in this building right now — while also speaking to a TV reporter two miles away, saying, “Yeah, yeah, I saw her just before she disappeared, at the party, and—” Lance’s cod-fish lips keep moving but my hearing kind of cuts out. I should be switching on the lights and shouting, “NO NO NO, people, look, there’s been some stupid mistake—I’m Sally Timms, I’m here, it’s okay!” but I’m afraid of the fuss, the shame, of being a spectacle, of being a news story, and I just can’t. Meanwhile Lance Arnott’s making a doubtful face: “ ‘Fraid so, yeah. She had serious trouble adjusting to college life. Bit of a tragic figure; vulnerable, not very street-wise, know what I’m saying? There were rumours of drug use, dodgy boyfriends, that kind of stuff.” Now I’m angry, as well as frightened and confused as hell. How dare Lance say all that about me on live TV? For not fancying him, I’m a “tragic, vulnerable” druggie? The reporter turns back to the camera. “A clear picture is emerging of the missing student as an unhappy girl; a loner, with weight issues; a girl who had trouble adjusting to real life after private schools in Singapore and Great Malvern. Following the discovery of her compact mirror in, uh,” the reporter shuffles her notes, “Slade Alley earlier today, the friends and relatives of Sally Timms, while still hoping for the best, must, as the hours go by, be fearing the worst. This is Jessica Killingley, reporting live for South Today; and back to you in the studio, Bob.”

God knows what Freya, Mum and Dad must be thinking.

Actually, I know what they’re thinking: they’re thinking I’ve been murdered. They urgently need to know I’m fine, the police need to call off the search, but I can’t just announce it here. I pull back from the werewolf, and bang into a sideboard. My hand touches something rubbery: a Miss Piggy mask. Thanks to Isolde Delahunty et al. I’ve got bad associations with pigs, but if I don’t put it on, any second now someone’ll see me, point and shriek, so I just loop its cord round my head and cover my face. Cool. A bit of breathing space. What was the reporter saying about my compact mirror? I used it in the kitchen after Todd left. Didn’t I? I check in my handbag …

… Gone. Normally I’d retrace my steps and hunt it down, but I want to get out of Slade House even more than I want Freya’s gift back. She’ll understand. She’ll have to. Todd’ll know what to do. Todd’s unflappable. We’ll slip away and sort out what needs to be sorted. Him and me.

At the foot of the stairs, a possibly Indian girl in an all-silver Tin Man costume says, “Did you hear about Sally Timms, the missing girl?”

“Yes, I did.” I try to get by but she’s blocking my path.

“Did you know Sally Timms well?” asks the Tin Man girl.

“Not very,” I answer, and slip by, up the stairs. The banister glides under my fingertips and the hubbub of the hallway fades away, like I’m climbing into a fog of silence. The carpet on the stairs is white like snow, the walls are panelled and hung with portraits, and up ahead is a small square landing, guarded by a grandfather clock. A white carpet and an antique clock is asking for trouble in a student house, Erasmus scholars or not. The first picture shows a freckled girl, she’s really lifelike. The next picture’s of an old soldier with a waxed mustache, the sort who’d say, “Roger, wilco, chocks away.” I get short of breath. I can’t have been climbing that long. I need to join a gym. Finally, I’ve reached the grandfather clock. Its face has no hands, only the words TIME IS, TIME WAS, TIME IS NOT. Highly metaphysical; deeply useless. To my left’s a door, panelled, to match the walls. To my right, more stairs climb past more portraits to a pale door. Which is the Games Room? I knock on the panelled door.

I hear only the clock’s rusty, oiled heart.

I knock again, but louder. Nothing …

… but the rhythmic grunt of cogs.

Turn the doorknob, then. Open the door. Just an inch. Peer in.

This room’s igloo-shaped, lit by a bedside lamp, windowless, carpetless and contains a large four-poster bed and not a lot else. The bed’s maroon drapes are drawn. The mechanical grinding noise has stopped, but I call out softly, “Todd?” in case he’s in the bed. “Todd? It’s Sal.”

No reply, but if Todd ate a hash brownie — or actually a “No Hash Brownie”—he might be asleep. Snoring softly, maybe, in that bed, like Goldilocks.

I’ll just peep through the drape. That can’t hurt.

Anyway, I’m unrecognisable in my Miss Piggy mask.

So I shuffle over the grainy floorboards and lift a flap of the velvet. Just an inch … “Miss Piggy!” booms a man — Axel? — sweat-glazed in the blood-dim cocoon, and I only half block a shriek. The bed’s taken up by a grotesque frame of naked limbs, chests, breasts, groins, shoulders, toes, buttocks, goitres and scrotums; an undrawable bone cage, a flesh loom, a game of Twister with several Siamese bodies, pulled apart and smooshed together; up here’s Angelica’s head with her matted indigo hair and a tongue-stud showing; down there’s Axel’s head; in the core, I see their pneumatic sexes, swollen huge and crimson-raw like a Francis Bacon porn-mare; the stink of bad fish is nauseous, and the Axel head grins at me through the slit in the drape, through my Miss Piggy eyehole, and he speaks, but his words are jolted out of him in Angelica’s voice: “Is — Oink — Oink — hun — gry — for — a—ba — con — sand — wich?” and the Angelica head, melded onto a flabby thigh with wrists where its ears should be grunts back, “Don’t — be — mean — Sal — ly — hates — it — when — we — call — her — that.”

I skitter back across the floor to the panelled door and slam it behind me, quivering with disgust, with doubt, with … The grandfather clock is calm and collected. Far, far below, the black and white tiled hallway is quiet. Up above, the pale door’s waiting. It’s a bad acid trip. I’ve heard about them. Piers my first non-boyfriend had one once, and it sounded like this. Axel and Angelica were having sex, but I saw it through kaleidoscopic drug-tinted spectacles. I need to get Todd, so he can keep an eye on me. I walk up the stairs, past two portraits: one of a young rockabilly type with Brylcreemed hair and half-open shirt; the next, a woman with eyeliner like Cleopatra and a beehive Martha and the Vandellas hairdo. The next portrait, however, stops me dead. It’s of a boy in school uniform, and I’ve seen him once already tonight … I get out Axel’s A4 sheet from my jacket, and compare them. It’s Nathan Bishop. My feet take me up to the next portrait, which shows Mr. Dressing Gown from earlier. Now Axel’s case study is in front of me, I can name him: Gordon Edmonds. Who I spoke to, on the cold sofa, a little while ago. Or who I dreamed I spoke to. I don”t know which. I don’t even know if I’m that shocked to find Sally Timms staring out of the final picture, standing in her Zizzi Hikaru jacket with Freya’s Maori pendant round her neck. The same image as they used on TV. Except my eyes are now two freakish blanks, and she’s frowning, as if I can’t understand why I can’t see any more, and as I watch, one of her index fingers rises to tap the inside face of the canvas … I half-huff-half-shriek-half-slip-half-fall onto the ledge at the very top of the stairs, and my hand steadies me by shooting up and grasping the shiny doorknob on the pale door …

… which swings open and suddenly Todd’s there looking at me, bloodless and thunderstruck. I say, “Todd?” and he jumps back and I realize it’s my mask so I yank it off and say his name and Todd says, “Sal, Sal, thank Christ I found you,” and now we’re hugging. Todd’s bony and skinny but his muscles are iron though he’s cold like he’s just walked in from a frosty night. Behind him is the sloping ceiling of a dark attic. Todd uncouples himself from our hug and shuts the pale door. “Something bad’s happening in this house, Sal. We need to get out.”

We’re both whispering. “Yes, I know, someone’s spiked our drinks. I’m seeing … impossible things. Like”—where do I begin? — “Todd, the TV said I’ve been missing for five days. Missing! I can’t be. And look—” I point at my eyeless portrait which has stopped moving now. “It’s me, that picture’s me, wearing this”—I hold up the real necklace for Todd to see—“which I only got today. It’s insane.”

Todd swallows. “I’m afraid it’s worse than an acid trip, Sal.”

I see he’s serious. I fumble at what it means. “What, then?”

“We joined ParaSoc for paranormal experiences. We’ve found them. And they’re not benign. They’ll try to stop us getting out.”

My skin goes icy and burnt. “Who’ll try to stop us?”

Todd glances behind us at the pale door. “Our hosts. The twins. I … put them to sleep, but they’ll wake up soon. Angry and hungry.”

“Twins? What twins? What do they want?”

Todd says it low and level: “To consume your soul.”

I wait for him to tell me he’s joking. I wait. I wait.

Todd’s holding my elbows. “Slade House is their life-support machine, Sal, but it’s powered by souls, and not just any old souls. It’s like blood groups: the type they need is very rare, and your soul is that very rare type. We have to get you out. Now. We’ll go down the stairs, out via the kitchen, across the garden and once we’re in Slade Alley, I think we’ll be safe. Safer, anyway.”

I feel Todd’s breath on my forehead. “I saw some big gates onto Cranbury Avenue, and another black iron door, in the hall.”

Todd shakes his head. “That’s wallpaper, to fool you. The one way out is the one way in: the Aperture.”

“What about Fern, Lance, Axel, Angelica?”

A muscle in Todd’s cheek twitches. “They’re beyond my help.”

“What do you mean? What’ll happen to them?”

Todd hesitates. “You’re the fruit; they’re the pith, stone and skin. They’ve been discarded.”

“But …” I point down the stairs — are there more stairs now? — to the square landing, but the door into the igloo room has gone. “I–I saw Axel and Angelica … down there. Sort of.”

“You saw fleshy 3D Polaroids of Axel and Angelica which wouldn’t stand much scrutiny, close up. Listen.” Todd grips my hand. “Carefully. On our way out, speak to nobody; respond to nobody; meet nobody’s eye. Accept nothing, eat nothing, drink nothing. This version of Slade House is a shadow play, evoked into being. If you engage with it, the twins sense you; they’ll wake; they’ll extract your soul. Understand?”

Kind of. Yes. No. “Who are you?”

“I’m a … a kind of bodyguard. Look, I’ll explain back at my parents’ house. We have to go, Sal, or we’ll never get out. Remember: vow of silence, eyes down, don’t let go of my hand. I’ll cloak us as best I can. Put that mask back on, too. It may sow a little extra confusion.”

Todd holds my hot hand in his cold one, and I focus on my feet to avoid looking at portraits. Time passes, steps fly under our feet, and we arrive at the grandfather clock. Its krunk-kronks are all tempos all at once. The panelled door to the igloo room hasn’t reappeared. “There was a door here,” I whisper. “Did I dream it?” Todd murmurs, “Rats in a maze of moveable walls ask themselves the same.” Halfway down the lower flight of stairs, students start appearing in the hallway, chatting, arguing, smoking, flirting. The volume rises with every step. “So you found him,” smiles the Tin Man girl, pressing a black drink against her silver cheek. “I’m Urvashi. What’s your name?” Todd squeezes my hand to warn me against answering. It’s like the Don’t Say Yes or No Game Dad used to play with me and Freya on car journeys, but here you mustn’t be tricked into saying anything at all. Urvashi the Tin Man’s in my face: “Oy, Miss Piggy! Answer, or you’ll be Miss Piggy for the rest of forever! Hey!” But Todd pulls me on, and Urvashi’s lost in a blur of faces, masks, bodies, and soon we’re back in the kitchen. “Caught by the Fuzz” by Supergrass is pumping out of a stereo. Todd leads me around the edge and it’s going well until we pass within inches of Todd Cosgrove and Sally Timms, huddled in a corner by an oven with a noisy fan. I stop. Fake Todd’s drinking Indian beer from a bottle and Fake Me’s drinking shit red wine from a plastic cup. Fake Todd’s saying, “Your sister’s older than you, I’m guessing,” and Fake Sally nods. “Was it a fifty-fifty guess, or can you really tell?” I hear Todd — Real Todd — inside my ear canal telling me, Keep going, Sal, they’re flypaper. He propels me on, his arm round my waist, past a table of bottles, cans, a punchbowl and two Wedgwood cake-stands full of brownies. We go under an archway into a utility room with a dozen people between us and the door, including a dug-up corpse, an unraveling mummy, a tube of Colgate toothpaste with a red bucket for a cap and Lance Arnott who blocks my way, looking like a lost soul in an old painting of hell: “There’s something evil in here!” It’s not him, says Todd in my inner ear, but Lance is gripping my lapels: it is him, I smell his yeasty BO. “Please, Sal, I know I was an arsehole, but please don’t leave me! Please!”

“Okay, okay,” I whisper, “we’ll take you with us.”

Instantly, Lance’s face dribbles off, revealing something bonier, hungrier and toothier beneath. I try to scream but my throat’s locked. Todd steps between us and traces signs onto the air — I half-see the living black lines for a split second before they vanish — and then the real being who wears the Lance Arnott disguise flickers off and on and off … and is gone.

I gasp, “What the f—”

I unplugged the modem, Todd tells me; telepathically, I notice a moment later, and instantly accept. But the twins are waking. The kitchen’s silent.

My heart’s drumming and a vein in my neck’s twitching, in time. Some of the partygoers are turning our way, sensing that we don’t belong. Act normally, says Todd’s voice, don’t show fear, and he leads me to the back door. Locked. Not showing fear’s one thing, but I feel it. It’s slithering around my body, just under my skin. Todd makes a threading motion with his fingers and the door opens. He bundles us through. I’ll lock them in behind us, Todd tells me, and turns to trace a symbol at the door. It’s dark out. Down the garden, I make out the Slade Alley wall behind the shrubbery, just. Fern Penhaligon appears, looking delighted. “Sal, you left this on the sofa — catch!” She tosses me my Tiffany compact, the gift from Freya, and I catch it—

Black fireworks zigzagged over marbled skies; the zigzags plucked harpsichords and I floated on the Dead Sea, and could’ve stayed there forever, but a wave of pain lifted me up, high as spires, then hurled me down hard onto the pebbles at the foot of Slade House. Todd’s scared face appears up close. “Sal! Can you hear me? Sal!” My skin pops like bubble wrap and I grunt a “Yes.” “The orison’s imploding — can you walk?” Before I can answer, Todd hauls me upright and my legs are heavy and bendy and I step on something snappable — my Tiffany mirror — and we stagger across the upper lawn. We reach a wistaria trellis where a creeping shockwave catches us and bowls us over a cropped lawn covered with tiny fan-shaped leaves. I want to lie there forever, but Todd drags me up again, and Slade House by night’s shimmering fat and thin, reflected or refracted. Then figures come strolling through the shimmer. Rows and clusters of figures, ambling like they know they don’t have to hurry. Their bodies are blurs but there’s Axel’s face; there’s Angelica; everyone in my Chaucer seminar; my teachers from Great Malvern; Isolde Delahunty and her Barbies; Mum, Dad, Freya. Todd pulls me. “Run, Sal!” And we try, God we try, but it’s like running through water; rose-thorns scratch my eyes; a bucking path trips us; damson trees claw us; and a shrubbery billows up and its roots try to hook our ankles, but here’s the small black iron door. Stupidly, I look back, like you never should in stories. The figures flicker nearer. There’s Piers, who said his night with Oink’d been like shagging a dead blubber whale on a beach, only smellier.

Todd’s saying to me: “You have to open the Aperture, Sal.”

He means the black iron door. How? “What do I do?”

“Open it, like you did before! I can’t do it.”

The faceless walkers are closing in.

I’m shaking. “What did I do before?”

“You pressed it. With your palm!”

So I press the small black iron door—

— and it presses back, just as hard.

“Why isn’t it working?”

“You’re too scared, it’s blocking your voltage.”

I look behind us. Yards away. They’ve got us.

Todd begs: “Forget the fear, Sal. Please.”

“I can’t!”

“You can.”

“I can’t!”

Todd presses his hands against my cheeks and gently, firmly, kisses my lips and whispers, “Please, Sal.” I’m still scared, but something’s unlocked, and something uses my hand as a copper wire, and the door swings open and Todd’s pushing me through into …

… a starless, bodiless, painless, timeless blackness. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Minutes, years, I just don’t know. I passed through a phase when I thought I must be dead, but my mind’s alive, even if I can’t tell if I’m in my body or not. I prayed to God for help, or just for a light to come, apologising for not believing in him, and trying hard not to think about what a sociopathic bigot He is in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelations, but no reply came. I thought about Freya and Mum and Dad, and tried and failed to remember the last things I’d said to them. I thought about Todd. If he’d survived, he’d be helping the police look for me, even though I doubted this was a place where sniffer dogs could track you. I hoped Todd wasn’t angry at me for interacting with Fake Fern, and catching the mirror. Was that a fatal mistake, like Orpheus looking back? A dirty trick, if so. My hands just acted on reflex, to save my mirror. But legends and stories are as full of dirty tricks as life is, and however much time has gone by, nothing has changed, and all I have are memories — the brightest being Todd’s hurried kiss — to keep me company and to keep me sane in the starless, bodiless, painless, timeless blackness.

Something’s happening. A dim dot of light appears. I was afraid I’d gone blind, like Todd’s mum. Seconds or years later, the dot grows into a slit of flame, the flame of a candle, a candle on a strange candlestick that sits in front of us, on the bare floorboards. The flame’s absolutely still. It’s not bright enough to reveal much of the room — an attic? — but by its light I see three faces. To my right sits Kate Childs, the Wicked Witch of the West, dressed in a gray Arab-style cloak thing, but now in her mid-thirties. Have I really been here so long? Have all those years been stolen from me? To my left hovers another vaguely familiar face … Jesus, it’s Melbourne Mike. He’s now the same age as the older Kate Childs, too, also motionless and Buddha-posed, and also wearing an ash-gray robe. Now I see them both in the same field of vision, I realize they’re twins. The third face is Miss Piggy, watching me over the candle, about six paces dead ahead. Or rather, a kneeling girl in a Miss Piggy Mask. A girl wearing a Zizzi Hikaru jacket and a Maori pendant round her chubby neck. Me, or my reflection. I try to move, speak, or even grunt, but my body no longer reacts. My brain works, my eyes work, that’s about it. Like that Frenchman in the book Freya sent me, The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly … Locked-in Syndrome, it’s called. But the French guy could blink one eyelid, that’s how he wrote the book. I can’t even do that. Left of the mirror is a pale door with a gold doorknob. A memory of that door from before drags itself into focus … The room at the top of Slade House. The “Games Room.” Have the three of us been drugged and brought here? By who? And where’s Todd?

“The Cosgrove boy’s been let go, with the other waifs and strays you dragged in with you,” Kate Childs says. The candle-flame quivers. Her American accent’s gone, replaced by crisp, upper-class English, not unlike my mother’s. “You’re here in Slade House at my and my brother’s behest. I’m Norah, and this is Jonah.”

I try to ask, What do you mean, ‘the Cosgrove boy’s been let go’? but my mouth isn’t working, not even a little bit.

“Dead. He didn’t suffer. Don’t mourn. He never loved you. Over the last few weeks, culminating in tonight’s show, he was my brother’s ventriloquist’s dummy, mouthing all those lovey-dovey lies you yearned so badly to hear.”

I try to tell this Norah she’s insane; that I know Todd loves me.

“You tell the girl,” Norah tells Melbourne Mike — or Jonah — irritably, “or she’ll taste all saccharine and powdery.”

Jonah, if that’s his name, sneers my way. “It’s all true, Sweetie. Every word.” His Australian accent’s gone: he has a plummy public school voice. “I was inside Todd Cosgrove’s head and I promise you, he found Sally Timms as erotic as a tub of lard forgotten at the back of the fridge. He detested you.”

You’re lying! Todd kissed me. Todd tried to help me escape.

“Let me translate it into Stupidest Oink Oink. Everything from the pub to the Aperture in Slade Alley was real. This attic is real, too, and these are our real bodies. Between the iron door and waking up here, however, was what we call an orison: a live, 3D, stage set, projected from this Lacuna in time,” Jonah drums on the floorboards, “by my outrageously gifted sister. A scripted vision. I was in it too — or strictly speaking my soul was there — moving Todd’s body, saying Todd’s lines, but everything else — the people you met, the rooms you passed through, the tastes you tasted — was a local reality brought into being by my sister. You and Todd’s thrilling bid for freedom was another part of the rat’s maze we had you run through, an orison inside an orison. We call it a sub-orison. We need a better name. I’d ask you to think of one, but you’re dying.”

My stubborn Me insists, You’re lying, this is all a bad acid trip.

“No,” Jonah sounds disappointed, “you’re really dying. Your respiratory system. No muscles. Think about it. Is that the bad acid trip too?”

To my horror, I realize he’s right. My lungs aren’t working. I can’t gasp, or fall over, or do anything but kneel here and slowly suffocate. The twins now appear to lose interest in me. “I am speechless with admiration, Sister,” Jonah’s saying.

“You haven’t been speechless for a hundred years,” says Norah.

“If the Academy awarded Oscars for Best Orison, you’d be a shoe-in. Truly, it was a masterpiece. Cubist, postmodern — superlatives fail me.”

“Yes yes yes, we’re geniuses — but what about the policeman? His residue was substantial enough to speak with the guest. And the Aperture — appearing of its own accord like that, and open. The girl nearly bolted.”

“Ah, but she didn’t bolt — and why? Cupid’s noose was firmly around her neck, is why. Todd Cosgrove was a trickier role to pull off than Chloe Chetwynd, you’ll concede. Plod would’ve mounted a gashed slab of raw liver, while this little piggy needed proper wooing.”

These words would normally draw blood, but right now I’m worrying about how long you can survive without oxygen. Three minutes?

Norah Grayer twists her head as if screwing it into a socket. “As per usual, you’re missing the point. With each Open Day, these aberrations grow worse.”

Jonah flexes his spidery fingers. “As per usual, Sister, you’re spouting paranoid nonsense. Once again, dinner is served without hitch or hiccup. Once again, our Operandi is charged for a full cycle. Personally, I blame your sojourn in Hollywood for these histrionics. Too many actors’ hairy buttocks in too many mirrored ceilings.”

She half-whispers, half-growls: “It really isn’t in your best interests to speak to me like that, Brother.”

“Oh? Will you take another unannounced sabbatical to the Chilean Andes to divine the meaning of metalife? Go, by all means. Do you good. Possess some fucking peasant or an alpaca. I’ll drive you to the airport after dinner. You’ll be back. Just as I will. Neither of us will last as a solo act. The Operandi’s bigger than both of us, Baby.”

“The Operandi’s sixty years old. To cut ourselves off from the Shaded Way—”

“—avoids unwanted attention from the only beings on Earth who could cause us trouble. We’re demigods in thrall to no one. Can we please keep it that way?”

“We’re in thrall to this risible pantomime every nine years,” replies Norah acidly. We’re in thrall to these”—she indicates her body with disgust—“birth-bodies to anchor our souls in the world of Day. We’re in thrall to luck ensuring that nothing goes wrong.”

I’m still not breathing and I feel my skull’s beginning to cave in. Desperately, fiercely, I think the word, Help!

“Can we please dine? Unless you plan to kill the Operandi in a fit of pique?”

My skull throbs as my body groans for air. Please! I can’t breathe—

Norah exhales like a moody adolescent and grudgingly nods. The Grayer Twins’ hands then begin to weave through the air like Todd Cosgrove’s did earlier, leaving short-lived traces on the dark air. Their lips move and a quiet murmur grows as something solidifies above the candle, cell by cell; a kind of fleshy jellyfish, pulsing with reds and purples. It would be pretty if it weren’t something from a nightmare. Tendrils grow out of it, tendrils with sub-tendrils. Some twist through the air towards me, and one pauses for a moment an inch from my eye. I see a tiny orifice at its tip, opening and closing like a carp, before it plunges up my left nostril. Luckily I barely feel it or the others as they worm into my mouth, up my right nostril and into my ears. I feel a drill-bit of pain in my forehead and see, in the mirror opposite, a shimmering something oozing through one of my mask’s eyeholes. It gathers in a small clear sphere in front of my eyes. Tiny luminous plankton hover inside it. So souls are real.

My soul’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

But now the Grayer Twins close in on both sides.

No! You can’t! It’s mine! Please! Nonono—

They purse their lips like they’re about to whistle.

Help help help Freya Freya anyone help help I need—

The twins inhale, stretching my soul into an oval.

Someone’llstopyouonedayyou’llsufferyou’llpay—

My soul splits in two. Norah inhales one half, Jonah the other.

Their faces look like Piers’ did that night in Malvern …

… and now it’s over. They’re sitting back where they were.

The tendril things have gone. The glowing lump has gone.

The Grayers are as still as sculptures. As is the candle-flame.

In the mirror, a Miss Piggy mask slaps the floor.