Part 53 (1/2)

The five black forms arranged themselves in a half circle before the front steps of the house. It was faint, but Ivy could just hear a low chanting. As one, the figures raised their left arms, pointing.

Again a thudding sound echoed up from below, louder this time.

”They're trying to open the door,” Mr. Rafferdy said.

Ivy could not take her eyes from the figures below. Blue light flickered around their outstretched hands.

She looked at Mr. Rafferdy. ”How long do you think it will hold?”

”I have absolutely no idea.”

She wrested herself from the window. ”Come on, then.”

”Where are we going?”

”To find the door. It has to be somewhere else in the house. Maybe it was moved after he wrote the letter, like the magick cabinet.”

”How can you move a door? Take it out of the wall and put it in another? Or do you move the entire wall along with it?”

The idea did seem absurd, but Ivy didn't know what else to think. ”It is a thing of magick,” she said.

”I suppose it's possible,” Mr. Rafferdy said, though a bit dubiously. ”But if so, perhaps it's not in the house at all.”

She nodded toward the window. ”If that was the case, then they wouldn't be here.”

”Good point.” He gripped his cane. ”Lead on, then.”

They began their search on the uppermost floor, moving from room to room, opening every door great or small. Some led to side chambers, others to closets or cabinets. They rapped on the walls and peered behind pictures and faded tapestries, making sure they missed nothing. As they went, the air in the house dimmed. Outside the windows, clouds gathered in the sky. At last their search brought them back into the upstairs corridor.

”There's nothing up here,” Mr. Rafferdy said. ”I'm sure we tried every door, and none of them opened onto anything remotely unusual or magickal, unless you count the stork's nest in the one bedroom.”

Again a blow struck the front door of the house, rattling the air.

”Down,” Ivy said. ”We must go down.”

They searched the second floor, going from room to room, past empty shelves and furniture draped in shrouds, making sure no door, no matter how small or inconsequential, escaped their attention. Then they went to the first floor, and even down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, but to no avail. There was nothing about any door that might have suggested it was the one, the place where they should work the enchantment.

Mr. Rafferdy brushed cobwebs from his coat as they returned to the first floor, to the foot of the staircase. ”I'm beginning to think it would be easier to just speak the spell at every door in the house.”

”No, there are dozens of them-you would be exhausted before you could finish. Besides, there isn't time.”

As if to punctuate this, another thud came from behind them. They turned, gazing down the entry hall in time to see the front door of the house shudder in its frame. Lines of blue light, sharp as knives, stabbed through the cracks all around the door. Then the light faded. As it did, the m.u.f.fled sound of chanting seeped through the door.

”It has to be here,” Ivy said. ”We must have missed it somehow.”

She started up the stairs, running up the steps back to the third floor, Mr. Rafferdy following. Again she moved through all the rooms, running her hands over every wall.

It was no use; they discovered nothing they had not already seen. They came to the top of the stairs again and Ivy started to descend, only then she halted. The will to keep searching drained from her. What hope was there? They had already looked at everything down there.

Sighing, Ivy sat down on the top step. From below came another crash, along with the whine of metal.

”The hinges are breaking,” Mr. Rafferdy said. ”It won't be long now.”

Ivy could only nod. She was beyond words. Her father had been wrong to trust her; she had failed to solve his puzzle in the end.

Mr. Rafferdy sat down on the step beside her. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. As he did, a spot of gold appeared on the shoulder of his coat. One last ray of light must have filtered in from somewhere to fall upon him.

Ivy frowned. ”But that can't be.”

”What can't be?”

”That,” she said, pointing to the dot of red-gold light on his coat.

”The sun must be setting.”

”I'm sure it is, but the last time I looked out a window, a storm was coming. The sky has covered with clouds.”

”Perhaps it's cleared off.”

Ivy held out her hand, catching the spot of light upon it. ”No, I don't think so.” She stood, turning around. The ray of light was coming from somewhere down the upstairs corridor.

She moved slowly, careful to keep the beam of light upon her hand as she went, following it down the corridor, through the open door of the study. Dust floated on the gray air, and she could see the thin shaft of red-gold light. Hand outstretched, she followed the light across the study, past the secret door Mr. Rafferdy had opened, into the small chamber beyond.

Ivy drew close to the center of the room, the spot of light still upon her palm. It emanated from a small hole in the cloth draping the heap of objects there. Or was it a stack of boxes and chests after all? The chamber was dim now-sunlight no longer beamed in from the study-but as she examined the cloth, she realized what it concealed was rounded, not flat like the top of a crate or an old cabinet.

”Where is the light coming from?” Mr. Rafferdy said.

Ivy gripped a fold of the black cloth and tugged. It fell to the floor with a hiss, and red-gold light flooded the chamber.

It was a perfect sphere of crystal, a thing so large she could not have encircled it using both arms. The crystal orb was suspended within a frame of intricately braided wood that in turn rested upon a wooden stand fas.h.i.+oned of thick, ornately carved columns. The red light emanated from within the sphere, welling out, suffusing the air of the room with crimson.

”It looks rather like an eye,” Mr. Rafferdy said behind her, his voice oddly distant-sounding.

He was right. The braided wood wove together, forming a lid from beneath which the orb peered past them with its red gaze. All this time they had been looking for the wrong thing. The door her father had written about in his letter was not some ordinary portal set into a wall. It was this. And in a way it made sense. Were not eyes often described as doorways to the soul?

Fascinated, Ivy peered closer. It seemed there were things within the orb, though it was difficult to see through the haze of ruddy light. She could make out only indistinct shapes. However, she had the impression of a flat, dark landscape receding into a vast distance. Just above the line of the horizon hung a great, livid ball like some impossibly bloated sun.

Ivy leaned closer yet, and a queer feeling came over her: a sensation that the land she saw was not flat at all. Instead, it surged and writhed, like the surface of a furious black sea. Only the sea was not made up of drops of water but of individual motes of darkness, each one moving and struggling, trying to climb its way over the others. Above, dark shapes flitted and lurched across the face of the alien sun.

”No, don't look,” Mr. Rafferdy said, pulling her back. ”I know he's with them, but I think Mr. Bennick's right about this. I don't think it's a good idea to look through that thing.”

Ivy held a hand to her temples. Her head throbbed, and she felt ill. A cold sweat had broken out on her skin.

He regarded her with a worried look. ”Are you all right?”

”Yes, I'm fine.” However, even as she said this, a moment of dizziness came over her. She reached for the wooden stand that held the orb and its frame, gripping it for support.

The crimson light turned green. At once her headache vanished, as did her fear, her weariness. She felt refreshed, as if she had just drunk a cup of cool water. With a gasp she let go of the wooden stand. The air in the room went red again.

”What is it, Mrs. Quent?” His worried expression had been replaced by curiosity. ”Something happened just now, didn't it?”