D Page 7

  “I heard about it in Geography,” she said. “It has snow all year round. And huge mountains called Alps.”

  “So it has, so it has!” agreed the Professor with ardent enthusiasm. “I lived there for a while in the 1840s. Beautiful country. Sublime! You must visit it one day, if you survive this mission! But no, the place you’re going is much nearer to hand, and also much, much further away.”

  Before Dhikilo could protest that she didn’t understand, he lurched up from his seat.

  “Let me show you!” he said, and stepped confidently across the room, immediately colliding with a lamp and knocking it over. The light bulb went ping and the lampshade broke loose and rolled across the carpet.

  “Ach, blindness,” muttered the Professor, annoyed. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Endlessly irritating. Nelly?”

  Mrs Robinson padded to his side. Just having the dog there, even without a leash, gave the old man the poise he needed to make his way safely across the room.

  “Follow on, follow on,” he said, and Dhikilo followed.

  They passed through a library filled with yet more books, and then went up a long wooden staircase to the floor above. It was evident that the Professor owned the entire building and that the impression from the street of a house containing a number of flats was illusory: all of these rooms were part of the Professor’s honeycomb-like home. Some of the rooms were extremely shabby and shrouded in cobwebs and smelled damp; rampant mildew added extra texture to the wallpaper. One of the rooms they passed through on the way to yet another staircase was a dressing room full of wooden coat-stands displaying very old-fashioned gentlemen’s overcoats which had been eaten almost to rags by moths. Other rooms seemed never to have been used at all, and were carpeted in layers of dust that billowed up when you walked across them.

  “It’s right at the top, I’m afraid,” said the Professor, panting with exertion as they embarked on another flight of stairs. A startled mouse dashed between Dhikilo’s feet, and even though she wasn’t frightened of mice, she yelped with surprise.

  “Steady on,” said the Professor. “Almost there.”

  The top room of the building was empty apart from a metal stepladder, some dried-out paintbrushes and a telephone book dated 1983. Oh, and something that looked like a saddlebag, with lots of straps and pouches, slumped in one corner. Through the windows, there were lovely views of Cawber, with the harbour clearly visible despite the cobwebs, and a dramatic vista of rooftops. Mrs Robinson sneezed.

  “All my earnest and devoted research,” mused the Professor, “looking for a portal between this world and the next. And all the while it was right here, under my nose.”

  He indicated a door, intricately patterned and deep red. It had no handle and, on closer inspection, Dhikilo saw that it was not a real door but a giant rectangle of cardboard bound in cloth: the front cover of a hardback book, taller than a man. The Professor reached forward, found the right edge with his gnarled fingers and swung it open.

  A gush of icy wind blew into the room, as well as a few snowflakes. Light flooded in, but not the light of Cawber: an eerie polar light, cast by a pale chilly sun, reflected off a white landscape with no buildings in it at all, just hills and forests covered in snow.

  “And there you have it!” exclaimed the Professor in triumph. “The Land of Liminus!”

  A Particularly Short Chapter

  (for a particularly swift decision)

  Dhikilo gazed through the doorway at the weather in the world beyond. It had been snowing, and might snow again, but was clear just now. The sun was pale and gave very little warmth—unlike the other sun, our sun, visible through the attic window of 58 Gas Hill Garens, which was shining goldenly on the rooftops of Cawber. If the rules of Science applied today, what should have been behind this red door was some dusty junk. Instead, three storeys up from the street below, there was the Land of Liminus, its snow-covered earth stretching to a horizon far above the horizon of Cawber. What would Mr Dawkins have to say about that!

  The Professor was strapping the saddlebag to Mrs Robinson’s back. He seemed to be very pleased with how things were moving ahead now, and was even singing to himself, a sort of tuneless pom-pi-di-pom-pom. It suddenly occurred to Dhikilo that maybe there wasn’t going to be any more explanation. She’d assumed the Professor would tell her all about where she was going and what she was likely to find there and what to do about it. His pom-pi-di-pom-pom-ing as he fastened the straps of Mrs Robinson’s saddlebag made her doubt he had any such intention.

  “Are we going already?” she said.

  “Certainly you’re going,” said the Professor. “No time like the present.”

  “But I haven’t got my winter clothes on yet.”

  “Crack on, then: there’s a lot of cold air coming through.” And he clasped his arms with his hands, miming a shiver.

  “My bags are still downstairs.”

  The Professor looked bemused, as if he couldn’t imagine why Dhikilo would be so impractical as to oblige herself to climb all those stairs twice. “Well, you’d better fetch them, then.”

  Dhikilo hurried downstairs, retracing her steps through the dusty, spooky rooms. When she got to the bottom and back into the sitting room, her bags were right where she’d left them. She’d returned the money and the front door was right near by. This was her last opportunity to run away, back to safety, back to the world she knew—although it didn’t seem very safe lately, and it was no longer the world she’d known. She thought about it. But only for a moment or two.

  An adventure was waiting for her.

  2

  Second

  (somewhat longer and

  significantly more hazardous)

  Half,

  Set in THAT World

  What the Shining Objects Were

  As soon as Dhikilo and Mrs Robinson stepped through the portal into the other world, England was reduced to a door-sized rectangle, floating in mid-air, its bottom edge suspended a few inches above the snowy ground. It was like a large picture frame hung on the empty space where a wall had once stood, or where a wall might one day be built.

  Dhikilo could see the Professor standing near the threshold of the attic room they’d just left, and she could glimpse behind him the empty bags which had contained the snow gear she was now wearing, but it was as though these things were projected onto a thin billboard that might be blown over by a breeze at any moment. The world of Cawber-on-Sands was insubstantial, no longer believable. The Land of Liminus was vast and cold and solid underfoot and endlessly airy overhead. It was the real, true universe, and ours was an illusion.

  “Wait!” said Dhikilo, as the Professor waved goodbye and reached forward to shut the door.

  “What for?” called the old man.

  “How will I know which way to go?”

  “Stick with Nelly! She’ll steer you right!” He nodded reassuringly, or perhaps his head was merely shaking with cold; it was hard to tell.

  Dhikilo opened her mouth to ask another question, but the Professor was in a hurry to get back to the warmth downstairs. “Well, goodbye for now!” he sang out. “Strive to achieve the aim without death or serious injury!” And with that, he closed the door.

  For a few seconds, the door remained a door. Then it shimmered and changed into a bare tree. All trace of England was gone and it was too late to tell Ruth and Malcolm that she wouldn’t be home for lunch.

  * * *

  They stood for a while, adjusting to the silence and the desolation. The sudden total disappearance of Cawber—of England, of the world she knew—made Dhikilo feel uneasy. It made her wonder if it would still be there when she wanted to get back.

  Mrs Robinson made a doggy noise, almost a growl. (Evidently she could only speak when she was a sphinx.) Dhikilo looked at her face, and then looked up into the sky where Mrs Robinson was pointing with her snout.

  About half a dozen large dragonflies—or exotic insects that resembled dragonflies—were gliding overhead. Not far overhead, but well out of reach. Dragonflies in snowy weather? Impossible, surely. Where had they come from? Why weren’t they hibernating in a pond? And the way they moved was unusual, too: they weren’t hovering and helicoptering, the way dragonflies usually do; they were flying in a resolutely straight line, in formation, like migrating birds. That was peculiar.

  And what was more peculiar still was that each dragonfly was carrying in its feet a luminous object, an object as big as its own body, an object almost too bright to stare at with the naked eye.

  Mrs Robinson barked a warning, or maybe it was the canine equivalent of a shout of anger. The dragonflies took no notice, didn’t waver an inch in their progress. They were headed for the horizon, each clinging to its luminous prize.

  Just before they dwindled out of sight, Dhikilo realized what the shining objects were. They were Ds.

  Dreadlocks, a Dolphin, a Piece of Driftwood

  As Dhikilo and Mrs Robinson stood and stared, more and more dragonflies glided by. Sometimes the Ds they carried were shaped “D” and sometimes “d.” Sometimes the design was simple and sometimes it was ornate. Jewels of different kinds. But all the same letter, plucked from whatever words no longer contained them.

  One careless insect lost its grip and the shining prize fell to the ground. Dhikilo rushed over to where it had landed. It was already dissolving into the snow, but it still glowed. Dhikilo knelt down, pulled off one of her gloves and touched the disintegrating D with her bare fingertips. Immediately, she had a vivid mental picture—like a film projected straight into her brain—of a camel. A camel with one hump. A dromedary.

  Then the D shrivelled into nothing and the vision of the dromedary faded from her imagination.

  Dhikilo stood up and put her glove back on. All around her, as far as she could see, was snowed-under scrubland, with a few bare trees shivering in the wind.

  Mrs Robinson uttered a sound that wasn’t quite a bark: “Uff.” She was keen to get moving.

  * * *

  They followed the flight path of the dragonflies. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of them. Five or six minutes might pass when there weren’t any flying overhead, but then some more would come along, and sometimes there were dozens at once, a cloud of insects carrying their brilliant trophies. It was obvious that Ds were being stolen in huge numbers. But by whom? Dhikilo had a hunch that the dragonflies were merely providing the transport; insects had teensy-weensy brains and she didn’t think they were capable of devising a plot to deprive the English language of one of its letters. A being that was bigger and smarter and more evil must be behind this.

  They walked for a long time, maybe an hour, then stopped to have something to eat and drink. Mrs Robinson’s saddlebag was generously stocked with treats, although it was obvious that the Professor had a sweet tooth. There were lots of chocolate bars, and cereal bars, and those so-called “healthy” bars that look like birdseed glued together with baked sugar. There was plenty of water, bottled in thermal containers so that it didn’t freeze. On the savoury front, there were packets of salted peanuts and packets of cashews and some weird cheap cheese wrapped in tubes of transparent plastic. And there were six cans of dog food.

  Dhikilo wondered if this meant that the Professor expected their mission to be over quite quickly, or if these supplies were intended for emergencies only. In all the time they’d been walking, they hadn’t come across any houses or buildings, let alone any shops or restaurants. The Land of Liminus was not a cheerful or welcoming place. It had the sad, impressive beauty that vast desolate landscapes have, but it would definitely have been improved by a friendly log cabin with smoke coming out of the chimney and a sign outside saying, DELICIOUS HOT FOOD. OPEN FOR LUNCH AND DINNER.

  Mrs Robinson refused the offer of anything to eat from the saddlebag, and drank only a few mouthfuls of water straight from the flask. It made Dhikilo feel quite self-indulgent eating an entire cereal bar. Maybe Mrs Robinson anticipated travelling for days and days.

  “My mum and dad will be worried about me,” said Dhikilo as they resumed walking towards the horizon.

  “Ruff,” said Mrs Robinson.

  “I wish there was some way of letting them know I’m all right,” said Dhikilo.

  “Arf?” said Mrs Robinson, and looked up at Dhikilo with a frown, as if expressing serious doubt about the notion that they were all right.

  They carried on. It’s not so easy to walk on snow, especially for a girl who’s used to walking on concrete footpaths or on grass. It was a little bit like walking on the shingle beach at Cawber-on-Sands, except of course without the warm sun and the cawing seagulls and the rushing waves and the little pink English children staring at her in wonder. Dhikilo couldn’t remember ever having to trudge through snow in Cawber. Council workers promptly swept it away when it fell on pathways where people needed to walk or drive. Liminus didn’t look like the sort of place that would have council workers.

  Thinking about these things instead of concentrating on her next step made her almost fall over. Her boot had sunk shin-deep into a marshy hole. She needed to focus hard just to keep her feet tramping and her breath coming out in regular white puffs. The exercise kept her toasty warm in her snug winter clothes, but the freezing air stung her nostrils where she breathed it in. The mercilessness of that coldness worried her. As if it was waiting for its chance to do her harm. She and Mrs Robinson were two small mammals in a large empty landscape and they had no idea where they were going. They were following dragonflies. Following dragonflies didn’t qualify as a clever or well-thought-out plan of action.

  Every now and then, a D fell from the sky and shrivelled into nothingness in the snow. The first few times, Dhikilo ran over to investigate, touching the D while it was still able to give her a vision of the thing it had been stolen from—dreadlocks, a dolphin, a piece of driftwood. But each time she took her glove off and put her fingers into the snow, it took a little longer for her hand to warm up again afterwards. She should conserve her energy and (as the Professor might say) crack on.

  The Magwitches

  As the afternoon wore on, Dhikilo started to imagine she could hear a sound—a sound different from her own footsteps and her own heavy breathing. At first, she thought it must be Mrs Robinson’s footsteps, but the dog moved quietly at a steady pace, whereas the sound seemed to be getting gradually louder. She didn’t want to look around, because in her heavy winter clothes looking around would require her to stand still and turn her whole body. So she ignored the sound as long as she could. But eventually it couldn’t be mistaken; there was a noise, a sort of muffled stomping that their own feet couldn’t account for.

  Dhikilo stopped and turned around. Four dark figures were pursuing them. Pursuing? Maybe just walking in the same direction. Dhikilo waited until they got close enough to be properly looked at.

  The four figures were, in fact, four witches.

  How did she know they were witches? Because they looked exactly like the witches she’d seen in storybooks and films. Beak-like noses with warts on. Long dirty straggly hair the colour of the stuff that comes out of the inside of a vacuum cleaner. Shabby browny-grey robes. They didn’t have those black pointy hats that Dhikilo had always thought would surely blow off as soon as you flew into the air on a broomstick; they had hoods, which was much more practical.

  Although...the robes were not so practical for snowy weather, and none of the women had proper boots on, only odd raggedy-looking footwear that could’ve been scraps of other garments wrapped tight and stitched together. All four of the women were filthy, as if they’d been smothered in mud, brushed off a bit and pulled through a hedge not just backwards but also frontwards. And when they started to move towards Dhikilo and Mrs Robinson, it became evident that there were chains around their ankles, big iron chains that dragged through the snow like dead pythons.

  “We mean you no harm,” said the first witch.

  “No harm whatsoever,” reassured the second witch.

  “A more harmless bunch of gentlewomen you’ll never meet,” said the third witch. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “Those are very warm-looking clothes you’ve got on,” said the fourth witch.

  “But not as warm as our welcome to you, sartorially fortunate stranger!” the foremost witch hastened to add.

  “I’m Dhikilo,” said Dhikilo, wondering if it mattered that she didn’t know what “sartorially” meant.

  “We are the Magwitches,” said the foremost witch, sounding extremely proud to be able to make this claim. Her fellow witches nodded in agreement.

  “Our joy is to welcome all who venture off the path of safety,” the second witch said.

  “We strive to protect strangers from the Great Gamp,” the third witch said.

  “Because the Great Gamp is not as welcoming as we are. No, he most certainly is not!” said the fourth witch, casting a glance over her shoulder, as if worried that some monstrous creature might have snuck into view.

  “But let us talk no more of the Great Gamp!” declared the foremost witch. “Let us allow nothing to spoil the pleasure of our meeting with you! Welcome, noble interloper with the covetable clothing!”

  “Covetable? My sister meant ‘comfortable,’ of course.”

  “Of course. Blessings be upon us all, to have met in peace in such a perilous spot.”

  “...potentially perilous.”

  “Potentially, yes.”

  All four of the witches stood still for a moment, breathing hard from the exertion of their energetic greetings. A bright droplet of snot fell from the nose of witch number three. Gently, fresh snowflakes started spiralling down from the sky.