Neverwhere(69)

She tries to open the padlock. She fumbles at it with her fingers, and with her mind. Nothing happens. She throws the padlock down onto the floor and begins to cry. Her father reaches down and picks up the padlock, puts it back into her hand. His long finger brushes away a tear from her cheek.

Remember, he tells her, the padlock wants to open. All you have to do is let it do what it wants.

It sits there in her hand, cold and inert and heavy. And then, suddenly, she understands, and, somewhere in her heart, she lets it be what it wants to be. There is a loud click, and the padlock opens. Her father is smiling. There, she says.

Good girl, says her father. That’s all there is to opening. Everything else is just technique.

She realizes what it is that is bothering her. Father? she asks. Your journal. Who put it away? Who could have hidden it? But he is receding from her, and already she is forgetting. She calls to him, but he cannot hear her, and although she can hear his voice in the distance, she can no longer make out what he is saying.

In the waking world, Door whimpers softly. Then she rolls over, cradles her arm around her face, snorts once, twice, then sleeps once more, sleeps without dreaming.



Richard knows it waits for them. Each tunnel he goes down, each turning, each branch he walks, the feeling grows in urgency and weight. He knows it is there, waiting, and the sense of impending catastrophe increases with every step. He knows that it should have been a relief when he turns the final corner, and sees it standing there, framed in the tunnel, waiting for him. Instead he feels only dread. In his dream it is the size of the world: there is nothing left in the world but the Beast, its flanks steaming, broken spars and juts of old weapons prickling from its hide. There is dried blood on its horns and on its tusks. It is gross, and vast, and evil. And then it charges.

He raises his hand (but it isn’t his hand) and he throws the spear at the creature.

He sees its eyes, wet and vicious and gloating, as they float toward him, all in a fraction of a second that becomes a tiny forever. And then it is upon him . . .

The water was cold, and it hit Richard’s face like a slap. His eyes jerked open, and he caught his breath. Hunter was looking down at him. She was holding a large wooden bucket. It was empty. He reached up one hand. His hair was soaked, and his face was wet. He wiped the water from his eyes and shivered with cold.

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Richard. His mouth tasted like several small animals had been using it as a rest room. He tried to stand, and then he sat down again, suddenly. “Ooh,” he explained. “How’s your head?” asked Hunter, professionally.

“It’s been better,” said Richard.

Hunter picked up another wooden bucket, this one filled with water, and hauled it across the stable floor. “I don’t know what you drank,” she said. “But it must have been potent.” Hunter dipped her hand into the bucket and flicked it at Door’s face, spraying her with water. Door’s eyes flickered.

“No wonder Atlantis sank,” muttered Richard. “If they all felt like this in the morning it was probably a relief. Where are we?”

Hunter flicked another handful of water at Door’s face. “In the stables of a friend,” she said. Richard looked around. The place did look a little like a stable. He wondered if it were for horses—and if so, what kind of horses would live beneath the ground? There was a device painted on the wall: the letter S (or was it a snake? Richard could not tell) circled by seven stars.

Door reached a tentative hand up to her head and touched it, experimentally, as if she were unsure just what she might find. “Ooh,” she said, in a near-whisper. “Temple and Arch. Am I dead?”

“No,” said Hunter.

“Pity.”

Hunter helped her to a standing position. “Well,” said Door, sleepily, “he did warn us it was strong.” And then Door woke up completely, very hard, very fast. She grabbed Richard’s shoulder, pointed to the device on the wall, the snaky S with the stars surrounding it. She gasped. “Serpentine,” she said to Richard, to Hunter. “That’s Serpentine’s crest. Richard, get up! We have to run—before she finds out we’re here . . . “

“And do you think,” asked a dry voice from the doorway, “that you could enter Serpentine’s house without Serpentine knowing, child?”

Door pushed herself back against the wood of the stable wall. She was trembling. Richard realized, through the pounding in his head, that he had never seen Door so actually and obviously scared before. Serpentine stood in the doorway. She was wearing a white leather corset and high white leather boots, and the remains of what looked like it had once, long ago, been a silk-and-lace confection of a white wedding dress, now shredded and dirt-stained and torn. She towered above them all: her shock of graying hair brushed the door lintel. Her eyes were sharp, and her mouth was a cruel slash in an imperious face. She looked at Door as if she took terror as her due; as if she had become so used to fear that she now expected it, even liked it.