THURSDAY NEXT,

  Hades: Family from Hell

  A WAVE BURST ON the rocks behind me, showering me with cold water and flecks of foam. I shivered. I was on a rocky outcrop in the darkest gale-torn night, and before me stood a lighthouse. The wind whistled and moaned around the tower, and a flash of lightning struck the apex. The bolt coursed down the earthing cable and trailed a shower of sparks, leaving behind the acrid stench of brimstone. The lighthouse was as black as obsidian, and as I looked up, it seemed as though the arc lamp rotating within the vast lenses was floating in midair. The light swept through the inky blackness illuminating nothing but a heaving, angry sea. I looked backwards in my mind but could see nothing—I was without memory or past experiences. This was the loneliest outpost of my subconscious, a memoryless island where nothing existed other than that which I could feel and see and smell at this moment in time. But I still had emotions, and I had a sense of danger, and purpose. Somehow I understood I was here to vanquish—or be vanquished.

  Another wave burst behind me, and with beating heart I pulled on the locking lever of the steel front door and was soon inside, safe from the gale. The door securely fastened, I looked around. There was a central spiral staircase but nothing else—not a stick of furniture, a book, a packing case, nothing.

  I shivered again and pulled out my gun.

  “A lighthouse,” I murmured, “a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere.”

  I walked slowly up the concrete steps keeping a careful watch as they curved away out of sight. The first floor was empty and I moved on up, each circular room I reached devoid of any signs of habitation. In this way I slowly climbed the tower, gun arm outstretched and trembling with a dread of impending loss that I could not control or understand. On the top floor the spiral staircase ended; a steel ladder was the only means by which to climb any higher. I could hear the electric motors that drove the rotating lamp whine above me, the bright white light shining through the open roof hatch as the beam swept slowly about. But this room was not empty. Sitting in an armchair was a young woman powdering her nose with the help of a small handmirror.

  “Who are you?” I asked, pointing my gun at her.

  She lowered the mirror, smiled and looked at the pistol.

  “Dear me!” she exclaimed. “Always the woman of action, aren’t you?”

  “What am I doing here?”

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “No.” I lowered the gun. I couldn’t remember any facts but I could feel love and loss and frustration and fear. The woman was linked to one of these but I didn’t know which.

  “My name is—” The young woman stopped and smiled again. “No, I think even that is too much.”

  She rose and walked towards me. “All you need to know is that you killed my brother.”

  “I’m a murderer?” I whispered, searching in my heart for guilt of such a crime and finding none. “I . . . I don’t believe you.”

  “Oh, it’s true, and I will have my revenge. Let me show you something.”

  She took me to the window and pointed. There was another flash of lightning and the view was illuminated outside. We were on the edge of a massive waterfall that curved away from us into the darkness. The ocean was emptying over the edge; millions of gallons every second, falling into the abyss. But that wasn’t all. In another flash of lightning I could see that the waterfall was rapidly eroding the small island on which the lighthouse was built—as I watched, the first piece of the rocky outcrop fell away noiselessly and disappeared into space.

  “What’s happening?” I demanded.

  “You are forgetting everything,” she said simply, sweeping her hands in the direction of the room. “These are a just a few of your memories I have cobbled together—a last stand, if you like. The storm, the lighthouse, the waterfall, the night, the wind—none of them are real.” She walked closer to me until I could smell her perfume. “All this is merely a representation of your mind. The lighthouse is you; your consciousness. The sea around us your experience, your memories—everything that makes you the person you are. They are all draining away like water from a bath. Soon the lighthouse will topple into the void and then . . .”

  “And then?”

  “And then I will have won. You will remember nothing—not even this. You will relearn, of course—in ten years you might be able to tie your own shoelaces. But for the first few years the only decision you will have to make is which side of your mouth to drool out of.”

  I turned to leave but she called out, “You can’t run. Where will you go? For you, there’s nowhere else but here.”

  I stopped at the door and turned back, raised my gun and fired a single shot. The bullet whistled through the young woman and impacted harmlessly on the wall behind.

  “It will take more than that, Thursday.”

  “Thursday? That’s my name?”

  “It doesn’t matter, there is no one you can remember who will help you.”

  “Doesn’t this make your victory hollow?” I demanded, lowering my gun and rubbing my temple, trying to recall even a single fact.

  “Ridding your mind of that which you value most was the hard bit. All I had to do then was to invoke your dread, the memory that you feared the most. After that, it was easy.”

  “My greatest fear?”

  She smiled again and showed me the handmirror. There was no reflection, only images that flashed past anonymously. I took the mirror and peered at it, trying to make sense of what I saw.

  “These are the images of your life, your memories, the people you love, everything you held dear—but also everything that you’ve ever feared. I can modify and change them at will—or even delete them completely. But before I do, I’m going to make you view the worst once more. Gaze upon it, Thursday, gaze upon it and feel the death of your brother one last time!”

  The mirror showed me the image of a war long ago, the violent death of a soldier who seemed familiar, and I felt the pain of loss tearing through me. The woman laughed as the images repeated themselves, this time clearer, and more graphic. I shut my eyes to block the horror, but opened them again quickly in shock. I had seen something else, right at the edge of my mind, dark and menacing, waiting to engulf me. I gasped, and the woman felt my fear.

  “What is it?” she cried. “There is something I have missed? Worse than the Crimea? Let me see!”

  She tried to grasp the mirror but I let it drop. It shattered on the concrete floor as we heard a muffled thump of something striking the steel door five stories below.

  “What was that?” she demanded.

  I realized what I had seen. Its presence, unwelcome for so many years in the back of my mind, might be just what I needed to defeat her.

  “My worst nightmare,” I told her, “and now yours.”

  “But it can’t be! Your worst nightmare was the Crimea, your brother’s death—I know, I’ve searched your mind!”

  “Then,” I replied slowly, my strength returning as the woman’s confidence trickled away, “you should have searched harder!”

  “But it’s still too late to help you,” she said, her voice quavering, “it will not gain entry, I assure you of that!”

  There was another loud crash; the steel door on the ground floor had been torn from its hinges.

  “Wrong again,” I said quietly. “You asked for my worse fear, my dread, to appear—and it came.”

  She ran to the stairs and yelled, “Who is there? Who are you? What are you?”

  But there was no reply; only a soft sigh and the sound of footfalls on the stairs as it climbed slowly upwards. I looked from the window as another section of the rocky island fell away. The lighthouse was now poised on top of the abyss and I could see straight down into the dizzying depths. There was a tremor as the foundations shifted; the lighthouse flexed and a section of plaster fell from the wall.

  “Thursday!” she yelled out pitifully. “You can control it! Make it stop!”

  She slammed the door to the staircase, her hands shaking as she hurriedly threw the bolt.

  “I could hide it if I chose,” I said, staring at the terrified woman, “but I choose not. You asked me to gaze upon my fears—now you may join me.”

  The lighthouse shifted again and a crack opened in the wall revealing the storm-tossed sea beyond; the arc light stopped rotating with a growl of twisted metal. There was a thump at the door.

  “There are always bigger fish, Aornis,” I said slowly, suddenly realizing who she was as my past began to reveal itself from the fog. “Like all Hadeses, you were lazy. You thought Anton’s demise was the worst thing you could dredge up. You never looked further. Hardly looked into my subconscious at all. The old stuff, the terrifying stuff, the stuff that keeps us awake as children, the nightmares we can only half glimpse on waking, the fear we sweep to the back of our minds but which is always there, gloating from a distance.”

  The door collapsed inwards as the lighthouse swayed and part of the wall fell away. An icy gust blew in, the ceiling dropped two feet and electricity sparked from a severed cable. Aornis stared at the form lurking in the doorway, making quiet slavering noises to itself.

  “No!” she whined. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you, I—”

  I watched as Aornis’s hair turned snow-white, but no scream came from her dry throat. I lowered my eyes and turned to the door, seeing only a vague shape out of the corner of my eye advancing towards Aornis. She had dropped to her knees and was sobbing uncontrollably. I walked past the shattered door and down the stairs two at a time. As I stepped outside, the outcrop shivered again and the conical roof of the lighthouse came wheeling down amidst masonry and scraps of rusty iron. Aornis found her voice, finally, and screamed.

  I didn’t pause or break my pace. I could still hear her yelling for mercy as I climbed into the small jolly boat she had kept for her escape and rowed away across the oily black water, her cries only drowned out as the lighthouse collapsed into the abyss, taking the malevolent spirit of Aornis with it.

  I paused for a moment, then put my back into rowing, the oars rattling in the rowlocks.

  “That was impressive,” said a quiet voice behind me. I turned and found Landen sitting in the bow. He was every bit as I remembered him. Tall and good-looking with hair graying slightly at the temples. My memories, which had been blunted for so long, now made him more alive than he had been for weeks. I dropped the oars and nearly upset the small boat in my hurry to fling my arms around him, to feel his warmth. I hugged him until I could barely breath, tears coursing down my cheeks.

  “Is it you?” I cried. “Really you, not one of Aornis’s little games?”

  “No, it’s me all right.” He kissed me tenderly. “Or at least, your memory of me.”

  “You’ll be back for real, I promise!”

  “Have I missed much? It’s not nice being forgotten by the one you love.”

  “Well,” I began as we made ourselves more comfortable in the boat, lying down to look up at the stars, “there’s this upgrade called Ultra Word™, see, and . . .”

  We stayed in each other’s arms for a long time, the small rowing boat adrift in the museum of my mind, the sea calming before us as we headed towards the gathering dawn.

  28.

  Lola Departs and Heights Again

  Daphne Farquitt wrote her first book in 1936 and had by 1988 written three hundred others exactly like it. The Squire of High Potternews was arguably the least worst, although the best you could say about it was that it was a “different shade of terrible.” Astute readers have complained that Potternews originally ended quite differently, an observation also made about Jane Eyre. It is all they have in common.

  THURSDAY NEXT,

  The Jurisfiction Chronicles

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING my head felt as if it had a road drill in it. I lay awake in bed, the sun streaming through the porthole. I smiled as I remembered the defeat of Aornis the night before and mouthed out loud:

  “Landen Parke-Laine, Landen Parke-Laine!”

  Then I remembered the loss of Miss Havisham and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. After a few minutes of introspection I sat up slowly and stretched. It was almost ten. I staggered to the bathroom and drank three glasses of water, brought it all up again and brushed my teeth, drank more water, sat with my head between my knees, then tiptoed back to bed to avoid waking Gran. She was fast asleep in the chair with a copy of Finnegans Wake on her lap. I knew I was going to have to apologize to Arnie and thank him for not taking advantage of the situation. I couldn’t believe I had made such a fool of myself but felt that I could, at a pinch, lay most of the blame at Aornis’s door.

  I got up half an hour later and went downstairs, where I found Randolph and Lola at the breakfast table. They weren’t talking to each other and I noticed Lola’s small suitcase at the door.

  “Thursday!” said Randolph, offering me a chair. “Are you okay?”

  “Groggy,” I replied as Lola placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of me that I inhaled gratefully. “Groggy but happy—I got Landen back. Thanks for helping me out last night—and I’m sorry if I made a complete idiot of myself. Arnie must think I’m the worst tease in the Well.”

  “No, that’s me,” said Lola innocently. “Your Gran explained to us all about Aornis and Landen. We had no idea what was going on. Arnie understood and he said he’d drop around later and see how you were.”

  I looked at Lola’s suitcase and then at the two of them, who were studiously ignoring each other.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m leaving to start work on Girls Make All the Moves.”

  “That’s excellent news, Lola,” I said, genuinely impressed. “Randolph?”

  “Yes, very good. All the clothes and boyfriends she wants.”

  “You’re sour because you didn’t get that male-mentor part you wanted,” retorted Lola.

  “Not at all,” replied Randolph, resentment bubbling under the surface. “I’ve been offered a small part in an upcoming Amis—a proper novel. A literary one.”

  “Well, good luck to you,” replied Lola. “Send me a postcard if you can be troubled to talk to anyone in chicklit.”

  “Guys,” I said, “don’t part like this!”

  Lola looked at Randolph, who turned away. She sighed, stared at me for a moment and then got up.

  “Well,” she said, picking up her case, “I’ve got to go. Fittings all morning, then rehearsals until six. Busy busy busy. I’ll keep in touch, don’t worry.”

  I got up, held my head for a moment as it thumped badly, then hugged Lola, who hugged me back happily.

  “Thanks for all the help, Thursday,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have made it up to B-3 without you.”

  She went to the door and stopped for a moment, looked across at Randolph, who was staring resolutely out the window at nothing in particular.

  “Good-bye, Randolph.”

  “Good-bye,” he said without looking up.

  Lola looked at me, bit her lip and went across to him and kissed him on the back of the head. She returned to the door, said good-bye to me again and went out.

  I sat down next to him. A large tear had rolled down his nose and dropped onto the table. I laid a hand on his.

  “Randolph—!”

  “I’m fine!” he growled. “I’ve just got a bit of grit in my eye!”

  “Did you tell her how you felt?”

  “No, I didn’t!” he snapped. “And what’s more, I don’t want you dictating to me what I should and shouldn’t do!”

  He got up and stormed off to his bedroom, the door slamming shut behind him.

  “Hellooo!” said a Granny Next sort of voice. “Are you well enough to come upstairs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you can come and help me down.”

  I assisted her down the stairs and sat her at the table, fetching a cushion or two from the living room.

  “Thanks for your help, Gran. I made a complete fool of myself last night.”

  “What’s life for? Don’t mention it. And by the way, it was Lola and me who undressed you, not the boys.”

  “I think I was past caring.”

  “All the same. Aornis will have a lot more trouble getting at you in the Outland, my dear—my experience of mnemonomorphs tends to be that once you dispose of a mindworm, the rest is easy. You won’t forget her in a hurry, I assure you.”

  We chatted for an hour, Gran and I, about Miss Havisham, Landen, babies, Anton and all other things besides. She told me about her own husband’s eradication and his eventual return. I knew he had returned because without him there would be no me, but it was interesting to talk to her nonetheless. I felt well enough to go into Caversham Heights at midday to see how Jack was getting on.

  “Ah!” said Jack as I arrived. “Just in time. I’ve been thinking about a full Caversham Heights makeover—do you want to have a look?”

  “Go on, then.”

  “Is anything the matter? You look a bit unwell.”

  “I got myself pickled to the gills last night. I’ll be fine. What have you in mind?”

  “Get in. I want you to meet someone.”

  I climbed into the Allegro and he handed me a coffee. We were parked opposite a large redbrick semi in the north of the town. In the book we stake out this house for two days, eventually sighting the mayor emerging with crime boss Angel DeFablio. With the mayor character excised from the manuscript for an unspecified reason, it would be a long wait.