“Do they come back?”
“I don’t know,” whispered the woman. “Not here. It was only twenty a month, that’s all, from when I first started here. That was thirty years ago. But the whole place was filled up this week. She must be taking thousands of people this time.”
“What people? Who? From the hospitals?”
“Hush!” exclaimed the woman. She dragged the covers up over Leaf and rushed back to her mop, pushing the bucket almost to the next door. As she frantically dabbed at the floor, the cleaner called back over her shoulder, “She’s coming!”
Leaf reluctantly lay flat but she turned her head so she could see the door through her half-closed eyes. After a minute, she heard heavy footsteps and the door was flung open. Two very tall, very handsome men in charcoal-grey business suits and trench coats stormed through. Leaf recognised their type immediately. Superior Denizens, their coats humped at the shoulders, evidence of the wings beneath.
Behind the two Denizens came the beautiful woman Leaf had seen in the tent hospital. Lady Friday was very tall, made taller by her stiletto-heeled boots that were set with rubies. She wore a gold robe that shimmered as she walked, sending bright reflections dancing everywhere, and a hat studded with small pieces of coloured glass, or maybe even small diamonds, which caught the golden light and intensified it, so brightly that it was very difficult to look too long upon Friday’s face.
The Trustee held something small in her right hand that was brighter still, so bright it was impossible to look at. Leaf had to completely shut her eyes, but even so, the light burst through her lids and sent a stab of pain across the bridge of her nose.
With her eyes screwed shut, Leaf couldn’t see what happened next. But she heard it. The soft footfall of many bare feet, strange after the click-clack of the Denizens’ shoes and Friday’s boot heels, but just as loud.
Leaf waited till she was sure Friday had passed, then she looked again.
The whole room was full of sleepwalkers following Friday. A great line of people in blue nightgowns shambled along with their eyes shut, many in the classic pose with their arms outstretched ahead, others looking so relaxed they could barely stay upright and keep moving.
They were all fairly old. Most of the men were bald or had silver or grey hair, and looked to Leaf like they must be on the wrong side of seventy. It was harder to tell with the women, but they were probably on the far side of that age as well. None of them were exactly ancient and they were all walking, but none of them could be described as even middle-aged.
Leaf watched them pass while she tried to work out what to do. Hundreds of people went by and Leaf started to think she could just let them all go, hide under the bed and then sneak out. But then she saw two more Denizens, chivying the sleepers like sheepdogs. Several minutes and a few hundred people later, another two Denizens came by. Given that, there were bound to be even more Denizens guarding the end of the line.
Then Leaf saw something that made up her mind in an instant.
Her Aunt Mango was in the line. Sound asleep and walking with a slight, sleepy smile.
Leaf jerked up, then caught herself doing it and somehow managed to lie back down just before the next two Denizens came into the room.
Aunt Mango was almost like a second mother to her and Ed. She’d lived with Leaf’s family for years, as long as Leaf could remember. She was Leaf’s mother’s older sister, but acted more like her younger, somewhat helpless sibling. Leaf wasn’t sure about her history, but Aunt Mango had either been born with a slight intellectual disability or something had happened to her. She was kind and loving, but completely hopeless with the everyday chores of life and her enthusiastic incompetence needed constant supervision. Sometimes she really irritated Leaf, but Aunt Mango had always been there for her, to tell her stories, to listen to her troubles, to comfort her.
Leaf watched her aunt till she went through the far door.
I have to go with them now, she thought. Aunt Mango isn’t any good with big stuff; she wouldn’t have a hope alone. But I’ve got nothing. No weapon. No way of getting in touch with anyone useful. No House sorcery.
Her hand twitched. She stopped the movement, then stealthily slid her fingers up to her neck, feeling for something that she really, really hoped was still there, because if it was, then she actually did have something sorcerous and potentially useful.
Leaf’s fingers found the braided dental floss necklace and followed it, finally closing on the tiny carved whalebone disc that Arthur had given her. The Mariner’s medallion.
It hadn’t helped Arthur much in the Border Sea because the Mariner had taken so long to come to help. But he had come, in the end. The medallion represented a very slim hope for some outside intervention.
Leaf lay in the bed and watched the sleepers pass. Under the blanket, she tensed and released the muscles in her legs and arms, trying to exercise them back up to speed, to remove the weakness brought on by a week’s bed rest.
Finally, after what seemed like a very long time in which several thousand sleepers had passed, she saw the end of the line. Four Denizens followed the last of the humans. They were not quite as splendid as the two who’d preceded Lady Friday, but they were certainly superior Denizens who were intent on doing their job. They stopped by the door and waited, watching the sleeping patients in the beds around Leaf.
Nothing happened for a moment, then the room was suddenly suffused with a soft, golden light, as if a warm summer’s afternoon sun had been let in. It disappeared almost as quickly as it came, ebbing back through the far door.
With the retreating light came a summons, direct into Leaf’s mind.
“Follow!”
The voice was soft, but it resonated inside Leaf’s head, as if she had spoken the word herself while blocking her ears.
The girl felt that single word pull at her, but she was able to resist it. The sleepers felt it more intensely. All around the room, the old folks suddenly sat up, climbed out of bed and joined the last of the sleepwalkers who were passing through the door.
Leaf got up too and went after them, doing her best impersonation of a sleepwalker, with the final six sleepers and the Denizen rearguard right on her heels. Behind her slack-jawed face, her mind was working furiously, concentrating on repressing the terrible sick feeling of fear and panic that was welling up through her whole body.
Not fear for herself, but for her helpless Aunt Mango.
The doors at the far end were open, but Leaf didn’t dare to look up and ahead until she was shuffling through the doorway and could pretend to stumble a little in her sleep. The stumble almost turned into a real fall, but her legs were getting stronger with every step and she managed to stay upright and take a look.
What she saw almost made her stop and give herself away. The large space ahead housed an Olympic-size swimming pool. The pool, however, didn’t have any water in it. Instead, a ramp had been built down to the bottom and right now the last of the sleepwalkers were shambling down it. Down into a mirrored surface, which at first reflected their approach and then just… swallowed them whole.
Leaf hesitated again at the top of the ramp. There were those four Denizens behind her, but there were also several other doors out of the pool room. If she ran now, she might be able to get through one of the exits. It might be her only chance of escape.
But her aunt had already gone beyond the mirrored bottom of the dry pool.
Leaf took a step forward and then another, looking through slitted eyes. She saw the fear in her face, staring back up as her feet disappeared from view. She could still feel her limbs, the sensation being