“Ralph’s messenger,” Tacroy said. “I believe you have a package for me.”
“Ah yes,” shivered the landlord. “Won’t you come inside out of this exceptionally bitter weather, sir? This is the hardest winter anyone has known for years.”
Tacroy’s eyebrows went up and he looked at Christopher. “I’m quite warm,” Christopher said.
“Then we’ll stay outside,” Tacroy said. “The package?”
“Directly, sir,” shivered the landlord. “But won’t you take something hot to warm you up? On the house, sir.”
“Yes, please,” Christopher said quickly. Last time he was here he had been given something chocolatish which was not cocoa but much nicer. The landlord nodded and smiled and shuffled shivering back indoors. Christopher sat at the table. Even though it was almost dark now, he felt deliciously warm. His clothes were drying nicely. Crowds of fleshy moth-things were flopping at the lighted windows, but enough light came between them for him to see Tacroy sit down in the air and then slide himself sideways on to the chair on the other side of the table.
“You’ll have to drink whatever-it-is for me,” Tacroy said.
“That won’t worry me,” Christopher said. “Why did you tell me to write the number nine?”
“Because this set of worlds is known as Series Nine,” Tacroy explained. “Your uncle seems to have a lot of dealings here. That was why it was easy to set the experiment up. If it works, I think he’s planning a whole set of trips, all along the Related Worlds. You’d find that a bit boring, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh no. I’d like it,” Christopher said. “How many are there after nine?”
“Ours is Twelve,” said Tacroy. “Then they go down to One, along the other way. Don’t ask me why they go back to front. It’s traditional.”
Christopher frowned over this. There were a great many more valleys than that in The Place Between, all arranged higgledy-piggledy, too, not in any neat way that made you need to count up to twelve. But he supposed there must be some way in which Tacroy knew best – or Uncle Ralph did.
The landlord shuffled hastily out again. He was carrying two cups that steamed out a dark chocolate smell, although this lovely aroma was rather spoilt by a much less pleasant smell coming from a round leather container on a long strap, which he dumped on the table beside the cups. “Here we are,” he said. “That’s the package and here’s to take the chill off you and drink to further dealings, sir. I don’t know how you two can stand it out here!”
“We come from a cold and misty climate,” Tacroy said. “Thanks,” he added to the landlord’s back, as the landlord scampered indoors again. “I suppose it must be tropical here usually,” he remarked as the door slammed. “I wouldn’t know. I can’t feel heat or cold in the spirit. Is that stuff nice?”
Christopher nodded happily. He had already drained one tiny cup. It was dark, hot and delicious. He pulled Tacroy’s cup over and drank that in sips, to make the taste last as long as possible. The round leather bottle smelt so offensive that it got in the way of the taste. Christopher put it on the floor out of the way.
“You can lift it, I see, and drink,” Tacroy said, watching him. “Your uncle told me to make quite sure, but I haven’t any doubt myself. He said you lose things on the Passage.”
“That’s because it’s hard carrying things across the rocks,” Christopher explained. “I need both hands for climbing.”
Tacroy thought. “Hm. That explains the strap on the bottle. But there could be all sorts of other reasons. I’d love to find out. For instance, have you ever tried to bring back something alive?”
“Like a mouse?” Christopher suggested. “I could put it in my pocket.”
A sudden gleeful look came into Tacroy’s face. He looked, Christopher thought, like a person about to be thoroughly naughty. “Let’s try it,” he said. “Let’s see if you can bring back a small animal next. I’ll persuade your uncle that we need to know that. I think I’ll die of curiosity if we don’t try it, even if it’s the last thing you do for us!”
After that Tacroy seemed to get more and more impatient. At last he stood up in such a hurry that he stood right through the chair as if it wasn’t there. “Haven’t you finished yet? Let’s get going.”
Christopher regretfully stood the tiny cup on his face to get at the last drops. He picked up the round bottle and hung it around his neck by the strap. Then he jumped off the verandah and set off down the rutty road, full of eagerness to show Tacroy the town. Fungus grew like corals on all the porches. Tacroy would like that.
Tacroy called after him. “Hey! Where are you off to?”
Christopher stopped and explained. “No way,” said Tacroy. “It doesn’t matter if the fungus is sky-blue-pink. I can’t hold this trance much longer, and I want to make sure you get back too.”
This was disappointing. But when Christopher came close and peered at him, Tacroy did seem to be developing a faint, fluttery look, as if he might dissolve into the dark, or turn into one of the moth-things beating at the windows of the inn. Rather alarmed by this, Christopher put a hand on Tacroy’s sleeve to hold him in place. For a moment, the arm hardly felt as if it was there – like the feathery balls of dust that grew under Christopher’s bed – but after that first moment it firmed up nicely. Tacroy’s outline grew hard and black against the dark trees. And Tacroy himself stood very still.
“I do believe,” he said, as if he did not believe it at all, “that you’ve done something to fix me. What did you do?”
“Hardened you up,” Christopher said. “You needed it so that we could go and look at the town. Come on.”
But Tacroy laughed and took a firm grip on Christopher’s arm – so firm that Christopher was sorry he had hardened him. “No, we’ll see the fungus another time. Now I know you can do this too, it’s going to be much easier. But I only contracted for an hour this trip. Come on.”
As they went back up the valley, Tacroy kept peering round. “If it wasn’t so dark,” he said, “I’m sure I’d be seeing this as a valley too. I can hear the stream. This is amazing!” But it was clear that he could not see The Place Between. When they got to it, Tacroy went on walking as if he thought it was still the valley. When the wind blew the mist aside, he was not there any more.
Christopher wondered whether to go back into Nine, or on into another valley. But it did not seem such fun without company, so he let The Place Between push him back home.
By the next morning, Christopher was heartily sick of the smell – it was more of a reek really – from the leather bottle. He put it under his bed, but it was still so bad that he had to get up and cover it with a pillow before he could get to sleep.
When the Last Governess came in to tell him to get up, she found it at once by the smell. “Dear Heavens above!” she said, dragging it out by its strap. “Would you credit this! I didn’t believe even your uncle could ask for a whole bottleful of this stuff! Didn’t he think of the danger?”
Christopher blinked up at her. He had never seen her so emotional. All her hidden prettiness had come out and she was staring at the bottle as if she