Mr. Coddrington leaned forward intently, elbows on his blotter, fingertips touching lightly. “We thought you might be in a position to find out. At the very least you might have your suspicions about other universals.”
Connie recalled the “suspicions” she and her aunt had about her brother Simon some time ago, but they’d not had an opportunity so far to follow up. Mr. Coddrington would be the last person with whom she would share these thoughts.
“I really have no idea, Mr. Coddrington,” she said as sweetly as possible. He frowned slightly and sat back.
“Well, if you change your mind, you’ll let us know immediately, of course,” he said, rising to his feet. “Here, take my business card in case you want to ring me. Call anytime. It is very important that we understand whether you are an aberration or the beginning of a revival of a whole new company. If the latter is the case, then there will be many adjustments to make.” He sighed, the frown lines on his brow deepening.
“Sure, I’ll keep that in mind,” Connie said quickly, also getting up. “Can I go now?” He nodded curtly, and Connie bolted for the door without a backward glance. Half running down the corridor, she could not get the image of that map out of her head. There was something about Mr. Coddrington that was just not right. It could be the creepy way he always looked at her as if he was plotting something against her; or perhaps it was his opposition to her very existence in the Society. She had believed for many months that Mr. Coddrington was in league with Kullervo, despite Col and Dr. Brock’s skepticism on the subject. Information as to the whereabouts of every companion would be very valuable to Kullervo—make it absurdly easy for him to anticipate and neutralize the counter-attack the Society was preparing. And the person best placed to betray this information was sitting in the heart of the Society headquarters, allowed to continue unchecked.
And as for her membership details, Connie had been in the Society for almost a year now—when was he going to accept that he was overruled and she was a full member? Or perhaps he did not expect her to survive long enough for it to be worthwhile to move her from his pending tray? With these dark thoughts, she rejoined Horace and Antonia.
6
Gorgon
Col sat cross-legged on his bed with his mother’s gift beside him. His bedroom, every inch decorated with pictures of horses, was flooded with golden evening sunlight. He liked to be surrounded by them, even though they didn’t hold a candle to Skylark, the real thing. He should have felt safe in these surroundings but the package loomed before him like an unexploded bomb. He was right to be nervous; his experience of his mother’s gifts was not encouraging. He was not sure that he had ever got over being given a snake’s rattle—with original owner still attached—for his third birthday. Only the rapid intervention of his grandmother had prevented disaster. His mother had been testing whether or not he had inherited her particular skill and had seemed surprised by the family outcry at her choice of birthday present. Luckily, this present did not appear to be alive—he had already prodded it with a stick before taking it up into his room.
What had his mother said? He had “grown up.” “Seen danger and mastered his fear.”
Okay then.
He ripped off the paper and laughed with relief as a polished circular mirror fell onto his lap, the unreflective side decorated with the bronze head of a snake-haired gorgon. A note fluttered out. He saw his mother had written it in looping green ink:
Use this when you visit me. Remember, the first rider of the pegasus braved the gorgon. Do likewise and you have nothing to fear.
Col, of course, knew exactly what she meant. In Ancient Greece, Perseus had foiled the gorgon’s killing gaze by looking at her in the reflective surface of his shield. According to the legend, the blood spilt at that encounter gave birth to the first pegasus, which Perseus then rode. However, more important to Col was the fact that his mother was actually inviting him back; it was the first time she had recognized him as a companion to pegasi, as an equal. Her talent for choosing presents was improving. Col rubbed off the mist of his breath on the mirror and stowed the gift carefully away in his backpack, determined that he would one day soon show her that he was as courageous as Perseus.
He didn’t have to wait long for the invitation. Col was camping out with Rat. They had begun the evening tending the animals in Rat’s impromptu hospital that he had made in the space under the bus. First, Rat showed Col how to put a splint on the wing of a blackbird they had rescued from the roadside. He then went on to introduce Col to his other charges—a fox with a bandaged tail, two orphaned rabbits, and a pheasant with a broken leg. Col marveled that Rat’s family dog, Wolf, an impressive black and tan Alsatian, allowed these residents to live undisturbed only a few feet from his nose.
“He’s an old softie when you get to know him,” Rat said as Wolf bared his teeth at Col and growled.
“Oh?” said Col, unconvinced.
“He does what I tell him,” Rat said with a shrug, “even guards them for me. I have more problems persuading the fox not to go after the others.”
Yes, the fox did look a bit resentful, thought Col as Rat shut the rabbits and the pheasant back in their temporary hutch. The blackbird he placed on the bus dashboard, ignoring his mother’s protests that he should “get that filthy animal out of here.”
“She’s not serious,” he said airily to Col. “Her voice sounds different when she means it.”
Now they were lying in the open, wrapped warmly in sleeping bags, contemplating the constellations overhead. Rat turned out to be very knowledgeable about the star systems—a training he put down to one summer spent with a cousin who told fortunes for a living.
“A load of garbage,” he admitted cheerfully, “but she was really into stargazing, science and all that stuff. The telling was just to make money to buy a half decent telescope.”
Col turned onto his elbow and lay for a moment watching the sharp profile of his friend as Rat pointed out two more constellations—the Great and Little Bears—for Col’s benefit.
“Don’t look much like bears to me,” Rat was saying. “I s’pose it works if you kind of think of them as skeletons.…”
“Rat?” Col asked abruptly.
“Yeah, what?”
“Are you gonna come to school with me after the summer?”
Rat looked a bit shifty, like his namesake, and turned his head away. “Sure, I’ll go to school. It’s the law, ain’t it?”
“Well, if you do,” Col said, lying back down, “you might find you can do more stuff about planets and stars in science class. You’re really good at it already.”
“Yeah?” Rat sounded pleased.
“Yeah.”
There was a silence and then Rat spoke: “I can’t read. Not that I’m dumb or nothing,” he added defensively. “Just haven’t got ’round to it.”
Col was surprised but didn’t say it; he also didn’t say how impressed he was that Rat had managed to get by without exposing the truth.
All he said was: “Come to school with me then. About time you got ’round to it.”
They lay in silence again, listening to the sounds of the wood at night. The leaves whispered to one another in the gentle breeze; distant bursts of laughter came from the main encampment; an owl hooted mournfully in a nearby tree. A police siren wailed into the night. Col wondered who was causing trouble now: had Rat’s dad and his friends broken into the builders’ compound again? They’d been threatening to decorate the bulldozers with luminous green paint. Or perhaps one of the tunnelers had been discovered in his hideout beneath the field scheduled for clearance the next day?
Rat’s breathing was now coming deep and even; he had fallen asleep. Col put his arms under his head, thoughts of Connie stealing into his mind as they so often did when he stopped for a moment. He was missing her. He wanted to talk to her about his mother—introduce her to Rat—he felt sure they’d get along. And she’d be so interested to hear about the gorgon. He knew she would be f
eeling terrible without her companion creatures. Was there really no way of getting in to see her?
He gazed up at the stars that formed the Pegasus, wondering where Skylark was now. He longed to be flying with him in the skies above; if he spent too long apart from the pegasus, he started to feel weak, as if a key part of him was missing. Skylark was probably chasing the wind in some remote part of the moor. They’d be seeing each other soon. Col turned over and drifted off to sleep.
“Colin?”
He was woken some hours later by a firm shake of his shoulder. He sat up abruptly to come face to face with his mother. Her fair hair glimmered frostily in the moonlight; her eyes were in shadow.
“What’s the matter?” Col yawned.
“Nothing. It’s time to come with me.” She looked across at Rat. “But do not bring your friend—this is for you alone.”
Col rubbed his knuckles into his eyes to drive his drowsiness away. It appeared that now would be a very good time to have his wits about him. Shuffling out of his sleeping bag, like a moth emerging from a chrysalis, Col scooped up his things and shoved them into his backpack. As he did so, his hand touched a cool, smooth object; he seized it and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. His mother watched his preparations in silence. She moved off the instant he was ready. They were heading deeper into the wood. Col gripped the mirror, finding its cold hardness against his skin a comfort.
“Where are we going?” Col asked. He instinctively kept his voice low.
“To meet her, of course. She wants to see my hatchling.”
“Your what?”
“You.”
Col swallowed. There could only be one “her” as far as his mother was concerned: the gorgon.
Forcing himself to follow, he stumbled after her into the trees. The wood was full of shadows of half-seen creatures flitting through the patches of moonlight. A light flutter caught his ear, and he saw what he thought was a bat whisk past. His mother was leading him into a part of the wood he had never seen before—the deepest, densest thicket of oak trees and holly bushes. Brambles grabbed at his clothes and scratched his fingers as he shook himself free, almost as if they were reluctant to let him through.
“Is it far now?” he asked.
Cassandra had not been hindered by the thorns. She seemed to glide past all obstructions.
“No, not far. It is a special place, Colin. I’m trusting you with my biggest secret by bringing you here.”
Col felt a flush of pride. “Does it have a name, this place we’re going to?”
“Snake Hollow. It’s where the gorgon always returns—the nest where she hatches her hair-serpents. She must come here every year.”
“And if she can’t?”
“Her serpents will not be reborn and she will die.”
They reached a bank that plunged steeply down from a rocky lip. Cassandra stood at the very edge and pointed.
“The nesting cave’s not far from here—that’s where she’s waiting for you.”
“For me? Why—aren’t you coming with me?” Col’s voice shook. He did not want to be left alone now with the gorgon so close.
Then Cassandra did something she had not done for many years. She put her arm around her son’s shoulders and drew him into an embrace. Col felt a rush of fierce love for her. He had been so starved of any sign of her affection that this small gesture was like an earthquake inside him.
“No, she wants to meet you alone—without another human present. She wants to explain. Please listen to what she has to say. I want you on our side when it all happens.”
“When what happens? Mom, what are you talking about?”
Cassandra ignored his questions. “I’ll drop you down onto the ledge, and I’ll wait here until you return. Don’t forget—use your mirror and you have nothing to fear.” She hesitated again and cleared her throat. “And, Colin—don’t anger them.”
“Them?”
She shook her caped head, refusing explanation. “Give me your hands. I’ll lower you as far as I can, then you drop the last few feet onto the ledge. Do you understand?”
Col swallowed, wondering if he could turn back even now. But how could he refuse to go ahead? His relationship with his mother was so fragile—he would shatter any belief she had in him if he did that. She was so fanatical about her companion that she never saw the danger for anyone else in her drive to do her best by the gorgon. Like now: she seemed to think nothing of dropping her only child over a cliff. Before he could decide what to do, his mother had seized both his forearms and was guiding him to the edge.
He had to do it. Falling was better than failing.
Col surrendered himself to the inevitable. They both knelt—Col with his back to the edge, his feet already hanging in the air.
“Off you go,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure you’ll make it.”
As Col inched his way backward on his stomach, his mother stretched out at full length, taking his weight. He soon found out why there was no climbing down—the edge was in fact the lip of an overhang; only an insect could crawl down this incline. He was dangling over the void, his wrists complaining in his mother’s grip.
“I’m going to release you on the count of three. Be careful!”
“A bit late for that, isn’t it?” he muttered.
“Lean forward—not back,” he urged himself, desperate not to lose his balance on the shelf. One mistake and he’d end up at the foot of the slope.
“One, two, three!” Her grip opened and Col dropped onto the ledge. He threw himself forward to hug the rock face, bruising his temple as he collided with stone. He was down! Cassandra’s head appeared above him.
“I told you you’d be all right. Now follow the ledge around to your left. It’ll lead you down to the cave. I’ll be waiting here to help you back up.”
And she was gone. No word of praise for getting down safely. Nothing. Col shuffled along the narrow sill, fear running through him like an electric charge. Stepping on a crumbling piece of the ledge, his left foot gave way. Stones clattered down the sheer drop as he scrabbled to keep a hold. Nails scraped on bare rock. Gripping on to a tree root, he just managed to save himself. He pulled himself back up and collapsed, panting, against the cliff.
Clinging like a fly to a wall, Col saw the full absurdity of his situation. A mad laugh bubbled up uncontrollably inside him. He was risking falling to his death to meet one of the most deadly creatures alive. He must be mad.
There was nothing for him now but to go on. He shuffled along until he turned the corner. The path descended in steps into the black heart of the forest. The sky began to spit with rain, making the muddy rock slippery underfoot. To his relief he found that he had tree branches to hold and made faster progress. In the murk ahead he thought he could see a dark hole—the mouth of the cave perhaps?
It was time to “be careful.”
He groped inside his jacket for the mirror, pulled it out, and held it in front of him so he could look closely at the cave entrance. As far as he could tell in the weak moonlight, it seemed empty. An orange light flickered within. She had a fire then.
“Hello! I’m here.” His voice echoed off the hillside in a mocking imitation of his own words: “Lo! Ear!” There was no other reply. Col continued to edge forward only stopping when he was within an arm’s length of the entrance. What should he do now? Risk entering or wait until he was invited in?
He tried again: “It’s me—it’s Col.”
Above the gentle patter of the rain on the leaves around him, Col heard a rustling and hissing noise like the dry scrape of a twig broom on a pathway. It stopped, only to be followed by a soft voice speaking in a sibilant hiss:
“Ss-step inside. Ss-stand with your back to me. Hold out the mirror ss-so you can ss-see me.”
Not at all sure he wanted to see the speaker, Col sidestepped into the entrance of the cave and spun himself around so that he was facing outwards. He lifted the mirror with a shaking hand, struggling for a moment to find the angl
e that would show him the creature. She flashed into sight briefly—a blur of bronze—then came back in sharp focus at the center of the mirror when he steadied his hand. A pair of hard, jet-black eyes stared back at him. They were set in a heart-shaped face with skin that glowed tawny gold in the firelight. Long folds of hair fell back over the creature’s shoulders, looking strangely solid as if each lock was carved from sandstone. At first glance the gorgon seemed draped in swathes of silky material, but Col then saw she was wrapped in her own golden wings. He was astonished. He had imagined something monstrous and fearsome, not this beauty.
“You had something you wanted to tell me?” he asked, his voice cracked with fear.
She nodded, displacing one of her tresses as she did so. The lock slid over her slim shoulder, blinked a pair of small black eyes coolly at him, and slithered back to join its siblings. Col gave a start that he tried to disguise as a cough.
“Well, I’m listening,” he said, uncomfortably aware of how exposed his back would be if any of these benign snake-locks changed their “mind” and choose to strike. Rain was now dripping down his forehead and into his eyes, spotting the surface of the mirror and distorting the gorgon’s face, making her look as if she was melting with tears. He wiped the glass quickly with the sleeve of his jacket, losing the reflection of her face as he did so.
“Come into the cave,” the gorgon said softly, rustling a little closer. “Ss-sit here while we talk.”
Col could not see where she was pointing and did not much like her invitation, but he remembered what his mother had said about not angering “them”—perhaps she had meant the snakes? He shuffled backward until his heels struck an obstacle. Reaching out behind him, he touched the flat top of a boulder. He sat down and, a moment later, felt something gently brush his collar. Instinctively, he jumped away, thinking it was one of the snakes paying him a visit, but he was wrong. The gorgon’s hand, cool and dry to the skin, now caressed his cheek; he could just see the tips of her almond-shaped fingernails at the edge of his vision.