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'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 it to attend, 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 to. 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 realising who
she was as my past began to reveal itself from the fog. 'Like all Hades, you
were lazy. You thought Anton's demise was the worst thing you could dredge up.
You never looked farther. 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' hair turned snow white but no scream came from her dry
throat. I lowered my eyes and turned to the door, seeing out of the corner of
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my eye only a vague shape 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 amid masonry and scraps of rusty iron. Aornis found her voice, finally,
and screamed.
I didn't pause, nor 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 drowned out only 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 bows. He was every bit as I remembered him. Tall and good
looking with hair greying slightly at the temples. My
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...Well%20Of%20Lost%20Plots%20(v1.
1%20htm).html (168 of 212) [10/15/2004 12:52:29 AM]
Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next 03 - The Well of Lost Plots 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 breathe,
tears coursing down my cheeks.
'Is it you?' I cried. '
Really you, not one of Aornis' little games?'
'No, it's me all right,' he said, kissing me tenderly, 'or at least, your
memory of me.'
'You'll be back for real,' I assured him, 'I promise!'
'Have I missed much?' he asked. '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 UltraWord"!, 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 by 1988 had 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
My head felt as if there were a jackhammer in it the following morning. I lay
awake in bed, the sun streaming through the porthole. I smiled as I remembered
my dream of the night before and mouthed out loud:
'Landen Parke-Laine, Landen Parke-Laine!'
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 and then tiptoed
back to bed to avoid waking Gran. She was fast asleep in the chair with a copy
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of
Finnegans Wake on her lap. I knew I was going to have to apologise 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' door.
I got up half an hour later and went downstairs, where I found Randolph and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]