The Lights Go Out in Lychford by Paul Cornell

Author:Paul Cornell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

3

SUDDEN DARKNESS. Autumn was aware of falling. Then of nothing.

Then she heard applause. The applause of centuries.

Then she felt pain in her chest. Then the pain suddenly blossomed to hit her entire body, a spasming of pins and needles that got into her head, too, that made her yell. And cough. And open her eyes.

And there was beloved Annette Manser, a terribly practical expression on her face, pushing down steadily on Autumn’s chest. “She’s conscious!” she called out.

“But where did she come from?” a voice that sounded like Chris with the beard was yelling.

Autumn tried to get up, but Annette started hushing her, told her to stay put. “We’ve dialled 999,” she said, “an ambulance is on the way.”

But Autumn could only look wildly around her, to the space where she knew Lizzie to be. And there she was, invisible to everyone else, but to Autumn a fine set of lines in the air, the same agony on her face.

Autumn shrugged off Annette and stumbled to her feet, pushing away the many hands which tried to help her. Someone asked if she’d been drinking. She ignored them and reached out for Lizzie. But her hand didn’t connect.

But come on, she could do this. She’d saved herself, because it turned out that one of the rules the spell that had caught them was based on was that it was designed to hold living people. She was free and she had to save Lizzie. But how?

This spell must have something to do with moving its victims into another dimension, one attached to this reality, but at one remove. So it was a bit like the divide between Lychford and the other realities on its borders. Judith had once led them on an effort to establish some swift, rough replacement borders around the town. The magic she’d used to do that had been straightforward, had been about associating and pinning, as one might, if one were a completely unethical bitch, associate a potential lover with oneself and pin them to one. And then wait for the hideous karmic consequences, but hopefully not in this case, because, as with the borders, Autumn was going to associate and pin what people mistakenly called “thin air” and soil, not a person.

“Just give me a second to do this!” she yelled, as more concerned people closed in around her. “It’s a religious gesture. It’ll make me feel calmer.” Half of them still thought she was mad. But it had at least given her the few seconds she needed. She managed to make her parched and numb lips mumble the right sounds, remembered what Judith had done with each of the points where they’d re-powered the border, made something like the right gestures, then, in a quick, decisive motion, put both arms around Lizzie and wrote a border around her in the air, annexing wherever she was and declaring it to be part of this world.

Lizzie fell into her arms, yelling in pain.

“The vicar!” someone shouted. “Where did the vicar come from?!”

And then they were all crowding in on them, asking impossible questions.

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