Year Zero (2000), page 14
"If the Queen of the Fays wants something from me," Molly said, experimentally, "then I don't really need you, do I? Presumably, she'll send for me soon enough."
"Oh, you definitely need me," he said, with what seemed like ominous overconfidence. "The Queen will make sure that you get into Faerie when she figures that the time is ripe, but it's always best to steal a march on her kind, if you get the chance—and if you want to get out again, you'll need as many cards up your sleeve as you can carry. Even the greys can't pull you out of there."
"Okay," said Molly, quickly draining her mug to the dregs. "Let's go."
"It's not that simple," tall dark Tom informed her, sparing a couple of moments to glance down meaningfully at his own half-full vessel. "If we're to run a successful bluff, we need to play the game as cleverly as we can. It would help a lot if you looked the part."
"And what part am I supposed to look?" Molly asked, letting her annoyance show.
"Dangerous. A hint of mystery wouldn't hurt, but you certainly need to look like someone who can handle herself a lot better than you were when I arrived. I don't suppose you have anything in your wardrobe that says I don't know the meaning of fear—mess with me and you'll regret it."
"No I don't," said Molly, sourly, "but I know someone who does."
While Tom continued sipping his tea she fished her address-book out of the relevant cardboard box and went back to the phone. When she'd persuaded the answering service to put her on to Torquemadam herself, she said: "Hi, Sylv, it's Molly—yes, that Molly. I need to borrow a warrior princess costume. Do you still have one in my size?"
Torquemadam confirmed that she still had Molly's size, but regretfully informed her that she was no longer entitled to a staff discount. Molly assured her that she could pay the hire charge in full. She paused to ask whether tall dark Tom had a car, and on being told that he hadn't—which didn't surprise her in the least—she told Torquemadam that she'd hop on the tube right away.
"How easy is it to get to Faerie from Soho?" she asked the man with the withered arm when she'd hung up. "We can use Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Circus tube—whichever's most convenient."
"That's okay, " he said, putting down his mug at last. "You can get to Faerie from anywhere—but it does involve going underground, after a fashion." He collected his hat as they left the flat.
While they walked to Caledonian Road station Tom explained to Molly that Faerie had certain things in common with the Heaven from which her angel had fallen. Although it was neither timeless or spaceless, it was the kind of place where an awful lot of time could pass unnoticed if you dropped your guard, and the kind of place which fitted so neatly inside ordinary places that it was extremely difficult to perceive or slip into. In order to get into it, they would have to become a lot smaller than they usually were—but this would have certain advantages as well as a few disadvantages, because putting the squeeze on the empty space within their atoms would make their bodies much more solid.
"That might give you a feeling of invulnerability," he told her, while they were riding southwards on the Piccadilly line, "but you mustn't take that too seriously. Packing all your mass into the same sort of volume as a toy soldier certainly makes you hard, but everyone else down there is just as hard as you are, and any tiny wound you get is likely to turn into a great big gaping hole when everything goes soft again. If you get into any kind of fight—and you might have to, if things go badly try to settle it with one blow."
Molly looked pointedly at his right hand as she said: "Why do I have this terrible suspicion that you've already tried that —and failed ignominiously?"
She had never seen eyes glow the way his occasionally did —and this time, they glowed red instead of green. Ignominiously had taken the implication beyond the limit of his tolerance. "Anyone can come unstuck," he said, through gritted teeth, "if they don't know what they're doing and won't listen to good advice." He seemed as if he might go into a deep sulk then, but Molly begged him to carry on forewarning her.
He told her that she'd have to do most of the talking once they were in Faerie, and that she mustn't allow herself to be outwitted or intimidated. He told her that she mustn't eat or drink anything the fays offered to her, mustn't accept any gifts, mustn't address the queen as Titania or Gloriana and mustn't assume that anything the Queen told her was actually true.
"And above all else," he said, "don't dance. When the music starts—and it will—you have to stay still. It's when people join the dance that time and chance start playing nasty tricks."
Tall dark Tom went on to list so many other things that Molly mustn't do that by the time they arrived at Leicester Square station he seemed positively parental, in a Jarvisy sort of way. Although she refrained from telling him so, she obviously had difficulty seeming sufficiently grateful for all his gnomic advice. He was still a little tight-lipped and frayed around the edges when they got to Torquemadam's dungeon, but he loosened up again when the brothel-keeper laid out the warrior princess costume.
With the black wig and all that leather on, Molly looked completely different: dangerous, uncompromising and sexy.
"Do you want the sword and the steel frisbee?" Torquemadam asked her.
Molly looked at her companion, certain that he would have further advice to offer.
"Have you ever actually used a sword?" Tom inquired.
"Only for spanking," Molly admitted.
"Is there any kind of weapon you have done some real damage with?"
Molly sighed. "Better make it a whip, Sylv," she said, knowing that it would cost extra because it didn't come with the costume. If she continued spending in this lavish vein, her Peaslee Pharmaceuticals nest-egg wasn't going to last very long.
Torquemadam handed over the whip.
Molly had known her sometime employer for years, on and off, and had always thought her the one person in the world who really was unshockable, but tall dark Tom didn't waste any time at all once Molly was properly kitted out, and he made the passes with his arms right there in the dungeon, while Torquemadam was still looking on. The last thing Molly saw before the grey mists swirled up around her was the expression of utter astonishment on the older woman's face as she realised that there was one kind of vanishing act she hadn't previously encountered.
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The mist became so thick that Molly lost sight of her companion for a while, but a cool breeze sprang up which seemed to cut through the peculiar fog like a knife. Faerie was just as dimly lit as Torquemadam's dungeon but the quality of the light was very different. As the vapour dissolved around Molly and Tom it exposed a cloudless royal blue sky lit by a sun the colour of an orange—except that the "sky" wasn't really a sky and the "sun" wasn't really a sun. The "sky" was the vaulted roof of a vast cave, and the "sun" was some kind of creature creeping across it, like a vast phosphorescent slimemould.
Molly saw by the sun-creature's light that they were in a clearing in a wood. She figured that the wood was probably as near to Athens as it was to anywhere else, but it wasn't what the average Shakespearean set-dresser would have provided. The trees were separated from the pool in the middle of the clearing by a considerable mossy margin, but they looked like the kind of willows that were only supposed to live on a river's bank, trailing their leaf-laden branches on the water's surface. Their foliage was green, but it was a darker green than Molly had ever seen on a tree before. Although the regular kind of weeping willows had always looked to Molly as if they'd merely been watching a soppy film, these gave the impression that they were doing some serious grieving.
Even the atmosphere of Faerie was different. Although the vapour had been swallowed up by the mossy ground, the air that remained was strangely soupy, like invisible gazpacho.
Tall dark Tom didn't waste any time before tearing off the glove that he had used to conceal his injured hand. The right arm didn't seem any shorter than the left now, and the dimensions of the hand were in perfect proportion to the rest of him, but Molly could see raw red marks on the wrist, as if a powerful hand had gripped it and squeezed hard. She knew that she'd looked in the right place when he'd warned her that injuries sustained in Faerie's microcosm could be much exaggerated by a return to normal size.
Tom flexed the fingers experimentally, and seemed very relieved when they worked—but he had no sword, nor any other weapon that she could see, and Molly got the impression that the work he wanted those fingers to do was more delicate by far than any fencer or bowman could have required. Assuming that he really was a projection of the human yearning for moral order, Molly thought she could guess what delicate work it was.
She put her own hand up to her right eyebrow, and found that the swelling had gone down. The skin, which should have been very tender, was now as hard as seasoned wood—but it still hurt when pressed by her steely fingers, and she had a nasty suspicion that it was still discoloured. She took what comfort she could from the fact that she could see clearly from both eyes, neither being in the least bit troubled by dribbling blood or leaking tears.
"Let's go," said Tom, having favoured Molly's rig with one more appraising glance.
She didn't have to ask which way; he had already set off. If the direction in which Faerie's sun-creature was creeping was west, tall dark Tom was heading due east.
They were following a path, which was more than broad enough to accommodate them walking abreast, but Molly would have had difficulty keeping up with her companion's capacious stride even if Torquemadam had been able to supply a pair of boots without high heels. The warrior princess costume didn't come with four-inch stilettos, but it hadn't been designed with actual heroics in mind.
The middle of the path had been pounded flat, apparently by the hooves of countless unshod horses, but it was moist enough to take a grip, and Molly was soon struggling. Tom had to stop every thirty yards or so to give her a chance to catch up.
"How far is it?" Molly demanded, when her patience ran out.
"It depends," he replied, unhelpfully. "The court is a movable feast. People have been known to wander here for weeks—but the Queen will know we're here by now, and you're someone she wants to see."
It occurred to Molly that the Queen might be in no particular hurry, given that Tom might well be someone she didn't want to see, but by the time she'd formulated a sarcastic response it had been rendered redundant. Two lithe forms appeared on the pathway in front of them, so suddenly that Molly wasn't sure whether they had stepped from hiding or manifested themselves by magic.
Tom hadn't had time to amplify his observation that the fays didn't like to be called fairies, but Molly could understand how that might be the case. The image conjured up in her mind by the word fairy was that of kiddie-lit illustration and crude photographic trickery: frail ultra-feminine forms embellished with insectile wings and dressed in diaphanous white. These figures were definitely female, but they looked like the Goths who had hung around Camden in the days when Molly had a regular at the market. The rubber and leather in the fays' all-black ensembles might conceivably have been real, but whatever was used in Faerie as a substitute for PVC was definitely surreal, and the patterns woven into their translucent tights had not been produced by any mechanical loom. Their hair made Torquemadam's best black wig look modest, and Molly had the sneaking suspicion that their black lips and spectacular eyes weren't actually made up at all.
"Well well," said one, putting an uncannily long black fingernail to her pointed chin. "If it isn't Tom, Tom, the pauper's son, back for sloppy seconds. Long time no see, Tommy."
"But you can't bring your own girlfriends in here, Tommy," said the other. "It's like taking your own booze to a winebar. These are licensed premises—we don't do corkage."
Molly stepped forward. She stuck her thumbs in her belt, mainly to draw attention to the whip that was coiled up and fastened there, and said: "Actually, he's with me."
"Well, I don't see what difference that makes," the first fay drawled, as she advanced towards Molly. "You can't bring boyfriends either."
"No," said the other, who stayed where she was. " That's like bringing roast pork to a bar mitzvah."
"He's my guide," Molly said, resisting the temptation to camp up her own manner for the time being. "Also my adviser. I believe your beloved monarch wants to see me, and didn't have time to send me a proper invitation."
"It's not a matter of time, darling," said the first fay, who had now arrived in close enough proximity to reach out and touch Molly's chin with her black-painted fingernail. "It's purely a matter of inclination."
Molly reached up and took the fay's wrist in her right hand. "Is this how it happened, Tom?" she asked, looking right into the fay's eyes. Although there were intricate patterns of black all around the lashes and lids, the fay's irises were willow-green; they shrank visibly as her pupils dilated.
"You don't have the grip for it, sweetie," the fay murmured, "and I won't be going out again for quite a while so it would have plenty of time to heal even if you had. I love the one-black-eyed look, by the way. Your kid's too pale. When it comes to changelings, blondes aren't my favourite."
"But you didn't change her, did you?" Molly said, still staring into the fay's wide eyes. "You didn't even leave a block of wood behind."
"We only have to do that when we're stealing from vigilant mothers," the fay replied, with minutely-calculated contempt. "The lost and abandoned are fair game. Some guide Tom Puss is, if he didn't tell you that."
The insult stung. Molly doubted that they had Social Services in Faerie, and she wasn't about to try to explain why having your kids in care wasn't quite the same thing as losing or abandoning them.
"Well," Molly said instead, now mimicking the way the fay had used the word, "I've come to find her, and I want her back. Are you going to take me to your precious Queen, or what?" She managed to pronounce the word what as if it were a whipcrack.
"Wow," whispered the fay, leaning forward just a little more. "I could use a tongue like that. Ditch the bitch, and I'll take you to the Queen right now. I'll even let you call me Honeysuckle."
"No," said Molly, flatly. "Tom stays with me. We're together."
"Whore," said the fay—but she said it lasciviously, as if it were a compliment, and finally conceded the staring-match in order to seek advice from her companion. "What do you think, Peaseblossom?"
"I think we ought to let them find their own way, " said the other fay. " We're in no hurry. When she's cold and hungry and the wolves are after her, she'll be in a more constructive mood."
Molly gave some consideration to the possibility of appealing to the fays' better nature, but only for a second or two. There was no point in wearing the costume if she wasn't prepared to play the part. She took a generous handful of the nearer fay's luscious hair in her free hand and she turned her face back to confront her own.
"Listen, Honeysucker," she said, in her best moviegangster growl. "I'm already cold and hungry, and I've dealt with more wolves in my lifetime than you've ever heard howl. I've sailed to the stars and I've written on the face of the moon, and I've sat in the Devil's lap in the back of a speeding hearse, and I'm not the kind of person who can be intimidated by a freaky fucking fairy, so why don't you just get your skinny arse in gear and take me to your leader?"
The fay's eyes flared bright red, and the pupils shrank to mere dots, but the Devil wasn't in them, and Molly wasn't about to be frightened by the stare of any eyes that didn't have the Devil in them not after sailing to the stars and writing on the face of the moon. The fay must have seen her certainty, because as soon as she'd carefully detached her hair from Molly's left hand and her wrist from Molly's right, she smiled like a tiger.
"Well, darling," she said, "I reckon you won that little contest. I owe you a nice glass of nectar, and a big wet kiss during the slow dance. Can't wait for the rematch. Lead on, Peaseblossom. I'll stay with Molly-with-the-one-black-eye. " And so saying, the fay linked arms with Molly and drew her into her stride.
The other fay did as she was bid, and led the party away from the beaten path, while tall dark Tom meekly brought up the rear.
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The wood was uncomfortably dense and the drooping branches of the trees seemed even more anxious to caress Molly as she passed beneath their crowns than they were to touch base with Honeysuckle, but they weren't unduly assertive. Indeed, they felt eerily delicate and cobwebby. Molly put that down to the unnatural hardness of her own compacted flesh. The thick air was even more humid now, but still not very warm. Fortunately, there was no conspicuous increase in its chill when the sun-creature abandoned the microcosm to a brief purple twilight. As darkness fell, their way was lit by hosts of fireflies, which obligingly clustered in the crown of every tree as they passed by.
"What has the cat in the hat been telling you?" Honeysuckle whispered in Molly's ear. "You know you can't trust him, I suppose."
"He hasn't stolen my daughter," Molly pointed out, although she wasn't entirely certain that it was true, given that he seemed to know more about Christine's whereabouts than he was letting on, "and he came to tell me what was going on before your precious Queen could be bothered to send a summons my way." It didn't seem politic to mention that he'd also saved her from a fate allegedly worse than death —although Molly had long ago decided to suspend judgment on the proverbial comparison until she'd actually tried death.
"He's a man of sorts, darling," the fay observed. "He doesn't steal little girls, he just fucks them and throws them away. It wasn't your benefit he had in mind when he sprinted to your door."
"It's understandable that a person might want his memories back," Molly said, "not to mention the chance to let a bad hand heal."
