Fay nodded. ‘Did she come?’ she said. ‘Did she answer his call from Dream?’
‘Oh, his call was not to her,’ said the Hallowe’en King with a smile. ‘I told you, the Queen had already moved on. She had another family now; a daughter she loved more than Life itself. No, King Orfeo knew she would never respond to his voice. And so he called to someone else: his Queen’s six-year-old daughter.’
Two
For a long time Fay said nothing. Her thoughts were like a tangle of briars; her heart like the Night Train’s engine. It was all beginning to make sense to her, with the twisted logic of certain dreams: the Shadowless Man; the riddles; the rose – even her failing memory.
‘You knew that if you took Daisy, I’d come,’ she said at last, in a trembling voice. ‘And you knew that bringing me here, like this, was the one sure way to make me forget her.’
The Hallowe’en King gave his twisted smile. ‘Believe me, it hasn’t been easy,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d make it this far. And yet you did. Your love brought you here. You followed the trail I left for you, all the way across the Worlds. I was in your daughter’s dreams; I showed her to you in London Before. I led you closer, step by step, through the realm of Faërie, over the sea to Norrowa, into the maelstrom of Dream and finally, to the Shadowless Land. Through my all-seeing Eye I watched; and through your dreams I led you home.’
Fay listened to the Hallowe’en King, suddenly feeling very calm. There was a rushing sound in her head like that of a cold wind through the eaves. ‘You were King Orfeo,’ she said. ‘You were Daisy’s Shadowless Man. You’re the reason…’ she went on, feeling the words turn to ice on her tongue. ‘You’re the reason she killed herself.’
He nodded. ‘It was the only way. I did it because I love you, my Queen. Love greater than Life and stronger than Death. I did it all for you, for the sake of the love we had together.’
Fay felt the rushing sound in her head swell to a blizzard. ‘And Alberon?’ she said at last. ‘Was he another illusion?’
‘Do not despise illusions,’ said the Hallowe’en King in his quiet voice. ‘Glamours are how we show the truth that cannot be spoken. You loved me once, as Alberon, back in our realm of Faërie. I hoped you might remember me if I showed you what you had lost.’
Fay looked at him, and did not flinch at the sight of his skeletal profile. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘So what happens now?’
The Hallowe’en King raised his skeletal hand, and from the hall of dust there came a woman, all in white brocade. Her hair was longer than Fay’s, and yet Fay still recognized her face – after all, she’d seen it in the mirror every day for the past forty years. But it was Fay as she might have been, in some alternate story: a fairy tale; a distant dream, from when the Worlds were honeycomb.
‘Make a choice,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘Take my hand and you can reclaim your shadow; your true memories. You can be the woman you were; the woman with whom I fell in love. Your life among the Folk will be a fading dream, a candle flame that flickers out, leaving nothing but smoke behind.’
‘And if I don’t?’ said Fay.
‘Then you will be nothing; shadowless. It will be as if you never lived.’
Fay nodded slowly. ‘And Daisy?’
‘Forget her,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘You have already forgotten her. Take back your shadow and share my throne, and you shall be my Hallowe’en Queen, just as the Oracle prophesied.’
Fay looked at the shadow of herself standing before the bone-white throne. The other Fay was so beautiful that she could hardly look at her, and yet she knew they were one and the same; reflections in a dark glass. For a moment, she found herself thinking of the statue over the Shaftesbury fountain: the one that so many call Eros.
Eros, god of love, she thought. So many cruel and selfish things have been done in Eros’s name. Like the man before her now, who had lured an innocent girl to her death in order to satisfy his desire. Strange, that he should be revered, and his twin almost forgotten. And yet, that was his statue: Anteros, the selfless one; high against the London sky on wings as light as a butterfly’s.
‘Why do you hesitate?’ said the King. ‘I’m offering you eternal love. I am restoring you to your real life, to the future that was taken from us. Take back your shadow, and come to me, and we shall set the Worlds aflame. All you have to do is choose.’
And just for a moment, Fay could see the attraction of that future. Herself, immortal; perfected; all sorrow put away for good. Smiling, she reached out her hand—
And said: ‘I’ll take my turn now.’
Three
The Hallowe’en King made no protest, but Fay could sense his baffled rage. With a gesture, he banished the hall, the throne, and Fay found herself in a desert, bleak; unbroken to every horizon.
He faced her, one eye like a blade, the other dark with anger. ‘Then take your turn, my Queen,’ he said. ‘And weep for what you could have had.’
Fay reached into her pocket for the shell, and into her memory for a song. Neither was forthcoming. She must have dropped the shell, she thought, while the King was telling his tale. And now, without a song to sing, she had no chance of matching him.
I had no chance anyway, she told herself. And yet my Daisy shall have her song. If it costs me the very last drop of my blood: if it costs me my mind, she shall have it.
And she opened the tiny notebook that she had kept in her pocket, and started to read in a low, clear voice, while all the time watching the thin heat-haze of her shadow on the ground. As she read the words aloud, they faded from the page like smoke, leaving the paper blank once more.
‘The cake I made when she was four, shaped like Thomas the Tank Engine. The first time she went to the theatre.’
The Hallowe’en King narrowed his living eye. ‘This is pointless, my Lady,’ he said. ‘I beg you, spare us both this charade.’
Fay ignored him and went on. ‘The sandcastle we built, on the beach in Brighton. In the coffee shop at King’s Cross, with a cup of chocolate. Feeding the squirrels in Green Park.’
‘Please, my Lady,’ said the King, and she thought his voice was unsteady. ‘Let us have no more of this.’
Fay went on ignoring him. Her voice rang out across the sand. ‘Her first day at school. Her first Christmas. Her midnight-blue tent, embroidered with stars. In the park on Bonfire Night, writing our names with a sparkler. Grabbing my finger, the day she was born. It felt as if she would never let go.’
‘Don’t,’ said the King in an urgent voice. ‘Just take my hand, and I’ll release her. Only stop this madness. Take my hand, and I promise you—’
‘Her name was Daisy. Her favourite toy—’
The King made a sound of anger and pain, and Fay saw tears in his living eye.
‘—her favourite toy was a tiger.’
She looked down at the hot pale sand, searching for her shadow. But looking down, she found it gone, and now she realized that she could no longer remember the toy, or even the colour of Daisy’s eyes.