The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [409]
I stopped at the door and turned back, raised my gun and fired a single shot. The bullet whistled through the young woman and impacted harmlessly on the wall behind.
“It will take more than that, Thursday.”
“Thursday? That’s my name?”
“It doesn’t matter, there is no one you can remember who will help you.”
“Doesn’t this make your victory hollow?” I demanded, lowering my gun and rubbing my temple, trying to recall even a single fact.
“Ridding your mind of that which you value most was the hard bit. All I had to do then was to invoke your dread, the memory that you feared the most. After that, it was easy.”
“My greatest fear?”
She smiled again and showed me the handmirror. There was no reflection, only images that flashed past anonymously. I took the mirror and peered at it, trying to make sense of what I saw.
“These are the images of your life, your memories, the people you love, everything you held dear—but also everything that you’ve ever feared. I can modify and change them at will—or even delete them completely. But before I do, I’m going to make you view the worst once more. Gaze upon it, Thursday, gaze upon it and feel the death of your brother one last time!”
The mirror showed me the image of a war long ago, the violent death of a soldier who seemed familiar, and I felt the pain of loss tearing through me. The woman laughed as the images repeated themselves, this time clearer, and more graphic. I shut my eyes to block the horror, but opened them again quickly in shock. I had seen something else, right at the edge of my mind, dark and menacing, waiting to engulf me. I gasped, and the woman felt my fear.
“What is it?” she cried. “There is something I have missed? Worse than the Crimea? Let me see!”
She tried to grasp the mirror but I let it drop. It shattered on the concrete floor as we heard a muffled thump of something striking the steel door five stories below.
“What was that?” she demanded.
I realized what I had seen. Its presence, unwelcome for so many years in the back of my mind, might be just what I needed to defeat her.
“My worst nightmare,” I told her, “and now yours.”
“But it can’t be! Your worst nightmare was the Crimea, your brother’s death—I know, I’ve searched your mind!”
“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 for my worse fear, my dread, to appear—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. 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 realizing who she was as my past began to reveal itself from the fog. “Like all Hadeses, you were lazy. You thought Anton’s demise was the worst thing you could dredge up. You never looked further. Hardly looked into my subconscious at all. The old stuff, the terrifying stuff, the stuff that keeps us awake as children, the nightmares