The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [410]
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’s hair turned snow-white, but no scream came from her dry throat. I lowered my eyes and turned to the door, seeing only a vague shape out of the corner of my eye 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 amidst masonry and scraps of rusty iron. Aornis found her voice, finally, and screamed.
I didn’t pause or 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 only drowned out 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 bow. He was every bit as I remembered him. Tall and good-looking with hair graying slightly at the temples. My 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 breath, tears coursing down my cheeks.
“Is it you?” I cried. “Really you, not one of Aornis’s little games?”
“No, it’s me all right.” He kissed me tenderly. “Or at least, your memory of me.”
“You’ll be back for real, I promise!”
“Have I missed much? 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 Ultra Word™, 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 had by 1988 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
THE FOLLOWING MORNING my head felt as if it had a road drill in it. I lay awake in bed, the sun streaming through the porthole. I smiled as I remembered the defeat of Aornis the night before and mouthed out loud:
“Landen Parke-Laine, Landen Parke-Laine!”
Then I remembered the loss of Miss Havisham and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. After a few minutes of introspection 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, then tiptoed back to bed to avoid waking Gran. She was fast asleep in the chair with a copy of Finnegans Wake on her lap. I knew I was going to have to apologize 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’s door.
I got up half an hour later and went downstairs, where I found Randolph and Lola at the breakfast table. They weren’t talking to each other and I noticed Lola’s small