The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [746]
I pulled the glove off my hand and looked at where the mottled flesh still showed signs of the eraserhead. I rubbed the itchy skin, then moved to the side of the street and walked toward where this version of Thursday’s house was located. It was the same as the one that was burned down in the first chapter of my book, so I knew the way. But the strange thing was, the street was completely deserted. Nothing moved. Not a person, not a cat, squirrel—nothing. I stopped at a car that was abandoned in the street and looked in the open passenger door. The key was still in the ignition. Whoever had once populated this book had left—and in a hurry.
I carried on walking slowly down the road. That pompous fool Bradshaw had mentioned something about a chapter breaking away from the main book—perhaps that was where all the background characters were. But it didn’t matter. Thursday was here now, and she was the one I was after. I reached the garden gate of Landen5’s house and padded cautiously up the path, past the perfectly planted flowers and windows so clean and sparkly they almost weren’t there. Holding my gun outstretched, I stepped quietly inside the house.
Thursday5’s idea of home furnishing was different from mine and the real Thursday’s. For a start, the floor covering was seagrass, and the curtains were an odiously old-fashioned tie-dye. I also noticed to my disgust that there were Tibetan mandalas in frames upon the wall and dream catchers hanging from the ceiling. I stepped closer to the pictures on the mantelpiece and found one of Thursday5 and Landen5 at Glastonbury. They had their faces painted as flowers and were grinning stupidly and hugging each other, with Pickwick5 sitting between them. It was quite sickeningly twee, to be honest.
“I would have done the same.”
I turned. Thursday was leaning on the doorway that led through to the kitchen. It was an easy shot, but I didn’t take it. I wanted to relish the moment.
“What would you have done the same?” I asked.
“I would have spared you, too. I’ll admit it, your impersonation of me was about the most plausible I’ll ever see. I’m not sure there’s anyone out there who would have spotted it. But I didn’t think you could keep it up. The real you would soon bubble to the surface. Because, like it or not, you’re not enough of me to carry it off. To be me you need the seventeen years of Jurisfiction experience—the sort of experience that means I can take on people like you and come out victorious.”
I laughed at her presumption. “I think you overestimate your own abilities, Outlander. I’m the one holding the gun. Perhaps you’re a little bit right, but I can and will be you, given time. Everything you have, everything you are. Your job, your family, your husband. I can go back to the Outland and take over from where you left off—and probably have a lot more fun doing it, too.”
I pointed my gun at her and began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped. She didn’t seem particularly troubled, and that worried me.
“Can you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
She cupped a hand to her ear. “That.”
And now that she mentioned it, I could hear something. A soft thrumming noise that seemed to reverberate through the ground.
“What is it?” I asked, and was shocked