The Bell Between Worlds. Ian Johnstone

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СКАЧАТЬ trip over an unexpected rise in the floor or bruise themselves against a bulge in the wall, but these corridors were Sylas’s domain. Small of stature and deft of foot from his many errands, he moved with an assured ease past the many apartment doors on his left and right, until he turned on to the staircase. He took the stairs in twos – a feat of considerable skill given that each pair varied in height and angle – and soon bounded off the bottom step and through the large oak door.

      It opened at the end of the terrace, directly opposite the Church of the Holy Trinity. The majestic spire soared above Gabblety Row as if trying to teach a lesson in uprightness, but that was perhaps the church’s last salute to the world: the main roof had fallen in and the grounds were now an overgrown jungle of trees, bushes, ivy and broken stone.

      Sylas hesitated – he had not had a chance to lay flowers for his mother this week, and it was already Friday. He looked at his watch. There should be time after the post office.

      Suddenly he was assailed by a blast of screeching, honking car horns, and the acrid smell of fumes as the lights on the corner changed to green. The two roads that met at the corner of Gabblety Row were the busiest in town, each four lanes across and jammed with steel and noise and agitated people. These were serious roads, roads that did not like to be interrupted, and they growled irritably at one another each time the traffic lights changed.

      Sylas turned the corner and began the familiar walk along the frontage of shops: the sweet, doughy-smelling Buntague’s Bakery, the ominous undertaker’s Veeglum & Retch, and finally Sam Clump’s, the locksmith. Then something very odd caught his eye. It was a movement somewhere ahead of him, inside the dusty window of the final shop in the row, the one that had been empty for years.

      He approached the filthy, arched panes that made up the shopfront. Each dirty section of glass had been set into carved wooden frames as crookedly as the rest of the row and bent the light in a unique way, making it almost impossible to see into the dark room beyond. All Sylas could make out was the usual darkness flecked with dust and cobwebs.

      He shrugged and was about to turn away when something unfamiliar made him look up. To his surprise, he saw that there, nailed over the dilapidated nameplate that had always been blank, was a new shop sign. The lettering was like none he had ever seen, a dance of outlandish arcs and curves in reds and purples and blues.

      He read out loud in wonderment: “The… Shop… of…” He blinked and frowned, “...Things.”

      “Yes, indeed.”

      Sylas jumped and looked about him, trying to find the owner of the voice. There was no one. The voice had sounded so clear and close, even over the drone of the traffic.

      “Do come inside.”

      A shiver ran down Sylas’s spine. It was inside his head.

      The voice was accented and strange, like none he could remember. Surely, if he was imagining it, it would seem more familiar. He found himself stepping backwards towards the edge of the pavement.

      “Careful!”

      A horn screamed wildly and Sylas felt the wind of a passing car tearing at his clothes. He threw himself forward, gasping with fright, and steadied himself against a window frame. When he had gathered his wits, he found himself standing right next to the doorway.

      “You have nothing to fear.”

      He peered again through the dirty glass, but could see nothing but darkness. For some time he stayed rooted to the spot, glancing nervously from side to side. Finally his nerves got the better of him and he turned and started to walk away.

      In a few steps he had reached the corner of Clump’s locksmith’s and he heard the sound of Sam Clump chatting cheerfully to a customer as he prodded a screwdriver into a misbehaving lock. Sylas paused and looked out at the busy road and the endless throng of faces peering over steering wheels, then across to the harsh lights of the supermarket, and finally he looked back at the mysterious dark window.

      What harm could come to him so close to Sam and to all these people? Surely he had just imagined the voice – after all, he had imagined stranger things before.

      He felt the sting of a raindrop against the side of his face and looked up to see the sky darkening. As the heavens rumbled, he drew himself up and walked briskly across the pavement to the Shop of Things.

      The rain fell in sheets that moved like silvery curtains across the town. A warm wind caught the drops and hurled them this way and that, so that there was nowhere they did not reach. They swirled into bus shelters and blasted into doorways; they curled beneath umbrellas and danced between the leaves of trees. Soon the town had become a world of shabby greyness, its dull buildings framed by pendulous, smoky clouds above, and murky pools and rivulets below.

      The stranger turned out of a lane on to the main road, gathering his loose-fitting coat about him and drawing down the hood so that his face could not be seen. He cursed as a gust threw up spray from a passing car and he quickly slid the black holdall off his shoulder, tucking it under his coat. Even with this awkward burden he moved quickly, pausing only once or twice to look at road signs and to wait for cars as they turned into side roads. He seemed agitated, casting his dark eyes left and right and sometimes muttering under his breath, but his strides were sure and powerful and he moved swiftly past other pedestrians.

      As he neared the traffic lights, his attention was drawn to a strange, ramshackle building on the opposite corner of the junction. He put the holdall down and leaned against one of the traffic lights, peering out from under his hood at the peculiar arrangement of beams, drainpipes and brickwork that lay before him.

      “And thus at this our journey’s end,” he said in a weathered voice, “is another, just beginning.”

      Then he stepped out in the direction of Gabblety Row.

      “When the sun sets, it merely sleeps, to rise another day; a path that ends, ends not, but leads back from whence it came; and thus at this our journey’s end is another, just beginning.”

      THE DOOR CREAKED ON its old, dry hinges, but opened easily. Sylas heard the half-hearted ring of the rusty shop bell above his head as he stepped into the gloom.

      He was immediately aware of the strong odour of decaying wood and damp walls, which hung heavily in the air and caught the back of his throat. The front of the shop was relatively clear, containing a few empty cabinets whose doors hung off their hinges and vast grey spiders’ webs that hung wall to ceiling like drapes. But within, all he could see were stacks of crates and parcels that ascended from floor to ceiling like weird postal sculptures, arranged in long lines stretching the full length of the shop. He glanced at one stack and saw that each parcel and crate carried a shipping label stamped with the city of origin: Beijing… Addis Ababa… Rio de Janeiro… Alexandria… Khartoum…

      “Welcome.”

      It was the same strange accent, the same deep, gentle voice, but this time it was not inside his head, it was in the room. Sylas became aware of a dull glow in the dark interior of the shop, at the end of one of the stacks.

      “Thank you,” he blurted, his heart СКАЧАТЬ