Attica - By Garry Kilworth Page 0,28

back and forth. His arms were stretched out to scoop her up, to cuddle her close to him.

‘Daddy?’ she yelled. ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’

Chloe became hysterical with a mixture of misery and joy. She ran towards the mirror, clawed to get inside its duplicitous surface, to touch its deceptive reflections. She felt if she tried hard enough she could enter the silver pool and join her father. Then she felt Alex pulling her jersey, yanking her back. He was in tears, calling for her to stop.

‘You told me not to look,’ he accused her, shaking her roughly. ‘Don’t you look either.’

And so they did their best, even though aircraft zoomed at them firing cannons and shooting rockets. Even though ships lurched out of fog banks and bore down on them with wicked-looking bows. Knights charged out of misty marshlands, lances pointing at their breasts. Eagles flew, talons hooked and beaks glinting, straight at their faces. Monsters stalked them on every side: monsters bearing shapes of which they had never dreamed, with open slavering jaws and hands with finger-claws as long and spindly as the legs of a crayfish. There were hideous mouths full of needle teeth. Spooks and ghouls came, rising from cruddy graveyard earth. Frightening corpses with the rotten flesh dripping from their bones. The mirrors tried every trick they knew to bend the children’s minds to their will.

‘Don’t worry, Alex,’ said Chloe, gripping her younger brother’s hand and pulling him along with her, ‘we’ll get out safe.’

‘Someone’s watching us,’ he replied, looking round. ‘I know they are. Someone’s here.’

‘No, you’re imagining it – it’s just us – and reflections of us.’

Alex was convinced there was someone there. Someone hiding at the backs of the mirrors, following them.

The way through was bewildering, being a path of mirror tiles on the ground and walls of mirrors for their avenues. They did not know whether they were going out or coming in, or walking in circles, or running mad. Several times they came across Atticans who looked as if they had been in the Vale of Mirrors for years. The faces of these distressed souls were locked in madness. Clearly their reason had flown long ago, for they simply wandered in and out of mirrored lanes and alleys, stumbling over their feet, seemingly hardly aware of where they were or what they did.

And of course these corridors of mirrors on either side of them continued to produce a multitude of images that sent both children spinning away in their minds, into a swirling whirlpool of Chloes and Alexes on a descent into the same kind of insanity which bedevilled other unwilling lost occupants of the Vale of Mirrors.

‘My head’s spinning,’ said Alex. ‘I feel sick.’

‘So do I. You have to fight it.’

Finally Chloe looked up and found salvation.

‘Alex,’ she said. ‘Look up there!’

Alex followed her gaze but could only see, high above them, a single rafter running the length of the heavens.

‘What of it?’ he said.

‘Keep your eyes on that rafter, Alex, and just follow it. Don’t worry if you bump into a mirror, don’t look at it, just feel your way round it. So long as we stare at that rafter we won’t be looking at reflections of ourselves. Walk carefully and slowly, so you don’t hurt yourself. When you’re aware of an obstacle in front of you, slide round it, but keep going in the direction of the rafter. Eventually it must lead us to the edge of the valley.’

This they did and blessedly found themselves out of the Vale of Mirrors and at the foot of Typewriter Hill.

Chloe felt immense relief wash through her.

‘We’re out. That was horrible, wasn’t it?’

‘It wasn’t the best time I’ve had. Where are we now?’ Alex looked around him. ‘Oh, this should make you happy. Word machines.’

A great jumble of typewriters faced them. They were mostly old, heavy-looking instruments, but a few were portables. The latter were in light cases and had smarter-looking keys than the standard desk typewriters. Some machines had pages stuck under the platen roller, with their typewritten words still legible. Chloe read one or two of them.

Dear Mr Glubb,

You will note by the enclosed that your bank statement shows a deficit of seventeen pounds. We would greatly appreciate

Boring!

Hi Roger,

Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me again! Well, here I am. Are you still going out with Jill, because I have no commitments at the moment. I know we had some bad

Intriguing, but the letter stopped after the word bad.

The