The Door in the Moon by Catherine Fisher Read Free Book Online

said, “I shut them every night.”
    â€œâ€”are all open and the greenery is growing inside. As if the power of the Wood is groping and searching for someone. Or something.”
    Piers made a face and looked at Gideon, who stood, quickly. “She doesn’t have to search for me. She knows where I am. I’ll go and close them. As for Venn . . .” He shrugged. “Do you still know, in this century, the tale of the war between Winter and Summer? The Shee tell it often. They had a bet as to who was stronger—the test was to take the coat from a mortal. The icy blasts of Winter blew and the mortal merely held his coat all the tighter. But when the sun shone hotter and hotter, he had to take it off. It’s a true story. Venn can roar and flummox all he likes, but when Summer smiles, believe me, everyone obeys.”
    He took a light step toward the door. But Maskelyne said, “Gideon. I smell a magic on you. Faint and strange. What might that be?”
    â€œNo idea,” Gideon muttered. But as he pushed past the scarred man, he thought of the flower in his pocket.
    And smiled.

    Curled beneath the stifling layers of the Scribe’s dusty robes, barely able to breathe, Sarah felt the wooden lid being lifted away.
    She kept utterly still, listening.
    For an hour the automata had been rocked and rattled on some cart halfway across the city, through turns and twists of alleys and streets and secret courtyards, over cobbles and bridges and a long graveled path. Now she smelled wonderful, exotic scents, the perfumes of flowers, cloying and sweet.
    Footsteps pattered close. She saw the tip of a small, heeled shoe. The voluminous robe of the automata made a purple tent around her, but if anyone lifted it off they would see her. Reluctantly, she again made herself invisible.
    A thin, male French voice said, in English, “Astonishing!”
    â€œThis is the finest of the machines, milord, manufactured in London by watchmakers of the most delicate skill to delight your guests. It will answer simple questions and compute the answers to arithmetical problems. The ballerina will pirouette, perform a most wonderful dance. The Conjuror will entertain with magic.”
    â€œI love them. I love them, monsieur. I love them so much I could weep tears of delight. Let me see them move! Show me how they operate!”
    â€œCertainly. Shall we start with the Dancer?”
    Carefully Sarah edged away a corner of the velvet. She was dazzled by sunlight. Greenery crowded her, a tropical jungle of lushness she had never imagined; she slid down onto hands and knees and slipped into it, crawling out hurriedly. Vast leaves as wide as she was hid her easily, great tree roots and trunks that rose high over her into the glassed ceiling of an enormous hothouse.
    In only seconds she was soaked with sweat; condensation dripped from the leaves and twining stems around her, splashed on the terracotta-tiled floor.
    Hearing music, she crouched, lifted a fern and watched the men.
    They stood admiring as the Dancer turned and bowed and raised her arms, pointing her toes with exquisite grace.
    The Englishman was tall, bony, his clothes dark and plain, his hair straggly under a tricorn hat. There was something about him that made Sarah sure he had been one of the two men who had taken Jake. He watched the other man as beadily as a crow watches a likely worm, head on one side, his contemptuous smirk barely hidden.
    The French milord astonished Sarah. He was tiny, his suit the pinkest of satins, his shoes buckled with diamonds, his hair a powdered wig of pure white. He circled the automaton with his palms pressed together in wonder. “I will be envied by the world,” he breathed. “By the world.”
    The mechanical dancer stopped, bowed her head gracefully, sank in a curtsey among a fluster of white taffeta skirt.
    â€œHow does it work? The clockwork, the cogs, how are