On the horizon, I could see what I first thought to be a solid bank of storm clouds, but then I saw that it was a huge tidal wave, and the whole sky reverberated with deafening thunder. The deep foundations of the castle began to quiver and shake as the supporting columns broke away and great slabs of masonry fell down the side of the mountain, crushing everything in their path. An avalanche surged down in a great gathering rush of bricks and debris and engulfed me in the flow.
Luckily, I managed to hold on to a light wooden door torn from its hinges and jam myself under the holding metal framework still attached to the side. The lightweight door skimmed the surface like a surfboard, but then the wave struck, and I rose like a cork, turning and twisting in the rising water.
My lungs felt as if they were about to burst, and I reduced the pressure by slowly releasing the trapped air from my lungs in a steady stream of bubbles. I was at my absolute limit of endurance when my head broke the surface, still holding on to my life-saving raft. But it wasn't over yet, and I shot forward, caught in a current that continually plunged me underwater and then up again at breakneck speed. How long this went on, I can't say, but if I had not secured myself to the raft, I would have certainly drowned. I drifted in and out of consciousness, waterlogged and getting weaker by the minute, but I hung on, and gradually the water became so calm that I drifted off to sleep.
Sometime later, the warm sun on my cheek woke me as I lay face down on the deck. The raft was gently bobbing up and down on the still water, and I had to work hard to extricate my limbs from the tangled metal on the side of the raft. I cautiously rose into a kneeling position once I freed myself and looked around.
I was on the surface of a great lake rather than a sea, and the water was completely calm. A hundred yards ahead stood a towering blue cliff, perfectly perpendicular and smooth, that reached far up into the sky and the clouds.
There was something unreal about this world, and by unreal, I mean fake. This was not a natural harbour; it was more like a boating lake of artificial construction; even the cliffs were so phoney that it could have been a film set.
I was thirsty, and without thinking, I leaned over and scooped water into my mouth. It was fresh, and I gulped it down, even though it should have been seawater. Another thing: everywhere was so clean; the blue of the cliffs was a flawless shade of aquamarine, and when I looked over the side of my raft, the water was so clear that I could see the bottom.
I felt uncomfortable. I could sense that somebody was watching me; the hair on my arms stood up, charged with static electricity. I was afraid, but I couldn't stay here in the middle of the lake and decided to head for the shore. I lay flat on the deck of the raft and paddled my way inward.
A staircase ran vertically up the face of the cliff. There was a continuous handrail on each side and five rungs to each step, all painted brilliant white to create a startling contrast against the perfect blue of the cliff face. It was like a childlike perfection of reality in vivid poster colours and reminded me of those hand-painted art-deco travel posters in railway carriages that you now see in museums on Earth Major. The ones that showed white yachts afloat on sparkling water with slender women in 1920s bathing costumes artfully draped across gleaming teak decks. On the cliff top above them, a group of tanned young men in open-necked shirts, wind-blown hair, and white smiles saluted weary commuters with raised tennis rackets and the unspoken question, 'Wish you were here?'
My daydream ended as the raft bumped against the 'shore,' a broad path, also painted white, that ran the length of the cliff. The water close to the path was shallow, and I waded ashore, pulling my raft behind me. Driven into the ground at regular intervals along the shoreline were silver mooring rings, enough to allow a score of boats to tie up here at the same time, and I began to think that it was a film set; everything was so pristine and artificial. But why were there so many mooring rings so close together that they could only take small craft?
From nowhere, a memory came to mind of cannibals mooring their fleet of canoes on Robinson Crusoe's Island before they went on the shore to feast on their victims. Why I should make this bizarre association, I don't know; other than that, it was intuition, a warning of danger.
But I was going to climb that ladder, no matter what happened, and I started my ascent, firmly holding both handrails. I stared resolutely forward, never having had a head for heights, and didn't look down. I concentrated on the next step, then the next, and the next, until I was high up in the air.
Confirming my theory of being on a film set, the clouds were motionless balls of cotton wool perfectly balanced in a painted blue sky, and I passed through the gaps between them until the steps ended at a platform with a solid floor. I walked cautiously forward until I saw before me the elusive object of my quest, and it set my heart thumping.
The Green Door
For a long time, I stood and stared, with my hand clutched around the key in my pocket. The door looked the same, but still, I hesitated.
If I locked this door, would it prevent the invasion?
How did I know that the Menschen brothers had told me the truth?
Then I thought of Montana. She trusted the brothers, and I relied on her intuition. Taking a quick step forward, I impulsively inserted the key and locked the door.
There was a loud click.
I turned the key back in the opposite direction to remove it from the lock, but when I tried to pull it out, the key disappeared into the door, and the keyhole closed over. If anybody wanted to reopen the door in the future, they would have to search again for the key. Unknown machinery within the Green Door hummed into life, and as the noise increased, it began to flash in and out of vision before vanishing completely.
My quest was over, but it was something of an anti-climax. What happened next? I had never thought about how I would return home, and neither Albert nor Ernest had told me what I should do after locking the door.
It was a sobering thought that, all along, this may have been a one-way journey. Was it possible that they had tricked me into a suicide mission? I had no idea where I was or the route to take to get back home, but I couldn't reconcile my previously high opinion of Albert and Ernest with the possibility that they had tricked me.
But what if they had no choice? I was the only one who could open the Green Door, and my life was just one against the many who would die if the invasion of the free worlds had taken place. In that case, then morally, they had made the right decision, but I still believed that they would do everything in their power to get me back. They may fail, and the thought of never seeing Montana again was enough to galvanise me back into action.
My first concern was survival, and I turned around to go back down, but to my surprise, the stairs continued up to another level, and I resumed my climb upward. The stairs ended on a final platform, and I stretched upward and touched a solid roof.
At the end of the platform was another door, blue this time, marked EXIT. There was no keyhole or door handle, just another, smaller sign that said PUSH. I had no idea where it might lead, but I had little choice. It was certain that the door was one-way, and if I went through, I might find myself stranded in a world with no hope of escape. I could not decide the best thing to do, but help was at hand.
The figure of a youth in a peaked cap appeared by my side, and hung around his neck on a leather strap was a ticket machine. My first thought was that he was the bus conductor from the Harry Potter story. Somebody was playing tricks with my mind.
"Ticket?" said the spotty youth.
"Which way do you go?" I asked.
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," he said.
"I don't much care where, as long as. . .
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," he said.
Whoever was creating this illusion was getting their sources mixed up. That was a line spoken by the Cat in Alice in Wonderland. The dual references were confusing, but I had to play along if I wanted to get out of this world.
"Where does the door lead to?" I asked.
"What, that?" he replied, looking at the door as though he was seeing it for the first time.
"Yes."
"Next stop is London, England, 1860. Only one ticket left."
"I'll take it," I said.
He handed me the ticket and reached upward to pull on an invisible cord, and the long-drawn-out sound of a whistle cut through the air.
"All aboard! Shouted the conductor, climbing up onto an invisible platform.
He waved at me and vanished, but thankfully, the door remained in place. I took a tentative step forward as a voice boomed out from the sky.
"Don't leave Peregrine. There's no more truth out there than there is in this world. Same lies, same deceit, but here you have nothing to fear."
The Truman Show! But this was not the voice of the omnipotent director, Christof; it was a woman's voice, the voice of the Red Witch, who had risen from the enchanted pool in Arcadia.
Her tone was warm and friendly, but I remembered how quickly she had transformed herself into a vicious, snarling beast when I mistakenly tried to comfort her. Unwittingly, she had made up my mind, and it was not the decision she wanted.
I now walked to the Blue Door, and without any hesitation went straight through. . .