Corbenic by Catherine Fisher Page B

stopped. Breathless, he looked around. No one else seemed to be down here. Small echoes shifted.
    â€œIt is you, isn’t it?” he said quietly. In the dusty silence his words seemed to hang; he said desperately, “I just want to talk to you! About Corbenic.”
    No answer.
    He took a step forward. In all the kettles and jugs and teapots; in the stainless steel coffee pots and toasters and mixers and drying racks he saw himself move, swollen and distorted and stretched and tiny. His mouth warped in the convex surfaces. “Please,” he whispered.
    She was there. Reflected. He turned quickly, but he couldn’t find her. Only her reflections watched him, her eyes severe in the dimness.
    â€œHow could you let us down like that?” Her whisper was intense and fierce, and it startled him.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou lied! To Bron, to yourself. You saw the Grail . . .”
    â€œThat cup!”
    â€œYes. That cup. And the spear. You saw the door open. And you denied all of it!”
    Cal stared at her face, twisted in the shiny handle of a kettle. In milk jugs and sugar basins she watched him, seeming young and then old, warping and changing, her hair fair, like his mother’s. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?” her lips breathed, clouding metal.
    â€œNo,” he said quietly, turning, moving along the counters. “I haven’t. Tell me.”
    She shook her head sadly. “Left us all in our pain. In the Waste Land. Only you can heal us. Come back,” she whispered. “Come home. That’s the quest, Cal.”
    Cal banged into a stand of saucepans; they clattered into a rolling, crashing confusion and the girl’s reflection tumbled with them and in the clattering din she looked out at him with twenty covert glances. “Because you did see, didn’t you?”
    â€œThat place,” he said urgently. “Was it real? I didn’t just dream it all, did I?”
    â€œYou tell me,” she said from over his shoulder. “And do you know the pain he’s in? That we’re all in?”
    There were footsteps on the stairs. Cal picked a saucepan up, bewildered. “Back where? It isn’t home. It’s a ruin.”
    â€œIt is now.” Close behind him, his arms full of aluminum, he felt her push something in his pocket. “Use the sword,” she whispered. Though her voice was his.
    Lights flickered on. A voice said, “Can I help you, sir?”
    In the sudden stark light Cal saw the basement was empty. A man in a white shirt and blue tie was standing on the bottom stair looking at him quizzically.
    â€œOh, no, sorry. Thanks.” He put the pans down quickly. “I just bumped into these,” he said quickly. “It was very dark down here.”
    â€œYes. Someone seems to have switched the light off.” The man’s voice was oddly acid; now they thought he was a shoplifter, Cal thought bitterly, and that it was saucepans he was after. Saucepans!
    The man moved to the cash register. “So you aren’t interested in buying anything?”
    â€œNo,” he said firmly, and walked to the stairs.
    â€œEr . . .” The man held out a hand. “Even the CD? I can take care of that here.” His grin was spiteful.
    â€œCD?” Cal was blank.
    â€œIn your pocket. Sir .”
    Cal felt for it. It stuck out, still warm from her touch. He pulled it out, not even looking at it, but at the sales assistant, his smile rigid and grim, his heart hammering. “Oh yes,” he said tightly. “I’d forgotten about that.”
    The assistant took it from him. There were hot smudges from his fingers on the cellophane wrapping; the man saw them and smiled coldly. “Happens all the time,” he said. He ran the bar code over and took out a plastic bag. “Sixteen fifty.”
    Cal heard it and managed not to flinch. Elaborately careless, he took out the money and paid it over, only