Katalepsis

Five days later — five days after the tearful reconciliation with my parents, after the long-awaited confrontation and humbling conversation with Taika, after my apology to Sevens in her new and very yellow bedroom, and after my resolution to stop justifying my own impulsive excesses — on Saturday the 10th of August, a grey and cloudy Sharrowford afternoon, just after lunchtime, Evelyn went missing.

At first, nobody realised it had happened.

Evelyn had spent almost every spare hour of that week firmly planted in her magical workshop, cross-referencing her notes, poring over her dusty tomes, scribbling and sketching and scribing — working tirelessly on the ‘Invisus Oculus’, her “greatest invention”, her “magnum opus”, or “the spit in my mother’s rotten face that I could never summon from my own mouth, ha!” She used those exact words, at least once, while I was assigned to making-sure-Evee-eats-food-and-drinks-water duty. Evelyn had grudgingly accepted such help from a rotating roster of myself, Praem, and Raine, with Lozzie and Tenny playing a side-role whenever they felt like it; Tenny was especially useful for accurate accounts of how many calories Evelyn had consumed on any given day, and at offering hugs to everyone involved. Grinny tagged along with Tenny whenever Zheng wasn’t taking her out to the woods to do whatever they were doing out there; I did not have the additional energy to inquire as to these woodland jaunts, but Grinny seemed to be enjoying the process, whatever it entailed.

All this looking after Evee was no great hardship. She was, after all, doing this for me.

The Invisus Oculus had first taken shape in a series of notebooks, drawn and redrawn in Evelyn’s hand over and over; the magical symbol had then jumped to dozens of large sheets of sketch paper, constructed with painstaking use of rulers, protractors, compasses, and several different kinds of pencil, each one painstakingly sharpened, swapped out, swapped back in, and re-sharpened as needed. The process looked more like Evelyn was doing geometry in a school maths lesson, not constructing never-before-attempted magical machinery from scratch. She spent hour after hour bent-backed over that table, hands bracing the angles and curves of creation, only looking up when one of us approached with a sandwich or a cup of tea or to inform our busy little mage that it was almost midnight and time to go to bed. Even then she scowled and huffed and often required Praem to physically peel her out of the chair.

By the end of Wednesday night the big table in the workshop was swamped with loose sheets, each of them containing a separate element of the magic circle to-be. Evelyn had not retired to bed until past one in the morning, and then only when Praem and I had joined forces to drag her upstairs, get her prosthetic leg off, and tuck her beneath her bedsheets.

On Thursday morning Evelyn had surprised us all by eating the largest breakfast we’d ever seen her put away. She just kept going.

Zheng had growled: “Eating for two, wizard?”

I’d sputtered. “Zheng! Don’t even joke about that! G-goodness.”

But Evelyn had barked with laughter. “Yes, in fact.”

Raine let out a mock cheer and asked who the sperm donor was. My eyes had bulged out of my head. “E-Evee?!”

Evelyn had merely grinned and then slapped the table to indicate she wanted another round of bacon and eggs. “I am gravid with magecraft. Pregnant with genius. Round and taut with knowledge. You better watch out, Zheng. Even you might be impressed by the awfullest liveliness I am to birth.”

Zheng had snorted and left the kitchen. I’d struggled not to blush. Evelyn barely noticed, too focused on the next step.

After that rather colourful breakfast Evelyn had Praem clear the workshop floor. Every piece of furniture was shoved back against the walls, all the loose books and esoteric detritus was cleared away, and all the old pieces of canvas with magical circles were rolled up and stacked neatly next to the gateway mandala. Praem even made a rousing attempt to shoo the spider-servitors out of the room, but they stayed happily coiled in their ceiling corner. Evelyn declared out loud that they were allowed to stay, as they were good guardians who had served her well; both of them wiggled their weird tentacle-spikes at that, but didn’t respond further.

When the room was prepared and the floor vacuumed, Evelyn had Praem unroll a wide piece of canvas on the floor, ready to accept the first version of the completed Invisus Oculus.

“Nobody has ever done this before, remember,” Evelyn had said to me. I’d been standing in the doorway, drawn by the inescapable obligation of watching somebody do something entirely for my benefit; I was also drawn by Evee’s strange bearing, by the odd new look that had crept into her shoulders and the tilt of her chin over the previous few days. She had her hair swept back in a loose ponytail, the nape of her neck exposed. “A spell to hide from even the gaze of an Outsider god. This will be the greatest work I have ever attempted. And if I get it wrong, the greatest mess I’ll ever make.” She’d forced a snort of laughter.

“Can it … can it go wrong?” I’d asked.

“The spell? Certainly. Everything I’ve done might be totally incorrect. That’s why we’re going to test it. And the process of constructing it? Even more so. I have measured and measured and measured, Heather, but I might still have gotten it wrong. Yet there is no way to tell but by doing.”

Evelyn had a concoction carefully picked out — two parts liquid charcoal to one part bull’s blood; the latter was acquired entirely above-board, through a local Sharrowford butcher, an older gentleman who was far too sweet and far too serious to ask why exactly a woman in a full maid uniform was purchasing a food-grade bucket worth of cow blood. We provided the bucket, of course. The butcher called Praem ‘young lady’ and wished her luck with the Black Pudding she must be cooking, because so few young people enjoyed such foods these days.

“The blood’s probably not necessary,” Evelyn had grumbled. “But we’re going belt and suspenders on this one. Belt, suspenders, and fucking rope, for all I care. This is your safety, Heather. This is your shield from the Eye. I am not skimping on anything. I’d use my own blood if I could produce enough of it.”

Final construction of the Invisus Oculus had taken all of Thursday, most of Friday, and several hours of Saturday morning. The bull’s blood had to be kept refrigerated and used only in small quantities, which made the logistics even more confusing. The medium was applied via brushes, the lines measured and traced with exacting accuracy. Praem worked mostly under direction, I offered to help, but Evelyn did a surprising amount of the application herself, with a brush tied to the end of a stick, so she didn’t have to bend over, or — heavens forbid — get down on her knees.

For my part, I let Evelyn work. The magic circle was not the only matter I was concerned with during that week.

Once on Tuesday and once again on Wednesday I had travelled — via bus, not teleport — to Jan’s hotel room, so that she could get me naked and take pictures of me from nearly every possible angle. Raine made a huge joke out of that, insinuating that she was going to ask Jan for all the pictures. But she didn’t, and she respected the fact I wanted to do that alone; there was a strange alienation to having my body catalogued for the sake of building a replacement for Maisie’s physical form.

Alienation, but also pride.

Evelyn didn’t have much direct help with the magical matters. The brief informal coven of mages had dispersed for now: Kimberly was working during the week and Evelyn insisted on not disrupting her chance at something approaching a ‘normal’ life again; Jan was busy working on the other major component of our plan, having vanished to her own ‘workshop’ after our strange photography sessions; and Felicity had finally returned home to her mysterious manor house up in Cumbria, taking Aym with her. Sevens had been up to visit, once, for one night, but had been sworn to even more mysterious secrecy; I had spent half the nights of the last week sleeping with Sevens, in her new bedroom, kissing her awake, and the other half of the nights in my usual place with Raine and Zheng.

I had toyed with the idea of sneaking into Evelyn’s bed once or twice. She was working so hard, she deserved the comfort and companionship. But she was also sleeping like a rock. And not talking to me about anything other than the work.

Evelyn had put the finishing touches on the Invisus Oculus that very morning. She’d paused for lunch without anybody’s prompting, which was a strange surprise. After that she had ushered Raine and me into the workshop to observe her handiwork, alongside Praem.

And then she’d vanished.

I didn’t see when it happened, because I was too busy staring at the quiet, unassuming miracle she had crafted.

The Invisus Oculus was not much to look at. To an untrained eye it would seem little different to any other vaguely new-agey ‘magical’ symbol, albeit drawn on a large scale, about twelve feet in diameter, upon a piece of flexible canvas, with a very strange ink that shone like blood in the artificial light.

To somebody who had seen plenty of magical circles, however, there was something odd about this one.

It was constructed of three primary enclosures — enclosures, not circles, because the outermost layer was shaped like an eye. A pair of more traditional circles formed an iris and pupil for the twelve-foot eye-symbol. Evelyn had warned me about this, that the resulting shape of the Invisus Oculus may upset me, that the shape was necessary to achieve the effect of true observational invisibility, that the eye-shape had nothing to do with the capital-E Eye which the design would soon be used against. But standing there just inside the doorway of the magical workshop, a shiver went through my guts and down my tentacles.

“Oh,” I said, reaching out and groping for Raine’s hand next to me. “Oh. Um. Er. That’s … that’s weird.”

Raine took it better than I did. She squeezed my hand and chuckled softly. “You can say that again.”

“I didn’t expect it to look so … so … so much like that. It really is the Eye. Goodness me. Um. W-what does that mean?””

Raine made a thoughtful noise. “You know what they say, Heather. Fight fire with fire.”

I tutted and huffed, trying to play off the bizarre coincidence. “I always thought that saying was very silly. Adding fire to fire just makes a bigger fire.”

The all-too-familiar eye-shape was the most unsettling thing about the Invisus Oculus, but it was not the most incongruous element. The two inner circles and the lines of the eye-enclosure were encrusted with magical symbols, as one would expect, to actually perform the effect of the mage’s desire upon the fabric of reality. Most of them meant nothing to me — strange twists of angle and curve that hurt the eyes if one lingered on them for too long. They were accompanied by delicately flowing sections of text in Arabic, Ancient Greek, and Latin — but also, most bizarrely of all, in English.

One curve of text read: ‘rejectrejectrejectrejectrejectrejectreject’ with no spaces between the words. Another one had the phrase: ‘I cannot see you so you cannot see me’ printed backwards and coiled around a symbol which made me feel vaguely sick. The phrase ‘these are not the droids you’re looking for’ was folded delicately between two lines of perfect Ancient Greek. Raine pointed out that last one and had a good laugh over it, but it made no sense to me. She just patted me on the head.

“The English just makes it so much weirder,” I hissed. “I don’t care where it comes from or what it means. It seems … wrong, somehow. Do you think this is because it’s a new spell? Never been done before? Evee is the first to try this, and she speaks English as her first language, so … maybe?”

Raine ruffled my hair again, running her fingertips across my scalp to help calm me down. “Stands to reason,” she said. “We could just ask Evee, you know?” She glanced across the Invisus Oculus again and then spoke to Praem, who was standing a bit closer to the canvas, staring down at the completed work. “Where is Evee, anyway? Praem?”

Praem looked up from the circle and met Raine’s eyes. Milk-white orbs burned with sudden clarity beneath the artificial lights in the magical workshop. Praem turned on the spot, maid dress spinning as she realigned herself away from the circle and toward us, as if she was dismissing something behind her.

Something was wrong, out of place. A creeping sensation crawled up all our tentacles. “Praem?” I said.

Praem intoned: “Where indeed.”

“You don’t know?” Raine asked.

Praem just stared.

Raine frowned and clucked her tongue. “I thought Evee was with you, Praem. Did you put her to bed, for a nap?” Raine laughed softly. “Our Evee needs a nap, no doubt. Deserves it, after all this work.”

“Mm,” I grunted in agreement.

But I frowned down at the circle, then up at Praem; nameless instinct brought all our tentacles upward, tips pointing back at the unsettling eye-shape on the piece of canvas. We spread outward, getting more range, more vision, more reference points from which to construct an image of the magical workshop. But there was nothing visually incorrect, no hole in the wall weeping pus, no shadow-person standing in a corner, no creepy words written on the table in blood. Just Praem, Raine, us, and the Invisus Oculus.

Evelyn wasn’t here.

I murmured: “Didn’t she … didn’t she go out? With … with … Zheng and Grinny? They’re not in right now. She must be.”

Raine turned an odd frown toward me. “Evee, alone with a pair of demons? Nah, Heather, I think you got things mixed up a bit, love.”

“Well, I … I could have sworn she was … she’s not here, that’s for certain.”

Before I could finish the thought, Praem clicked across the magical workshop, slipped past Raine and me with a rustle of maid skirts, and marched smartly through the kitchen and into the front room. Raine and I shared a confused glance, then followed. By the time we caught up with her, Praem was clicking up the stairs, a maid on a mission.

Wordlessly and without anybody’s decision, Praem led a search for her missing mother.

Evelyn was not napping in her bedroom, working at her desk, or reading in the study — though she never read in the study, at least not by herself. She had not fallen asleep on the toilet, nor was she taking a bath. She was not hidden in my bedroom, or Sevens’ bedroom, or Lozzie’s bedroom. She was not under any of the beds, or invading Kimberly’s bedroom, or anywhere else in the house that Praem checked. Her prosthetic leg was gone, implying it was firmly attached to her body. Her walking stick was also missing, as were her favourite comfy cream-white jumper and one of the long skirts she liked to wear indoors.

At first the whole process seemed a little overblown. Evelyn was not actually missing, we just didn’t know where she was. Praem wasn’t acting panicked, just a little confused, like Evelyn had forgotten to mention she was about to do something very specific in a secluded part of the house.

But as we searched and did not find, the whole incident began to remind me of the very first time I had set foot in Number 12 Barnslow Drive, when Evelyn had magicked herself Outside, when the house had been full of echoes and unseen threats, a darkly beautiful yet very creepy place I had not yet come to know.

Our sudden, unplanned search attracted attention: Tenny had been doing some kind of special chess on her laptop, supervised by Sevens, and both of them joined us in the corridor. Lozzie was apparently out, probably visiting Jan.

“Brrrrrt!” Tenny trilled at me as we stood in the upstairs corridor. “Auntie Heathy! Lost Auntie Evee!”

Tenny was still rather unimpressed with me for my antics on Monday; she was far too mature not to understand that I had made everybody worry for my safety by rushing off to fight a mage, and she’d also witnessed Sevens crying her eyes out over my behaviour. As Praem marched off down into the darkness at the far end of the corridor, Tenny put her silken black hands on her fluffy white hips, made all her tentacles go still and stiff, and pouted at me. Behind her, Marmite the giant pneuma-somatic spider-spirit was peering around the edge of the bedroom door, like a nervous dog whose human family was about to have a fight; all his steel-coloured, cone-shaped eyes were pointed at Tenny, watching her for the correct social cues.

I winced and tried to look contrite. “Tenny, it wasn’t me. I swear, I didn’t lose Evee. I thought she went out. Really!”

“Brrrrrrrr!”

Sevens came to my rescue, her blood-goblin mask peeking around my side, her arms wrapped around my hips from behind. “Not Heather’s fault, Tennnnnnnns. Gurrrrk-Evee’s probably hiding. Didn’t say anything about going out though? She’s been letting me know, this last week, where she is.”

I looked down in surprise, peering back at Seven’s face. “She has? Evee has?”

Sevens nodded, black eyes flashing in the grey light pouring through the upstairs window. “Been telling me to talk to her, if I have a problem.”

“Oh. Gosh.” A spike of guilt wormed at my heart. “Evee did that?”

“Mmmmhmmmrrrmrrr!” Tenny made a proud noise and tilted her chin upward. “Auntie Evee responsible!”

I winced. “And I’m not responsible, Tenny?”

Tenny squinted her eyes almost shut. “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Auntie Heathy is responsible too. Not your fault!”

Raine struggled not to laugh all the way through that conversation, carefully turning her head to one side to avoid Tenny seeing the giggles.

None of us were particularly worried by the fact we couldn’t find Evee anywhere — except Praem, who seemed only mildly concerned — which, in itself, made me worried. Why was I so unconcerned? I had no idea where one of my best friends was, a woman who was, after all, physically vulnerable, with a prosthetic leg, a walking cane, and the attention of any rival mages who might try to muscle in on Sharrowford.

Sevens waited for Raine to control her silent giggles, then reached up and tugged on her sleeve. “Where is Evee, then? Raine?”

Raine shrugged. “Maybe she’s with Lozzie? “Tenns, did Lozzie say anything much? Was she taking Evee Outside, to check on the Cattys and that part of the plan? She’s got to get that whole airlock doodad going, right?”

Tenny’s tentacles wiggled in little circles, always a sure sign she was thinking hard. “Mmmmmmm-no? No no. Lozz-mums went to see Jans. Kissing!” Tenny pulled a big, silly grin.

Sevens gurgled. “Ohhhhh!”

“Ha ha!” Tenny said to Sevens. “Wanna see?”

Sevens nodded up and down, suddenly rather excited. “Mmhmm!”

Tenny pulled a big grin. Several of her tentacles did silly little looping motions. “Tooooo baaaaaaaad.”

Sevens pouted. Tenny giggled.

I tutted. “Now’s really not the time, I think.”

“Chess match!” Sevens demanded. “If I win, you tell me where Lozzie and Jan have gone!”

Tenny made a shrewd squinty face of careful thinking, always amusing with her huge black eyes and her satin-smooth skin. All her tentacles went into overdrive, twirling and spinning. She fluttered and trilled, then said: “If I wiiiiin — you show me the spooky house!”

Sevens sighed, or tried to sigh; with the Blood Goblin mask, a sigh sounded like a handful of stones falling down the inside of a grease-lined drainpipe. “Can’t do that. Aym says no. Fliss says no. Your mum says no!”

“Blaaaaaah!” Tenny flapped her wings, like a person flapping a cloak in a fit of pique.

We cleared our throat gently. “Tenny, we all love you very much. Please don’t try to do dangerous things behind anybody’s backs. Okay?”

“Brrrt!” Tenny trilled at me, a little frown on her face. “Auntie Heathy should do as Auntie Heathy says!”

I winced. “I’m … I’m trying my best, Tenny.”

Tenny’s frown collapsed into a pout, and then into a sad face. She gave me a hug suddenly, arms and tentacles going all over our back. We returned the hug, almost laughing. “Tenns?”

“Sorry, Auntie Heathy,” she bleated as she let go.

“It’s okay, Tenns. I deserve a little reminder now and again. We all have to work hard to be good to each other.”

Raine said, “Be excellent to each other. You old enough for that movie, Tenny?”

Tenny trilled softly and shrugged, curious but lost.

Sevens unwound her arms from around my hips and stepped out from behind me. “Wanna chess game anyway? Friendly?”

“Mmmmm,” Tenny nodded. Sevens took her hand and the pair of them stepped back inside Lozzie’s bedroom. Marmite scuttled out of the way to let them past, then climbed up the wall and onto the ceiling, presumably to watch the chess game.

Praem returned from the rear of the upstairs corridor; she marched straight past myself and Raine, pausing just long enough to turn her milk-white eyes upon the pair of us. She looked as expressionless as always, but there was something piercing about her gaze as she strode past, a wordless disapproval of this developing situation, as if she did not approve of us standing around and chatting while Evelyn was nowhere to be found.

Then she was gone, clicking past us and descending the stairs at a rapid pace.

A strange feeling crept over me — over us.

We — us seven squid girls — were starting to disagree with each other. Three of our tentacles formed a brief coalition of concern and worry: what if Evelyn was in trouble? Wasn’t it important that we couldn’t find her? Why was everyone else so calm? Why were we so calm? Top-Right was particularly insistent — we should be Slipping right now, skimming across the membrane and checking every place Evelyn might be.

The other four of us kept a calm hand on our actions. After all, nobody else was panicking. Nobody else was acting out of the ordinary. If we went flying off the handle now, wouldn’t that be in direct violation of the promise we’d made, to be less impulsive, to listen to others more?

And we had listened to Evelyn. We had listened. She had said—

What had she said?

We could not recall.

“Raine,” I said slowly, a strange feeling creeping over me as I watched Praem’s messy blonde bun drop out of sight, descending the stairs. “Why aren’t we concerned about where Evee’s gone?”

“Hm?” Raine glanced at me. She’d been peering into Lozzie’s bedroom with fond smile, watching as Tenny was setting up the chess pieces at incredibly high speed, using all her tentacles. “Evee? What’s to worry about? She’s with Kimberly, right?”

I blinked at Raine. “Kimberly’s at work. She works this Saturday. Why would Evee be there?”

“For flowers, wasn’t it?” Raine paused, turned to me properly, and frowned hard. “Wait a sec. She’s not with Zheng. She’s not with Kim. She’s not with Lozzie.”

“Exactly.” My tentacles bunched up, as if expecting an attack. “Raine, there was a time that you tracked Evelyn’s position so closely that you always wanted to know where she was. For her own safety. Why aren’t we worried?”

My heart caught in my throat. The lack of worry itself was getting strange. I felt like my mind kept slipping off the question. My tentacles kept grasping the reality and then letting it go again, as if none of us Heathers could manage this by ourselves.

Raine’s frown loosened up. She shrugged. “Praem takes such good care of her these days. You know, I don’t say it often enough, Heather, but Praem is an absolute legend. She loves Evee very much. We owe that girl more than we can ever repay, right?”

Raine’s easy smile sent a shiver down my spine. “Raine, that’s true, but you’re changing the subject. You keep ignoring it too. This is happening to both of us.”

Raine glanced at the stairs. “Evee’s around here somewhere. She’s probably down in the kitchen.”

“Raine!” I snapped. I heard Tenny and Sevens pause their low conversation in Lozzie’s bedroom, so I continued in a hiss. “Raine. Evelyn is missing. Take this seriously. Look at my face and take this seriously. Please.”

Raine squinted, as if she wasn’t quite sure. Her big brown eyes seemed to brood in the shadows of the corridor for a moment.

“Heather, I’ll ask this just once,” she said. “And I will believe you utterly, even over my own gut feelings. Are you joking, or not?”

I almost laughed. “I don’t … I don’t know, I’m not sure, I—”

“Make a decision and I will follow,” Raine said. I could have kissed her. I almost did.

“Evee’s missing,” I said — though I almost didn’t believe it myself. “Take it seriously.”

Raine nodded; the transformation in her attitude was instant, like a shift running through all her muscles. Suddenly she seemed taller, ready to move, ready to do anything.

She said: “I’ll call Zheng first. If Evee’s not with her, we’ll start round the others. Any of them don’t answer, you get ready to do your reality-shuffle fun-time teleport dance. You have my absolute and full support. If somebody doesn’t answer, you jump, and take me with you. One sec, I’m gonna grab my gun.”

“Thank you, Raine. I love you.”

“Love you too, squid girl.”

Raine moved with a purpose. She was in and out of our bedroom in five seconds, tucking her handgun into the waistband of her pajama bottoms. Downstairs she stamped into her shoes and then swept into the kitchen and grabbed her mobile phone. I stuck close, ready for the worst. Praem was busy vanishing down into the cellar, her neat little shoes echoing on the wooden steps.

Raine dialled Zheng.

I meant to stay close, but something — some unspeakable, wordless urge — drew me away. I was less than five paces from Raine, standing in the kitchen, waiting for Zheng to answer, when I stepped into the magical workshop.

The Invisus Oculus stared back at me from the floor.

Behind me, Raine spoke into the phone: “Zheng, it’s me. Hey, big girl. Yeah, you too. Look, is Evee— nah, it’s fine, no emergency, not yet. Just need to check—”

But I wasn’t listening.

The magical workshop felt like such a secluded place, separated from the kitchen of Number 12 Barnslow Drive by only a thin wooden door, about two inches thick. Yet in here, with the curtains closed over the bay windows, with the electric lights burning like bunched candles in the ceiling, with the table cleared and pushed back, with the floor covered by a baleful canvas wearing the blank gaze of a caged god, the room felt like a religious space, an altar to something one should not touch — but abandoned and empty.

We stepped deeper. The gateway mandala at the back of the room lay blank and empty, with the gateway to Camelot closed for now. Evelyn’s magical notes on the table were tidied away neatly. The spider-servitors in the corner over the old sofa were sitting comfortably, tucked against the junction between wall and ceiling, their long stingers folded back at rest. We waved to them with a tentacle; one of them waved back, lazy and slow. Completely relaxed. No scent of a threat.

Raine called to us: “Evee’s not with Zheng! I’m gonna try Kim next.”

“Sure … ” I murmured.

We stared into the eye.

We brought all seven of us to bear.

All seven, all looking, all staring, not seeing.

Top-Right was certain we were onto something. Bottom-Left said Evelyn meant us to understand this as a clue. Middle-Right coiled around our waist, certain that she did not want to look into the circle. Slowly, we came to a consensus; there was nothing there. Nothing to see. Nothing worth observing.

We almost turned away, ready to follow the sound of Raine’s voice once again.

But then we felt that impulse, that mischievous urge to push beyond what was allowed or what was sensible, the very thing that Taika had warned us about, the very element of ourselves that we kept justifying.

We held back just long enough to say: “Raine? Raine, I’m going to step into the Invisus Oculus. Is that okay?”

Raine called back from the kitchen, “To check for Evee? Sure! Do it! Good idea!”

Permission! Good girl! Good girls! We were being good. We coiled about ourselves with the knowledge that we had done this right, for once, even if we were being very silly. Of course, if Evee was in there, she would be right there, we would see her, so she wasn’t. But this was wonderful practice.

We stepped onto the canvas, careful not to touch any of the lines. We stepped right over the edge of the eye-symbol, past the jumble of magical words and esoteric shapes, past the line of the iris, and into the pupil.

“Ha!” Evelyn barked. “Took you long enough.”

“E-Evee?!” I spluttered. “What— how—”

Evelyn was sitting on a chair in the dead centre of the Invisus Oculus. She had a cushion beneath her backside, her walking stick resting against one thigh, a nice comfortable shawl over her shoulders, and a book open in her lap — Pratchett’s Unseen Academicals, which I think she intended as a clever little joke. She did not look lost or missing, not one little bit; in fact she looked very comfy and cosy. If I had found her like this under any other circumstances then I would have been overcome with the urge to join her.

And she was grinning like I’d never seen before, smug and satisfied in her triumph.

“It works!” she said. She slapped the book shut and let out a low chuckle. “Don’t look so surprised, Heather. I did warn you!”

“You— what!? Evee, everyone is worried about you! I was worried about you! How were you … you were right here, you … ”

We glanced around the magical workshop again, expecting to see some kind of semi-transparent forcefield effect which had been hiding Evelyn from the rest of the room, but there was nothing except empty air and the lines of the Invisus Oculus itself. We even stuck several tentacles back and forth over the line, to see if we could feel anything. Nothing but air.

Evelyn was saying: “Oh, nobody’s really worried about me, don’t get all—”

“I was! Raine is! Evee!”

Evelyn huffed, some of her triumph rubbing off with embarrassment. “I don’t mean that in a self-deprecating sense, for pity’s sake. Tch.” She tutted and then added in a low voice, almost speaking to the floor: “Of course you care about me, Heather. I’m not disputing that.” She cleared her throat and took up her walking stick in one hand, preparing to stand. “I mean everyone knew subconsciously that I was right here, even if they couldn’t access the information. I’m betting you had to push yourself pretty hard to come look for me, yes?”

I tutted and huffed a little myself, uncertain if I should be impressed with the fruits of Evelyn’s work or horrified that she was treating this enforced forgetting so casually. “Evee, I was getting genuinely worried, I—”

Evelyn stamped once with her walking stick, expression stiffening. “Heather, this isn’t an idle question, this is important testing.”

We blinked at her. “Ah?”

She sighed. “You are the closest thing we have to the Eye, Heather. If the Invisus Oculus doesn’t work on you then it’s failed at the very first hurdle. I explained all this to you before I went in, but … well.” She cleared her throat. “The fact you don’t recall is actually a very good sign that it’s all working as it should.”

“I … I sort of recall?” I frowned, dredging my memories; there it was, like a silt-covered rock I’d missed amid the murk. “It’s coming back to me, now that I’m standing in here with you.”

“Good,” Evelyn said. “Now, be honest with me, don’t pull your punches, I’m not going to be offended, I did set this up on purpose, after all. You had to push yourself to recall me, yes? Correct? Is that right?”

“Oh. Well. I suppose so. Yes. Yes I did. And it only worked because Raine was there to reinforce me.”

“And you couldn’t see me at all, not even a little bit, from beyond the circle?”

“Not at all.”

I swallowed with growing discomfort. Something about this whole situation did not sit right with me, and it wasn’t Evelyn’s behaviour. Behind us in the kitchen I could hear Raine talking down the phone, checking with Kimberly that she had not seen Evee all day; I turned to step out of the circle and let her know that Evelyn was right here, safe and sound.

“Wait!” Evelyn snapped. “Don’t. Not yet. The test is still going.”

“Evee!” I whirled back to her. “Praem is marching up and down the house, worried sick about where you are! She’s genuinely worried!”

Evelyn pulled a difficult face, grumbling low in her throat. “Yes, yes, I’ll have to apologise to Praem. She was part of the test, too, you understand? You all were. I told you that I was going to step in here, just before I did. I even made sure you were listening, I repeated it twice, and I instructed Praem specifically not to panic. She’s worried, but not panicking, is that correct?”

“I … well … yes. Yes, I think.”

Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief, and then smiled again. All her theories were coming true. “What does it feel like?” she demanded. “What did you think? About me not being there.”

I grumbled, but tried my best to answer: “Well … I … I kept rationalising it. I assumed that you’d gone out or something.” We shrugged. “I kept thinking maybe you were elsewhere, maybe with Zheng, or maybe with Lozzie, but not here, not in the house, certainly not right here in the magical workshop, right where we … left … you?”

“But you knew something was wrong? And then you acted on that?”

I bit my bottom lip, trying to piece together the last thirty minutes; my thoughts were all jumbled up, even when we pulled ourselves together and turned every tentacle-neuron toward the task of memory. We recalled standing in the magical workshop with Evelyn — then standing in the magical workshop without her. She must have stepped into the circle, but the loop of our memory was disrupted. We vaguely recalled her words about stepping inside, which was the source of our strange lack of panic, but the details were fuzzy and indistinct.

“To be honest, Evee? I was getting worried by the fact I wasn’t worried. It was becoming weird.”

Evelyn snorted softly. “Recursive concern. And that drove you in here, eventually?”

“Mmhmm. Sort of. That and cephalopod mischief. I don’t think Raine would have stepped in here, not by herself, not by—”

Raine called from the kitchen: “Evee’s not with Kim, either! Gonna see if I can raise Lozzie, if not, then Jan!”

I called back: “Okay, Raine!” Then I said, “Oh, oh, Evee, she can’t hear me, can she?”

“Not at all.” Evelyn sighed. “Leave her for a moment. The test continues. Did this work on Sevens? Have you seen her?”

“Uh, um, yes. She didn’t know where you were, either. Same with Tenny. She was worried, too! She blamed it on me, at first.”

Evelyn almost purred with satisfaction. “Good. Now, as for your ‘cephalopod mischief’, well, let’s hope the Eye isn’t going to descend to ground level, grow legs, and step inside.”

I grimaced. “Evee, don’t even joke about that. It sent that bizarre copy of Lozzie once, remember?”

Evelyn grunted, an evil sort of smile playing across her lips. “That’s what the real Lozzie’s Knights and Caterpillars are for, yes? To keep the Eye’s potential minions off us.” The smile widened. “I think I can count this first test as a grand success. The Invisus Oculus works on humans, demons, Outsiders, other-non-human Earthlings — by which I mean Tenny — and on you, Heather, the closest thing we have to the Eye.”

“W-well, that’s … that’s good … ”

Evelyn stood up with a pained grunt, favouring her walking stick over her prosthetic legs. The last two days of hard work had taken a toll on her body. I not-so-covertly moved three tentacles into position to catch her, in case she took a sudden tumble. Evelyn eyed the tentacles and sighed, her triumph turning sour.

She snapped, “Don’t sound too bloody happy about it, Heather.”

“I’m sorry!” I blurted out. “I-I am happy about it, and thank you for doing so much work, it’s— yes, it’s amazing that it works. Congratulations. Well done. You did it, Evee! I’m just … I’m … well, I—”

“Spit it out.”

I huffed, squared my shoulders, and gestured with half my tentacles at the triple-layered magic-circle eye-design in which we stood, sequestered and hidden away from the rest of the world, from the sight of any being which attempted to observe us.

“Evee, you’ve created a magical design that looks like the Eye, and makes people forget about whatever is standing inside it.”

“Mmhmm,” Evelyn grunted. Her soft blue puppy-dog eyes held my gaze, unwavering, satisfied, very happy with herself. “That I have.”

“Do I have to spell this out? That’s like—”

“Like Maisie,” she finished for me, then sighed. “Heather, I’m not insensible to the implications.”

I heaved out a huge breath and nodded along. “Right, yes, exactly. It looks like the Eye and it makes people forget about what’s inside it. Exactly like what happened to Maisie — well, sort of. I didn’t forget about you completely. But we still don’t really understand how the Eye made everyone forget her. This is … this is not what I was expecting. This is practically a miniature revelation, and … I don’t like it.”

“Me neither,” Evelyn admitted, casting her own gaze down at her creation. “I am satisfied with the result of the work, of course. The practical applications for us are perfect. As long as nobody uses it to rob any banks. But … mm, the shape of the Invisus Oculus, it’s not something I chose, Heather. You understand that, yes? All I’ve done here is follow principles, ones I’ve derived from all my research. The best form those principles produce is this shape.” She tapped her walking stick on the canvas upon which we stood. “Which is worrying, certainly. But it gives us a certain kind of insight, does it not? A real clue, as to why nobody remembers your sister. She is, in a way, enfolded within the real Eye.”

I groaned. “An Eye can’t observe itself, not without a mirror? So nobody can observe Maisie, so … ” I trailed off and shrugged, feeling emotionally exhausted. “I’m sorry, Evee. I don’t know how to piece this together, not yet.”

“No rush, Heather,” she said. Evelyn shifted her weight heavily, leaning on her walking stick; she suddenly looked exhausted. I very gently placed a tentacle against her shoulder, conforming to the shape of her body, supporting her. “We have almost a week of additional work ahead of us,” she continued. “More testing here, then scaling up out in Camelot. Building the bloody airlock system to get those Caterpillars through, all that. Not to mention the first live test, mm?”

I felt rather overwhelmed. “Live test?”

Evelyn squinted at me. “Yes, Heather. You or Lozzie, or preferably both of you, for safety and redundancy, taking this out to Wonderland.” She nodded downward at the canvas. “We’re not scaling it up until it’s confirmed to work on the real thing. You only have to do it for a few seconds.”

“O-oh, right. Yes. Of course. Evee, I’m a little overwhelmed by all this, by you … vanishing!”

Evelyn smiled. Despite the energy of her success, she looked drained; the bags beneath her eyes were worse than usual. Her long blonde hair caught the dim light in the magical workshop. She smelled faintly of sweat and sleep, warm and cosy and in need of a good nap. To my great surprise she leaned into the support of my tentacle against her shoulder.

“You need a rest, Evee,” we said.

She huffed out a laugh and shook her head. “There are many, many stages of setting up between this and the real thing, Heather,” she said with surprising gentleness. “Don’t worry. You won’t be doing this alone. Not without me and—”

As if summoned by the premonition of her name, Raine stepped through the kitchen door and into the magical workshop; she was lowering her mobile phone from her ear as she crossed the threshold.

Raine started to say: “Evee’s not with Jan and Lozz, either. I guess she must be … Heather?”

Raine stopped, looked left and right, and then frowned at my apparent absence. I could almost see the thoughts turning over in her head, trying to retrace the steps she’d seen me taken, trying to reconcile reality and memory. She ran a hand through her hair, raking it back across her scalp; with her other hand she casually tossed her phone in the air, spinning it end over end, and then caught it again without looking.

“Bloody show-off,” Evelyn grumbled.

“She’s not showing off to anybody!” I whispered, as if we were a pair of little girls playing hide-and-seek, and Raine was right outside our hiding spot. Yet I felt compelled to defend my lover’s honour. “Raine’s just like that, even when nobody’s watching.”

“Showing off to the universe itself, then,” Evelyn said.

Raine looked right at us, as if she’d heard our words. She made eye contact with me — not a fleeting moment of brushing gazes, but prolonged, conscious, intentional contact. Her frown never wavered.

“Raine?” I murmured. “Oh. Oh, that is spooky. I don’t like this.”

“Spooky?” Evelyn chuckled. “Miraculous, more like.”

Raine finally looked away again, puffed out a big sigh, and glanced over her shoulder. “Praem!” she yelled. “You got Heather down in the cellar with you?”

A reply floated back, like the tolling of a tiny, muffled bell — not from the cellar, but from beyond the back door. Praem was probably checking in the long grass for any sign of Evee. “No Heather,” she intoned.

I hissed to Evee: “This is getting terribly weird, I’m stepping back out. Come on, Evee, we have to end this now. This is getting odd.”

But Evelyn said, firmly yet gently: “Wait.”

Raine turned back and stared right at us again, seeing but not observing. Looking but not comprehending. I waved a tentacle and watched her follow the motion with her eyes, but she didn’t acknowledge it in any conscious fashion.

I hissed: “Is this another test?”

Evelyn glanced at me, then glanced at Raine, then back at me again. She was breathing too hard, a little flushed in the cheeks. Was she enjoying this? I’d never known her to revel in cheeky mischief, but maybe she just so rarely had the chance. Her eyes flicked down my face, then back up again.

She muttered, “You could call it that.”

She was almost shaking.

“Evee? Are you okay—”

Evelyn reached for my face and cupped my chin with one hand — her maimed hand, with the missing digits and the absent chunk of palm. Her fingers were so soft — but less than gentle; she pressed hard enough to hold me in place, to leave no question that I was to be a good girl and stay still. I was so shocked that I didn’t resist, didn’t even flinch, just allowed her to pin me.

“Evee—” I managed to squeak.

And then, in full view of Raine’s unseeing eyes, Evelyn bobbed her head forward and planted a kiss on my immobilised lips.

The kiss was rough and clumsy; Evelyn simply mashed her mouth against mine, without any elegance of sliding lips and slipping tongues, without the slightest hint of experience or forethought. We nearly clacked teeth through our lips, a most uncomfortable sensation. Evee didn’t even close her eyes — her eyelids were fixed open by a cocktail of haste, mortified embarrassment, and commitment to her action, no matter how foolish. Desperate, awkward, hard — but full of force and need. She kissed me like she was trying to drink me up, or bite off a piece of my face. She tasted of peanut butter sandwiches and lukewarm tea.

Evelyn broke the kiss as quickly as she had begun, jerking back and letting go of my chin, as if surprised by herself. She slammed her full weight back to her walking stick, so hard that she almost slipped; I had to catch her with my tentacles, in a gentle web of pale flesh. She was flushed in the cheeks and panting hard by the time she righted herself once again.

I could only stare and stammer. “E-E-Evee— y-you— I didn’t— d-did you want—”

Raine was turning away from the secret within the circle, none the wiser to the kiss Evelyn and I had just shared.

“Did I want?” Evelyn said, blushing hard. She tried to smile, but she was unsteady. “Yes, I did. And I got.” She cleared her throat, settled her shawl on her shoulders, grasped her walking stick in a firm hand, and swung herself toward the edge of the circle. “Let’s go talk to Raine about the test. I think it’s time to lay out the next steps.”

“Evee, what about that kiss?!”

Evelyn glanced back at me. She tried to wear the mask of stern control, but her gaze flicked to my lips again with an unconscious flutter.

“Evee—”

“Share if you want. Tell her if you wish.” Evelyn shrugged, her shoulders uneven, her old pain settling back on her spine. “Not like it’s a first time for either of us.”

Then she turned away and stepped over the edge of the circle, breaking our sordid seclusion, leaving me alone, inside the pupil of this imitation Eye.