The Woman Who Died a Lot

The Wing Commander’s place in the household had been of huge benefit over the past couple of years, the last few months especially. His full name was Wing Commander Cornelius Scampton-Tappett, and he was a stereotypical wartime RAF officer. Very English, very stiff-upper-lip, and very young—barely twenty-five, but with the demeanor of one who had seen and experienced much, and all of it harrowing. He was utterly steadfast, fearless and loyal. He sported a large walrus mustache and wore the blue uniform of an RAF officer, except when he went out, at which time he wore an Irvin flying jacket. His four greatest laments were that he no longer had a bomber of any description, nor the spiffing chaps to fly it, that he would as like as not never take tea with Vera Lynn now that she was president, and that the war wasn’t still on. It hadn’t been, in fact, for over fifty years, and if Scampton-Tappet’s appearance, eternal youth and general demeanor caused a few raised eyebrows, it was because he was entirely fictional. I had bought him in a BookWorld salvage yard to pep up one of Landen’s books. That didn’t really work out for a number of reasons, so he now acted as family bodyguard and general assistant—as well as conducting vital research and development work for the BookWorld.

“How’s Jenny?” I asked.

“Unchanged since this morning,” he replied, glancing at Landen, “but she ate some lunch, so I think the flu is easing.” “I’ll go and see her,” I said.

“I’ll go,” said Landen, and he walked off toward the stairs before I could argue.

“Any progress today?” I asked.

“Not much,” replied the Wingco. “I’ve interviewed two dozen ICFs since I’ve been here, three of which have subsequently vanished. None of them have ever managed to transmit anything back to me—it’s like the Dark Reading Matter is a heavy black curtain that allows movement only one way.”

The Wingco’s research work involved finding some evidence of the disputed Dark Reading Matter. Theoretical storyologists had calculated that the readable BookWorld makes up for only 22 percent of visible reading matter—the remainder is thought to be the unobservable remnants of long-lost books, forgotten oral tradition and ideas locked in writers’ heads when they died. A way to enter the Dark Reading Matter was keenly sought, as it might offer a vast amount of new ideas, plots and characters as well as a better understanding of the very nature of human imagination, why story exists at all.

Naturally, wagging tongues insisted that the real reason the Council of Genres was interested in the Dark Reading Matter was for the potential yield of raw metaphor—something that was in dwindling supply in the BookWorld, and often the cause of disputes. But the bottom line was this: Every single explorer had vanished without a trace, and the DRM remained stubbornly theoretical.

“So no headway at all?” I asked.

“None, but it’s still early days. Research into ICFs offers the strongest thread I’ve encountered so far.”

An ICF was an Imaginary Childhood Friend, those pretend friends one sometimes has when a child. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t go away when no longer required; they simply wander the earth until their host dies. They share common DNA with fictional people like the Wingco in that they are constructs of the human mind—living stories, if you like. Because of this they are quite visible to fictional people and, on occasion, to us as something normally dismissed as “ghosts” or a “trick of the light,” an area in which the Wingco was at present directing his efforts. And when he wasn’t doing that or looking after us, he liked to tinker on a small bomber he was building—purely for sentimental purposes.

“I say,” said the wingco, “I hate to mention something as vulgar as money, but could I ask Tuesday to lend me a few quid? A bargain’s come up.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing much— just a Rolls-Royce Merlin aircraft engine. A pair, actually.”

“Everyone needs a hobby,” I said with a shrug. “I have no objection.”

Tuesday was the one with the money in the household, as the licensing rights from her many inventions brought in a considerable income. She was the reason we could afford the move to a huge Georgian house with extensive grounds and outbuildings to match. She used the old library as a laboratory, and that was where I headed next. There was a cross-sounding “What?” as I knocked on the door, but I walked in anyway.