belongings, and straightened up. She had a lot of heavy dark hair which had started the evening piled on her head but was now beginning to escape from bondage, a wayward wrap and a dress patterned in sequinned flowers which was slightly the wrong shape for the body inside. Her face was in a state of nature save for a little blusher and some lipstick, most of which had been smudged off. For all that she had an elusive attraction which her friend lacked, an air of warmth and vulnerability. The deepset eyes were soft behind concealing lashes and the faintly tragic mouth suggested a temperament too often prone to both sympathy and empathy. In fact, Gaynor Mobberley was not long out of her latest disastrous relationship, this time with a neurotic flautist who had trashed her flat when she attempted to end the affair. She had been staying with Fern ever since.
They went indoors and up the stairs to the first floor apartment. ‘It was a good party,’ Gaynor hazarded, extricating the few remaining pins and an overburdened butterfly-clip from her hair.
‘No it wasn’t,’ said Fern. ‘It was dire. The food was quiche and the champagne was Blank de Blank. We only went for the view of the fireworks. Like all the other guests. What were you discussing so intimately with our host?’
‘He and Vanessa are having problems,’ said Gaynor unhappily. ‘He wants to buy me lunch and tell me all about it.’
‘You attract men with hang-ups like a blocked drain attracts flies,’ Fern said brutally. ‘So what did you say?’
Gaynor fluffed. ‘I couldn’t think of an excuse to get out of it.’
‘You don’t need an excuse. Just say no. Like the anti-drugs campaign.’ Fern pressed the button on her ansaphone, which was flashing to indicate a message.
A male voice invaded the room on a wave of background noise. ‘Hi sis. Just ringing to wish you a Happy New Year. I think we’re in Ulan Bator but I’m not quite sure: the fermented mare’s milk tends to cloud my geography. Anyway, we’re in a yurt somewhere and a wizened rustic is strumming his souzouki…’
‘Bouzouki,’ murmured Fern. ‘Which is Greek, not Mongolian. Idiot.’ What music they could hear was pure disco, Eastern-Eurostyle.
‘Shine jiliin bayar hurgeye, as they say over here,’ her brother concluded. ‘Be seeing you.’ Bleep.
‘Shin jillian what?’ echoed Gaynor.
‘God knows,’ said Fern. ‘He’s probably showing off. Still,’ she added rather too pointedly, ‘he hasn’t any hang-ups.’
‘I know,’ said Gaynor, reminded uncomfortably of her abortive non-affair with Fern’s younger brother. ‘That’s what scared me. It gave me nothing to hold on to. Anyhow, he’s obviously airbrushed me from his memory. You said you told him I was staying here, but…well, he didn’t even mention my name.’
‘He doesn’t have to,’ Fern responded. ‘He wouldn’t normally bother to phone just to wish me Happy New Year. I suspect he called for your benefit, not mine.’
‘We never even slept together,’ Gaynor said. ‘Just one kiss…’
‘Exactly,’ said Fern. ‘You’re the one that got away. A career angler like Will could never get over that. You couldn’t have done better if you’d tried.’ Gaynor flushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ Fern resumed. ‘I know you weren’t trying. Look…there’s a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the fridge. Let’s have our own celebration.’
They discarded coat and wrap, kicked off their shoes. Fern deposited her jewellery on a low table, took a couple of glasses from a cabinet, and fetched the champagne. After a cautious interval, the cork gave a satisfactory pop. ‘Happy New Year!’ Fern curled up in a big armchair, tucking her legs under her.
Gaynor, on the sofa, sat knees together, feet apart. ‘Happy New Century. It’s got to be better than the old one.’
‘It doesn’t start quite yet,’ her friend pointed out. ‘2001 is the first year of the century. This is the in-between year, millennium year. The year everything can change.’
‘Will it?’ asked Gaynor. ‘Can you see?’
‘I’m a witch, not a seeress. Everything can change any year. Any day. Dates aren’t magical—I think. All the same…’ Her expression suddenly altered, hardening to alertness. She set down her glass. ‘There’s something here. Now. Something…that doesn’t belong.’ Her skin prickled with an unearthly static. The striation of green in her eyes seemed to intensify, until they shone with a feline brilliance between the shadow-painted lids. Her gaze was fixed on the shelving at the far end of the room, where a vase rocked slightly on its base for no visible reason. Without looking, she reached for the switch on the table-lamp. There was a click, and the room was in semi-darkness. In the corner beside the vase there seemed to be a nucleus of shadow deeper than those around it. The light had extinguished it, but in the gloom it had substance and the suggestion of a shape. A very small shape, hunch-shouldered and shrinking from the witch’s stare. The glow of the street-lamps filtering through the curtains tinted the dark with a faint orange glimmer, and as Gaynor’s vision adjusted it appeared to her that the shape was trembling, though that might have been the uncertainty of its materialisation. It began to fade, but Fern moved her hand with a Command hardly louder than a whisper, soft strange words which seemed to travel through the air like a zephyr of power. ‘Vissari! Inbar fiassé…’ The shadow condensed, petrifying into solidity. Fern pressed the light switch.
And there it was, a being perhaps three feet high assembled at random from a collection of mismatched body parts. Overlong arms enwrapped it, the stumpy legs were crooked, mottled fragments of clothing hung like rags of skin from its sides. Slanting eyes, indigo-black from edge to edge, peered between sheltering fingers. A narrow crest of hair bristled on the top of its head and its ears were tufted like those of a lynx. It was a monster in miniature, an aberration, ludicrously out of place in the civilised interior.
Neither girl looked particularly shocked to see it.
‘A goblin,’ said Fern, ‘but not resident. And I didn’t ask anyone to advertise.’
‘How could it come in uninvited?’ asked Gaynor. ‘I thought that was against the Ultimate Law.’
‘Some creatures are too simple or too small for such laws. Like cockroaches, they go everywhere. Still…this is a witch’s flat. Even a cockroach should be more careful.’ She addressed the intruder directly. ‘Who are you, and what are you doing here?’
The goblin mumbled inaudibly.
‘Louder,’ said Fern. ‘Intona!’
‘Not a house-goblin,’ the creature said with evident contempt. ‘I’m a burglar.’
‘What have you stolen?’ asked Fern.
‘Nothing,’ the goblin admitted. ‘Yet.’
‘You know who I am?’
Mumble.
‘Good,’ said Fern. ‘So you came here to steal something specific, from me. I expect you thought I would be out much later on Millennium New Year’s Eve. Who sent you?’
Warty lids flickered briefly over the watchful eyes. ‘No one.’
‘Was
