The Nowhere Emporium Read Online Free Page A

dead?”
    The girl screwed up her face, took another step into the room.
    “Dead? What are you going on about? Why would you be
dead
?”
    Daniel blinked. “But … but I was standing right in the middle of a busy road! A car was going to hit me…”
    The girl tapped her foot on the floor. “He must have saved you. I wonder why. What’s your name?”
    “Daniel,” said Daniel. “Who are you talking about? Who must have saved me?”
    But the girl was already opening the blue door, the one that had been closed.
    “This is all very strange,” she said. “No one new ever shows up here.” She narrowed her eyes. “Nobody real anyway. Stay put. I’m going to find out exactly what’s going on.”
    And she slipped off through the blue door before Daniel could ask her name, or why she was so interested in him, or what she’d meant about nobody
real
ever showing up.
    Daniel patted himself on the chest. He felt real. He certainly didn’t feel dead. Then again, how would he know what being dead felt like? He stared at the door through which the girl had left, and tried the handle. The door was locked. So he went to the second door, the open one. A hilltop view lay before him, patchwork fields and a forest beyond, under a crystal blue sky. The air was warm and sweet as honey.
    Daniel stepped down some narrow wooden stairs into a meadow of waist-high grass. He realised he’d been in a wooden caravan – the sort of wagon he imagined travelling folk might use, or circus performers in olden times. The wagon was painted a deep, shimmering blue, decorated with golden flourishes. Something struck him then: if this was all real, how could that girl possibly have left through a door
inside
the wagon?
    He was thirsty; his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He moved towards the stream, bent down and drank. The water was ice cold and pure, and probably the best drink he’d ever had.
    “Ah! Awake I see!”
    At the sound of the voice, Daniel spat out a mouthful of water, spun, caught a fleeting glimpse of a dusty grey suit and then tripped over his own tangled feet, tumbling to the grass.
    “Oh, very graceful,” said the man in the suit. “The Royal Ballet will be knocking at the door any time now.”
    Daniel scrambled to his feet, rubbing his elbow, and recognised the owner of the Nowhere Emporium immediately. “You! What are
you
doing here? What am
I
doing here? Am I dreaming?”
    The man in the dusty suit scratched his nose. His wild hair swayed in the breeze. “We’re all dreaming, Daniel Holmes, in our own way. Follow me, if you will.” At this he turned and marched up the wooden steps, into the wagon.
    Daniel hurried after him.
    “Wait! Where’s the girl?” he asked, once they were inside.
    “Girl?” the man said. “Don’t bother yourself with her. You have more important things to think about at the moment.” He opened the blue door and indicated the shadowy beyond. “This way. All will be explained.”
    Daniel took a slow step towards the door. He peered through.
    “That’s not right,” he said. “That
can’t
be right.”
    Beyond the blue door was a square entrance hall, like the inside of a castle, that seemed to climb up and up forever, criss-crossed with a hundred – or a thousand – entangled and intertwining stairways, all lit by the flickering glow of torchlight.
    The man in the suit stepped into the hall. “Don’t look so worried,” he said. “Nothing can harm you in here. I checked the corridors yesterday, caught the last of the escaped lions.”
    He wheeled away and began to stride across the hall.
    Daniel was unsure what to do. He watched the man in the suit, and then his eyes widened. “Lions?” he said. “Hey! Wait! Wait up!”

CHAPTER 6
A BARGAIN WITH LUCIEN SILVER
    “Would you like a cup of tea?”
    The man in the grey suit sat behind his desk, stirring tea in a china cup.
    “No,” said Daniel. He watched a small whirlpool form in the liquid and tried to sound braver