Neverwhere

She removed the tea bags and handed him a mug of tea. He took it from her and realized that he was still carrying around the receiver. "Well. I mean. I couldn't just have left you there."

"You could have," she said. "You didn't." She pressed herself up against the wall and peered out of the window. Richard walked over to the window and looked out. Across the street, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar were coming out of the bakery, and HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? was stuck in a place of prominence in its window.

"Are they really your brothers?" he asked.

"Please," said Door. "Give me a break."

He sipped his tea and tried to pretend that everything was normal. "So where were you?" he asked. "Just now?"

"I was here," she said. "Look, with those two still around we have to get a message to . . . " She paused. "To someone who can help. I don't dare leave here."

"Well, isn't there somewhere you could go? Someone that we could call?"

She took the dead receiver from his hand, wire trailing, and shook her head. "My friends aren't on the phone," she said. She put it back in its cradle, where it sat, useless and lonely. Then she smiled, fast and wicked. "Breadcrumbs," she said.

"Sorry?" said Richard.

There was a little window in the back of the bedroom that looked out on an area of roof tiles and gutters. Door stood on Richard's bed to reach it, opened the window, and sprinkled the breadcrumbs around. "But I don't understand," said Richard.

"Of course you don't," she agreed. "Now, shush." There was a flutter of wings, and the purple-gray-green sheen of a pigeon. It pecked at the breadcrumbs, and Door reached out her right hand and picked it up. It looked at her curiously but made no complaint.

They sat down on the bed. Door got Richard to hold the pigeon, while she attached a message to its leg, using a vivid blue rubber band that Richard had previously used to keep his electricity bills all in one place. Richard was not an enthusiastic holder of pigeons, even at the best of times. "I don't see the point in this," he explained. "I mean, it's not a homing pigeon. It's just a normal London pigeon. The kind that craps on Lord Nelson."

"That's right," said Door. Her cheek was grazed, and her dirty reddish hair was tangled; tangled, but not matted. And her eyes . . . Richard realized that he could not tell what color her eyes were. They were not blue, or green, or brown, or gray; they reminded him of fire opals: there were burning greens and blues, and even reds and yellows that vanished and glinted as she moved. She took the bird from him, gently, held it up, and looked it in the face. It tipped its head on one side and stared back at her with bead-black eyes. "Okay," she said, and then she made a noise that sounded like the liquid burbling of pigeons. "Okay Crrppllrr, you're looking for the marquis de Carabas. You got that?"

The pigeon burbled liquidly back at her.

"Attagirl. Now, this is important, so you'd better—" The pigeon interrupted her with a rather impatient-sounding burble. "I'm sorry," said Door. "You know what you're doing, of course." She took the bird to the window and let it go.

Richard had watched the whole routine with some amazement. "Do you know, it almost sounded like it understood you?" he said, as the bird shrank in the sky and vanished behind some rooftops.

"How about that," said Door. "Now. We wait."

She went over to the bookshelf in the corner of the bedroom, found a copy of Mansfield Park Richard had not previously known that he possessed, and went into the living room. Richard followed her. She settled herself on his sofa and opened the book.

"So is it short for Doreen?" he asked.

"What?"

"Your name."

"No. It's just Door."

"How do you spell it?"

"D-o-o-r. Like something you walk through to go places."

"Oh." He had to say something, so he said, "What kind of a name is Door, then?"

And she looked at him with her odd-colored eyes, and she said, "My name." Then she went back to Jane Austen.

Richard picked up the remote control and turned on the television. Then he changed the cha

Door turned the page. She didn't look up. "A reply."

"What kind of a reply?" Door shrugged. "Oh. Right." It occurred to Richard then that her skin was very white, now that some of the dirt and blood had been removed. He wondered if she were pale from illness, or from loss of blood, or if she simply didn't get out much, or was anemic. Maybe she'd been in prison, although she looked a bit too young for that. Perhaps the big man had been telling the truth when he had said she was mad. "Listen, when those men came over . . . "

"Men?" A flash of the opal-colored eyes.

"Croup and, um, Vanderbilt."

"Vandemar." She mused for a moment, then nodded. "I suppose you could call them men, yes. Two legs, two arms, a head each."

Richard kept talking. "When they came in here, before. Where were you?"

She licked her finger and turned a page. "I was here."

"But—" He stopped talking, out of words. There wasn't anywhere in the apartment that she could have hidden herself. But she hadn't left the apartment. But—

There was a scratching noise, and a dark shape larger than a mouse scurried out from the mess of videotapes beneath the television. "Jesus!" said Richard, and he threw the remote control at it as hard as he could. It crashed into the videos with a bang. Of the dark shape there was no sign.

"Richard!" said Door.

"It's okay," he explained. "I think it was just a rat or something."

She glared at him. "Of course it was a rat. You'll have scared it now, poor thing." She looked around the room, then made a low whistling noise between her front teeth. "Hello?" she called. She knelt on the floor, Mansfield Park abandoned. "Hello?"

She flashed a glance back at Richard. "If you've hurt it . . . " she threatened; then, softly, to the room, "I'm sorry, he's an idiot. Hello?"

"I'm not an idiot," said Richard.

"Shh," she said. "Hello?" A pink nose and two small black eyes peered out from under the sofa. The rest of the head followed, and it scrutinized its surroundings suspiciously. It was indeed much too big to be a mouse, Richard was certain of that. "Hi," said Door, warmly. "Are you okay?" She extended her hand. The animal climbed into it, then ran up her arm, nestling in the crook of it. Door stroked its side with her finger. It was dark brown, with a long pink tail. There was something that looked like a folded piece of paper attached to its side.

"It's a rat," said Richard.

"Yes, it is. Are you going to apologize?"

"What?"

"Apologize."

Maybe he hadn't heard her properly. Maybe he was the one who was going mad. "To a rat?"

Door said nothing, fairly meaningfully. "I'm sorry," said Richard, to the rat, with dignity, "if I startled you."

The rat looked up at Door. "No, he really does mean it," she said. "He's not just saying it. So what have you got for me?" She fumbled at the rat's side, and pulled out a much-folded piece of brown paper, which had been held on with something that looked to Richard like a vivid blue rubber band.

She opened it up: a piece of ragged-edged brown paper, with spidery black handwriting on it. She read it and nodded. "Thank you," she said, to the rat. "I appreciate all you've done." It scampered down onto the couch, glared up at Richard for a moment, and then was gone in the shadows.

The girl called Door passed the paper to Richard. "Here," she said. "Read this."

It was late afternoon in Central London, and, with autumn drawing on, it was getting dark. Richard had taken the Tube to Tottenham Court Road and was now walking west down Oxford Street, holding the piece of paper. Oxford Street was the retail hub of London, and even now the sidewalks were packed with shoppers and tourists.