A few pages back, I told you I’d never run as fast as I did to Kentish Town Tube station. Well, it turns out that was a lie, because I tore out of the bookshop and sprinted up Charing Cross Road like Usain Bolt in the 100m final. All I could think about was getting Mr. Darcy to Baskerville Books, not just to save him but to also savePride and Prejudicefrom disappearing forever.
I ran into my building and thundered up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I got to the top landing, I fumbled for my key and unlocked the door with shaking hands.
“Darcy, we need to—”
I stopped. He wasn’t sitting on the sofa watching TV, and the flat was silent.
“Darcy?”
I ran into the bedroom and the bathroom, but he wasn’t in either. The only sign he’d ever been there was pile of clothes on the floor by the sofa: a pair of dark jeans, a blue polo shirt, and a pair of trainers. The exact outfit he’d been wearing that morning.
“Oh my God!”
When I’ve read the phrase “she sank to her knees” in books before, I’ve always thought it was a bit melodramatic. Nobody actually sinks to their knees; it would be too painful. But that’s exactly what I did, burying my face in my hands.
“Hayati, what’s wrong? Why all the shouting?” Mrs. Atallah’s voice came from the doorway behind me.
“Darcy’s gone.”
“He’s probably just popped to the shops. Maybe he went to buy milk or some lube?”
“No, Mrs. Atallah. He’sgone.”
As I said the words, their true meaning sank in. Mr. Darcy had disappeared, and along with him,Pride and Prejudice. No more Meryton or Pemberley. No more Mrs. Bennet or Lady Catherine de Bourgh. No more Elizabeth Bennet.
Even as I thought this, I felt Elizabeth starting to fade in my mind, her edges smudging and dissolving like a camera image sliding out of focus. And she wasn’t just fading for me, I realized with a shudder. The book was disappearing for everyone: the millions of Jane Austen fans around the world and every future generation to come. One of the greatest works of literature was being lost forever, and it was all my fault.
“What have I done?” I groaned, flopping forward until I was lying face down on my rug.
“I don’t know, what have you done?” Mrs. Atallah demanded. “Did the two of you have a fight? Did you ask him to do something too kinky?”
“No! You don’t understand. Darcy was the real Mr. Darcy, fromPride and Prejudice, and I lied to him, and now he’s disappeared andthe book has too. God, do you even know whatPride and Prejudiceis anymore?”
“What are you talking about? Just because I was raised in Lebanon doesn’t mean I don’t know the great Jane Austen’s work, you cheeky mare.”
“Well, you’ll forget it soon,” I moaned. “Now Darcy’s faded, it’s just a matter of time before his story does, too, and then it will be like it never existed.”
“What’s this, then?”
Mrs. Atallah had stepped over me—I was still lying face down on the floor—and picked something up from the sofa. “This hasn’t disappeared, you cuckoo.”
I lifted my head. Mrs. Atallah was holding a book—a book I recognized as Nick’s mum’s copy ofPride and Prejudice. I jumped to my feet and snatched it out of her hands. Would the letters be disappearing, or would the pages already be blank? But as I pulled it open, I saw there was text on the first page, lines and lines of wonderful, familiar text.
“He’s still here!” I gasped.
“Have you been drinking?”
“It’s not too late. We can still savePride and Prejudice!” I laughed, grabbing Mrs. Atallah and hugging her. Then I stopped. “But we have to find Darcy because time’s running out.”
Mrs. Atallah squinted at me, as if working out whether to believe me or call her nephew Bilal and tell him it was a medical emergency.
“You’re telling me he’s theactualMr. Darcy?”
“That’s right. But he’s in trouble, Mrs. Atallah, and we need to help him.”
She paused for a second longer, then gave a curt nod. “Very well. Call your friends; we’ll need backup.”
* * *
