I stepped into the hallway, and she continued toward the spiral staircase. “Have you met Douglas?” she asked as she swept up the steps.

“Who?”

She paused halfway around the turn, and a smile danced across her eyes. “You should meet Douglas.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jenny led me straight to the third floor. I stopped abruptly as I reached the landing, marveling at the space before me. Where the stairs on the previous two floors had opened into thin, dimly lit hallways, this level was wide-open. Interior walls had been knocked out on either side, leaving only the occasional column to support a high ceiling. Broad windows on every wall allowed light to pour in, and the scene they illuminated was astonishing.

I stood on a hardwood landing that extended ten or fifteen feet, but which seemed then to warp slightly, melting abruptly into grass and mud. The rest of the floor was a rolling, living landscape. Where the hallway should have been, there remained a solid path of wood, laid with a few narrow oriental runners. A slender margin on either side of the carpeting showed floorboards, but then quickly gave way to damp earth on the left and right. Some of the columns, I realized, were sprouting thin branches, and I wondered momentarily if they bore leaves in the spring.

The dominant feature of the space was the massive pond occupying the majority of the floor. It lay just left of the pathway, an oblong pool of greens and blues, bent slightly like a kidney bean, with a little island in the middle. The island was covered in shrubbery and held what appeared to be a tall armchair with dark plum upholstery. The pond must have been twenty feet across at its widest, and from the look of it, several feet deeper than was physically possible, given the dimensions of the building and the height of the ceiling on the floor below. A few golden orange fish darted about beneath the surface.

Here and there around the earthen floor sat desks and cabinets, half enveloped by vines and weeds. Chairs, chests of drawers, and even paintings on the walls were fringed with moss, as though nature had crept in through an open window and caught them by surprise during the night. They simply became a part of one lush, well-furnished landscape.

“I was against it, at first.” Jenny’s voice came from just over my shoulder. “Jackaby didn’t exactly consult me. He has a way of acquiring a lot of favors, especially from his more unconventional clientele. Now, though, I can’t imagine the place without it. On a clear night you can throw back the drapes and let the stars catch in the ripples, and the water bounces their light right back up to the ceiling. It’s really quite beautiful. For a man who professes to be entirely rational and scientific, he can’t seem to steer clear of the impossible and magical.”