Authors: Kerstin Gier
“Yes, yes, yes. Our housekeeper at the time was called Gladiola Langdon, and at the beginning of the nineties, she slept in what is now your mother’s room,” Aunt Maddy interrupted me. “Surprised, are you? Contrary to general opinion, your great-aunt has a fully functioning brain. At the time, the other rooms up here were used only
occasionally, as guestrooms; the rest of the time they were empty. Gladiola was rather hard of hearing, so you can get into your time machine and climb out of it again in 1993. There’s nothing to worry about.” She giggled. “Gladiola Langdon—I don’t think we’ll ever forget her apple pie. Poor soul, it never occurred to her to core the apples and throw the cores and pips away.”
* * *
MUM HAD
A RATHER
guilty conscience about the flu I’d claimed to have. Falk de Villiers himself had called her in the afternoon and passed on Dr. White’s prescription of bed rest and plenty of hot drinks. She told me about a hundred times how sorry she was she hadn’t listened to me, and she squeezed me three lemons with her own hands. Then she sat beside my bed for half an hour to make sure I finished
the hot lemon drink. I must have made my teeth chatter rather too convincingly, because she wrapped me in two extra blankets and put a hot-water bottle down at my feet.
“I’m a terrible mother,” she said, stroking my head. “And you’re having such a difficult time at the moment anyway!”
She was right about that, and not just because I felt like I was in a sauna. You could probably have fried eggs
on my tummy. For a few seconds, I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity. But then I said, “You’re not a terrible mother at all, Mum.”
Mum looked, if anything, even more upset. “I do hope those old men won’t make you do anything dangerous. They’re so obsessed with all their mysteries.”
I quickly drank four mouthfuls of my hot lemon straight off. As usual, I was torn both ways: should I tell Mum
everything or not? It wasn’t a good feeling to be telling her lies, or at least concealing such important things from her. But then again, I didn’t want her worrying about me or picking a fight with the Guardians. And she probably wouldn’t be very happy to know I was hiding the stolen chronograph here and traveling back in time with it unsupervised.
“Falk assured me that all you do in the past
is sit in a cellar getting your homework done,” she said. “He said I had nothing to worry about except making sure that you saw enough daylight.”
I hesitated for a second again, and then I smiled wryly. “He’s right. It’s dark and dead boring down there.”
“Good. I’d hate it if anything like what happened to Lucy back in the past also happened to you.”
“Mum, what exactly
did
happen back then?”
It wasn’t the first time I had asked that question in the last two weeks, and she still hadn’t given me a satisfactory answer.
“You know what happened.” Mum stroked my forehead again. “Oh, my poor little mousie! You’re burning with fever.”
I gently pushed her hand away. I was burning all right, but not with fever.
“Mum, I really do want to know just what happened to Lucy,” I said.
She hesitated
for a moment, and then she told me all over again what I already knew: Lucy and Paul thought the Circle of Blood ought not to be closed, so they had stolen the chronograph and gone into hiding with it, because the Guardians didn’t see things the same way.
“And since it was totally impossible to escape the Guardians and their network—you can bet they had eyes and ears everywhere, people planted
in Scotland Yard and the Secret Service—in the end, all Lucy and Paul could do was travel into the past with the chronograph,” I said, unobtrusively loosening the bedclothes over my feet to get a bit of cool air. “You just don’t know what year they went to.”
“That’s right. Believe me, it wasn’t easy for them to go away, leaving everything here behind them.” Mum looked as if she were fighting
back tears.
“Yes, but
why
did they think the Circle of Blood ought not to be closed?” Heavens above, I was boiling hot! Why had I ever claimed to be having shivering fits?
Mum stared past me into space. “All I know is that they didn’t trust Count Saint-Germain’s motives, and they were convinced that the secret of the Guardians was built on a foundation of lies. I’m sorry now that I didn’t ask
more questions at the time … but I think Lucy was glad of that. She didn’t want to put me in danger too.”
“The Guardians think the secret of the Circle of Blood is some kind of miracle-working medicine. A cure for all the diseases of mankind,” I said, and I could tell from Mum’s expression that this information wasn’t news to her. “Why would Lucy and Paul want to keep this miraculous cure from
being found? Why would they be against it?”
“Because … because they thought the price to be paid was too high.” Mum whispered those words. A tear ran out of the corner of her eye and down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand and stood up. “Try to get some sleep, darling,” she said in her normal voice. “I’m sure you’ll soon feel warmer. Sleep is always the best medicine.”
“Good night, Mum.” In other circumstances, I’d certainly have bombarded her with more questions, but I could hardly wait for her to close my bedroom door. I flung the blankets off with great relief and opened the window so suddenly that I scared two pigeons (or were they the ghosts of pigeons?) off the sill where they had settled down for the night. By the time Xemerius came back from his flight
around the house, checking up on everything, I had changed my sweat-drenched pajamas for a clean, dry pair.
“Everyone in bed, including Charlotte,” reported Xemerius. “Although she’s staring at the ceiling with her eyes wide open and doing stretching exercises for her calves. You look like a lobster.”
“I feel like a lobster.” Sighing, I bolted the door. I didn’t want anyone, least of all Charlotte,
coming into this room while I was gone. Whatever she planned to do with her well-stretched calves, she wasn’t getting in to do it here.
I opened the wardrobe and took a deep breath. It was difficult clambering through the hole and crawling over to the crocodile with the chronograph hidden inside it. My clean pajamas were soon dirty gray all down the front, and any number of cobwebs were clinging
to me. Disgusting.
“You have a … a little something there,” said Xemerius as I crawled out again with the chronograph under my arm. The little something turned out to be a spider the size of Caroline’s hand. (Well, almost, anyway.) It cost me enormous self-control to hold back a scream that would have woken up not only everyone in the house but the whole of this part of town. Once I’d shaken
it off, the spider scuttled under my bed. (It’s amazing how fast something with eight legs can run.)
I stood there gasping for about a minute. Then I shook myself again with disgust as I set the chronograph.
“Don’t carry on like that,” said Xemerius. “Some spiders are easily twenty times that big.”
“Where? On Planet Zog? There, that should be okay.” I lifted the chronograph up on its little
chest in the wardrobe and put my finger into the compartment under the ruby. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half. And keep an eye on Tarantula there, will you?” Holding Nick’s flashlight, I waved to Xemerius and took a deep breath.
With a dramatic flourish, he put a hand to his breast. “
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day
.…”
“Oh, shut up, Juliet,” I said, pressing my finger firmly down
on the needle.
When I took my next breath, my mouth was full of flannel. I hastily spat it out and switched on the flashlight. It was a bathrobe, right in front of my face. The wardrobe was crammed full of clothes hanging in two rows, and it took me some time to scramble to my feet in there among them.
“Did you hear that?” asked a woman’s voice outside the wardrobe.
Oh, no. Please not!
“What
is it, darling?” That was a man’s voice. It sounded very, very hesitant.
I was transfixed with fright.
“There’s a light in the wardrobe,” said the woman’s voice. It sounded the opposite of hesitant. In fact, to be precise, it sounded very much like my aunt Glenda.
Hell! I switched off the flashlight and cautiously retreated behind the second row of clothes until I could feel the wall at my
back.
“Perhaps you—”
“No, Charles!” The voice was more imperious than ever. “I am not imagining things, if that’s what you were going to say.”
“But I—”
“There was a light in the wardrobe, and you will now kindly get up and investigate it. Or else you can spend the night in the sewing room.” Charlotte had obviously inherited her mother’s way of hissing. “Or no—wait! You’d better not—if Mrs.
Langdon sees you there in the morning, Mother will ask me whether our marriage is going through a bad patch, which is the last thing I want, because our marriage is not going through a bad patch, or not
my
marriage anyway, even if you only married me because your father wanted to be related to the aristocracy.”
“But, Glenda—”
“Don’t you try pretending to me! Only the other day, Lady Presdemere
told me that…” And Aunt Glenda went on calling her unfortunate husband names, which made her forget all about the light in the wardrobe. She also forgot that it was the middle of the night, and she went on nagging him for what felt like two hours. All I heard from Charles was a terrified squeak now and then. No wonder those two got divorced. You couldn’t help wondering how on earth they had ever
managed to bring dear little Charlotte into the world first.
At long last, Glenda told her husband that he was trying to spoil her well-earned sleep, and then the bedsprings creaked. Only moments later, I heard her snoring. Hot milk and honey helps some people to sleep. With Aunt Glenda it seemed to be different.
Cursing Aunt Maddy and her phenomenal memory, I waited another half an hour to
be on the safe side and then cautiously pushed the wardrobe door open. After all, I couldn’t spend the whole of my time in 1993 there. Grandpa must be sick with anxiety by now. It was a little lighter in the room than in the wardrobe. At least, there was enough light for me to see the outlines of the furniture and not bump into anything.
I stole over to the door as quietly as possible and pressed
the handle down. At exactly that moment, Aunt Glenda sat up in bed. “There’s an intruder here!
Charles!
”
I didn’t wait for poor Charles to wake up or for the light to go on, I flung the door open and sprinted as fast as I could along the corridor and downstairs, then all along the corridor on the second floor and on down the next flight of stairs, without looking out for creaking steps. I didn’t
know myself just where I was running, but I had an odd sense of
déjà vu
—hadn’t I done all this once before?
On the first floor, I crashed into a figure which, after my first moment’s fright, turned out to be my grandfather. He took hold of me and steered me into the library.
“What’s all this racket about?” he whispered when he had closed the door. “And why are you so late? I’ve been cooling
my heels in front of Great-great-great-uncle Hugh’s portrait, thinking something must have happened to you.”
“It did. Thanks to Aunt Maddy, I landed right in Aunt Glenda’s bedroom,” I said breathlessly. “And I’m afraid she saw me. She’s probably phoning the police at this very moment.”
The sight of Lucas was a bit of a shock. In 1993 he looked like the grandpa I’d known when I was a little girl.
There was only a slight resemblance to the young Lucas who kept his hair down with some kind of gel or cream. It was silly, but that brought tears to my eyes.
Grandpa didn’t notice. He was listening at the door. “Wait here while I take a look around.” He turned briefly to me and smiled. “There are sandwiches over there, just in case. And if anyone happens to come in—”
“I’m your cousin Hazel,”
I said, finishing his sentence.
“No, if anyone comes in, you’d better hide! At the far side of the room, under the desk.”
But there was no need to hide. Lucas soon returned. I’d used the time to get my breath back, eat a sandwich, and work out how many minutes I had left before I traveled back.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s just telling Charles he’s responsible for the nightmares she’s had
ever since the wedding.” He shook his head. “Who’d have thought the sole heir to a chain of hotels would put up with that sort of thing? Never mind, we can forget Glenda. Let’s have a look at you, granddaughter. Exactly as I remember you, maybe even a little prettier. What happened to your pajamas? You look like a chimney sweep.”
I waved that question away. “It wasn’t too easy getting here. In
2011 I can’t just carry the chronograph around the house, because Charlotte suspects something, and she’s watching me like a lynx. Maybe she’s breaking open the lock of my door at this very second. It wouldn’t surprise me. And now I don’t have much time left, because I had to wait about upstairs in the wardrobe forever.” I clicked my tongue, annoyed. “And if I don’t travel back to my own room, I’ve
locked myself out of it—oh, wonderful!” I dropped into an armchair with a groan. “What a mess! We’ll have to meet some other time, and before that wretched ball. I suggest we meet up on the roof. I think it’s the only place where we won’t be disturbed. How about tomorrow at midnight, from your point of view? Or is it too difficult for you to climb up to the roof unnoticed? There’s a way up the
chimney, Xemerius says, but I don’t know whether—”
“Hang on a minute,” said Grandpa, grinning. “I’ve had a few years to think this over, after all, and I have something ready for you in advance.” He pointed to the table. There was a book lying on it beside the plate of sandwiches, a really fat volume.
“
Anna Karenina
?”
Grandpa nodded. “Open it!”
“You’ve hidden a code in it?” I suggested. “Like
in
The Green Rider
?”
I didn’t believe this! Lucas had spent thirty-seven years setting me another puzzle? I’d probably have to spend days counting letters. “You know, I’d really rather you just told me what it says. We still have a few minutes left.”