Emerald Green (7 page)

“… be good friends. Don’t you see? Unless we can trust each other—”

I tore myself away from him. “As if I wanted to be friends with someone like you!” Now my voice
was back, and it was so loud that it made the pigeons fly up from the roof. “You don’t have the faintest idea what friendship means!”

And suddenly it was dead easy. I tossed my hair back, turned on my heel, and swept away.

You’ve got to jump off cliffs—and build your wings on the way down.

R
AY
B
RADBURY

THREE

LET’S STAY FRIENDS
—I mean, that really was the end!

“What do you bet a fairy dies every time someone says that anywhere in the world?” I asked. I’d locked myself into the ladies to call Lesley on my mobile, and I was doing my best not to scream, although only half an hour after my conversation with Gideon, that’s what I still felt like doing.

“He said he wants you to
be
friends,” Lesley
corrected me. As usual, she’d noticed every word.

“It’s exactly the same,” I said.

“No. I mean yes, maybe.” Lesley sighed. “I don’t understand. Are you sure you definitely let him finish what he was saying? Remember how in
Ten Things I Hate About You
—”

“I did let him finish what he was saying. Unfortunately, I’d add.” I looked at the time. “Oh, shit. I told Mr. George I’d be back in a minute.”
I glanced at myself in the mirror above the old-fashioned washbasin. “Oh,
shit
!” I said again. There were two circular red patches on my cheeks. “I think I have some kind of allergic reaction.”

“Only caused by rage,” was Lesley’s diagnosis when I told her what I saw. “How about your eyes? Are they flashing dangerously?”

I stared at my reflection. “Yes, sort of. I look a bit like Helena Bonham
Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange in
Harry Potter.
Rather threatening.”

“That sounds okay. Listen, you go out now and flash them at everyone for all you’re worth, right?”

I nodded obediently and promised to do just that.

After that phone call, I felt a bit better, even if cold water couldn’t wash away my fury or the two red spots on my cheeks.

If Mr. George had been wondering where I’d been for
so long, he didn’t show it.

“Everything all right?” he asked in kindly tones. He’d been waiting for me outside the Old Refectory.

“Everything’s fine!” I glanced through the open doorway, but there was no sign of Giordano and Charlotte after all, even though I was far too late for my lesson by now. “I just had to … er, put some new rouge on.”

Mr. George smiled. Apart from the laughter lines
around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, nothing in his round, friendly face showed that he was well over seventy. The light was reflected on his bald patch, so that his whole head reminded me of a bowl polished until it shone.

I couldn’t help it, I had to smile back. The sight of Mr. George always had a soothing effect on me. “Honestly. You rub it into your face there,” I said, pointing
to my two furious red spots.

Mr. George gave me his arm. “Come along, my brave girl,” he said. “I’ve let them know that we’re going downstairs for you to elapse.”

I looked at him in surprise. “But what about Giordano and colonial policy in the eighteenth century?”

Mr. George smiled slightly. “Let’s put it this way: I used the short wait while you were in the bathroom to tell Giordano we were
afraid you wouldn’t have time for his lessons today.”

Dear, good Mr. George! He was the only one of the Guardians who seemed to bother about me as a real person at all. Although maybe a little minuet dancing might have calmed me down a bit. Like the way some people work off their aggression on a punching bag. Or by going to the gym. On the other hand, I could really do without Charlotte’s supercilious
smile right now.

“The chronograph is waiting,” he added.

I was happy to take Mr. George’s arm. For once, I was even looking forward to elapsing—my daily few hours of controlled travel back to the past—and not just to get away from the horrible present day that meant Gideon. Because today’s journey back in time was the key point to the master plan that Lesley had thought up with me. If it worked
as we hoped.

On the way down to the depths of the huge, vaulted cellars, Mr. George and I went right through the Guardians’ headquarters. It was hard to get a clear idea of the place, which occupied several buildings. There was so much to see, even in the winding corridors, that you might easily think you were in a museum. Countless framed paintings, ancient maps, handmade tapestries, and whole
collections of swords hung on the walls. China that looked valuable, leather-bound books, and old musical instruments were on display in glass-fronted cupboards, and there were any number of chests and carved wooden boxes. In other circumstances, I’d have loved to find out what was inside them.

“I don’t know much about cosmetics, but if you want to let off steam to someone about Gideon—well,
I’m a good listener,” said Mr. George.

“About Gideon?” I said slowly, as if I had to stop and work out who Gideon was. “Oh, everything’s fine between Gideon and me.” So there! I punched the wall in passing. “We’re
friends
, nothing more. Just
friends.
” Unfortunately the word didn’t really come out very easily. I was kind of grinding my teeth as I said it.

“I was sixteen once myself, Gwyneth.”
Mr. George’s little eyes twinkled kindly at me. “And I promise I won’t say I warned you. Even though I did—”

“I’m sure you were a really nice boy when you were sixteen.” Hard to imagine Mr. George ever cunningly deceiving someone by kissing her and saying nice things without meaning them.
You only have to be in the same room and I need to touch you and kiss you.
I tried to shake off the memory
of the way Gideon had looked at me by treading extra firmly as I walked along. The china in the glass-fronted cupboards shook slightly, clinking.

Right. Who needs to dance a minuet to work off aggression? This would do just fine. Although smashing one of those expensive-looking vases might have had an even better effect.

Mr. George looked sideways at me for some time, but finally he just pressed
my arm and sighed. We were passing suits of armor at irregular intervals, and as usual, I had an uncomfortable feeling that I was under observation.

“There’s someone inside that armor, isn’t there?” I whispered to Mr. George. “Some poor novice who can’t go to the toilet all day, right? I can tell he’s staring at us.”

“No,” said Mr. George, laughing quietly. “But there are security cameras installed
behind the visors of the helmets. That’s probably why you feel you’re being watched.”

Oh. Security cameras. At least I didn’t have to feel sorry for security cameras.

When we had reached the first flight of stairs down to the vaults, it struck me that Mr. George had forgotten something. “Don’t you want to blindfold me?”

“I think we can dispense with that today,” said Mr. George. “There’s no
one here to say otherwise, is there?”

I looked at him in surprise. Normally I had to go the whole way with a black scarf tied around my eyes, because the Guardians didn’t want me to be able to find my own way to the place where they kept the chronograph that made controlled time travel possible. For some reason, they thought that if I knew the way, I’d steal it, which of course was utter nonsense.
I didn’t just think the thing uncanny—I mean, it was fueled by blood! I ask you!—I hadn’t the faintest idea how you set the countless little cogwheels, levers, and flaps to get it to work. But all the Guardians were absolutely paranoid about the possibility of theft.

That was probably because there had once been two chronographs. And almost seventeen years ago, my cousin Lucy and her boyfriend,
Paul, Numbers Nine and Ten in the Circle of Twelve, the time travelers, had gone off with one of them. So far I hadn’t found out just why they stole it. But I was groping around blindly in the dark about this whole business, anyway.

“Oh, and by the way, Madame Rossini asked me to tell you that she’s decided on a different color for your ball dress. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten what color, but I’m
sure you’ll look bewitching in it.” Mr. George chuckled. “Even if Giordano has been telling me, yet again, about all the many terrible faux pas you’re bound to make in the eighteenth century.”

My heart jumped. I’d have to go to that ball with Gideon, and I couldn’t imagine being in any fit state to dance a minuet with him tomorrow without
really
breaking something. His foot, for instance.

“Why
the hurry?” I asked. “I mean, from our point of view, why does the ball absolutely have to be tomorrow evening? Why can’t we simply wait a few weeks? After all, surely the ball is held on that one day in 1782 anyway, whatever the date here when we go to it?” Quite apart from Gideon, this was a question that had been on my mind for some time.

“Count Saint-Germain has worked out precisely how much
time in the present should be allowed to pass between your visits to him,” said Mr. George, letting me go down the spiral staircase first.

The farther and deeper down we went through the labyrinth of cellars, the stronger the musty smell. Down here there were no pictures on the walls, and although movement detectors saw to it that a bright light came on wherever we went, the corridors branching
off to our left and right were lost in eerie darkness after a few yards. Apparently people had been lost down here several times. Some hadn’t come up until several days later, in parts of the city far away from the Temple. But that was just hearsay.

“But
why
did the count say it had to be tomorrow? And why do the Guardians follow his instructions so slavishly?”

Mr. George didn’t answer that.
He only sighed heavily.

“I was only thinking that if we gave ourselves a couple of weeks’ more time, well, the count wouldn’t even notice, would he?” I said. “He’s sitting there in 1782, and time isn’t going any more slowly for him. But then I could learn all that minuet stuff at my leisure, and I might even know who was besieging whom in Gibraltar and why.” I preferred to leave Gideon out of
it. “Then no one would have to go on and on at me, and be afraid of all the dreadful mistakes I’d make at the ball, just in case the way I behave shows that I come from the future. So why does the count say it absolutely has to be tomorrow, in our time, when I go to the ball?”

“Yes, why?” murmured Mr. George. “It’s almost as if he were afraid of you. And of what you might find out if you had
more time.”

It wasn’t far now to the old alchemical laboratory. Unless I was mistaken, it must be just around the next corner. So I slowed down. “Afraid of me? He throttled me without even touching me, and since he can read thoughts, he knows perfectly well that
I
am terrified of
him
, not the other way around.”

“He throttled you? Without touching you?” Mr. George had stopped and was staring
at me. He looked shocked. “Dear heavens. Gwyneth, why didn’t you tell us about this before?”

“Would you have believed me?”

Mr. George passed the back of his hand over his bald patch and was just opening his mouth to say something when we heard footsteps coming and a heavy door slammed shut. Mr. George looked alarmed—more alarmed than I’d have expected—led me around the corner in the direction
from which the sound of the door had come, and took a black scarf out of his jacket pocket.

It was Falk de Villiers. Gideon’s uncle and Grand Master of the Lodge, walking energetically along the corridor. But he smiled when he saw us.

“Ah, there you are. Poor Marley has just been ringing up to the house to ask what had become of you, so I thought I’d take a look.”

I blinked and rubbed my eyes,
as if Mr. George had only just taken the blindfold off, but that was obviously an unnecessary bit of playacting, because Falk de Villiers didn’t even notice. He opened the door to the chronograph room, once the old alchemical laboratory.

Falk was maybe a year or so older than my mum and very good-looking, like all the members of the de Villiers family I’d met so far. I always thought of him as
the lead wolf of the pack. His thick hair had gone gray early and made an intriguing contrast with his amber eyes.

“There, you see, Marley? No one’s gone missing,” he said in a jovial tone to Mr. Marley, who had been sitting on a chair in the chronograph room and now jumped up, nervously kneading his fingers.

“I only … I thought that, to be on the safe side…” He stammered. “I do apologize, sir.…”

“No, no, we’re glad to know that you take your duties so seriously,” said Mr. George, and Falk asked, “Where’s Mr. Whitman? He and I had a date to see Dean Smythe over a cup of tea, and I was going to collect him.”

“He’s just left,” said Mr. Marley. “They said they really did have to meet him.”

“Right, then I’ll be off. I may catch up with him on the way. Coming, Thomas?”

After a brief sidelong
glance at me, Mr. George shook his head.

“And we’ll see each other again tomorrow, Gwyneth. When you’re off to the great ball.” But halfway out the door, Falk turned again and said, as if casually, “Oh, and give your mother my regards, Gwyneth. Is she all right?”

“My mum? Yes, she’s fine.”

“Glad to hear it.” I must have been looking rather bewildered, because he cleared his throat and added,
“Mothers who are on their own and working full-time don’t always have an easy life these days, so I’m pleased for her.”

Now I was intentionally looking bewildered.

“Or—or maybe she isn’t on her own? An attractive woman like Grace is bound to meet a lot of men, so perhaps there’s someone in particular.…”

Falk was looking at me expectantly, but when I frowned, puzzled, he looked at his watch
and cried, “Oh, so late already. I really must be on my way.”

“Was that a question he asked?” I said when Falk had closed the door behind him.

“Yes,” said Mr. George and Mr. Marley at the same time, and Mr. Marley went scarlet. “Er,” he added, “at least, it sounded to me as if he wanted to know whether your mother has a steady boyfriend,” he muttered.