“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.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. Read the first lines,” Grandpa told me.
I opened the book at the first chapter. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Er—yes. Very nicely put. And so wise. But all the same—”
“Looks normal, doesn’t it?” Lucas was beaming. “But it’s a specially prepared edition! The first three hundred and last three hundred pages are genuine Tolstoy, as well as two hundred pages in the middle. But the rest of it is from me to you—set in exactly the same typeface. A perfect disguise! In here you’ll find all the information that I’ve been able to gather in thirty-seven years—although I don’t yet know exactly what was the particular reason for Lucy and Paul to run away with the chronograph.” He took the book from me and riffled through the pages. “We have proof that the count withheld certain important documents from the Guardians right from the year of the Lodge’s foundation onward, prophesies suggesting that the philosopher’s stone isn’t what he wanted to make everyone think.”
“Then what is it?”
“We aren’t quite sure yet. We’re working on getting those documents.” Grandpa scratched his head. “Listen, I’ve done a lot of thinking—and I realize that I won’t still be alive in the year 2011. I’ll probably have died before you’re old enough for me to tell you everything I manage to discover before my death.”
I didn’t know what to say, but I nodded.
My grandpa smiled his wonderful Grandpa smile, the one that creased up his whole face in wrinkles. “It’s not so bad, Gwen. I assure you, even if I had to die today, I wouldn’t be sad about it. I’ve had a wonderful life.” The laughter lines deepened. “It’s just a shame that I won’t be able to help you in your own time.”
I nodded again, fighting back tears.
“Oh, come along, little Raven. You should know better than anyone that death is part of life.” Lucas patted my arm. “I might at least be expected to have the decency to haunt this house as a ghost when I’m dead. You really could do with some support.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” I whispered, “but not so nice too.” The ghosts I knew were not particularly happy. I was sure they would rather have been somewhere else. Not one of them enjoyed being a ghost. In fact, most of them didn’t even think they were dead. No, it was a good thing that Grandpa wouldn’t be among them.
“When do you have to travel back?” he asked.
I looked at the clock. My God, to think time could pass so fast! “In nine minutes. And I have to elapse in Aunt Glenda’s bedroom, because in my own time, I’ve bolted the door of the room on the inside.”
“We could try simply pushing you into the room a few seconds in advance,” said Lucas. “You’d disappear before she really grasped the fact that—”
At that moment, there was a knock on the library door. “Lucas, are you in there?”
“Hide!” whispered Lucas, but I’d already reacted, diving under the desk just before the door opened and Lady Arista came in. I could only see her feet and the hem of her bathrobe, but her voice was unmistakable.
“What are you doing down here in the middle of the night? And are those by any chance tuna sandwiches? You know what Dr. White said.” She dropped, sighing, into the chair I had warmed for her. Now she was in view up to the shoulders, which were ramrod straight as usual. I wondered if she’d see part of me, too, if she turned her head.
She clicked her tongue, sounding annoyed. “Charles just came to see me. He says Glenda’s been threatening to hit him.”
“Oh, dear,” said Lucas. He sounded remarkably relaxed about it. “Poor lad. What did you do?”
“Gave him a whisky,” replied my grandmother, and she giggled.
I held my breath. My grandmother, giggling? I’d never heard her do such a thing. We were always surprised when she even laughed, and giggling was in an entirely different league. Rather as if you were hearing an opera by Wagner played on the descant recorder. “And then he started crying!” said my grandmother scornfully. That sounded more like Lady Arista. “So after that I needed a whisky.”
“That’s my girl!” I could tell from his voice that my grandfather was smiling, and suddenly I had a warm sensation around my heart. The two of them looked really happy together. (Well, from the neck down, anyway.) Only now did I realize that I’d had no real idea what their marriage was like.
“High time for Glenda and Charles to move out of this house at long last,” said Lady Arista. “I don’t think our children are especially good at choosing partners, do you? Harry’s Jane is such a bore, Charles is a weakling, and Grace’s Nicholas is as poor as a church mouse.”
“But he makes her happy, and that’s what matters.”
Lady Arista stood up. “Yes, I like Nicholas best of them all. It would be much worse if Grace had stayed fixated on that impossible de Villiers boy, the ambitious one.” I could see her giving herself a little shake. “The de Villiers men are all shockingly arrogant. I hope Lucy will soon see reason.”
“I think Paul is rather different from the rest of them.” Grandpa was grinning. “He’s a nice boy.”
“I doubt it—there’s little to choose between them in that family. Coming upstairs with me?”
“I was going to read for a little longer—”
Yes, and you’re also going to talk to your granddaughter from the future, please. Because my time was running out. I couldn’t see the clock from here, but I could hear it ticking. And I was beginning to get that damn roller-coaster sensation in the pit of my stomach.