Sapphire Blue

  Lucas sighed. “I’ve no idea. When did you say you met them?”

  “In the year 1912,” I said. “June. June the twenty-second, I think. Or the twenty-fourth. I didn’t notice exactly.” The more I tried to remember, the less certain I was. “Or maybe the twelfth? It was an even number, I do remember that. The eighteenth? Anyway, sometime in the afternoon. Lady Tilney had the table laid for tea.” Then it dawned on me what I’d just said, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh, no!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Now I’ve gone and told you, and you’ll tell Lucy and Paul, and that’s why they can lie in wait for us there. So really you are the one who gives us away, not me. Mind you, I suppose it all comes to the same thing in the end.”

  “What? No, no!” Lucas shook his head energetically. “I won’t do that. I won’t tell them anything at all about you—that would be crazy! If I tell them tomorrow that they’re going to steal the chronograph someday and disappear into the past with it, they’ll fall down dead of shock on the spot. You have to think very, very carefully what you’re going to tell anyone about the future, understand?”

  “Well, no, maybe you won’t tell them tomorrow, but there are years and years ahead when you could do it.” I thoughtfully munched my banana. “On the other hand, what time did they travel back to with the chronograph? Why not this period? They’d always have a friend here in you. Maybe you’re lying to me and they’ve been waiting right outside that door for ages to get a few drops of my blood.”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea where they could have gone.” Lucas sighed. “I can’t even imagine them ever doing anything so crazy. Or why they’d do it!” He added, sounding discouraged, “I’ve no idea of anything at all!”

  “So neither of us has any idea at this moment,” I said, just as discouraged.

  Lucas wrote down Green Rider, second chronograph, and Lady Tilney on his notepad, and added large question marks to all of them. “What we need is to meet again later. By then I could find out a good deal.…”

  I had a bright idea. “Originally I was supposed to be sent to the year 1956 to elapse. Maybe we could meet again tomorrow evening.”

  “Ha, ha!” said Lucas. “1956 may be tomorrow to you—for me it’s— But yes, let’s think. If you get sent to elapse to a time after this, will it be to this room?”

  I nodded. “I think so. But you can’t wait for me day and night down here. What’s more, Gideon could turn up anytime. After all, he has to elapse as well.”

  “I know what to do,” said Lucas, with growing enthusiasm. “If you land in this room next time, just come up to me! My office is on the second floor. You’ll only have to pass two guards, but that’s no problem if you say you’ve lost your way. You’re my cousin. My cousin Hazel from the country. I’ll start telling everyone about you this very day.”

  “But Mr. Whitman says this room is always kept locked, and anyway I don’t know exactly where we are.”

  “You’ll need a key, of course. And the password for the day.” Lucas looked around him. “I’ll get a key made for you and leave it somewhere here. Same with the password. I’ll write it on a note and leave it in our hiding place. Somewhere in the brickwork would be best. The bricks are coming a bit loose just there, see? Maybe we can make a hollow space behind them.” He got to his feet, made his way through the junk in the cellar, and knelt down in front of the wall. “Look, here. I’ll come back with tools and make a perfect hiding place. When you come back next, you just have to pull out this brick, and then you’ll find the key and the password.”

  “But there are a lot of bricks,” I said.

  “Just remember this one, fifth row from the bottom, roughly in the middle of the room. Damn, that was my fingernail! Never mind, that’s my plan, and I think it’s a good one.”

  “But then you’d have to come down here every day from now on to change the password,” I said. “How are you going to fix that? Aren’t you studying at Oxford?”

  “The password isn’t changed daily,” replied Lucas. “Sometimes we use the same one for weeks on end. Anyway, this is our only chance to fix another meeting. Remember that brick. I’ll draw a plan as well, so that you can find your way up. There are secret passages from here that go over half of London.” He looked at his watch. “Now, let’s sit down again and make notes. Systematically. You wait, we’ll both know more in the end.”

  “Or alternatively we’ll still be two people without the faintest idea down in a musty cellar.”

  Lucas put his head to one side and grinned at me. “Maybe, just in passing, you could tell me whether your grandmother’s name begins with an A or a C?”

  I had to smile. “Which would you rather?”

  FOUR

  “GWENNY! GWENNY, wake up!”

  With difficulty, I struggled up from the depths of my dream. In the dream I’d been an ancient, hunchbacked old woman sitting opposite Gideon, who was looking terrific, and claiming that my name was Gwyneth Shepherd and I came from the year 2080. Now I looked into the familiar, snub-nosed face of my little sister, Caroline.

  “At last!” she said. “I thought I’d never get you to wake up. I was asleep when you came in yesterday evening, though I tried so hard to stay awake. Have you brought one of those gorgeous dresses back again?”

  “Not this time.” I sat up. “I was able to change when I got there.”

  “Is it always going to be like this? You not coming home until I’m asleep? Mum has been so odd since this happened to you. And Nick and I miss you. Suppers don’t seem right when you’re not there.”

  “They didn’t seem right before,” I reassured her, dropping back on the pillow.

  A limousine had brought me back yesterday evening. I didn’t know the chauffeur, but redheaded Mr. Marley had come all the way to the front door of our house with me.

  I hadn’t seen Gideon again, and just as well. It was quite enough to dream of him all night.

  My grandmother’s butler, Mr. Bernard, had let me in, polite and otherwise totally impassive, as ever. My mum had come downstairs to welcome me home, hugging me as tightly as if I’d just come back from an expedition to the South Pole. I was glad to see her, too, although I was still rather cross with her. It was so odd, finding out that your own mother had been lying to you. And she still wouldn’t tell me why. Apart from a few cryptic remarks—trust no one … dangerous … secret … blah blah blah—she hadn’t told me anything to explain her behavior. So what with that and the fact that I was just about dying of exhaustion, I’d simply eaten a small piece of roast chicken and then fallen into bed without telling Mum about the day’s events. And what exactly was she going to do with the information? She worried far too much anyway. I thought she looked almost as exhausted as me.

  Caroline shook my arm again. “Hey, don’t go back to sleep!”

  “Okay.” I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and realized that, in spite of my long phone call to Lesley before I went to sleep, I did feel fairly well rested. But where was Xemerius? He’d disappeared when I went into the bathroom last night, and I hadn’t seen him since.

  Under the shower, I finally washed my hair, using Mum’s expensive shampoo, which wasn’t really allowed, and some of her conditioner as well, even at the risk of being given away by the wonderful scent of roses and grapefruit. As I rubbed my head dry, I instinctively wondered whether Gideon liked roses and grapefruit and then called myself sternly to order.

  I’d hardly had a couple of hours’ sleep, and here I was thinking of him again! And just what was so great about what had happened anyway? We’d done a bit of necking in the confessional, but right after that, he’d gone back to being his old insufferable self, and my fall from cloud nine was not something I wanted to remember, whether or not I’d had enough sleep. As I’d told Lesley when she wouldn’t drop the subject last night.

  I blow-dried my hair, got dressed, and went down all the flights of stairs to the dining room. Caroline, Nick, Mum, and I l
ived on the third floor of our house. Unlike the rest of the place, which had been in my family’s hands since the beginning of time (or even longer), it was at least reasonably comfortable.

  The rest of the house was stuffed with antique furniture and pictures of assorted ancestors, few of whom were exactly a sight for sore eyes. And we had a ballroom where I had helped Nick learn how to ride a bike—in secret, of course, but these days traffic in central London was terribly dangerous, as everyone knew.

  As so often, I wished Mum and the three of us could eat up on the third floor, where we had our own rooms, but my grandmother, Lady Arista, insisted on all of us meeting at mealtimes in the gloomy dining room. Its paneling was the color of milk chocolate; at least, that was the only nice comparison I’d ever thought of. The others were less appetizing.

  Today the atmosphere was distinctly better than the day before, as I noticed the moment I came into the room. Well, that was something, anyway.

  Lady Arista, who always seemed rather like a ballet teacher about to rap you over the knuckles, said “good morning” in friendly tones, and Charlotte and her mother smiled at me as if they knew something and I hadn’t the faintest idea of it.

  Since Aunt Glenda never normally smiled at anyone (unless you count a sort of sour lift at the corners of her mouth), and Charlotte had said some horrible things to me only yesterday, I immediately felt suspicious.

  “Has something happened?” I asked.

  My twelve-year-old brother Nick grinned at me as I sat down beside Caroline, and Mum pushed a huge plateful of scrambled egg on toast over to me. I almost fainted away with hunger as the delicious smell rose to my nostrils.

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Aunt Glenda. “I suppose you want your daughter consuming a whole month’s supply of fat and cholesterol in a single day, do you, Grace?”

  “That’s right,” said Mum, unfazed.

  “She’ll hate you later for not taking better care of her figure,” said Aunt Glenda, smiling again.

  “Gwyneth’s figure is faultless,” said Mum.

  “For now—maybe,” said Aunt Glenda. She was still smiling.

  “Did you two put something in Aunt Glenda’s tea?” I asked Caroline in a whisper.

  “Someone phoned a few minutes ago, and ever since then Aunt Glenda and Charlotte have been on top of the world,” Caroline whispered back. “You’d think someone had cast a magic spell over them.”

  At that moment, Xemerius landed on the windowsill outside, folded his wings, and came in through the glass of the windowpane.

  “Good morning,” I said cheerfully.

  “Good morning,” replied Xemerius, hopping down from the windowsill and up on an empty chair.

  While the others looked at me, rather surprised, Xemerius scratched his belly. “Yours is rather a large family. I haven’t quite managed to get the hang of it yet, but I did notice there are a lot of women about the place. Too many, if you ask me. And most of the time, half of them look like they need a good tickling.” He shook out his wings. “Where are the fathers of all these children? And where are the pets? A great big house like this, and not so much as a canary! I’m disappointed.”

  I grinned. “Where’s Great-aunt Maddy?” I asked as I happily began to eat.

  “I am afraid my dear sister-in-law’s need for sleep is greater than her curiosity,” said Lady Arista, with dignity. She was sitting ramrod straight at the breakfast table, eating half a slice of buttered toast with her fingers delicately spread. (I’d hardly ever seen her anything but ramrod straight.) “Getting up so early yesterday left her in a bad temper all day long. I don’t think we’ll see her before ten this morning.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Aunt Glenda. “All that talk of sapphire eggs and clocks on towers really gets on my nerves. Well, how are you feeling, Gwyneth? I imagine this must all be very confusing for you.”

  “Hm,” I murmured.

  “It must be so dreadful, finding out all of a sudden that you’re born to higher things when you can’t live up to expectations.” Aunt Glenda forked up a small piece of tomato from her plate.

  “Mr. George says Gwyneth has acquitted herself very well so far,” said Lady Arista, although before I could feel cheered by this evidence of solidarity she added, “In the circumstances, anyway. Gwyneth, you’ll be fetched from school again today and taken to the Temple. This time Charlotte will go with you.” She sipped her tea.

  I couldn’t open my mouth without letting scrambled egg drop out, so I just gawped at her in alarm, while Nick and Caroline spoke for me. “Why?”

  “Because,” said Aunt Glenda, wagging her head in a peculiar way, “because Charlotte knows all the things that Gwyneth ought to know if she’s to do any kind of justice to her task. So on account of the chaotic events of the last few days—and as I’m sure we can all imagine only too vividly, they must indeed have been chaotic—the Guardians want Charlotte to help her cousin prepare for the rest of her time traveling.” She looked as if her daughter had just won an Olympic gold medal. At the very least.

  The rest of my time traveling? What was this all about?

  “Who’s that skinny, redheaded battle-ax with the sharp tongue?” inquired Xemerius. “I hope for your sake she’s only a distant relation.”

  “Not that the request surprised us, but all the same we did wonder whether to go along with it. After all, Charlotte really has no kind of obligation to them now. However,” and here the skinny, redheaded battle—er, Aunt Glenda—sighed theatrically, “Charlotte is also fully aware of the importance of this mission, so she is unselfishly ready to do what she can to contribute to its success.”

  My mother also sighed, and gave me a sympathetic glance. Charlotte tucked a strand of her glossy red hair back behind her ear and batted her eyelashes in my direction.

  “What?” said Nick. “So what’s Charlotte supposed to be teaching Gwenny to do?”

  “Oh, my word!” said Aunt Glenda, her cheeks flushing red with emotion. “There’s a very great deal she should be taught, but it would be absurd to think that in such a short time Gwyneth can catch up with all the skills Charlotte has acquired over many years, not to mention the … er, unequal distribution of natural talents in this case. In particular, Gwyneth’s lack of general knowledge is positively disastrous, and she has no idea of the good manners appropriate to various historical periods—or so I have heard.”

  What a nerve! And who was she supposed to have heard it from?

  “Yes, and a person really needs to mind her manners, sitting around for hours alone in a locked cellar,” I said. “I mean, a woodlouse might see her picking her nose.”

  Caroline giggled.

  “Oh, no, Gwenny, I’m sorry to have to tell you, but it’s going to be just a little bit trickier for you in the near future.” Charlotte gave me what was probably meant to be a sympathetic look, but it came across as nasty and gloating.

  “Your cousin is right.” I’d always been a bit afraid of Lady Arista’s penetrating gaze, but this time it really made me jump. “On orders from the highest places, you will be spending a good deal of time in the eighteenth century,” she said.

  “And in company,” added Charlotte, “with people who would think it very odd if you didn’t even know the name of the king on the throne or what a reticule is.”

  A reti-what?

  “What’s a reticule?” asked Caroline.

  Charlotte gave her a thin smile. “Get your sister to tell you.”

  I stared crossly at her. Why did she always get so much pleasure out of making me look stupid and ignorant? Aunt Glenda laughed quietly.

  “Kind of a silly handbag, usually full of stuff that no one needs,” said Xemerius. “Sewing things. And handkerchiefs. And little bottles of smelling salts.”

  Aha!

  “A reticule is an old-fashioned word for a handbag, Caroline,” I said, without taking my eyes off Charlotte. She blinked in surprise, but she kept the thin smile going.

  “Orders from the
highest places? What’s that supposed to mean?” My mother had turned to Lady Arista. “I thought we agreed that Gwyneth would be kept out of the whole thing as far as possible. She was only going to be sent to safe years to elapse. How can they change their minds now and decide to expose her to such danger?”

  “It’s none of your business, Grace,” said my grandmother coolly. “You have done enough damage as it is.”

  My mother bit her lower lip. Her angry glance went once from me to Lady Arista and back, and then she pushed back her chair and stood up. “I must start for work,” she said. She dropped a kiss on Nick’s head and looked over the table at Caroline and me. “Have fun at school. Caroline, don’t forget to brush your hair before you go. See you later.”

  “Poor Mum,” whispered Caroline as my mother left the room. “She was crying yesterday evening. I don’t think she likes it one little bit that you’ve inherited this time-travel gene.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I’d noticed.”

  “And she’s not the only one,” said Nick, with a meaningful look at Aunt Glenda and Charlotte, who was still smiling.

  * * *

  I’D NEVER ATTRACTED as much attention on walking into the classroom before. That was because half the kids there had seen me being fetched in a black limousine yesterday afternoon.

  “The betting’s still open,” said Gordon Gelderman. “Top odds on possibility number one: that cool-looking guy yesterday, the gay one, is a TV producer, and he was auditioning Charlotte and Gwyneth for a show, but Gwyneth won the part. Possibility number two: the guy is your gay cousin, and he runs a limo service. Possibility number three—”

  “Oh, shut up, Gordon!” spat Charlotte, tossing her hair back and sitting down.

  “Charlotte, couldn’t you explain how come you were necking with the guy but then Gwyneth got into the car with him?” asked Cynthia Dale in a wheedling tone of voice. “Lesley’s been trying to make out he’s a teacher giving Gwyneth private coaching after school.”

  “Yes, and a teacher giving coaching is likely to turn up in a limousine and hold hands with our Ice Queen, right?” said Gordon, giving Lesley a nasty look. “That’s pathetic as a cover-up, if you ask me.”