Emerald Green (13 page)

I nodded vigorously. I couldn’t say
anything because my mouth was too full.

“So far I haven’t felt very keen on that kind of thing.” Lucas glanced at the Montrose family’s coat of arms hanging above the fireplace. A sword surrounded by roses, and under it the words
HIC RHODOS, HIC SALTA
, meaning something like “Show what you can really do.”

“I certainly started out from a good position in the Lodge—after all, representatives of
the Montrose family were among the founder members in 1745, and I’m also married to a potential gene carrier from the Jade line. However, I didn’t really intend to commit myself to the Lodge any more than necessary.… Well, that’s all changed now. For you and Lucy and Paul, I’ll go so far as to butter up Kenneth de Villiers. I don’t know whether I’ll succeed, but—”

“Oh, yes, you will! You’ll even
get to be Grand Master,” I said, brushing crumbs off my pajamas. I only just managed to suppress a satisfied belch. It felt wonderful to have a full stomach again. “Let’s think; in the year 1993, you’ll be—”

“Ssh!” Lucas leaned forward and put a finger on my lips. “I don’t want to hear it. Maybe it’s not very sensible of me, but I don’t want to know what the future has in store for me unless
it will help where you’re concerned. I have thirty-seven years to live before we meet again, and I’d like to spend them as … well, as free of anxiety as possible. Can you understand that?”

“Yes.” I looked at him sadly. “Yes, I can understand it very well.” In the circumstances, it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell him that Aunt Maddy and Mr. Bernard suspected he hadn’t died a natural death.
I could always warn him about that when we met in 1993.

I leaned back in my chair and tried to smile. “Then let’s talk about the magic of the raven, Grandpa. Because there’s something you don’t yet know about me.”

London is still under attack. Yesterday and the day before, German squadrons were flying overhead all day, dropping bombs which severely damaged the entire London area. The London County Council has now made vaults under parts of the City and the Royal Courts of Justice accessible for use as public air raid shelters. So we have begun walling up some of our passages, we have tripled the number
of guards on duty in the cellars, and we have armed them with contemporary as well as traditional weapons.

The three of us elapsed from the documents room to the year 1851 again today, after going through the security process. We all brought books, and if only Lady Tilney had shown a little more sense of humor regarding my jocular remarks on her reading matter, instead of starting a quarrel again,
everything would have gone smoothly. I stand by my opinion that the works of this modern German poet Rilke are sheer nonsense, one cannot understand a word of them, and furthermore it is unpatriotic to read German literature when we are in the middle of a war. I hate it when anyone tries to make me change my mind, which Lady Tilney is intent upon doing. She was just trying to explain a particularly
confused passage about withered hands hopping about, damp and heavy like toads after rain, when there was a knock at the door. Of course … and so

F
ROM
T
HE
A
NNALS OF THE
G
UARDIANS

2
A
PRIL 1916

“
D
uo quum faciunt idem, non est idem”
(Terence)

Marginal note: 17/5/1986

Page obviously rendered illegible by spilt coffee. Pages 34 to 36 missing entirely. I would like to see a rule introduced to the effect that novices may read the
Annals
only under supervision.

D. Clarkson, archivist (sorely tried!)

FIVE

“
OH, NO,
you’ve been crying again!” said Xemerius, who was waiting for me in the secret passage.

I simply said yes. Saying good-bye to Lucas had been very hard, and I wasn’t the only one who had had to suppress a few tears. We wouldn’t see each other again for thirty-seven years, at least from his point of view, and that seemed an unimaginably long time to both of us. I felt like traveling
to the year 1993 right away, but Lucas had made me promise to get a good night’s rest. If you could call it that—it was two in the morning, and I’d have to get up again at quarter to seven. Mum would probably have to use a crane to haul me out of bed.

As Xemerius didn’t answer back, I shone the flashlight on his face. I was probably just imagining it, but I thought he looked a little sad, and
I realized that I’d neglected him all day.

“Nice of you to wait for me, Xemi … Xemerius,” I said, suddenly feeling a wave of affection. I’d have liked to stroke him, but you can’t stroke or pet ghosts.

“I wasn’t waiting, I just happen to be here. I’ve been looking around for a good place to hide that thing.” He pointed to the chronograph. I wrapped it in my bathrobe again and got it first balanced
on my hip, then tucked under my arm.

Xemerius flew upstairs beside me. “If you break through the back of your wardrobe—it’s only plasterboard, you can do it easily—you could crawl into the space behind it. There are all sorts of possible hiding places there.”

“I think I’ll just put it under my bed for tonight.” I felt so tired that my legs were heavy as lead. I had switched off the flashlight;
I could find the way to my bedroom in the dark. I could probably even do it in my sleep. I was half-asleep anyway by the time I was passing Charlotte’s room, so I almost dropped the chronograph when her door suddenly opened and I was caught in the light from inside.

“Oh, shit,” muttered Xemerius. “Everyone was fast asleep just now, honest!”

“Aren’t you a bit too old for Peter Rabbit pajamas?”
asked Charlotte. She was leaning in the doorway, looking very pretty in a nightie with spaghetti straps, and her hair fell in glossy waves over her shoulders. (That’s the good thing about braided hairstyles—the braids act as built-in curlers, so you look like a Christmas tree fairy when you undo them.)

“Are you crazy, scaring me like that?” I whispered so that Aunt Glenda wouldn’t wake up as
well.

“Why are you slinking along my corridor in the middle of the night? And what’s that you’re carrying?”

“What do you mean, your corridor? Do you expect me to climb up the outside of the house to reach my room?”

Charlotte moved away from the door frame and came a step closer. “What’s that under your arm?” she repeated, threateningly this time. It sounded even worse because she was whispering.
And she looked so … well, dangerous that I didn’t dare to pass her.

“Uh-oh,” said Xemerius. “Someone has a bad attack of PMS. I wouldn’t want to tangle with her today.”

I had no intention of doing any such thing. “You mean my bathrobe?”

“Show me what’s inside it!” she demanded.

I stepped back. “You
are
crazy! Why on earth do you want me to show you my bathrobe in the middle of the night? Now
let me by, please. I want to go to bed.”

“And I want to see what you’re carrying,” hissed Charlotte. “Do you really think I’m as naive as you? Do you think I didn’t notice those conspiratorial looks and all that whispering? If you want to keep something secret from me, you’ll have to be more subtle about it. What about the little chest that your brother and Mr. Bernard took up to you? Was what
you’re carrying under your arm inside it?”

“She’s not stupid,” said Xemerius, scratching his nose with one wing.

At any other time of day, and if I’d been less sleepy, I’m sure I’d have thought up some story on the spur of the moment, but right now, my nerves just weren’t up to it. “None of your business!” I snapped.

“Oh, yes, it is,” snapped Charlotte back. “I may not be the Ruby and a member
of the Circle of Twelve, but unlike you, at least I
think
like one! I couldn’t hear everything you lot were saying up in your room, the doors in this house are too thick, but what I did hear was quite enough!” She took another step toward me and pointed to my bathrobe. “So show me
that
this minute, if you don’t want me to take it.”

“You were eavesdropping on us?” I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
How much had she found out? Did she know that
that
was the chronograph? And it seemed to have doubled its weight within the last minute. I gripped it firmly in both hands for safety’s sake, dropping Nick’s flashlight on the floor with a clatter. By now I wasn’t so sure that I wanted Aunt Glenda to go on sleeping.

“Did you know that Gideon and I were trained in Krav Maga?” Charlotte took another
step closer to me, and I automatically took one back.

“No, but did
you
know that at this moment you look like that crazy rodent in
Ice Age
?”

“Maybe we’re in luck and Krav Maga is just some kind of harmless smut,” said Xemerius. “Like Kama Sutra. Ha, ha, ha!” He giggled. “’Scuse me, I always think up my best jokes in desperate situations.”

“Krav Maga is an Israeli martial arts technique, and
very effective,” Charlotte informed me. “I could flatten you with a kick to the solar plexus. Or I could break your neck with a single blow!”

“And I could call for help!” So far our conversation had all taken place in whispers, and it must have sounded like two snakes talking:
hiss, hiss, hiss.

What would happen if I brought everyone else in this house on the scene? It would probably keep Charlotte
from breaking my neck, but then everyone would know what I was carrying wrapped in my bathrobe.

Charlotte seemed to guess my thoughts. She laughed scornfully as she came closer, dancing about on tiptoe. “Go on, then, scream!”

“I would if I were you,” said Xemerius.

But I didn’t have to after all, because Mr. Bernard appeared behind Charlotte. As usual, he seemed to materialize out of nothing.
“Can I help you young ladies in any way?” he asked, and Charlotte spun around like a scalded cat. For a fraction of a second, I thought she was going to kick Mr. Bernard in the solar plexus, purely as a reflex action, but luckily she didn’t, although her toes were twitching.

“I sometimes feel hungry in the night myself. I’d be happy to make you a little snack, since that’s what I’m off to do
anyway,” said Mr. Bernard, impassively.

I was so relieved to see him that I burst into hysterical giggles. “I’ve just been doing that very thing,” I said, jerking my chin at the bundle I was clutching to my breast. “But the Karate Kid here is suffering from low blood sugar. I bet she urgently needs a snack.”

Charlotte strolled very slowly back to her room. “I’ll be keeping my eye on you,” she
said, pointing her forefinger accusingly at me. She looked as theatrical as if she were about to declaim something dramatic. However, all she said was, “And on you too, Mr. Bernard.”

“We’ll have to be careful,” I whispered when she had closed the door of her room and the corridor was dark again. “She’s trained in Taj Mahal.”

“That’s not a bad one either,” said Xemerius appreciatively.

I held
my bathrobe firmly. “And she suspects something! She may even know exactly what we found. She’s sure to tell the Guardians tales of us, and when they hear that we—”

“There must be better times and places to discuss these matters,” Mr. Bernard interrupted me in an unusually severe tone. He picked Nick’s flashlight up from the floor, switched it on, and let the beam travel up the door of Charlotte’s
room to the semicircular fanlight at the top. It was tilted open.

I nodded, showing that I understood. Charlotte could hear every word. “Yes, you’re right. Good night, Mr. Bernard.”

“Sleep well, Miss Gwyneth.”

*   *   *

MY MUM
didn’t need a crane to get me out of bed in the morning. Her tactics were even meaner. She used the horrible plastic Santa Claus that Caroline had won at the Brownies
party last year. Once he was wound up, he kept going, “Ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas, all!” in a hideous plastic croak.

At first I tried to block out the noise with my quilt. But after sixteen repetitions of “ho, ho, ho,” I gave up and threw the quilt back. At once, I was sorry I’d done that, because now I remembered what was going to happen today. The ball.

If no miracle happened this afternoon,
letting me travel back to my grandfather in 1993, I’d have to face the count without whatever information Lucas could give me.

I bit my tongue. I ought to have traveled back in time again last night after all. On the other hand, then presumably Charlotte would have been on my trail, so all things considered, I’d been right in deciding not to.

I staggered out of bed and into the bathroom. I’d
had only three hours’ sleep. After Charlotte’s performance last night, I’d played it safe and, under Xemerius’s orders, I really had broken through the back of the wardrobe and found a space behind it full of old junk—including a crocodile just like the one in the space under the musicians’ gallery in the ballroom. Twin crocodiles, maybe. I slit the crocodile’s belly open and hid the chronograph
inside it.