Unwritten Books 3 - The Young City (15 page)

Rosemary rolled over in her fitful sleep. Something made her open her eyes. Peering through the gloom, she recognized the shape at the foot of the bed, hunched and nervous. “Peter?”

“Rosemary, I’m ... I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I know being here is harder for you than for me, but ... Look, if we can’t go back, I’ll do everything I can to make this easier, I promise. Wherever we are, I want us to be happy. Will you forgive me?”

She opened her arms to him. “Come here and let me show you how much you’re forgiven.”

Peter’s grin lit up the dark.

Rosemary dotted her letters and set the quill pen to rest in its holder. She reached for a cloth, then noticed that her hands were clean of ink splotches, for once. Come to that, so was the paper. “Huh!”

Outside, men and women strode past on Yonge Street, their boots muffled by the falling snow.

She looked up as the door chimed.

A tall gentleman doffed his hat. “Good afternoon, madam. Is Mr. Watson available?”

“He’s out on business,” said Rosemary. “Can I help?”

“Perhaps.” The gentleman unfolded a slip of paper. “My associates took delivery of a consignment of watches — one gross. This is the paperwork.”

Rosemary looked at the slip.

“For the most part we are happy with the product,” the gentleman continued, “but we did find a handful of timepieces that did not work. Mr. Watson said I could return these for credit.” He set a paper bag on the counter.

“I’ll have to ask Edmund,” said Rosemary.

“I’ll leave the watches with you and return, then. You may contact me at this address.” He handed her a card for a jewellery store on King Street. He tipped his hat to her and left.

Rosemary watched him go, then looked in the bag. It contained a half-dozen narrow boxes. She took one out. “Let’s see what’s wrong with you.” She sat at the desk and rifled through the drawers until she found the jeweller’s loupe, which she’d modified with a loop of wire so it could rest on her head and hang over the right lens of her glasses. She held the pocket watch by its chain and peered at the back, opening the cover with a jeweller’s screwdriver.

She stared at the insides for a long moment, then grabbed the back cover and peered at it through the lens.

“Peter!” she shrieked.

She was the only one in the store.

An hour later, Rosemary was pacing the kitchen like a caged animal. She stopped as the back door opened.

Peter entered, blowing on his hands and stomping the snow from his feet. He beamed when he saw her, then squawked as Rosemary grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him upstairs.

Rosemary slammed the door to their apartment. “Look at this!” She couldn’t keep still as Peter stared at the watch in bewilderment. “One of Edmund’s customers returned this as defective merchandise. Look at the writing on the back! I just found out why it doesn’t work!”

Peter peered at the back of the watch. He froze. Slowly, he raised his gaze to her. “Made ... in Taiwan?”

Rosemary nodded. “The battery ran down.”

BORROWED TIME

Peter sat down. He almost missed the foot of the bed. “There’s another portal.”

“And somebody knows about it,” said Rosemary.

“But how?” Peter threw the watch aside. “If more people know about this, how come we’ve heard nothing?”

“Clearly, they didn’t tell anyone.” Rosemary began to pace. “They didn’t get a scientist. They didn’t tell the government. They just went to the future and brought back watches — cheap watches.”

“You think it’s Edmund?”

Rosemary shook her head. “He would have put two and two together and told us; remember the date on our wedding ring? But it’s somebody Edmund knows and deals with.” She stopped pacing and snapped her fingers. “Birge. He’s been like Edmund’s shadow, and Edmund’s had ‘guilty conscience’ written all over him
ever since Birge showed up. Maybe Birge is a time criminal.”

“A time criminal,” said Peter with a hollow laugh. Then he sat up. “Actually, try time
gang
. That night Tom and I ran into those burglars, they didn’t take anything. They were just interested in the river. Then there were those people in the boat who floated past us that night we tried to get home. It can’t be coincidence that they were rowing up the river that brought us here.”

Rosemary tapped her chin. “Maybe ‘His Nibs’ is Aldous himself. With a name like Birge, he’s got to be an evil mastermind.”

“An evil mastermind who finds a portal to the future and brings back cheap watches?”

She swatted at him.

“So, what do we do?” he asked.

“You wear the deerstalker hat and I smoke the pipe,” said Rosemary.

“Rosemary, be careful. We don’t really know what we’re dealing with.”

“A group of people who know a way for us to get home.”

“Who may be a criminal gang. With Aldous Birge at its head and a bunch of people, including Rob Cameron, as his henchmen.”

This brought Rosemary up short. “Hmm. Yes, we’ll have to be careful. You keep an eye on the construction
site, and I’ll wait until Edmund steps out of the shop and then search the place for clues.” She gave Peter a sidelong look. “We have to try, right?”

Peter nodded. “Oh, we’ll try.”

Rosemary vibrated with renewed energy. She bounced on the balls of her feet. “I don’t believe it, Peter! We actually have a chance!”

He grinned at her, opened his arms.

Rosemary bowled him onto the bed.

The next day, with Faith taking an exam and Peter at work, opportunity presented itself.

Edmund looked up as Rosemary entered the front part of the shop. “Ah, Rosemary! I have some business that takes me from the store. You can mind the counter, can you not?”

Rosemary’s smile widened. She took up a quill pen and stood ready.

Edmund took his hat from the stand. He fidgeted over it as he backed out the front door.

Rosemary stood behind the counter a moment. Then she darted to the door, checking up and down the sidewalk to make sure the coast was clear. Finally, she hung a sign reading “The Shop Will Open Again in Fifteen Minutes” on the door, shut it, and drew the blinds.

She clapped her hands. “Right! Where do I start?”
She chewed her lip, and then snapped her fingers. “Edmund’s bedroom!”

Edmund’s bedroom/office had always been cluttered, but it now looked as if it had been hit by a whirlwind. Boxes were stacked about haphazardly. Edmund’s geared invention was blocked from view, its battery disconnected and shoved in a far corner.

Rosemary shuffled around the boxes, looking for the top of Edmund’s desk. She picked up a folder and flipped through an inventory list.

“Cups, plates, watches,” she muttered. But no dollar values, and no return address. She set down the folder and reached for the desk drawer, staring when it would not budge.

She knelt and peered at the lock. It was a firm bolt, little hope of picking it; not that she knew how. She couldn’t wrench open the drawer without a crowbar, and she didn’t want to be
that
obvious.

She stood up, frowning. The ledgers were under lock and key. Edmund had been secretive before, but this ...

She looked at the inventory lists, blinked, and looked closer. Cups, one gross. Plates, two gross. Watches, two gross. There was a long list.

A gross was one hundred and forty-four items. Were they all in Edmund’s bedroom? No; Rosemary shook boxes at random: they were all empty. Could they all have been sold? She didn’t think it likely. So, where was the merchandise?

Then she remembered Edmund bringing the great box into the kitchen. “Basement!”

She strode into the kitchen, snatched a candle from the pantry, and lit it. She pulled open the door to the basement.

Musty air drifted up to her, full of the odour of roots and water. The candle cast a halo as she clopped down the wooden steps, her hand on the rough brick wall. She bumped into a large crate at the base of the stairs.

After she rubbed her shin, she ran her fingers along the wooden top. What was it doing right next to the stairs?

She raised her candle above her head. The cellar lit up like a smuggler’s cave, filled with dozens of crates pushed against the walls or stacked on the floor with just enough space between them to squeeze past.

She stumbled forward. “Oh, Edmund! What have you gotten yourself into?” She frowned. “And how did you get all this delivered without anybody noticing?”

Holding the candle high, she crept into the gloom. In the back of the cellar, light gleamed off a boom and tackle suspended from the ceiling.

“What the —.” Rosemary stepped toward it.

Suddenly, she heard the distant jangle of the shop bell and the sound of Edmund’s voice. “Rosemary?”

She whirled. The candle slipped from her fingers and snuffed on the damp floor. “Shoot!”

Edmund’s footsteps clopped on the ceiling. Rosemary
stumbled toward the stairs and ran full-tilt into a crate, scraping her knee. She fell face first on the stairs. “Ow! Damn! Ow!” She clawed her way upstairs. She might just make it in time ...

She pulled open the basement door and stopped, staring. Edmund stood on the other side.

Rosemary brushed the dust from her shoulders and straightened her skirts. She smiled brightly. “Hi!”

Edmund’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”

Rosemary raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“You closed the shop,” said Edmund. “Then I see you on the basement stairs. Explain yourself.”

“Bathroom break?”

“On the basement stairs?”

“I got lost?”

Edmund pinched the bridge of his nose. “You saw the crates.”

Rosemary folded her arms. “Yes, I did. So perhaps I’m not the one who should be explaining myself.”

His eyes flared. “I rescue you from the street! I offer you room and board —”

“And you lied,” Rosemary cut in. “You lied to Faith and you lied to me. I asked you if your business was in trouble, and you said everything was fine.”

“Everything
is
fine,” said Edmund.

“Smuggling goods is
not
fine,” Rosemary shouted. “Those crates down there — Aldous made you take them, didn’t he?”

Edmund didn’t look her in the eye. “Yes, they’re his contraband: goods and alcohol smuggled in past the tax collectors. It was either that or lose the shop.”

“But to turn to a criminal —”

“I am not proud of what I’ve done! But Faith must still be put through school. She must have a roof over her head and food on the table until she can become a doctor! I did what needed to be done!”

“Do you have any idea where those goods came from?”

“No, and I do not want to know.” He gripped the basement doorknob, blocking her path into the kitchen. “For your sake, you should not try to learn.”

“Edmund, you are not sweeping this under the rug.”

But Edmund didn’t hear her. He was speaking to himself. “You canna stay here; that much is certain. Maybe ... maybe the church will take you. Peter is working; you could stay with the church until you can find your own place. Maybe ...”