A minute is sixty seconds.
An hour is sixty minutes.
A day is twelve hours.
A day and a night is twenty-four hours.
Augusta opened the bundle and looked at the little locket. Some images appeared in her mind: Her first croquet game. The corpse in the grey suit. The watch. The page who told her about time. A thirst to know how it worked. What is time? she wrote under the first note. Is it here?
Augusta took the watch and left her room. She wandered down to the orangery, which was lit from inside. Tendrils of steam rose from the roof. Inside, three enormous mounds lay on couches. The Aunts were as always immersed in their holy task to fatten. Three girls hovered around them, tiny in comparison. The girls were servants and successors, keeping the Aunts fed until they eventually perished, and then taking their places to begin the process anew. Augusta opened the watch, peeking at the clock face. The longest hand moved slowly, almost imperceptibly.
She walked from the orangery to the outskirts of the apple orchard, and from there to Porla’s fen; then to the dog-rose shrubs in the woods outside Mnemosyne’s court. Everywhere, the hands on the clock face moved; sometimes forward, sometimes backward. Sometimes they lifted from the clock face, hitting the glass protecting it, as if trying to escape.
Augusta woke up in Azalea’s arms, under a canopy in Our Lady’s arbour. The orgy they were visiting was still going on; there were low cries and the sound of breaking glass. Augusta couldn’t remember what they had been doing, but she felt sore and bloated, and her sister was snoring very loudly. She was still wearing her shirt. Something rustled in her left breast pocket; she dug it out. It was a note. A little map, seemingly drawn in her own hand. Below the map was written a single sentence: The places float just like time. She had been wandering around, drawing maps and measuring distances. At some point. Mnemosyne’s garden had first been on the right-hand side from Augusta’s rooms. The next time she had found herself walking straight ahead to get there. The places floated. Augusta turned the note over. On the other side were the words: Why is there time here? Why does it flow differently in different places? And if the places float, what is the nature of the woods?
She returned to her rooms in a state of hangover. Papers were strewn everywhere it seemed: on and under the bed, on the dresser, in droves on the writing desk. Some of the notes were covered in dust. She couldn’t remember writing some of them. But every word was in her own handwriting.
There was a stranger in Mnemosyne’s court, towering over the other guests. She was dressed in simple robes, hooded and veiled, golden yellow eyes showing through a thin slit. They shone down on Walpurgis, who made a feeble attempt to offer her a croquet club. Everyone else gave the stranger a wide berth.
“It is a djinneya. She is visiting Mnemosyne to trade information,” the twins mumbled to Augusta.
“We wonder what information that is,” Vergilia added.
“Those creatures know everything,” Hermine said.
The djinneya sat by Mnemosyne’s side during the whole game, seemingly deep in conversation with her hostess. Neither the twin’s spectacular knock-out of Walpurgis nor Azalea’s attempt to throttle one of the pages caught her attention. Having been knocked out with a ball over her left knee, Augusta retreated to a couch where she wrote an invitation.
Augusta was woken at her writing desk by a knock at her door. A cloaked shape entered without asking permission. The djinneya seemed even taller indoors.
“Come in,” said Augusta.
The djinneya nodded, unfastening the veil. Her skin was the colour of fresh bruises. She grinned with a wide mouth, showing deep blue gums and long teeth filed into points.
“I thank you for your invitation, Augusta Prima.”
She bent over Augusta’s bed, fluffing the pillows, and sat down. A scent of sweat and spice spread in the room.
“You wanted to converse.”
Augusta straightened, looking at the papers and notes on her desk. She remembered what it was she wanted to ask.
“You and your sort, you travel everywhere. Even beyond the woods. You know things.”
The djinneya flashed her toothy smile.
“That we do.”
“I would like to know the nature of time,” Augusta said. “I want to know why time can’t be measured properly here, and why everything moves around.”
The djinneya laughed.
“Your kind doesn’t want to know about those things. You can’t bear it.”
“But I do. I want to know.”
The djinneya raised her thin eyebrows.
“Normally, you are tedious creatures,” she said. “You only want trivial things. Is that person dead yet? Does this person still love that person? What did they wear at yesterday’s party? I know things that could destroy worlds, and all you wish to know is if Karhu from Jumala is still unmarried.”
She scratched her chin.
“I believe this is the first time one of your sort has asked me a good question. It’s an expensive one, but I shall give you the answer. If you really are sure.”
“I have to know,” said Augusta. “What is the nature of the world?”
The djinneya smiled with both rows of teeth.
“Which one?”
Augusta woke up by the writing desk. The hangover throbbed behind her temples. She had fallen asleep with her head on an enormous stack of papers. She peered at it, leafing through the ones at the top. There are eight worlds, the first one said. They lie side by side, in degrees of perfection. This world is the most perfect one. Below these lines, written in a different ink, was: There is one single world, divided into three levels which are partitioned off from each other by greased membranes. Then in red ink: There are two worlds and they overlap. The first is the land of Day, which belongs to the humans. The second is the land of Twilight, which belongs to the free folk, and of which the woods is a little backwater part. Both lands must obey Time, but the Twilight is ruled by the Heart, whereas the Day is ruled by Thought. At the bottom of the page, large block letters proclaimed: ALL OF THIS IS TRUE.
It dawned on Augusta that she remembered very clearly. The endless parties, in detail. The finding of the corpse, the short periods of clarity, the notes. The djinneya bending down to whisper in her ear.
A sharp yellow light stung Augusta’s eyes. She was sitting at her writing desk in a very small room with wooden walls. A narrow bed with tattered sheets filled the rest of the space. The writing desk stood beneath a window. On the other side of the glass, the woods bathed in light.
There was a door next to the bed. Augusta opened it, finding herself in a narrow hallway with another door at the end. A full-length mirror hung on the opposite wall. It showed a woman dressed in what had once been a blue surtout and knee pants. The fabrics were heavily stained with dirt and greenish mold and in some places worn through. Concentric rings of sweat radiated from the armpits. The shirt front was stiff with red and brown stains. Augusta touched her face. White powder lay in cracked layers along her nose and cheeks. Deep lines ran between her nose and mouth; more lines spread from the corners of her eyes. A golden chain hung from her breast pocket. She pulled on it, swinging the locket into her hand. It was ticking in a steady rhythm.