"It is I, Flintlock," he said quietly. "Chancellor Franklyn. Our visitors have arrived."
James, Albus, and Lucy crowded through the travelers, eager for a glimpse beyond the overgrown gate.
"It's just a yard," Albus complained. "Where's this big giant campus you were talking about?"
"It's not there yet," Franklyn answered.
"The Timelock!" Ralph said suddenly, remembering. "My dad told me about it last year! Excellent!"
"In time, Mr. Deedle," Franklyn smiled. "So to speak."
James pushed the vines aside and craned to look over Albus' shoulder. Sure enough, the space inside the wall was simply an old yard, choked with weeds and bits of trash. Only two objects seemed to occupy the space. One was a rather fat and overgrown willow tree. The other was a very large jagged boulder.
"He's asleep, Chancellor," Professor Burke sighed, turning away. "Shall I toss a rock at him?"
"You know how irritable he gets when we do such things," Franklyn replied impatiently. "Nobody likes having their own genetic material chucked at them. Let me try once more." Raising his voice a bit, Franklyn cried out again, "Flintlock! It is I, your Chancellor! Do wake up! Our guests are waiting!"
From the yard came a grating snort followed by a low grinding noise. James glanced around, looking for the source of the sound, and was surprised to see the boulder moving slightly. Apparently, it wasn't one boulder, but many smaller rocks piled together, for they began to move independently, not falling apart, exactly, but shifting position, forming a shape that looked strangely, teasingly alive.
"Cool!" Albus cried out suddenly, forgetting the quiet street around him. "It's a rock troll! I've always wanted to see a rock troll!"
The stony shape stood up and began to lumber toward the gate, moving ponderously but heavily, its footsteps shaking the ground faintly.
"Meet Flintlock," Franklyn said, gesturing with one hand. "Our security chief. He's been a part of Alma Aleron ever since… well since before my time. Isn't that right, Flintlock?"
The troll fished a large key from the depths of his rocky crevices and socked it into an iron padlock. In a deep grating voice, the troll said, "I came over with the Mayflower, sir. I remember it like it was yesterday."
Professor Burke smiled wearily. "Of course, in rock troll years, it probably was yesterday."
As the gates swung open, squeaking noisily, Albus peered up at the stony creature. "But you must weigh a thousand tons!" he exclaimed. "How would any boat carry you?"
"It didn't carry me," Flintlock replied slowly. He leaned forward, and in what passed as a whisper, he added, "I followed it."
The others passed by Albus as he stared up at the troll, wide-eyed, considering.
"To the Tree," Zane pointed. "This is the best part. Come on!"
Franklyn stopped, allowing everyone else to pass by in front of him. "Yes, yes, as Mr. Walker says, everyone under the Tree. I am sure we are all quite ready for this journey to be over."
James, Ralph, and Lucy joined Petra, Izzy, and the rest in the moonshade of the Tree's drooping branches. James no longer felt tired. Instead, he was filled with a certain giddy excitement, fuelled partly by the misty night air, and partly by the mystery of whatever was about to happen.
"He followed the Mayflower here!" Albus rasped, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder at Flintlock. "He just walked right along the bottom of the ocean, watching the ship way up on the surface! Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever heard in your life?"
"Isn't he coming with us?" Ralph asked, peering aside as the troll stumped back toward the gate, padlock in hand.
"No!" Albus answered, grinning. "He stays here all the time! ALL… the TIME! He says that sometimes Muggle teenagers climb over the walls, glass shards or not, looking for places to get into mischief. He bops 'em to sleep and tosses them in a nearby alley with an empty bottle or two, makes them think they just fell over drunk!"
"Let's see," Franklyn said, crowding under the Tree. "I daresay, what with our visitors, Professor Remora, and her returning students, we are exceeding the legal occupancy limit of the Warping Willow."
"Please, Chancellor," Remora sighed. "Even for creatures such as myself, it has been a very long night. Let us get it over with."
Franklyn nodded and produced a complicated brass instrument from the depths of his robes. James recognized it from his previous experience with the Chancellor. It consisted of various-sized lenses held in hinged loops. He twisted two of the lenses into alignment, raised the instrument, and peered through it at the moon.
"Ah yes," he said, and then muttered to himself, apparently doing calculations in his head. Finally, he nodded and pocketed the brass instrument. A moment later, he raised his wand and touched it gently to the gnarled trunk of the Tree. In a singsong voice, he said, "Warping Willow, take us hither, days and years or all or none. Wend your way, we travel thither, home to Alma Aleron."
Next to James, Ralph shifted nervously. "I know about Whomping Willows," he whispered, "but what's a Warping Willow do?"
Zane whispered back, "Have you ever seen a square-dance?"
"No!" Ralph rasped. "We've been through this already."
Zane bobbed his head back and forth. "Think about what the Zephyr did with up and down," he said quietly. "And now think of the Zephyr as the Warping Willow, and up and down as now and then."
"It's technomancy again, right?" Ralph moaned as the Tree began to move around them, shifting mysteriously, stirring wind in its long branches. "I hate technomancy."
A cool breeze whistled around the Tree's twisted trunk, threading through James' hair and making the branches sway and hiss. A dull crackle emanated from the depths of the Willow, sounding like pine knots in a fireplace.
In front of James, Izzy gasped. "Look!" she cried, pointing. "The sun's coming up!"
Zane peered at the pinkish glow as it expanded on the horizon. "I may be mistaken," he said, "but I think that's the sun going down. Er, in reverse."
The pink glow spread and brightened, turning orange, and then, sure enough, the sun peeked over the stone wall of the overgrown yard. The yellow orb climbed into the sky with eerie speed, casting hard shadows inside the yard, and then swiftly shortening them. Warm air blew through the Tree and James squinted, finding himself in a sudden hot noontime. The sun began to move faster, sliding back down the sky on the other side of the Warping Willow, which sighed and shushed all around, its branches swaying like curtains.