YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD, SARAH. NO ONE IS LEFT. NO ONE HEARS YOU BUT ME. WE CAN CONVERSE NOW. YOU AND ME. SARAH AND JANUS. YOUR LORD. YOUR MASTER.
Terrified, she slammed the book shut and stared at its cover, her heart thudding. For a long moment she sat there, fighting against fear and despair. Was it true? Were they all gone? If so, it was all up to her.
She jumped up, crammed the pen and book back into the secret space under the floorboard, and raced downstairs.
Piers, wearing an apron with a huge red sauce bottle on it, was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink.
“Sarah, good,” he said at once. “Venn wants you to be there tonight. The Monk’s Walk, at eight o’clock.”
Her heart missed a beat. “Already?”
“He’s desperate to get the thing working again.”
She began to wipe the dishes and put them away. There was so much to ask, but she had to be careful. “The thing?”
Piers grinned. “You’d never make an interrogator, Sarah. If you want to know details, speak to Venn. But he’s heading out again, so you’ll have to wait.”
“I thought he never left the estate.”
“Maybe the estate is bigger than you think. Maybe it contains the whole universe.” He tossed a peeled potato into a saucepan with perfect accuracy.
Calm, she said, “I’m really sorry, but I’m afraid a mirror got broken this morning. Up in the Long Gallery.”
He turned and looked at her.
“Jake…slipped against it. It cracked.”
“Thirteen years bad luck.” He looked utterly dismayed.
“Yes. It’s a pity. Especially as there aren’t any mirrors anywhere else.”
Now she felt better because he was the one wanting to ask the questions. He said gloomily, “Damn. Damn damn damn. I was supposed to get rid of them all. If Venn finds out he’ll hurl me halfway around the world….”
“He won’t. Not from me.” She sat. “Jake said he saw his father’s reflection in it. I think he’s a bit obsessed with his father, don’t you?”
Piers still seemed worried about punishment. So she said, “Who’s the scarred man?”
“What?”
“The scarred man. Something Venn said.”
But he was too quick for her; already he was slicing another potato and flicking it into the pot.
“Absolutely no idea,” he said, grinning.
Annoyed at the lie, she got up and stalked to the door. “Suit yourself.”
But walking down the corridor, she thought fast. Let herself smile. She’d never have a better chance than now to get at the box.
The small study on the ground floor was empty. She stood inside, listening to the silence. The sun slanted in, a faint wintry glimmer from the window she had climbed through yesterday.
The room smelled of ashes, and the grate held the gray, flaked remains of burned logs.
She closed the door and locked herself in. Then she crossed to the bureau, opened the small cupboard, and felt through the papers and files until she found the box.
She pulled it out. The initials JHS gleamed in the sunlight. She took it to the window seat and perched on the faded red upholstery. Then she opened the box and carefully took out the journal.
It was a small fat notebook, much worn. The covers were black cloth, stained with greasy finger marks. It had clearly once been badly damaged by fire—the edges of later pages were crisped brown and in places whole chunks were burned away.
She opened it. The handwriting was spiky and formal in flowing brown ink. It was difficult to read at first, until her eyes got used to it. Venn must have made a transcript long ago. But she didn’t have time to find that—she’d have to do her best with this.
It was amazing to be holding it here, in her hands.
She read the first page.
June 24, 1846
My name is John Harcourt Symmes. On this day I begin my book of the Chronoptika.
The details of all the processes are in the appendix; my notes on the obtaining of the precious metals and the meteoric materials will be found in the red leather binders which accompany this. Here, I propose to record only my personal observations and the details of every demonstration I conduct with the device, every success and failure, because I have learned that to fail is as important as to succeed. I am determined to write everything down. I am not afraid. It will be a tragedy for the world to lose what I have discovered.
Sarah glanced up. The grandfather clock whirred; now it chimed, eleven soft notes. Piers was busy; Venn out. She had time. She curled up on the window seat and read quickly.
Jake sat on a bench in the cloister. He leaned his head back against the cold stone and shivered, because the morning was bitterly cold. But he needed to think.
Of course Sarah had seen the face in the mirror. So why deny it? Was she scared? Of Venn? And who was she? Certainly not Piers’s niece.
Something tapped his boot and he glanced down quickly. A brown hen cocked its head and looked at him with one bright eye.
“Buk,” it said.
Jake jerked his foot and the hen squawked away.
He needed to find his father’s room. There might be something there, some message left for him, some clue. He needed to act, not sit here and let the ghost-face and his father’s terrified voice eat into his energy.
Venn. Surely he had heard that.
A door clicked. He jumped up and scrambled behind a pillar just as Venn came into the cloister. He wore a long coat, and strode quickly down the arcade, his tall shape flickering through the trefoiled arches. At the end he unlocked an iron-bolted door and ducked out, into the grounds.
Jake moved out stealthily after him. Here was a chance to get him alone. Outside. Make him answer.
Beyond the door was a flight of stone steps. Venn was already down them, brushing through the wintry wastes of an herb garden, the frost-blackened twigs snapping as he passed. Sharp scents of last summer’s lavender came to Jake as he slipped along the path. At the end was an iron gate; Venn opened it and it clanged behind him.
Reaching it, Jake saw Venn enter the Wood.
He closed the gate, but the clank made him look down, and he saw that the whole thing was hung with metal objects. Rusty bells and crosses, knives, even broken shears clattered against each other like some bizarre charm bracelet. He stared at them, noting the iron strip hammered down across the threshold.
What was Venn keeping out?
He ran to the edge of the Wood and crept in. It was dank and chilly. Venn was far ahead; Jake slunk after him, wishing he’d brought a coat. The track led down between gnarled bare oaks, their heaped leaves slabbed with frozen puddles. He stepped on one; it wheezed and cracked.
Venn looked back.
Jake froze, deep in shadow, praying the low sun would be in the man’s eyes. After a moment Venn turned and walked on. Jake followed more warily. Now he didn’t want to catch up. He wanted to see where Venn was going.
What if his father was being held prisoner somewhere in the Wood? If Venn was heading there now?
The path led deep into green gloom. Soon it was no more than a narrow trail, soft with humps and hollows. He slowed, eyes and ears alert. The Wood darkened around him. It had become a thicket of thorns and brambles, impassible; above him the canopy of branches a closed lacework against the sky. Great roots sprawled across the track; he could hear only his own breath and the soft trickle of water in some hidden ditch to his left. His foot splashed a muddy spring.
Breathless, he stopped. Venn was too far ahead to see.
Suddenly panicky, he turned. To his astonishment there was no way back. Branches clustered behind him; he took a step toward them. Brambles blocked his way. He reached out and pushed them, and they snagged at his hand.