“I’m going to go back down to the party,” Rani tells me, after throwing a pair of pyjamas at me. “I was chatting with this stupidly, totally fit feller just before you threw wine at that poet and he is exactly my type.”
“I thought we’d agreed that your type is to be avoided at all costs,” I caution her. Rani has a habit of falling for guys who are charming but shallow.
“I know, but what’s the point of being in a fancy dress in a castle if I can’t flirt a bit!”
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“Alex... Beaumont,” she half mutters. “The next Lord of Castle Beaumont, or something, I dunno, whatevers.”
“Rani!” I muster a gasp! “You are flirting with aristocracy! It’s a dangerous game. One minute it’s all laughs, the next there’s a guillotine. I’ve read the books.”
“Not really, darling. It’s just a bit of fun,” Rani reassures me. “You’ll be okay, won’t you?”
“I will be asleep.” I nod.
“Promise me you’ll take that dress off first,” Rani reminds me. “It’s got to go back into stock tomorrow.”
“How much demand is there for looking like you are wearing a Cheeto?”
“I admit, I made the wrong selection that time, but tomorrow I shall bring you such fashion wonders as you have never seen!”
“I still don’t understand why I can’t just wear my normal stuff,” I mutter.
“Because your normal stuff is usually reserved for bedtime or insane asylums,” Rani tells me, opening my bedroom door. “Set your alarm!”
Once the heavy door has drawn shut, I crawl into my pj’s and then into bed. The mattress is soft and warm, and I like the way the heavy curtains around the bed make me feel cosy and safe. When I turn off the bedside lamp, I realise I forgot to draw the curtains, but I don’t mind. The moonlight streams in through the window, giving the room a silvery quality, and it is so, so quiet.
That’s when it hits me. The reason why Hal Babbage is the living embodiment of my perfect man. Since I was fourteen years old my perfect man was the male lead in a series of dystopian novels. Hal Babbage looks exactly like my teenage book boyfriend, Kai Raider from The Apocalypse Games. I mean exactly like.Weirdly exactly like. Reaching over the side of the bed, I feel around in my bag until I find my omnibus edition, which I reserve for travel, as my three original editions have been read so many times that now they are on the verge of falling apart, and I love those books like they are living things.
It’s hard to have anything that belongs to just you when you grow up in a children’s home. I had Lamby and when I was a little older The Apocalypse Games trilogy, which I protected with my life and once defended from attempted theft so violently that I broke my wrist. Still, the other kids knew not to mess with me after that.
Everything I know about life and love I learned from those books and Rani. I’d like to say the apocalypse survival stuff has never come in handy, but it’s increasingly looking like it might be useful to know how to make a bunker. And if there ever was a situation that required some teenagers to lead a revolt against fascism, then I’d know all the moves. But until today my dream of Kai Raider stayed firmly between the pages of my books, glowering and being misunderstood. Now I’ve met someone scarily similar to him in real life, I’m just as afraid of talking to him as I am with every other human being on Earth. As if a perfect specimen like him would be into a tall, awkwardly busty, ginger girl with skin so pale that you can’t look at it directly on a bright day without risking the health of your corneas. So, it’s probably bestto pretend he doesn’t exist. Probably best to tuck this book under my pillow and not compare Hal to Kai at all. Probably best to do what I do best: develop world-changing tech in a nice quiet room.
As soon as I think about FreeThought my body relaxes, and my mind starts to drift into a dream of ideas. He will certainly have something interesting to say about the Hal paradox. He always has something interesting to say.
Just then I notice one silvery patch of moonlight in the corner of the room, dancing and flickering like a flame right in the centre of the painting of the woman and the child. It seems to be getting bigger, longer, and brighter until it almost resembles the figure of... a woman. Long and misty, she seems to be wearing a gown, a blue gown.
“Are you a ghost?” I ask the figure gently, so as not to frighten it away. But the moment I talk to it, it seems to flare into a shower of sparks and fades away into a faintly sparkling dust.
Remember this when you wake up, I tell myself.You always did want to meet a ghost, and if you are going to do that anywhere it’s going to be here.
For a scientist I am oddly whimsical. It is what it is.
Chapter Four
I think my first mistake was taking a left at the foot of the grand staircase instead of a right, which takes me on an odyssey around the castle in a great big loop of opening and closing doors grand enough for your average giant to fit through. I admit I’m pretty happy to be lost, and seemingly alone as I take the unscheduled tour of the castle. Outside the huge windows I can see the day visitors begin to arrive, and gardeners working amongst the flowers, but every room I go into seems to be empty. The ballroom, sparkling so brightly you’d never guess there had been a party in it last night, seems to be made entirely of gold, where precious items are contained in alarm-activated cases. Most thrilling is the galleried library, withBeauty and the Beastladders on wheels and spiral metal staircases that take you to a sort of book balcony. I might have stayed in there, but as I was standing in the middle of the room, my hands covering my mouth in awe, a door opened and LadyB swept in in a pale pink trouser suit and light green chiffon scarf.
“Are you lost, Dr. Green?” she asks, her voice warm. “Everybody who stays with us gets lost at least once.”
“I suppose I was trying to find the dining room,” I tell her. “But being lost in here is really wonderful.”
“Well then, come and visit the library whenever you want. There are books here dating back to the 1500s.” She smiles, conspiratorially. “I’m not a great reader myself, but I do love this room. It sometimes feels as if the books are whispering to each other. Now, let me escort you to breakfast. I fear you might be the last to partake this morning. It is rather late, almost ten.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling mortified. “I slept through my alarm.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry,” she says, clasping my hand. “That wasn’t my intention. I was just worried you’d be eating alone! Tell me, how did you sleep? Did you meet the Blue Lady?”
The strange occurrence that happened just before I fell asleep comes back to me in a haze. “Maybe. Are you talking about the portrait?”
