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Just as I might have expected. Oh, great!
“Gwyneth!” called Gideon. “Finally!”
Cynthia, Sarah, and Gordon collectively held their breath. To be honest, so did I. Only Lesley kept her cool. She gave me a little push. “Hurry up, will you? Your limousine is waiting.”
As I went down the steps, I could feel the others’ eyes on my back. Their mouths were probably open, too. Gordon’s was for sure.
“Hi,” I said when I had reached Gideon. It was all I could manage to say. In the sunlight his eyes were a brighter green than ever.
“Hi.” He was looking at me rather too closely. “Have you grown overnight?”
“No.” I tugged the jacket together over my breasts. “It’s my school uniform that’s shrunk.”
Gideon grinned. Then he looked over my shoulder. “Friends of yours up there? I think one of them’s about to faint.”
Oh, my God. “That’s Cynthia Dale,” I said, without turning around. “She suffers from high estrogen levels. I can introduce you if you’d like.”
Gideon’s smile grew wider. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that some other time. Now, come on. We have a lot still to do today.” He took my arm (a loud squeal could be heard from the steps) and guided me toward the limousine.
“I’m only going to do homework. In the year 1956.”
“There’s been a change of plan.” Gideon opened the car door for me. (A synchronized screech from the steps.) “We’re going to visit your great-great-grandmother. She specially asked for you to come along.” He put his hand on my back to get me into the car. (Another screech from the steps.)
I let myself fall into the back seat. There was a familiar, round face already in the car, waiting for me.
“Hello, Mr. George.”
“Gwyneth, my brave girl, how are you feeling today?” Mr. George was beaming as if in competition with his shiny bald patch.
Gideon sat down beside him.
“I’m … er, fine, thank you.” I went red, because I was thinking what a picture of misery I must have been yesterday evening. At least Gideon hadn’t made any cutting reference to that. He was acting as if nothing at all had happened.
“What was that about my great-great-grandmother?” I hurried to ask. “I didn’t really understand.”
“No, we didn’t entirely understand it ourselves,” said Gideon, sighing.
The limousine moved away. I resisted the temptation to look at my friends through the back window.
“Margaret Tilney, née Grand, was the grandmother of your grandmother Arista, and the last time traveler in the female line before Lucy and you. The Guardians were able to read her into the first, original chronograph without any problems after her second journey back in time. That was in 1894. For the rest of her life—she died in 1944—she elapsed regularly with the aid of the chronograph. The Annals describe her as very friendly and cooperative.” Mr. George nervously passed his hand over his bald patch. “During the bombing of London in the Second World War, a group of Guardians went out into the country with her and the chronograph. She died there of pneumonia at the age of sixty-seven.”
“How … how sad.” I didn’t understand exactly what I was supposed to make of this information.
“As you know, Gideon has already visited seven of the Circle of Twelve in the past and taken a little of their blood for the new chronograph. Six if we count the twins as one. So with your blood and his, only four of the Circle are still missing. Opal, Jade, Sapphire, and Black Tourmaline.”
“Elaine Burghley, Margaret Tilney, Lucy Montrose, and Paul de Villiers,” added Gideon.
“Those four have to be visited in the past and a little blood taken from each of them.” I’d grasped that idea by now; I wasn’t entirely clueless.
“Exactly. We didn’t think there could be any complications with Margaret.” Mr. George leaned back in his seat. “With the others, yes, but there was no reason to assume that there’d be any difficulty with Margaret Tilney. The course of her life was closely recorded by the Guardians. We know where she was on every single day of it. That’s why it was also easy to arrange a meeting between her and Gideon. He traveled back last night to the year 1937, to meet Margaret Tilney at our house in the Temple.”
“Last night? Really? For goodness’ sake, when did you get any sleep?”
“It was supposed to be a very quick visit,” said Gideon. He crossed his arms over his chest. “We’d planned only an hour for the whole operation.”
Mr. George said, “But contrary to our expectations, when Gideon had explained the reasons, Margaret refused to let him have any of her blood.” He looked expectantly at me. Was I supposed to say something?
“Maybe … er … maybe she just didn’t understand you,” I said. After all, it was a very intricate story.
