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Mum didn’t reply. She pressed a bell, adjusted her blazer, and pushed her hair back from her face.
“Don’t worry,” she said, and I didn’t know whether she meant me or herself.
The door hummed and opened, and we entered a bright room that looked like a perfectly ordinary office. Filing cabinets, desk, telephone, fax, computer … even the middle-aged blonde behind the desk didn’t look out of the ordinary. Her glasses were a bit alarming, that was all: jet black and with such big rims that the frames hid half her face.
“How can I help you?” she asked. “Oh, it’s you—Miss … Mrs. Montrose?”
“Shepherd,” Mum corrected her. “I married. I don’t use my maiden name anymore.”
“Ah, of course.” The woman smiled. “But you haven’t changed at all. I’d have known you anywhere by your hair.” Her glance fell briefly on me. “Is this your daughter? I expect she takes after her father. How are you…?”
Mum cut her short. “Mrs. Jenkins, I have to speak to my mother and Mr. de Villiers. It’s urgent.”
“I’m afraid your mother and Mr. de Villiers are in a meeting.” Mrs. Jenkins smiled regretfully. “Do you have much—”
Mum interrupted her again. “I want to be at that meeting.”
“Well … that … you know that’s not possible.”
“Then make it possible. Tell them I’m bringing the Ruby.”
“What? But…” Mrs. Jenkins looked from Mum to me and back again.
“Please just do as I say.” I’d never heard my mother sound so determined.
Mrs. Jenkins stood up and came around the desk. She examined me from head to foot, and I felt terrible in my ugly school uniform. I hadn’t washed my hair that morning, and it was just held back in a ponytail by a rubber band. I wasn’t wearing any makeup either. “Are you sure about this?”
“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I’d make some silly joke out of such a thing? Hurry, please. We may not have much time.”
“Well—please wait here.” Mrs. Jenkins turned and disappeared through another door between two shelves of files.
“The Ruby?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Mum. “Each of the time travelers is represented by a gemstone. You’re the Ruby.”
“How do you know?”
“The first pair Opal and Amber are, Agate sings in B flat, the wolf avatar, A duet—solutio!—with Aquamarine. Mighty Emerald next, with lovely Citrine. The Carnelian twins of the Scorpio sign, Number Eight is digestio, her stone is Jade fine. E major’s the key of the Black Tourmaline, Sapphire sings in F major, and bright is her sheen. Then almost at once comes Diamond alone, whose sign of the lion as Leo is known. Projectio! Time flows on, both present and past, Ruby red is the first and is also the last.” Mum looked at me with a rather sad smile. “I still know it off by heart.”
For some reason, her performance gave me goose bumps. It had sounded more like a magic spell than a poem, the kind of thing that wicked witches mutter in films while they stir a cauldron with green vapors rising from it.
“What’s all that supposed to mean?”
“It’s only a memory jingle, thought up by secretive old men to make something complicated sound even more complex,” said Mum. “Twelve numbers, twelve time travelers, twelve gemstones, twelve musical keys, twelve Zodiacal ascendants, twelve steps in the alchemical process of making the philosopher’s stone—”
“Philosopher’s stone? What’s that supposed to—?” I stopped short and sighed. I was tired of asking questions, and every answer left me more confused.
Mum didn’t seem to want to answer me either. She was looking out the window. “Nothing’s changed here, anyway. It’s as if time has stood still.”
“Did you come here a lot when you were younger?”
“My father sometimes brought me with him,” said Mum. “He was a bit more outgoing about it all than my mother. About the secrets too. I liked it here as a child. And then later, when Lucy…” She sighed.
For a while I wondered whether to ask more questions or not, and then my curiosity won out. “Great-aunt Maddy told me Lucy is another time traveler. Is that why she ran away?”
“Yes,” said Mum.
“And where did she run away to?”
