AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Wait, Charlotte…”
I quickly retreated back around the corner and leaned against the wall. Charlotte had come out of the Dragon Hall, with Gideon behind her. I’d just had time to see that he was holding her arm. I hoped they hadn’t noticed me.
“This is all so embarrassing and humiliating,” said Charlotte.
“No, it isn’t. It’s not your fault.” How gentle and friendly his voice could sound!
He’s in love with her, I thought, and for some silly reason, that made me feel a slight pang. I pressed even closer to the wall, although I’d have liked to see what the two of them were doing. Holding hands?
Charlotte seemed inconsolable. “Phantom symptoms! I could sink into the ground. I really did think it was going to happen any moment—”
“That’s exactly what I’d have thought myself in your place,” said Gideon. “Your aunt must be crazy to have kept quiet about it all these years. And I really do feel sorry for your cousin.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Well, think about it! How on earth is she going to manage? She hasn’t the faintest idea.… How will she ever catch up with all the things you and I have been learning for the last ten years?”
“Yes, poor Gwyneth,” said Charlotte. Somehow she didn’t sound really sorry for me. “But she does have her strong points.”
Oh. Well, that was nice of her.
“Giggling with her girlfriend, sending text messages, rattling off the entire cast list of films—she’s really good at that sort of thing.”
Not so nice after all.
I cautiously peeped around the corner.
“I thought as much when I first saw her earlier today,” said Gideon. “Hey, I’m really going to miss you.”
Charlotte sighed. “We had fun, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but think of all the new opportunities open to you, Charlotte! I envy you that! You’re free now. You can do anything you like.”
“I never wanted anything but this!”
“That was because you had no choice,” said Gideon. “But now the whole world’s before you. You can study abroad, you can go on long journeys, while I can’t be away from that damn … from the chronograph for more than a day, and I spend my nights in the safety of the year 1953. Believe me, I’d happily change places with you!”
The door of the Dragon Hall opened again, and Lady Arista and Aunt Glenda came out into the corridor. I quickly withdrew my head again.
“They’ll regret this yet,” Aunt Glenda was saying.
“Glenda, please! We’re a family, after all,” said Lady Arista. “We must stick together.”
“You’d better tell that to Grace,” said Aunt Glenda. “She’s the one who got us all into this mess. Protect her! Ha! No one in possession of their senses would believe a word she says! Not after all that’s happened. Still, it’s not our problem anymore. Come along, Charlotte.”
“I’ll see you to the car,” said Gideon.
I waited until the sound of their footsteps had died away, and then I ventured to leave my listening post. Lady Arista was still standing there, rubbing her forehead wearily with one finger. She suddenly looked as old as the hills, not her usual self at all. The ramrod-straight, ballet-teacher look seemed to have deserted her, and even her features weren’t as composed as usual. I felt sorry for her.
“Hello,” I said quietly. “Are you all right?”
My grandmother straightened up at once. Everything about her seemed to slip back into place and stay there.
“Ah, there you are,” she said, inspecting me. Her critical gaze went to my blouse. “Is that a dirty mark? Child, you really must learn to take a little more pride in your appearance.”
The intervals between episodes of time travel differ from one gene carrier to another, unless they are controlled by the chronograph. While the observations of Count Saint-Germain led him to conclude that female gene carriers travel back considerably less often, and for shorter periods, than their male counterparts, our experience to date does not allow us to confirm his findings.
The duration of uncontrolled time travel episodes has been shown, since observations were first made, to vary from eight minutes, twelve seconds (the initiation journey of Timothy de Villiers, 5 May 1892), to two hours, four minutes (Margaret Tilney, second journey, 22 March 1894).
