AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t see what you’re getting at, Gideon,” said Mr. Whitman. “But I would suggest you go up to Madame Rossini now. Mr. George and I will look after Gwyneth.”
Gideon looked at me again. “Let me make the following suggestion: I get the fitting over with, and then you can simply send me on to join Gwyneth, never mind where or when. Then even if it’s night, she won’t have to be scared of anything.”
“Except you,” said Xemerius.
“You’ve already fulfilled your quota for today,” pointed out Mr. Whitman. “However, if Gwyneth is afraid…” He looked at me sympathetically.
I couldn’t bear him a grudge for that. I supposed that I really did look kind of terrified. My heart was still in my mouth, and I was totally unable to say anything.
“Well, I don’t mind if we do it that way,” said Mr. Whitman, shrugging. “Any objections, Thomas?”
Mr. George slowly shook his head, although he looked as if he wanted to do the opposite.
A smile of satisfaction spread over Gideon’s face, and he finally moved from his rigid position beside the door. “See you later, then,” he told me triumphantly. It sounded like a threat.
When the door closed behind him, Mr. Whitman sighed. “He’s been acting very strangely since he got that knock on the head, don’t you think, Thomas?”
“Definitely very strangely,” said Mr. George.
“Maybe we should talk to him, mention the tone to be taken with senior members of the Lodge,” said Mr. Whitman. “For his age, he is extremely … ah, well. He’s under great pressure. We have to take that into consideration.” He looked at me encouragingly. “Well, are you ready, Gwyneth?”
I stood up. “Yes,” I said. I was lying through my teeth.
The raven red, on ruby pinions winging
its way between the worlds, hears dead men singing.
It scarce knows its strength, the price it scarce knows,
but its power will arise and the Circle will close.
The lion—as proud as the diamond bright,
Though the spell may be clouding that radiant light—
In the death of the sun what’s amiss will then mend,
While the raven, in dying, discloses the end.
FROM THE SECRET WRITINGS OF COUNT SAINT-GERMAIN
NINE
I HADN’T ASKED what year they’d sent me to, because it made no difference anyway. In fact, the place looked the same as on my last visit. The green sofa still stood in the middle of the room, and I cast it an angry glance, as if everything was all that sofa’s fault. Chairs were stacked up against the wall where Lucas had made his hiding place for the key, the same as last time, and I struggled with myself. Should I clear out the hiding place? If Gideon suspected its existence—and he definitely did—then searching the room was the first thing he’d think of, right? I could put the contents of the hidey-hole behind the loose brick out in the corridors somewhere, and come back into the room before Gideon arrived.
I began frantically pushing the chairs aside, but then I changed my mind. First, I couldn’t hide the key outside the room, because I’d have to lock the door again, and second, even if Gideon did find the hiding place, how was he going to prove that it was meant for me? I’d simply make myself look silly.
Carefully, I put the chairs back where they had been before, wiping away any telltale traces I’d left in the dust. Then I made sure the door really was locked and sat down on the green sofa.
I was feeling rather like I did four years ago over that frog incident, when Lesley and I had to wait in Mr. Gilles the principal’s room until he had time to tell us off. We hadn’t really done anything wrong. It was Cynthia who had run over the frog on her bike. She didn’t seem to have any guilty conscience about it—“It was only a silly old frog”—so Lesley and I got angry and decided to avenge the frog. We were going to bury it in the park, but first, since it was dead already, we thought it might shake Cynthia up and make her a little more sensitive to frogs in future if she saw it again in her soup. No one could have guessed that the sight would send her into a fit of hysterical screaming.… Mr. Gilles, anyway, had treated us like a couple of serious offenders, and unfortunately he had never forgotten the incident. If he met us somewhere in the corridors, even today, he always said, “Aha, the evil-minded frog girls,” and then we felt terrible all over again.
I closed my eyes for a moment. There was no reason for Gideon to treat me like that. I hadn’t done anything bad. They all kept saying I wasn’t to be trusted, they blindfolded me, no one would answer my questions—so it was only natural for me to try finding out what was really going on here for myself, wasn’t it?
Where was Gideon, anyway? The electric bulb hanging from the ceiling was fizzing; the light flickered for a moment. It was very cold down here. Maybe they’d sent me to one of those cold postwar winters that Aunt Maddy was always talking about. Great. Winters when the water pipes froze and dead animals lay about the streets frozen stiff. I tested my breath to see if it would form little white clouds in the air in front of me. But it didn’t.
The light flickered again. I was getting scared. Suppose I suddenly found myself sitting here in the dark? This time no one had thought of giving me a flashlight—in fact you couldn’t say I’d been treated with any consideration at all. I felt sure the rats would come out of their holes in the dark. Maybe they were hungry … and where there were rats, cockroaches wouldn’t be far behind. Then there was the ghost of the one-armed Knight Templar, the one Xemerius had mentioned. He might feel like taking a little trip down here.
Fzzzzz.
