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“So there we are, then,” said Lucas quietly. “Am I … er … a nice grandpa?”
I felt a prickling in my nose as I fought back tears. So I just nodded.
“All the other time travelers arrive by chronograph officially and in comfort up in the Dragon Hall or in the documents room,” said Lucas. “Why did you pick this gloomy old laboratory?”
“I didn’t pick it.” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “I didn’t even know it was a laboratory. In my time it’s just a normal cellar, with a safe where they keep the chronograph.”
“Really? Well, it’s not been a laboratory for a long time,” said Lucas. “But originally this room was used as a secret alchemy lab. It’s one of the oldest rooms in the whole building. Famous London alchemists and magicians worked here searching for the philosopher’s stone hundreds of years before the Lodge of Count Saint-Germain was even founded. You can still see eerie drawings and mysterious formulas on the walls here and there, and it’s said that the walls are so thick because bones and skulls are built into them.” He stopped, biting his own lower lip. “So you’re my granddaughter. May I ask which of my … er, my children is your mother or father?”
“My mum is called Grace,” I said. “She looks like you.”
Lucas nodded. “Lucy told me about Grace. She says she was the nicest of my children, the others were boring.” His mouth twisted. “I can’t imagine having boring children—or any children at all, come to that.”
“Maybe they inherited it from your wife, not you,” I murmured.
Lucas sighed. “Since Lucy first turned up here a couple of months ago, everyone’s been winding me up because she has red hair, just like a girl I’m … er, interested in. But Lucy wouldn’t tell me who I’m going to marry, because she thinks I might change my mind. And then none of you would be born.”
“I expect the time-travel gene that your future wife must be going to pass on matters more than her hair color,” I said. “You ought to have been able to identify her that way.”
“That’s the funny thing about it.” Lucas sat a little further forward on his chair. “There are two girls from the Jade Line who seem to me really … well, attractive. The Guardians have classified them as observation numbers Four and Eight.”
“Oh,” I said.
“You see, the fact is that at this moment I can’t really decide. Maybe a little hint from you might help me.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “If you say so. My grandmother, that’s your wife, is La—”
“No!” cried Lucas. He had raised both arms to stop me saying more. “I’ve changed my mind.” He scratched his head, looking awkward. “That’s the St. Lennox school uniform, isn’t it? I recognize the crest on the buttons.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I said, looking down at my dark blue blazer. Madame Rossini had obviously washed and ironed my things. At least, they looked like new and smelled slightly of lavender. She must also have done something clever with the blazer, because it was a much more elegant fit now.
“My sister, Madeleine, goes to St. Lennox, too. She won’t be leaving until the end of this year because the war got in the way.”
“Aunt Maddy? I didn’t know that.”
“All the Montrose girls go to St. Lennox. Lucy too. She had the same school uniform as you. Maddy’s is dark green and white, and the skirt is checked.…” Lucas cleared his throat. “In case you’re interested … but we’d better concentrate on working out why we’re meeting here. So assuming you wrote that note—”
“Will be writing it!”
“—and you’ll be leaving it for me on one of your future time-travel trips, why do you think you did it?”
“You mean why will I be doing it?” I sighed. “It must make some kind of sense. You can probably tell me a lot. But then again, I don’t know.…” Baffled, I looked at my young grandfather. “Do you know Lucy and Paul well?”
“Paul de Villiers has been coming here to elapse since January. He’s grown two years older in that time, which is rather creepy. And Lucy came for the first time in June. I usually look after them both when they visit. As a rule, it’s very amusing. I can help them with their homework. I must say, Paul is the only de Villiers I’ve ever liked.” He cleared his throat again. “But if you come from the year 2011, you must know them both. Funny to think they’re nearly forty by now.… You must give them my regards.”
“I can’t do that.” Oh, dear, this whole thing was so complicated. And I probably ought to be careful what I said, when I myself didn’t really understand what was going on. My mother’s words were still ringing in my ears. Trust no one! Not even your own feelings! But I simply had to trust someone, and who better than my grandfather? I decided to stake everything on a single card. “I can’t give Lucy and Paul your regards. They stole the chronograph and traveled back into the past with it.”
“What?” Lucas’s eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Why would they have done that? I can’t believe it. They’d never … When is this supposed to have happened?”
“Nineteen ninety-four,” I said. “The same year I was born.”
“In 1994 Paul will be twenty, and Lucy eighteen,” said Lucas, more to himself than to me. “In two years’ time, then. Because now she’s sixteen and he’s eighteen.” He smiled apologetically. “Well, of course I don’t mean now, I only mean their now when they come to this year to elapse.”
“I haven’t had much sleep the last couple of nights, so I get the feeling my brain is nothing but candy floss,” I said. “And I’m useless at arithmetic anyway.”
“Lucy and Paul are … Oh, what you’re telling me makes no sense. They’d never do anything so … so outrageous.”
“But they did. I thought you might be able to tell me why. In my own time, everyone keeps telling me that they’re wicked. Or crazy. Or both. Anyway, dangerous. When I met Lucy, she said I ought to ask you about the Green Rider. Okay. So who or what’s the Green Rider?”
