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“You have a supercomputer,” he said. “And you’re using it to playSpace Invaders.”
“What does that mean?”
“‘Any door is every door.’ That’s what it says at the front of the book.”
“Yeah,” Cassie said. “I know.”
“No,” Drummond said, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t think you do. Doors don’t just exist now, do they? Doors exist all through time, all through human history.”
Cassie thought about that for a moment, and then, when she understood, her mind staggered backward, as if she had unexpectedly stumbled upon a huge canyon in the earth.
“People don’t want your book just because they can travel around the world,” Drummond continued, as Cassie’s mind raced. “Anybody with money can jump on a private jet and be anywhere else in twelve hours. You said your dream was to speak to your grandfather again. I can’t raise him from the dead, but you don’t need me to. The Book of Doors is all you need.”
Cassie blinked, trembling.
“You can open a door to the past, Cassie,” Drummond said. “That’s why people will want your book. Because it means you can travel in time.”
The Book in Cupboard Six, and Discussions in the Fox Library
In the kitchen, by himself, Drummond Fox found some ice cream in the freezer. He set it on the counter to thaw a little and made himself a cup of tea. It had been ten years since he had been in the Fox Library, in his home, and the last time he had been there he had been running scared, having seen the slaughter of his friends.
Drummond sat at the counter, in a pool of light thrown by the hanging lamp, surrounded by darkness, and opened the ice cream. It had been half eaten, of course—ice cream had never lasted long in Drummond’s home—but there was enough left to cheer him. He dug in and excavated a spoonful, letting it melt in his mouth.
“Shadow ice cream,” he murmured to himself, smiling a little. The ice cream didn’t taste like shadows, it tasted like a summer day—berries and sugar—as fresh as the day he had last eaten it. Things didn’t spoil or decay or grow dusty in the shadows.
Drummond kept eating, not thinking about anything, just enjoying the taste, the buzz of sugar in his system. Eating had always been one of his pleasures, and it had kept him going over the last ten years, while he had been moving constantly. In the darkest moments, he would stop at a restaurant or a diner, surround himself with the happy noises of otherpeople in their easy lives, and take his time over food. Those moments had been his respite, islands of peace in a stormy sea.
He ate his ice cream slowly, savoring it, and then returned the tub to the freezer. Then he picked up his mug, turned off the light, and carried his drink upstairs, through his library, and up the hidden staircase into the tower. He placed the mug down on the table and stood at the window for a moment, staring out at the familiar darkness. It was good to be home, good to be back where he felt safe and comfortable, even though he wasn’t really safe, and he was struggling to feel comfortable.
Drummond walked to one of the small cupboards hanging on the wall—number six—and opened it. He removed the book that was within and carried it over to the table, placing it down next to his mug. He put his hand on its surface, stroking it gently, and then opened the book. The pages were full of dense text and sketches, as they always had been, but the very front page was blank. The book was obviously a special book, that was why the library possessed it, why it had been part of the collection for quite some time, but nobody had ever been able to read it, or to understand what it could do. The instructions on the front page of the book had never appeared for any member of the Fox Library.
Drummond frowned and then reached for another book, a leather-bound volume that sat on the corner of the desk. It was the register of the library’s collection of special books. He turned to the relevant entry and double-checked exactly when the book in cupboard six had come into the possession of the Fox Library.
“‘April third,’” he read. “‘Nineteen-eighteen. Identified in Egypt, in excavations at Aswan.’”
He nodded. His memory had been correct. The book had been in the Fox Library for over a hundred years, safely locked away in cupboard number six. It had never left the library—there would have been an entry in the register—and indeed, the fact that the front page was still blank meant nobody in the history of the library had been able to read it.
Drummond shook his head, puzzling at the mystery.
Because the book lying in front of him was familiar. It was identical to the book Cassie had shown him in Lyon, the book she carried with her.
It was, Drummond was sure, the Book of Doors.
Drummond sipped his tea and smacked his lips. Tea always tasted better after something sweet. In the background he heard the sounds of the house, the creaking of old timbers, the wind whistling through gaps, and somewhere below him Cassie was likely lying awake, coming to terms with what he had told her not too long ago: the Book of Doors could let her travel in time.
“Time travel,” Drummond said to himself, stroking the book again.
Time travel had to explain it. If the Book of Doors could travel in time, it was possible for two versions of the same book to be in the same place and time together.
The fact that Cassie’s book had the text on the front page said to Drummond that it had to be a version of the book from later in its own timeline. The version of the book on the table in front of him was younger.
He narrowed his eyes as he worked through the knot.
That meant that at some point in the future, somehow, the Book of Doors would be taken from the Fox Library and would somehow end up in Cassie’s hands in the past, in New York City.
But how?
And when?
