Sapphire Blue (22 page)

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.

That was the lightbulb.

I was gradually coming to the conclusion that Gideon’s presence would at least be better than rats and ghosts. But he didn’t arrive. Instead the lightbulb flickered in its death throes.

When I was scared in the dark as a child, I always used to sing, and I automatically did that now. First very quietly, then louder and louder. After all, there was no one here to listen in on me.

Singing helped. I didn’t feel so scared, or so cold. After the first few minutes the lightbulb even stopped flickering. It started again when I began on Adele songs, and it didn’t seem to like Katy Perry, either. However, when I tried old Abba songs, it rewarded me with a steady, regular beam of light. A pity I couldn’t remember more of them, particularly the words. But the lightbulb was ready to accept
lalala, one chance in a lifetime, lalalala
.

I sang for hours, or that’s what it felt like. After “The Winner Takes It All,” Lesley’s ultimate unrequited-love song, I started again with “I Wonder.” I danced around the room at the same time so as not to get too cold. After the third encore of “Mamma Mia,” I felt sure that Gideon wasn’t going to turn up.

Damn. I could have stolen out of the cellar and gone upstairs after all. I tried “Head over Heels,” and when I got to “Wasting My Time,” he was suddenly standing there beside the sofa.

I closed my mouth and looked at him accusingly. “Why are you so late?”

“I imagine it seemed a long time to you.” His glance was still as cold and peculiar as a little while ago. He went over to the door and rattled the handle. “At least you had enough sense not to leave this room. You couldn’t know when I might come after you.”

“Ha, ha,” I said. “Is that meant to be a joke?”

Gideon leaned back against the door. “Gwyneth, you needn’t bother to act all innocent with me.”

I could hardly bear that chilly expression. The green eyes that I usually liked so much had gone the color of pea soup—the nasty sort we had in the school dining room, of course.

“Why are you being so … so horrible to me?” I asked. The lightbulb flickered again. It was probably missing my Abba songs. “You don’t by any chance have a lightbulb with you, I suppose?”

“It was the cigarette smoke that gave you away.” Gideon was playing with the flashlight he held in one hand. “So then I did a little research, and I put two and two together.”

I swallowed. “What’s so terrible about smoking a cigarette?”

“You didn’t. And you can’t tell lies half as well as you think. Where’s the key?”

“What key?”

“The key that Mr. George gave you so that you could visit him and your grandfather in 1956.” He took a step toward me. “If you’re clever, you’ve hidden it somewhere in here, if not, then it’s still on you.” He went right up to the sofa, picked up the cushions, and threw them on the floor one by one. “Well, it’s not here, anyway.”

I stared at him, horrified. “Mr. George didn’t give me any key! Really he didn’t. And as for the cigarette smoke, that’s totally—”

“It wasn’t just cigarette smoke. You’d been somewhere near a cigar as well,” he said calmly. He looked around the room, and his eyes lingered on the chairs stacked in front of the wall.

I was beginning to feel very cold again, and even the lightbulb seemed to be trembling worse than ever in sympathy. “I…,” I began uncertainly.

“Yes?” Now Gideon sounded positively friendly. “You smoked a cigar as well, did you? In addition to the three Marlboros? Is that what you were going to tell me?”

I said nothing.

Gideon bent down to shine the flashlight under the sofa. “Did Mr. George write the password on a piece of paper for you, or did you learn it by heart? And how did you get past the Cerberus Watch on the way back? They never mentioned it in the records.”

“What on earth do you think you’re talking about?” I said. I meant to sound outraged, but I’m afraid it came over more intimidated.

“Violet Purpleplum—what a very remarkable name, don’t you agree? Ever heard it before?” Gideon had straightened up again and was looking at me. No, greengage jelly wasn’t the right comparison for his eyes. They were a positively toxic green.

Slowly, I shook my head.

“That’s funny,” he commented. “And she’s a friend of your family, too. When I happened to mention the name to Charlotte, by chance, she told me kind Mrs. Purpleplum always knitted scratchy scarves for you all.”

Oh, damn Charlotte! Couldn’t she ever keep her mouth shut? “No, that’s wrong,” I said all the same. “She knits the scratchy ones specially for Charlotte. The rest of us get nice soft scarves.”

Gideon leaned against the sofa and crossed his arms. He shone the beam of the flashlight at the ceiling, where the bulb was still flickering nervously. “For the last time, where’s the key, Gwyneth?”

“Mr. George didn’t give me any key. I swear it,” I said, with a desperate attempt at damage limitation. “He doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Oh, no? I told you before, I don’t think you’re a good liar.” He shone the flashlight over the chairs. “If I were you I’d have tucked the key away behind a cushion somewhere.”

Okay, so let him search the cushions. At least that would give him something to do until we traveled back. It couldn’t be much longer now.

“On the other hand”—Gideon swung the beam around to shine it right on my face—“On the other hand, that might be a labor of Sisyphus.”

I stepped aside and said, angrily, “Stop it!”

“And we shouldn’t always draw conclusions from what we’d do ourselves,” Gideon went on. His eyes looked darker and darker in the flickering light, and suddenly I felt afraid of him. “Maybe you simply put the key in your jeans pocket. Give it here.” He put out his hand.

“I don’t
have
a key, damn it!”

Gideon came slowly toward me. “Again, if I were you, I’d hand it over of my own accord. But like I said, we shouldn’t draw conclusions about other people from ourselves.”

At that moment the lightbulb finally fizzled out and expired.

Gideon was right in front of me, the beam of the flashlight shining somewhere on the wall. Apart from that beam, which acted as a spotlight, it was pitch-dark. “Well?”

“Don’t you dare come any closer.” I took a couple of steps back, until I came up against the wall. The day before yesterday he couldn’t have been too close for my liking. But now I felt as if I were confronting a stranger. Suddenly I lost my temper. “What’s the matter with you?” I spat. “I haven’t done anything to you! I don’t see how you can kiss me one day and then hate me the next.
Why
?” My tears were coming so fast that I couldn’t keep them from streaming down my cheeks. A good thing he couldn’t see that in the dark.

“Maybe because I don’t like being told lies.” In spite of my warning, Gideon was advancing on me, and this time, I couldn’t retreat any further. “Particularly by girls who throw themselves at me one day and get me knocked over the head the next.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I
saw
you, Gwyneth.”

“What? Saw me where?”

“When I traveled back in time yesterday morning. I had a small errand to run, but I’d gone only a couple of yards when you were suddenly standing there in front of me—like a mirage. You looked at me and smiled as if you were pleased to see me. Then you turned and disappeared around the next corner.”

“When is this supposed to have been?” I was so confused that I stopped crying for a few seconds.

Gideon ignored my question. “When I went around the same corner a moment later, I was hit over the head, so I’m afraid I was in no position to have a conversation with you to clear things up.”

“You think … you think
I
knocked you out?” The tears were flowing again.

“No,” said Gideon. “I don’t think that. You weren’t holding anything when I saw you, and I doubt whether you could have hit so hard. No, you just lured me around the corner because someone was waiting for me there.”

Impossible. Totally, absolutely impossible.

“I’d never do a thing like that,” I finally managed to say reasonably clearly. “Never!”

“Yes, I was a little shocked myself,” said Gideon in an offhand tone. “When I was thinking we were … friends. But when you came back from elapsing yesterday evening smelling of cigarette smoke, it occurred to me that you might have been lying to me all along. Now, give me that key!”

I wiped the tears off my cheeks. Unfortunately more kept coming. I only just managed to suppress a sob, hating myself even more for crying. “If that’s true, then why did you tell everyone you hadn’t seen who hit you?”

“Because it’s true. I didn’t see who it was.”

“But you didn’t say anything about me, either. Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want Mr. George to … you’re not
crying
, are you?” The beam of the flashlight shone on my face again, dazzling me so that I had to close my eyes. I probably looked like a chipmunk, all stripy. Why had I bothered to put on mascara?

“Gwyneth.” Gideon switched off the flashlight.

Now what? A body search in the dark?

“Go away,” I said, sobbing. “I do
not
have any key on me, I swear I don’t. And whoever you saw, it can’t have been me. I would never,
never
let anyone hurt you.”

Although I couldn’t see a thing, I sensed that Gideon was standing right in front of me. His body warmth was like a radiant heater in the darkness. When his hand touched my cheek, I flinched. He quickly withdrew it again.

“I’m sorry,” I heard him whisper. “Gwen, I…” Suddenly he sounded helpless, but I was far too upset to feel any kind of satisfaction.

I don’t know how much time passed as we simply stood there. I was still shedding floods of tears. Whatever he was doing, I couldn’t see it.

After a while, he switched the flashlight on again, cleared his throat, and shone the beam on his watch. “Another three minutes before we travel back,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You’d better come away from that corner, or you’ll be landing on the chest in the chronograph room.” He went back to the sofa and picked up the cushions he had thrown on the floor. “You know, of all the Guardians, Mr. George has always struck me as one of the most loyal. Someone to be trusted whatever happened.”

“But Mr. George really didn’t have anything at all to do with it,” I said, hesitantly moving away from my corner. “It wasn’t like that at all.” I mopped the tears off my face with the back of my hand. I’d better tell him the truth so that at least he couldn’t suspect poor Mr. George of disloyalty. “When I was sent to elapse alone for the first time, I met my grandfather here by chance.” Okay, maybe not the
whole
truth. “He was looking for the wine cel—well, never mind that. It was a peculiar meeting, especially once we’d realized who we were. He left the key and the password in hiding in this room for my next visit, so that we could talk again. And that’s why yesterday, I mean in 1956, I borrowed the name of Violet Purpleplum when I came back here. To meet my grandfather! He’s been dead for a few years now, and I miss him dreadfully. Wouldn’t you have done the same if you could? Talking to him again was so…” I fell silent once more.

Gideon said nothing. I stared at his outline and waited.

“How about Mr. George, then? He was already your grandfather’s assistant at the time,” he said at last.

“I did see him, but not for long, and my grandfather told him I was his cousin Hazel. He must have forgotten that ages and ages ago—to him it was an unimportant meeting a good fifty-five years in the past.” I put my hand on my midriff. “I think…”

“So do I,” said Gideon. He reached out his hand, but then obviously thought better of it. “Any moment now,” he said, lamely. “Come another step or so this way.”