"They must be magnetic," she said, her heart beating faster.
"The chains are gold."
At that moment they heard footsteps in the corridor. "Ryan, are you there?" called Arthur Field. They both turned.
Aldebaran opened his mouth, then could not speak. The silver eagle was lying on the table. His dead brother"s photograph was beside it. "This picture is Anna"s grandfather," said Ryan, standing up. "And this is the necklace that her grandmother found on Graysands Beach."
There was a silence. Then Aldebaran approached the table. "Of course the necklace would go to a relative of Harold"s," he muttered, shaking his head. "Of course. There tends to be an order to these things."
He picked up the necklace and turned it over in his hand, then looked up at Anna. And then suddenly his face darkened. "Ryan, you should have told me," he said. "You should not have brought it here."
"Uncle, I thought-"
Aldebaran looked about, then spoke low, as though people were listening. "In the name of heaven, Ryan! You know that this house is watched."
At the far edge of the grounds of Lakebank was a ruined chapel. They sat there now, around an old army storm lantern-Anna, the prince, and the great Aldebaran. The necklace was in Anna"s hand, but Aldebaran kept his eyes on it. "Let me try to explain," he was saying. "You are my great-niece, and you are implicated, and I ought to explain about this prophecy I wrote. And about the worlds that exist, the way I see them."
"I tried to tell Anna," said Ryan. "The exile on me is not just distance; it keeps me locked in England. And it would take great power to get someone back home who was exiled the way I am."
"When you are growing up, you hear stories," said Aldebaran. "In our country, there are many stories about England-about this world that surrounds you. The carriages that drive by themselves, the lamps that do not waver, a place where the people no longer fear that magic is real. As you grow up, you learn to believe that England is a fairy tale. Those who have disappeared have died, not vanished; those who claim to have been here are liars. But the great ones-those who are trained as what you call magicians-have to learn to take up again those things that you set aside in childhood, because we work in this field. In the realm of myth and legend, trying to make possible what others believe impossible, or at least highly doubtful."
"Uncle, you are not making this clearer," Ryan began, but Aldebaran raised his hand. The lamp flickered and sent shadows leaping across his face as he went on.
"These great ones, these men and women who study magic, find that England is not a legend. Far from a legend, it is there, in some dimension apart from us. There are many places that only the great ones can see, and that most people are unaware of. And yet to believe that we can do without these places is absurd. The worlds drive each other forward. They depend completely on each other. Look at that star there." He pointed. She followed his gaze. "Leo, we call it-or part of your English constellation Leo. If someone was in Malonia, at a point that is somehow close to this place, that person might begin to think about the star Leo. For no other reason than the fact that I just mentioned it here. Your world and our world, even Malonia and England themselves, are linked very strongly. You speak Malonian here and call it English. You give the same names to your children, close enough. These things pa.s.s through."
Anna and Ryan listened in silence. Aldebaran went on: "The stars in your country, and the constellations, they all have names that make sense. Not so in Malonia. We named them later, and every time an astronomer tried to think of a name, something suggested itself. We absorbed your English star names, imperfectly but clearly. We have a strange a.s.sortment of names now, not knowing the reasons. Jupiter and Venus are nothing in our country."
Aldebaran frowned into the darkness. "Or my nephew. He was a very famous writer. I do not have printed copies of any of his books. But they all came to me, in visions and dreams. The books drifted straight from his head into mine, and I wrote them down. If you have powers, you have a stronger connection with your relatives, because a part of you is the same. That is why it was foolish of me to throw away the silver eagle when I had relatives here who could easily be the ones to find it-" He broke off. "But even across that distance, I could see what Harold was thinking, what he was writing. Thoughts are pa.s.sing between people-and between places-all the time. Everything is. Spirit and thought, all these invisible things. And sometimes people also can pa.s.s through."
Anna turned the necklace around in her hand as Aldebaran talked. The light jumped over the skeletal chapel-over red stone arches and carved walls and, above them, the remains of a high vaulted ceiling with the stars shining through. The stone was twined with flowering creepers, and the white blossoms swung in the breeze, reflecting the light. Beyond the ruined window, Anna could see another light shining. It was growing brighter all the time. "Do you know what this place is?" Aldebaran said.
"This chapel?" said Anna. "Monica said it was a tourist site years ago, until the owner of Lakebank bought the land."
"He bought the land because I told him to," said Aldebaran. "I was that man"s butler. And I told him to buy it because this is one of your unexplained places, and I wanted to investigate it. There are strange ruins everywhere in England; it is remarkable. Some of them are just that-ruins. Some of them, like this chapel, are places that are closer to my homeland, to Malonia. Places where the barrier between the worlds wears thin."
"The barrier between the worlds?" said Anna.
Aldebaran shrugged quickly. "It is a way of speaking. People say that there is a network of doorways into England from our country, but in reality it is less simple. The great ones-those trained in magic-have always been fascinated by the idea of England, and many of them have pa.s.sed into this country. I have found, living here for so long, that there are places where I can see more clearly back into Malonia. One is the stone circle up on the hill. One is this chapel. I cannot go back but I can see, faintly."
"What about Ryan?" said Anna, watching the light grow still brighter. "He doesn"t have powers; how can he move between places like you said?"
"Ryan is exiled by one who has powers," said Aldebaran. "My idea-and it may be wrong-is that this necklace of yours, which has the power of great men and women in it, would be enough to carry him back."
"He has good reason to think it," said Ryan, turning to Anna. "When you hold this jewel of mine, the one that comes from your necklace, you can almost see Malonia. I know you can."
Aldebaran shook his head. "I do not think it will be as simple as that, Ryan."
Ryan took off his own necklace and handed it to her. "Try," he said. "Doesn"t the air change, and the darkness? If you watch carefully. Can"t you hear faint sounds?"
Anna took the necklace and they sat in silence. Her own was still in her other hand. She was watching the light beyond the window again. And then a shadow crossed it. She stood up. "What is it?" said Aldebaran, his voice suddenly faint. Anna went to the door of the chapel. She could see what the light was now. It was a gas lamp. And others were emerging, in the darkness of the forest. "What are those lights?" she said, and turned.
Ryan and Aldebaran were gone. The lantern was gone. She was in a stone church. And the flickering light that had been the lantern now came from a rack of candles standing where Aldebaran had been. She dropped Ryan"s jewel and caught hold of the wall to steady herself. And it was a solid wall; it did not vanish.
She could hear voices close by, and she stumbled toward the door of the church, thinking they were Ryan and Aldebaran. But there was no one there. Beyond was a square, empty in the moonlight. In the darkness of the center was a fountain-a statue of a horse in a large round pool. But the pool was empty and crusted with green algae, and the horse"s mouth was choked up with algae so that no water sprayed from it.
Then she saw where the voices came from. Two men were standing in the shadow beside the church-strangers in blue uniform. One was a young man with a chubby, boyish look about him. The other had his back to Anna. " We will close half the city," he was saying, and his voice sounded older. "It is safer in the current climate. Are you with us in this? Will you come with us?"
The young man shook his head. "I am undecided. It is a great thing to ask of me, and-"
The older man raised his hand suddenly and the other stopped. Anna could see the side of his face now. He was a handsome man, with defined features. Then he turned, and she saw the other side. A scar ran from his forehead to the bottom of his cheek, and where there should have been an eye, there was only a ragged socket. The scar had healed so crookedly, and must have been so deep, that the two sides of his eyebrow were far out of line. And he was looking at her. "Do you see what I see?" muttered Ahira. He took a step toward Anna and reached out his hand. "Faintly, do you see it?"
The young man turned and frowned. Anna backed away, toward the church door. Behind her, someone put a hand on her shoulder. She stumbled and dropped the necklace. "Anna!" said Ryan.
She was in the ruined chapel. The gas lamps around the square had vanished; the two men were gone. "What happened?" she said, reaching for her necklace. It was lying in the dust, and she did not know why.
"Do not touch that!" said Aldebaran suddenly.
"I could see two men," she said. "I don"t know-was I dreaming?"
"You had that necklace in your hand, and suddenly you were drifting away from here." Aldebaran picked the necklace up as if it burned him, and took the lamp with his other hand. "Come on."
"It was strange," Ryan muttered to Anna. "It frightened me; I can"t explain, but you were growing faint. You did not hear when I spoke to you. Where were you, Anna?"
"It was an old church, and there were lamps shining outside. And there were two soldiers-a young man and a man with a scar across his face and a missing eye."
"Ahira," Ryan said. "You saw Ahira."
"Who is he?"
Ryan spoke without looking up. "He is the one who shot my mother and father. I gave him that scar and took out his eye. I threw a knife at him."
"Hurry," said Aldebaran before Anna could reply, and they went up to the door of the house. He closed it behind them and bolted it four times. Then, still holding Anna"s necklace, he disappeared upstairs. In the silence, they listened to his footsteps-up one flight, then the next, then-faintly-another.
"Is he taking it?" said Anna.
"That is what he prophesied," said Ryan. "That it would come back to him."
Anna started to say that she would miss the necklace, then stopped. She had a strange feeling that nothing was real anymore, and the lightness about her neck seemed just a part of that-no more. "He doesn"t really understand these things," said Ryan. "Not even he understands them. No one does. He thought that he would study the necklace and find out what the great ones who made it had in their minds. But you cannot predict what these magic objects will do once those who made them are dead. They gain their own power."
"My necklace?" said Anna. "I never thought ..." And again they fell silent.
Aldebaran crossed the attics of Lakebank, stirring up dust that no one had crossed for ten years or more. He went to the farthest corner, where an old box lay under the shadow of a beam, and opened the lid. Inside were several British army medals from a war whose name Aldebaran had forgotten, and beneath them were letters-letters from Raymond"s greatest friend, who had died in action. Aldebaran had always regretted reading them. He put that out of his mind now. He laid the silver eagle among the medals and frowned at them for a moment, then closed the lid. Then he crossed the attics again and went slowly back down.
Ryan and Anna looked up when he appeared on the stairs. "It is late," he told Anna. "You should return home. I will walk with you."
"Then I"ll come too," said Ryan.
"No," said Aldebaran. "You will stay here in the house. The situation is growing dangerous. I cannot believe that Talitha will not act, if we really are being watched here."
"Uncle-" said Ryan as though he was afraid.
"I promise you, this will not be like last time," said Aldebaran, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We are prepared. There is no question of torture or soldiers ransacking the house. But we must be careful."
Aldebaran and Anna walked in silence into the dark. Ryan ran to the library window, and she turned back and saw him standing there, his eyes on her. He opened the window and called to her then: "Anna, come back."
She went to him. He leaned on the windowsill, looking down at her, the light behind him so that she could hardly make out his face. "What is it?" she said. He shook his head.
She reached out and put her hand on his, and he took hold of it and kissed it, then leaned out the window and kissed her. "You are caught up in dangerous times," said Ryan. "I wanted to tell you, Anna: be careful."
She nodded and gripped his hand for a moment. Then Aldebaran called, "Ryan, be sure to lock that window fast." Anna turned and followed him. Ryan closed the window and locked it, but he watched them until they were out of sight.
"I am sorry for what my brother did," said Aldebaran abruptly as he shut the gate behind them. "I have been thinking about it all evening. I am sorry for all of this. I wanted to find Harold"s family and make things right with them. I had no intention of implicating you in these concerns of my country. I wrote the prophecy, and I threw away the necklace, and I failed to see ..." Then he turned and looked at her, as though he was seeing her differently. "Although it is your country too. You are partly Malonian." He frowned at the road and spoke again, to himself rather than her. "I pray that all will turn out well."
They walked the rest of the way in silence. "Ryan told me you wish to be a dancer," said Aldebaran as they approached the hotel.
"Yes. I want to go to dance school. This year, if I get in."
Aldebaran nodded. "There was a girl I taught once who could have been a musician, but she married young and put her love before those things. That girl was Ryan"s mother, and you know that she died."
"Yes, Ryan told me."
Aldebaran turned to Anna. "She was almost a daughter to me. I have no children, and I am separated from all my family here. But I am proud to have a niece like you." He studied her face. "This may be dangerous," he said. "I will not pretend. But I promise to take care of you."
Monica had locked the doors of the hotel. Anna climbed up the tree and through her bedroom window instead. Aldebaran waited until she switched on her light; then he turned and walked back to Lakebank. She stood at the window and watched him disappear along the road.
Ryan was at the library table, drawing on a sc.r.a.p of paper, when Aldebaran walked in. Aldebaran picked it up and examined it in silence. It was a careful sketch of Anna"s face. "Love brings down many captives," said Aldebaran.
" "And lifts up many princes also," " said Ryan, s.n.a.t.c.hing back the paper.
Aldebaran laughed, then stopped. "That is not Shakespeare," he said. "That is one of our poets."
"Diamonn," said Ryan. He set aside the picture. "Uncle, what does this mean? All of this."
Aldebaran sat down opposite him. "I will communicate with the leaders of the resistance. I will suggest that the plans for revolution should be brought forward. We have the silver eagle; I think that the power in it could carry an exile like you home; Lucien"s government is in crisis. There is no better time than now to think about going back."
"Going back?" said Ryan. "Is this your grand plan? That just when I become attached to this country, we leave it forever?"
Aldebaran handed him a book. "Read this," he said. "These are the latest reports from the city. Things are growing serious. Perhaps we should set aside astronomy and archery and concentrate on the current situation."
Ryan took the book in silence. Aldebaran went to his desk but remained standing, looking into the empty gla.s.s case in front of him. "What can I do?" he said eventually. "You have to return, Ryan. We cannot stay here forever. And yet-"
"Uncle, I know," said Ryan, opening the book.
Anna did not sleep easily that night, without the necklace in her hand. She tried to imagine her old life at home: waking at five, hearing the traffic already whining, and practicing before school out on the playing fields, because more than anything she wanted to be a dancer. That old life seemed distant now. But when she slept eventually, she dreamed of the same things, as though nothing was different: her family gazing up at her while she danced across a stage edged with white lights. She could see them all, the relatives she knew and the shadowy man and child who were always there. Only this time those two faces were clear. The husband"s face was Ryan"s, and the child had his eyes.
That Sunday morning I woke early. I could not sleep for the weight on my heart. It was still pitch-dark. I was sure that I had dreamed something, but I didn"t know what it was, and it was gone as I tried to catch it. It was quiet as the grave that night, silent as the cool, lifeless earth deep down where no sound of the living can reach. It was so silent that I could not think. Then, slowly, the noise rising like the footfalls of a stealthy army in the dark, it began to rain.
That afternoon it was still raining hard. The streets were streaming with mud and almost deserted. No one would go out in such weather. Except soldiers. They were the only ones who pa.s.sed. I sat at my bedroom window, watching the rain and thinking of nothing. There was nothing to do, and I couldn"t concentrate anyway. I would read the same sentence of the newspaper ten times, without understanding it. I could hear Maria and Grandmother talking in the living room, the low rise and fall of their voices, but I did not want to be with them either.
I thought I might visit Stirling"s grave. I put on my overcoat and went into the living room. "You are not going out in this weather?" said Grandmother, following me with her eyes as I searched for the keys. I nodded. "Where are you going?"
Maria was beside her at the table, her hand resting on Grandmother"s arm. "Here," she said, and handed me a piece of paper.
The graveyard, I wrote.
"You will get ill, going out in the rain," said Grandmother. "You will get very ill. And there are soldiers about even though it is Sunday; there must be something wrong. Leo, stay in the house." Her voice was quavery and tearful. She caught hold of my arm. "Please, stay here."
I shook my head and went to the door. "I think he will be all right, Mrs. North," said Maria. "It is not cold outside, and it looks as though the rain will be stopping. Would you like me to build up a fire anyway, for when Leo gets back?"
Grandmother nodded and grasped Maria"s hand. While they were laying out the coal in the grate, I left. I hurried down the stairs and out into the street. It was something to do, walking, and it made the pain in my heart duller and easier to bear. And I would rather be standing in the rain beside Stirling"s grave than trying to read the newspaper again and again while the silence made my head ache.
As I started along the side of the square, two soldiers stepped out of a doorway. "Where are you going?" said one. I did not reply. "This area is closed for an important military operation," he said. "Did you not hear the announcements? Did you not read the newspapers?" I made to carry on walking. They did this sometimes, but I was not going back home because they told me to.
They glanced at each other uncertainly; then one of them caught my arm. "Unless you are going directly back to your house, you should not be out here," he said, struggling to keep hold of me. "If we see you again, you will be escorted back with an official warning." He pushed my arm roughly and let me go. I could feel their eyes on me as I went on.
In the next street I met two others, and three more in the next. These three would not let me carry on toward the graveyard. They stood in front of me until I turned back the way I had come.
I was suddenly tired, and I did not have the strength to go on. I sat down in the doorway of a house and rested my head on my arms. A moment later someone was tapping on the window-a wealthy-looking woman, glaring at me for sitting on her doorstep. I got to my feet again.
I walked a couple of streets farther, then sat down under the high wall of the locked Royal Gardens. The rain was running down my face but I did not care. I sat and closed my eyes and wished for the hundredth time that Stirling was with me. Stirling would not stand for this desperation. He would have said something to bring me back. I could not tell myself those things.
Sitting there with my eyes closed, I began to see a hill where the sun was shining, and the girl Anna and the prince. I had been a hundred miles from thinking of these things, and they were suddenly in my mind, as though someone else had put them there. I stood up and looked around, then thought of the book and took it out of my pocket. It was in two halves now-two shabby leather covers with loose pages between them.
What was the use of fairy tales and dreams now that Stirling was gone? This book could not bring him back. I was suddenly angry with it, this book that had told us all kinds of meaningless lies about a country that did not exist. Aldebaran was dead; we had no English relatives; the prince had been shot ten years ago. And yet this strange story was still haunting me and I could not shake it off.
I drew back my arm and hesitated for a moment. And then I threw the book with the last strength I had, over the fence into the Royal Gardens. I heard the pages scatter among branches, with a sound like a bird"s wings, and then silence.
That was it; the story was gone. I turned and walked home.
Aldebaran was gazing out the window without seeing the English sunlight. His mind was on his homeland, and the rain falling there, and his English family, who he could barely see. And a black book. He did not notice that Ryan was gone.
Anna was cleaning one of the guest rooms when through the window she saw Ryan approaching. She left the bed half made and ran down to the yard. "You should not have come here," she said, stopping in front of him.
"I had to see you."
"Aldebaran made you promise to stay in the house. Ryan-"
He caught hold of her hands. "It will be all right."
Monica was calling to Anna from somewhere in the building. Anna glanced at him, and they started across the lawn, away from the hotel, toward the waterfalls. "Even so," said Anna. "What happened before to make you so frightened? Did you say they sent soldiers here?"
He hesitated, then spoke. "They came to the house; I don"t know how. Talitha must have arranged it. I was only a little boy. Aldebaran hid me out in the ruined chapel and told me to wait for him there. A day I waited, and half the night, before I went back. He was lying on the floor, very sick. I thought that he was dead. I thought that I had lost him as well...." He stopped. "I almost did. But the next day he was sitting up in bed, telling me that Talitha could never really harm him, and I chose to believe that. They worked together for thirty years in the secret service, years ago, before I was born. Perhaps it was true what he said. Perhaps he knew her too well to be defeated by the things she thought of."