What do you do when you see a ghost? Or a spirit, or a being from another time, or whatever he is? I don’t know what anyone else would do. I just know what I did.
I screamed. Then I clapped my hand to my mouth.
“Do not be scared,” he said. “My name is Epsilon. I see you’ve found it at last.”
He pointed toward the snake picture, then looked at me with enquiring eyes.
I nodded. (Yes-I’ve-found-the-snake-picture-Now-go-away-because-I-think-I’m-having-a-heart-attack.)
He moved toward me. But it wasn’t ordinary “moving” at all. It was like watching shadows gather in a cloud. All the edges of him were fuzzy, like he was trailing wisps of mist behind him.
He bent down and lifted up the picture. He turned the Ouroborus side toward me, then the O side, then back to the Ouroborus.
“Notice,” he said. “The one is the inversion of the other. This fact will be important for you. That is the only reason I have allowed the image of the Ouroborus in here.”
He replaced the picture on its hook—with the snake side facing the wall.
“But we can at least turn its face away,” he said. “I much prefer this side to the other. Don’t you?”
I blinked. Nodded. Stared.
He walked over to the window and looked out over the sea. Even as I stared at him, he seemed to be evaporating. Getting even fainter. He gazed out the window for a moment, and even though his eyes stared only at the sea, I got the feeling he was actually seeing something else. Seeing many things. Then he turned back to me.
“Your father is at the lake, taking a photograph you need to see,” he said. “Your mother is in her studio, drawing something you must find. It is time for you to return to the Big House.”
I cleared my throat, tried to speak. It came out in a strangled little squeak.
“Now?”
“Now.”
I stood up, my legs very shaky. I still couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was there—yet he was not there. I couldn’t see anything about him clearly at all, like his clothes or his hair. Just shadows, moving all the time. And even as I stood up, he was getting fainter. All except his eyes.
His eyes were still clear. They shone. They were like—oh, I don’t know. Like deep water. Or crystals—like the lights inside crystals. Clear and multifaceted and hard to look away from.
As the rest of him faded, his eyes went on looking at me, until they were all that was left. Those disembodied eyes stared at me for a long, long moment. Then they, too, vanished.
I burst into tears and ran sobbing down the stairs and out.
I cried with sheer terror all the way home.
Chapter Sixteen
MY DIARY—BEDTIME
So I didn’t get to unlock the third box—not just then. Right now, I feel like I’ll never go back to that cottage again. I mean, there is scared and there is terrified. Epsilon appearing like that almost made my heart stop. I want this to end now—whatever this stupid quest is. I never asked for it anyway, didn’t want anything like this to happen to me. Why me?
“Because of your mother,” Epsilon said.
And that’s another thing. His thoughts. Things he’s said to me in the chat room. They keep intruding, they keep sliding in and out of my head. Like he’s gotten inside my head somehow and reminds me of things there. Prods me. Prods me into a direction I’m not sure I want to go.
Earlier, when I got back to my attic room, I still couldn’t stop shaking. I kept thinking of the bucket. The bucket that started all this.
The Epsilon symbol and his name had been there on the base, as clear as day—until Dr. Parker picked up the bucket and read them there. He’d gone very still and intent—like he recognized the word “Epsilon.” So what has the doctor got to do with all this? And Ely—who is Ely, anyway? I mean, what does he do on the island? Were they both really there at the tower that night? If so, why? They seemed to be summoning something. A rite. A spell. This made me smile. Ridiculous—the very thought of Dr. Parker muttering spells! Get a grip, Jess.
Thinking of the tower made me remember that Epsilon had told me to go to the small library. Tonight. “It’s time for maps,” he said. But my nerves are so on edge—I feel I can’t take any more. The wind is rising and thunder, very distant, rolls, far out to sea. I don’t think I could be in the library, in a growing storm. When Sebastian did that, something came creeping along the corridor outside—something I still don’t know about.
I’m not sure I have the guts for this.
Yet . . . if Epsilon can appear to me at the cottage, he could appear to me here. After all, he did appear to Sebastian in this room—he made him spill his inkpot in fright. He’s obviously powerful enough to appear when and where he likes. I can’t really get away from Epsilon anyway. So I might as well do what he asks. Whether he’s good or not, I still have to try to work all this out.
I’ll have to find my flashlight—I’m not risking the storm causing a blackout! I’d die of fright. I’ll take this box file, too, so I can put anything I find straight into it.
Poor Sebastian. I know just how he felt. He needed a word to make himself feel brave. “Agapetos,” he used.
Me? No way am I going to utter any word around here until I’m sure what that word means. The workers of the Dark Ones are watching me, Epsilon said. If they can see me, presumably they can hear me, too. Plus, so far Epsilon is the scariest thing of all—so why should I trust him? And so on, round and round and round. It’s all one big circle.
I’m putting it off. Come on, Jess! Go to the small library. Now.
When in doubt, eat chocolate. That’s what makes me brave.
So I’ve brought loads with me. Four bars, in fact. And two bags of chips, a Coke, a pack of cookies, and two packs of mints! Could have done with a backpack to carry it all, what with my files and everything.
Mom and Dad were in bed hours ago. It all feels secret and creepy, like being some kind of spy. The room isn’t very different from when Seb was here, which makes it all worse somehow.
I remember coming in here with Mom when we first arrived. She loved it. She just kept spinning on her heel and staring all around. “Why move it all out?” she said at last. “Why change it? These books have been here for years and years. Some of them must be quite valuable.” So she talked Dad out of stripping the whole room bare to use as his darkroom. They decided on the second scullery downstairs instead—it was cooler, for his photography chemicals; they’d store better.
Come to think of it, that was the first time Mom said something a bit odd in this house. In here, on that very first day. She ran her fingers along the spines of the massive books. She stared up at the tall shelves.
“Poor old house. We’re already ripping every room apart,” she said. “This feels like its heart. I think we can leave it its heart, don’t you, Richard?”
And oddly enough, Dad agreed.
Now I’m sitting here staring nervously all around, finding things Sebastian found that night, more than a hundred years ago.
Sure enough, over there is the little shelf table he set his candlesticks on. And nearby is the grate. (No cobwebs, though, not after the cleaning Mom gave this place when we arrived. The spiders wouldn’t dare!)
The armchair he sat in is here, too—although the crimson-and-gold covering is gone. And, of course, the books—rows and rows of them. Floor to ceiling!
It’s a bit stuffy, but I’ve opened only one of the shutters—it creaked so much, it scared me half to death! And the thought of me doing exactly what Sebastian did, a century ago, is just too much for me.
So I’ve laid out all my comfort food on the table (it looks like the snack shop at school) and I’ve already eaten the chocolate bars. Maybe that’s why I feel so sick now.
Mmm . . . and maybe not . . .
Sebastian was right about these books. Great fat things with leather spines, all inlaid with gold. Books on Egyptology. On astrology. On prehistoric art. Foreign books, with titles
written in what looks like Hebrew. There are thousands of smaller books, too, many laid on their sides or slanting, willy-nilly. A Discussion on the Evolution of the World and Essays from Portugal, Volume IV.
At last, very high up—how on earth did he climb up there?—The Mythology of the Small Islands and The Cart ography of the Island of Lume. Side by side, as if Sebastian had only just put them back.
So I dragged my chair over to climb on, just like he must have done.
I nearly broke my back getting the cartography book down! And I fail to see how he actually read it, in candlelight. Even in lamplight (and I’ve put three on, no fear!) I’m struggling with the small script.
The maps are so old. Such tiny, slanty writing, full of curly bits, and each S is an F!
Wait—I’ve just remembered Mom’s magnifying glass . . . .
LATER
A lot of the cartography book is fascinating, but pretty useless really. Like, page 367: THE IFLAND OF LUME, by Mafter Marcuf Siffonf—fketched from fight whilft fitting in a fmall veffel, 1643.
Sorry, Master Marcus-Sissons-who-sketched-from-sight-whilst-sitting-in-a-small-veffel (oops, vessel), but your map is way too old. Plus it bears little resemblance to the actual shape of Lume, so your fmall veffel muft have been failing on an unufually ftormy fea!
But there were two things stuffed in the index pages.
A loose map, hand drawn. And a tatty old letter, tucked just behind it.
The map was marked in one corner—1894.
This was exactly how the island looked when Sebastian lived here. In the very year he was keeping his diary!
I examined the small printed writing and smiled. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sebastian drew this map himself. There was a small clue, hidden around the compass rose. The letters for north, south, east, and west were not in English at all. They were in the Lumic code. And the compass rose was not the usual type of thing at all. It was an Ouroborus.
So I’d found Sebastian’s map.
And this is the letter that was hidden in the index of the book of maps.
Lume, 28 July 1894
My darling Sebastian,
I write this in some haste while my headache is gone and my thoughts clear. I write it in the event something should befall me, so that you may know what to do. Should your papa succeed in having me placed “for my own safety” in an asylum, you will be quite friendless in the world. My allowance will be utterly at your disposal, but I doubt he would disclose this fact unbidden. However, if you write to my firm of London solicitors and enclose this letter, the excellent Mr. Greenwood will advise you. He can be reached at
Messrs. Greenwood, Adamson, and
Greenwood, Esqs.,
113 Lincoln’s Inn, London.
If all things unfold as I suspect they may, your papa will no doubt place you in school as a boarder. If that be the case, I beg you to make the best of it, my dearest boy. Obey your masters and learn hard, being especially diligent with your language studies. For the speaking of varied languages is the key to escaping all that is dreary in this world! The allowance my own dear father left me is enough to enable you to travel when you have completed your studies. Indeed, I heartily encourage you to do so, for there are many wonders abroad on the earth that will remain quite beyond your reach unless—in fact—you reach for them!
My last will and testament is also lodged with Mr. Greenwood, who is a fine man, greatly to be trusted. As you will eventually see, it is my wish that this house (being left solely to me by Father, and not being in the ownership of your papa, whatever he may state to the contrary) remain in this family for your heirs. Dear and attentive boy, this is a good and even a great house, and I ask that you guard it from falling into disrepair.
If I should leave you suddenly to dwell elsewhere, I ask you to have a steady and stout heart and, in effect, to wipe me gently from your day-to-day tasks. For it is true indeed that some sickness has come upon me, and my mind is much absorbed at times, folded up in a world none can see but myself.
But we may safely state that if this sickness proceeds, I shall be so unlike my former self that—darling boy—I shall be lost not only to you but to my old life also! Some afflictions of the mind offer much comfort, Sebastian, as I have witnessed for myself with my own dearest mother, who quite happily dwelt to the end in her private dream world, oblivious to my own distress. Thus, what would be the purpose of your mourning my absence? No doubt I would be similar, quite satisfied with my new life, as I pray that you will learn to become stoic and satisfied with yours.
I have left you also many diverse trinkets that came to me when my own parents left this mortal world. Alas, there is nothing of any great value, and indeed, what does a small boy want with paste baubles and lockets and hatpins and the like?!
Yet a fine young man, abroad in the world, might return home at some future time, to gain comfort and rest from the things of his past. In that event, I ask you to ever hold them tenderly, in cherished memory of her who penned this—
Your most loving
Mama
Well. I’ve found a map, just as Epsilon wanted.
And I’ve found a letter that made me want to cry.
What else did Epsilon ask me to look for? He said in the cottage, “Your father is at the lake, taking a photograph you need to see. Your mother is in her studio, drawing something you must find.”
So. I’ll go to Mom’s studio first.
Then to the darkroom, to see what I can find.
1 A.M.
Mom’s studio is creepily different. All those paintbrushes gone, all those photos, and no huge canvas. Just endless bits of paper strewn all around. On almost every one that face. The woman’s face, peering out through cloud or thin gauze or something. There must be hundreds of them!
But then I found something else. Two weird sketches in black and white.
As I picked the first one up, a great wave of weariness rolled over me. Something is happening here, and Mom is now more than involved. Even at a glance, I could see what she’d drawn. I didn’t recognize the castle or any of the winding paths, but the place the paths lead to is clear enough.
The tower. On the map, it is labeled THE MIRADEL. And Epsilon had said my watcher was called the Eye of Miradel.
So the tower is definitely the place I’m being watched from.
And I have another addition to this growing file.
Mom’s first sketch.
As to the words she’s written in the bottom scroll, they make me feel queasy, although I don’t quite know why.
In the castle where nobody dwells,
the flags are flying in readiness.
They are coming soon, the Dark Ones!
Long of neck and black of foot,
they gather at a path rising from no path.
Oh search the deep waters with your sharpened eyes,
O you who live in the skies!
What it means I don’t know. But it’s clear that whatever “began” that night, “with a mirrored dream” and “a followed sound”—whatever it is, Mom somehow senses it. Something took her up to the Miradel that night. Something is making her gather shells and hum that strange tune and draw that face over and over. Something is making her sketch the Miradel and write words that echo what the men were chanting—that something is being summoned here. Something is gathering. Something dark and ancient and scary.
As if to confirm it, I turned to the second sketch and went cold.
Her second sketch showed a woman standing above a cliff. The same castle was in the background. Her arms were held out, and she was also summoning something.
The words of Mom’s second sketch bothered me even more.
I call you out from your layers of bronze & golden skies.
I call you by name—from every compass
I call you back to me—you know my voice well.
Come to me now, the flock of Cygnus—
My hand of bone beckons you
from where your
webbed feet land,
The Dark One is awakening—
Come forth! Come forth!
Who is this woman who is summoning her faithful to her? Why do they appear to be swans? “The flock of Cygnus.” I know that Cygnus means swan. After all, a cygnet is a baby swan.
Is Yolandë’s the face Mom keeps sketching, over and over? Yolandë, whom the old ones sang about in Sebastian’s time? Or is it someone else?
I read the words again, thinking hard. “In the castle where nobody dwells, the flags are flying in readiness.” Where is this castle? I stared at the Miradel in the drawing, then compared it with the map.
Sure enough, there are ruins of an ancient castle just near Lume Lake.
And looking at the cliffs marked of the map, the woman in Mom’s sketch must be standing on top of the Crags. At the place marked CRAG POINT on the map. Over her left shoulder is the ruined castle—the castle where nobody dwells. And—checking back to the first sketch—over the right shoulder of the ruined castle (so to speak) is the Tower of Miradel in the distance.
So the woman must be standing at Crag Point and looking out over the lake. The same lake Dad’s been visiting for days now. He was muttering about it: “There’s a swan appeared on Lume Lake, kitten. A black swan! Quick, pass me that roll of film. This could be the very set of wildlife shots I’ve waited all my life for!”
Right. Time to check out Dad’s darkroom.
Dad would kill me if he knew I’d been in his darkroom. It is utterly forbidden, especially when the small red light is on, when the developing process is under way.
But I knew the red light wouldn’t be on tonight—he’s snoring his head off. So in I went.
I love the smell of the darkroom. All those funny chemicals—it so reminds me of Dad; he carries a whiff of that sharpness around wherever he goes. I stood there sniffing it in, looking all around.
On the table, his cameras lay neatly in a row. I’d never touch those.
His files, too. Too many negatives to look through—I’d be here forever.
The Riddles of Epsilon Page 9