With those words, Wilbur and Matilde, and Barbara and Timothy, all lifted their cups in return to cheer and applaud him, for who could imagine then, a world more wonderful than Darius had made for them.
���See you in the morning,��� Timothy said, as he headed down the hall to his bedroom.
���Goodnight,��� Barbara replied, and went to reach for the handle of her door.
���See you in the morning,��� Timothy repeated, his feet sinking further into the deep hall carpet.
���Goodnight,��� Barbara answered, and went to reach for her door handle.
���Wait,��� Timothy interrupted, halting and unnerving her. Barbara stopped midway, with her hand still gripping the half-turned doorknob.
���Didn’t we just do this?��� he asked, seeming frightfully confused.
���Ah… no, I don’t think so,��� she answered.
���You’re acting strange, Tim. Is something wrong?��� And the way that she phrased this, was as you would if you’d thought someone were slowly going mad, but wanted to spare their feelings.
���Ye-Yes… of course there is,��� he scratched his head, and answered, as if he were trying to remember something, something lost, something vitally important.
And this was his reply, ���See, I just said, ‘See you in the morning’,��� he began to explain, as he came back to stand with her at her door, and he spoke softly so that no one would overhear, though he was not exactly sure why that mattered.
���And you answered, ‘Goodnight’, and then we did it again, almost exactly the same as before.���
Barbara’s look was still questioning.
���Don’t you remember?��� Timothy asked again.
She said, seeming like she wished to help him, ���No, sorry, I don’t.���
And then she did a very natural, yet however mothering, thing to do.
���Are you ill?��� she asked, and put the back of her hand to his forehead. ���No, you don’t feel heated.���
���Of course I’m not ill,��� Timothy retorted. ���Would you just listen…��� And then like a flash upon his brain, he began to remember.
���No… but I was, I was sick, when we got here.���
���Oh, yes,��� Barbara’s eyes began to blink as if she were awakening. ���I’d forgotten all about that.���
���We had to carry you to bed, you’d fainted-���
���We? Who’s we?��� Timothy interrupted.
And Barbra closed her eyes tightly, tilting her head upward, as if trying to wrench the memories back into her consciousness.
���It was me… and,��� she stammered. ���Me and-���
Her eyes shot open, she had just remembered it all. They both had.
���Asa,��� they said together.
Their expressions now instantly grave and serious, reminiscent of wild animals caught in a poacher���s trap, and knowing for the first time the sense of real danger, imminent danger: The kind you must either escape from, or be lost to forever.
*
���� Or a studier of light and all it pertains to, especially focusing on the luminescence of living organisms.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Making Amends
Late after midnight, tiptoeing in a delicate silence, in pairs of borrowed soft-soled house slippers, Timothy and Barbara tried to make amends for a many number of extraordinary dinners and scrumptious breakfasts, when all the while their traveling companion and guide had been caught up in a very real and obvious peril, if he was even still alive.
However, it was quite a troubling thing to go poking through a potentially murderous trap of a house, when you have no idea where exactly to begin, nor any clear idea as to where your enemy might be lurking, in shadows or crevice, or behind every closed doorway. So they began, slowly moving outward from their rooms, holding their breath, cautiously creaking open heavy doors to check for any sign of Asa, or any clues about his fate, still unknown.
The first door in the creepily decorated upstairs hall. Nothing. An old squatty study with books on every wall, nothing else.
They dared not separate: Firstly, that would be too dangerous, and although it might make for quieter and less detectible searching, they could not risk the chance of being caught alone. And secondly, they felt, at that time, they had needed both of their combined willpowers, so not to fall back into that mindless, relentless trance again. And deeply, although they pushed it aside, were the longing pangs calling them back into a world where everything was safely comfortable and pleasant for them; But this was not the real world. That fake world was a prison, as much as any barred cage or shackle, and they did better to remember that together. And it helped to speak the words in a whisper.
���Don’t go back. Don’t go back,��� Timothy said, under his breath, as they searched the upstairs rooms. Until the danger of that prison became more real to him, little by little.
As it moved from something they desired, to something they disliked, to something they might eventually learn to loath. Yet, for now, they felt its draw.
Empty. Every room in the upstairs hall was empty.
And, if one might care about this sort of thing given the situation, all of those rooms were cleverly decorated in a tasteful early 1900’s fashion, but in none of them were Asa, Timothy’s grandparents, nor their captor, Darius. And in all of them, thoughtfully removed was anything that might have remotely been used as a weapon; Obviously decorative swords had been taken off the walls, and likewise candles were set onto saucers instead of atop candlestick holders, and, of course, every fire poker was removed.
And when finally the last room had been searched through, Timothy started to moan, frustrated with himself for having lost his sword. But Barbara graciously reassured him, that he ought not be so hard on himself, even admitting that she had not only lost her own dagger, but Asa as well, and in the end, she suggested that if they were forced now to go into the main portions of the house, that night, without weapons, then it would be best to use disguises.
���Like how?��� Timothy asked. ���What sorts of things did you have in mind?���
���Oh, you know,��� she answered. ���We could dress in our nightclothes, wrap up in blankets, and pretend to be headed to the kitchen for a midnight snack.���
���That’s genius, Cholley,��� Timothy congratulated her. But as he was considering the prospect his eyes grew wide and unsettled. ���Oh, no…��� he said.
���What is it?��� Barbara asked.
���Who’s ever heard of two people headed down to the kitchen for a midnight snack?��� he exclaimed, in whispered tones. ���We have to separate, or our disguises are no good.���
���Oh, bother…��� Barbara sighed. ���Do you think we can hold off the trance without each other?���
���We’ve no choice,��� Timothy answered, and they both knew he was right.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Downstairs
The stairs beneath Timothy’s feet were fashioned of polished stones and were carpeted, so that they did not squeak. However, this was of little comfort to him.
It was blindingly dark that night. The moon was only a sliver in the sky, and its ineffective rays shone in dark colors through the stained glass window above the stairway. As he got to the first landing, Timothy looked behind him to see the faint silhouette of his companion at the top of the staircase, just a black figure with long hair against an even darker background.
Holding the railing to keep his balance, the stone felt cold in his hands, and so he was glad, if only for a disguise, that he had brought a fuzzy fleece blanket to wrap up warmly in.
His first step finally hit the bottom of the staircase. He made sure no
t to scuff his feet along the marble floor, lifting each step gently.
Through an open doorway, the dining room appeared lifeless and empty, though quite possibly the faint aromas of baked pies and cakes, and cooked glazed ham still lingered in the air. A pulling sensation in his chest, Timothy felt the urge inside of him to have just one last look. It was dark, and who would know. He wouldn’t have to taste the food, only to be around it might be enough, he thought. Perhaps, there were leftovers from this evening in the kitchen.
He took a half-step forward and then another, without any effort at all. Clouded fogginess began to seep into his mind again.
���No!��� his thoughts yelled inside his brain.
With all his strength, he pressed his hands up against the doorposts, to keep himself out of the dining room.
���Asa, Asa…��� he repeated. And mumbled, now audibly, ���Don’t go back. Don’t go back,��� he said in repetition, and willfully pulling himself away from the dining room, and from that beastly kitchen, he took steps away from there, until the smell became less noticeable, and less appealing.
Several open parlors, and sitting areas, but nothing of significance. The first door he opened downstairs was a broom closet, then an empty bedroom, and then a laboratory study with beakers, and filled up chalkboards, and a sturdy leather book laid closed upon the desk.
And then another bedroom, except this one occupied by his grandparents (and he knew this, because of Wilbur’s telltale snore coming from the far side of the bed).
As if by reflex, Timothy thought to wake them, until he realized that they had not yet been shaken from their trances, and that it would be too loud at the present time to try to convince them of it. And so reluctantly he shut the door, wishing he could do more.
���Asa, first,��� he thought, and afterward he had planned to come back for them.
Another door, a heavy double door, stretching across the entire width at the end of the hallway; This one carved with fanciful markings, that in the nighttime cast troubling dark shadows on its face. No question about it, this was Darius’s quarters, he thought.
And that understood, looking over its sinister state, he made up his mind, to enter there only in the case that he’d exhausted all other options.
Rustling behind the door, their enemy was awake. Timothy ran, trying to let his footsteps fall softly on the hard marble slabs. And just as he was out of sight, around the corner, the door unlatched with an echo, and Darius emerged, bearing an electric light in one hand, and a thick metallic walking cane, with a duck head handle, that sharply clanked on the floor with each new step, like a blacksmith’s mallet.
Fortunately, Timothy tucked inside an open parlor as the first rays of Darius’s electric candle illuminated the hall. And from his new hiding place behind an elegant sofa, he saw his enemy come and halt in front of the broom closet door, the same door he’d unsuccessfully searched just moments earlier. And with the press of a secret button on the side of his cane, Darius waved it across the closet door. Something had activated, and Timothy could hear the sound of rock sliding against rock.
The door opened, shining light onto a set of new stairs, like castle stairs, winding lower into a basement or dungeon, or whatever should be hidden beneath them.
Not giving time to think of how dangerous this might be, though realizing this might be his only chance at it, Timothy left his hiding place, creeping up quickly behind Darius, his footsteps almost inaudible, silent in his cushy house slippers, just as the back of the broom closet wall closed behind him. He would have rejoiced, except for this new haunting sense that he was now, even more so, hopelessly trapped, as rays from Darius’s electric light shone upward, reflecting in a low glow off the walls of the winding staircase.
Leaving the only thing to be done: to follow that light, but not too closely, and to pray, against very foul odds, that he would not be caught.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Finding Things
In the meanwhile, you might wonder what Barbara had done, left alone in the upstairs of that creepy house, wrapped up tightly in her blanket, and house slippers, and nightclothes. She paced back and forth, between her room and the top of the stairs. All the while, imagining what deadly horror Timothy was getting himself into.
Until she could no longer wait the full twenty or so minutes, which was the time at which they’d agreed she should follow after, if Timothy had not yet returned. (And this was of course an approximate measure of time, for in that house they had no clock or watch. Yet, notwithstanding, even without a timepiece Barbara realized she was being premature.) Howbeit, she could not rest even a second longer, as she balanced her feet down the monstrously darkened staircase.
And just as she had reached the first landing she heard the sound of scraping stone, and saw Darius entering a hidden cellar passageway, and Timothy ducking in after him. She tried to wave him off, motioning for him to stop, but the passage closed and she was abandoned, left completely alone.
Barbara ran past the dining hall, and in vain, she scoured through the closet, and on the outside wall, for anything that might be a switch or a hidden lever, but nothing.
This was not that sort of secret passage. Darius himself had taken its only key, his cane, inside, down through the stairwell underneath the house, and the door was locked impenetrably behind him.
Barbara kicked the wall, and let a small tear roll down her face, thinking of what might happen to Timothy. Until she gained her composure, coming to realize a very helpful fact. She was left alone, and with that knowledge she knew she could now snoop uninhibited through the main halls, for at least the next few minutes, without fear of being caught.
With this in mind, she soared through the main floor, examining each room as thoroughly and as rapidly as she could. Running through parlors and sitting rooms, until she came to a laboratory study, with its vials and beakers of odd colored mixtures, and its chalkboards, filled in every corner with mathematical formulas, and strange diagrams.
Lighting the half portion of a candle she found, a glow of burning light expanded through the room, illuminating the chalkboards. On the smaller boards, there were mostly numbers and figures, though on one she spotted a sketch of some intricate flying contraption.
But when the light from her candle fell upon the main chalkboard, it showed a massive and detailed scientific schematic for some great machine, with what looked like a huge cupped wind vane at the top, and then bundles of wires leading to strange capacitors. It was precise, and Barbara thought, sinister, although she could not tell exactly how or why she knew this, she just felt it, down to the pit of her stomach.
���The time,��� she thought.
Perhaps she’d been searching for too long, and speedily she went to extinguish the candle, to place it back on the desk where she’d found it, but that’s when she noticed it. A book, hefty and leather bound, as big as a church bible, it lay shut upon the desk.
And being herself naturally curious, and thinking she could spare just a few more minutes, she opened to the last written page, and began to read.
Tracing the path of the dim light, winding down further and further beneath the house, Timothy followed down the staircase, trying to place his feet in sync with the echo of footsteps, so to remain unheard. Except that he lost his balance in the overlapping shadows, and almost silently, he scuffed his shoes against the edge of a stair.
The footsteps below him and the traveling light stopped. He stopped. Breaths with no noise, nor subtlest sound, escaped his mouth and lungs. The footsteps below him and the light continued. He continued.
Barbara, dragging her finger across the thick coarse paper, to gather in every word by low candle light, this is what she read:
Day 26,283 ��� Recent frequency measurements indicate a viable light transfer tomorrow morning, will prep the test subject for an eight o’clock transport.
And in like manner, the whole book was filled with simil
ar entries, as one might keep a journal, only this one was scribbled full of study findings and vague scientific discoveries.
Reviewing older entries Barbara found the date when she and Timothy had arrived, and she was happy to learn that she had only lost two days of her memories. Which was hard enough to take as it is, and she could not even imagine what it must be like for Timothy’s grandfather, who’d lost nearly a full year of his life by then.
Day 26,281 ��� The boy is still feverish and ill, and could not eat this morning. He and the girl, however, do have substantial traces of a carrier signal inside of them, of a similar nature as the woman’s, and so it can be deduced that they’ve originated from the same source. Vis-��-vis, if the initial transfer test should prove unsuccessful, then they will both serve as proper alternates.
The native has shown himself to be strikingly resistant, and uncooperative, but I hold out that he might still make for a worthy assassin, given adequate conditioning.
The stairs opened into a colossal room with a high domed ceiling, all thick stone, and in the center, this towering machine that in the twilight of that cavernous room looked to be roughly the shape and size of a great tree, with bundles of wire and piping leading up to a slowly spinning, massive turbine at the top, like four long cupped branches; And this turning made a deep and steady hum, and every so often, electric sparks would jump up the wired trunk of the machine, leaping from one apparatus to another.
Plainly, the entire room was dedicated to this ghastly mechanism, and Timothy was quite sure that someone as maniacal as their captor, Darius, would not have spent the years and years it must have taken to build such a device unless it was something very powerful, and set to be used for ill intended purposes.
Candlelight flickered in shadows across the pages, as Barbara thumbed through the weighty scientific diary. Every now and then, coming upon accounts of orb light being recorded in the southern night sky, but the vast part of it was beyond her knowledge of science, and so giving up on any real understanding, she flipped quickly to the first page.
The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending Page 19