by Debi Gliori
“Hold verrrry still, dear,” Mrs. McLachlan advised, bringing the business end of the Quikunpik uncomfortably close to Pandora's head and making several swift cutting motions in the air.
“WHAT IS THAT THING? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IS IT AS DANGEROUS AS IT LOOKS?” she squeaked, trying not to flinch as the nanny painstakingly snipped at something invisible near Pandora's stomach.
“Nearly there,” Mrs. McLachlan muttered, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Snip, snip, sneck went the Quikunpik, its silvery scissor-head flashing dangerously close to Pandora's eyes.
“NO!” the librarian yelled. “Watch out!”
There was a final glittery snick from the Quikunpik, and Pandora found herself falling off the countertop, her flailing arms causing the Chronostone to roll onto the librarian's wristwatch. Mrs. McLachlan threw herself full-length on top of Pandora as, with a tremendous cacophony of clanging bells, ringing alarms, and chiming clocks, the Chronostone proved beyond a doubt that it was indeed the genuine article. The countertop imploded in a deafening crash of shattered glass and the Chronostone fell to the floor, bounced across the flagstones, and rolled across to where—ears flattened against his skull—Black Douglas was doing a passable imitation of an enraged lavatory brush. Of the wristwatch, nothing remained save a lump of fused metal and glass.
“Wow . . . ,” Pandora breathed, struggling out from under Mrs. McLachlan. “What on earth—?”
“Um . . . yes,” the librarian bleated, picking himself up from where he'd been flung across the room. “I guess it's the real thing then,” he added reproachfully, gazing around at the wreckage.
“But it ate your watch,” Pandora said.
“Not exactly.” The librarian trotted across to the fireplace and, ignoring the malevolent hissing coming from Black Douglas, picked up the Chronostone. “What you saw was it reabsorbing the time-chip in my watch. All the library chronometers have a tiny bit of the original crystal embedded in their Moebius drive.”
“What, like the Alarming Clock?” Pandora turned to Mrs. McLachlan for confirmation.
“Oh lord,” the nanny muttered. “Drop me right in it, why don't you?”
The centaur frowned. “This child has seen the Alarming Clock?”
“Actually, I've used it,” Pandora admitted.
“I can explain . . . ,” Mrs. McLachlan began, but to her astonishment, rather than imposing a massive fine for unauthorized use of library materials—or even banishing her from the library for all time—the librarian was trotting across to his computer and beginning to type.
“Name?” he barked.
“Flo-Flora Mc—”
“Not you. The child.” The librarian rolled his eyes.
“Pandora Strega-Borgia,” Pandora whispered.
“Age?”
“Ten and three-quarters.”
“Address?”
Pandora was about to reply when Mrs. McLachlan interrupted.
“You're enrolling her?”
The librarian turned round from the screen. “Look,” he said kindly, “you've returned the most precious thing the library has ever had in its possession. D'you have any idea how long the Pericola d'Illuminem has been ‘missing'? We'd completely given up hope of it being returned. Then you turn up, late as usual, with the stone lying casually at the bottom of your pocket. As far as I'm concerned, from today onward you can borrow anything you like, keep it for as long as you want, and I'll enroll anyone you suggest as a member. Er, d'you want me to start with the cat?”
Mrs. McLachlan burst out laughing. “I think not the cat. I'd better sort him out and return home before we're missed. But—does this mean the Chronostone is safe? No more psychotic demons coming out of the woodwork? No more dragons claiming it was their missing earring?”
“Absolutely.” The librarian turned back to gaze at his screen. “Not only is it safe, it's never going out on loan ever again. Now”—he patted Pandora's arm—“if you'll excuse us? Your address, please?”
Water Babies
Sitting on the jetty, Titus watched dawn break over Lochnagargoyle. The surface of the loch was pitted with ripples as the Sleeper performed his morning ablutions under Titus's watchful gaze.
“Is that better?” the beast roared, peering dubiously at a small sapling he'd been using to brush his teeth.
“Show me. Say ahhhhhh,” Titus said, suppressing a scream as the beast revealed a vast acreage of greenish fangs for his inspection. “Pretty good. I think that despite herself, Ffup'll be impressed. Now you have to practice what you're going to say to her.”
The Sleeper groaned. “Dae I have to? It's aw soppy stuff. . . .” A faint blush crept across his scales, turning his vast head an alarming shade of purple. Realizing there was to be no escape, he cleared his throat, hawked spectacularly into the loch, and then mumbled, “I . . . I missed you, hen—”
“Not hen. She's a dragon,” Titus hissed.
“I missed you, dragon . . . I dreamt aboot you . . . um . . . I couldn't think aboot onything else. . . . I l— Ah l—l— Och no. I cannae dae it withoot feeling like a right numpty,” and coiling himself up into something that resembled a house-sized pretzel, the Sleeper sank below the surface of the loch, the waters hissing as they closed over the beast's flushed cheeks.
Titus waited till the loch was silent and still, then took the Alarming Clock out of his pocket. I'm only borrowing it for a moment, he reminded himself—in an attempt to justify the fact that he'd sneaked into Mrs. McLachlan's bedroom and snatched the device, fully aware that the nanny would go ballistic if she found out. Titus had been feeling positively saintly since giving his inheritance away. Saintly and utterly, dismally, irrevocably skint. No Aston Martins for this chap, he reminded himself. However, the loss of all those tainted millions seemed like a small price to pay if it meant that he wasn't going to die—fat, ugly, and unloved—at the relatively tender age of forty-two. He needed to check, to be absolutely sure that this was indeed the case. And so, taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and pushed the button.
Hardly daring to inhale, he opened his eyes to find a small boy staring down at him.
“Where did you appear from?” the child gasped, backing away in alarm.
“Um . . . ah . . . I've just arrived. Don't panic—” Titus reached out to reassure the little boy, but his gesture had the opposite effect. With a wail, the child fled along the jetty, his voice raised in a howl of terror, screaming, “Flora! FLORA! THERE'S A BIG BOY ON OUR BEACH!”
I'm going to have to be quick, Titus resolved, giving chase. He hurtled through the brambles, skirted the edge of the meadow, and plunged into the shade beneath the rhododendrons, their thick foliage shielding him from the house. StregaSchloss glowed pink in the early-morning light, its continued existence the source of considerable relief to Titus. No glass monstrosity, he noted, and no flash cars lined up on the drive, either. An elderly woman appeared at the front door, the wailing child in her arms. Titus frowned, unable to see clearly at this distance who she might be, but nevertheless sure that it couldn't be Flora McLachlan. Titus crept silently through the rhododendrons until he reached a vantage point from which he shamelessly eavesdropped. In the still air, the voices from the front door carried perfectly.
“Show me where you saw the man.”
“Not a man. A big boy,” the child insisted.
“A big boy, is it now? Och . . . you're talking nonsense. There's no big boys awake yet. They're all asleep upstairs.”
At this, the child's wails redoubled and the elderly lady set him down firmly on the steps. “That's enough, pet,” she said, hands on hips. “Hush now—you'll wake the house with your racket. . . .”
Another figure appeared at the front door, dressed in a sensible tweed skirt. The child wriggled out of the elderly lady's grasp and flung himself on this new arrival, who commented mildly, “Och, you poor wee chook.”
Hearing the unexpectedly familiar voice, Titus leaned forward to peer through the bushes. His mind reeled
in denial. Mrs. McLachlan? Still there? She must be ancient.
“Don't you worry, pet,” the nanny soothed. “I've made some pancakes for your breakfast and there are some of Grandpa's favorite raspberry muffins ready to come out of the oven—”
Grandpa? Raspberry muffins? Titus clutched a rhododendron trunk for support. This was all too bizarre, he decided—but his traitorous stomach growled in happy recognition at the mention of its favorite food.
“Away you go back down to the loch, and let Grandpa know his breakfast's getting cold,” Mrs. McLachlan continued, turning round and disappearing into the shadows inside the house. Obediently, the little boy ran back across the meadow, all fear forgotten in his haste to call his grandfather inside for muffins. Titus's stomach growled again. The elderly lady on the doorstep remained standing, apparently having a senior moment as she talked to herself.
“He's as obsessed about fishing as he used to be with those computer things,” she observed, apparently addressing the stone griffin that still graced the entrance to StregaSchloss. “And muffins . . . I would have thought he would be sick of them by now.” She bent down, stretching out a hand to something too small for Titus to see.
Just then it all fell into place in his head. The ancient granny on the doorstep was Pandora, a fact he confirmed when a familiarly grumpy voice muttered, “Just because you're a geriatric doesn't mean you have to treat me as one.”
Titus saw a small black fur-ball scuttle up Pandora's arm and cling to her collar as it said helpfully, “D'you know . . . that lipstick . . . does nothing for you.”
That could only be Tarantella, Titus thought gloomily, still obnoxious as ever. On the doorstep his wrinkly sister turned to go inside, leaving Titus to debate whether to follow her or not. On reflection not, he decided. If discovered, his presence at StregaSchloss would require explanations of such complexity that he doubted his ability to sound anything other than completely insane. However, he had to see himself just once in the future flesh before returning. Retracing his steps down to the lochside, he found he was growing more nervous at the prospect. He halted, rubbing his face with clammy hands and breathing heavily as if he'd been running. Through the brambles and scrub oaks that partially blocked his view of the loch, he could hear the child's voice calling for his grandfather.
Apparently the grandfather hadn't heard, for there came the sound of footsteps running along the jetty. Again, the child called, and this time came a distant, deeper voice, raised in warning. The silence was again broken by a harsh overhead squawk from a seagull, and Titus peered through the brambles just in time to see the little boy lose his balance and fall with terrifying slowness into the deep water off the end of the jetty. For a split second that felt like a lifetime, Titus froze, caught in an agony of indecision. He couldn't swim and had never learned. As he plunged through the brambles, ran across the beach, and hurtled along the jetty, he knew that all he was about to accomplish was two drownings, not one. Such reasoning, sensible as it was, gave him no comfort. Just out of reach—seventy years in the future—his grandchild was drowning and he could do nothing whatsoever to prevent it. Casting around desperately for a branch or a bit of driftwood to hold out for the child to cling to, he realized that he'd forgotten someone.
Ahead of him, out on the loch, came a yell accompanied by a massive splash. Seconds later, Titus saw a bobbing bald head swimming frantically across the gap between a distant rowboat and the ripples marking where the child had fallen in. What the bald swimmer lacked in aquatic finesse he more than made up for in the speed with which he plowed to the rescue. Reaching the ominously calm water by the end of the jetty, the swimmer trod water—ducking his head down in an attempt to see where the child lay beneath the waters of the loch.
“THERE!” Titus yelled, able to see exactly where the child hung suspended, feet tangled in weed and little body horribly still. The swimmer dived downward in such a flurry of bubbles and foam that for one moment, nothing could be seen from above. Then, with a great gush of water, the swimmer broke surface, the child's body in his arms. He made for the jetty, where Titus knelt with arms outstretched to receive the little boy.
In that instant, as their eyes met, there came a gleam of recognition in those of the swimmer. For Titus, it was the strangest sensation to meet his older self, face to face. As he later explained to Pandora, the feeling was like a hammer blow to the chest, driving all breath from his lungs in an involuntary gasp, breath that was replaced by heat and accompanied by a dazzling shimmer at the corners of his vision.
“Wow,” Pandora breathed respectfully. “Sounds weird . . . but what about the wee boy?”
“You mean my grandson?” Titus said, rolling the words experimentally round his mouth. “He was fine. He threw up spectacular amounts of loch-water, burst into tears, but otherwise he was okay. I must say, though, for an old wrinkly I was the most amazing swimmer . . . and brave? Phwoarrrr. All in all, a real hero of a grandfather.”
“And so modest, too,” Pandora sighed. “Tell me, though . . . what did he say to you? I mean, what did the heroic wrinkly Titus say to you? He must have wondered who on earth you were, and where you'd sprung from.”
“Ah, yes . . .” Titus looked embarrassed. “I had thought he'd say something profound, something about the amazing fact that here I was, a living, breathing version of himself, only several decades younger . . . but instead he said, ‘Time you learned to swim, laddie. Ignorance is no excuse,' and then he just turned his back on me and ran back to the house with his—my—oh heck, our grandson in his arms. Which brings me to my birthday present.”
“Eh?” Pandora frowned. “I fail to see what your birthday has to do with—”
“Swimming lessons,” Titus interrupted. “Don't you see? I have to learn how to swim so that . . . well, um, so that I can be a hero like . . . um . . . well, like I'm going to be, so I'd like you to teach me how to swim as a birthday present.”
“Fine by me.” Pandora put her head to one side and stared at Titus. “But—you know, I'm dead impressed that you gave away all that money. Still, I have wondered if, when it comes to your birthday, aren't you going to wake up and think, What did I do that for? All that money?”
“No,” Titus said firmly. “Who needs it? Besides—that old guy, me as a grandfather, in a funny sort of way he was seriously cool. Wrinkly and old, but . . . the kind of grandfather I wish we'd had. A grandfather who would have taken us out on his boat, who knew about fishing, and who would probably have arm-wrestled me for the last muffin in the pan. He looked . . . happy, Pandora. He looked as if his life had been pretty good to date and he was looking forward to more of the same. Nothing like that fat, lonely millionaire who lived in the glass house, and probably nothing like the grandfather who left me all his tainted millions. So,” he concluded, staring out the window at Lochnagargoyle, “I know which one I'd rather become.”
Pandora stood up and reached out a hand to Titus. “Come on, then,” she said, hauling him upright. “No time like the present for your present.”
“What?” Titus frowned. “Now? Right now? The loch'll be freezing. Can't we wait till my proper birthday?”
“No,” said Pandora in a manner that made Titus's heart sink. “Get your swimsuit. I'll meet you down by the jetty. Think of these lessons as a bonus, Titus. I've actually already found you the most brilliant birthday present, but you can't have that till the day itself.”
Pandora headed downstairs, leaving Titus rummaging through his wardrobe, bleakly aware that unless he appeared at the jetty fully dressed, his sister was going to be treated to the sight of him sporting legs hairier than Tarantella's. Praying that Pandora wouldn't tease him about his recent pubertal sproutings, he pulled on a pair of decently baggy shorts, dragged a T-shirt over his head to conceal the dozen or so chest hairs that were his secret pride and joy, and ran downstairs before he could change his mind.
Father of Lies
Arriving back in Hades after his abrupt demise at StregaSc
hloss, the demon Astoroth was peremptorily debriefed, dumped in the limbo-tank for what felt like eons, and then rudely ejected to face the wrath of the Boss. Following meekly behind a lesser demon, the disgraced Second Minister from the Hadean Executive had plenty of time to consider exactly what form his punishment might take, and to hope fervently that his next incarnation wouldn't be a female one. Their labyrinthine passage through the corridors of Hades had taken even longer than usual, checkpoints and barriers appearing at every turn—each requiring him to fill out endless forms and questionnaires before he could proceed onward toward the upper levels where the Boss had his domain.
With each stop the paperwork grew more finicky and time-consuming; Astoroth was obliged to answer the same series of questions he'd just completed moments before. Moreover, all too keenly aware that he was in deep poo, he couldn't allow his temper to erupt and thus had to endure the leaky ballpoints and poor-quality paper that each set of forms required him to deal with. As soon as he laboriously filled in each of these, they were promptly shredded—unread—as an exercise in complete futility. Finally, after completing a particularly pointless forty-two-page questionnaire printed on what appeared to be gray blotting paper—with a blunt turkey feather dipped in raw sewage— a distant door flew open at the end of the corridor ahead.
A blood-red figure emerged, crooked its finger at Astoroth, and said, “He's in a meeting, but if you'll just come in here and wait, I'll let him know you've arrived.”
Astoroth took a deep breath and stepped forward, inhaling the homely smell of hot iron and sulfur that coiled invitingly from behind the open door. The red demon stepped aside to allow access to the Boss's antechambers, then returned to his position behind a large obsidian desk. Ignoring Astoroth, he lowered his eyes to concentrate on a laptop—which, together with a black telephone and a watercooler, constituted the only items of a nonorganic nature in the room. The walls and carpet were made of woven human hair; this, in all its rich tonal and structural variety, gave the bizarre illusion of being trapped inside a giant fur-ball. The transparent watercooler was filled with virulent green liquid and little signs everywhere read