I sat at my desk, impatiently waiting.
We maintained a quick pace back to town, at which point Jill and I parted ways. She told me that she would come to my place shortly, and that she had to go home and, as she said, ‘upload to her laptop’. I assumed this meant that she wished to change her pants, which I felt that, given the extreme circumstances, I could have easily found myself in that very same position.
I had a slew of notes before me, but I scanned over none of them. I simply found myself staring out blankly, remarkably recalling how I walked through that wall of light and unveiled an entire world wherein space and time were of little consequence. Not only did I have to try and reckon what I had seen, but I had to attempt to explain it as well. If not to the Mayor’s Office, then to myself at least!
There was a knock at my door. I had to apologize to Justin when I seemed disappointed that it was only him.
“Mother says that you were as white as a sheet when you returned. She reckons a nice cuppa will fix that.” He shrugged. “The fall of the entire British Empire was cushioned by a cup of tea, by her reckoning.”
“Yes, thank you, set it down over there.”
He placed the tray, but he lingered as though there was something he wanted to say. Or hear me say.
“Is there a problem?” I asked dismissively. This was perhaps the first time I treated any of my hosts as mere staff, but I had the excuse of being significantly distracted.
“There’s been talk...” he began, but never finished.
“That is of little shock to me,” I muttered, pouring my own tea, “but please, delight me.”
“Well...they say that you made...sexual advances to a large group of labourers in the middle of a crowded pub.” He sat down on my bed and looked to me with a scrutinizing eye. “Is this true?”
“It most certainly is not!” I exclaimed, standing. “That is perhaps the most preposterous misrepresentation of the truth that I have ever heard! I merely sought to join their banter! Clearly they have complex rules for their social engagements, which is superfluously inane considering their low mental capacities and simple cattle-like existence!”
“Tempus...”
“What?”
“You don’t know what ‘homosexual’ means, do you?”
I released any shred of anger I had and returned to my seat.
“No,” I conceded, for alas the greatest cross for any man of science to bare is the admission that doesn’t understand that which should, perhaps, be simple. “I haven’t a clue.”
Justin chuckled to himself. “Magicians, good moods...you led me on a wild goose chase. Tempus being ‘gay’, being ‘homosexual’, means that I like other men.”
“Well so do I. I don’t see how that...”
“Romantically. Physically.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I see.”
“Have you never heard of that?”
I coughed nervously. “Well of course I have. I am well aware of the concept,” I insisted. “History is alive with such notions, and the artwork to prove it. I am aware, as it made for some uncomfortable excursions to museums and galleries with my father, I assure you. Obviously it is just the terminology that eluded me.” Then, uncertain how it would be received, I offered; “My father warned me of such men.”
“Did he now?”
“And you are...one of these...?”
He nodded almost sympathetically.
“You’re not going to...you’re not going to bite my pillow, are you?”
Justin let out a laugh of absolute jollity. “Oh blimey Tempus, I think you’re father has given you a few wrong ideas about a few things. No, I shall not bite your pillow. I am of no more threat to you than I am to Saul Coaltree. He’s the one I’d worry about if I were you. Closed-minded git. Him and that flamin’ copper, Matthew.”
“Constable Richards?” I clarified. “The mayor's son?”
“Yeah, and the mayor too. Wanted to enact some local bylaw restricting the presence of ‘our kind’ in these parts, until he realized that it would violate a few basic human rights. It’s not easy being a queen in a small village, Tempus.” He saw my look of puzzlement. “And by ‘queen’,” he explained, letting one wrist go limp, “I mean a flaming homosexual.”
“And what does Mr. Grisham think of this?” I asked, not so much as a judgement but as a line of inquiry.
“The vicar? He takes the diplomatic road and tries not to speak on the subject, but the Bible makes it’s stance quite clear. The vicar handed out some questionnaire last Sunday, apparently. ‘Ten Questions to Determine Your Soul’s Path’ he called it. Said we could see for ourselves just what we require in life in order to make it to Heaven.”
“Intriguing,” I mused. “And have you completed it?”
“Yes, mother” he sighed, rolling his eyes and flipping his short crop of hair in a very feminine manner. Clearly it was not at his own behest that he did so, nor was it by his own volition that he attended Sunday service. “You answer each question with a number. One for ‘not important’ and five for ‘very important’. We’re supposed to hand it in by tomorrow so he can have them all returned to us this Sunday. Just like homework, this is. Kind of exciting though, I guess. We’re all excited to see what it’ll say, even if only for a laugh, but he’s asked that we not share the results with anyone.”
“Most intriguing,” I said. “I have to say, Justin, for a ‘homosexual’, you seem quite...normal.”
“Well that’s the most well-intentioned stereo-type that anyone has ever said to me,” he said, patting my chest. He stood to leave. “Listen, if you see my sister about on her travels, let her know that she’s on dinner duty tonight.”
“I’ve not seen my lovely fiancée since this morning,” I admitted.
To this he laughed. “You’re a riot, Tempus. Don’t ever change.” As he left he added, “You’re a straight arrow in a backwards world, you are.”
As he left the room and the silence returned his words nonetheless echoed in my mind.
A backwards world.
I felt as though I had stepped through to the other side of the mirror.
I was a fool. I was a damned fool.
I looked at the word on my blotter. ‘Suladead’. I had racked my mind trying to think of any language in which ‘sula’ might translate into something tangible. It could indicate a municipality in Norway. A city in Honduras. A genus of seabirds. A river in eastern Europe. A village in Slovakia. It is even a curse word in Romanian, referring to the male genitalia, but unless someone was threatening to kill that part of my body it didn’t make much sense. None of that mattered now. I had discovered the connection.
“Tempus, you’ve got to see these!” a voice called, launching me out of my chair. Jill entered the room with a black book-shaped object and a cup of tea. Obviously she could not get past Mrs. Tellman without having something thrust into her hand.
“It seems we both have discoveries,” I quipped. “By all means, you first.”
She opened the book and placed it upon my desk. A screen sprang to life. It was a portable microcomputer.
“Fascinating,” I gasped. I had to wait as a few screens flashed by, but she was soon able to produce a screen full of small images, each one able to be enlarged with the click of a button.
“They’re all here,” she said excitedly. “Even the freaky guy in the corner.” She enlarged the image and we were once again confronted with the warrior who had nearly frightened us to death when he first appeared on film - the one I attempted to shoot. “There’s even a few I didn’t notice. Even at the bottom of the stairs. Check this out.” She enlarged an image of the stairwell, where I was able to see a ghostly hand protruding through the wall, unseen to us at the time. “Tempus, they were everywhere!” she gasped. “What do you suppose it means?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, “but I think we’ve been warned to
stay away.”
“Having a bloody great warrior charge at us with a sword was a bit of a warning, but somehow I’m guessing that you’re referring to something a little more complex.”
“Suladead,” I repeated, pointing to the writing on my blotter. “It’s not a word. Well it is, but not really.”
“Okay. Wanna run that by me again?”
“Did you know that Leonardo DaVinci kept a notebook? All of his thoughts and inventions, many of which were far ahead of his time, all written down. The strange thing about it is that the majority of them were written backwards. Why would a man do such a thing?”
“To encrypt it?” she offered.
“Surely a man of his brilliance could have found a more effective way to encrypt something than using a method a child with a mirror could figure out.”
“Not that I don’t find this interesting, but...what’s you’re point?”
I took my pencil and wrote another word beneath ‘Suladead’. I wrote the whole thing again, only backwards.
“Daedalus.”
“Speaking of a child's game...” I muttered, clearly vexed at my amateurish oversight.
She looked at my writing with her head tilted. “Ain’t he, like, Hercules' version of the Joker?”
I smiled at her attempt. “In base depictions he was painted as the troublesome villain, but in Greek mythology he was in essence another DaVinci. A skilled artist and inventor. He created the infamous Labyrinth for King Minos in order to imprison his wife’s son, Asterion - the Minotaur. Daedalus was later imprisoned in a tower with his son, Icarus, for the king feared that Daedalus would bring knowledge of this Labyrinth to the public. Unable to escape by land or sea, Daedalus forged his most infamous creation - wings for he and his son, feathers held together by wax, in order for them to flee through the skies. Daedalus knew his son to be rather brash, and issued Icarus a warning.”
“What was that? ‘You’re not Superman’?”
I shook my head. “My son, do not fly too high lest the sun will melt the wax nor too low for the sea's spray will weigh down the feathers.”
I gave her a moment, but she did not quite seem to understand.
“So basically what it’s saying is that in order to solve the mystery of this haunting we have to make sure we oh Christ I have no idea what the hell that means, Tempus.”
“I believe this is a general warning to others, or perhaps a reminder to one who might forget. A cautionary clue to keep on one’s course, for straying too far either way will result in certain death.”
She stared at me for a moment, unsure of how to respond and pondering upon how close she might have come to her own death while in the depths of the Mews. She had not the chance to speak again when the sound of Justin’s frantic cry split the cold silence.
“Tempus!!!”
My eyes widened. I had never heard a voice so distraught, so frightened, so dismayed. I immediately ran down the stairs to the front door, where he impatiently awaited me to follow him out into the darkening skies of the early evening.
“Justin, whatever is the matter?”
He ran frantically down the path, but collapsed halfway down it’s length to his knees, sobbing hysterically. I tried calling him several times, asking him what was the matter, but he could not possibly respond. I received my answer, however, when I looked down the end of the front path.
There lay Nicolette, my fiancée, laying at the front gate. Blood ran from her nose and eyes, and she did not move.
Not even to breathe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN