Aeon Eleven

by Aeon Authors

  “This isn’t the time. You need to leave before—”

  —Gruff voices filled in the lobby.

  I stood and brushed the wrinkles from my dress. “Too late.”

  The police had arrived. More officers strode past the window, their starched uniforms dappled with rain-damp. Edwin sank into the depths of the chair. “Oh d--n and double d--n.”

  “They’re not here for us!” I said. We still had time. Edwin’s charm said so.

  Edwin had better be right.

  “I know. I know.” My brother scrubbed his face. “Fi, just… stay out of trouble, will you?”

  A newspaper, abandoned by some unknown gentleman lay over the arm of my chair. I unfolded it and gave it to Edwin: a paper shield. “I’ll try,” I promised.

  Concealed in a vase of ornamental greenery, ready and waiting, was my tennis racket, a prop for the coming performance. Props are so useful: they focus the mind, create verisimilitude, and in a pinch, make wonderful blunt instruments.

  “There’s something wrong in the aether,” Edwin whispered. “Can’t you feel it?”

  And with that portent of doom, I opened the door and stepped into a lobby packed with policemen.

  The tennis racket and I entered stage left and took position at the foot of the stair, as if waiting for a companion to descend. I had a singularly excellent view of piggy-faced Uncle Ralph as he stuttered to an inspector and young constable.

  The Inspector asked, “And that was when the young lady was discovered missing?”

  Ralph nodded, clutching his hat in both hands. Beside him, Stanley glowered at all and sundry and yet still managed to look like a harried saint. The silver snuff box flashed as he fidgeted.

  “And the windows were broken? Hmm…. I see.” The inspector made a note. Then he made another. Then he said, “PC Dickie and I will require complete access to the hotel’s facilities, Mr. Jones! The grounds, the servants, the accounts….”

  “The accounts!” Stanley said. “That’s the most— How’ll the blasted accounts help in the sorry business?”

  “Ah.” PC Dickie nodded wisely. “That is a v’ry good question, sir. A v’ry good question indeed.”

  His superior added, “Evidence, sir, is everything! Let me assure you, Mr. Jones, no stone’ll be left unturned ’til the young Miss is safe!”

  Stanley shook his head and mopped his brow with a cuff.

  A rather dusty portrait hung on the wall above Stanley’s head: a gentleman of middling years and a pleasant face. William Tamwell, Founder of Brighton Bay Hotel, a placard stated. He gazed at the proceedings with benevolent eyes.

  “Did the young lady keep a diary, Mr. Jones?” the senior policeman asked.

  Uncle Ralph spluttered a semi-coherent answer.

  As a point of fact, Julia had not, but we had been quite thorough in manufacturing one. Letters and diary would be found and the merry goose chase would keep the constabulary happily occupied. I smiled to myself.

  Then I stopped.

  The Inspector’s eyes drifted in my direction; I gazed up the stairs as his attention prickled hairs on the back of my neck.

  I’m not interesting. Ignore me. Go on, I thought.

  He cleared his throat.

  Of all the confounded luck.

  The Inspector watched me with professionally narrow eyes, nibbling on the corner of his moustache. Here was I, of an appropriate age, a potential witness; might I know something of Julia?

  I could be out the door before he spoke. But what would be the fun of that?

  I could go to him.

  I imagined Edwin having conniptions in the reading room.

  “Excuse me, Monsieur, but I could not help but overhear…. Is Miss Julia unwell? We were to play tennis.” I smiled at the men: a bonny, guileless young woman.

  “When was this?” Stanley demanded as Ralph blurted, “Julia is a bit—” Both paused, waiting for the other to continue.

  The Inspector claimed the floor; he tipped his helmet and held a gold propelling pencil poised above a notebook. “Inspector Creighton at your service. When did you last see the young lady in question? And may I ask the time and whereabouts of said happenstance?”

  Good lord! It was a good thing that I was not truly French. ‘Whereabouts of said happenstance’? What a dreadfully typical policeman.

  The previous morning, I told him. After her discussion with Monsieur Jones’ assistant. Stanley shifted and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “But where is Miss Julia?” I asked. “Has there been a burglary?”

  “I’m afraid Miss Tamwell has been—” Inspector Creighton consulted his notes. “—abducted by person or persons unknown, some time between six and nine this morning.”

  Really? Gosh, how delightful. Now it was time to make my exit.

  I counted to five.

  The tennis racket fell to the floor as my hands rose, shaking, to my mouth. “Oh, but this is dreadful. This is unspeakable! Il faut téléphoner à la police!”

  Inspector Creighton’s moustache bristled in alarm. Noble policeman, he existed in a world where the crimes were dastardly, the criminal said “fair cop, gov,” and the women did not have hysterics in his presence. He cleared his throat. “Dickie! Get water for the Mademoiselle!”

  Mademoiselle did not answer. Mademoiselle was too busy swooning into startled PC Dickie’s arms.

  Stanley and Dickie half-carried me to the reading room. Stanley kicked open the door. Edwin! I thought.

  Lace curtains billowed in the rain-soaked wind. The window stood open and there was no sign of my brother.

  Bless them, but they wouldn’t leave. To hear the maids, you’d have thought I was upon my death bed instead of sitting in my suite’s comfortable armchair, nursing a generous brandy. On the house, I might add.

  “Ce n’est pas grave!” I told the chambermaids. “Go! Shoo!” Finally, they scattered like sparrows and fled to spread the gossip.

  A booming voice floated through the hotel. “Plucky gal! Makes trees, you know. Ta’ frighten the scoundrels, I’ll wager. Plucky gal. Just like her Mama.”

  Uncle Ralph had also partaken of the brandy.

  Invisible Julia giggled. It is quite disconcerting, having an invisible giggler at ones’ elbow.

  “For an abducted woman, you are surprisingly cheerful,” I said. “I thought they would hear you, and then where would we have been?”

  The aether wavered as the charm deactivated. Julia popped into view. “Don’t fuss so!”

  What could I do? Edwin’s nerves were contagious. I stood and stretched the stiffness from my limbs. “And how did you spend your day?”

  “Sitting mostly. Oh, but I fetched Uncle Ralph’s account book! He has Stanley do them, so he shan’t miss it. I thought we… oh, I don’t know… we could decide what my ransom should be.”

  “Perhaps later, darling.”

  In silent reproach, Edwin had left the map-charm spread out on a marquetry side table. I glanced at it.

  My blood turned to ice; Southampton had not delayed the Constabulary sorcerers.

  As if spurned on by my gaze, yet another red thread disintegrated.

  No, impossible!

  Edwin’s warning repeated in my ear, “There’s something wrong in the aether.”

  “Oh blast,” I said, adding something rather too profane for me to record.

  Julia failed to find my unladylike language another reason to giggle. “Fiona?”

  “Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing.” Had Edwin seen the state of his handkerchief lately? Where was he? Not in the suite. I checked the back room: no Edwin. Now all attention, I could feel the disturbance in the Otherworld: ripples, fast becoming waves. Edwin’s magic was eroding by slow increments. Why? Bad aetheric weather, something else? I didn’t know. Julia, meanwhile, edged away from the nearest window. “Look. More policemen,” she said.

  She was right: a trio of officers strolled by the hotel, casting suspicious glances at innocent shadows.

  “At
least they’re getting their daily constitutional,” I said, distractedly.

  Edwin and I needed to leave. And we needed to leave soon. There went the plan to ‘ransom’ Julia back to her uncle right out the window. Additionally, right when I needed him, my darling, paranoid brother was making himself scarce.

  I pocketed the handkerchief, changed my mind, replaced it on its table, and ran fingers through my hair. “Typical, Edwin, just typical. Where are you?”

  Julia shook her head, alarmed now, and frustrated. “What aren’t you telling me? Maybe I am a silly girl, like Uncle Ralph thinks, but I’m not foolish!”

  True. I gestured vaguely; the chime of my bracelets reminded me of a time I had worn bruises like jewellery. “The police are eager to discuss things with Edwin and I.”

  “Why!?”

  “This and that.” “Murder, arson, theft. It’s a long story,” I didn’t say.

  “You said you had an uncle—” Julia said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I had an uncle.”

  Awkward silence.

  A clock ticked, an uncomfortable reminder of time.

  I brushed my hands together, trying to dust away the past. “So, that ledger. Where is it?”

  If you don’t have a plan, pretend otherwise.

  Julia produced a small, battered book. On its yellowing pages, columns of numbers marched in an army of arithmetic secrets. The handwriting changed with the pages. There was the florid script of Julia’s father, there the half literate scribbles of Ralph, and last, the sparse, trustworthy print of Stanley.

  I ran a finger down Mr. Stanley’s columns and smiled; I always did have a good head for figures. “This will do nicely,” I said.

  The world has a natural order.

  I padded through the corridors in my night dress and dressing gown, accompanied by the sea sounds and the dark. A draft ghosted in from the night, kissed my skin with cold lips, then whisked away to breathe in the curtains.

  A natural order: low vermin and weasels feed on the helpless, while wolves and foxes dine on any and all, until the hounds run them into the ground. Uncle Ralph was a rat, living off what could not fight back. Trustworthy Stanley was the weasel, though Ralph did not know it.

  And I—

  I reached a lit doorway and pressed back against the wall. My right hand dug in my pocket as the left pulled a sheaf of papers from my sleeve. Inside the room, a man cursed low and constant under his breath.

  —I’m the vixen.

  I stepped into view. “It isn’t there,” I said.

  In the lamp light, Stanley’s shocked eyes gleamed. He knelt on the floor of his own office, surrounded by a mess of ransacked files and emptied desks. Here, Stanley was no earthly angel: he was angry and seedy and sweating.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  I let the ledger pages flutter free. Stanley stilled; he recognized those pages.

  I said, “I think the good Inspector would be quite interested in a certain little book, don’t you?”

  The silver snuff box gleamed as Stanley played with it. His saintly aura returned and a halo fairly shone above his head. The aether rippled; somewhere upstairs, Edwin’s charms frayed a little more.

  Stanley said, earnestly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Indeed.

  I pulled a loose thread from my dressing gown’s embroidery.

  Stanley squalled, his hand blistering. The snuff box tumbled to the carpet, red hot and smoking. I watched as Stanley’s trust-me charm melted into a molten pool.

  Edwin was not the only one handy with a charmed needle. “Stanley, darling, you and your nasty little accoutrement have made my life difficult,” I said. “And you have been so very busy with Mr. Jones’s accounts, too. How ever will he pay Julia’s ransom?”

  In the night-blackened window my reflection smiled a predatory smile and stood at ease, hand in gown pocket. Stanley—the weasel, the amateur little magician—cradled his burnt hand and glowered. His house of cards was falling and he knew it.

  “You took her!”

  “Clever boy. Regarding the ledger, please consider the usual threat said.” Interested parties, registered post, etc. Or a significant amount of cash. “Also, if anything were to happen to Julia, would you care to wager who would get the blame?”

  A brass candlestick lay amongst the tumbled papers; I watched Stanley’s hand creep towards it. He was going for it. Any moment….

  I said, “We’ll start with your pocket watch and go from there.”

  The man struck. He exploded to his feet, candlestick raised, his face a snarl of desperation.

  I took my hand out of my pocket and Stanley froze; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared down the barrel of a dainty pearl-handled revolver. In the window reflection, the muzzles were very dark.

  “Allow me to rephrase,” I said. “Give me your pocket watch and five hundred pounds, or I shoot you through the head.”

  Stanley’s pupils went huge. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Are you a gambling man?” I smiled wider. ”Can a woman be dangerous, Mr. Stanley? Come now, tell me what you think.”

  The scream echoed ear-splittingly in the narrow confines of the station. I held my hat in place as the 8am locomotive panted its way to the platform, a turret of steam and three carriages dragging in its wake.

  Julia embraced me. She would be in the papers soon: the Plucky Gal, escaped from abductors and returned safe to the bosom of her family by the Noble Efforts of His Majesty’s Constabulary.

  Further down the platform, Uncle Ralph, Inspector Creighton—his moustache ironed to curly-cues of celebration—and PC Dickie stood in unnecessary guard. Stanley, strangely enough, was nowhere to be seen.

  He had been called away, poor dear, to the bedside of an ailing aunt.

  In Australia.

  Where he would feel right at home.

  Julia asked, “Must you go?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said. “My brother is, for once, quite correct. And your escort is making Edwin terribly nervous.” Not that he had need; with the corrosive effects of the snuff box at an end, we had manoeuvring time. Also, a delightful, unknowing volunteer was setting the Constabulary sorcerers a false trail.

  I hoped they liked Australia.

  I tucked my arm through Julia’s and we walked along the row of carriage. “I suppose it’s not wise to stay at a crime scene,” Julia mused.

  “Just so. Now remember, avoid the good Inspector’s questions. Carry on, cry, faint if you have to. Melodrama is the word of the hour.”

  I winced as my back twinged and informed me that the train journey would be agony. The long midnight hours spent in the hotel grounds with a shovel would punish me for my sins. Oh, how I ached!

  Julia asked, “Do you think I should draw a map? Like pirates do?”

  Porters hefted the last of our trunks aboard, watched over by a fretful Edwin.

  “Fi!” Edwin said. “Please don’t dawdle!”

  I squeezed Julia’s hand, laughing. “Darling, I am of the firm belief that if one can’t remember where one has buried a large amount of misappropriated currency, one simply doesn’t deserve to keep it.”

  And with that I boarded the train.

  Metawonder

  —or—

  Trash Your Oscilloscope

  In a recent conversation a non-scientist friend told me that she had turned from science because of the strict and impersonal image of oscilloscopes and their ilk. They seemed cold and inhuman to her. OK, not Skynet inhuman; they may be machines but not yet self-programmable ones. Hardware and equations can be abused. They can damage young minds that might otherwise have been given science’s big gift of that sense-a-wondah, but were instead robbed of it forever by bad science teachers with no sense of wonder to share.

  Science education is in a lamentable state. Not just from the rumbling approach of anti-science and its medieval siege-craft, but from within as well. The removal of wonder and further distancing itse
lf from the human imagination undermines the traditions and origins of science itself. Imagination is the insatiable hunger within us all that drives the need for scientific inquiry. If imagination is not fed, it will wither and atrophy. Unexercised it transmogrifies into a terracotta lump of impermeability. Imagination drowns in a swamp of listed facts and like any sinking thing grabs what’s near, and science sinks along with it.

  Admittedly and with a measure of chagrin, since I know what is to follow in this missive, I am not dismayed by the occasional oscilloscope. But peering into a round screen with verdant waves can hold amusement for only so long, and then it has to mean something. When the lesson is to see wave crests and troughs, length and amplitude, that’s all well and good. However when the hardware is the example of science, the real point is lost. The oscilloscope is only a window to where the real action is. How about radio storms from Jupiter? Take that trip and the oscilloscope becomes merely incidental, forgotten background noise.