The Chronicles of the Tempus

by K. A. S. Quinn

  Dolores was looking more worried by the minute. She turned the pillows and smoothed the bed. ‘There you go, baby,’ she said. ‘All nice and comfy now. You just slip in and get some rest.’ Katie got on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. There were piles of books underneath, and a couple of childhood treasures, but there was no girl with long red hair. Just to be certain, she got up and looked in the closet. All she saw was her school uniform, some unfortunate ‘teen’ clothes Mimi had picked out for her, and in the back, tangled up with her baseball bat and an old battered kite, was the walking stick.

  ‘It’s the walking stick,’ she said to herself, climbing into bed. ‘He had a walking stick. Just like mine.’

  ‘There now, honey,’ Dolores said, giving her an uncharacteristic kiss on the forehead. ‘You just forget about the man and the walking stick. Just close your eyes. I’m gonna get you that milk. You just yell out if you feel scared or sick.’

  The walking stick – that was the key to remembering. If Katie could crack the secret of the stick, if she could read the symbols carved into it, then she’d understand everything.

  She’d been trying to figure out the walking stick for ages. First stop had been the internet, for hours, late into the night. She’d even spent a clutch of Saturdays at the New York Public Library poring over book after book. But she learned nothing. Tap, tap, tap – the stick bounced against her brain, but it couldn’t get in.

  The most frightening and frustrating part was that someone did understand, and they weren’t going to help. Quite the opposite. Upstairs in Apartment 23C lived Professor Diuman, the world’s leading expert on Parallel Being and the Temporal Psyche of History, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Ancient and Extinct Languages at Columbia University. More important than that, he was one of Mimi’s exes. They’d dated for a couple of months, when Mimi was going through a kind of ‘find a guy like Arthur Miller’ stage. It hadn’t worked out, of course. Professor Diuman might be brainy, but he was also ugly, and Mimi didn’t do ugly. She’d decided to climb Mount Everest and ran off with a hunky mountaineer.

  Professor Diuman had always been nice to Katie. In the first place, he knew she existed, which was more than she could say for some of Mimi’s boyfriends. He asked her what she thought about things, what she was doing. Not in a creepy way – more as a comrade in arms. When Mimi dumped him, Katie and the professor had stayed on good terms. He always said hello in the elevator, and bought Girl Scout cookies from her each fall. He liked the Thin Mints. Sometimes he even lent her books, though Katie found them kind of weird.

  In New York city apartment buildings, people do not knock on their neighbours’ doors, except to complain about noises or smells or a particularly unattractive Christmas wreath. But Katie had knocked on Professor Diuman’s door. Anyone who knew as much as he did about language was sure to recognize the symbols on the walking stick. Katie had been so certain it would be OK. He’d give her a glass of milk, and some of the Thin Mints she’d sold him the year before. And then he’d tell her all about her mystery gift.

  Except that wasn’t how it happened. Professor Diuman was there when she knocked. Smiling and nodding in his slightly timid way, he’d led her into the living room. He sported a long grey ponytail – grown, Katie suspected, to compensate for the lack of hair on the top of his head. His wispy goatee, divided into three neat braids, was not an attractive addition.

  ‘What brings you up here?’ he asked Katie. ‘Have you locked yourself out? Is something wrong with Mimi?’ His small oval spectacles reflected the things about him – the books on the shelves, the curious objects on the coffee table.

  ‘It’s this,’ Katie said, holding out the walking stick. ‘I really need to know more about it, especially the symbols. I thought you might know . . .’

  If the walking stick had grown fangs and attacked Professor Diuman, the change in the room could not have been greater. Diuman pulled away, his spectacles growing dark. She could have sworn the braids on his chin bristled and twitched.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked, not at all in his usual absent-minded friendly way.

  ‘It was a gift,’ Katie said. ‘At least I think it was.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘From I don’t know. It was left downstairs for me, with the doorman.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’ Katie was getting confused.

  Diuman took the walking stick from her, turning it in his hands, his eyes flicking from the carved symbols to Katie, his glasses growing darker, his manner more agitated. She could tell he knew what the symbols meant. But she couldn’t work out why he was acting so strange.

  ‘The doorman gave this to you?’ Professor Diuman ran his fingers over the symbols. ‘Are you certain it was meant for you? I really do think there’s been a mistake. This was clearly meant for me.’

  None of this was clear to Katie. She only knew that Diuman was acting very strangely. His braided beard was undulating, and the room had taken on a funny smell – like when you plug in the Christmas tree and the wires fuse – a kind of burnt, electric smell. A dangerous smell. The best thing would be to leave – right away.

  Leaning forward, she snatched the walking stick, and held it behind her back.

  ‘The walking stick is mine,’ she said. ‘My name was on the card. Thanks for looking at it, but I really have to be going now.’

  She felt shaky, but tried to act natural, walking towards the door. For a moment she thought Professor Diuman would let her go, but he sidled in front of her, blocking her exit, his arms stretched across the door frame. He’d put his ‘friendly face’ back on, but Katie could see he was as tense as a cobra, ready to strike.

  ‘I am sorry, my dear,’ he said. ‘I just got rather excited about that artefact of yours. I can take it to Columbia University this afternoon. I’ll show it to some of my colleagues. It might be worth quite a lot. I can authenticate it, and sell it for you; make a bit of money for a girl your age. You’d like some pocket money, wouldn’t you?’ He reached out for the walking stick, but she kept it behind her back.

  ‘It’s mine,’ she repeated. Diuman flushed red, the sparse hair on his head standing up with static electricity. Katie saw herself reflected in his glasses and she looked scared.

  ‘If I were you,’ he said in a tight, shaking voice, ‘I’d be more reasonable. Now do be a good girl.’

  Katie ducked under his arm and twisted the door knob. It wasn’t locked. She’d make a run for it; down the corridor. Professor Diuman followed, and would have caught her, but the elevator opened and Mrs Klapznik stepped out. ‘Diuman!’ she barked. ‘I want to talk to you about those noises coming from your apartment.’ She looked from the Professor to Katie. ‘Is something wrong here?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want trouble in the building.’

  ‘No, no, Mrs Klapznik,’ Professor Diuman said. ‘I’m saying goodbye to Mimi’s daughter. You know, Mimi in 11C.’

  ‘As if I wouldn’t know Mimi!’ harrumphed Mrs Klapznik. ‘Now there’s noise for you – parties and paparazzi and who knows what else goes on in that apartment. But my problem is with 23C, with you, Professor Diuman.’

  Katie had never been as glad to see anyone as she was to see Mrs Klapznik. Diving into the elevator, she jabbed 11, and then the Close button, several times.

  Professor Diuman hadn’t come after her. The doorman said Diuman had left, quite suddenly, on some kind of trip. But Katie knew one day soon he’d be back, up there, just twelve floors above, plotting to get the walking stick. She’d hidden it in the back of her closet. Stupid stick; but nothing could be that dangerous without a purpose. She just wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.

  Chapter Three

  Deep in the Looking Glass

  Katie spent the rest of the day in – or under – her bed. She figured the closer she stayed to it, the less chance there was she’d find someone else in it. Mimi stayed in bed too, occasionally wailing for herbal tea. At about six she sent Dolores
out for a large tub of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream.

  ‘If Mimi’s asking for ice cream, she’s hit rock bottom,’ Katie said to Dolores. ‘Ice cream is a pre-suicidal move. Should I go in and see her?’

  Dolores shrugged into her brown and orange plaid coat and pulled her woolly hat down over her ears. ‘I told her a little fib: that you’re at your daddy’s all day, an’ you’re not back ’til late tonight,’ she said. ‘Best she don’t even know you’re here. I know she’s carrying on, but you’re the one who needs the rest. Don’t worry about Mimi; I’ll buy her a bumper box of chocolate doughnuts to go with her ice cream. Before you know it, that woman’ll be in hog heaven.’

  ‘You don’t think she’ll harm herself?’ Katie asked. ‘You know how hysterical she gets after she eats.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ Dolores said. ‘And tonight I’ll make her that special soup she likes – just ginger and nettles and hot water. She can drink it all day tomorrow. That’ll cheer her up.’

  Reassured, Katie crept back under her bed, pulling the walking stick behind her. It was a tall Victorian-style bed and she kept anything that really mattered underneath it. A blanket knitted by her grandmother, her diary, a Swiss army knife – a present from her long-gone father. Also the essentials – a box of Oreos, tissues, a flashlight. And then there were the books: an eclectic mix of fiction, biography, poetry and letters – though her obsession at the moment was medical pamphlets. She was fascinated by disease, and if she’d thought more highly of herself, she might have wanted to become a doctor.

  She ran her index finger over the spines of her books: His Dark Materials, Swahili Made Easy, My Life as a Dog, 13 Women Astronauts, Dispatches from the Crimea, Tourniquets and Their Uses . . . In the corner was a pile of books on ancient languages. There were a couple Professor Diuman had loaned her in the past. ‘Well, he’s never getting these books back,’ Katie thought. ‘Last time I saw him, he looked like he might eat me alive . . .’

  She pulled one of Diuman’s books from the pile. It was very old, with crumbling pages and a strange burnt musky smell. It was in Latin, and Katie’s Latin was bad. She could only remember semper ubi sub ubi: always wear underwear. Tempus Fugit, Libertati Viam Facere the title-page read. She knew this had nothing to do with underwear, but something to do with time flying and freedom. She turned the pages, staring idly at the words. Random letters were illuminated with drawings. The word ‘Tempus’ thrust itself forward, the ‘T’ engraved with snakes and patterns. Her eyes seemed to re-focus and she could pick out symbols amongst the patterns – symbols a lot like those on the walking stick.

  Turning the pages, Katie made a mental note: try not to sleep through Latin class. Though she looked at the book for a very long time, it was all so much gibberish to her. In frustration she slammed the book shut and a stiff white card fell out. It was embossed in a flourishing script. ‘Aide memoire’ it read. To help her remember! This was the card that had arrived with the walking stick. How had it ended up in this book? Perhaps she’d left the card as a bookmark? She couldn’t think of any other explanation. But even Katie knew she wouldn’t have been that careless with something so important.

  Dolores stood in the doorway. ‘Bathtime,’ she said. ‘And then bedtime.’

  ‘But I’ve been in bed all day,’ Katie protested from behind the pink dust ruffle.

  ‘You are under the bed now,’ Dolores said. ‘I don’t know what you do down there. You are a child, not a groundhog.’

  Katie knew she’d never be able to sleep, but the sooner she was in bed, the sooner Dolores would leave, and she could get back to code-breaking; so she diligently had her bath, put on her warmest flannel pyjamas and pretended to sleep. Finally the door slammed.

  Slipping back under the bed, Katie found the Tempus book and the embossed card. How had they ended up together? Did they connect in some way to the walking stick? It was all such a puzzle and Katie had so few pieces: she had to fit them together any way she could. She simply had to figure this out. Maybe she could find the words ‘aide memoire’ somewhere in the Tempus book. She knew that was silly. Old-fashioned people used the phrase ‘aide memoire’ to remember a business appointment, or a luncheon party, or a ball. It wasn’t magical at all, just functional.

  She switched on her flashlight and examined the card over and over. ‘Aide memoire’ she said to herself. Opening the book she read its title page: ‘Tempus Fugit, Libertati Viam Facere.’ She turned from the book to the card, from the card to the book. ‘Tempus Fugit, Libertati Viam Facere,’ she repeated to herself, and flipping the card she noticed the watermark. She’d seen it hundreds of times; it was the logo of the paper manufacturer, just a jumbled pattern. But tonight it was clearer. Maybe it was the dark and the flashlight, but she could almost read it. As she held the flashlight closer, the pattern formed words and the words formed lines, then the lines became verses:

  In the dark of the night

  The flicker of light

  Lies deep in the looking glass.

  If unable to sleep

  Through blackness you’ll creep

  Towards shades who shimmer and pass.

  The right eyes read reverse

  Through blessing and curse

  And backwards through time and space.

  Katie held the card so tight, it made red dents in her fingers. ‘That has nothing to do with the name of a papermaker,’ she said aloud. She always talked to herself when she was frightened. Mimi was sleeping through a cocktail of Ramelteon and Temazepam and Dolores was on the subway, hurtling towards the Bronx. Katie might as well be alone in the apartment. ‘Poetry’, she mumbled, ‘I’m being frightened to death by poetry. Whoever heard of death by couplets? Though it’s not two lines, it’s three . . .’ Pedantic humour was her other defence against fear.

  Katie looked at the card again. The words were fading, reforming as the original watermark and becoming unreadable. She scrambled around for a pencil and a scrap of paper and quickly wrote the words down. If she lost them, she’d never find the meaning of the walking stick. She wasn’t going to make the mistake of forgetting again. This was a message for her, and she had to figure it out. ‘Now think, you dummy,’ she said loudly. ‘What did that card say? And what does it mean?’

  ‘In the dark of the night,’ she said, hunching over her scribbles. ‘The flicker of light lies deep in the looking glass.’ She chewed the end of her pencil. ‘It’s dark now’, she said, ‘and it’s night. Could this be “the dark of the night?” Is it show-time? Whatever it is; can I make it happen?

  She pored over the words ‘The flicker of light’. This message she was receiving, could it be from the past? Why else the old book and the aide-memoire card? ‘Light,’ she said, ‘a candle.’ But Mimi had all the candles – large scented ones all over her bedroom and bathroom. Katie didn’t think she should leave her own room; she might break the spell, or whatever it was. She tapped the flashlight against her chin, and it flickered against the piles of books. If she didn’t have a candle she would have to make do with the flashlight.

  She turned to the next line. ‘Lies deep in the looking glass.’ Looking glass; that was a mirror, but which mirror? There were hundreds in the apartment. Mimi’s dressing room was mirrored floor to ceiling with real make-up light bulbs and hundreds of drawers for her creams and lotions. There were eight large chrome-rimmed ones in Mimi’s bedroom, set in the cream shantung silk walls. There was even a pop-up mirror in one of the kitchen drawers, so that Mimi could have a final peek at herself over her nettles and water.

  Katie lifted the dust ruffle from her bed, and peered around her room. ‘Which mirror, which looking glass?’ she asked. As if in answer, a tiny shaft of light darted from under the door of her bathroom.

  If unable to sleep

  Through darkness you’ll creep

  Towards shades who shimmer and pass.

  The strange words on the card seemed to reverberate through her brain. She took a deep brea
th. There was a choice now. She could get up, telephone her father and ask if she could come over; or she could creep, through the darkness, towards whatever lay beyond her bathroom door. For several minutes she couldn’t decide what to do. But then she thought of the girl in her bed. That vision might be connected to this message. ‘Can you help?’ had been the question hanging over the girl’s head. How could Katie help if she ran away?

  ‘Fine,’ Katie said. ‘If that’s what you want, through darkness I’ll creep.’ For protection she took the book and the walking stick with her. Wedging them under her left arm, she clutched the white card and the flashlight in her right hand. Flat on her belly, she inched towards the bathroom and pushed the door open. The source of light was the bathroom mirror. Not a reflection of light in the mirror, but the mirror itself. Katie shuddered. There really was something moving inside the mirror. Wands of faint light darted out and then withdrew into the depths.

  She almost heard a click in her brain, and then she understood. Had it been Michelangelo, or da Vinci? Which one had written their diary in reverse, so that you could only read it reflected in a mirror? Taking a deep breath she held the card up to face the mirror. Shining the flash light on the card she chanted the final lines of the verse.

  ‘The right eyes read reverse

  Through blessing and curse

  And backwards through time and space.

  The activity in the mirror became frantic. She still couldn’t see what was happening, but it was growing, circling. And then the card flashed bright and she could read a new couplet in the mirror, as glaring as a neon sign:

  The Tempus will find the message

  That leads to timely passage.

  She was frightened and excited and still very confused. It was the Tempus that could make it all happen. But what, or who was the Tempus? She looked around the room: the toilet, the towels, the bath soap, the acne cream. She knew, instinctively, that none of this had anything to do with the Tempus. Then, through the darting lights of the mirror, she settled on her own reflection. Again, a brittle click seemed to awaken something in her brain. ‘Am I the answer?’ she cried. ‘Am I the Tempus? Could it really be me?’