The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending

by Steven J. Carroll

  Among those adults who’d kept an interest in her case, this seemed to be the popular reason for her disappearance, and was spread around amongst the local papers, in varying degrees, during the weeks that followed. Yet, for the girls at Mayfield however, theirs is a different view of what happened that night, a more sinister explanation if they can tell it right.

  They say that she’d been murdered (but as to how exactly, or for what reasons, no one has ever agreed); And these disputes, about the facts, have lent themselves to many magical and mysterious variations of as to what truly happened that night, each girl swearing to the validity of her own creation, and some more believably than others.

  Though this one haunting detail has been amongst the tales since the very beginning and as such, is most often taken as truth: They say that every year, near the first night, of the first week, of the first quarter, precisely one year from the day on which she first disappeared, just after midnight, you can see a small gable window in the old Greyford house light up like the day, but only for a brief second, and only if you watch for it without blinking.

  And very often, girls who know more honest versions of the story will end theirs like this: That the only one who knew what really happened to Delany that fateful night, was her best friend, Mattie Hardy, and that she’s never told to anyone, not a living soul.

  The End of Book One

  Copyright

  In the Window Room Globe Light Press :

  All rights reserved. Copyright �� Steven J Carroll 2011

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or to be placed on a website for the purpose of review. For information address: Globe Light Press, Globelightpress@gmail.com.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Globe Light Press Printed in the United States of America

  For questions regarding large or bulk orders of this book please address: Globe Light Press, Globelightpress@gmail.com

  Connect with other Histories of Earth fans: facebook.com/stevenjcarrollauthor www.stevenjcarroll.com

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  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to all those who helped in the editing process, and to Chad Lewis for his very appreciated artwork. Also, thanks to Claire Forrester who helped edit this new edition.

  And a very special thanks to Bre, my dear, gorgeous wife, for her inspiration and gracious encouragement, and also to author Toby Hoff, who through his dedication encouraged me to write a book of my own.

  (Book 2 of The Histories of Earth)

  For all the honor we have yet to earn.

  Foreword

  There is a story, once told, about a young girl named Delany Calbefur, and of her fantastical journeys outside of our world and into another. Into the realm of Gleomu, to be precise, on a planet very far from our own, and she came to that place at what would seem to be the exact right time, saving a prince and his kingdom from ever certain destruction.

  However, indeed, that was a very long time ago, and the true memory of this brave girl has all but faded from our world, though not entirely. The tales of her adventures being first recorded in a book which I have called In the Window Room, and which should be read before continuing this story, or else nothing that should happen hereafter will make any sense.

  Chapter One

  The Countryside

  The greens of the countryside passed by at a blurry pace. The make and pedigree of his family’s car made for a smooth ride, yet Timothy Hayfield still felt sick to his stomach.

  ���Wipe that sour expression off your face at once,��� ordered his mother, glaring intently at him through the reflection in the driver’s mirror.

  Timothy looked up from his lonely spot in the backseat, up toward his mother who was cleverly dressed for the occasion, and fitted in a fanciful summer’s hat, but he would not change his appearance for her sake.

  ���You’re going to visit your grandmother. You’re not dying,��� she continued.

  But it felt like he was dying, or at least partially. To waste away a whole good summer, stuck with his ailing grandmother in Mayfield, while all his schoolmates and friends had splendid holidays planned at beach cottages, or in getaways to the city, all this did make Timothy feel as if he were dying, or at least made him hope to.

  The car eased to turn off the main road. Under the tires, cracks in the pavement became noticeably more pronounced. Till unexpectedly, with a loud thump, a rather large dip caught him by surprise, jolting his hand that rested beneath his chin, causing him to inadvertently wallop himself in the jaw.

  ���Ouch,��� he cried, his cheek throbbing. The right side of his face now smarting awfully bad, he rubbed his chin vehemently, feeling sorrier for himself as he did.

  ���What’s the matter now?��� his mother asked, seeming to have become exhausted by his protests, so that she did not show the same sort of care he’d been used to.

  ���Nothing,��� he said, still trying to rub the ache from his cheekbone. ���Nothing at all,��� he whispered, but only to himself, thinking this pain to be a remarkably appropriate way to begin such a lurid summer’s holiday.

  The car drove on.

  After a passing minute they came to a fork in the road, and a carved stone sign directing the way to the ���Mayfield School for Girls���. Why his grandmother should choose to make a residence for herself on the grounds of such a snooty old boarding school was beyond his understanding.

  ���Such a terribly boring place,��� he thought, as their car ebbed to a stop in front of a closed black iron gate.

  ���Who are you here for, madam?��� asked the watchman, in a grey and black chauffeur’s cap.

  ���Matilde Wolcott, please,��� his mother replied.

  Chapter Two

  Matilde Wolcott

  Matilde Wolcott, Timothy’s grandmother, who in her younger years had gone by the name Mattie Hardy, now lived alone in a large antique, but handsomely renovated old home on the grounds of the Mayfield School for Girls, where Matilde, herself, had been a pupil.

  And here is a short history of how she came to such a residence (and I shall try my best to be brief, but bear it in mind, that to condense the wealth of someone’s life down to only a few pages is no small task. Especially if they’d made for themselves such a full life, as Matilde had):

  After graduating with high marks from Mayfield, Mattie decided to make a career for herself, and was very fond of writing (and of journalism, in particular). And so, at the direction of her parents, and with little effort on her part, she applied and was accepted into a prestigious girl’s college in the Americas, in Boston.

  There she met, and fell in love with, an upstanding gentleman, well liked by his peers, a loveable graduate medical student with a family history in the profession. And six months later, they were married and Mattie Hardy became Mrs. Wilbur Charles Douglas Wolcott, II. (On a lesser note, it is good practice to never fault someone for their birth name, being that it is always of far greater importance how men speak of you, than the name by which you are addressed.)

  After this, Matilde and Wilbur decided to stay in Massachusetts, making a small, but lovely, home for themselves near Cape Cod. During this time, she was awarded a position at the Boston Globe, where she quickly excelled as an editor and a columnist.

  They had three children, who in order by age were: Martin, Agatha (Timothy’s mother), and Matthew. Their oldest, Martin, flew for America in the war, and was shot down during a bombing raid on a German supply station, on March 16th, 1945. And for his sacrifice, and for theirs, Matilde and Wilbur were offered a wrapped and folded, starred and striped flag, and a purple heart for valor, both of which she still keeps
in a display case on the mantle, but from that day onward she found it extremely unbearable to fly in a plane, and would do so only out of absolute necessity.

  And when the war had at last ended, the Wolcott’s moved back to England, with their adolescent children, so that Matilde might be nearer to her parents, and to help them rebuild their lives after the destructive conflict that had left them frail and nearly destitute, after so many years.

  But in so doing, there was only one house that Mattie wished to buy, to settle in with her young family, and no other place would have ever been good enough. That house being an old grey, two story manor on the grounds of Mayfield. Which, at the time, was in dire need of repair (and what Wilbur thought to be a very poor investment, as houses go, though he was kind enough not to make too much fuss over it, or at least no more than he should).

  But as he soon came to realize, that mysterious ill kept estate was the only home Matilde wanted, and rightly so.

  Thud, Thud, Thud.

  Agatha used the heavy, lion headed knocker to strike at the face of the door. The sound of it reverberated through the emptiness of that grey house.

  But there was no answer.

  Heaped up at Timothy’s knees was a large packed bag, filled to overflowing, with all the many sorts of things he had thought to have needed, to last him throughout the length of such a presumably unentertaining holiday.

  ���That’s odd,��� Agatha muttered, going past Timothy and leaning over the porch railing to check again for her mother’s car, and seeing it to be right where she had last imagined it.

  ���Does that mean I don’t have to stay?��� Timothy asked, thinking maybe he’d had a turn of good fortune, after all.

  But to this his mother turned and pointed at him harshly, so that he knew he would not be so lucky, and that he daren’t make another mention of forgoing his summer duties.

  ���Hello?��� Agatha said like a question, turning the brass handle of the door open with a creak, and peering her head inside. Yet there was still no response.

  And leaving his vastly oversized luggage at the landing of the staircase, Timothy was led on a search throughout that vacant mansion-like home.

  To his reliable memory, this was the first real time he’d ever come to visit his grandmother at Mayfield. The only other time before then, being while he was still quite young, and his only memory of that, just a vague image of himself seated on his grandfather’s lap, eating chocolates. However, this was such a wide marvelous place, that Timothy would have liked to have kept a memory of it: with rooms filled with tapestries and odd figurines, and suits of full armor (most grown-up sized and human like, but some at odd proportions with longer thinner waists, or with shorter stockier legs than would be normal).

  ���Hello? You here, mum?��� Agatha would call out intermittently, but they never heard a reply, not even the faintest whisper. The entire house seemed bone dry of any living thing.

  When, at last, they had prodded through every other portion of that lofty house that Timothy’s mother knew to look through, they came finally to the end of a hall, and a closed attic door. Which was instantly peculiar, seeing as every other bedroom door or study had been left opened.

  ���You mustn’t ever try this yourself,��� Timothy’s mother mentioned. ���Grandmother simply abhors people going into her private study.��� Then a shade quieter, she added, ���Grandfather was the only one she’d ever let in with her.���

  And with that, she plucked up her determination and tried at the knob, but found it to be locked and bolted from the inside.

  Then, appearing from thin air, as if from nowhere and all of a sudden, there was a muddled high-pitched mechanical sound, one that Timothy found hard to describe, and a faint, but apparent, flash of white light from beneath the door jam.

  ���Mother, are you alright?��� Agatha asked.

  From inside the room, they heard frantic shuffling noises, and the sound of something being dragged across the floorboards. ���Who is it?��� Timothy heard an elderly woman’s voice say at last, echoing from across the locked room.

  ���It’s me… Agatha, mother,��� she yelled back through the shut door.

  ���You’re early,��� the woman’s voice answered.

  ���Not anymore,��� he heard his mother say to herself. Then aloud, ���Didn’t you get my message? I managed an earlier flight into La Guardia, to make it in time for Thomas’s performance.���

  The door quickly unbolted, and was flung open in a flash. And there, standing before him, to his amazement, was his grandmother, Matilde Wolcott, elaborately adorned in a pale ivy green, fifteenth century style dress, with tiny white flowers woven through her grey and brown streaked hair.

  The sight of which wholly shocked Timothy, though his mother seemed to be accustomed to such a show.

  ���What are you wearing?��� she said, folding her arms across her own pleated blouse.

  ���Oh, can’t a girl dress up to see her only British grandson?��� his grandmother answered, fluttering down to kiss both his cheeks firmly.

  ���And you know I can’t work that confounded answering contraption you’d got for me,��� she continued, directing her attention to Agatha now.

  ���It’s called an answering machine, mother, and how am I ever to get a hold of you, then?��� Timothy’s mother replied, shortly, but sounding lovingly pestered.

  ���Well, I suppose, you’ll just have to call me when I’m at home, won’t you?��� Matilde answered, grabbing Agatha by the shoulders, and puckering a large kiss onto her cheek as well.

  To my best knowledge, it was right at this moment that Timothy Hayfield was forced to change his mind regarding his proposed summer’s holiday in Mayfield. Thinking to himself, that whatever his time here may turn out to be, it should most certainly not be boring.

  Chapter Three

  The First-Yearer

  Barbara Cholley did not like being called names: not a coward, not a chicken, nor any other name that the reprehensible Victoria Delflower wished to call her.

  The sun in the noonday sky had grown heated, and had begun to redden Barbara’s cheeks. As she stood near the fountain in the courtyard, arms folded, feeling like her skin was about to boil.

  ���I am not,��� Barbara blurted out.

  ���You are too,��� was Victoria’s response. ���Only cowards won’t go out and touch the door… We’ve all done it.���

  And Barbara looked around at the gathering crowd of girls that surrounded her during the last few minutes of lunch hour at Mayfield, on a thursday, the last full day of Spring Term.

  She had hoped to have avoided such a mess like this, pouring over her studies ever since she’d first arrived at Mayfield last fall, but as it appeared now, in the end, all she’d had to show for her efforts were exemplary scores in geometry. She had not managed, however, to sneak past her duty as a ���first-yearer,��� like she had hoped.

  ���No use fighting, you know you have to,��� one of the girls from the crowd said aloud, who appeared to be trying to make the process easiest for all involved.

  But Barbara wouldn’t budge.

  ���Why? Sara Darby hasn’t,��� she said, although knowing this to be an uncalled for blow at somewhat of a new friend.

  ���Oh, come on,��� yelled one of the tall girls from the back of the group, a girl who had just so happened to be Sara’s bunkmate. ���You know she got as far as she could… till she saw the flash of light from the gable window, like we all did. She came running back here, crying, and vomited in the common loo.���

  And Barbara knew she was wrong to have tried to use the little Darby girl’s misfortunes, and weak stomach, to her own advantage.

  ���Do you really want her to have a go at it, again?��� the tall girl continued.

  ���
��No,��� Barbara sighed. And then muttered, ���It’s just not fair, is all I’m saying…��� Though she was quick to see that her last words had gone a step too far, by all the nasty glares she’d soon received.

  Then Victoria spoke aloud to the group, as if she had wanted to settle the issue once and for all, and like she were an unelected leader of sorts. ���So… what’ll it be, Cholley?��� she asked with a gleam in her eye. ���You going for it tonight, or will you be a coward for the rest of your life?���

  The fifteen or so girls who had joined around that early afternoon to see what would happen fell instantly, and morbidly quiet. They all stood in shocked amazement. And what is worse, Barbara’s anger at such a mean spirited snipe, as Victoria Delflower was, seemed to cloud her good senses.

  So that she could not manage to stop herself from saying it.

  ���Fine, fine… I’ll do it,��� Barbara said, sounding exasperated.

  At her surrendering, some in the crowd let out small cheers, that the matter was finally over, yet some were honestly proud of Barbara for finally going through with it. But even their simple half-hearted congratulations caused a sneer to go across Victoria’s face.

  ���You may go touch the door, but you’re still a coward,��� she said, like she couldn’t stand the thought of anyone other than herself being cheered for.

  And turning to walk away, Victoria was suddenly stopped cold in her tracks. When Barbara issued out these words, words that she has never known quite why she had said, but thinking they could be blamed, mostly on her present anger at the vicious girl who’d been chiding her for so long.

  Speaking out with her head raised, she said, as bravely as she could, ���I’ll even go inside.���

  And then gulping her breath in, for she knew she was mad to continue, ���All the way up to the attic gable.���