The Riddles of Epsilon (15 page)

Finally I turned to the newspaper clipping, unfolded it. It smelled musty and old; smelling it made me sneeze. It was from the
Northern Herald
, 12 August 1894. The headline leaped out at me.

Fear rose up and gripped me. Disappeared. Sebastian's mama—vanished without trace. At the Greet. Tomorrow. I
mean, at the Greet in 1894. I stared again at her delicate, hurried handwriting and a wave of grief washed over me. Poor, poor Sebastian. Poor Martha, lost and scared in a little world all of her own. Wandering the beaches, looking for a relic among the shells. Not really knowing what it was she was looking for.

I stood up from the floor and went to the window.

Outside, dusk was falling. The sound of the sea in the bay below was soft, hypnotic. The evening shadows fell from the tall trees and spread slowly across the garden. As I watched darkness fall, I realized that as soon as the sun went down, it would be the last night I'd have to try to work all this out. The Greet was tomorrow. And everything centered round the Greet. Epsilon had warned me to be ready for the Greet. Whatever danger Mom was in, it would come at the Greet. Just like it had for Martha Wren.

As the sun went down and outside went dimmer and dimmer, the candlelit room inside grew brighter and reflected itself back at me at the window. I could see it all, inverted in the glass. The desk behind me, with its mess of papers. The candle on its stand. The curve of the hammock beyond. My dim reflection, standing at the window, looking out.

Lost in my own thoughts, I stared automatically at my reflection. The garden was almost dark now. I moved slightly, shifting from one foot to the other.

But my shadowy reflection didn't move.

Because it wasn't my reflection anymore.

It was the shape of a man.

And suddenly I saw them again—those eyes.

Many-faceted, sharp eyes, staring back at me from
outside the glass
.

I reeled backward, shouting in terror. Back and back, to the hammock, which I collapsed onto as I fell. But as much as I moved backward, those eyes came forward. As if the being outside the window had just moved through the glass easily, and now stood at the window,
inside the room
.

“Go away!” I yelled.

But instead, the rest of the form—head, shoulders, body—appeared in a gray shimmer. And suddenly, he was almost there.

He was very tall. He was dressed in a long black coat. His face was stern and strong. His hair was dark, like his piercing eyes. But all this I saw as he sort of came and went, faded and reappeared. Now I saw him—now he'd gone. The next instant, there he was again. But not flashing on and off, not like that. It's almost impossible to describe. He was there but not there. He was almost there.

“Come,” he said. “The One I work for has sent me. We will sit together, you and I. And I will tell you why you are here.”

MY DIARY

I wish I could say that I was calm and together. But I wasn't. For ages I just shook and cried and stammered and trembled. I just wanted to get out of there—to run.

But Epsilon took no notice. He just went to the desk and opened the top drawer. He took out the flute—the flute I'd first seen when I'd run down to the cottage after dreaming about Sebastian. The same old wooden flute, with its symbol of Epsilon carved on the mouthpiece—like a half feather, toppled over. Then Epsilon began to play. The same tune I'd heard in my dream.

I have never heard such haunting music. Never heard such a tune. It was as simple and as clean as water running downhill. It was as complex as many tapestries, all woven together.

And as he played, I relaxed a little, sitting fully now on the hammock. Epsilon played the flute with his eyes shut,
which gave me a while to collect my thoughts, to try to grow calmer.

As the tune died away, he at last turned those piercing eyes on me.

“Now,” he said. “You must find the final piece of the puzzle. The final clue. The one that brings it all together.”

I nodded. I still couldn't speak.

“As Martha's note told you, it is hidden in a small space.”

I thought back to the note.
“Master Cork is a gifted man—he has finished carving the swans on the Coscoroba pole. There is a small space hidden behind one of the swans.”

Master Cork. And Jerry Cork, carving all those intertwined swans on the Coscoroba pole. Maybe I could take a closer look at the Coscoroba tomorrow, before the Aroundy dance, whatever that was. One final clue. One that links all these things together.

I stared at Epsilon, trying to pluck up some courage. Speak, Jess. Speak!

“You
look
like a ghost!” was the first thing I managed to say. This made him smile.

“This is just one of my forms. I have others.”

I cleared my throat, tried to get my mouth moving properly again.

“Why is my mom in danger?” I blurted out.

The smile vanished. His eyes turned very grave. He
stood up and began to move round the room, touching this and that as he spoke. His voice was quiet and calm.

“Curses are terrible things,” he said. “People tend to think they hold no power. But they could not be more wrong. They hold a great and terrible power. The words of the mouth are the mightiest weapon of all.”

I nodded. Not because I understood—I just couldn't do anything else.

“Long ago on this island, a terrible curse was uttered on Long Beach. A curse that said that if the tooth was in the wrong hands, it could be used for misrule by the dark forces of the Lord of Inversion. By Cimul. But another word was spoken—that Cimul could never again
steal
the things he wanted to possess. They always had to be
gifted
to him, gifted to him by innocent hands.”

He went to the wall and touched briefly the golden letter O there. I noticed that his hands left a brief shimmer, a trail of silver, upon everything he touched.

“That is where your mother comes into it.”

“My mom?”

“Or rather, the eldest female of the Big House. The eldest of whichever females are living there at the time.”

He went to the window, drew the drapes wider open until the window was fully exposed. Then he stood to one side of it.

“I don't understand.”

“Then watch.”

In the window, shadows stirred and formed. The reflection of the room, with the candle and desk and the curve of the hammock, faded but didn't quite go away. But mingled in with these shapes, new figures appeared. I gazed at them and my mouth fell open.

People, moving. Men, walking in a circle around the Miradel. Ghostly chanting began in the background, with words barely distinguishable. Something about the time of dark choices. Something about the Lord of Misrule. The chant was musical, with many harmonizing voices.

Epsilon spoke again, his voice keeping pace with the changing images.

“These men are followers of Cimul. They work together to serve him, to sing the old stories and songs about their Lord of Inversion. A
Solemn Choir
. They meet with their leader—their squire—as they have always done, in the hidden places of Lume. In ancient places, places where they placed carvings on the walls, depicting the story of the overthrow of the One.”

In the window, a curved wall of rock with carvings hewn by ancient hands. Depictions of Cimul, hiding in his lair. Of Cimul, stealing followers from King L'Ume by treachery. Of Cimul on top of Coscoroba Rock, raising the curved tooth high into the air. Of a porpoise, leaping out to take it in his mouth
and carry it beneath the waves.

“When the tooth was lost to them, their one great quest was to find it again and bring it back into the hands of Cimul. Then he and his faithful ones could use its curses for great evil—for misrule. So they seek it urgently.”

In the window—a beach. Very far away in the distance, a small figure was bending, picking things up off the shoreline. The figure moved nearer.

“But the first curse spoken over the tooth—words spoken by King L'Ume—still stood. A curse can be invoked or revoked. Until it is revoked, its power continues. So when King L'Ume declared that Cimul could own something only if it was
given
to him by an innocent—well, that is still the case.”

The figure on the beach bent. Picked up a shell. Dropped it into a bag. Moved closer.

“So the followers of Cimul need an innocent to hand the tooth to them. This lady is one of those innocents.”

The woman straightened and lifted her face—her vacant, dreamy eyes.

“Mom!”

Then Mom turned round and looked over her shoulder, behind her. There, a little way off, stood another woman. A woman dressed in long black skirts, with a small black silk bonnet and a silver heart locket shining at her neck. She, too, was bending and lifting a shell.

“This lady is the last female before your mother to live in the Big House. Her name was Martha Wren.”

Then Martha turned and looked over her shoulder. Another woman stood there, who turned and looked over her shoulder. And another and another and another.

“A long line of innocents, reaching back in time. All used by the followers of Cimul to try to locate the relic. But they are not the only ones who lived in the Big House.”

The picture changed again. I was looking at the small library. A man stood at the table there, poring over a curly map. His face was mean and closed. On the wall behind him was a picture of an Ouroborus.

“Is that—Sebastian's papa?”

Even as I spoke, the image of Edmond Wren was replaced by another man, wearing even more old-fashioned clothes. Then he was replaced by another. And another.

“It was indeed Sebastian's father. Edmond Wren was elected by Cimul's followers as the leader of their group. Their squire. He married Martha, and when Sebastian was born, he sent him away to be cared for in England. He isolated Martha more and more. But she astonished him by rebelling—just once—and bringing Sebastian here when he was six.”

“And that's why he always felt an outsider?”

“Yes. But Martha rebelled only that once. Otherwise, she was perfect for the role. She had to have . . . certain qualities.
It has always been so, as you can see.”

The long line of men in the library faded. In its place, one of Mom's crystals.

“Certain qualities?”

“A curiosity. A longing to look into things and see other things. A sensitive soul, artistic but solitary. Someone who is jaded by the things of the world and so could be encouraged to dabble in the things of the spirit. This is the quality the innocents had to have. This was how the Dark Beings made contact with them.”

There in the window, woman after woman appeared, then faded. One peered into a basin of water and her eyes grew wide. Another turned over cards and leaned forward to read their meanings. One walked the beach, lifted a huge shell to her ear, and listened entranced to its voice. Yet another sat up in bed suddenly, listening intently.

Then they all faded away, and Epsilon turned back to me.

“And they all lived in our house—all those women? And their husbands were all made squire?”

“Or their brothers. Or uncles. Or guardians.”

“But why the Big House?”

“Because of its land.”

“Its land?”

“It is rumored in the ancient tales that somewhere on this land—the land your mother now owns—is a map that leads
to the relic. It was planted there by the ancients, in a place of great danger, where it would be hardest to retrieve. The followers of Cimul sense this legend is true.”

“So the Dark Beings want the relic to invoke its curses? And why do the
Bright
Beings want it?”

“To revoke its curses and replace them with great blessings. But the Dark Beings are the ones who have tormented your mother. The women of the house have been compelled through the centuries to search for the relic—in order to hand it over to Cimul's followers. To give it into the wrong hands, freely.”

I spoke aloud the words I'd translated.

 

“In the space below the well

A map to the tooth lies hidden.

The space is marked by an infidel

Whose hand reveals what's bidden.

 

“Through merrow hair

In Neptune's lair

Past thirty fingers pale—

Then hark for a river

In the dark

And reach for the spout

Of the whale.”

 

I stared into the window, hoping it would show me more. Nothing.

“But—which well? There are four on our land! How am I supposed to know which one it is?”

“That is the last question I am helping you with.”

I frowned.

“But—hang on. Dad isn't one of these leaders—a squire. Is he?”

“He is not.”

“But you said that all the men who lived in this place were! So what changed things?”

“Sebastian did.”

Once again, the window shimmered.

Sebastian on the shore in the rain, screaming over and over, looking for someone.

“Mama!” he yelled, over and over. “Where are you, Mama!”

My heart turned over. But the image was still changing.

Sebastian, dripping wet and exhausted, walking into the drawing room of our house. He stood panting at the door, and his papa looked up from the papers he and other men were studying. At the tops of the papers, the Ouroborus was plainly marked. Sebastian's face grew hard and cold as he stared at it. He turned away and slammed the door on the way out.

Epsilon spoke again.

“Sebastian guessed enough to know what had happened.
To know that his father had sacrificed his mother, trying to obtain possession of the tooth. Sebastian was the child of the house who got closest to solving the whole thing. Sebastian almost solved it all.”

“Almost?”

Epsilon turned away, his face solemn.

“His fear made him trust the wrong person in the end,” he said. “But he found the letter his mother had written for him—the one with the instructions to go to the firm of solicitors. He was sent away to boarding school, as she had anticipated. But as soon as he came of age to inherit, he went to that firm and laid claim to the house and land.”

As he spoke, the window came to life again. I watched Sebastian—an older Sebastian—as he went through each of the things Epsilon was telling me.

“He turned his father out of the house. He hid everything he could that referred to all this. He closed up the small library. He ran away for a while. But he always came back. He never stopped searching for his mother's body. Not even when he was a very old man. And in his will, he left his house to any
female
descendants of his own family. He wrote a codicil stating that each female inherited it only on condition that she, in turn, would pass it to a female. Never to a male. And never to anyone with any connection to the Solemn Choir. He never again wanted
any members of the inverted rule to live here. He broke every link he could with this house and the followers of Cimul.”

“So . . . he must have had a female descendant? A daughter?”

Epsilon nodded. In the window, a kaleidoscope of scenes came and went.

Sebastian in strange lands, traveling seas, speaking to people gathered in exotic-looking tents. Then Sebastian with a woman who was dressed in Edwardian clothes. The woman cradled a tiny baby in the crook of each arm.

“He married when he was thirty-five. An Irishwoman—Beth. She gave birth to twins—Bridie and Libby. You can see for yourself what happened then.”

Beth and her husband walking on a small Irish beach. There were little cottages snuggled into the hillsides. Beth ran with two small girls, twin girls with very long hair and huge eyes. Bridie and Libby. But Sebastian wasn't laughing with them. He was staring out to sea. He was with them, but not with them. Remote, far away. Beth called to him, but when he turned her way, his eyes were dead and hollow. Then Sebastian was returning to the Big House. Alone.

“He left them? He
left
his wife and children?”

“His mind was tormented. He couldn't settle anywhere for long—not without coming back here to search for
Martha. So he came back—and never left again.”

The window had gone blank. I sank back down into the hammock, strangely exhausted.

“And Bridie and Libby? His children?”

“Well . . . Bridie took after her father. She was a bit of a recluse, not interested in the Big House or the father who had abandoned her.”