The Riddles of Epsilon (8 page)

“It's okay—it's only me—the doctor. Me and Ely. Here—give her to me.”

He strode forward and lifted Mom into his arms.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Fishing,” said the doctor. “This lake's full of pike. Ely, take my flashlight, help Jessica back.”

The man called Ely took my arm to guide me back over the path. He was very old; his wrinkled face seemed kind and calm.

But I saw no fishing rods in their hands, not a sign of fishing. And I realized the doctor was finding it hard to speak.

He was panting hard—they both were.

They'd run here from somewhere else.

Had Dr. Parker just lied to me?

MY DIARY

The doctor gave Mom a tranquilizer, and we put her to bed. And then in the kitchen Dad fussed about as he made cocoa, saying he'd never get over the shock of the four of us spilling through the door like that—it almost gave him a heart attack on his way to the bathroom! And the doctor asked Dad a lot of questions about how long Mom'd been sleepwalking, had she been having any headaches, any other funny behavior at all?

Funny behavior? I stared from the doctor to Ely and back to the doctor, my eyes seeing it all—those guarded looks, the closed-up faces. The jolly, bright smile of the doctor flashing on and off. He asked Dad whether we had any salve and made me put some on my nettle-stung hands. I watched him all the time I was rubbing it in.

“What bait were you using, Dr. Parker?”

“Bait?” He took a sip of his cocoa.

“For your fishing. The pike.”

“Oh, that. Mackerel, mostly. What about you, Ely?”

Ely nodded up from Mom's armchair, his eyes smiling my way. His eyes are very clear and blue—a forget-me-not blue. Disturbing. Baby-blue eyes in a wise man's face.

“Yes, mackerel. But I wasn't having much luck.”

“So where are your rods?”

“Still on the lake bank,” said Dr. Parker. “We heard your mother scream like that and came running. Why do you ask?”

“Which bit of the lake? I mean, I'd just walked
past
the lake. I never saw you there!”

My voice sounded sullen, too suspicious. I knew it, but I couldn't seem to change it.

“No? Well, we were holed up in the reeds on the far side. Didn't see you either, come to that. Didn't even hear you. I expect that was because of the wind. It rustles those reeds all night long, enough to drive you mad.”

“Yes, that'll be it,” said Ely. “The wind, that's why we didn't hear you pass.”

I stared from one to the other. I knew I looked sulky. I always get sulky when I think people are lying to me. Suddenly the doctor put down his cup.

“What's up, Jess? Don't you believe us? What do you think we were doing out there in the dark, then? Smuggling or something?”

All three men laughed, but I just went on staring.

“So why were you panting?”

“Panting?”

“Yes, panting. You were both panting like you'd been running.”

“Jessica!” said Dad, looking horribly embarrassed by my accusations. “What on earth is the matter with you? I'm terribly sorry, doctor . . . .”

But the doctor waved his apologies away.

“Oh, don't you worry, she's had a bit of a shock, hearing her poor old mom yelling like that. It gave us a fright, let alone her! So we ran round the lake and helped them home.
Ran
round the lake, Jessica. We are not as young as we once were—Ely here is over eighty! I think we are entitled to sound a bit out of breath, don't you?”

Ely's blue, blue eyes nodded my way. He gave me a warm smile across the room. Then the doctor said I should get to bed, that was quite enough excitement for one night, and he'd come by first thing in the morning, see how Mom was getting along.

Dad saw them out, and just after he said good-bye and was locking the back door, I glanced out the kitchen window.

The doctor and Ely both walked a few paces down the garden path, then turned toward each other at the same moment. They stood still and stared with grim faces.

Dr. Parker shook his head.

Then they strode away into the darkness, and Dad came in to turn out the lights.

 

I slept really badly. I dreamed the gargoyles flew into my room and stole the Epsilon bucket. It seemed so real that when I half woke, I grabbed the bucket and fell asleep again, the bucket by my side. But it was the same all night—all my dreams had terrible gargoyle faces in them, with stone mouths open and that dreadful chanting coming out. I kept waking up and putting on my globe lamp, feeling uneasy. I couldn't stop thinking about that north gargoyle, shielding its eyes with its hands—or were they wings?—staring my way. Bulging stone eyes, open all the time. Eyes that never close.

As soon as it was light, I gave up trying to sleep. I got dressed and picked up the bucket that had started all this. Just a bucket—yet a special bucket. I had a silly, sentimental feeling about it. Like I wanted to take it back to the cottage, return it to the place Epsilon had made it.

On an impulse, I gathered together a few bits and bobs. Just my personal treasures, from under my bed. My fifty-pound note. Granny Libby's jet necklace. Mom's belemnite. The photo Dad took of me when I was six. Last year's letter from Baz, asking me to go out with him. And finally the packet of cigarettes—a good-bye gift from Avril. I laid them
all in the bucket and covered them over with an old pillowcase. It'd be nice to hide them down there instead of under my bed. Much more secret.

I ran down to the cottage, feeling jittery all the way. But before I went into the house itself, I retraced my steps down the garden path.

Over to the garden wall where I'd run to that first day, when Epsilon had rocked the rocking chair and scared me half to death.

I stood looking down at the little arrow carved at the base of the wall. This was the place Sebastian had buried the bucket, more than a hundred years ago. The place I'd dug it from, weeks ago now. Already it was overgrown with weeds, hidden. With a funny sense of satisfaction, I placed the bucket—with all the bits of junk—back in the hole I'd dug. I wedged it in and buried it over. It seemed fitting. Like I was giving something back to Epsilon and to Sebastian.

 

And now that I'm here in Epsilon's room, I'm trying hard to tell myself I feel safer. But I keep coming back to the fact that I'm not sure really who Epsilon is at all.

All I know is that a group of these islanders met last night somehow at that closed-up tower and chanted horrible words about being devoured and about tails and heads and something called the Ouroborus. Someone on this island knows
many secrets and is looking for the same thing as me—Epsilon had said so. Looking for the answers to the same questions. About something ancient, Epsilon said. But Epsilon himself could be leading me astray. What is he—a ghost? A spirit? A teenage computer hacker? A wise old man?

I thought of Ely with his bright-blue eyes. Maybe Ely
was
Epsilon? His face was very kind and calm. Full of wisdom, even. But Ely had—I suspected—been at the tower, along with Dr. Parker, muttering about the time of dark choices. Or had they?

Maybe they had been fishing for pike after all? Hiding in the reeds on the far side—it was at least possible. I saw a show on TV about fishing once, and the way they sneaked about on those lake sides was ridiculous, as if the fish were snipers with AK rifles and any minute they'd all be killed by a fishy bullet.

Death by pike.

I giggled, then caught my breath. Even the sound of my own voice unnerved me. Overwrought. Paranoid. Crazy.

I lit all the candles—all twelve of them—and sat in their soft mellow light, thinking. Calm down, calm down. You are safe here, I told myself. Then I went over to Epsilon's desk and opened the bottom drawer.

There were the boxes, three identical boxes. One was now empty, I knew.

I reached for the cool silver key and opened the second box.

 

Inside was a sheaf of pages—Sebastian's diary papers—the longest entry yet. At a glance, I saw that he was writing his diary while copying down an ancient myth of the island. At first, his writing was just the same as ever—scrawly, spidery, but tidy and evenly spaced. But the longer he wrote, the more his writing changed and got tighter and smaller and more sloping on the page. Until in the end it was all over the place.

Once again I settled into the hammock and began to read.

 

It will be a long night, from the sounds of it. Nobody has so far slept, what with the wind howling fit to take the roof off and the thrashing of the rain at every casement.

Papa greatly dislikes the thunder; he says it gives him his “storm headache.” And Mama, of course, is terrified of any loud noise.

But from my bedchamber high in the house, I can watch the lightning over the whole ocean. Any boats out in that water will surely perish, for the waves boil and surge as high as the Miradel, as far as the eye can see. But mercifully, I cannot see any little boats. Just the gray sea
heaving. The lightning seems to burst downward from its clouds like hands jabbing their fingers into the water.

 

Papa has coughed and harrumphed for three hours straight. Earlier, I heard him call out to Mama to fetch his headache remedy.

“Where are you, woman? My head is fit to burst!” called he, thinking not at all of her fear and quaking, but only of how she could serve him in his own distress.

Mama gave no reply, so I shivered my way down to the scullery and found his wretched remedy at last (behind the pudding basin) and carried it up to him. He thanked me not a bit, but snatched it from me and slammed the door in my face, his eyes as black as devils.

Even from where I stood, I could smell the brandy.

 

Mama gives no answer to my knocking on her door, even though I have knocked as loud as I dared. I will go to her in another hour by the clock. I will take her some strong china tea, for I noticed that the range was still just glowing in the kitchen, and it will take short work with the bellows to get up a lively flame. But not quite yet. I will let her hide her head under the pillows until the worst is over.

Meanwhile I find myself drawn here, to the small library. I have set my candle on the tiny shelf table. There
are no drapes in here, just broken, gappy shutters that creaked and groaned when I closed them. But still the gusts of wind reach in, setting the candle flame flaring and leaping. So I must light two, lest a solitary one die on me and I find myself in utter darkness, unable to find the door. The very thought of this makes my mouth go dry.

This room is chilly indeed. No fire has been lit in here for many a year, judging by the skeins of cobwebs hanging thick above the grate. Papa allows no one in here, although I have never discovered why. Sometimes the menfolk of the island come to the parlor and talk with him about old things. Men come from far away, too, farther than the mainland. They talk about myths and the old tales—then Papa comes up here and fetches curly maps for them to pore over downstairs. These men oftentimes take books away or bring books back. But he lets no one in—just briefly visits this room himself, and never asks Mama to have the fire lit.

So I have taken the fringed silk covering from the armchair and wrapped myself up. It is bright gold and crimson, quite as fine as any prince's cloak from Persia—so I can study these old books and maps very cozily. There are rows and rows of old tomes here, many with intriguing titles and gold-edged pages. Two catch my eye especially:
The Mythology of the Small Islands
is one, and
The
Cartography of the Island of Lume
the other.

And so I shall discover more and will copy into my journal whatsoever I find, in readiness to ask Epsilon tomorrow.

If the morrow will ever come, that is, and this infernal night end!

 

Long ago, the mythology says, Lume was a gentle place, inhabited by seals and ermines and wild birds. These creatures dwelt in the caves and holes in the cliffs, and they made their own wild music.

But there came an ancient time when a great king rose up in that place. His name was L'Ume, and his heart was filled with melody. So wondrous was his music that it was given a name—the Lumic.

L'Ume's rule was perfect, and he made his kingdom perfect. So his subjects loved him greatly.

 

(Just now—a great crash came! I leaped to my feet, and the wind rattled the shutters so violently that BOTH candles almost expired. So I have stolen the lamp from the dining room and now sit here in a steadier shine. The candles I have also left lit, strangely reluctant to be in any gloom. I fear that a tree has come down in the garden, but have no wish to open the shutters again to look out.)

 

And L'Ume sang songs so enchanting that the creatures of the sea would gather all around the shores to hear them. Whales and porpoises and dolphins would swim close to listen. And some say they sing those songs still, one to another, deep under the oceans. And, says the book, “that is why the island is steeped in such powers, and why on its shores to this day can be heard the singing of the ancient songs of L'Ume, with all their peculiar beauty.”

 

(I have never heard this singing. But Master Cork told me once that some of the old ones in the village have heard it when the sun is setting and the sky red. They have come stumbling back from the shore entranced, unable to speak because of what they have heard.)

 

Now into this time came one subject, young and vigorous. He was beloved of King L'Ume, who made him into a prince. The king taught him much of his music and some of his beauty. The prince grew lordly, with high bearing and a haughty head. But he also grew restless.

He was jealous of L'Ume's melodies! He wanted his own music to enchant the whale and the porpoise and to be carried by them into the depths of the sea.

 

(The chimney is wailing. In the cold hearth, old ashes stir and resettle. It is as if someone is stirring them with an invisible poker. Who sat here before that fire long ago, in this room where nobody comes? Whose old books are these, that men come from far and wide to open them for their secrets? Maybe I am intruding? I wish Epsilon were here. Sometimes he arrives of a sudden—I look around and there he is. Just as easily, he vanishes away again into nothing. As fearful as I am of him, I do so hate to be solitary in this creaking room.)