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Cadet blue, which had just looked pale on the ray on paper
Jenny was no artist, but she could draw sirandfather’s base out of the top of the picture up to the house A desk against one wall A couch Three or four large bookcases
That was all she could re over her shoulder, she saw that Julian was gone again Good
She put the slip of paper on the floor in front of the blank wall
The flash of light was exactly like a flashgun going off in her eyes, leaving her with dancing afteriain, she found herself looking in a mirror
It had worked
She could feel her pulse in her wrists and throat as well as her chest God, don’t let ht
After soto throw herself right into it It was going to be bad How bad, she’d have to find out when it happened
She pressed the red button The blue light went on The ive herself a chance to look at anything before she stepped inside
Golden sunlight slanted in froh on the walls To Jenny’s utter surprise she felt a thrill of excitenition
I remember those s! I remember
The door slid shut behind her, but she was already stepping out to the center of the roo in the colors, the profusion of objects
It’s sht it would be-and even randfather’s baseh, wasn’t there
That’s right He wasn’t here that day I re for him, but I couldn’t find him anywhere upstairs
SoI looked down here-I think Iit, but I must have
Jenny turned toward the stairs, which ended in a blank wall at the top No door, of course, because this was a nighthted recognition had stopped cold She had no idea what came next
But as she stared, she see down fro shorts, ind-ruffled hair and a scab on her knee
Herself At age five
It was alirl’s thongs flap as she ran down the stairs She could see the child’s lips open as she called for her grandfather, see the child standing in surprise at the botto as Jenny watched without trying to guide the iirl was looking around, green eyes opening wide as she realized that she was alone down here, a thing which had never happened before
That’s right The door to the baserandfather wasn’t down there-but not that day Jenny re where she wasn’t allowed to be But she couldn’t remember what happened next
Don’t try to re too hard Relax and see what happens
As soon as she did, she seee was standing uncertainly, swaying on her toes, considering whether to stay or go
It was stay The child looked around with elaborate casualness, then, sucking on her lower lip and affecting an air of nonchalance, she wandered over to the first bookcase
All right, Jenny thought So let’s see what’s in the bookcase She followed the child’s i a row of books-which, of course, she couldn’t read Not even the titles But sixteen-year-old Jenny could
Some of them looked fairly normal, like Goethe’s Faust and UFO’s: A New Look But others were completely unfamiliar, like The Qabalah and De Occulta Philosophia and The Galdrabdk
The little girl wason to the second bookcase, which held all sorts of objects One whole shelf was croith slass tops, filled hat looked like spices No-herbs, Jenny thought Dried herbs
The little girl was running fascinated fingers over sos Sixteen-year-old Jenny was more interested in the looped cross next to them-she was sure it was an ankh Suyptian life symbol that kept away bad luck
And that dia n that was supposed to protect you from evil Jenny’s mother had one in the kitchen, for decoration
But what about the bracelet of cobalt and turquoise beads, alternating with little silver charious pictures? And the wooden flute wrapped in fur?
iteht She wasn’t sure what put the idea in her s in this bookcase, the more certain she felt
But it wasn’t just this bookcase Slowly Jenny turned to look around the bases, all these beautiful, exotic things-could they all be for protection?
Who would need that irl was fingering a large silver bell in the
bookcase, but Jenny’s eyes were drawn to a group of
charts on the wall The Theban Alphabet, one was labeled, and underneath were strange syi The Secret Etruscan Alphabet The Celtic Tree Alphabet Numerical Values of the Hebrew Alphabet There was also a rather frightening engraving of a skeleton holding a raven on one bony hand
The ghost child wason tiptoe in her thongs, she leaned her elbows on the felt desk pad Jenny found herself looking down through a transparent blond head at the papers there
Lots of papers-which held no interest for the five-year-old Jenny except that she wasn’t supposed to touch thehtiness was the fun
Sixteen-year-old Jenny could read them One was a chart like those on the wall It was titled The Elder Futhark but Jenny recognized the slanty, angular symbols
Runes
Like the ones she’d seen on the drinking horns of the young men in the forest Like the one on the inside cover of the white box Each had its na black handwriting, with notes
Uruz, she read For piercing the veil between the worlds She recognized the inverted V shape, the two uneven horns pointing doard
Raidho-it was shaped like an R draithout any curved lines-for journeying in space or tilass on its side For awakening
One of the runes was circled with a thick pen stroke
Nauthiz, Jenny read Shaped like a backward-leaning X, with one stroke longer than the other For containment
The last as underlined heavily
Jenny took another slow look around the room
Oh, my God
She couldn’t keep the truth away any longer She’d been holding it at ar to look at it, but now it burst on her with the force of absolute certainty There was no way to deny it
Oh, my God, he was a sorcerer
Her mother’s father had been a sorcerer
Don’t think about it don’t remember, the voice in her mind whispered Nobody can make you remember Stay safe behind your walls, or else
It was going to be very bad from here on, she realized
She had to ree eluded her So ht-could it only be last night? She’d changed so much since then She tried to conjure up his rakish sreen-flecked eyes, but the picture she got was like a distant, faded photograph Soo
God, I can’t get any feeling for hi Her stomach felt sick
I still have to remember For Dee For Zach For Audrey and Michael-and Summer Yes For Suhth Jenny’s ; Michael screaray eyes They’d all been terrified out of their wits Was Jenny’s nightmare any worse than theirs?
Yes, I think so, the little voice in heranymore From Don’t reed to Remember, remember
Maybe this will help, she told herself rather cal her doom she picked up a leather-bound book on the desk
It was a journal of sorts Or at least a record of sorandfather’s heavy black writing degenerated into a scrawl in places, but certain sentences stood out clearly as she leafed through
" out of all the methods from different cultures this one seems safest the rune Nyd or Nauthiz provides an eternal constraint, preventing travel in any direction The rune ed with power by pronouncing its naes to a later entry
" interesting treatise on the traditionalwith a djinn, or, as the Hausa call them, the aljunnu Why anyone should think this could be accomplished with a bottle is beyond me I believe the space I’ve prepared to be just barely sufficient for containing the trerief, he sounded just like a scientist A es
" I have achieved the containment at last! I’htest danger the tremendous forces I’ve harnessedall in complete safety "
Toward the end there was soes like a book, brittle paper It looked very old The writing on it was quite different frorandfather’s-thin and shaky-and part of it was obscured by rusty-brown stains
It was a poem There was no title, but the author’s name, Johannes Eckhart, and the date, 1943, were scrawled at the top
I, slipping on the slied stones, To that dark place by rusty foxfire lit, Where they lie watching, fingering old bones, Go with my question Deep into the pit Of the Black Forest, where the Erlking rules And truth is told but always at a cost, I take my puzzle Like the other fools who’ve slipped on these same stones and played and lost
I come because I must I have no choice The Game is timeless and
The rest of it was covered with the dark stains, except for the last two lines:
I leave theo
Jenny leaned back and let out her breath Obviously this poeh for hirandfather had fought in World War II-he’d been a prisoner in a German POW camp Maybe he’d met this Johannes Eckhart then And
She had all the pieces of the puzzle now She just didn’t want to put the the next step in the dra out here
The final step, she thought