Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
‘You know what I think Evelyn did?’ Aunt Bill started chuckling. ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken. William, pass me that candle, would you?’ She pointed to one of the cream colour candles that were stacked on the table by the door. ’And light it? Thankee.’
William brought her the candle. I could tell from his expression that he was completely mystified about this whole conversation.
‘Now then. Tegan, you must remember this from when you were a girl.’ Aunt Bill looked at us both, expectantly.
She had an air of excitement and she held Evelyn’s journal aloft as if it was a magic grimoire.
‘Remember when we did spy writing with lemon juice?’ Carefully, she held the paper above the lit candle.
‘Now, Evelyn might not’ve ’ad a lemon. But she did ’ave somethin’ else, an’ I think she used it to write secretly in this book. ’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ I exclaimed as I saw lines of brown text appear on the page. ‘I don’t believe this!’
‘Dear Lord,’ William exclaimed. ‘That is remarkable. I have never…’ He trailed off, staring at both of us with fear in his eyes. ‘You are both witches, then, for knowing this occult conspiracy.’
‘Hardly, William! It’s just science,’ I said, patiently. Even so, I knew that there would be many instances even in Victorian times where William might think a scientific advance was in some way magical – I wondered how he would cope if he ever came to the twenty first century.
‘As I thought.’ Aunt Bill turned the page carefully over the flame, not allowing it to catch fire, but making sure that all the text was revealed.
‘Urine, most likely.’ She nodded at William’s appalled expression.
‘’Ark at ’ee, William, you looks like I just raised my skirts an’ peed in a bucket in front o’ you.
’Tis an old method of writin’ secret messages.
The Egyptians used it, among many others.
’ She held the page out to me. ‘Go on, maid. Read it.’
I held the page up to my eyes, squinting to make out some of the words.
‘I write now on the subject of the operation of the door between times.
‘Though I believe it is true that the time door opens at the time when the moon or the earth covers the sun or the reverse, I have also tried different methods to travel to other times and I have found one method the best.
‘When the moon is full on any given month, the lines of energy seem activated. On the lunar eclipse, the energy is wild and there is no telling where or when you might end up.
‘The centre of the power line here seems to be in the rose garden at Trevarron House. I have felt the power elsewhere, such as the circle of yew trees in the woods behind St Nantes, but I have not found it as effective to travel from there. However, it can be done.
‘To enter a time line from the yew tree circle, one needs to go there on a full moon and enter into a dreamlike state and wait for the slip – the moment when everything slows.
In that moment, a traveller embraces the biggest yew tree at the west side of the circle and chant out loud very clearly the place and time they would like to visit.
‘This method worked for me but once. It almost worked a number of other times, but the slip on those occasions was not total enough. However, I am but one woman, and another may be more powerful or lucky than I.’
I could see in his eyes that William was trying his best to understand, but everything he had learned about life, being a lord in the 1700s, was being mightily challenged.
William had no frame of reference about science in the way that we understood it.
To him, even the subject of a fun science lesson for a primary school aged child in the twenty-first century – the fact that urine or lemon juice could make invisible marks on paper which could then be seen with the application of heat – was sorcery.
More than that, though, was the revelation of the time travel. That really was a lot to take on board, whoever you were and from whatever time.
‘We aren’t witches, William,’ I said, kindly. ‘Knowledge is just different, where we’re from. It’s going to take a lot of explaining. But I will. I promise.’
‘This is all… very testing.’ He sat down on one of the chairs heavily.
‘It is, dear.’ Aunt Bill patted him on the shoulder. Despite the severity of the moment, I suppressed a smile. Aunt Bill had never had and would never be intimidated by anyone, and I loved that she wasn’t about to start now with William De Vere Trevarron.
‘That’s very revealing, though,’ I said. ‘About the yew trees.’
‘It is. It’s the first I’ve ‘eard of such a method,’ Aunt Bill reflected. ‘How strange, though, that my cottage is Yew Tree Cottage.’
‘Another synchronicity,’ I replied.
Aunt Bill nodded. ‘Time’s riddled with them. Like ladders in a stockin’, and yet, the stockin’ holds.’
‘The real question now is, what do all those other blank pages say?’ I picked up the book and leafed through it. More than ten pages were blank, maybe even fifteen.
‘Goodness knows. But, now you know ’ow to read them, you can.
’ Aunt Bill looked thoughtfully at me. ‘I always knew you had a destiny, maid. Perhaps it’s that you’re the one what works out all the secrets of the time travel.
I know what mine is, an’ it aint that.’ A dark expression passed over her face.
‘What is yours, then?’ I asked, curiously.
‘I saves people,’ Aunt Bill said, quietly, but with a determined tone in her voice.