Chapter 9 Magellan #2
Looking back at her demolished food tray, she took a napkin and hid several mini scones and an apple to make sure she had provisions for later.
Then the door unlocked, and Lady Liron returned with four maids this time trailing behind her like a little army.
Three maids held long satiny dresses in their arms. The fourth had a stack of white linens.
The maids laid the selection of gowns on the bed.
Then they all departed except for the fourth maid.
Lady Liron said, “Zis is Polly. She vill help you dress and do your hair.”
Polly gave a quick curtsy. She was a small girl with wispy blond hair and a big gap between her front teeth that looked endearing when she smiled—which was all the time. Polly stared at Magellan with open curiosity.
“Polly vill assist you vhile you convalesce.”
Polly curtsied again. “I’m so sorry to hear you’ve gone daft, miss.”
Magellan found herself nodding in complete agreement. She stared at the mountain of gowns. “Surely, I only need one dress.” This was a day-long hallucination at most. “I’ll be needing to get back to—”
“Of course, my dear.” Lady Liron cut her off and took both of her hands in hers, holding them tight.
Magellan startled at the woman’s firm grip and the folded piece of paper being pressed into her hand.
Lady Liron squeezed her palms closed, holding her gaze as if trying to communicate.
“Do not fret,” she said. “Polly vill return and help you get ready. Vee vill make zee introductions zhis afternoon.” Lady Liron squeezed her hands once more and swept from the room with Polly following behind her.
Magellan stared at the note Lady Liron had slipped into her hand, a small piece of parchment folded over several times into a tiny square.
She sat down in one of the chairs and opened it to find a bold handwritten message addressed to her.
Magellan, my dearest friend,
You have arrived in the labyrinth at Hereford Manor.
I am certain at present you are most confused.
I have asked my wife to deliver this message upon your arrival, for I do know when you arrive from the future, unfortunately I will no longer be alive.
She does not know the full extent behind your appearance, for I fear if I say too much I will unintentionally alter the course of the future for us all with disastrous results.
I am taking a gamble in penning this note, but I feel I must, and it is as much as I dare.
I have given my son, Rhys, the diary. He will translate the pages for you. If he resists, force him. You must read Gwynedd’s words for yourself and read them quickly. I am not understating facts when I say the fate of the world is in your hands.
Safe journey into the labyrinth.
Your servant and devoted friend,
Godwin
Post scripta: I do not wish to alarm you but please know when you play the song, forces beyond this world are waiting at the threshold to possess it. I have seen that hell with my own eyes.
Magellan reread the letter over and over again, trying to unravel its riddle, and her heart beat faster each time. Her whole body was viscerally reacting to Godwin’s message.
The letter made no sense. Dearest friend? And he mentioned the fate of the world just like the letter from the Liron Institute. An institute no one had ever heard of. And she assumed Post scripta meant PS—but she had no idea what song he was talking about.
Crazy as his message was, at least one person seemed to know the truth of her arrival here. The problem was the man was dead.
Godwin, the late earl, insisted she read the diary and his son, Rhys, would translate it for her. She had no idea how on earth she was going to get the earl with the scowling face to do that.
The door behind her opened, and Magellan quickly hid the note in the desk drawer in front of her where she had stowed her apple and scones.
“Are you ready, miss?” Polly rolled in a cart on wheels brimming with vials, jars, and an ancient-looking curling iron nestled in heated embers. She began to take charge with bristling efficiency.
Magellan couldn’t believe she was being forced to change and tried to insist she didn’t need to, but Polly wouldn’t hear of it.
The young woman helped her out of her old dress and then eyed Magellan’s bra and underwear askance, asking if ladies wore those kind of undergarments in the United States of America.
Then she held out the 1829 version of underwear: ankle-length pantaloons made of cotton and a matching shift-like gown.
The pants had a slit down the middle so she could easily use the chamber pot, which Polly pointed out was “in the water closet.” Over the shift went a corset-like bodice—the equivalent of an 1829 bra—and then a petticoat.
Finally came the dress, a long billowy gown fit for a ballroom.
Polly beamed at the transformation. “You look so beautiful, miss! Now sit and let me do your hair.” She pulled out the hot iron tongs from the embers.
Magellan watched in the mirror, trying to remain calm, but she was still reeling from the letter. How did Godwin know her? And how had a diary belonging to Merlin’s sister followed her to 1829?
“Now for the gloves,” Polly announced, slipping them on her hands as she chattered on about the house party, but Magellan didn’t hear a word.
The last thing she clearly remembered was playing the pipe organ, then waking up here.
She had no clue how long she had been gone or if Crystal was still at the church.
Did Crystal think she was missing? Was she missing?
Maybe she was in a parallel world. Or maybe the world did not exist anymore.
The deluge of questions whirling in Magellan’s mind made the panic inside her surge higher until she couldn’t breathe.
She was trapped at an estate straight out of a Regency romance with a dead earl warning her about hell if she played music.
Maybe she had lost her mind. The diagnosis did not look good. She began to hyperventilate.
Polly looked alarmed. “Are you all right, miss? Did I tie your corset too tight?”
Magellan grabbed Polly’s arm, becoming desperate. “Do you have a piano?”
“I’m sorry, miss, you’re asking if we have a piano?”
Magellan nodded emphatically.
“Of course, we have two.”
“Could you take me to one? Right away?” She was too distraught to have it make sense, but she needed to play to calm herself.
“Should I call for a doctor?”
“No! I just need a piano. It will help.” After she played something epic and complex and impossible until her fingers went numb and her thoughts stopped spinning.
Twelve piano pieces were considered the hardest in the world, and Magellan could play them all.
Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29, Liszt’s La campanella, Chopin’s étude Op.
25 No. 11, Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum .
. . Today she would simply go down the list until she could breathe again.
She would play until she couldn’t remember she was stuck in 1829, and then when she was calmer, she would find a way to the labyrinth and try to get home.
She took hold of Polly’s hand. “Please, Polly, I must play or I am going to lose my mind more than I already have!”
“You poor thing, if you think it will soothe you. Of course.” Polly helped her into a dainty pair of shoes resembling ballet slippers. “I’ll let the countess know you’ll be in the east wing. She won’t mind your tinkering if you’re somewhere the guests can’t hear.”
Polly led her down a hallway and then a back staircase to the first floor. They passed through countless hallways and closed doors as Polly told her, “The formal conservatory is never in use anymore since the previous earl died. You shouldn’t disturb anyone there.”
When they reached the ground floor, they went down several more hallways and finally arrived at a pair of imposing double doors.
Polly opened the doors wide to reveal one of the most breathtaking rooms Magellan had ever seen.
Opulent mirrored panels gilded in gold extended up to a vaulted ceiling.
The wood floor gleamed with an intricate inlaid geometric design, and three sets of beveled French glass doors opened out to the gardens.
Magellan looked around in wonder. “It’s like a concert hall.”
An elegant grand piano was the centerpiece. Chairs and settees were draped with white sheets, the room not in use.
Polly opened the garden doors to let in fresh air and the sunlight. “Play as long as you like. I’ll check on you later and take you to the countess for the introductions to the other guests.”
Magellan was already planning to escape to the labyrinth before then, but still she asked, “Are you sure I should meet anyone? What if someone guesses I’m not really a guest?”
Polly shook her head with a grin. “But you are a guest now, and you look splendid, miss. No one will ever know you have a medical affliction.”
Magellan grimaced and turned toward the piano. As she approached the instrument, she gasped in disbelief.
The piano was a Streicher! A bona fide Streicher from Vienna. She had only seen one in a museum. This one was immaculate and brand spanking new. She reached out and touched the keys in wonder.
This piano would have been made by Nannette Streicher.
Her father, Johann Andreas Stein, had been a famous organ and piano maker back in his day.
When he died, his children, Nannette and her brother Matth?us, along with Nannette’s husband Andreas Streicher, took over the business.
Nannette had a hand in all things, including the instruments’ designs.
She was a musician, a close friend to Beethoven, and a great patroness of the arts who forged her way in a time when women had very little freedom, and Magellan was about to play one of her pianos.
As she laid her hands on the gleaming new keys, Magellan finally began to believe she might really, truly be in 1829.
Reverently, she sat down and slipped off the gloves, flexing her fingers.
First, she tested every key to acquaint herself with the instrument’s range and tonal power. She’d never played an actual nineteenth-century piano before. The modern piano wasn’t set to make its debut for another forty years.
Polly hovered by the door with a pitying look, most likely assuming her hen pecking was the extent of her musical ability. “Well then, I’ll just leave you to your . . . playing. Ring the bell over there when you’ve finished, and I’ll come fetch you.” Magellan nodded, barely listening.
After Polly left, Magellan ran scales up and down the piano as she came to terms with the situation.
Somehow, she was in 1829, and right now she was sitting in the most breathtaking conservatory in front of a brand-new Streicher.
She tried not to dwell on the fact somehow a dead earl had known she would be coming—and a diary belonging to Merlin’s sister was being given to her again, and she had to read it quickly because the fate of the world was at stake and according to Godwin in her hands.
Either this was actually the past or a parallel world or a very real-feeling delusional dream in which she was the star, or maybe they were all one and the same.
She launched into Chopin’s étude Op. 10 No.
4, one of his most difficult and acrobatic pieces, in order to quell her thoughts.
Her fingers flew over the keys in the equivalent of an Olympic race, and she gasped with delight at the sound, knowing this was the exact instrument Chopin would have played with an identical resonance.
Magellan closed her eyes and gave herself over to the music, not planning to return anytime soon.