The noise of car engines receded, as the vehicles were driven in the direction of the horse stables. Vanity said, “Chauffeurs. They are parking the cars away from the house.”
The sound diminished. We heard the dull boom of the main doors being pulled to.
Vanity and I both turned and looked at the heavy oak door, bound with its enormous iron hinges, unlocked for the first time in our lives.
I said, “I promised not to.”
Vanity looked at the door and bit her lip. “But I didn’t.”
And she scampered over to the door.
I raised my hand, but then I couldn’t think of anything to say. Had the Headmaster actually not talked to her because he was not proud of her, as he was of me? I closed the window and moved over to stand in front of our new, warm, lovely fire.
She put her hand on the door, frowned, put her cheek to the door, her wide green eyes turned toward it.
Vanity jumped back. She put her finger to her lips, as if to hush me, but then said in a loud stage whisper: “He’s watching the door.”
“Who?”
“Boggin! Headmaster Boggin! He’s just waiting out there. Waiting for you to open the door. What a sneak!”
“How can you tell?”
“What do you mean, how can I tell? When I touch the door, I get that feeling I am being watched.”
I walked over to the door and put my hand on it. “Feels like wood, to me.”
She rolled her eyes in an animated fashion. “Oh, come on Amelia! You’ve had that feeling!”
“What feeling?”
“That feeling of being watched when no one is there. Everyone has it. It’s in all the novels! Are you the only person on Earth who doesn’t?”
“I might be. But how do you know your feeling isn’t just, you know, a feeling? Your imagination?”
“Well, I found the peepholes, didn’t I?”
“Actually, Vanity, you found the secret passage. But we did not actually see and find peepholes when we were in there. It was dark, and holes leading to lit rooms would have sent a beam of light…”
But Vanity was already hopping across the room to where the seven-foot-long candlesnuffer was kept. “Thanks for reminding me.”
And she took up the candlesnuffer and tugged in the mouth of the gargoyle mask on the wall eleven feet above.
Nothing happened. No secret door opened.
“It must be on a timer,” Vanity pouted, putting down the pole and seating herself on her bed.
“I think you are doing it. It is some sort of unexplained phenomenon. But you cause it. Dr. Fell’s medicine must be inhibiting the effects.”
Vanity giggled, threw her arms overhead, and fell back with a soft sound onto her mattress. “Oh, I am doing it, eh?”
“Your thoughts trigger it.”
She giggled up at the ceiling. “Let me see if I have this straight. I think,
“Actually, I had hoped it used a more elegant mechanism, but, yes, basically, that’s the theory.”
Vanity yawned a huge yawn. “All that exercise last night… you know, it’s really nice having a warm fire here in the room…”
2.
For purposes of storytelling, it would have been appropriate to have Vanity nod off right at that point, but she actually got up, changed into her night things, and we talked a little more before she drifted off to sleep.
It did seem sudden, though. There I was, alone in my own bed, watching the red firelight dance and jump across the walls, while Vanity breathed softly in the other bed.
But the Headmaster was right. I lived in very comfortable circumstances.
3.
I was awakened by a tap-tapping. The embers had died in the hearth, and a cold wind was whistling in the open flue. I turned to the North window, where our star dial was, to see what time it was, and I saw the silhouette of a hunched figure pressed against the glass.
I screamed, sitting bolt upright and clutching the sheets around my throat. The hunched shape behind the glass hissed softly, “Not so loud…”
I squinted. “Quentin…? Is that you…?”
“Open the window, please. It is really quite cold out here.”
I slid out of bed, and was rewarded with the sensation of ice-cold floor stones stinging my feet. I hopped over, undid the latch, and slid the sash up.
“Well?” I said.
Quentin was hunched over on the rather large stone sill on the outside of the North window. One hand was clutching the marble grain bundles that flanked the window; in the other he had his jackal-headed walking stick. He was wearing a rather voluminous high-collared cape with a half-cloak. Beneath that he had on a T-shirt, and a pair of swim trunks. His legs were bare. No muffler, no coat, no gloves. No socks. He was wearing running shoes. He was shivering.
“Please invite me in,” he said, teeth chattering.
“W-what?”
“Please, for the love of God, invite me in. It’s freezing.”
“Sure,” I said, stepping back. “Come in.”
He slid in over the sill in a slither of huge black cloak. It was made for someone more my height than his; the hem was dirty where it trailed on the floor. The silk inner lining made a sinister hiss as it slid over the stones. Quentin crossed to the fireplace and poked at the coals with his walking stick, while I wrestled the window shut.
A reddish light leapt into the room. Quentin had stirred the coals to momentary life again. He put his stick aside in the fire iron stand and was rubbing his hands together. He crouched down.
In the red light, I could see Vanity, her lips parted, her expression soft and innocent, still asleep.
“Well,” I said stiffly, hugging myself in my nightgown. “Some people can sleep through anything.”
“Unless the medication had sleeping powder in it, tonight,” said Quentin. “Victor and Colin are out like bricks; Dr. Fell watched them take the draught.”
“And you?”
He looked up from his crouched position. The light was behind him, and all I could see was his eyes glint in his silhouette. “I always keep an empty cup from Dr. Fell’s cabinet up my sleeve. I palmed his cup and put mine to my lips. Dr. Fell is very intelligent, but he makes Victor-like assumptions.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Just what do you mean by ‘Victor-like,’ Mister Quentin Nemo?”
Quentin said nothing, but continued to look at me. I became very conscious of the fact that I was standing
