‘Ok.’ He draped a large tartan blanket over her and gave her another cushion. Tempest burrowed and nestled in the angle of her bent knees ‘I’ll be right here with Mike.’
‘I know.’
Amanda leaned up on one elbow as Hogarth returned and handed her a small earthenware handleless cup. She took a cautious sip and made a face.
‘It’s sort of delicious and disgusting at the same time.’
Hogarth laughed. ‘Best description ever.’ He took the empty cup from Amanda, put it on the table and returned to his armchair. ‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Thomas, you’ve done this before. Take Amanda down the stairs.’
‘Me?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh. That all right with you, Miss Cadabra?’
‘It worked before,’ she pointed out sleepily, the potion already taking effect. ‘Remember the room at the asthma centre?’
‘I do.’
He knelt on the floor by the sofa. Amanda closed her eyes.
Trelawney spoke softly.
‘You’re holding your great-grandmother’s hand. It’s dry and cold and claw-like. Not like your granny’s. And you’re walking with her. You hear the sound of her stiff skirts. Now you’re walking down steps, stone steps, hard under your feet. Going down ... down ... down.’
Amanda was already asleep.
‘You’re going through a big heavy door, and now you’re in a small dark hall of stone. You see the granite lectern and the big bowl with some wooden steps, with a handrail, leading up to the top of it. There are people in the shadows, and if you look hard, you can see their faces. You look at the faces. You’re interested in the faces, their hair, how tall they are. You go up the stairs to the top of the cauldron. You can smell the mist, but from up here, you can see the people. You look at the people.’
Her head turned to the right on the cushions, her hand extended and fingers flexed, as if around an imaginary rail.
‘I don’t ...,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t want the mist ... I don’t wa... G…G... Granny!’
‘Miss Cadabra, wake up.’
She felt a hand gently patting her cheek. Amanda gasped, her breath coming short. Hogarth opened the curtains.
‘Amanda.’
She opened her eyes. Hogarth noticed how they searched instinctively for Thomas, reaching out a hand to her.
‘I’m here. You’re safe, Miss Cadabra.’ She grasped his hand. Then let go with a long breath.
‘I’m back.’
Chapter 42
The Only Way
‘Oh. Yes ....’ Amanda sat up on Hogarth’s sofa, disturbing Tempest who, put out, climbed on to her lap and looked around with affront. She registered that she was in Uncle Mike’s sitting-room. The inspector was at her side.
‘All right?’ Trelawney asked.
‘Yes. Yes, quickly. Photos!’
Hogarth spread out the prints on the coffee table beside them. Amanda looked carefully, then pointed.
‘This woman.’
‘Your mother, Skorna.’
‘Is it? Yes, and this woman ... and this man and this man ... this woman and ... erm ... I think ... this man.’
‘So that’s your mother, aunt Lughesven, uncle Droggerys, father Ughel, aunt by marriage, and aunt’s husband.’
‘Are they? All right. There might have been others, but they were too deep in the shadows to see their faces.’
‘Good. This, together with your great-grandmother, is the list, then, of the people who knew about The Grimoire, say, three to five years after the fire. That doesn’t necessarily mean any of them took it.’
‘They are the most likely culprits,’ replied Amanda.
‘Yes, so which of them was present the night it passed out of Growan House hands?’
Hogarth looked at Thomas. Silence fell.
Amanda stared into the fire. Only the sound of the flames could be heard. The wind in the chimney had dropped. The birds were silent. Finally,
‘There’s only one way,’ she said, then looked up at them. ‘I have to go back.’ Hogarth and Thomas kept quiet. ‘Back to the night of the fire. I’m the only one that can do it.’
The men returned to their chairs. Hogarth leaned forward, forearms on his knees.
‘Do you understand how risky this is, Amanda? Riskier than any of the previous forays into the past.’
‘It’s my timeline, isn’t it?' she replied quickly. ‘If I make the wrong move, one or both of my progenitors could die, and I’ll never have been born.’
‘Yes,’ acknowledged Hogarth simply.
‘Well ... all I need to do is to observe and not be seen. Because any member of any of the three clans will kill me on sight, right?’
Hogarth did not dress it up. ‘Yes.’
‘Even though I’m technically a Cardiubarn.’
‘You could try introducing yourself, but you’d probably get as far as ‘Hello, I’m ....’ before you found yourself joining your dear transitioned grandparents,’ he replied, injecting a lighter note.
She gave a half-smile at that.
‘Yes. And if I die there, I won’t come back here?’
‘As far as my understanding of these things goes, no, no, you won’t.’
Amanda cuddled Tempest as though for comfort.
‘So if it’s curtains there, it’s curtains here.’
‘Indeed.’
‘All right, got it.’ Amanda’s voice took on a stronger, more resolute tone. ‘So ... how do I do this?’
Trelawney joined the conversation.
‘Are you sure about this, Miss Cadabra?’
‘I am,’ Amanda replied firmly.
‘In that case .... You’ll need to blend in. How about if you dress all in black? In the dark and the chaos, you could just be taken for one of the Flamgoynes. If Pasco is to be believed, there were plenty of them at the attack that night.’
Amanda accepted this with a nod. ‘Good idea, Inspector. All right. How do I see and not be seen?’
Hogarth took a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
‘Peter gave me this diagram. See this door? It’s the east door. If you come in through here, look to your right. On the same wall as the door, is a long coat rack for the family,
