Page 19 of The Journal of a Thousand Years (The Glass Library #6)

Returning to work in the Glass Library felt like going home. Everything was familiar to me, from knowing which step creaked, to where every book was shelved. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it over the last few days until I entered the morning after Stanley’s attempted suicide.

I placed my bag on the front desk and was about to call out to Professor Nash when a clock chimed. It wasn’t a chime I’d heard before. It was musical, yet quite loud. It would have been heard even in the furthest nooks of the library.

I entered the main part of the library through the marble columns and studied the large clock above the fireplace. It was nine o’clock according to the brass hands, which kept perfect time thanks to Lady Rycroft’s horology magic, but I’d never heard the clock make a sound before.

Professor Nash came down the stairs. “Sylvia? What was that?”

“The clock. Has it chimed before?”

“No. Never. How odd. I wonder what it means.”

“Should it mean something?”

“Knowing India, yes.” He smiled.

It was a genuine smile that lifted my heart. Lately, his smiles had been wan and fleeting, or missing altogether. He was lonely. The loss of his friend, Oscar Barratt, seemed to weigh heavier than ever on him. I’d heard that growing older made some people melancholy, and I supposed that was happening to the professor. I wished I knew how to improve his mood, but I suspected nothing I could do would make him better. What he needed was beyond my power to give. Hopefully the return of Gabe’s parents would lift him out of the doldrums. What he needed now was old friends.

The clock chimed again, with the same musical notes. It wasn’t quite like any clock chime I’d heard before. It rose in scale, each note a little higher than the last. “Do you think it’s announcing something?” I asked.

The sound of the library’s front door opening couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. The professor and I exchanged knowing smiles.

He pushed his glasses up his nose. “It seems India has put a spell into it to announce her return, although they’re a day early. And why would they come here to the library and not return to their house?”

We both turned as footsteps approached.

We were wrong. The man standing between the black marble columns holding his hat against his chest wasn’t Gabe’s father, Lord Rycroft. I’d seen photographs of Matt, and he looked a lot like Gabe. This man was about Lord Rycroft’s age, with a little more weathering of his features. I’d seen photographs of him, too, but it took me a moment to realize that I’d seen those photographs here in this very library, and in the professor’s adjoining flat. Indeed, it was Professor Nash’s reaction that confirmed the man’s identity for me.

He fainted.

I managed to catch him and lower him to the floor. He regained consciousness as Oscar Barratt crouched beside him.

“You’re not usually this dramatic, Gavin.” Oscar grinned. It made his interesting face rather handsome. He opened his arms to receive a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

The professor sat up, blinked at his old friend, then did something I’d never seen him do before. He punched Oscar. It was only in the arm, and it seemed to hurt the professor’s hand more than Oscar, but it was still a surprising reaction from the gentle-natured librarian.

Oscar rubbed his arm. “I thought you’d be pleased to see me.” He sounded hurt. He turned a worried frown onto me. “Are you his assistant? Do you know what’s made him so aggressive? Is it the war?”

“I think it’s the fact that he thought you were dead.”

Oscar’s brows shot up. “Why would you think that?”

The professor drew his legs in and I thought he was going to stand, but he remained seated on the floor. Perhaps he didn’t trust his balance yet after receiving such a shock. I couldn’t fathom the emotions swirling within him. “You never wrote to me to tell me otherwise! I received no word for years . Of course I thought you were dead! Why wouldn’t I?”

“I did write to you.” Oscar scoffed as if he suspected he was the victim of the professor’s joke.

But the professor wasn’t laughing. Indeed, he still looked furious.

“I wrote to you just after we parted ways, when war broke out,” Oscar said. “I told you where to write to me. You didn’t receive it?”

“No.”

“I suppose we can blame the abysmal north African mail service and the chaos of war for correspondence going missing.”

“Can we?” the professor growled.

Oscar twirled his hat in his hand. “I wondered why you never responded.”

“Your brother didn’t receive a letter either.”

Oscar scoffed. “You know Isaac and I don’t get along. I didn’t write to him.”

“And Huon? Why didn’t you write to your nephew? He looked up to you. He could have done with his favorite uncle’s guidance, by the way.”

Oscar winced. “That’s why I came home. One of the reasons. The other was to see you. I missed you.”

The professor’s lips pinched so tightly they turned white. I thought he was going to punch Oscar again, but Oscar knew him better than I did. He drew his friend into a hug and patted him firmly on the back.

I got up to leave them in peace. “I’ll make some coffee.”

Oscar broke free of the professor and put out a hand to me. “Strong coffee, if you have it, Miss…”

“Ashe. Sylvia Ashe.” I shook his hand and headed to the staircase to make the coffee in the professor’s flat.

“She’s pretty,” I heard Oscar say. “Huon would like her.”

The professor’s chuckle drifted up to me. “Gabe likes her more. Besides, Huon has his eye on someone else. You’ll like her.” A moment later, he said, “Is everything all right, Oscar? How is?—?”

“Fine,” Oscar said, a smile in his voice. “Everything is fine. I have a lot to tell you.”

Oscar Barratt’s return from the dead drew everyone to the library. Huon’s reaction was similar to the professor’s, but without the punch in the arm. He did scold his uncle, however, telling him that he should have written more than once, especially when he received no reply from either of them.

Huon introduced Petra as the woman he planned to marry, which caused Petra to blush fiercely and stumble over her words. Huon couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was utterly besotted as she chatted to his uncle about his travels.

Later, when Daisy and I got Petra alone, I asked her how she felt about Huon now. “Has your opinion of him changed?”

“It has changed quite dramatically,” she said, watching him from beneath her lashes. “He is cleverer than he seems at first, and funny, brave, and kind. He’s quite perfect. I don’t even mind that he’s an ink magician.”

“And your mother?” Daisy asked. “Does she mind?”

“She said she will accept him because he makes me happy. That’s good enough for me.”

Daisy, Petra and I sat on the sofa in the first-floor reading nook. Alex, Gabe, Willie, Cyclops, Catherine and their eldest daughter stood at the desk, listening to Oscar repeat a story that I’d heard him tell the professor earlier. Professor Nash was making tea with the two younger Bailey girls. It was a comforting scene of long-lost friends getting to know one another again, but I sensed all wasn’t well with Alex.

He'd barely looked at Daisy since her arrival, and merely nodded a greeting. Catherine had spoken to him, but from what I’d seen of the exchange he’d disagreed with whatever she’d said. It was clear to everyone that he was miserable.

As was Daisy.

I was about to urge her to talk to him, again, but it turned out I didn’t need to. After Petra declared that her mother would accept a rival into the family, Daisy got to her feet.

“You’re very fortunate to have such a wonderful mother,” she said.

Before Petra could answer, Daisy marched off. She strode up to Alex, grasped his face in both her hands and pulled him down to her level so she could kiss him thoroughly.

Willie and Ella both let out a whoop of delight. “It’s about time,” Willie declared.

Alex broke the kiss and stepped back. He ran a hand over his hair. “Daisy…no. We can’t… Your parents… That’s not what I want for you.”

“That’s unfortunate, because it’s what I want for myself. You can argue all you want, Alex, but it’s an argument I’m going to win.” She stepped forward, but he stepped back again. “I love you, Alexander Bailey. I love you, and nothing will change that. Not my parents’ attitudes, nor the world’s. It’s time you accepted that I’m not giving up. You’re the man for me, and you always will be. Only you.”

She once more stepped toward him, but he moved away again. He butted up against a shelf, trapped. He swallowed.

“So, either you accept that we’re going to be together, Alex, or you leave me no choice.”

“I don’t?” he choked out.

“If we can’t be together, I declare here and now, in front of witnesses, that I will never be with another man but you. If you don’t agree, then you condemn me to live the life of a spinster with no family of my own.”

“But—”

“No buts.” She inched closer. “I won’t have a family because my parents are no longer a part of it, with or without you. So it might as well be with.” She took another step until she was toe to toe with him. “So you see, Alex, either we create a family of our own with two loving grandparents and three sweet aunts, or I’ll be a lonely old maid.”

Alex peered down at her. His jaw firmed. Then he threw his arms around her. His words were lost in her hair, but I suspected she heard them. I suspected no one else was meant to.

Catherine snuggled into Cyclops’s side, smiling. “She has his measure. I like her.”

He circled his arm around his wife’s waist. “I’d like it known that I predicted this from the moment I met her.”

Willie snorted. “You did not. I did. Tell ‘em, Gabe.”

Gabe sat on the arm of the sofa beside me and twirled a loose strand of my hair around his finger. “I don’t remember that conversation.”

“Traitor,” Willie muttered. “If your father were here, he’d take my side over Cyclops’s.”

“Would I?”

We all turned toward the deep, droll voice to see Gabe’s parents climbing the stairs. Even if I hadn’t seen photographs of Matt and India, I would have known who they were. Matt was an older version of Gabe, except for the eyes. Gabe’s green eyes were a match for India’s.

He embraced his parents, albeit after Willie, who’d thrown herself at her cousin and his wife. When Gabe drew back, his mother continued to watch him, as if she’d been starved of the sight of him for too long and needed to get her fill.

While Cyclops, Catherine, Alex and Ella greeted them heartily and welcomed them home, Gabe took my hand. “Don’t be nervous,” he said, his voice as warm as his smile.

“I’m not nervous.”

“You are. The vein in your neck below your ear throbs when you’re nervous.”

“It does not.”

He kissed the vein, but because it was in a ticklish spot, I giggled. I felt his smile against my skin.

“That’s better,” he said, tugging me toward his parents. “Mum, Dad, this is Sylvia.”

At the last moment, I remembered these two were a lord and lady, and I didn’t know the protocol. Should I curtsy?

India must have realized why I hesitated. She drew me into a hug. “I am so glad to meet you, Sylvia.”

Matt shook my hand. “I feel as though we already know you. Gabe told us all about you in his letters.”

“Oh,” I said, on a breath.

“Six months’ worth of letters,” India added. “It was clear from the first one that you were special.” She smiled gently as she clasped both my hands. “I can already tell I’m going to like you. Are these your friends?”

I introduced Petra. They already knew Huon, and Alex introduced Daisy. He couldn’t stop smiling as he did so.

India, still holding my hand, squeezed it. “So much has happened in the last six months. I’m sorry to have missed it, but I’m not sorry we went away when we did.” She exchanged a knowing glance with Catherine, her dear friend.

“It turned out to be the right decision,” Catherine said. “Ivy is—” She stopped herself with a shake of her head. “We’ll talk about it later. Today is not the day.”

Matt looked past me. “Oscar? You don’t look very dead.”

Oscar shook Matt’s hand vigorously. “Surprise.” He embraced India. When he drew back, he clasped her hands lightly. “You look very well.”

“So do you, for a dead man,” she said with a scowl. “Seeing you here is quite a shock. Is Gavin all right?”

Oscar rubbed his arm where Professor Nash had punched him. “I believe he’s feeling better after venting his frustration.”

“He has been rather down these last few years, you know. You’d better make it up to him.”

On cue, the professor arrived, carrying a tray with tea things, Mae and Lulu behind him, also carrying trays. He beamed. It was the happiest I’d ever seen him. “Matt! India! We thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”

“Our ship docked early,” Matt said. “We decided to surprise Gabe and caught the midday train to London, but he wasn’t at home. Bristow said you were all here. Did the clock downstairs chime?”

“Yes, as it happens. Did you make it chime, India?”

“I practiced a new spell I created on the voyage home,” she said. “Did it chime at nine o’clock precisely?”

The professor pushed his glasses up his nose. “Yes. Is nine AM significant?”

“It’s when our ship docked. My spell was designed to announce our arrival on English soil. I’m so pleased it worked, although it is a rather pointless spell.”

Matt put his arm around her. “Not at all. In future, you’ll have all the clocks chiming your arrival, so Willie knows when she needs to start behaving.”

Cyclops snorted. “That’s not going to make her behave.”

Willie nodded, all seriousness. “Very true. So, how’s Duke?”

“He and his family are well,” Matt said. “He misses you.”

“Naturally.”

“So he’s visiting us in the autumn.”

Willie tried to hide her happiness, but failed spectacularly. She burst into tears.

We moved to various sofas and chairs to talk. I poured tea while the professor served the cake. It was to magic that the conversation turned. It began with Cyclops asking after their traveling companions, Dr. and Mrs. Seaford.

“They’re both well,” India said. “He was very interested to learn that your mother was a silver magician, Sylvia.”

I glanced at Gabe. Clearly his letters had kept his parents informed of events here in London. “She was, although I didn’t know it until after she died.”

Gabe took my hand in his and offered me an encouraging smile.

“Gabriel—Dr. Seaford, that is—was adopted by a silver magician,” India went on.

“He was?” Gabe asked. “I didn’t know that. His name wasn’t in the magician files. Marianne Folgate was the only one.”

“Gabriel asked us to leave it out to maintain privacy. His adopted father had no natural children, so we assumed silver magic no longer existed. Perhaps you’re distantly related to him, Sylvia, but as far as we know, he had no other family except his adopted son. We’re sorry there are no family members for you to connect with.”

“It’s quite all right,” I said. “I’ve recently discovered aunts and cousins on my father’s side that I never knew existed.” I looked to Gabe, not wanting to mention my father’s name to them. I didn’t want his parents to regard me with disappointment, perhaps even dislike.

India allayed my fears, however. She leaned forward and touched my knee. “Melville Hendry is your father, isn’t he? When Gabe wrote to us about your paper magic, Matt and I considered the possibility that you’re Hendry’s daughter. We didn’t know for sure, of course. We’ve been on a ship for several days without any news, but rest assured, it doesn’t matter to us.”

“Don’t let Willie try to tell you otherwise,” Matt said wryly.

Willie sank into a chair. “He’s dead anyway,” she muttered.

India and Matt offered me their condolences. It seemed strange to receive them. I’d never come to terms with having a father, so losing Melville so soon after meeting him didn’t feel as painful as it should.

“We met your mother, Sylvia,” Matt went on. “Marianne was a strong, capable woman. We both liked her.”

To think they’d met her all those years ago, and now here I was, seated in the library they funded, their son’s hand warming mine. My mother hadn’t liked men. She’d feared them and raised me to fear them too, except for James. Yet, I think she would have liked that I’d found my soulmate in the son of the couple who’d helped free magicians from persecution. Like my mother, India seemed to have a strength about her that wasn’t obvious at first glance, and Matt was clearly in love with his wife. Anyone who saw the way he looked at her could see it.

Matt and India wanted to know everything that had happened since the last telegram they’d received before boarding the ship to come home, so I left Gabe, Alex, Willie and Cyclops to talk to them. I smiled at Professor Nash as I passed him chatting to Huon, Petra and Oscar. Daisy had been cornered by the Bailey sisters, so I climbed the spiral staircase to the mezzanine level alone. I ran my fingers across the spines of the books shelved alongside the narrow mezzanine walkway, then looked out onto Crooked Lane through the large arched window. Dusk had settled over the city while we were talking. We all ought to be going our separate ways, but no one seemed to want to leave.

I stood in the wider section of the mezzanine, the window and cozy armchair behind me, and surveyed the scene below. I breathed in deeply, drawing the scent of old books and paper into my lungs. A wave of contentment washed over me. It was the paper, calling to my magic, telling me I was exactly where I should be, where I belonged.

Contentment turned to happiness when Gabe’s arms circled my waist from behind. “Is it overwhelming?” he asked.

I leaned into him. The scent of him replaced the paper, but it was no less fulfilling. “Not at all. I like your circus.”

His soft laughter ruffled my hair.

Matt’s explanation about a man named Ponzi drifted up to us. The term sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until he told Alex, Daisy and Oscar about an article in the Boston Globe that mentioned the complete collapse of the investment scheme that I recalled Hope, Lady Coyle, had told us her son had invested everything in it. They would be ruined now, even more than they already were.

I pushed thoughts of Valentine and his mother from my mind. I didn’t want to think about them at this moment. I wanted to enjoy it.

“They’re talking about you,” Gabe said, nodding at Cyclops and Professor Nash.

Thanks to our vantage point, Cyclops’s voice drifted up to us, but I doubted they were aware I was listening in. “She doesn’t need a father. She already has a man in her life who thinks of her as a daughter.”

Professor Nash lowered his teacup to his saucer. “Yes, I do think of her like that. It’s perceptive of you to notice that I’m a father figure to her.”

“I meant I’m a father figure for Sylvia.”

“I think you’ll find that she sees me that way. Sorry, Cyclops.”

“You’re very important to her, of course, but I already have three daughters, so I’m an expert at being a father to girls.”

Ella, who’d been passing, stopped to scold Cyclops. “The fact you just called your three grown daughters girls, not women, proves you don’t have a clue what makes us tick.”

Cyclops pouted. “Lulu’s still a girl.”

Ella laughed. “It’s a joke, Father. You’re wonderful.” She kissed his cheek, winked at Professor Nash, then threw herself onto the sofa beside Willie.

Willie, however, was also pouting. “I am not old,” she said, stroppy.

Catherine rolled her eyes in exasperation. “That’s not what I said. I said I liked Tilda for you, because she’s mature, and perhaps she’ll help you settle down now that you’re older .”

Willie crossed her arms, jutted out her jaw, and turned away.

Catherine appealed to India. India, however, had an impish look on her face. She winked at Catherine then, her face serious, made Willie look at her. “Don’t you think it’s time to age gracefully?”

Ella laughed. “I’ve known her all my life, and she’s never done a single thing with grace. I doubt she’ll start now.”

“I can be graceful! I just choose not to be.” Willie poked Ella in the shoulder. “So you can pipe down or I’ll tell your mother what you got up to last Saturday night.”

Catherine narrowed her gaze. “What did she get up to?”

Ella glared at Willie.

Willie smiled back, triumphant, then stood and walked off.

India followed her. “I’m looking forward to meeting Tilda. She sounds marvelous.”

“She is.”

India frowned. “You sound unhappy about that.”

Willie shrugged a shoulder but gave no answer.

India turned Willie to face her fully then dipped her gaze to Willie’s level. “You deserve contentment, too.”

Willie sighed. “I don’t know. There’s no…thrill. No excitement.”

“And yet you’re drawn to her?”

Willie nodded. “I don’t understand it. Why do I like her so much when she’s so modest and sensible?”

“You like her because she makes you feel content when you’re with her. It’s something no one tells you about love, but love is contentment. You can’t chase thrills forever. The highs you experience from temporary amusements are fun, exciting, but they’re also fleeting. When they’re over, you feel empty. If Tilda fills that emptiness, then she’s worth having in your life.”

“Thanks, India. I needed to hear that.” Willie smiled. “I’m real glad you’re back.”

Gabe turned me around within the circle of his arms to face him. “It could be your circus, too.”

I smiled, even though my insides had suddenly turned to jelly.

He removed a small box from his pocket and got down on one knee. “I wanted to do this somewhere special. Somewhere that has meaning for us. I couldn’t think of a better place to ask you to be my wife than here, surrounded by paper and books.” He glanced past me. “And our circus.” He opened the ring box to reveal a sparkling diamond. “I love you, Sylvia. I love everything about you, but I mostly love the way I feel when I’m with you. More content, and happier than I’ve ever felt. Will you marry me?”

I got down on my knees too, because some things should be said face to face. “I already think of you as my family, Gabe. I love you, and yes, I want to marry you.”

I hadn’t realized the circus had gone quiet until Ella’s cheer led a round of applause and well-wishes from below.

I laughed against Gabe’s mouth.

He placed the ring on my finger then drew me up to stand beside him. I grinned and waved, pretending the wave was in gratitude but, really, I just wanted to see how the ring looked.

“Shall we go downstairs?” he asked.

I drew his arms around me again. “I want to savor this moment first.”

He held me tightly, his chin resting on the top of my head. I could tell from the angle of his head that he looked at his friends and family below. I did, too, but not for long. I was drawn to the bookshelves filled to bursting with magical knowledge. Gabe was right to propose here. The most important phase of my life began the moment I set foot in the Glass Library. My happiest memories were made here. Our journey as a couple was deeply woven into the fabric of the library, and I knew in my bones that it would play an equally important role in the journeys we were yet to take—together.

THE END