‘OLIVER!’ I gasped. ‘Wh—what are you doing here? I thought you were with the Bishop.’
‘I was, but you didn’t answer your phone and I was worried… I mean, I couldn’t wait to…’ He broke off and looked at me intently. ‘Did you just try to change the subject? Who were you talking to just now?’
‘No one! I was just talking to myself.’ I managed a grin. ‘It’s the first sign of madness, you know, and I was mad to think we could use anything here. Short of stealing it, anyway. Which I do not even want to have to contemplate! Not yet, anyway. I’m awfully sorry you had to come all this way.’ I avoided his gaze and busied myself with my phone. ‘Battery’s dead. I guess I forgot to charge it. But I was about to leave, so why don’t we––’
‘But you’re not leaving alone.’
It was a statement not a question and I shifted nervously. ‘Of course, I’m not alone – not now you’re here,’ I quipped. ‘Did you really drive all the way from Winchester just to see me? Do you want to visit the museum? Though you must have been here lots of times…’ I was babbling again, and my voice faded away as I saw Oliver eyeing the topaz cross lying in the bottom of the display case.
‘Any idea how that got there?’
‘I… I suppose someone must have knocked the glass.’
He stared at me for a long moment. ‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s get out of here. I have something to tell you. Even if you have things you aren’t telling me.’
We headed outside and I was glad to feel the sun warm on my back because the silence between Oliver and me was decidedly cool. Which seemed a bit unfair, given that he hadn’t told me about his mother. Except that he did tell me – eventually. But I can’t tell him about Jane Austen’s ghost – I promised not to tell anyone. And after what had happened to Aunty B in the crypt, I was never breaking another promise ever again.
And yet, even though I still didn’t know if he were Darcy or Wickham, I wanted to tell Oliver about Jane. Badly. Instead, I gave myself a mental shake and said, ‘What did you want to tell me so urgently?’
‘We think we’ve found something. In the Chronicles.’
‘Oh my God, that’s incredible! What is it?’
‘The Bishop wants to tell you about it himself.’
‘Then let’s go to him immediately! Did you come in your Mercedes?’ I chanced a cheeky grin in the hopes of making him smile. ‘I’d suggest a race back to Winchester only Dexter knows the road so well, you wouldn’t stand a chance!’
He thawed slightly. ‘You’re on.’ He pulled his car keys from his pocket.
‘Speed limit only though.’
‘See you in twenty minutes,’ replied Oliver, and turned away.
BACK at the Bishop’s Palace we found Bishop Stiles pacing.
‘Here you are at last, Cassandra. Oliver would not continue without you.’
I threw Oliver a grateful look and ignored the guilt niggling at my insides. ‘What have you found?’ I asked, eyeing the weird-looking machine beside the Bishop’s desk.
‘This is MAC,’ replied Oliver, placing an affectionate hand on the machine’s rectangular metal head. ‘He’s a macro X-ray fluorescence spectrometry scanner and a master at revealing the old documents that were often used to make or repair the bindings of medieval manuscripts. With enough time MAC can actually allow us to read what’s written beneath a book’s binding.’
‘But we don’t have much time,’ I said anxiously, remembering Jane’s pronouncement that Aunt Butters had barely a week left before she was pulled into the ghostly plane.
‘Yes, but we don’t need MAC to read for us, we just need him to show us if there’s anything hidden underneath the Chronicles’ bindings or even the endpapers.’ He smiled at me. ‘Thanks to you, we found Knox’s letter to Bishop North. We’d never have thought of checking the bindings if you hadn’t grabbed the Bishop’s arm, Cassie.’
Bishop Stiles snorted irritably and glared at me.
Inwardly, I shrugged. He’d dropped the Chronicle, not me. For once, my conscience was clear. ‘Are you saying there’s something beneath the binding?’
Oliver pointed. ‘There are words beneath the endpaper of that Chronicle.’
The Bishop opened the volume lying on his desk.
‘So how do we read them?’ I couldn’t imagine Bishop Stiles letting us damage his precious Chronicle on purpose.
He sighed heavily. ‘I am afraid we must cut the endpaper.’ He lifted a pointed silver paper-knife from the holder on his desk and bent over the great red book.
‘Be careful, Bishop,’ warned Oliver. ‘If there is anything under there, it’s probably extremely fragile. We’ll need to handle any document very carefully.’
We held our breath as Bishop Stiles carefully inserted the tip of the paper-knife under the parchment and made a slit across the top. Then, gently prising up the endpaper he peered beneath it.
‘Can you see anything?’ Oliver’s voice was husky with excitement.
‘Writing. I see writing.’ The Bishop took a pair of tweezers from his desk, edged them carefully into the opening and slowly withdrew a sheet of yellowed paper. Oliver stretched out eager fingers but the Bishop barked, ‘Wait!’ He withdrew a second sheet and finally a third. Then he laid the three pages side by side on the desk and closed the Chronicle with a sigh.
Oliver reached out a hand that was not quite steady, picked up the first page by its corners and scanned it. I heard him gasp and saw his face drain of colour.
Before I could utter a word, Jane cried, ‘Why—surely that is my dear sister Cassandra’s handwriting!’