Lesson Nine: One should NEVER steal…
for the saying ‘ye shall reap what ye sow’ has more truth to it than you may realise[54] .

Blythe Pritchard waited patiently before The Book. Usually sweetly cool and light-filled, these familiar hallways suddenly felt oppressively silent and cold.

There was no other way, she told herself. No other way. Unconsciously, she sighed.

A thud sounded from the other side of a nearby wall. A muffled and indignant ‘ow’ reached Blythe’s ears. The next thing she heard was “Ow, Blythe, ow!”, followed by a whoop of happy laughter, stamping feet and hands slapping walls.

She rolled her eyes and called out loudly, “Didn’t I tell you to take the hallway? You’d have been in a nice little mess if it’d happened while you were travelling through a wall.”

A door to her right flicked open and into view slid Domenic Mancini. He jumped and spun, turning round and round like a little child in a non-existent puddle.

“Domenic Mancini! For goodness sakes, behave yourself.”

“But I’m free, Blythe, FREE!” He grinned at her and added, “I think I’ll jump for hours.”

“No you won’t, you’ll get tired after five minutes and fall asleep. Trust me.”

“Oh – sleep!” Domenic said rapturously. “I haven’t slept in 200 years! Well, except for that obligatory weird faint after you first have your secret stolen from you.”

“Sleep is overrated,” Blythe said, surprising even herself with the foulness of her current mood. Seeing his quizzical expression she shrugged and explained, “Well, it’s a futile cycle, isn’t it? You get up, do something or other all day, get tired at night, sleep. And every morning you have to do your hair because every night some kind of explosion goes off on the top of your head and you wake up looking like a vagrant.”

“You’re just determined to spoil my fun, aren’t you?” Domenic smiled at her.

“No, not at all.”

“But you don’t seem happy.”

“You mistake me, Domenic, I’m very happy. I’ve done something which no Deceiver in the last two centuries has achieved: I’ve rid you of your curse.”

“That you have,” Domenic said. “And yet you don’t look as happy as you say you are.”

“I’m female, Domenic, I reserve the right to look one way and feel another.”

“It’s also your God-given right to confuse us poor lads – you in particular have a gift for it. Won’t you tell me why you’re sad, Blythe[55] ?”

The truth was that Blythe hardly knew why Blythe was upset.

“Men!” She threw the word at him like an accusation and stalked down the hallway.

“What’s wrong with being a man?” Domenic called after her. “We make up half the world’s population, and stomp spiders, when the other half of the world’s screaming on a table.”

Domenic saw Blythe give a shrug and round the corner without even looking back. “Eesh,” he murmured to himself, and set off after her with great loping strides.

He finally reached her at the entrance to the manor. He caught her wrist and gripped it tight, so that she could flee no further. When she looked back she stared determinedly at the bottom corner of the doorframe, rather than at him.

“Do you feel bad because we’ve made a nine-year-old boy the next Secret Stealer?” he asked.

After a moment she replied quietly, “Mmm. That must be it.”

But that wasn’t it, Blythe suddenly knew.

“You know, I feel pretty bad about that too, but I’ve done my time – 200 years of it,” Domenic said, without a trace of regret in his voice. “And if I’d had to wait any longer, it –” he stopped. After a moment’s pause he said, “I’ve watched generations of people grow old and die.”

Blythe looked up from the doorway corner, the meaning of his words dawning upon her. Her face – usually so cold, hard and guarded – softened.

“You didn’t want to watch me die,” she said.

“I didn’t want to watch you die,” said Domenic Mancini, smiling.

James whirled about, in search of the doorway through which he had come. He calmed somewhat as he discovered it, but all seemed lost as he moved to grasp the handle. His hand went straight through it. It hadn’t worked. He had his own secret. Why then, had he not regained his form? An alarming possibility came to him: he was trapped, and would never be able to get out of this secret prison! He wondered if, after hundreds of years of entrapment, he would turn into a light-filled procession of words, dropping tears of regret and shame for having been so stupid, so gullible.

Oh – why hadn’t Blythe warned him? If she had said, ‘James, do not take any secrets but your own’, he would have obeyed her without question. But she had said nothing, nothing at all! But it was no use blaming Blythe Pritchard, he knew. He had always been taught that stealing was wrong. Why, then, had he thought that the stealing of a secret was any different? A secret was like a belonging, a precious thing that a person holds close to their heart – what right had he to take hold of any of them? None, he thought bitterly, none at all. Stupid, stupid, stupid! And now he was trapped.

But wait, he thought. If his hand had moved through the handle, perhaps he could still pass through the door. The handle and the wood were all part of the same door, so it stood to reason.

James’ feelings transformed from pure fear to pure relief in one small instant, as he found himself once again outside The Book. I’m not trapped after all! But then, he thought, what am I? Something must still have been wrong with him, or he wouldn’t have been able to float through a thick wooden door, like air through a fly screen. And where was Blythe? She was not waiting for him outside The Book, as she’d said she would. But perhaps she was waiting outside. Yes, that must be it.

But to his very great surprise and confusion, a moment later he found both Mr Mancini and Blythe in the open doorway of the manor, framed picturesquely by the shadowy stone vestibule, the bright mid-morning light beyond them making silhouettes of their forms.

Though James was in full view, Mr Mancini seemed not to register his approach. James shrunk back a little, feeling that he did not want to interrupt whatever it was that was happening between the two adults.

“I always imagined your hands would be warm,” Domenic said. “But they’re cold and soft. I’d forgotten how nice it is to touch something. And there’s nothing quite so nice as touching the hand of the woman you love.”

James heard a muffled thump, followed by Domenic demanding, “Ow! What did you hit me for?”

“Even if you are wearing top-hat and tails, Domenic Mancini, that speech was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Cheesy?” Mr Mancini scoffed. “I beg your pardon, woman. I meant every word I said.”

“That only makes it worse.”

“Would you rather I didn’t mean it?”

“I suppose not. I just have a violent aversion to cheese.”

“What about this one: now I know why Solomon had 700 wives – because he never met you.”

Another muffled thud and an ‘ow’. James poked his head around the corner to see what was going on.

“Listen to you squealing–” Blythe laughed at him “–you’re a big girl!”

“Look here, Miss Pritchard, I haven’t felt anything in 200 years! How am I supposed to have any pain tolerance?”

“I suppose you’ll have to learn to be less annoying then, or–”

During the above display of shameless childishness, Blythe, whose back had been towards James this whole time, finally came to face him. The laughter in her face died.

“What’s wrong, Blythe?” Domenic asked.

“James,” she said.

“I don’t understand, Miss Pritchard.” James spoke quietly. “I have my secret back, so how come I’m still like a ghost? And how come Mr Mancini isn’t?”

“When I said it was my job to help you, James,” Blythe said, stone-faced and pale, “I was lying.”

“Geez, don’t sugar-coat it or anything.” Mr Mancini chuckled.

“Shush, Dom,” Blythe said, almost whispering. “I’ve done enough lying for three lifetimes. It stops now.”

Mr Mancini closed his mouth.

Turning again to James, she took a deep breath and confessed her crimes. “James, I am a Deceiver. I am the magician that works hand-in-hand with the Secret Stealer in bribery, blackmail and corruption. I began working with Domenic five years ago, after my master, the previous Deceiver, retired. Domenic has been the Secret Stealer for 200 years, and you are the first and only Potential he has seen during that time. When Domenic failed to trick you into stealing secrets, I brought you here, hoping that I could succeed where he had not.”

“But I’ve got my secret. Why can’t I touch anything?”

“Yes, James, you may now have your secret, but you also stole secrets which did not belong to you.”

“But you never told me,” James whispered. “You never told me not to.”

Blythe’s stony expression was looking brittle and her eyes were reflective. “I’m sorry, James. This is the way it had to be.”

“But I don’t understand,” James persisted, frowning.

“I’ll leave you with my apprentice. He’s young, but he’ll know what to do. He’ll help you get started,” Blythe said, and so saying took hold of Domenic’s wrist and began to lead him down the gravelled drive.

“Get started with what?” James called out, desperately confused.

“James,” Blythe said gently as she paused to look back toward him, “you’re the new Secret Stealer.”

She continued to walk down the driveway with Mr Mancini, then stopped a moment later to add, “On second thoughts, never mind about my apprentice[56] . It’s probably time the order of things changed, anyway. I imagine my sister Esther will be along shortly.”

And on they walked.

As bad as it had been when James had tried to tell Miss Mason-Smith his secret, and that thing had seemed to clamp down upon his throat, this was worse. Infinitely worse. James frowned, anger, shame and resentment whirling about in his head. But frown was all he could do. He wanted desperately to cry, but that old emptiness had returned, along with the knowledge that he consisted of nothing but a reflection of light and stolen secrets.

Blythe and Mr Mancini looked back towards the house frequently. Yet nevertheless they became smaller and smaller, until James was alone in the daytime shadow of the manor vestibule.

What was he to do now? Why had he stolen those secrets? He should have taken his own and fled! But Blythe and Domenic had known his purpose, and since he had refused Domenic’s help, Blythe had taken him straight to the source and presented him with a temptation far too great to overcome. How was he to help his parents now? For 200 years Mr Mancini had been cursed! Would James be cursed for just as long?

Even James’ love of logic and reasoning failed him here. He was in a situation so bizarre and so unchartered that every logical thought failed him, and his mind remained simply a painful congregation of endlessly whirring thoughts.

“Manor d’Arlend, Greenwood Way, London,” Esther murmured.

Byron Gables’ exasperation was mounting. “Yes, yes, you keep saying that. We’re on Greenwood Way. I don’t see any Manor d’Arlend.”

“You wouldn’t. Just shut up and keep driving. Wait-wait-wait! Turn here!”

“Turn where? There isn’t any driveway.”

“Oh – slow down, you’re going to miss it!”

“Miss what? There’s nothing but hedges, hedges and more hedges.”

Esther Mason-Smith let out a very indelicate growl, grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it hard anti-clockwise. Byron Gables let out a shout of dismay and closed his eyes, anticipating the shattering of glass, for it seemed to him that they were about to crash their spotless rental car headlong into a 15-foot high, impenetrable wall of shrubbery. A few moments later, both the absence of a collision and the sound of gravel crunching under the wheels made him open his eyes.

They were on a long, cream-gravelled drive, flanked by immaculate hedges that stretched out beside them in dizzying patterns. The house ahead of them looked as though it would be fit for royalty.

“Pull up here and wait in the car,” Esther Mason-Smith ordered.

Gables did as he was told. ‘Here’ was at a divergence of the driveway, which encircled an enormous fountain.

Esther hurriedly exited the car and ran towards the entrance of the manor, for there she at last saw little James Winchester IV, sitting in a cross-legged position in mid-air and looking utterly miserable. At least he was not dead, or kidnapped by a paedophile, she thought to herself, trying to look on the bright side of things. She wanted desperately to hug the pathetic-looking teddy-bear-flannel-clad child, but knew it was impossible from the moment she saw him.

James Winchester smiled weakly at her. It really did make him feel better to see his beloved Miss Mason-Smith. When she was around anything could be fixed. “I’m the new Secret Stealer, Miss Mason-Smith,” James said. “You must really be what Miss Pritchard pretended to be.”

Esther rankled at the mention of her sister. “Yes, James. I am a Protector. My sister is a Deceiver. We are all part of some kind of war which has been waging for the better part of a millennium. And unfortunately you’ve been caught in the middle.”

By this time Byron Gables had disobeyed orders, exited the car and followed Esther to the entrance of the manor. Presently he looked up at her, confused as to why she was talking to thin air.

“What’s going o–” Gables started.

Esther turned on him angrily. “No kiss for you is what’s going on!”

“What?” he spluttered.

“Come on, James,” Esther said. “We’re going back home. There’s nothing to be done here.” And so saying she began to walk back to the car.

“You said that if I got you here in time you’d kiss me!” Gables objected, following.

Now it was James’ turn to wonder what on earth was going on. He rather suspected that Miss Mason-Smith, at this particular time, was in an even more disastrous situation than himself, and so contented himself by floating along in their wake, being amused by the banter between the two angry adults.

“You can’t see James, and if you can’t see him then that means we didn’t make it in time. So no kiss for you,” Esther said hotly.

“Nice one,” Gables exclaimed, rolling his eyes skyward. “Your logic is infallible. Because I can’t see him he’s invisible, and because he’s invisible I’ve failed, and because I’ve failed, no kiss. You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you? You’ve gone and made up this little ‘invisible boy’, haven’t you?”

“James, tell me what Byron’s deepest secret is.”

James observed Byron’s eyes momentarily. After a moment he said, “I can’t tell you, Miss Mason-Smith.”

“Can’t tell me? What do you mean you can’t tell me? Why not?”

“Oh, how very convenient it is that your little invisible secret-seeing boy won’t tell you my deepest secret,” Byron Gables muttered.

In a low whisper Esther added, “James, this is very important. If you don’t tell me he’ll think that I’ve made you up, that I’m a mental-case, and make me kiss him.”

“Make you kiss him? How rude!” James exclaimed, not at all following the logic (or lack thereof) of her situation. If anything, he thought, a man would like to know a woman was not a mental-case before kissing her. “Well,” he compromised, “just tell him it’s to do with the lady he used to go out with. That should do it.”

Esther repeated what James had said, and watched in amazement as Byron Gables became silent, white, embarrassed and fidgety – all at once. “Okay, so there really is a little invisible boy who can see secrets,” the pilot whispered, more to himself than anyone else. Forcing a smile, he quickly said, “Let’s get back to Australia.”

“What’s this secret, James?” Esther whispered to the little boy, now burning with curiosity.

“Like I said, Miss Mason-Smith, I just won’t tell you.” James squeezed his lips shut for emphasis.

“But why, James?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Because he doesn’t want you to know, that’s why.”

“Of course he doesn’t want me to know.” Esther grinned at Gables’ rather frantic expression. “Nobody wants anyone knowing their secrets.”

“Everybody he knows already knows this secret. He just doesn’t want you to know.”

“Why is every boy I come across being so aggravating in the last few days?” Esther lamented. Byron glanced at her with some amusement, sighing inwardly with relief.

“A chap has to help out fellow chaps when he can, Miss Mason-Smith,” James said stoically.

“What chaps?” Miss Mason-Smith asked, bemused.

“Well, Mr Gables and I might be friends someday,” James said. The truth was that in his measly experience James had never seen so fantastic a specimen of manliness as Byron Gables. He was tall, broad-shouldered and obviously educated without appearing snooty (like so many of his parents’ friends). And he looked like the sort of man whose children no one would dare to pick on.

“You and Mr Gables, friends?” Esther repeated.

“Well apart from you he’s about the only person who hasn’t been mean to me yet.”

“Give him time, James. He might just annoy you to death.”

“Are you trying to poison the little invisible secret-seeing boy against me, Esther?” Gables asked, frowning. “That’s very unfriendly.”

“Yes it is very unfriendly, Miss Mason-Smith,” James repeated seriously. “You’re not as nice today as you usually are. Is anything wrong?”

“Yes, James, something is very wrong. Byron Gables has been annoying me all day long.”

“Miss Mason-Smith?”

“Yes, James?”

James smiled to himself. He much preferred Miss Mason-Smith’s way of saying ‘yes, James’ to Blythe Pritchard’s. Miss Mason-Smith seemed always happy and willing to answer his questions, no matter how obscure they were.

“I thought adults liked kissing,” James said.

“Not all adults like kissing,” she replied quickly.

James recognised that tone. Blythe had used it when telling him that a person inevitably loses control of their tongue on their 21st birthday and tells everybody nearby their deepest secrets. She was fibbing. James wondered why.

“I like kissing,” Gables said casually. “We should try it sometime.”

“Well I don’t,” Esther retorted. Of all the absurd things I could have said! she thought.

“She wouldn’t say that if she kissed me,” Gables said, bent over and whispering, so that James could hear him but Esther could not.

James giggled.

“What are you chuckling about, James?” Esther asked.

“Nothing, Miss Mason-Smith, just something Mr Gables said.”

“Look, you!” Esther advanced on Gables, index finger extended and looking ready to reduce him to ashes.

“Hey, I was just making conversation with your little invisible boy.”

“Well don’t!” she snapped at him.

“Miss Mason-Smith!” James exclaimed.

“I don’t think you should be friends with Mr Gables, James,” Esther explained, and levelled a look at Gables that could have frozen ethanol[57]. “He might be a bad influence.”

James Winchester, for once, did not believe a word Miss Mason-Smith was saying. She almost seemed to like being annoyed by Mr Gables. But James wouldn’t for the world have said that out loud. So he contented himself again with the knowledge that Miss Mason-Smith would protect him; Miss Mason-Smith would help him; Miss Mason-Smith would make all his troubles vanish, in time, with her kindness and her smile. Even if she was grumpy at this particular moment.