Phyllis stepped out of the Pocket, with Wallace right behind her, onto the stone stairs.
He let go of her shoulders and hastened down a few steps in front of her. His hair was even more meringue-wild than before, and his eyes were positively pulsating and awash with greenness.
Phyllis opened the top of her bag. Out popped Daisy’s snout, and the little terrier gave a bark of mild annoyance.
‘Don’t fret, pet,’ Phyllis soothed, rubbing the top of Daisy’s head. ‘It’s all over now.’
Wallace stood on the old earth floor at the bottom of the stairs. He extended first his right leg, giving it a vigorous shaking, then he did the same thing with his left leg. Then he clasped both his hands before him and, as though he were doing some sort of wild calypso dance, shook his entire spine jigglingly. There was a loud cracking sound. ‘That’s better,’ he said, smoothing down the lapels of his tux.
Phyllis looked around her at the mildewed stone walls and the glassless windows. Here and there, chinks of pale amber light speared in through gaps in the stone. ‘What is this place?’
‘An old abandoned farmhouse,’ Wallace replied. ‘Those stairs are the closest stairs to where we are going. We have arrived in the village of Winterbourne Stoke. South-west England.’
‘Ah,’ said Phyllis. She came down the stairs and lowered her bag to the floor, letting Daisy hop out. Daisy sprang across the floor, did some important business against a wall and then commenced a thorough sniffing-investigation of the premises.
‘So where exactly are we going?’ Phyllis asked.
‘That, I shall reveal to you within the hour.’
Phyllis shook her head. She knew only too well this trait of not revealing everything straightaway; she did it herself with Clem and her other friends often enough. ‘Okay then. So tell me: what Time is it?’
Wallace smiled at her. ‘I don’t know. Not yet.’
She blinked. ‘Huh?’
‘No. You see, my dear, the only problem with using the Sphere of Greater Temposity, and not an object from the exact Transiting location, is that you have no idea at what point in Time you will arrive. You can determine where you want to Transit, but not when. To find out the time, we use this.’
From his coat he produced a thumb-sized copper-and-brass object, blackened and slightly mangled. It had three rows of geared brass numbers set into its upper face, and there were two faceted emerald lights and one yellow sapphire light inlaid above the rows of numbers.
‘What’s that?’
‘My Date Determinator. A very useful implement for a Transiter to possess. It’s never let me down. There was a time when I didn’t have it—a Transiter stole it from me and it was perchance that I recovered it—and its absence made my journeys more hiccuppy than usual, I can tell you.’
He came closer to her and held the Date Determinator between them. ‘Observe.’
Phyllis watched as he pressed a small button at the end of the device. Suddenly the little brass numbers started spinning around, clicking away determinedly. This went on for nearly thirty seconds, with Wallace holding his hand steady all the while.
‘You must keep it still,’ he told Phyllis. ‘No vibrations or movement. It needs to gauge the era with no undue disturbance.’
Click click click click went the gears as the numbers spun whizzingly around.
Daisy, hearing the clicking with her acute ears, came to Phyllis and patted Phyllis’s leg, demanding to be picked up. Phyllis obliged—the small terrier hated to be left out of things. Together Daisy and Phyllis and Wallace watched as the numbers continued to spin and click.
Then the gears slowed, and the emerald and yellow sapphire lights glowed, bright green and iridescent yellow. With a sharp final CLICK, the numbers stopped spinning.
‘There,’ Wallace said. ‘See?’
Phyllis and Daisy inspected the rows of digits.
The top row displayed 24.
The middle row displayed 10.
The third row displayed 1898.
Wallace announced quietly, ‘We are here on October 24th, 1898.’
‘Peachy,’ said Phyllis.
‘As good a Time as any,’ Wallace said, pressing the button on the end of the Date Determinator again and slipping the device into a pocket in his waistcoat. ‘Now, let us go. You will love the place I am going to take you to.’
He ducked his head under the low lintel of the doorway and stepped out onto a muddy path. Phyllis followed him and deposited Daisy on the ground.
Wallace went over to the edge of what must have once been a front garden. He reached down behind a few rocks—all that remained of a low stone wall. He felt around for a bit and then smiled. ‘Ah, good. Just as I left it last time.’
Phyllis watched him pick up a long, gnarly walking staff. It had a carved head of a startled-looking deer on the top, and the whole thing stood about as tall as his shoulders. ‘I bought this in the nearby village on my last trip here,’ he said. ‘It’s a little . . . rustic . . . but perfect for where we are. I like to walk with a staff, especially when the roadways are uneven.’
‘It’s not really you, Great-grandad. I picture you with a shiny black cane with a silver end.’
‘I save those for Paris,’ he told her with a wink. ‘Come.’
He set off out the gap in the crumbling wall where a gate once would have hung, and turned right into a narrow, gravelled road little wider than a lane. This road was bordered closely by thick, waist-high hedges of holly and hawthorn.
Phyllis hurried alongside him, and Daisy ran through her legs and started off in front of them both.
Beyond the hedges, Phyllis could see ancient trees—huge old oaks with fat, twisted boughs. Their leaves had already turned to bright orange and deep, bold red, and the tops of the hedges were covered with layers of the fallen foliage, which had also been blown into thick clumps on the ground at the edges of the gravel.
The air was crisp; not icy, but cold enough to make big clouds of vapour whenever Phyllis breathed heavily.
‘Great-grandfather?’
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘I know you haven’t laid eyes on Myrddin yet, but what do you think he looks like?’
Wallace tapped the ground with the end of his staff as he walked beside her. ‘What do you think he might look like?’ he returned her question.
Up ahead, Daisy was trotting along like an advance patrol, keeping a watchful eye and occasionally stopping briefly to sniff about at the underside of the hedges.
‘Well,’ Phyllis said, ‘in some of the cartoons I saw when I was little, he had long white hair and a long white beard, down past his waist, and he wore a cloak that covered all of him except the tips of his pointed shoes, and he had a pointed hat with a wide brim on his head.’
Wallace Wong smirked.
‘But,’ Phyllis added, ‘I don’t think he’d look like that. That’s just how Hollywood sees him.’
‘Ah, yes, Hollywood. They see things through a strange looking-glass over in Hollywood. No, my dear, I agree with you. I don’t think he’d look like that, either. To have hair and a beard that long would be most impractical, not to mention uncomfortable.’
‘You’d be sitting on it all the time,’ Phyllis grinned. Her hair was currently almost down to her waist, and she didn’t intend letting it grow too much longer—it was at a perfect length for her to use in her magic performances, to misdirect her audience when she needed to, by giving a flick of her head and letting her hair billow sleekly out.
Phyllis thought a bit longer. ‘Maybe he changes his appearance?’ she suggested. ‘Maybe he’s like a chameleon, and he changes his features depending on where he is? A wizard could do that, surely?’
‘An interesting conjecture, Phyllis. That hadn’t occurred to me, I must admit. Perhaps he does alter himself, like the indecisive rubber glove in the whirlwind of its own destiny.’
She looked sideways at him.
‘Oh, I know what I mean. Let me tell you of the image of Myrddin that has formed in my imagination, my dear. I have this idea that Myrddin is perhaps . . . a sort of everyman . . .’
‘Everyman?’
‘The sort of man who would blend in, unnoticed, in any sort of crowd, anywhere he went. The way he did his hair, for example, or the clothing he wore, would not draw attention to himself. And he would be wise and observant enough to take note of the customs and behaviours of people in whatever era he arrived at. He would adopt the ways of the people around him . . .’
‘And become part of the crowd?’
‘And become part of the crowd. That is how I believe Myrddin has remained undetected for so very long.’ Wallace stepped around a wide, brown, gloopy puddle that took up most of the middle of the road, and Phyllis edged around the other side of the puddle. ‘He doesn’t make a splash, in the way that if we were to run through that puddle we would make a splash. He goes smoothly around, and through, the places to which he Transits.’
Phyllis hitched the strap of her bag across her chest so it was more comfortable. ‘So, if that’s the case, we could be standing next to him in any crowd, anywhere, and have no idea we’re rubbing shoulders with him?’
‘Not even the iota of an inkling of an idea.’
‘So it’s possible that you’ve already encountered him, and you don’t even know it?’
‘Yes,’ answered Wallace. ‘That is entirely possible.’ His eyes were less green now, and throbbing only slightly.
‘Whillickers,’ said Phyllis. ‘This is some search. No wonder it’s taking you so long.’
‘Ah, I have all the Time in the world,’ Wallace said breezily. ‘One of the wonderful things about Transiting is that we do not age throughout our Transits. I have always liked that side of things. To keep one’s youthful appearance is a valuable thing, especially if I decide to return to the stage at some point in the future.’
He tapped the earth with the end of his staff as he strode along, and took in great lungfuls of air. ‘Smell that,’ he said. ‘The clean, crisp, country atmosphere. How invigorating it is, how—yergh!’
Phyllis saw that he had stepped into a large steaming pile of something that would probably leave a dreadful stain on his patent leather shoe, along with the kind of smell he would never be able to get out.
‘We’re in the country, all right,’ she said.
‘Yergh,’ Wallace said again.
Up ahead, the road separated into two narrower lanes, one leading to the left and the other to the right. Daisy stopped and looked in both directions. Then she turned her snout back towards Phyllis and Wallace, and her large brown eyes had a which way now and do hurry up, won’t you? expression.
‘Which way, W.W.?’ Phyllis asked.
‘Mm?’ He was carefully wiping his shoe on the soft thick grass by the hedges. ‘Oh, left. Yes, not far down the track to the left.’
Phyllis pointed left to Daisy, and Daisy gave a quick yap and trotted off in that direction.
Phyllis waited while Wallace cleaned his shoe.
All at once a ferocious barking came from around the corner.
‘It’s Daisy!’ Phyllis said. ‘She’s found something!’ She ran to the end of the roadway and made a quick left turn.
Wallace forgot about his splattered shoe; he rushed after her, his staff spearing the way ahead in bold, swinging arcs.
Phyllis found Daisy a few hundred feet down the lane, crouching low and barking furiously at the thick bushes on the roadside. Her snout twitched with apprehension.
‘Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!’
Her barking ripped through the stillness, a harsh warning to whatever she had detected on the other side of the bushes.
‘What is it, Daisy?’ Phyllis squatted down next to the dog.
Daisy kept barking at the bushes, paying little heed to Phyllis. The fur on her spine was raised and hackling, and her ears were pointed forward.
‘Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!’
Phyllis peered into the bushes. The twigs and holly leaves were so closely entwined she couldn’t see through them—she was looking into an almost solid wall of foliage. She rose and looked over the top.
Wallace rushed up. He, too, looked over the hedge.
There was nothing on the other side except an empty green field.
‘Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!’
Phyllis picked up Daisy. She stroked her snout and held her close, and the dog stopped barking, her alarm subsiding into a series of low growls that sounded as though she was gargling marbles in the back of her throat.
‘It’s okay,’ Phyllis whispered. ‘Did you find a mouse or a squirrel or something? You brave little hunter—’
‘Listen!’ hissed Wallace, his voice a whisper also. ‘Be still, my dear! Hark at that!’
Phyllis listened. Daisy stopped her growling and listened too.
From somewhere at the far end of the field came the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
Running footsteps, thudding on the earth.
Wallace looked at Phyllis, and she at him. Daisy sniffed the air suspiciously.
‘Moving away from us,’ said Wallace.
Phyllis nodded.
The sound of the footfalls died away.
‘Do you think we were being spied on?’ Phyllis asked.
‘Who knows? Maybe. Why would somebody run away if they hadn’t been snooping on us?’
‘Obviously they were close,’ Phyllis said. ‘Daisy had them baled up, all right. She only ever barks and bristles like that when she’s found an intruder or something unexpected.’
‘Ah well,’ said the Conjuror of Wonder, ‘whoever it was has gone. And so must we, for our destination lies a mere hop-skip-and-jump over yonder rise.’ He gave her a wiggle of his moustache and headed off up the gently rising laneway.
Phyllis deposited Daisy back on the ground, patted her gently and let her run ahead again.
‘It’s a good Time,’ Wallace said over his shoulder, as Phyllis caught up with him.
‘Huh? A good Time for what?’
‘A good Time to visit the place. These are the days before thousands of tourists would descend regularly here, like locusts coming to dance the jitterbug at a jelly festival.’
‘Like—?’
‘I know what I mean,’ he said, shaking his head as if to get his thoughts into place.
‘Please! Great-grandfather, tell me exactly where we’re going?’
‘Why tell, when I can show?’ He stopped and smiled; then he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to the north-east. ‘Behold, my dear. Built by Myrddin himself, so we believe.’
Phyllis’s eyes widened as she beheld the sight before her.
There, about half a mile in the distance, on a wide green plain, lay an enormous horseshoe-shaped formation. Towering, monumental stones rose up from the earth, some of them crowned with heavy lintel slabs.
At that moment, the sun broke through the grey clouds, sending golden, spindly rays of light down onto the stones, illuminating the whole arrangement in a strangely hesitant yellow glow.
‘Welcome,’ announced Wallace Wong, ‘to Stonehenge!’