The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [27]
. . . for he halted to the stile whence I had just risen and sat down . . .
“Thursday!” cried my Aunt Polly crossly. “Do try to keep up. I’ll be asking questions later!”
She took me by the hand and led me away. I turned and waved my thanks to the Japanese tourist, who smiled genially back at me.
I returned to the museum a few times after that but the magic never worked again. My mind had closed too much by the time I was twelve, already a young woman. I only ever spoke of it to my uncle, who nodded sagely and believed every word. I never told anyone else. Ordinary adults don’t like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.
As I got older I started to doubt the validity of my own memory, until by my eighteenth birthday I had written it off as the product of an overactive imagination. Rochester’s reappearance outside Styx’s apartment that night served only to confuse. Reality, to be sure, was beginning to bend.
7.
The Goliath Corporation
. . . No one would argue that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Goliath Corporation. They helped us to rebuild after the Second War and it should not be forgotten. Of late, however, it seems as though the Goliath Corporation is falling far short of its promises of fairness and altruism. We are finding ourselves now in the unfortunate position of continuing to pay back a debt that has long since been paid—with interest . . .
Speech to Parliament by English Goliathsceptic
SAMUEL PRING
I was in the SpecOps Memorial Cemetery in Highgate looking at Snood’s headstone. It read:
Filbert R. Snood
A fine operative who gave his
years in the line of duty.
Time waits for no man
SO-12 & SO-5
1953–1985
They say the job ages you—and it had aged Filbert a lot. Perhaps it had been for the best when he didn’t call after the accident. It couldn’t have worked and the breakup when it came—as it surely would—might have been too painful. I placed a small stone atop his headstone and bid him adieu.
“You were lucky,” said a voice. I turned and saw a short man in an expensive suit sitting on the bench opposite.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, taken aback by the intrusion into my thoughts. The small man smiled and stared at me intently.
“I’d like to speak to you about Acheron, Miss Next.”
“It’s one of the rivers that flow to the underworld,” I told him. “Try the local library under Greek mythology.”
“I was referring to the person.”
I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out who he was. He wore a small porkpie hat balanced on top of a rounded head that had been crew cut like a tennis ball. His features were sharp, his lips thin, and he was not what you’d call an attractive-looking human being. He sported heavy gold jewelery and a diamond tiepin that twinkled like a star. His patent-leather brogues were covered in white spats and a gold watch chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket. He was not alone. A young man also in a dark suit with a bulge where a pistol should be was standing next to him. I had been so wrapped up in my own thoughts I hadn’t noticed them approach. I figured they were SpecOps Internal Affairs or something; I guessed that Flanker and Co. weren’t finished with me yet.
“Hades is dead,” I replied simply, unwilling to get embroiled.
“You don’t seem to think so.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been given six months off due to work-related stress. The shrink reckons I’m suffering from false memory syndrome and hallucinations. I shouldn’t believe anything I say, if I were you—and that includes what I just told you.”
The small man smiled again, displaying a large gold tooth.
“I don’t believe you’re suffering from stress at all, Miss Next. I think you’re as sane as I am. If someone who survived the Crimea, the police and