The Indigo King - James A. Owen [116]
“Lead on, Fred,” said John. “It’s your key, after all.”
Fred and Uncas stepped cautiously up the stairs to the door, which they realized was still standing slightly ajar.
“They never closed it,” Jack murmured.
“We’ll make sure we do, then,” John stated. He pushed it open, and together they moved into the future.
It was dark until John closed the door behind them. Then, just like the door Hugo had gone through, this one disappeared.
They were in the wood, along Addison’s Walk, at precisely the spot where the first door had been. And if there had been any doubts whatsoever that they had been returned to the right place, they vanished when the companions heard the whoops and hollers from the Royal Animal Rescue Squad.
The badgers swarmed off the Howling Improbable, which was exactly where John and Jack had last seen it, at the side of the path, just along the trees.
Jubilantly the badgers embraced Uncas and Fred, and even the humans, including an astonished Hugo and a delighted Rose.
Rising above the trees was the comforting, familiar sight of Magdalen Tower, and beyond that, the buildings of the college itself.
“We’re back,” John said, hugging Jack’s shoulders. “We’re home.”
Jack didn’t answer, but just smiled a small smile and watched the badgers dancing around the clearing.
“Never doubted it for a minute,” said Hugo.
The Royal Animal Rescue Squad departed after promising to give a full report to King Artus. As the principle sped away, John also said that he had to get home right away. He looked exhausted.
“It must be nearly three in the morning,” he said. “This was quite the extraordinary adventure, wasn’t it? Quite the mythopoeia.”
Jack responded to the comment with a half smile. “It’s certainly going to make a grand story,” he said as the four companions walked back to his rooms at the college, “but I don’t think I’ll ever view the myths again in quite the same way.”
“Why is that?” John asked.
“Because,” Jack replied, “I’ve … felt them now. I’ve tasted them. They’ve become more than stories to me. And I’m going to be thinking about all this a long, long while.”
They crossed the quadrangle, and Jack unlocked the gate next to Magdalen Bridge. As they said their good-byes to John, Hugo remained a bit longer as they went to Jack’s rooms at the New Building and discussed what would be best to do with Rose.
“There’s a boardinghouse in Reading,” Hugo said. “It’s near the college, and it wouldn’t be any trouble to put her up there as my niece. And Archimedes can stay with me so she can see him every day.”
He wrapped an affectionate arm around Rose, who yawned.
“We’d best be going,” said Hugo. “I’ll call you up tomorrow to let you know all’s well.”
Jack closed the door behind Hugo and sat at his desk. His mind was still racing with the events that must have happened in a single night—and had lasted for a lifetime, it seemed.
Sunrise was still hours away, and there would be plenty of daylight in which he could do what he was considering. But he couldn’t wait. He had to know if they’d made the right choices, if they had done enough. If they had believed enough.
Jack took out a key that opened the hidden drawer where he kept items pertaining to his duties as Caretaker. It contained some documents, a few items of an unusual nature, and a flower, made of parchment.
He removed the Compass Rose, and with a stick of graphite scratched onto one of the leaves the small mark that would summon a Caretaker from the Archipelago. With John nearby in Oxford, and Charles still in Paris, there was only one other person who might respond to this specific summons.
A tapping at the door an hour later woke Jack from where he’d fallen asleep at his desk.
Bert—all of him, both arms, both legs, and a fully attached head—was standing outside the door.
Jack fell back, stumbling, as his mentor rushed into the room.
“Jack, lad, what is it?” Bert asked, his face a mask