The Indigo King - James A. Owen [87]
The companions drank the tea, and ate the sandwiches hungrily. Despite the camaraderie of Hank Morgan and the interest they had in young Arthur, they were relieved to be able to rest, even temporarily, in a place where they felt civilized.
“The other slides,” John said suddenly. “We still have two slides.”
“Like the one Charles got out of the box?” asked Hugo, rising and walking over to John’s pack. “I didn’t realize there were others in here.”
“Hugo, wait!” Jack shouted, leaping to his feet and scattering cups and saucers as he did so. But he was a fraction of an instant too late. Hugo flipped open the lid of the Serendipity Box and peered inside.
“Huh,” Hugo exclaimed, holding aloft a flower. “It’s a purple rose. Was this in here before?”
“It’s not purple. It’s indigo,” said Jack, sitting back down in one of the chairs. “And no, it wasn’t. It was there just for you, because it’s apparently what you needed the most.”
“Strange little whatchamacallit,” Hugo remarked as he handed the box to John, then inserted the rose in one of his jacket pockets. “It’s pretty, but I’m not really in need of a flower.”
“You may be,” said John. “It doesn’t give you instructions. And each person can open it only once. We’d expected to save your turn until we were in trouble.”
“You just finished explaining to me how the entire world is under Mordred’s thrall, our only transportation was a ship, now destroyed, and there are giants waiting to kill us if we go outside. How is this not the appropriate time to open the box?”
John looked to Jack and Chaz, who both shrugged. “He has a point,” said Chaz.
“It seems to me,” Hugo said, sniffing the rose, “that we should follow the mandate of Jules Verne. He gave you five slides. Two remain. We should use those to see if what’s been broken can, in fact, be mended.”
All the others considered this, then nodded in agreement and got to their feet to start preparing for another trip through time.
Fred and Uncas assured the companions that there would be no mishaps with the cord, and they promised that it would stay put where it belonged on Sanctuary. As before, the companions took supplies to sustain them throughout the day, but they briefly debated whether or not to leave the Serendipity Box behind.
“The ‘imp’ may not appear for any of us again,” Jack said as he and Reynard placed the box in a bag, “but I’d rather keep a hand on the ‘bottle,’ if you follow my meaning.”
“Fair enough,” John declared. He turned to the badgers. “Okay, Uncas. Let’s see when we’re going next.”
The badger turned on the projector, and for a moment it seemed as if the image was unable to focus. It shifted and blurred, and finally clarified to a clear but dark scene in a very familiar setting.
The projection on the wall was almost identical to the one they had gone through last: an image of Grandfather Oak, in the center of the hill not far from Camelot.
“Did we use the same slide again?” Jack asked Uncas. “Is this the burned one?”
Uncas shook his head. “The other one’s all used up, Scowler Jack,” he said. “This is slide four, as y’ requested.”
“It isn’t the same,” Chaz said suddenly. “Look—the tree. It’s taller, older. And the trunk is split.”
Looking more closely, they realized Chaz was correct. The tree was the same shape, but taller and stouter, and there was a wicked gash along one side, as if it had been struck by lightning. It was a bad enough split that ultimately the tree would not survive.
Chaz flipped through the pages of the Little Whatsit to the entry on Grandfather Oak. “It says here that the tree is still standing,” he said, indicating a passage in the book. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” John reasoned, “that whatever caused the changes to the world that resulted in the Winterland already happened. Maybe when we were there, in the fifth century. Maybe after. But whatever happened to the tree might be happening everywhere.”
“Is this what Verne meant for us to do?” asked Jack. “Are we supposed to find the exact cause of the change and fix it? Can