Just then, a rabbit hopped out from under the hedge. It looked this way and that way and then seemed to nibble some grass. It did this in a peculiar way, as if its mouth were already full and it were therefore only pretending to nibble the grass, and it kept throwing sideways glances at the children the whole time it was doing this.
Maximilian wondered what it was doing. He had never seen a rabbit acting more suspiciously than this one. In fact, he had never seen a rabbit acting suspiciously at all. A car went past in the street beyond, its headlights lighting up the wet cobblestones. Then, for a moment, all was quiet. Looking a little like something from a dream, the rabbit hopped over and dropped something at Effie’s feet. Then it waited.
Maximilian nudged Effie. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The rabbit brought you something.’
Effie wiped her eyes and looked down. It was the key to her grandfather’s front door. She picked it up and wiped it on her school cape.
The rabbit looked up at her hopefully.
‘Well, you came a bit late,’ said Effie.
The rabbit immediately felt sad. It had not pleased the child with the special aura! Effie noticed the disappointed look start to creep over the rabbit’s face, and understood that the way it twitched its whiskers meant it was about to cry. Of course rabbits don’t cry in the same way humans do, but the main feeling is the same.
‘Oh no!’ said Effie. ‘Oh . . . I’m so sorry, poor rabbit. I meant thank you. Thank you so much. Of course if you’d brought the key before, then my father would have been able to get in without a locksmith, and I would never have been able to get into my grandfather’s rooms ever again. And even if the books have gone, I can still go in and see if there is anything else I can take to remember him by, and say goodbye properly to all my memories of visiting him there. You’re a lovely kind rabbit. Thank you!’
Do rabbits really do things like this, in the real world?
Only if you have quite a lot of magic in you.
9
Maximilian walked into the Old Rectory with Effie and followed her up the stairs. The house had stopped being a rectory around fifty years before, when it had been converted into two large apartments. Downstairs, Miss Dora Wright’s rooms sat quietly, waiting for her return. In the hallway a single coat hung limply from a hook, and an umbrella rested forlornly against an empty hat stand. Everything was a little dusty, and there were large cobwebs hanging across the ceiling. But thick oriental rugs spoke of a time of homeliness and comfort. There were several oil paintings on the walls, and glazed ceramic lamps on little tables.
Griffin Truelove’s rooms began on the second floor. Here was his small kitchen and dining room and his large sitting room, all the glass-fronted cabinets still full of interesting artefacts from his travels and adventures. Although this room was familiar to Effie, who had been coming here regularly since the worldquake, Maximilian could not believe what he was seeing.
He walked around looking at all the strange objects in the cabinets with wonder, rather as Effie had done when she was younger. The walls were covered with framed maps and charts and paintings of mythical creatures and endless green landscapes. The furniture was old and sturdy, but none of it matched. There was an old red sofa, a yellow armchair, a turquoise chaise longue and a coffee table made from a very dark wood that Maximilian had never seen before.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Your grandfather really lived here?’
‘Yes,’ said Effie. She sighed, and walked around, touching the chair her grandfather used to sit in. ‘I suppose this is the last time I’ll come here. I don’t even know what to do.’
‘And your grandfather was really Griffin Truelove?’ he said. ‘I mean, the Griffin Truelove?’
Effie shrugged, not knowing what Maximilian meant. ‘I guess so.’
She was checking her grandfather’s desk for any other secret drawers; any objects she might have failed to rescue before. She had the feeling that he had made sure she now had all the most important things but . . . She felt behind one of the large drawers on the left hand side of the desk and, indeed, there was a catch she hadn’t noticed before. When she released it, a smaller drawer sprung out of the space between the large drawers.
Inside, there were three letters, two with the same gold stamp on them and one without. Each was addressed to Griffin Truelove. Effie scanned the first one. It was from something called the Guild of Craftspeople – it was their gold stamp, it seemed – and told him that he was suspended from performing magic for five years. It had been dated not long after the world-quake. So he hadn’t been joking.
Another letter, also with the gold stamp but addressed more recently, told him that his application to become a wizard had been turned down. The third letter had no stamp, no address and no signature. It simply said, You will pay. It seemed like some sort of threat. Effie put all three letters in the pocket of her cape.
‘Wow,’ Maximilian said again, after sniffing a box full of incense. ‘And where was the library?’
‘Upstairs. I suppose it’ll be empty now. I’m not sure I can even . . .’
‘Come on,’ said Maximilian. ‘You can at least say goodbye.’
So they walked together up the wooden stairs, and through the black door with the blue glass window and the polished bone handle. And there it was. A room full of bookshelves with no books on them. One of the saddest things a book lover can see. Each shelf seemed to hold the memory of the books it had once housed. In some cases light had faded the wood around where the books had been; in other cases the shape was made by dust. The shelves seemed to be sighing to themselves, fretting and worrying about where their occupants had gone and when they were coming back.
The room echoed with the children’s footsteps as they walked around looking at the places where the books used to be.
‘It sounds weird in here,’ said Effie. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘Can I ask you something?’ said Maximilian.
‘What?’ said Effie, touching one of the shelves.
‘Do you think your grandfather knew that any of this was going to happen?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, could he have known that your father was likely to sell the books? He made sure you got those magical items somehow. Did he leave you any instructions or anything to tell you what to do?’
Effie decided this was not the time to tell Maximilian that she had ended up with the items almost by accident – and that she would not have the ring at all if his mother hadn’t come after her with it.
‘He left a codicil. But my father took it and destroyed it. I . . .’
Maximilian looked uncomfortable for a moment.
‘Do you think your grandfather might have hidden something for you? Something important?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps . . . Maybe if we used the spectacles . . .?’
Ever since Maximilian had taken the spectacles off, he had wanted to put them back on again. He felt it like an ache, a hunger. He’d read about these glasses, or ones like them, so many times, but he’d never dreamed he would get the chance to use them. He remembered reading that people had once tried to develop glasses like this that were purely digital, not magical, but they had never quite taken off. And they’d had nothing like the capabilities of these spectacles, of course.
Effie got her grandfather’s old glasses case out of her schoolbag. She opened it and took out the spectacles. She could see her grandfather wearing them and suddenly