Chapter 14

It is important to recognize — as Edmund did when he grew much older — that the discovery of Aoide changed everything for him, and not for the better.

Before Aoide, his days were a whirlwind of repetitive activity. In spite of Edmund’s enamouration with the library, he still had responsibilities, and as painful as it was for him there were times he needed to leave his beloved library to fulfill his obligations; namely, exploring the locked rooms of Moulde Hall, eating a lonely dinner at six of the clock precisely, spying on his family, taking Matron her tray of lunch, and his lessons.

On Tuesdays, Edmund practiced his voice with Kolb, who purported to be impressed with his progress. He studied the possibilities of persuasion, and the mastery of manipulation. He grasped how charisma could camouflage chicanery. He learned the power of projection and pontification, along with the wisdom of whispers and winks. He also discovered the allure of alliteration, but Kolb promised it was purely a side-effect.

Junapa played more and more complicated games with Edmund on Wednesdays. Chess was his favorite; he liked the knights especially, who moved in such strange and different ways, passing through the other pieces like ghosts. At first he wasn’t learning anything except the rules of games, but as time passed, he realized he was seeing his cousins in an entirely new light. He was learning to look several steps ahead and predict others’ reactions.

His etiquette lessons on Mondays were difficult. Wislydale was a surprisingly vicious teacher, sharply reprimanding Edmund whenever his pitch wasn’t modulated enough or his bow not low enough. He forced Edmund to memorize entire hierarchies of titles and how exactly to find out where in the pecking order you were upon entering a room. He taught calligraphy, word choice when writing letters, and even gave a few pointers on nodding appreciatively.

On Fridays, he stopping by Tunansia’s room to see what she was doing, and if he could help. He usually could, but never by doing any more than holding test tubes, or stirring oddly colored liquids. Tunansia rarely even looked at him.

Four times a week, without warning, he would see Googoltha skipping down the hall, curled up on the floor, or standing and staring with a toothy grin on her face. She never made a sound. Edmund did his best to avoid her.

At noon, he took Matron her lunch. She continued to ask him strange questions, but Edmund had become adept at spying on his cousins, and he had an answer about once every three days. When he did, Matron would hand him a letter or make some suggestion of a conversation topic. Edmund could only sometimes understand the deeper meanings, but the inevitable looks of frustration on his cousin’s faces told him that they were an effective team.

His heart remained in the library throughout all of this, however, and he could tell his relatives’ could see this through their disapproving glares. When the meals were finished and his lessons were over, he would run back to the library to dive once more between the covers of his beloved books. Edmund spent his time in the library, reading, writing, or listening to Aiode recite the ancient poetry of Patron Plinkerton, often with the rat skittering about nearby. When he told her to, she would simply sit and listen while Edmund read some of his poetry to her. He read everything he wrote to her; he loved doing it, and it was only fair. It was a feeling he had never felt before, sharing something so personal with something so perfect.

At the end of the day, he returned to his room where Ung dressed him for bed in long flowing bed-gown that fit like a robe, except for once a week, when Mrs. Kippling tore his skin off in the powerful bathtub first. With the gas-lights dimmed, Edmund crawled into his massive bed, pen and paper in hand, and drifted off to sleep.

He had his library, his statue, and his Mansion. For the first time in a very long time, Edmund was happy.

Before long, however, Edmund began to spend more time inside the library than out. He stopped searching Moulde Hall for rooms he had not yet opened, and passed by opportunities to clandestinely observe his family. It had been days since he had unlocked a locked door, and he hadn’t visited Junapa, Kolb, Wislydale, or Tunansia in a week.

It didn’t matter. He had his books, and Aoide. What else did he need? Kolb had been very clear about the Founding Families; they were important because they said they were important. He knew enough about charm and science and strategy. Matron was doing perfectly well on her own, holding off the cousins’ schemes for the estate.

Besides, he had more important things to do. Shoved in the back of a bookshelf on the bottom floor, Edmund had found an old diary of Patron Plinkerton’s, covered in ragged leather and penned in faded ink. He had taken to reading it daily, to learn more about the man who had created this marvelous machine that recited poetry to Edmund while he worked.

Such beautiful poetry! Such a wonderful machine!

Surely no man who had such poetry in his soul, and such genius in his mind, could be the foolish wastrel that everyone expected him to be. So determined was Edmund to understand the mindset of the man who had blessed him with his one true friend, he poured himself into Plinkerton’s diary day after day, studying his exploits with a passion he usually reserved for chemistry.

Of course, he still had a few responsibilities. He still brought Matron her lunch every day, and she had mostly stopped asking him questions when he did; yet more evidence of his current superfluidity. If Matron ever needed him, she would tell him.

He did not recognize the irony of his situation for almost a week.

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Of all the days in Sir Edmund’s considerably long life, there are several that stood out to him among all others. We know this because, of his few surviving correspondences, one slightly burnt-around-the-edges page tells us so.

It was on the second of August, 1871, specifically at 12:09 in the afternoon, when Edmund brought Matron her lunch. He was a few minutes late, but he had been enraptured by a fascinating passage in Patron Plinkerton’s diary and lost track of time.

In later years, Edmund couldn’t remember which path he took to Matron’s door. There were several, and he had taken them all in his years at Moulde Hall, but all he remembered of that day was what happened when he reached Matron’s door.

It began as it always began. He knocked as hard as he could and took a half-step backwards.

After a few seconds, he took a half-step forwards, knocked again, and took a half-step backwards.

To call Matron a creature of habit was underestimating a will tempered in a lifetime of being a Moulde. She was less a creature of habit and more a law of nature, designed to behave with exacting precision. In all the weeks Edmund had brought her lunch and knocked on her door, she had never taken longer than a second to respond.

He tried a third time. There was no answer.

Edmund stared at the door. He knew it wouldn’t help, but he stared just the same; less because he was shocked and dismayed at Matron’s silence and more because he simply didn’t know where else to look, much less what to do next.

His confusion abated to be replaced with growing apprehension. On the off chance that the laws of nature simply hadn’t noticed what was happening, Edmund knocked a fourth time.

Nothing.

It was a test. Of course it was a test; what else could it be? Pulling his bent-key out of his pocket, Edmund wrestled with the fiendish lock for half an hour before it opened.

He was greeted with the same sight he had seen every noon-time for over a month, less one important detail. Matron’s room was empty. She was gone.

Edmund ran through her room, opening doors and searching for some clue as to where she had vanished, but there was nothing. No letters, no casually discarded articles of clothing, no curious yet ominous stains, no small scraps of cloth caught on an errant nail…nothing.

A thousand possibilities flooded Edmund’s brain to be immediately cast aside. Had she left because he was late? No, he had been late twice before and each time had simply been scolded for laziness. Had she gone into town? She would never be so gauche. Was she walking the grounds? She hated going outside. Perhaps she had fallen asleep in a comfortable chair somewhere in Moulde Hall, like Mrs. Mapleberry often did after her nightcap? Matron never drank and probably didn’t need to sleep.

Each option was analyzed and discarded until Edmund was left with only one reasonable possibility, no matter how unlikely. She was being held against her will somewhere in Moulde Hall, and he just needed to find where she was.

His search was long, methodical, and hasty. He ran through the hallways and secret passages of the mansion, peeking through peepholes and keyholes as quickly as he could. Room after vacant room met his eyes, without a single sign of Matron anywhere.

When the last room had been searched and all other options had been abandoned, Edmund returned to the library. Matron had gone somewhere, but she’d be back eventually. There was nothing to worry about. That had to be true.

He didn’t believe it. She was gone. He was alone.

Again.

The more dispassionate and reasonable part of his mind had known it would happen someday. Matron was older than eighty and there wasn’t long left for anyone older than that. In spite of her stubborn indifference to change, there would come a time that Edmund would be Patron, and she would…not.

In spite of his awareness of this fact, he had somehow masterfully distracted himself from ever considering when that time would come. Was it years away? Decades? Or months? Weeks?

Maybe it had been today. Maybe Edmund was alone once more, leader of a cruel and degraded family that needed his leadership.

He wasn’t ready.

By the time he reached the library again, his mind had been soaked in indignant fury. He should have been ready! What had he been doing for the past month? Reading about the electrical sciences? Learning how to bow properly and address letters? Games? Useless! He needed to act, not sit around listening to a mechanical toy read him poetry!

Edmund’s eye was drawn to Aiode, sitting patiently in her alcove as quiet as a statue. He had been reading to her more and more, recently. Just yesterday he had considered tinkering with her innards to figure out how to replace her poems with new ones, perhaps his own. The idea of hearing her voice speaking his own poems had been thrilling. Her voice was calming and soothing, and she always listened so attentively when he read to her.

These had been the best weeks of his life, but now he saw her for what she really was. An obstacle. Red herring. Antagonist. A distraction at best.

Even so, she had been the closest thing to a friend he had ever had.

He stepped in front of her desk, and clasped his hands behind his back. “Hello, Aoide.”

With a whir of gears and springs, the statue sprang to life, curtsying gracefully before resting her hands in front of her.

“Hello, my name is Aoide, of poetry and song. What can I do for you?”

Edmund stared at her perfect face, his heart burning in pain. Her eyes were so kind, looking at him with anticipation. He had never seen eyes like that before, and he would never see them again.

“I’m going to wall you up again. We have to say goodbye.”

Spinning gears and clicking valves echoed from the alcove. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Could you please try again?”

“Please be quiet,” Edmund asked. He waited while the grinding of the machine rose and fell like an ocean wave. Aoide’s body tensed, and then sagged slightly, disengaging the gear that activated her voice. She would remain silent until he told her to speak again.

“You’ve been a good friend,” Edmund continued when the sound had died down, “but now you are a distraction. I can’t spend my time listening to poetry with you, or reading to you, or…anything else. Matron is gone, and if I don’t do everything I can to save the family now, then Junapa will win. Or Wislydale. Or Kolb. Or Pinsnip or Tunansia or Tricknee or any of the other family members that I don’t know about, but who will carve up the estate and destroy the family.”

Aoide made no movement, gave no indication she understood.

“I think I understand Rotchild a bit, now,” he said, forcing the words out. “I never knew why he could wall up such a wonderful machine, but I have to do what he did. I need to wall you up again, or else I will keep coming back to hear your poems. I wish I could spend all my time with you and these books, but I can’t.”

There was no mistaking the feeling that surged through Edmund’s body: his stomach felt like it was collapsing on itself, and his chest was tight against his thumping heart.

“I’m sorry, but I need to save my family.”

With a snap that echoed in the alcove, the whirring machine deep inside Aoide roared to life.

Edmund stepped back in alarm. What had he said? He thought he knew all of her activation phrases…why was she —

The grinding stopped with a loud clang, and Aoide drew herself up as tall as the puppet strings that encircled her would allow. Her stone body didn’t move or dance as she began to recite:

The whirring began again, subsided almost immediately, and Aoide sagged.

Ever organized, Edmund’s mind thought three thoughts in rapid succession. The first was as follows: he had explored the functioning of her inner workings with a studious eye; after Edmund commanded her to be silent, she should have remained so until either Edmund told her she could speak again, or a full hour had passed. Why had she suddenly disobeyed Edmund, and just to recite a poem?

His second thought was: as a poem it was…frankly awful. The cadence was off, the rhyming was erratic, with little imagery that provided any kind of poetic catharsis. Edmund had heard all of Aoide’s poems and they were far superior to the rambling claptrap that he had just heard.

His third thought was: Why? Why had Plinkerton left such an awful poem in Aoide? Edmund had listened to all the poems that had been carved on the front of her desk, and this poem had not been one of them. Plinkerton had to have known it was bad, but then why put it in Aoide in the first place? To test her capabilities, perhaps, but then he could easily have removed it. But he hadn’t…

Perhaps it was a mistake? Edmund immediately quashed that theory; a man who had created such a beautiful thing couldn’t make so simple an error. No, there had to be a reason for it.

The wise shall see their reward…A Cavalcadum of Fortune…

What had made Aoide recite the poem? What was the poem’s title? Quickly sorting through his memory, Edmund called up the phrase he had spoken just before Aoide had interrupted him. Was it…

“I need to save the family.”

Again, Aoide sprang to life, drawing herself up like a king pronouncing an edict, and recited the awful poem again. Edmund listened carefully to the words, committing them to his memory.

“For mine sonne, Rotchilde Moulde,” he said when she had finished.

“I am a gift to him. Given by my creator, Plinkerton Moulde. Would you like to hear his dedication?”

“Yes.”

He had not listened to the dedication for a month, since he first repaired Aoide. Now, hearing it again, it struck his heart with the same blunt knife of longing it first had.

When she finished, his mind noted phrases that now took on new meaning. I fear I may be damned to hell / for all the fear I have for him… And may she give, when you are needy / what shall aid you overcome."

His brain afire, Edmund ran through the library until he found his stack of notebooks. He flipped through them until he found the one he had used to study the finances of the Moulde Family. Was it that simple? Had Edmund been right about Plinkerton all along? Could the downfall of the Moulde Family have been foreseen?

Edmund flipped through the pages as fast as he could, checking his figures back and forth against each other, adjusting them like a cook seasoning the soup.

Yes! there it was, as clear as day. The vast fortune of the Moulde Family hadn’t dribbled away like water from a leaky bucket, it had fallen away in chunks. Massive slabs of wealth vanished in bite sized pieces, hidden deeper than the first layer of misdirection.

The fortune that Patron Rotchild and later Patrons and Matrons had wasted was smaller then the fortune Patron Plinkerton had left behind.

He had known!

Of course he had, Edmund reprimanded himself. How could a father not see ineptitude or madness in his own son? And in seeing the madness that would descend from his son to his grand-children and great-grand-children, what precautions could a great poet-scientist like Plinkerton take but to stash away a sizable portion of their wealth to keep it safe. Then, some day, a wise and clever Moulde — a worthy Moulde — would find Aoide, get her working again, and find the fortune he had left behind, returning the lost wealth and status to the Family.

The Moulde Family wasn’t poor! They had just been temporarily embarrassed!

The biting melancholy lifted from Edmund like a blanket. The gas-lights flickered bright again, the shadows receded, and the looming doom that hovered over him like a raven on a bust fluttered away into the night. The world was exactly how it should be once more.

He was even ready to sigh with relief, when a particularly intractable part of himself cleared its throat and raised a finger in skepticism. He hadn’t found this “Cavalcadium of Fortune,” yet.

His first thought was to go to Matron.

When the pain in his heart subsided, his second thought was of his cousins. He couldn’t ask any of them for help, or even trick them into it. If they learned Matron was absent…he could see them licking their lips with long tongues, pulling knives from their pockets to carve him up, and snapping their teeth as they gnawed at the Family’s bones. If Matron wasn’t dead, he didn’t have the time to wait for her to come back. He needed to find this Cavalcadium, and find it now!

How?

The poem was a puzzle, of course, but solving it would take time. More time than he had. Plinterton had obviously expected him to write out the poem and analyze it line by line and word by word. He would grab the seven books on poetry interpretation he had discovered in the library, and decipher exactly what Patron Plinkerton had been trying to say with his awkward poem.

Edmund didn’t have the time, and there was no guarantee that at the end of it all he wouldn’t simply find another poem, one that took him into the clock-tower of Brackenburg, perhaps, or across the country to find hidden rooms in ancient churches.

Edmund blinked as a thought crossed his mind. In his games with Junapa, he had begun to recognize two steps in strategy. First he learned how to play the game, and the strategies to do so effectively; then he learned how to play the opponent, a usually more effective and efficient strategy.

Edmund didn’t have to interpret the poem, he needed to interpret Plinkerton. Who was the man? What was he like? How did he think and what did he do once he was finished thinking? If Edmund knew that, then he could likely cut through the potential long and arduous treasure-hunt, and simply learn where Patron Plinkerton would hide a treasure.

He had Plinkerton’s journal, and a plethora of documentation on Moulde family history, but not much else. If only he could ask someone! Someone who had known Plinkerton and could tell Edmund exactly what he was like. Someone who had been around for —

Something clicked in Edmund’s mind. Memories that had been nagging at his mind for weeks finally succeeded in grabbing his attention.

Had he known for so long, and just not pieced it together? It had been more than a month! Worthy Moulde indeed.

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Edmund sat in the kitchen, waiting on the edge of the counter with his legs crossed beneath him. He wouldn’t have to wait long; he had paid close attention to Mrs. Kippling’s daily schedule.

Sure enough, he had only been waiting a few minutes before the door began to rattle. Mrs. Kippling was trying to unlock the already unlocked door to begin the day’s dinner. It had been an easy lock to open, he wondered why she bothered locking it at all.

After a few moments of confused fumbling, the door opened tentatively, revealing Mrs. Kippling standing at the ready, her fingers balled into tight fists, ready to strike should it prove necessary. She may have only been a house-keeper, Edmund mused, but she kept a house filled with Mouldes. To keep that job, she must have known how to be careful.

When she saw Edmund sitting on the counter, she almost laughed in surprise.

“Master Edmund,” she gasped, her fingers relaxing. “Begging-your-pardon. You scared me half to death!”

Edmund didn’t answer, instead keeping his eyes locked onto hers.

She returned his stare for only a moment before she brushed her hands on her apron and walked into the room, heading for the large soup pot that sat on the stove. “I must have forgotten to lock the door,” she said, half to herself. “Getting old, I suppose.”

“I think you’re old already,” Edmund said.

Mrs. Kippling gasped, turning to face him. “Now, Master Edmund, that was a cruel, spiteful thing to say, not-my-place.”

“I am a Moulde,” he shrugged.

“Now, that doesn’t mean anything,” Mrs. Kippling sniffed, turning away to grab her utensils. “Not-my-place, but I’ve known quite a few Mouldes that weren’t plain rude like that. Kolb isn’t vile at all, and Matron was quite nice when she was younger.”

“She’s very old,” Edmund pointed out. “How old were you when she was younger?”

Mrs. Kippling stopped, her hands poised over the handles of the knife chandelier.

“You knew Matron Victrola, didn’t you?” Edmund asked.

Slowly, her hand began to move again, selecting a long thin blade and drawing it from the wheel.

“Now what makes you think a silly thing like that?” She asked too casually.

“When I first came here, and you gave me Master Jomas’s clothing, you said his death was tragic. You knew he was a bit taller than me. He was Matron Isaybel’s son.”

“Well, his clothing was a bit taller than you, begging-your-pardon, so I just assumed, you see.”

“Back when we were talking about Kahmlichimus, the Gran Gargoyle, you said it was a sight to see. Victrola tore it down, and she was Matron’s Grandmother. You’d have to be at least a hundred years old to have seen it.”

“Oh, well, I must have misspoke,” Mrs. Kippling said, keeping her back to Edmund as she selected an onion and began to slice it. “Begging-your-pardon, I saw a picture in a book —”

“You said you were not one for reading,” he recited from his memory. “You never even looked.”

“Painting. I mean a painting of Moulde Hall when —”

“There aren’t any,” Edmund pressed on, his eyes beginning to sting from the onion. “I know every painting in this mansion and there’s not a one of Moulde Hall. How old are you? How far back do you go? Isaybel? Further? All the way to Plinkerton, maybe?”

Mrs. Kippling sighed, her shoulders sagging. Edmund’s eyes were watering from the onion so badly he had to wipe his face. When he opened his eyes again, Mrs. Kippling was directly in front of him, the sharp knife glittering in the stove light.

“You are clever,” she said, sadly. “Almost as clever as Patron Plinkerton. He was a great man, he was. He never did anything cruel or mad — he was as kind as could be. I heard all his descendants call him the first of the worst and it breaks my heart, it does. He cared for his children, and his wife, and…and his servants.” She lifted her left hand to the stove light as if she could peer through the skin and study its bones. “He fixed my hand when the accident burned it almost completely away. He gave Master Rotchild his sight back when he poured liniment in his own eye…and when my heart gave out…”

Mrs. Kippling sighed again as a dreamy look spread across her face like an advancing cloud front. “He was clever, but not always right, you see. He started my heart up again — gave me quite a jolt, it did — and it hasn’t stopped yet. He always did say he wasn’t sure he followed his notes just right…I’ve been serving the family ever since.” The dim light flickered in the knife, catching Edmund’s eye. “And now you’ve found me out, what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

Mrs. Kippling’s mouth fell open. “Nothing?” she asked. “Begging-your-pardon, But…you aren’t going to bleed me? Matron Isaybel kept threatening to sell my blood at fifty a bottle, when she found out.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You are a Moulde,” Mrs. Kippling’s eyes narrowed.

“Now, that doesn’t mean anything,” said Edmund, crossing his arms. “Does Matron know?”

“I don’t think so.” Mrs. Kippling said, after a moment. “She tries to ignore the staff. She’s a proper lady, she is.”

Edmund took a deep breath. Now he needed to ask the real questions. “You were around when Plinkerton made Aoide then.”

“You found Aoide?” Mrs. Kippling gasped. “I thought Patron Rotchild had ruined her! Begging-your-pardon but it was such an awful row…we all thought he broke her to pieces!”

“No,” Edmund interrupted. “She just needed some Mechanus Vitae and string.”

“You fixed her all on your own? Begging-your-pardon, how old are you?”

“I’m eight,” he didn’t bother to hide his frustration. “And a half. Now tell me about the Cavalcadium of Fortune.”

“The what?” Mrs. Kippling frowned. “Begging-your-pardon what on earth is a cavalcadium? Where did you hear that?”

“From Aoide. It’s a poem Patron Plinkerton left it in her. I want to know why.”

“Well…begging-your-pardon I have no idea. I’ve never heard of anything like that…but…” Mrs. Kippling sighed, wringing her hands fitfully while somehow avoiding cutting herself with her knife. “Not-my-place he never told me much at all, really. He was always a quiet one, walking alone outside with a pipe in his mouth, or sitting alone in his room. Not much more to him, really. He was a kind and quiet man.”

Mrs. Kippling’s eyes drifted off once more into memory. “Patron would stare at old Kahmlichimus for hours, sometimes. He even said it to me, once, when I were dusting the Foyer clock. ‘Memento Mori, Mrs, Kippling,’ he said, ‘Even you’ll die someday. All things come to an end in time.’ He loved time, he did; he kept his watch so carefully wound.”

“He loved time?” Edmund wasn’t sure he understood.

“History, and clocks, and the seasons turning. He used to watch the sun cross the sky, and count the stars as they came out. He invented watches and calendars and all sorts of things… kept track of when everything happened — said it was important for the future…he seemed to know things that…Oh, I just don’t know, is this the time?” she muttered to herself. “You found Aoide…maybe that’s what he meant? Oh I wish Missus Tannum still worked here, she was always a bit more clever about this sort of thing than me…”

Had Edmund been of another sort, he might have pried into Mrs. Kipplings mutterings and musings, to see if he could help in some manner. As he was who he was, he let her think to herself. It’s what he would have wanted had their situations been reversed.

Finally, Mrs. Kippling stopped pacing and turned to him with a look of determination in her eyes. “I am going to trust you, Master Edmund. Do you understand how hard that is, for me to trust someone in this house?”

“I think so,” Edmund admitted.

“Well you don’t,” she shook her head. “You haven’t seen half the horrors I have, nor dealt with people half as viscous. You think the family is bloodthirsty now…well…it was worse eighty years ago! You never had to deal with the madness of Matron Iseybel…or Patron Grunder. I don’t care what anyone says, Matron was right to —”

Mrs. Kippling stopped herself and took a deep breath. She walked over to the pantry and rapped her knuckle on the top of an old black barrel, causing its lid to pop off onto the floor. The barrel was empty of soup but full of paper. Rummaging for a moment, Mrs. Kippling extracted a thick yellowed letter and pushed the rest of the paper back in the barrel.

“Patron Plinkerton gave me this letter before he died. He said I was to give it to whoever were going to save the family.”

“You think that’s me?” Edmund asked. It was a nice complement.

“Well…maybe,” Mrs. Kippling said, uncomfortably. “He said Aoide was key and whomever fixed it would…well…it’s sort of a prophesy, right? Only I can’t think of anyone else who’s even come close and — begging-your-pardon not-my-place — the letter should tell you everything.”

Edmund turned the letter over to see the red wax seal; an ornate ‘P’ that marked the correspondence as from Plinkerton’s own hand. It was thick and heavy, whether with weight or with destiny he couldn’t tell.

His finger traced the misshapen blob of wax. Just pop the seal, and he would learn what Plinkerton had expected him to do.

“No, thank you.”

“What?” Mrs. Kippling said, after a momentary pause. “But… but he made a prophesy!”

“I don’t care,” Edmund shrugged, setting the letter down on the table. “I think I’m done with adults giving me the answers. If it’s a real prophesy, than it will happen whether I read it or not. If it isn’t, than it’s not important. Either way, I’d just as soon not read it.”

“But it’s about you!” Mrs. Kippling protested. “At least it could be, and it could tell you what you’re going to do next!”

“Then you read it,” Edmund said, walking to the door. “Then I won’t have to come back and tell you what I’ve done. Besides, I think I already know what I’m going to do next. You’ve been a big help.”

“I have?” Mrs. Kippling stared as Edmund pushed open the door and vanished into the depths of Moulde Hall.

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