The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(124)

Wells looked at her in amazement and raised his left hand level with his eyes, scrutinizing at it as though he were seeing it for the first time.

“This is my left hand, and I am leaning on the floor with my right hand . . . Although, indeed, it could be the other way around . . .”

“Or you could be standing up . . .”

“Or unconscious . . .”

A singsong voice interrupted their fascinating debate: “Who are you?”

Wells and Jane stopped examining the tile whose color they were unable to agree upon and lifted their respective heads only to discover a charming little girl a few feet from where they were kneeling. She was about six years old, dressed in a ragged tunic and barefoot. They were instantly struck by her casual beauty: a mop of dark chestnut hair framed her heart-shaped face, and bangs fell over her keen, inquisitive eyes, and her lips, set in a pout, held the promise of a radiant smile for anyone sufficiently deserving. Newton scampered over to her, wagging his tail, and lay down, splaying his tummy, which she stroked with her bare foot.

“Are you sprites?” she asked.

While she waited for an answer, she took a sip from the glass she was holding, which appeared to contain lemonade. Wells rose to his feet, helping Jane up, and tried not to think that the girl could be drinking milk, not lemonade, or playing with a spinning top or juggling while she waited for them to answer.

“Er . . . why should we be sprites?” asked Wells.

“There’s no reason why you should be sprites. I only thought you might be because of the way you appeared, though I hope my question didn’t offend you.” Clearly, despite being dressed in rags, the little girl had impeccable manners. “You came out of nowhere,” she explained sententiously, with a touch of impatience, like a diminutive schoolmarm addressing a couple of not-very-bright pupils. “A hole suddenly opened in the air and a very, very, very bright light came out of it, so bright I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again, there you were on the floor, staring at a tile as if you had never seen one before in your lives. You are very funny sprites,” she added earnestly.

Wells and Jane exchanged glances. So Dodgson’s hole had brought them here . . . but where were they? Had they landed in another universe? They examined their surroundings more closely and saw that they were in a room that seemed familiar, despite looking old and fusty. The flowery wallpaper, the music boxes, the children’s drawings—all gave them a clue as to where they might be. And yet there were a few details missing from the picture, which made it not quite recognizable. Hard as they looked, they found no trace of a communication screen, or a food warmer, or any other sort of technical device. It was as if the room had been divested of every artifact man had invented over the past hundred years, including dust-eating mice. But before either of them could express those thoughts, a voice somewhere behind them rang out.

“Come along, Alice! I am ready to take the photograph now . . . What is keeping you?”

Wells and Jane turned around just as a young man entered the room, cradling what looked like a metal tube, the end of which he was polishing carefully with a piece of cloth. When he caught sight of the two strangers, and the dog suddenly barking at him frantically, he stood stock-still in the doorway. Alice put her glass of lemonade down on the table and ran over to him, passing like a ghost between the two intruders.

“Charles, Charles, these two sprites appeared through a hole in the air!” she announced excitedly.

She flung her arms possessively around one of the young man’s legs, and he instantly placed a protective hand on her shoulder while examining with trepidation the supposed pair of sprites who had just materialized in his house, as if he were wondering whether sprites would also interpret human greetings as a gesture of welcome. For their part, the supposed fairy couple contemplated the newcomer with bulging eyes, as though unwilling to accept that he really was who he appeared to be . . . And doubtless, dear reader, you will wish to know exactly what the young man was like. Well, he was approximately twenty-five years old, tall and as thin as a stick insect, and he possessed one of those faces whose features seem to take pleasure in contradicting one another: if his pronounced forehead and receding chin gave him a bovine air, this was belied by eyes brimming with intelligence and his nobly proportioned skull; and if his eyebrows, like two horizontal sea horses above his drooping eyelids, gave the impression of a man prone to melancholia, the mocking expression on his lips betrayed both a keen sense of humor and the spirit of a dreamer. As for his clothes, he wore an elegant velvet jacket, a pair of overly tight trousers, a hat with a turned-up brim, and a dazzlingly white bow tie. However, in spite of his eccentric attire, he gave the overall impression of extreme neatness, as extreme as the overpowering perfume enveloping him. The young man opened his mouth, but for a few moments no sound emerged. Then the words came out in a rush, tumbling over one another, in a stammer that was as familiar to the Wellses as the room. They had no choice, then, but to accept the impossible.

“F-F-Forgive me, but, w-w-who are you and w-w-what are you doing in my h-house?”

“It’s him . . . ,” Wells whispered to Jane, who nodded vehemently, holding on to Newton to try to calm him down. “Well, I’ll be damned, it’s him all right. Only he’s much younger . . .”

“But how is that possible? Have we traveled back to . . . the past?”

“Time travel is impossible, Jane. It has been proven . . . and for God’s sake, hold on to that dog and make him shut up!”