Page 5 of The Journal of a Thousand Years
“I couldn’t help overhearing as I came up the stairs,” Evaline said. “You were talking about Sylvia’s father.”
“There’s a possibility it could be our brother,” Myrtle told her. “He’s been missing a number of years, however, so we could be clutching at straws.”
“She does look like all three of you.” For someone usually so stiff and reserved, Evaline brought an air of excitement with her that had us all waiting eagerly for her next words. “That’s why I’m here. Ever since meeting the three of you, I’ve been thinking how much you look like one of our employees. His name isn’t Hendry, and he isn’t a magician, but the similarity nagged at me so much that I couldn’t rest until I mentioned him to you. I thought perhaps you could come and meet him, thinking he might be a cousin, but hearing you mention your brother, well… might it be him living under an assumed name?”
My heart seemed to suddenly stop.
“What name does he go by?” Gabe asked.
“Maxwell Cooper.”
“Cooper!” Alex bellowed. He turned wide eyes onto me.
Gabe reached across the gap between us and took my hand in his. “It can’t be a coincidence.”
“Do you know him, Sylvia?” Rosina asked. “How are you connected to this Cooper fellow?”
I blinked at Gabe, appealing to him to explain since I seemed unable to form the words. My tongue was thick in my mouth, my throat tight.
He offered a reassuring smile. Without taking his gaze off me, he answered Rosina. “Sylvia’s mother’s last known address was a house in Wimbledon. Her neighbor knew her as Marianne Cooper.”
CHAPTER 2
The connections snapped together like magnets.
Although I knew my mother as Alice Ashe, we’d discovered she was really Marianne Folgate, the only child of a silver magician from Ipswich, who himself descended from a lineage of magicians that was suspected to be the last of its kind. Gabe’s parents had met Marianne years ago when she was living in Wimbledon. When Gabe and I visited that house recently, we’d learned that Marianne had been known as Mrs. Cooper while living there, and that the man she lived with was most likely her husband. The house they rented was owned by Lord Coyle, but Coyle’s widow had sold it after his death.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that a man named Cooper worked at the Petersons’ paper factory and that he resembled the Hendry sisters, and me. It was precisely the place in which a paper magician would feel comfortable.
Yet Evaline claimed he wasn’t a magician, and we knew that Melville Hendry was. My initial thrill dampened a little. Perhaps they weren’t the same man. Having the Hendry sisters meet him, and confirm or deny if he was their brother, would resolve the issue once and for all.
I wasn’t the only one with that idea. All three sisters suddenly stood together, as if they’d been raised up by strings pulled in unison. They’d never seemed more alike.
“Is he at work now?” Rosina asked, at the same time Naomi said, “Can we meet him?”
Myrtle was more cautious, her tone less enthusiastic. “Did you mention us to him?” she asked Evaline.
“Yes, just before coming here. I asked him if he was related to the Hendry family. I thought he might be a cousin on your mother’s side, hence the different name.” Evaline frowned. “He looked shocked at first, but that quickly vanished. He told me he’s not related to any Hendrys, then reminded me that he’s not a magician. I told him he might have relatives he didn’t know about, including a young paper magician.” She nodded at me.
Myrtle’s lips pressed together. “If it is Melville, he won’t want to see us. He has probably disappeared again.”
“He has worked for us for years. He won’t leave without giving notice.”
Myrtle remained unconvinced. “If our brother doesn’t want to be found, he’ll go to great lengths to disappear.”
Gabe made an excellent and intriguing point, however. “If he didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t have used the same name he was once known by—Cooper. He would have chosen something entirely different.”
We decided to travel to the factory. Gabe’s Vauxhall Prince Henry was parked on the adjoining street near the end of Crooked Lane, but we couldn’t all fit. Alex searched the vicinity for a taxi, or perhaps he was checking there were no suspicious looking characters lurking nearby, waiting for an opportunity to kidnap Gabe.
I asked Evaline about her previous visit to the Glass Library. She wasn’t a person who called on someone without a reason, and that time had seemed odd, although I’d dismissed it as afriendly gesture. Now, I wondered if she’d had a purpose, after all. “Last time you were here, you suspected your employee was related to me, didn’t you?”
Her sharp features softened. “I wanted to study you, Sylvia. While you look a little like him, he’s a man in his sixties and you’re a woman in your twenties. In fact, you look more like Rosina than Mr. Cooper. But that day, I wanted to study your mannerisms to compare them to his. That’s when I noticed you talk like him. It’s the way your mouth moves, I think. I can’t quite explain it, but there is a resemblance that goes beyond obvious physical similarities.”
The thought of seeing those similarities in person soon, and comparing myself to the man who could be my father, made me feel somewhat weak-kneed. I moved closer to Gabe in case I needed to hold on to something solid.
“We should wait for Willie,” Alex said, as he signaled to a taxi that had just turned into the street. “She doesn’t like you wandering around without her.”
Gabe checked to see that we were out of earshot of the others. “You’rehere to protect me.”
