Chapter 5: ch4

　　Mrs. Elwood hummed a pleasant tune as she bustled around the kitchen, stirring things, occasionally turning something else over, then buttering it again. She expertly climbed the treads of a small ladder and brought things down from a high cupboard. The baked beans are bubbling in a pan on the stove. The air was thick with the scent of fried bacon, and the radio behind her played an old song that was a hit a few years ago. The morning was cold and clear, and the house was flooded with creamy sunlight.

　　Jonathan sat at the kitchen table, blew on his cup of tea, and took a delicate sip. The tea was hot and sweet - just perfect. There were so many things that seemed normal this morning, so it just felt more and more like what had happened last night was kind of stupid. He wasn't even quite sure what was true and what wasn't anymore. True, there had been a problem with the study door, but had anyone really broken in? Mrs. Elwood had seen no one. Maybe it was just the wind. Maybe the whole thing was a figment of his imagination. It must have been the frightened patients in the hospital that put his imagination into overdrive.

　　Mrs. Elwood brought out a plate of fried breakfast and sat down across from him. Normally, Jonathan didn't bother to eat breakfast, but this morning he voraciously attacked the food.

　　"Be careful, you'll get indigestion."

　　Jonathan took another big bite of toast as if he hadn't heard her.

　　"I called the school this morning and explained to them the situation at hand. I have to say, they were very unreasonable. They asked a lot of questions and didn't seem to believe me at all. Do you know why it's like that?"

 

　　Jonathan took a quick sip of his tea with a sense of guilt. According to his attendance sheet, it didn't surprise him that no one believed Mrs. Elwood, "I don't know, teachers are like that."

　　"Well, they finally listened to me and said you won't have to worry about going to school for the rest of the week. What are you going to do? You can't sit around Alan all day."

　　"Haven't thought about it yet. I want to go home this morning. It's a bit of a mess there and I want to sort things out. You know, if he gets better right away, but everything is ......"

　　Mrs. Elwood nodded. She didn't mention last night again, and Jonathan was grateful for that. "Of course, I'm going to town later, but I can stay with you before I go into town, if you'd like."

　　"No need. I'll be fine."

　　She smiled faintly and left Jonathan to enjoy his breakfast alone.

　　At ten o'clock Jonathan returned home after a short walk. He hadn't been entirely honest with Mrs. Elwood. He wanted to clean up the house, but the real focus was on his dad's study. After all these years, this was a good opportunity for him to thoroughly explore the study a bit. The mere thought of it was enough to make his heart beat faster. The whole house was still as shabby as ever, but not as eerie as it was at night. Intruders wouldn't dare return here in daylight, and the windows seemed to wink at Jonathan that burglars were kind of cowards and such. Before walking up the driveway, he still checked the street repeatedly. At this time of the morning, it was quiet, and the only people in sight were an elderly couple, probably on their way to the store, and an au pair student (aupair) pushing a child in a stroller.

 

　　Jonathan walked inside, this time two hundred percent sure the front door was locked. He picked out a favorite CD in his bedroom, turned the stereo up to the right volume, and let the music keep him company. To keep his composure, he kept himself busy with simple chores: taking out the trash and doing the laundry. The next thing he knew, he was standing in front of his study. He took a deep breath, tried not to look at the scratch marks still left on the door, opened it and walked in.

　　The study was dark, and the blinds on the windows were drawn low, so only the faintest rays of light could shine in. The room smelled damp, as if it hadn't passed through the wind in years. Jonathan crossed the room, pulled up the blinds, and opened a window. Sunlight and stinging fresh air rushed in, and it immediately felt better.

　　For the past few years, this study had been essentially Alan's world all by himself. He worked here, ate his own food, and often slept here. Whenever Alan sat quietly reading a book, Jonathan wandered like a ghost through the rest of the house. If he wanted to speak to his dad, he had to knock on the door three times. If Alan had to leave the room, he would dart and lock the door behind him to prevent his son from catching a glimpse of what was going on inside. If he left the room on his own - to go to the bathroom or get himself a drink - and bumped into Jonathan, he would nod briskly at his son in greeting.

　　"Hello there, son. Everything all right?"

　　"Pretty good."

　　"That's good, keep it up."

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　　The next moment he would slip into his room and lock the door.

　　Jonathan had long since gotten used to his not-so-normal family situation. He wasn't much of a talker, and Mrs. Elwood was always here if there were any practical problems. He would be absolutely lying if he said that everything was perfect, that he didn't want his mom around, or that he didn't wish Alan was a more normal dad. But that was the way things were, and he had to adapt.

 

　　But at the moment he was here, in his dad's private chamber, and it was hard to control the urge to pound this room to pieces, the very place that had kept his dad away from him for so long. In fact, it was quite ordinary. There were bookshelves lining every wall, stuffed with old books of all kinds, and these large volumes were all over the rest of the house. The walls were lined with yellowed newspaper clippings, all with sensational headlines that read alarmingly: "Two dead in collapsed building," "Creepy blood bank robbery," and "London werewolves: the latest unbelievable Sightings!" To his left was the wooden desk that had been pushed against the door last night, and Jonathan tried to move it back into place, but without the panic and adrenaline rushing through his veins, he could barely move an inch. The floor was littered with scattered pieces of paper, interspersed with pencils and ballpoint pens. Whatever Jonathan was expecting before this - perhaps some kind of crazy dungeon with chains hanging from the walls and a torture rack in the middle - this was clearly not that.

　　He surveyed the bookshelves and was drawn to a framed photo. Jonathan picked up the frame and examined it: a picture of a young couple standing arm in arm in the rain, a dirty building behind them, covered with stained white paint marks, a sign reading "Bartlemas  Timepieces", but they were smiling and looked very happy. Jonathan stared at the photo for a few seconds before realizing that the man in the photo was Alain. Well, but again, that wasn't the Alain Jonathan knew. The man's hair was blond, not gray, and his figure was erect, not hunched over. He wasn't just younger - he looked like a different person. Jonathan wondered what kind of man he was then; would he be going around having fun and telling jokes?

 

　　Jonathan didn't recognize the woman. She was young, with thick black curly hair that fell to her shoulders, but did not cover the two large golden earrings. She was wearing a white shirt and an intricately patterned red skirt, a bizarre gypsy outfit that Jonathan guessed would have been popular at the time. There was a mischievous edge to her smile, and her gray eyes were provocative and unruly.

　　Grey eyes. Jonathan's whole body shuddered as he realized he was looking at a picture of his mother. He had never seen a picture of his mother. Alan always said there was no more, and he was always lying. In an instant, the anger and rage that Jonathan had spent so many years suppressing rose to the surface. He threw the frame against the wall and smashed it, then fell to his knees and for the first time in his life, he began to cry.

　　Jonathan felt a little embarrassed, he blew his nose with a crumpled tissue, trying his best to control himself. It didn't help much, but strangely enough, it felt much better to cry it out. He walked toward the picture, the frame was ruined, but the picture was still intact. He carefully removed the picture from the frame and placed it on his desk.

　　Why had Dad lied to him? Jonathan could understand Alan's reluctance to talk about his wife's disappearance, but to lie about a photograph? That just didn't make any sense, it was just plain cruel. He looked around at the books and pieces of paper. Maybe the answer was in here somewhere. Jonathan picked up a book at random and read it.

 

　　Two long hours had passed and he had found nothing. The books in Alan's study seemed to have few common themes. He seemed to have picked a hundred books at random and shoved them onto his shelves. Old history books, political textbooks, poetry collections, and even an anthology of diaries. The only thing they had in common was that they were boring as hell. Alain also put bookmarks on the pages of certain books. For example, there is a book titled "Greatness: My Life with Professor Carlvon Hagen" , a diary written by a maid named LilyLamont. The following are highlighted in this book.

　　October 19, 1925.

　　Unlike the noise and excitement of the past few days, my master was very quiet today. He was shut up in the laboratory all day and did not look at the food and drink I sent him. He came out in the evening, with a wild and brutal light in his eyes. He breathed heavily, vaguely mentioned something about "the darkest place", then put on his hat and coat and went out into the night. After that, I didn't see him again for several days.

　　There was a slight hint of meaning, but Jonathan had no idea what the passage was trying to say. Similarly, he did not see the importance of The Criminal Under belly of Victorian Britain. This slim book is stuffed with bookmarks. According to the date on the cover, it was written as early as 1891 by a dude named (Jacob Entwistle), which made Jonathan wonder what the point of reading this book was. On page 79, however, Allan marks the following passage.

　　In the depths of the filthy Bentonville Gaol, I met a very poor man named Robert Torbury, a pickpocket and thief. Years behind bars had left him shriveled up, while his sanity was crumbling. As soon as he saw me, he grabbed my clothes and begged me for help. He was sent away slurring some very absurd words about being condemned to live in the dark. Watching him cry, I wondered how sane a man had to be to listen to him and still believe that the British Empire's system of law (the British Empire) was the fairest in the civilized world ......

　　Jonathan closed the book with a heavy thud, bringing up a cloud of dust. Still no progress. He turned his attention to the papers on the floor, where Alan had managed to jot down his confused thoughts in scribbled handwriting. Fortunately, most of the papers were marked with dates, so it took Jonathan about ten minutes to put them in chronological order. The most recent one was written by Dad the day before the "darkness" struck. It was a simple sentence: "Teleportation point? Then I must be very close."

　　Beneath the line was the name of a book - The Darkest Descent - and a page number, followed by a code that Jonathan realized was the library's access number. Excitement made him shiver slightly; did this book have anything to do with the untold secret that had haunted Alain for so many years? He wasn't quite sure, but he knew only one thing - the book had to be found. And there was only one place in London where he could find this book.

 

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