Sadie Madison and the Boy in the Crimson Scarf

12 | The Hall of Glass and Mirrors

Michael Madison watched the pan boil. The three wise cats eyed him curiously from their position on the trapdoor above the meat cellar.

"What are you all doing here?" he whispered, but the cats did not reply.

Popping a filter into a brass funnel, Michael spooned a large helping of coffee on top. He placed the funnel over a large clear jug and topped it up with boiling water. He slipped his hands into his pockets as the water mingled with the coffee and filter down into the clear jug. A rich aroma filled the entire kitchen, the smell of morning.

But it wasn't morning. It was a minute after midnight.

Michael shifted his eyes to the kitchen window.

Sadie stood by a brightly painted door at the back of the garden, wrapped in her winter coat, her bag slung over her shoulder. She seemed to be talking to someone, but Michael couldn't see who.

He took a porcelain mug decorated with hand-painted dachshunds and filled it to the brim. Michael blew on the coffee, sipping it eagerly. Then, glancing back down the garden, he noticed both Sadie and the brightly painted door had vanished.

Michael took his coffee through the hallway, into the library, and finally placed it on the desk in his study. Two coloured-glass lamps were burning low, casting long shadows of clocks, and metronomes, and globes, and collections of copper and silver colonial figurines in dark reds, purples, and greens. The embedded smell of cigars, and cinnamon, and ziela, infused with the fresh coffee. Michael felt secure, relaxed.

His study.

His sanctuary.

He swept around the desk and slid purposefully into a high-backed leather chair. Pushing a drift of papers aside with one hand, he stacked books—riddled with bookmarks and cuttings—into a neat pile with the other. Michael produced a small silver key from beneath his shirt and used it to open the bottom desk drawer.

Inside was a great leather tome.

Blood-red in colour and bound with hinges of iron.

The desk yawned under its weight, dust pluming at the sides. Hovering over the book, Michael's hands quivered as though it emitted some sort of energy. And there, branded onto the cover in lavish, sweeping script, was the word Lexicon.

"What are you doing, Michael?" came a voice from the shadows.

"Nothing," he responded, unfazed. "Her journey has truly begun."

"And there is no stopping it," the voice answered.

"Yes, I know." Michael's hands moved down and grazed the sides of the book. The leather was soft and warm under his fingers, ancient and priceless. "I've read it hundreds of times. Maybe a thousand. There must be something else."

To his left, the window crystallised. Frost methodically filled each pane. Shadows on the porch gathered. They swarmed against the window, testing the edges for a way in, faces appearing and dissolving in shifting shadows.

"There is nothing more you can do, Michael," said the voice. "You made your choice."

"It was hardly my choice."

"Do you think you are being treated unfairly?"

"Unfair? Of course it's unfair. It's been unfair for the past thirteen years, but here we are. I have nowhere to go, no options other than...this."

He placed an outstretched hand on the book.

"The Foretelling is not an option, Michael. The Foretelling is truth. The Foretelling is all."