“Hardly,” I say, finding that I still want to hurt him. Love and hate entwined.
Leo nods. “I under— Look, you don’t have to come with me now. I can meet you there tonight, but if we go now we’ll have more time. I can show you . . .”
I glance down at my bare feet, stubbing the toes of my left foot into the doorjamb.
“Please,” Leo begs. “Please.”
It’s not the begging that does it. It’s realizing that I’ve never heard Leo sound so scared. I think of my brother in London, post-Macbeth, sleeping soundly (or having nightmares) with his friends. If Leo’s been telling the truth, I might never see him again. I’ve written him a letter. I hope he’ll never read it.
I just wish he was here tonight so I could kiss him goodbye.
Gateway
“I don’t understand. Where are we going?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain,” Leo says. “And I know it’s asking a lot, after everything, but please, trust me.”
I follow. Not because I trust him, but because I trust myself. My senses are sharpening daily, giving me confidence in the instructions of my instincts. Leo walks quickly along the moonlit pavements so I have to dash every few seconds to keep pace.
The filigree pinnacles of King’s College rise up beside me as I scurry past. I glance at the carved turrets of Great Saint Mary’s Church, the stumpy chimney stacks of the Senate House, the squat towers of Gonville & Caius . . . It seems that everything is shifting, as if the curtain of daylight has been drawn back to reveal the dark and now, lit by moonlight, the truth of the world is revealed. Not as I’ve always seen it but as I once believed it to be. I imagine elegant stone spires elongating into the fine-spun branches of birch trees, chiselled turrets transforming into the trunks of ash trees, the sawn-off chimney stacks into witch hazel, the thick towers into adolescent oaks . . .
Leo starts to slow along Trinity Street, then stops outside Saint John’s College. Everwhere fades as I admire the vast red brick pillars enclosing the wooden gates, culminating in turrets so venerable, so imposing, that they might be concealing knights in chain mail ready to tip pots of hot tar on our heads. A stone sculpture of an unknown saint or king stands above the college crest painted in gold. I take a step back.
Leo meets my eye; for a moment, I forget who he is and what he’s done.
“Am I about to be initiated into an antiquated college cult?” I say, needing to bring a little light to the dark. “I won’t do any weird rituals—I draw the line at chicken blood.”
Leo gives me a half-hearted smile. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocks a small door cut into the grand wooden gates. He holds it open. I hesitate.
“Come on. It’s nearly time.”
I step through, thinking that perhaps I should have told someone where I was going, what I was doing. But who? And what would I have said? Leo hurries across the court, sticking to the stone paths. I glance up at the rows of darkened windows carved into the ancient walls edging the lawns. I wonder if anyone is up this late. I follow Leo into a stone corridor, our footsteps echoing like those of a child scampering after a single-minded parent. We cross another courtyard before Leo comes to a sharp stop outside a walled garden. On the gate is a sign: the master’s garden.
“I don’t think we’re allowed in there,” I say. “Even at half past three in the morning.”
“Lucky then that we’re not going there,” Leo says.
I say nothing.
“At three thirty-three a.m., the moon will slip from behind the clouds to illuminate the gate. Then we’ll open it and walk through, not into the Master’s Garden, but into your world—”
“Look,” I interrupt. It’s all too much too soon. “I think perhaps—I don’t think I should be out so late, I’d better be getting back . . .”
Leo reaches towards me as I’m inching off the stone path, my heels hitting the grass verge. “Wait, Goldie, don’t be—don’t you trust me?”
I nod, then think again of Ma. “It’s just that . . .”
“What? You think I’m bringing you here to—you really think I’d be able to . . .” He can’t finish the sentence, but I hear the final words as if he’d spoken them aloud.