CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

  Jane and Tom stood alongside the barn, looking out over the Potter’s field where the dark cows were motionless under a distant tree, and further to where a car's headlights approached. Jane didn’t know whether to duck and hide (in case the approaching car was being driven by some unknown enemy) or whether to wave her arms around to make sure the occupants of the car could see her. In the end, both Tom and Jane did neither of these things. They just stood in the snow and waited.

  Jane hoped that the occupants of the car, the nun and her driver, would take her straight home. She was exhausted. Surely there was nothing extra that was needed of her. She had retrieved the book while Tom had sat in the machine and handed over the job of being Elion to Trinket. The world of Paris had been righted, and now Jane just wanted to sleep.

  The lights were bouncing on a rutted road. When they got close they turned off the road and came across the field, bumping up and down with a ragged motion.

  The car, a Vauxhaul, pulled up beside the barn, Its exhaust hissing and blue against the snow.

  A large man with a tweed cap sat in the driver’s seat. His big hands (wearing white driving gloves) rested on the steering wheel. Sister Agnus sat in the rear passenger seat with her face mooned up against the glass. She looked like an owl with her eyes overly round behind thick glasses. She had her mouth open, and the faint moustache above her top lip was raised in an arch.

  The man with the tweed hat climbed out from the driver’s seat. He had a demure, polite look. He wore a collared shirt and tie and an overcoat, and neat trousers with a crease down the front. He was as neat as a pin. He could be an administrator in some government department, or a door-to-door salesman for flood insurance.

  ‘Top evening for it,’ he said, with a self-deprecating smile.

  Tom and Jane answered in unison.

  ‘Hello.’

  The driver looked at the satchell hanging from Jane’s shoulder. There was an instant where his mouth became plump and greedy, and his eyebrows straightened. Only the look smouldered away. He relaxed and raised his eyebrows. His eyes were bright, like they had little pinprick torches behind the soft blue irises.

  ‘We must hurry,’ he said as he opened the back door. He put a gloved hand out to Jane, ‘If you please?’

  Sister Agnus shuffled across the back seat of the car and Jane dropped in beside. The nun peered through the darkness at Jane. She put a hand on Jane’s shoulder, and slipped her hand down so that her fingers curled around Jane’s biceps. She asked, ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘A little … can we go home now?’

  ‘Not just yet.’

  ‘I want to go home. I am sore and weary.’

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  Tom scrambled into the front passenger seat, and the driver fell in behind the steering wheel. The driver immediately turned to speak to the nun over his shoulder.

  ‘She has the book!’

  ‘I realise this Roger.’

  Roger beamed at her for a moment, and he opened his mouth as though to say something else, something ceremonious, but the nun spoke first.

  ‘Roger. We really must be going. The Jaguar that was following will retrace steps and find our tail.’

  ‘Of course … of course.’ Roger nodded vigorously.

  With a grind and a clutch bump, the car ran from the field out to the dirt track that it had arrived on.’

  ‘Who are you? Jane asked the nun, with wonder in her voice. ‘You are not just a nun.’

  ‘I work for the organisation that sent you and Tom through the portal to Paris.’

  ‘What is the organisation?’

  ‘It is an organisation known as the Bladergarten. They have an interest in world affairs. I help.’

  The little car roved across the field and onto a lane with stone walls stretching either side.

  Jane squeezed a fold in the blanket, scrunched it into her fist. Every part of her body ached, and she really needed to sleep.

  ‘How much do you know about the miniature world of Paris?’

  This was Tom, asking the driver.

  The driver started nodding as though he was agreeing with something, as though Tom had not asked a question, rather that he had made a statement to which the driver, Roger, was now agreeing.

  After a moment Roger said, ‘Don’t mention Paris to anyone else you come in contact with. Information about Paris can get you in a lot of trouble in this world.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Tom.

  ‘Very well … very good.’

  ‘But can you tell me about the tiny world?’

  ‘You want to know how you shrunk down small enough to fit inside the dome, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.‘

  ‘Well, first you must know that our universe is held together by forces that correlate through finely tuned ratios. There are six magic numbers that guide the fundamental forces of the entire universe. Change any one of those forces by the tiniest fraction and the universe collapses.’

  ‘Did you have to change the forces to make the world?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what do you do, change all the forces together and make matter smaller?’

  The driver was so excited by Tom saying this, he banged a hand down on the steering wheel.

  ‘Blimey boy, that is good. You have to reduce or strengthen the forces in unison. There is a lot of space in an atom, and with a change of fundamental forces you can shrink matter by enormous factors.’

  ‘That is incredible,’ said Tom, and his eyes went distant as he thought about the implications of the idea of fundamental forces being adjusted. ‘I didn’t know we could control the forces that hold the universe together?’

  ‘Oh yes, but only on a small scale and in very controlled circumstances,’ said Roger, who was also wrestling with a gearbox that wasn’t too happy about a gear change. Presently the car was in top gear and was moving at a hefty speed down a lane between high walls of heath.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Jane. She had been looking out the window at the countryside bumping past. They were speeding and the heath and nettle and cows and horses were moving past with some urgency.

  Sister Agnus said, ‘There is something you need to see before I take you home.’

  ‘Where are we going though?’

  Jane realised she sounded harsh, like a frazzled teacher trying to bring a disruptive class back under control.

  The nun had her hands folded in the fabric gulley between her legs, and her head was dipped toward her hands. She thought for a moment before answering.

  ‘We are going to a hospital … there is something that you must learn before you start the next stage of your journey.’