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Chapter 14

I SHOULD have left it alone. But I guess there are some things that you have to say to people even if it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with you.

When I got to Crispin's wing, I knocked. Maggie came, blurry-eyed, to the door, and I told her I was sorry if I'd woken her. She held the candle up, and her beautiful face looked a bit scary. I told her it had been great to meet her, and how sorry I was to have to say good-bye, and she said, “Why, where are you going?” as if I had nothing else to do in my life but hang around Blackbrick seeing things I didn't want to see.

I told her that I had to get out of there. She looked so calm and normal, and it was hard to believe that she'd even been in the situation I'd seen her in only a little earlier on.

“Listen, Maggie, I have a question to ask you before I go.”

“What is it?” she said.

“What's the story?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What I mean is that I thought you said Kevin was your destiny, but you're hardly inside the door of this place and
you're letting Lord Slimeball get very familiar, if you ask me.”

Her face darkened then. She walked back to Crispin's bed, and she sat down, and her eyes stayed looking at my face, but not in a good way.

“God almighty, Cosmo, what have you seen? What do you know? Why are you saying this to me?”

When people ask a load of questions all at the same time like that, it usually means they feel guilty.

“Look, I'm sorry. I don't mean to barge in on your personal business or anything.”

“Well, good, because it
is
none of your business, now that you say it, and I'd be very glad if you'd put those things you've mentioned out of your head. Please, Cosmo. You need to forget.”

I knew I never would, though.

We stood there looking at each other, and she was pale and lovely and I wanted to touch her face. I didn't want to squeeze her shoulder or stare darkly at her or anything creepy like that. I only wanted to put my hand on her cheek and maybe tuck some of her messy curly hair behind one of her ears or something. But I didn't. I can be kind of a coward sometimes when it comes to things like that.

“Look, Maggie, you have to do what you think is best, but you don't have to do anything that you don't want to. Don't let anyone think that you do. Okay? Kevin's not
your destiny, Maggie; you're not supposed to end up with him. Don't ask me how I know that—I just do. But that guy Corporamore, he can't possibly be your destiny either.”

“You don't need to worry about me. I know what I'm doing. I'm fully in charge of myself,” she said.

“Well, that's good,” I said to her. “Don't ever forget that.”

It wasn't the greatest way to say good-bye, but it was the best I could do at the time.

I met Mrs. Kelly in the kitchen then. She was making tea. I told her I wanted to say thank you. I said it had been a great week.

“Ah yes, it has indeed,” she said. “And I must say you look much better than the scrap of a lad I met a few days ago.”

Kevin told me he didn't know how to thank me.

“You've done so much, Cosmo, in such a short time. And to have Maggie here, where she's safe and where we can be together, I would never have been able to do that without you. I'm very grateful.”

I couldn't look him in the eye.

Kevin wasn't just my granddad anymore. Kevin was my friend. I knew it then. I know it now. I'll always know it.

I didn't tell him anything about what I'd seen Corporamore doing to Maggie. And I didn't tell him either that I'd been secretly coaching her not to fall in love with anyone. I don't blame him for wanting to marry her. I'm sure in those
days every boy that ever met her probably wanted the same thing.

So I think I said, “No problem, Kevin. My pleasure.”

I'd already stayed too long. The old Kevin needed me. I was going to have to leave the young Kevin to his own devices.

He asked if I wanted him to come down with me in the morning to say good-bye, and I said that would be great. I asked him to meet me at the stables. I told him there were a few important instructions I had for him. Things he needed to know about for future reference. He gave me this look, which I knew meant
Please stop being such a weirdo
. He said he'd see me in the morning. He said he was going to be sorry to say good-bye to me, and I said that I was too.

I went to my clanky little bed for the last time, and the sharp cold rain was lashing like a whip against the windows and everything was rattling. I kept wishing that I had more time. I kept wishing that I had gotten what I'd come for.

Anyone who gets to travel to the past should be able to do something really useful to make the future better, but the only thing I'd done was make people think I was a looper. I tried to comfort myself by thinking about my notebook and how it was full of handy information that was possibly going to help Granddad when I got back. But mostly I lay there looking at the bumpy ceiling. And the little window shook, and the wind screamed and whispered under the gap in the door.

Chapter 15

THERE ARE so many things I wish I had done. Big things, like killing George Corporamore. Small things, like saying a proper good-bye to Maggie. But when you're under pressure and when there are important things on your mind about someone who needs you, murdering people and saying decent good-byes aren't always too easy. And anyway, I guess there was part of me that didn't want to say good-bye at all.

I was up very early, before anyone else, which was a massive achievement. I slipped into my clothes and made my bed very carefully. I looked around my room one last time before reaching for the door.

The noises you make sound unreasonably loud when it's early in the morning and nobody else is up. My steps echoed along the flagstones. Everything in my bag jangled rowdily together as I made my way to the stables.

Nobody was there when I arrived—except, of course, for Somerville and Ross. As soon as they saw me, they thought they were going out for a run and got so excited that it made me want to cry.

“Listen, guys,” I said. “Kevin will take you out later, but I have to go.”

I didn't know if they understood, but they nuzzled their soft noses into my face, and I thought I wasn't going to be able to bear it. “I have to go.” I said it a few more times, plunging my hand into my pocket and then pulling out the key. I could hear footsteps, louder and heavier than I ever remembered Kevin's being.

“Glad you're here. It's getting late,” I said. I pressed my face into Ross's shiny neck, feeling suddenly like I wanted to stay there for a bit longer. “I'll be ready in a minute. We can go straight to the gates.”

It took me a second or two to realize that it wasn't Kevin. My brain joggled as I remembered what Kevin had told me about how Lord Corporamore sometimes wandered around the stables, restless and angry, in the dark hours before dawn. And it
was
Corporamore, right there, pointy and pink, marching toward me. I held on to the key.

“What gates?” he said hissily.

“The south gates,” I answered, feeling too surprised and ambushed to tell him anything except the truth.