The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“Okay, tell me this: Whose decision was it to make it an elephant? Thursday because she saw you draw it or you because you did draw it?”

We said nothing; there didn’t seem to be an answer.

“The truth is that yo

u both did and neither of you did—which leaves only the drawn elephant, who seized an opportunity to exist through a chink in the tightly enmeshed cause-and-effect paradigm.”

“A drawn elephant has a desire to exist?”

“Certainly. All of everything came into existence simply because it wanted to be. The big bang wasn’t so much a big bang as a hasty dash toward an opportunity to trade nothingness for somethingness. The main contributory factor to the entire universe was a momentary effect in need of a cause. And in that split second, everything that wanted to have existence—which is everything—came racing through in one huge hot mass. They’ve been trying to sort themselves out ever since.”

“Kind of like a Harrods sale?” I suggested. “When the doors suddenly open?”

“Exactly like that. Only with six quintillion shoppers all trying to get to the knockdown perfume counter in a trillionth of a second—and through a garden hose.”

“I’m sure this is going somewhere,” said Friday, “but I’m not sure where.”

“It’s about cause and effect and how the two can be separated and even entangled. Often it can become tricky to see which cause leads to which effect—or even which effect leads to which cause. And in cases like that, you need to let go and do as your spirit guides you.”

“That’s pretty deep,” said Friday.

“I have a lot of time to think,” said the Manchild, “and a unique brain that can understand the complexity of the very simple. Uh-oh,” he sniggered, “fart. And it’ll be a stinky one.”

And after cracking one off in a childish manner, he giggled about it for several minutes.

“Right,” I said when he had recovered his composure, “so Friday will kill Gavin?”

“He will and he won’t. It’ll work out, you’ll see. You must have faith and remain true to the guiding principles within you. You didn’t get to be the director general of the ChronoGuard by luck. It was by your sense of justice, your selflessness—and being able to gauge cause simply by viewing the effect. Not one in a trillion can do that.”

“I don’t understand,” said Friday.

The Manchild rested his child’s hand on his visor. “You will, if only fleetingly. Sometimes we do our best work without even knowing it.”

“We’ve got to go,” I said, glancing at the battery indicator in my suit.

“I need to know more,” said Friday. “How does this have anything to do with averting HR-6984?”

“Everything. You’ll figure it out. Take a bottle of twelve-year whiskey with you and don’t worry too much about prison—the alternative is unthinkable. The other fourteen will thank you— or won’t, as it turns out. Oh, well,” he added, “time waits for no man, as they say.”

And he hobbled rapidly off. We watched him walk faster and faster as he moved past the cars and down the T-gradient toward where the main time engines were located, then vanished through some double doors.

We turned our backs and plodded painfully back toward the exit. I had badly underestimated the extra effort required to walk back up the dilation gradient, and even with Friday helping me it was slow going. We’d only gotten halfway across the car park when the power packs finally failed. We purged the suits and found ourselves five hours away. It took us only ten minutes to walk to the main gate and the demonstrators, but we lost another forty minutes in the process—it was now past ten o’clock at night. I was sweating buckets and had to be helped out of the suit, trying hard not to scream with the pain.

“How was the Manchild?” asked George.

“Good for another ten years—his time,” I said.

They all looked solemn.

“He said he wanted to be buried in the churchyard next to his mother,” said another of the villagers in a respectful tone. “I’d best book a funeral for the spring.”

I called Landen on the landline to tell him we were okay, which was just as well, as he was beginning to worry, and he reported that another St. Zvlkx book had been vandalized in a private collection in Guildford. There had been two Special Library Services guards on duty supplied by the Surrey Bentalls Center for All Your Shopping Needs Library Service, and they were now both in hospital—one on the critical list.

Friday and I recovered with tea and some specially baked scones, kindly prepared for us by the villagers, and we then headed back toward town.

“What did he mean,” said Friday after we had driven along in silence for ten minutes, “about ‘Sometimes we do our best work without even knowing it’?”

“I don’t know, Sweetpea,” I said, already drifting off into an exhausted drowse. “Why not sleep on it? I know I’m going to.”