“There are a great many rooms here,” the Keeper says. “I must request that you be more specific.”
Simon explains the location of the door, describes the flaming heart upon it.
“Ah,” the Keeper says. “That door. Access to that room is not permitted. My apologies.”
“That door wasn’t locked before,” Simon protests. “I need to get back to Lenore.”
“Who?” the Keeper asks, and now Simon senses that the Keeper understands perfectly well what is going on. He has mentioned Lenore before, when he took Sweet Sorrows home. He doubts the Keeper’s memory is so poor.
“Lenore,” Simon repeats. “She lives down here, she is my height, she has dark hair and brown skin and she wears silver rabbit ears. You must know who I mean. There is no one like her, not anywhere.”
“We have no resident by that name,” the Keeper says, coolly. “I’m afraid you must be confused, young man.”
“I am not confused,” Simon insists, his voice louder than he intended. A cat on a chair in the corner wakes from its nap and glares at him before stretching and jumping down and exiting the office.
The Keeper’s glare is worse than the cat’s.
“Mister Keating, what do you know about time?” he asks.
“Pardon?”
The Keeper adjusts his spectacles and continues.
“I will assume what you know of time is based on how it works above, where it is measurable and relatively uniform. Here, in this office and the places nearest to the anchor in the center of the Heart, time works much the same as it does up there. There are…places…farther and deeper from this location that are less reliable.”
“What does that mean?” Simon asks.
“It means if you encountered someone whom I have no record of it is because they have not been here yet,” the Keeper explains. “In time,” he adds, to clarify.
“That’s absurd.”
“The absurdity of the matter does not make it less true.”
“Let me back in that room, please, sir,” Simon pleads. He does not know what to make of all this talk of time, he wishes only to return to Lenore. “I am begging you.”
“I cannot. I am sorry, Mister Keating, but I cannot. That door has been closed.”
“Unlock it, then.”
“You misunderstand me,” the Keeper says. “It has not been locked, it has been closed. It will no longer open, not for any key. It was a necessary precaution.”
“Then how do I find her again?” Simon asks.
“You may wait,” the Keeper suggests. “It may be a period beyond waiting, I cannot say.”
Simon says nothing. The Keeper sits at his desk and straightens a pile of books. He brushes a layer of blotting powder from his open ledger.
“You may not believe me, Mister Keating, but I understand how you feel,” the Keeper says.
Simon continues to protest and argue with the Keeper but it is the most infuriating type of ar
gument as nothing he says, nothing he does, including kicking chairs and throwing books, has any effect on the Keeper’s impervious calm.
“Nothing can be done,” the Keeper says, repeatedly. He looks as though he dearly wants a cup of tea but does not want to leave Simon to his own devices. “It must have been a rift in time that you stumbled upon. Such things are volatile and must be sealed.”
“I was going into the future?” Simon asks, trying to understand. A clandestine underground library is one thing, traveling through time is another.
“Possibly,” the Keeper answers. “More likely you were both passing through a space that had loosened itself from the bounds of time. A place where time did not exist.”