The Sixty-Eight Rooms (23 page)

She put the journal on the table next to the chair, where she could see it in the light. “Now, let’s see what we have here.” She opened to the first page. She had no difficulty reading the fancy French script. “Very interesting … hmmm … ah,” were her only comments for a few minutes. Then she sat back down in the chair, absorbed. Jack and Ruthie could do nothing but wait. They chewed the caramels quietly.

Finally, after reading many pages, Mrs. McVittie looked up at Jack, peering over her reading glasses with an intense gaze. “How did you come across this journal?”

The two of them had decided on a story, which Jack proceeded to tell. “My mother has a friend who brings us things whenever he travels. He just came back from France and brought us this. He said he bought it in a flea market in Paris.” Jack’s mom did, in fact, have a friend who brought them stuff from a flea market in Paris; that’s why he thought this might be a believable story.

“I see,” she said, and returned to the book. Ruthie had the distinct impression that Mrs. McVittie did not believe Jack. Not one bit.

“We’re doing a research project for school,” Ruthie
added. “We might include this book in it but we need to know what it says.”

“I see,” was all she said again. She continued reading, absorbed in the book.

Finally—after they had eaten many caramels—she looked up at Ruthie. “Well, you’ve been having quite an adventure with your ‘project,’ haven’t you?”

Ruthie wasn’t sure what she meant by this. “Well, we’ve been doing a lot of research.”

“You’ve done more than that, I would say.” She waited for them to say something but neither Jack nor Ruthie knew what that should be.

“What does it say?” Ruthie finally asked. “It’s a journal, isn’t it?” Then she thought she should tell Mrs. McVittie more. “We—Jack and I—we’re pretty sure it’s from the time of the French Revolution and we think we read the name Sophie Lacombe. But that’s all.”

“That’s all correct, but I suspect you know more about what’s written on these pages. What else do you think it says?”

Now they were thoroughly perplexed; what did Mrs. McVittie mean and why was she being so mysterious?

“We thought maybe it was about the experiences of a girl named Sophie,” Ruthie continued cautiously. “We noticed that the book ended in the middle of a page, like it just stopped, and we wondered if something had happened to her.” That was all true.

“That’s very interesting … you’re right. It is indeed a
very old book. And very valuable, I might add, if one were ever to sell it.” Jack and Ruthie looked at each other. That idea hadn’t occurred to them.

“I would never sell it!” Jack said adamantly.

“Of course not. You wouldn’t sell it because it’s not yours to sell, now, is it?” she said, her eyes like lasers on the two of them.

“We borrowed it to show you, that’s all, Mrs. McVittie,” Ruthie said.

Mrs. McVittie leaned forward. “I know you’ve only borrowed it, dear, dear Ruthie. But I’d like you to tell me—truthfully—where it came from.”

In fact, it came as a huge relief to tell someone. The whole story tumbled out of them so fast that they found themselves talking at the same time. They told Mrs. McVittie about finding the key, and how it made Ruthie shrink, and how it seemed to work only for Ruthie. They told her how they’d spent the night in the museum and about meeting Sophie and her tutor, about Ruthie hearing the voice of Christina of Milan, about Thomas and his mother, everything. They explained what they’d learned in the archives, and they told her they were desperate to find out what happened to Sophie.

Mrs. McVittie listened to it all, not missing a word of their tidal wave of a story. When they were finished, she clasped her hands together and said, “What a story!”

“You do believe us, don’t you?” Ruthie was petrified.

“It’s all totally true, Mrs. McVittie. We could prove it to you,” Jack said.

“Yes, dears, I do believe you,” she said, suddenly very serious. “I believe you for several reasons. The first is right here in this journal!” She ran her hand over the cover again, closing her eyes for a moment as though she were faraway in thought.

She continued. “I know from my years of experience with books that this is indeed a very old one—authentically from the French Revolutionary period. The wonderful thing about books is they speak to you; sometimes they tell you everything you need to know. This journal, for instance, tells about a young girl from the French nobility who led a life of complete, boring luxury until a chance meeting with two young Americans at a park in Paris.” She stopped at this point and let the importance of what she had said sink in. Jack and Ruthie were mirror images of each other, with their eyes wide and jaws dropped. “Yes, two young people named Jack and Ruthie!”

“What happened to her? Did she survive?” Jack asked.

“Thanks to you two, yes,” Mrs. McVittie answered. “Apparently you warned her of the coming revolution. How clever of you! And look at this.” She opened the journal to the last page. “You said the writing ended abruptly in the middle of a page, but the journal is complete!”

Ruthie gasped. “Jack, I thought I felt it warming in my hand when I closed it for the last time before we took it
out of the room. She must have written those entries and I was feeling it somehow!”

“That’s fantastic!” Jack exclaimed. “What else does it say?”

“She spent the years before and during the French Revolution in England, going to a convent school.”

“What’s that?” Ruthie asked.

“A boarding school run by nuns. She went to one of the few that existed in England, in a town called York. It was very common for aristocratic French families to send their daughters there to be safe. She also talks about a tutor she had, Monsieur Lesueur—”

“We met him too,” Ruthie interrupted.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “How marvelous! You’ll have to tell me more about him.” Mrs. McVittie was thrilled over this. “He left France before the revolution and went to America for a long time, sending letters to Sophie about his travels. When he returned to Europe, he continued as a teacher. But now back to Sophie.”

They listened closely while Mrs. McVittie recounted the tale of Sophie escaping the violence of the French Revolution, living in England, losing family members and friends to the guillotine and finally meeting a young man who, like her, had left France and come to England, though in his case it was to become a diplomat. They married and traveled around the world—including America—for his work. And then the story ended as she was about to leave with her husband for another country.

“So she didn’t have to marry someone her father chose for her!” Ruthie was happy about that.

“It appears not. She also sent letters to you two for a number of years and wrote sadly about how she never heard from you. But of course that would have been impossible.”

Ruthie sat on the floor, trying to let it all sink in. Sophie had made it—she’d survived the bloody French Revolution. And she’d remembered the two of them. She’d even written about them.

“Mrs. McVittie,” Jack started. “You said you believed us for several reasons. You told us two reasons: you can tell it’s really an old book, and what Sophie wrote about us. What are the other reasons?”

She looked at Ruthie. “Your friend is a good listener. He’s right.” She slowly stood up and walked over to a bookshelf near the middle of the room. She took down an old black-and-white photo and brought it over to them. Two young girls smiled from inside a silver frame. They seemed about Ruthie and Jack’s age. “That’s me and my sister in 1940.” They looked at the image but Ruthie didn’t see anything special about it.

“The building behind us is where the rooms were exhibited when they traveled to Boston; I grew up there. That was the very day we visited the Thorne Rooms. It was magic for us too.”

“Do you mean … real magic?” Ruthie asked, her eyes wide again.

“I do indeed! Like you, we found a key—my sister found it on the floor behind a curtain that kept the public from seeing the backs of the rooms. We figured out how to avoid the grown-ups’ seeing us and took turns sneaking into the rooms—she would place me in one and then we would reverse the roles. Neither of us had the idea to hold hands as you did. We were not as adventurous or clever as the two of you and we never met any people from times past. We just had that one afternoon. But it was breathtaking.”

“But what happened next?” Ruthie was dying to know.

“Nothing happened. That had been a temporary exhibition, so we couldn’t go back. The rooms were moved to Chicago and not permanently displayed at the Art Institute until the 1950s. And slowly the memory of that afternoon began to fade. It never disappeared completely; I just became less and less sure of whether it was real. My sister, being three years older, denied that it was anything other than a childhood game of make-believe we had played. I began to believe her. I think that’s why I’ve become such a collector of old books. I’ve been looking for something like this journal all of my life!”

Ruthie thought this was both amazing and slightly sad. “So when you saw the catalogue in my house that day and you said that the rooms were magic, you really meant it?”

“Deep down I guess I did. I thought I had convinced myself that my visit into the rooms had never happened. But there was something about the way you asked me what
I meant when I said the word
magic;
it was the first time in years that I had thought about the rooms. And I had to ask myself what I
had
meant when I said it.

“Over the past week, the memories of my childhood have been floating around in my head, a little more clearly than they have in years. But I still wasn’t sure if I believed my memory until the two of you walked in here today. When Jack took the journal out of the pillowcase, the minute I laid eyes on it I knew. I remember seeing that very book—a cover like that is hard to forget. I certainly remember being in that room!”

“Do you have any idea how the magic works?” Jack asked her. “I mean, we know Christina of Milan had the key made so she could be almost invisible. And we’re pretty sure she made it work only for girls. But we still have so many questions, like did Mrs. Thorne or her assistants make any of the magic happen?”

“And are there other magic objects?” Ruthie added.

“I’m afraid you know more than I,” Mrs. McVittie answered. “But I do think believing and wanting are necessary elements of the magic. I don’t think it would work on just anyone. From what you’ve told me, I suspect Mrs. Thorne—or at least one of her craftsmen—knew about the key. But if, as you say, it only works for girls, well—”

Ruthie interrupted her by saying, “Then Mrs. Thorne
must
have known!”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I think it’s a fair assumption,” Mrs. McVittie answered.

“That could explain how Thomas’s model became small,” Jack chimed in.

“And Sophie’s journal,” Ruthie added. “It’s all beginning to make sense.”

Mrs. McVittie smiled at them. “You might have to be content with
not
knowing all the answers.”

“But I thought you wanted to know the truth,” Ruthie said, feeling confused again.

“Truth is always precious. But mysteries are part of life—a wonderful part. You can’t always know everything.” She smiled as she added, “At my age, it’s much easier to understand that.”

They went back to Jack’s house and tried to finish writing their research paper, fast. They had each written sections of it already and Jack was putting it all together. Ruthie had a very hard time concentrating on the task while Jack pounded away on the keyboard. She was thinking about how Mrs. McVittie had lived all those years—and it was a lot of years—not being sure of her own memories. Ruthie felt overwhelmingly happy that they had helped her learn the truth.

After a while, Lydia brought them snacks. Ruthie noticed that she seemed distant, not her usual friendly self. She wasn’t on the phone today; instead, she was going through files and papers with a frown. It reminded Ruthie of her parents at tax time, only this wasn’t tax time. She
was old enough to recognize the look of financial trouble on the face of a grown-up.

“There,” Jack said, clicking on the print button. “That should get our grades back up!”

He shoved a brownie into his mouth. “Here,” he said, handing the report to her. “You can proofread it.”

While she read, Jack walked out to where his mom was working. The phone rang and Jack picked it up and handed it to Lydia. Ruthie couldn’t hear what they were saying but she saw Jack go from happy-go-lucky to slumped shoulders. Lydia put her arms around him. Ruthie was pretty sure she knew what that meant. As soon as she finished proofreading, Jack walked her home. He was unusually quiet all the way. She didn’t dare ask him what was wrong—she knew if he wanted to talk about it, he would.

Ruthie’s parents had a meeting to attend that evening after dinner. Before they left, she told them about Jack. “What if he has to move so far away that he can’t go to Oakton anymore? He’s my best friend!” She felt herself holding back tears. “And Jack would hate moving!”

Her dad gave her a hug. “Think about something else, sweetie. I’m sure it’s going to work out. You’ll see.”