(First two chapters - introduces the protagonist and antagonist, setting, and inciting incident)
Chapter One
“Don’t touch that!”
Michael’s hand froze in mid-air, poised next to the prominent nose of a giant stone head. Gwendolyn ran over and grabbed her brother’s arm, yanking him away from the statue. While she was sure the Colossal Granite Head of King Amenhotep III was firmly anchored to the pedestal, she had no desire to test it.
They backed off to a safe distance and she breathed a sigh of relief, releasing his arm from her grip. The last thing she needed was a cross British Museum curator seeking damages over the ruination of a priceless artefact.
“You can’t touch anything, you should know that by now.”
Michael shrugged and then slipped his hand in Gwendolyn’s by way of an apology. “I just wanted to see what it felt like.”
She sighed and pulled him out of the Egyptian gallery under the watchful eye of the museum attendants, who were used to seeing the two of them around. For a few years now, their mother had decided to use the British Museum as a form of childcare, assuming that nothing bad could happen to her children in an institution filled with educated museum-goers. And the price was right—zero pounds being about all she could afford.
They wandered over to the room reserved for temporary exhibitions and Gwendolyn gave a squeeze of Michael’s hand when she saw it was finally open—the sign advertising the exhibit Ancient Jewelry from Mesopotamia to the Renaissance had enticed her for weeks.
In the exhibit hall, she made a beeline for the first display case, her eyes instantly drawn to an array of elaborate pendants from the sixteenth century. Ornate crosses encrusted with sapphires, rubies, and emeralds hung around long gold chains. A diamond shaped pendant featured pearls and sapphires set against a background of enamel, and while the pearls had lost some of their lustre, the sinuous gold filigree had been polished until it glinted under the lighting.
As she marvelled at the intricacy of the pieces, Michael called her over. He stood at a case farther in the room, pointing to something inside the display. “That one looks like the bracelet I gave you.”
She came up beside him, peering at the item near where his finger was pressed against the glass. She rolled up her jacket sleeve and examined the bracelet around her left wrist. It was indeed similar―the same white cowrie shells, the same deep blue lapis lazuli beads. “You didn’t give it to me,” Gwendolyn corrected him. “You just found it in a box in the attic.”
“Still counts,” Michael said. He walked on, tracing his small hands along the glass, leaving a smear of fingerprints, then halted in front of another display and studied it closely. “Why does everything in this case look so much newer than the one over there?”
She came to look over his shoulder. The display contained a variety of elaborate earring and necklace sets, bracelets and brooches, and an amazingly preserved wooden jewelry box from 2025 BC. The items gleamed under the lights, not dulled from time and wear. A small placard in the corner of the glass read: On loan from the collection of the International Agency for the Regulation of Time Travel.
Gwendolyn’s eyes widened. She had heard that the Agency had an extensive collection of artefacts—all brand new, so to speak, brought back straight from the source—but this was the first time the British Museum had had any on display. Images flooded her mind as she pictured the jewelry box being whisked through time in the pockets of an Agency employee, or a time travel tourist who had stumbled upon it while exploring the ancient streets of Alexandria, and who wanted to secure a unique memento from their vacation. She dreamed of one day being able to do the same, to see these objects come to life in their natural setting, as they had been intended to be viewed, but she knew it was just a fantasy. To travel back in time as a tourist cost a fortune, so she’d have to settle with living vicariously through news stories and exhibits like this one.
“Well, it sort of is newer,” she replied. “People went back in time and brought these home, but those other items,” Gwendolyn gestured behind her to where they had been standing, “aged over thousands of years.”
She watched her brother as he studied the display—his gaze was focused, intense, his little forehead creased in concentration. How much would she love it if he turned out to have the same fascination for history as her, if all these afternoons spent exploring the galleries rubbed off on him in the same way. But she feared their days at the museum were numbered. She was almost thirteen—old enough to shoulder the burden of looking after Michael alone, or so their Mum said. But Gwendolyn didn’t see it as a burden.
“How much do you think it’s worth?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’m not sure you can put a value on things like this, they’re probably priceless.”
Michael cocked his head. “That’s not true. Everything has a price.”
She looked down at him. Such an odd thing for a ten year old to say.
She moved further into the hall to see the rest of the exhibit, but Michael stayed rooted in place, as if transfixed by the display. After a while she glanced at her watch—it was later than she thought. Their Mum would be outside soon, waiting to pick them up.
“Come on,” she said, steering Michael by the shoulders towards the exit. His gaze lingered on the display one final time, as if trying to imprint it on his memory. “Time to go.”
Chapter Two
Five Years Later
Gwendolyn looked up from the mobile in her hand to the house in front of her. She had the right address, she was sure of it. But was this really the place Michael had chosen? He usually went after far higher-value targets. Nothing about the home in front of her said there was anything of worth to be found inside—the red brick façade crumbled in sections, enough paint had chipped off the window frames that a layer of mould could be seen growing on the bare wood, and weeds sprouted up between the stone slabs leading to the front door. It all suffered from a severe lack of attention.
The deciding factor was the dark object she spotted on the path leading down the left side of the house.
A glove. And it looked suspiciously like the ones she had given Michael last year at Christmas.
She sighed and put his phone inside her shoulder bag. She was no longer surprised at the trouble Michael got himself into, but it was infuriating that she cared more about the consequences of his actions than he did. Never mind that he had already been cautioned more times by the police than she could keep track of—nothing seemed to deter him. At least this time he had forgotten his mobile at home and she had seen the text from his friend pop up, confirming the address where things were going “to go down” this evening. It was the first time she ever had the chance to stop him from doing something stupid before he actually did it.
Or at least, she hoped she had gotten here in time.
She glanced up and down the street—it was quiet and no one seemed to be watching. She gingerly lifted the latch of the front gate, cringing as the hinges gave out a metallic squeak. She went and retrieved the glove: it had a tell-tale frayed hem from that time Michael had snagged it on a nail jumping over a metal fence to escape an irritated pawnbroker from whom he had just stolen a bunch of vintage jewelry.
She put the glove in her bag, trying to temper her mounting frustration. She set her hands on her hips and debated what to do. He had obviously been here, but where was he now? She had run over as soon as she saw the text, and while she had no idea how long it took to burgle a house—minutes? hours?—it seemed there was a good chance he was still inside.
If so, she needed to stop him from taking anything. One more incident and he would be in serious trouble with the police. He might not care, but she couldn’t let that happen. She knew him better than anyone and he wasn’t a bad kid. He made dumb decisions, for sure, but he wasn’t out to hurt anyone.
She walked along the side of the house to the back. The large garden, once well-tended, demonstrated the same amount of benign neglect as the front. The grass hadn’t been mowed in weeks and the tall, ornamental stone pedestals interspersed across the yard held flower pots displaying contents that had wilted and were starting to brown. In the dim evening light, Gwendolyn could make out another gate at the far end of the yard, leading to a lane separating the houses.
A conservatory jutted out at a perpendicular angle from the back of the house, and she saw that one of the windows was open, a crowbar lying in the grass just below. She ran her hand along the frame and felt the ridges in the splintered wood. It was old and no longer latched correctly—an easy access point.
She leaned her head inside, listening for signs of life. Maybe it was her imagination, or maybe she was willing herself to hear something because she wanted to get her hands on Michael, but she thought she heard a soft thud, almost as if something had been dropped.
The window was more than big enough for her to fit through, and she hoisted herself up and over before she had a chance to think better of it.
The conservatory led into a large kitchen, tidy but stuffy, as if fresh air hadn’t circulated for some time. She stepped through to a hallway that extended the length of the house, the inset window in the front door providing just enough light for her to see by. The silence was punctuated by a ticking clock somewhere near by, but that was it. No sound of belongings being rifled through, nothing that would indicate another human was in the house.
But she had to be sure. She inched down the hall, stepping as softly as she could. It felt wrong to be in someone’s house without their knowing, but there was an odd adrenaline rush to it, too. Was this what compelled Michael? Like that time that he broke into that other house but got away with it by claiming he was escaping from a street gang trying to mug him?
An image on the wall caught the corner of her eye and she stopped to peer closer. It was a sketch of a ballerina, standing en pointe with a hand resting on a barre, leg outstretched in front of her. The lines were wispy, as if done in a hurry, but skillfully rendered against the beige-toned paper. It reminded her of the Degas paintings she had studied in her History of Art class.
Hanging next in line on the wall was a painting very similar in style to Monet’s famous water lilies, with bursts of pink petals blurred against a backdrop of dark blue water and verdant reeds. She followed the line of paintings and sketches, studying each as she moved down towards the front door. By the time she reached the end, she was looking at a drawing of a woman with long, voluminous hair and an angular face, the unmistakable signature of Picasso in the bottom right corner.
She dug her phone out of her bag and turned on the flashlight, stepping back to scan the line of paintings once more. These works weren’t copies of well-known paintings, but they were similar in style. Too similar. As if these were preparatory images an artist would make on the road to creating their great masterpiece.
She’d bet all the money from Michael’s next successful heist that these were originals, done by famous artists. And if there was this much valuable art on just one wall, what else was in this house?
Another soft thud sounded from the room at the end of the hall, and this time she knew she wasn’t imagining it. “Michael?” she whispered.
No response.
She walked to the door of the room and placed her hand on the knob, hoping she wasn’t about to burst in on the owner of the house. She pushed it open.
It was a study, with dark wood panelled floor-to-ceiling shelves. A large desk was situated in front of the window overlooking the street. As she stood in the doorway, a movement out of the corner of her eye made her freeze. Then something soft and warm brushed against her ankle and she looked down—a black cat snaked its way in between her legs, sniffing at her shoes. She exhaled and bent down to pet it, but it darted out into the hallway.
Her heart rate slowed and she shone her flashlight around the room to make sure nothing else hid in the shadows, but what she saw made her mouth fall open. It was like a gallery within the British Museum—a vast collection of artefacts was arranged on the shelfs, each one containing a series of small stone sculptures, perfectly preserved fossils, ivory carvings depicting animals and gods and goddesses—all kinds of artefacts were on display. It must have spanned centuries.
She turned the beam of light from her phone to the first shelf on her left, which contained a number of glass and ceramic pieces. She picked up a dark blue translucent glass jug and ran her finger along the raised carvings of white opaque glass depicting vines laden with bunches of grapes, and the most exquisitely carved birds she had ever seen. Turning it over she saw a piece of tape attached to the bottom that read “Pompeii, 79 AD.” Ever so delicately she placed it back on the shelf.
Michael had chosen this house carefully. A real connoisseur lived here, someone with a serious collection. Which meant this wasn’t just petty thievery—her brother could get himself into big trouble.
She turned and was about to leave when she saw the desk stacked high with papers. Never able to resist reading anything she could get her hands on, she walked over to take a peek. Inside the top folder, her eyes were drawn to an old typewritten document labelled MOST SECRET in red across the top of the page. She angled the light from her phone to read, “A most serious situation has arisen here. S.I.S, without any previous consultation with me, have sent a former French subject, Claire, with a Royal Navy Commission for secret service. She has apparently divulged many secrets of British S.S. activities in Spain and elsewhere.”
All thoughts of Michael were gone as Gwendolyn rooted further through the stack of documents, each file containing more secret intelligence reports and espionage activities, all from the Second World War. There were decrypted German communications, telegrams and cables to and from the Prime Minister himself. It was all primary source material, the sort of thing she read about in her history text books but had never seen first hand. Who was this person that lived here, and what were they doing with all this material? Before she realized what she was doing, she put away her phone and turned on the desk lamp, freeing up her hand to better read through the documents.
At the top of another pile, Gwendolyn noticed an old, creased piece of paper. Unfolding it, she found a pen and ink map of southern Germany. Bold red lines zigzagged across the southeastern part of the country, and black dots labelled certain locations as “espaces souterrains cachés”—hidden underground spaces. What had they been used to hide? Some handwritten notes in the margin indicated it had been made by a member of the French resistance in 1944 from information gathered by French and British intelligence.
A car door slammed outside, making Gwendolyn jump. Turning to look out the window, she could see the flashing lights of a police car through the branches of an oak tree.
Panic jolted through her body. She fumbled to turn off the lamp, then watched a policeman make his way through the front gate. She cursed herself for losing track of time. How was she going to get out of this?
She tiptoed into the hall, where she could see the policeman’s head through the frosted glass window of the front door.
“Police!” The officer banged on the door.
She hurried down the hallway towards the kitchen, stepping as lightly as she could. But in the darkness her hip collided with something hard. She inhaled sharply at the pain and then cringed as something clattered to the floor.
She didn’t stop to see what it was or whether the policeman had heard. Crossing the kitchen she entered the conservatory, prepared to jump back out the window when she saw the door. It was only as she reached up to unlock it that she realized she was still clutching the map, now wrinkled in her vice-like grip.
More pounding on the front door.
Her heart beat fast and loud in her ears. She couldn’t go back to the study to return the map, but nor did she want to just toss it on the floor and leave it as evidence she had been snooping around. She thrust it deep into her bag and then raced out the door. She would mail it back later.
The back garden was almost completely dark, but she remembered the gate she had seen earlier that led out to the lane. Hands stretched out in front of her, she started to feel her way forwards, moving as quickly as she dared.
Then she tripped over a garden hose.
Her arms flailed, knocking over a flower pot perched atop one of the high stone pedestals. It smashed to pieces on the stone pathway.
Gwendolyn landed alongside the broken pot, twisting her ankle in the process and cutting her hands on the shards of pottery. Gasping at the sharp pain emanating from her right foot, she tried to stand but her ankle was unable to bear her weight. It was then, hearing a police officer approach and the beam from his flashlight hovering over her face, that she knew she was caught.
