The Golden Telescope

34 - THE MESSAGE

DUBLIN, IRELAND – PRESENT DAY

The four of them stood in silence.

"Okay, first of all..." Jack said but faltered, not really knowing where to start. "Wow," he said, looking down at the parchment on the coffee table in front of him."

He shook his head and looked at Bill. "I want to know how you did that, but," he stood up, looking at Arthur, "That message is really from Grandpa?"

Arthur, who stood just as silent as everyone else, merely stared at Jack for a few more moments before he finally shook himself and answered, "Um..." he licked his lips, "well, yes, Master Jack. It would appear so." He paused, his eyes passing over the parchment. "This implies that somehow Sir Edward is alive, but...where he is...?" Arthur trailed off, pulling the thin wire spectacles from his pocket. He looked down at them fondly. "But to learn that he is the one who sent the reading glasses... clever gent."

Bart stood up, backed into one of the stuffed chairs behind him, and dropped down into it. "This is just too much...!" he exclaimed, lifting the ball cap from his head and pushing his sandy bangs away from his face. "So, apparently, your grandpa wants to communicate with you through his reading glasses?" He was looking at Jack.

"That seems clear from the message," Bill interjected, and he also looked at Jack.

"Well, at least now I know whose eyes I was looking through in that vision, so that's kind of reassuring," he looked at Arthur, who was still holding the spectacles in his hand.

"Yes, that is encouraging, Master Jack," the butler started, "and apparently there is more information he wants to share with you..." Once again, he held the glasses out in Jack's direction.

Jack looked around at the others with a new look of resolve on his face.

"Okay, let's do this. But Bart, will you start that timer again? Pull me out if I don't come back on my own within 30 seconds."

Bart pulled his phone from his pants pocket and began swiping across the thing, and, after tapping a few times, he looked up. "Ready when you are."

Jack looked at Bill, who nodded encouragingly, then reached out and took the glasses from Arthur.

Immediately he found himself in the same office-like setting where he had been before.

This time, however, it was daylight outside. He was seated behind a large wooden desk and, looking down, the hands he gazed at were long and slender, with pale skin that thinly covered his bones. The nails were well-manicured, and there was a large gold ring on the right one, embossed with the same initials Jack had seen on the wax seal: EMP.

That hand lifted a quill from the surface of the desk and, reaching across, dipped it into a messy-looking inkpot. Securing a similar-looking sheet of parchment with the left hand, he began scratching out a message:

"Jack. You are in grave danger. Your aunts, Inez and Clara, believe I am dead. They had your parents murdered. They separated you three children for their evil purposes, and they have seduced Ethan. I am hiding in the past to protect myself from them. You present a threat to their objectives. You must master your abilities quickly. I will do what I can to help."

The hand sat the quill to the side and pushed the chair away from the desk. Standing up, Grandpa Edward began walking across the room, past the couch on his left and fireplace on his right, where a rectangular gilded mirror hung on the wall directly in front of him. As he came closer, Jack made out a face.

"Jack, Jack, are you okay?"