The Aunt Paradox (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

for her own purposes. This was likely to be our best, if not only, chance to gain control of the machine and learn how to fly it.”
    “But you must have some kind of plan. You do know all the dates Aunt C cadged from, don’t you?”
    “Yes, sir. She used the same day, month, and time of day for all her journeys. She only adjusted the dial for the year, visiting every one from 1903 to 1865 when she inherited this house from her grandmother.”
    “So you do have a plan.”
    “I would not go so far as to call it a plan, sir. My hope had been to take the machine to the week before Mrs Dean misappropriated it from Mr Wells, and convince him not to mention the machine’s existence to his aunt. But... with Mr Wells being no more, that is no longer an option.”
    “Can’t we undo Aunt C’s last journey and bring Bertie back to the land of the L?”
    “That is my hope, sir. Though I am undecided whether it is safer to start in 1865 and work forward, or start in 1903 and work back.”
    “Is there a difference?”
    “Potentially a significant difference, sir. We are going to cause the timeline to be rewritten thirty-nine times. A different order may result in different outcomes. And every time we materialise, we risk altering events by our very presence. Hold tight, sir. I am about to engage the spatial spinnaker.”
    The machine rose from the spectral drawing room and passed through the ceiling as though it wasn’t there. It was like travelling in one of those American elevators in a cage full of chain smokers. We emerged from the ceiling into an empty room on the first floor. Such was the size of the cobwebs, the room must have been closed up for years. Reeves pressed a button and our upward movement stopped instantly. He pressed another button and off we slid along a foggy horizontal plane. Reeves then used the wheel to steer the machine like an ordinary car.
    “Where are we going?” I asked. “Are we travelling through time yet?”
    “Not yet, sir. I’m attempting to locate Mrs Dean’s dressing room.”
    “Why?”
    “To minimise our interaction with the past, sir. Mrs Dean used the wine cellar for her journeys—”
    “Until the incident with the turnips.”
    “Indeed, sir. She parked the machine in the cellar and then proceeded to walk though the house. We cannot risk that, as our presence, should we be discovered, would cause considerable comment.”
    “I see. Won’t our presence in Aunt C’s dressing room cause even more?”
    “Not with this machine, sir. We can make sure the room is empty before we materialise.”
    Reeves’ attention to detail is legendary.
    “I can see that the jewellery box might be located in this dressing room, Reeves, but what about the tenners? Don’t we have to get them into the uncle’s pocket?”
    “I’m hoping that Mr Dean has a dressing room too, sir. In which case, we can leave the ten-pound note on his dresser. He will think that his wife has had second thoughts and returned it. At least one hopes he does.”
    Reeves sounded a touch uncertain, not, perhaps, as uncertain as Babbage’s cat, but then Reeves hadn’t been put in a box. I decided it was time for the young master to take the initiative.
    “So, Reeves, 1865 or 1903? Shall we toss for it?”
    “No, sir. I think, on balance, the safest option is to reverse the path followed by Mr Wells’ aunt.”
    That sounded sage advice to me. Whatever an aunt does, do the reverse.
    We passed through a bedroom and into a smaller room which looked a good candidate for Aunt C’s dressing room. Two pairs of ladies’ shoes by a cupboard door confirmed the hunch.
    “Brace yourself, sir. I am about to engage the temporal engine.”
    Reeves turned a dial and clicked it back to 1865. He then pulled one lever forward, pushed two others back, and pressed a large red button. A pulsing, spinning noise came from behind us.
    I braced myself. The ghostly dressing room dissolved in an instant. Everything went grey and swirly. There