Walking the Labyrinth Read Online Free PDF Page B

started to put it back. Something was taped to the underside, a large manila envelope. Probably empty, after all I’ve been through , Molly thought. But her fingers were trembling as she pulled it off.
    She opened the envelope and took out a yellowing pamphlet. “A History of the True and Antient Order of the Labyrinth,” the cover said. “A Lecture by Lady Dorothy Westingate, Adept of the Eighth Grade. London, 1884.”
    The pages inside were filled with small, barely legible print. “I’d like to thank all those who provided me with this platform from which to disseminate the fruits of my years of research, in particular the Master of our Order, Lord Harrison Sanderson, and his wife Lydia,” Molly read. “In this lecture I intend to prove the antient and legitimate ancestry of our Order, and to defend it against those quarrelsome members of other orders who claim for us an existence of only ten years.”
    Molly began to skim. Lady Westingate did not seem to think in paragraphs; each page was a solid block of type. “All around us lies the evidence of a race of labyrinth-builders,” Molly read. “The Cretan Palace of Minos … the Druids, the age-old Masters of India, the inhabitants of the drowned cities of Atlantis … an aura of the most spotless blue … a task for which our souls have laboured through many lifetimes.” The abbreviation of the name of order, “OotL,” was always printed in boldface, and had smeared in several places.
    Molly read on. “One proof, however, I am prepared to give, and that is the ineluctable fact of our magick. We of the OotL are able to create and destroy, to bind and to loose, to bend the world to our will. There is no other order in all of Britain, I daresay in all the world, that is able to do this. Our guides in the spirit realm, revealed to us by our guide upon this Earth, Miss Emily Wethers, have shown us miracles that no man can deny: we have all seen them. We alone hold the wisdom that has descended to us through the ages.”
    “Molly!” Fentrice called.
    Only now did Molly feel as if she had intruded on something private. She put the pamphlet in the envelope and taped the envelope to the false bottom, then put the bottom back and quickly replaced the clothes and jewelry. “Yes?”
    “I’ve found the scrapbook,” Fentrice said. “Where are you?”
    Molly closed and latched the trunk. She stood. “I’m coming, Aunt Fentrice,” she said, and hurried downstairs.
    “Look at this,” Fentrice said, sounding disgusted with herself. She sat at the oak table in the kitchen with the open scrapbook in front of her. “It was in with my cookbooks.”
    Molly sat next to her. “There—that’s Callan, your grandfather,” Fentrice said. “And this is me—can you believe I was ever so young?”
    “And who’s that?” Molly asked, pointing to a woman on the other side of Callan.
    “Do you know, I think that’s Thorne. Yes, it must be. I don’t think we look anything alike—that young man Andrew must be seeing things.”
    Not so young anymore, Molly thought. “Where did you get the tiger?”
    “The tiger—let me think. Callan rescued her from another act, I believe. That’s right. They had mistreated her dreadfully—it took her a long time before she would trust anyone but Callan. Several people in the act wanted us to leave her behind.”
    Fentrice turned the page. Molly saw a candid black-and-white photo of her aunt sitting at a bench at a train station, a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
    “When did you quit smoking?” Molly asked.
    “A few years before you were born, I think. We didn’t know smoking was harmful in those days—in fact, we believed it was good for us. I could never understand why it was so hard for me to climb a flight of stairs.”
    The next photograph showed an old woman bent over a table. It took a moment for Molly to realize that she was playing pool. “Ah,” said Fentrice. “That’s my grandmother. Neesa