Free The Alchemist's Key by Traci Harding

us, if you catch my drift. Only that scenario could explain the candle lighting, the outstanding condition of the furniture, and the missing pool table.’
    Wade shook his head, certain that this simply could not have been the case. ‘My logic says it is far more likely that we were hallucinating, or —’
    ‘Rubbish! Why do you persist in clutching onto that conclusion, when there is no evidence to support it. The movie we were watching at the time would have played on if we were dreaming.’ The sound of the door creaking open silenced Andrew. Both men looked to the doorway, anticipating the cat’s entry. When Louisa walked in, however, Wade and Andrew released a disappointed sigh.
    ‘Well, thank you so much.’ She entered despite their reaction. ‘I am just here to apologise to you both for my behaviour this morning.’
    ‘Think nothing of it. The whole thing is forgotten.’ Wade rose from the computer to get Louisa out of his chambers, just in case the house had another strange episode planned for this evening.
    ‘If that is true,’ Louisa queried Wade, as he accompanied her to the door, ‘why are you so eager to be rid of me? Am I really such dreadful company?’
    ‘Heavens no.’ Wade paused in his course to assure her. ‘It’s just that I’m …’ he fished for an excuse.
    ‘Busy.’ Andrew helped the Baron out.
    ‘That’s absolutely right.’
    ‘And your chauffeur is helping you?’ Louisa sensed that she was not getting the whole truth.
    ‘Ah, yes. I am expanding young Andrew’s horizons,’ Wade informed her.
    ‘O-oh.’ Andrew spied the cat by the open music room door, and motioned Wade to it.
    Wade cursed upon sighting the animal and, much to Louisa’s confusion, he pushed her around behind him, as if to protect her from it.
    ‘Is it diseased or something?’ she wondered out loud, though it certainly looked healthy enough.
    As the cat disappeared out the door, Wade seated Louisa on his computer chair. ‘Wait here until we get back,’ he instructed sternly, motioning for Andrew to follow him.
    ‘What is going on?’ she appealed, exasperated by their boyish behaviour. As both men completely ignored her, Louisa decided to defy the Baron’s instruction and follow.
    ‘Holy moley, the great chamber,’ Andrew mumbled, wonderstruck to be standing in an entirely different room than the round gallery usually located here.
    The chamber, though of the same dimensions, was now squared off, and housed a large wooden dining table and chairs. Bare timber feature supports sustained the roof in place of the dome, and the marble floor had turned to lacquered timber.
    ‘What’s happened?’ Louisa gasped.
    ‘I thought I told you to —’ Wade, having turned to chastise her, noticed a blank wall where the doorway to the music room had been. ‘Oh shit!’ The little hallway was still there, though there was no door at the far end.
    Wade’s companions were just as alarmed to discover this.
    ‘We must be in a time before the music room existed.’ Andrew turned to eye their surroundings very carefully. ‘This looks like the musicians’ gallery, which hasn’t been in use since around the time of the restoration of Charles the Second.’
    ‘What does he mean?’ Louisa demanded to know, horrified beyond all reason.
    ‘Hey,’ Wade cautioned her. ‘I told you to stay put, you didn’t listen, so cope with the consequences.We don’t have any answers, so … Just stay close to us,’ he advised, in a more obliging fashion and followed Andrew back into the great chamber. ‘Did you see where the cat went?’
    ‘Ssh!’ Andrew set them all straining their ears.
    A loud thumping on the doors of the Great Hall startled the three of them out of their wits.
    ‘Quick, in the drawing room,’ Andrew urged, and all were quick to comply.
    The long gallery, located to the far end of this chamber, had vanished. Only the door to the bedchamber Hugh had occupied during his stay at Ashby remained.
    A guard