A creaking sound made her look up, and her gaze landed on a painting leaning on the mantelpiece. It was a small board depicting three figures, painted by a child. The technique wasn’t bad; superb for a child, she reflected as she admired with pleasure the young artist’s brushwork.
“It’s Rublev’sHoly Trinity,” said a now familiar young voice behind her.
“Yes, I know, thank you, young man. By the way, shouldn’t you knock before coming in?” she said, and saw that the boy wasn’t alone.
“But the door was open, wasn’t it?” he said to the three other children crowding behind him, who all nodded. “This is my sister, Teseris. She’s ten. This is Deka, he’s nine, and Eksi is the youngest, she’sonlyseven and a half. My name’s Septimus. But they’re not ourrealnames,” he said with a confidential look.
Miss Prim stared at the four siblings and was surprised at how different they were. Though little Deka had the same untidy blond hair as his older brother, the mischievous yet absolutely innocent expression on his face was quite unlike the thoughtful look of the boy who had met her on the porch. Nor was it easy to tell that the two girls were sisters. One possessed a serene, gentle beauty; the other radiated vivacity and charm.
Teseris suddenly whispered something in her older brother’s ear before asking softly: “Miss Prim, do you think it’s possible to step through a mirror?”
She looked at the child, dumbfounded, before realizing what she meant.
“I remember my father reading me that story before I went to sleep,” she said, smiling.
The little girl gave her brother a sideways glance.
“I told you she wouldn’tunderstand,” said the boy smugly.
Not knowing what to say, Miss Prim opened another suitcase and took out a jade-green silk kimono that she hung carelessly in the wardrobe. So this was dealing with children, she thought, a little ruffled. This was what the advert had been referring to, quite simply. Not pranks, or sweets, or fairy tales, but—who would have thought it?—mysteries and riddles.
“Do you like Rublev’s icon?” asked the boy, peering at some books poking out of one of the suitcases.
“Very much,” she said gravely, putting her items of clothing away one by one. “It’s a marvelous picture.”
Little Teseris looked up when she heard this.
“Icons aren’t pictures, Miss Prim. They’rewindows.”
She broke off from hanging up her dresses and looked at the girl uneasily. The man who ran this house had definitely gone too far with these children. At ten years of age you shouldn’t have such ridiculous ideas about icons and windows. It wasn’t a bad thing, of course not, it just wasn’t natural. Fairies and princesses, dragons and knights, poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, apple tart; in her opinion, this was what a child that age should take an interest in.
“So was it you who painted thiswindow?” she asked, trying to appear casual.
The girl nodded.
“She painted it from memory,” added her brother. “She saw it in the Tretyakov Gallery two years ago. She sat in front of it and refused to look at anything else. When we got home she started painting it all over the place. There are windows like this in every room.”
“That’s impossible,” said Miss Prim briskly. “No one could paint something like this from memory. Especially not a little girl of eight, as your sister would have been at the time. It’s just not possible.”
“But you weren’t there!” exclaimed little Deka with surprising vehemence. “How do you know?”
Without a word, she went over to the picture, opened her handbag, and took out a ruler and pair of compasses. There they were, there was no doubt about it: the octagon formed by the figures, the inner and outer circles, the shape of the chalice at the center.
“How did you do it, Teseris? You can’t possibly have painted it on your own, even with a reproduction to copy from. Someone must have helped you. Tell me the truth: was it your father, or your uncle, or whoever it is who looks after you?”
“No one helped me,” said the little girl quietly but firmly. Then, addressing her younger sister: “Did they, Eksi?”
“No one helped her. Shealwaysdoes things on her own,” Eksi solemnly confirmed, while at the same moment trying to balance on one leg.
Stunned by this sisterly show of defiance, Miss Prim did not insist. If these had been adults, her interrogation skills would have exposed the deception easily. But a child wasn’t an adult; there was a big difference between a child and an adult. A child might scream, cry noisily, react in some ridiculous fashion. And what would happen then? An employee who provokes to anger the most vulnerable members of the family on her first day at work can’t count on great prospects in the job. Especially—she shuddered—when she’d had the misfortune to enter the house in such an irregular fashion.
“And what were children as young as you doing in the Tretyakov Gallery? Moscow is a long way away.”
“We went there to study art,” replied Septimus.
“Do you mean with your school?”
The children looked at one another in delight.
