It was just as before, though nothing in this life ever is just as before, and the repeats, however similar, are not identical; the tiny difference between two moments holds the clue.
She had been there for centuries, it seemed, under the canopy of the oak, living in the roots of the oak, burning her mysterious fire that needed no fuel yet roared red.
What a figure the woman was – so small she could have lived in a box. So thin that she could have escaped from a hole in a box. Her mouth was as empty as an empty box, and her eyes were as full of secrets as a box that says DO NOT OPEN. She was not a human, not a fish, not a cat, not a dog, not a monster, not a devil, not a born thing, not anything. She was all manner of things. She was Mother Midnight.
Jack and Silver went down the low corridor and sat at the table that was made from the tree. There was the copper bowl filled with green water.
‘You must pay me,’ said Mother Midnight, but Jack had no money.
‘What have you in your pockets?’ she said, and Jack turned out nothing but the five remaining sunflower seeds.
Mother Midnight stretched out her leathery palm. ‘The price is two,’ she said, and Jack gave them to her.
‘I will help you,’ said Mother Midnight, ‘but bring in the yellow child from the cart. There is always danger.’
Jack went to get Crispis. Mother Midnight stared at Silver.
‘I know you,’ said Mother Midnight. ‘You are old.’
‘I am thirteen,’ said Silver, ‘and I don’t know you.’
Mother Midnight laughed. ‘You, you have been alive and you will be alive again.’
Silver didn’t like the sound of this. ‘I am alive now,’ she said.
Mother Midnight shook her head. ‘Yet not in this time. In this time you are but a visitor from another time.’
‘Yes,’ said Silver. ‘Who called me?’
‘The Radiant Boy calls the Golden Maiden.’
‘Is that why I am here?’ asked Silver. ‘It’s just that, on the river, I saw . . . thought I saw, might have seen –’
But before she could speak further, Jack came back with Crispis. The yellow boy sat down by the red-eyed cat.
‘My mother has been turned to stone!’ said Jack.
Mother Midnight nodded. ‘The power you do possess that can free her body from the stone, but you must break the power of the Magus, and from that victory all else shall follow.’
‘How am I to defeat him? He has cheated me of my power already!’
‘Power you have, and it will grow as you use it. Are you not strong in body? Stronger than any man?’
Jack thought of lifting the stone statue of his mother, and rescuing Crispis. He nodded.
Mother Midnight nodded. ‘Now you will learn how to be strong in spirit. Then you will defeat him.’
‘There isn’t time!’ said Jack. ‘He’s in the city, he took my power, he turned my mother to stone, he’s going to turn the whole city into gold!’
Mother Midnight held up her gnarled hand. ‘Be calm! Follow the time and you will know the time – this girl, the Golden Maiden, will be your timekeeper. She will tell you when what must begin will begin.’
‘Riddles, all riddles!’ cried Jack. ‘The Magus, the Dragon, you . . .’
And he stood up, agitated and angry. He wanted someone to tell him what to do and how to do it.
‘You will see me again,’ said Mother Midnight, ‘but now, get gone!’
The fire roared up. The cat jumped on to the shoulders of his eerie mistress and Jack and Silver and Crispis crept out of the low den and into the bustle of the alley.