Secrets of the Starlit Sea

Book 2: Timeslider

by Santa Montefiore

Genres: Sagas; Historical Mysteries; Ghost; Mystery

Synopsis

Don't miss the next book in the enthralling new series from the number one bestselling author Santa Montefiore - coming soon!

'Santa Montefiore really knows these people inside and out. I couldn't put this book down' JULIAN FELLOWES, creator of Downton Abbey

The moment Pixie Tate steps inside the opulent Aldershoff Hotel in Manhattan, one of the last relics of New York's Gilded Age, she senses instantly that its elegant walls hide a dark secret.

Pixie knows that she must use her unique gift to travel back in time in order to discover the mysteries of the past, and as she slips back over a hundred years, she's shocked to find herself in the midst of one of the most famous events in history.

As the stars twinkle overhead, Pixie realises that time is running out. But when she comes face-to-face with a man she thought she'd lost forever, will she keep her promise to save only the souls she should - or is it too late, and has she already changed the future?

Secrets of the Starlit Sea is an epic and stunningly romantic time-travel mystery, and the second book in Santa Montefiore's sensational new series.

Readers love Santa Montefiore...


'Hurry up Santa and write another!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Just WOW...' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Santa Montefiore's books are amazing!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Lots of twists and turns, I couldn't put it down' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Brought tears to my eyes' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'A treasure you will want to read over and over' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: July 17, 2025

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 368

Sample

It was midnight when the four ladies made their way purposefully through the Aldershoff Hotel’s lobby towards the Walter-Wyatt drawing room, which lay on the other side of an imposing pair of white double doors. Light bounced off the marble floor and threw into relief the original French-inspired mouldings that adorned the ceilings and walls, and the grand sweeping staircase, once one of the finest in New York, that dominated the hall. If one was unaware of the time, it could easily have been the middle of the day, owing to the brightness of the electric lights and the various guests who sat in the comfy velvet chairs dotted about the lobby, staring into their smartphones. The slick young man at Reception did not detain the women, for Mr Stirling, the owner, had made it clear that they had important business to attend to and were not to be disturbed. The drawing room, therefore, had been reserved exclusively for their use, even though it was unlikely to be in high demand at this time of night.

Alma Aldershoff-Blanchett-Carrington, granddaughter of the great William Aldershoff who had built this faux-seventeenth-century French chateau in 1872, moved surprisingly fast for a woman in her late nineties. She supported herself with a silver-handled walking stick personally designed for her grandfather by Thomas Brigg & Sons of London back in the 1890s. Petite in both stature and bone, her demeanour however was far from frail. Dressed in a perfectly tailored black trouser suit, heavy gold chains at her throat and wrists, Alma had the air of a recalcitrant queen, shoulders back and chin held high, for as a child she had raced over this very floor and scampered up that very staircase, and she still felt a deep sense of ownership. Although her mother had sold the grand house after her father’s death in 1931, the fifteen-year-old Alma had never really got over its loss, or how the developers had, in her view, ripped out the very heart of her family home. Renovated, renewed and remodelled over the subsequent eight decades, it had morphed into a private members’ club, a museum, and, finally, this hotel – The Aldershoff. If the great William Aldershoff had been alive to witness such an affront to his masterwork, Alma was sure it would have done him in.

Alma was still striking. Her hair, once a luscious brown, was now completely white and fastened into a loose updo held by a diamond comb once belonging to her grandmother, the famous doyenne of Gilded Age society, Mrs William Aldershoff, known to her friends as Didi. Besides jewellery, with which Alma adorned her person in a feverish desire to connect herself to the past, and the heirlooms that she crammed into her small Brooklyn apartment, Alma had inherited the formidable Aldershoff chin and piercing blue eyes, and the strong, uncompromising will to go with them. She was accompanied by her daughter, Leona Croft, a fey and mousey woman of sixty-four who had inherited few of the Aldershoff genes and was meek and compliant, with an over-anxious desire to please, and her two dear friends, Phyllis de Vere and Bonnie McAllister, who trailed behind her like a pair of aged bridesmaids.

Alma strode into the drawing room and stood before a sturdy round table fashioned out of polished walnut, which had been cleared of the floral display and glossy decorative books for her clandestine purpose. She appraised the room with a critical gaze and inhaled contemptuously through her aquiline nose. It had once been her father’s library but was nothing like it used to be. They had long since taken out the bookshelves and covered the walls in green silk and what she considered, disdainfully, ‘fashionable’ art. She didn’t think much of the modern décor, but nothing could compare to the Gilded Age when her grandmother had bought antiques from Paris and Vienna with which to embellish her magnificent home. Alma could see her father now in his immaculate three-piece suit, tailored at Kaskel & Kaskel, seated behind his desk in a tall-backed leather armchair, ink pen in hand, papers piled high. He had worn spectacles and a grave expression – Walter-Wyatt Aldershoff had rarely smiled, burdened alas by the weight of his inheritance and the responsibility that had come with it.

‘Put the box here,’ Alma said, gesticulating at the table with a hand more used to commanding staff.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, Alma?’ asked Phyllis nervously, small brown eyes watching Leona put down the faded blue box she’d been carrying reverently through the hotel as if it contained the Ark itself.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ Alma replied curtly. For a tiny woman she had the voice of a giant. She sniffed her approval, for Mr Stirling had done as requested and arranged four chairs around the table and put a candle in the centre. The candle was of the utmost importance. Alma had been quite specific, although she hadn’t disclosed what she intended to do. She didn’t imagine Mr Stirling would understand, being a pragmatic man. She’d simply told him that she was bringing her daughter and two friends to partake in an old family tradition, which she always celebrated at this time of year, at this precise hour and in this particular room that had once belonged to her dear father. Mr Stirling had not questioned her further – after all, she wasn’t asking for the moon, simply the use of one of their drawing rooms, and he had only recently bought the hotel, so he had no reason to doubt that she was telling the truth. Who was he to deny an old lady such a simple request? Besides, he was impressed that she was the granddaughter of the great William Aldershoff, no less. That had given her great authority. She had reminded him that she had grown up here as a child and he had immediately respected her ties to the place. Satisfied that she was going to get away with it without anyone discovering the true nature of her purpose, she lifted her chin and tapped her stick on the carpet with impatience. ‘This is a last resort, Phyllis, and will not be discussed outside of this room – is that clear? I won’t have anyone thinking me a fool.’

‘Of course,’ said Phyllis.

‘No one would think you a fool, Alma,’ Bonnie added.

Leona said nothing; she knew better than to challenge her mother.

Alma noticed that Mr Stirling had also seen to it that the curtains were closed, shutting out the night and any prying eyes that might be curious to see what the ladies were up to. If she remembered rightly, the curtains had been made of a rich red velvet in her father’s day.

At the memory of those curtains, Alma felt a sudden stab of anguish and put a hand to her breast. Oh, the opulence! The grandeur! The sheer splendour of the mansion as it had been then – the crystal chandeliers, the paintings by the great Italian and Flemish artists, the sculptures, ornaments, furniture, imported from all over the world as far away as China. Gone now. Sold at auction years ago. Vanished with a vanished world. These days, the names Vanderbilt, Astor and Rockefeller – and, indeed, Aldershoff – were merely legends of a bygone age of elegance and excess that had emerged after the Civil War and risen to greatness like a magnificent phoenix out of the ashes of conflict. Alma felt its loss keenly for by the time she was old enough to appreciate the power and influence the name Aldershoff carried, the new world with its desire for change had robbed it of its gilt.

‘Close the door, Bonnie,’ she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. ‘And dim the lights.’ She handed her daughter her walking stick and watched her lean it up against the wall – a wall that had once been an impressive library, the envy of New York. She couldn’t recall what had happened to all the books; perhaps they had been sold at auction with all the other beautiful and valuable things that had once embellished her life. It was awful to think about it, but the Aldershoff millions had dwindled over the decades following the introduction of income tax in 1913 and the subsequent dividing, wasting and unwise investing by Alma’s two late husbands, older sister and cousins. In three generations, William Aldershoff’s fortune had all but disappeared. Leona’s daughter and grandchildren had nothing, not even the name.

Alma waited while Bonnie and Phyllis seated themselves. Bonnie, full-bodied and big-breasted, groaned like a rusty old hinge, but Phyllis dropped her behind onto the seat without so much as a gasp. The three women looked to Alma to tell them what to do next.

‘Light the candle,’ she commanded. Obediently, Leona struck a match from the green glass match-striker Mr Stirling had considerately placed beside the candle, along with a small ashtray for the match. The flame flared momentarily, lighting up the apprehensive faces of Alma’s loyal acolytes. Their fearful eyes fell upon the blue box, fashioned out of wood like an ordinary paint box, as they waited with uneasy anticipation for the contents to be revealed. They knew it did not contain paints.

The candle was lit. The match discarded in the ashtray. Alma placed her hands on the box and spread her bony fingers, upon which inherited jewels glinted sharply. She inhaled through dilated nostrils and closed her eyes, as if basking in the sanctity of the moment. ‘This belonged to my grandmother, Didi Aldershoff, Leona’s great-grandmother,’ she said at last, and her voice was soft and low as her mind drifted down the well-trodden path into the past, which was bathed in the eternal, untarnished glow of nostalgia. ‘There was always great ceremony in its opening, for one must not play with these things. She would light a candle and say a prayer, wrapping us in angelic protection against dark entities who would take pleasure in doing us harm.’

Phyllis glanced at Bonnie, whose round eyes widened at the thought of dark entities. As if sensing collusion, Alma lifted her heavy lids and looked at them in turn, a fierce glimmer in her blue gaze. ‘It’s good to be a little afraid,’ she whispered. ‘It adds a suitable reverence to the ritual.’

Bonnie bit her lip as Alma flicked the two brass clasps and lifted the lid. Inside, the Ouija board looked innocuous enough. It certainly didn’t give the impression that it was about to leap out and bite them. However, it was painted in the muted colours of its time and the bold black numbers and letters were in a curvy font, which gave it a magical air. On the inside of the lid was a yellowed label that stated the name Haversham 1891, and the words The Mysterious Cabinet. Leona had seen it before, but Phyllis and Bonnie had not. They didn’t know what to expect and hoped Alma knew what she was doing. Stories of teenagers playing with Ouija boards did not on the whole end well.

Carefully, Alma lifted out the board. Leona put the box on the floor beside her chair, for it would not be needed. Alma slid the board into the middle of the table as her grandmother used to do. Bonnie and Phyllis studied it curiously. Painted in an arc was the alphabet and beneath it the numbers 0 to 9. Under the numbers were the words Goodbye and Hello. In the top-left corner was Yes. In the top-right corner was No. The planchette was made out of wood in the shape of a giant teardrop, with a circular hole carved into the fat end within which the number or letter chosen could be viewed. The idea was for each person at the table to lay a finger lightly on the planchette and wait for it to move around the board, spelling out words and numbers as the spirit communicated from the Other Side.

Alma was ashamed that, in her youth, she had condemned her grandmother’s interest in spiritualism as absurd, following her mother’s lead like an obedient sheep – Alice Aldershoff had only been interested in things she could buy, and which preferably shone. Having been raised in the Christian faith Alma believed in some sort of afterlife, but she did not believe in spirits, much less in her grandmother’s ability to communicate with them. However, as she approached the end of her life and the question of where she was headed grew increasingly more pressing, she had begun to open up to the possibility of surviving death in spirit form, and even perhaps being capable of returning to keep an eye on those left behind. Certainly, she hoped to be reunited with the people she had loved in life who had gone before her. She very much hoped to communicate with the dead now.

‘Alma, are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Phyllis asked. She knew Bonnie felt the same anxiety but was too scared of Alma to voice it. ‘I mean, this was something your grandmother used to do. Don’t you have to be a spiritualist or something to work this board?’

‘Anyone can use a Ouija board,’ Alma replied with a sniff. She had already explained this, so why were they getting nervous about it now? ‘Even children play about with them.’

‘And get into trouble,’ Phyllis said with an uneasy chuckle. ‘I don’t want things to start flying about the room.’

Alma shook her head. ‘My dear Phyllis, nothing is going to fly about the room.’ Of course, Alma didn’t really know anything about Ouija boards, but she didn’t remember anything untoward happening when her grandmother had used it.

‘Mother, perhaps now would be a good time to tell Phyllis and Bonnie what you intend to do with the board?’ suggested Leona gently. She couldn’t reveal that she thought the whole operation ridiculous. Leona didn’t believe in life after death. In her opinion, when you died, you just became earth.

‘Very well,’ Alma replied. She took a deep breath, aware that what she was about to say was going to sound crazy. The Ouija board was one thing, what she intended to do with it was quite another! ‘I need to contact my father,’ she said. Bonnie and Phyllis did not seem surprised to hear this – after all, the purpose of the board was none other than to communicate with the dead.

‘What do you need to ask him?’ Phyllis enquired.

Alma’s nostrils flared as she readied herself for disbelief, or worse, ridicule. ‘You are my two dearest friends,’ she said carefully, looking at each woman with a steady gaze, as if challenging their devotion. ‘That is why I have invited you here, because I trust you.’ She paused, feeling exposed suddenly. Alma was not known to be a sensitive woman, but she was feeling sensitive now. Recent events had cut her to her core. She felt as if she’d shed a skin, leaving her vulnerable. She did not want to be laughed at. ‘I need to ask my father where he hid the Potemkin Diamond.’

Bonnie, who was a shy woman, did not allow her face to show surprise. But she was surprised. Phyllis was bolder. ‘The Potemkin Diamond?’ she repeated, her face ablaze with astonishment. ‘Treasure hunters have been searching for that for years.’

‘Which is why I need to ask my father directly,’ Alma said. A vision floated to the front of her mind: her father kneeling before her and opening his hand slowly, as if he were a magician doing a trick. Cradled in his palm was a sparkling pale-pink diamond, the colour of candy. The many smooth facets caught the light and shone brightly. It was the size of a date. She blinked the vision away. ‘He died young and without sons to pass it on to,’ she continued, another memory rising like damp to sully the recollection of that rare, tender moment with her father. ‘You know how he felt about daughters. He would never have left it to my elder sister, or to me, the final longed-for child who should have been a boy. No, he kept the secret as his father had done before him, and waited for the heir that never came. Oh, what a disappointment I was. All I have is this key, which he always wore about his neck.’ She pulled from her blouse a tiny gold key that hung on a chain. ‘I need to know where the lock is.’

‘But why now?’ Phyllis asked. ‘What does it matter?’

Alma caught her daughter’s eye. ‘I need to sell it,’ she said tightly, shuffling uncomfortably on her chair.

At last Bonnie spoke up. ‘But you’re in your nineties, Alma. What would you do with all that money now?’

‘I have something very specific I want to do with it,’ she replied cagily. ‘A dying wish.’

‘You’re not dying, are you?’ Phyllis exclaimed in alarm.

Alma laughed, a rare flash of humour on this dark night. ‘I’m approaching a hundred, Phyllis,’ she replied wryly. ‘I’d say I’m on the home stretch, wouldn’t you?’

‘So, let’s get on with it then,’ said Phyllis. ‘If you’re on the home stretch, we mustn’t waste a moment. How do we do it?’

Alma felt better now that she had shared her purpose with her friends, although she wasn’t confident it would work. ‘A Ouija board is all about the law of attraction,’ she said, recalling what her grandmother had told her. ‘If you go into it with the intention of playing a game and causing mischief, you will attract a mischievous spirit. That’s why we say a prayer and ask for protection prior to using it.’

‘That sounds very sensible,’ said Bonnie, who looked really quite nervous.

Alma nodded. ‘So, let’s do that now.’

She closed her eyes. The others followed her example. The room was silent, except for the rumble of traffic outside on Fifth Avenue, and the more distant droning, like the low buzzing of bees, of a city in constant motion. Alma took a deep breath, as she remembered her grandmother doing. It was important to follow Didi Aldershoff’s example to the letter. Alma didn’t want to admit that she had never attempted to use the board on her own. The last time she had been included in a seance was back in the 1930s when she had gone to stay with her grandmother, who was by then in her late seventies, on Rhode Island. The countryside mansion, referred to ironically as a ‘cottage’, was an obscenely large Italianate palace facing the sea in fashionable Newport. That, too, had eventually gone the way of the house on Fifth Avenue after Didi passed away in 1951. It was simply a case of economics – and the death throes of that once magnificent phoenix. But a covert fascination in the board had stayed with Alma and remained at the bottom of her consciousness, like a sleeping serpent she was afraid to awaken. She had saved the box from the refuse collectors when her mother had gone through Didi’s possessions following her death, but had never had the confidence, or courage, to open it – until now. Desperate times called for desperate measures! She was now going to look the serpent dead in the eye.

‘In the name of God, Jesus Christ and the Angelic Realm.’ Alma tried to remember what her grandmother used to say. ‘Please surround us with your protection and your light as we endeavour to communicate with those in spirit. Please protect this board, this house and all the people in it. Amen.’ She sniffed self-consciously. She was aware that she hadn’t recalled her grandmother’s exact words – she was sure there had been mention of Archangels Michael and Uriel, and something about the forces of evil, but she wasn’t certain. It had been a long time ago and, to be fair, she hadn’t really listened. She now wished she had. In any case, she had asked for protection and expected it to be given. There were, after all, only so many ways to bake a cake!

The women repeated, ‘Amen,’ and then opened their eyes expectantly.

‘That should do it, shouldn’t it?’ said Bonnie eagerly. ‘No dark entities will be allowed through, right?’

‘Right,’ said Alma. ‘We’re all set. Are you ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Phyllis replied with a sigh. ‘I never thought I’d be playing with a Ouija board in the middle of the night.’

‘We’re not playing,’ Alma corrected irritably.

Phyllis looked contrite. ‘I didn’t mean playing. Of course, I didn’t mean that.’

Alma’s face took on a self-righteous quality in the flickering glow of the candlelight. She rested a finger on the planchette. The nail was coated in claret-coloured polish, the knuckle swollen with arthritis. No amount of jewellery or paint could disguise the ageing body, but Alma had standards and she resolutely stuck to them.

Bonnie inhaled sharply, as if about to plunge into a cold pool, and placed her finger beside Alma’s. Phyllis joined her, and, finally, Leona. The room seemed to hold its breath. Alma, when she spoke, adopted the tone of a priest in the pulpit. ‘Now, I solemnly call out to my father, Walter-Wyatt Aldershoff, to come forward and make himself known.’

The women did not look at each other but focused their attention on the planchette, alert to even the slightest movement, should it occur. It did not occur. Alma could feel her heart beating hard in her chest, the force of it reverberating into her neck and throat. If she remembered rightly, when her grandmother had summoned spirits, it had sometimes taken a few minutes to get a result. Being an amateur, Alma presumed it might take longer for her.

‘I repeat. I summon my father, Walter-Wyatt Aldershoff, to make himself known to us.’

Still nothing.

Bonnie relaxed her shoulders; she would prefer it if the planchette didn’t move. Phyllis, on the other hand, was now hoping something would happen. They had come this far; it would be disappointing to go to bed without having received a message from beyond the grave. Even a simple ‘Hello’ would be worth the inconvenience of staying up late.

A few minutes passed. The planchette remained still. Leona dared not look at her mother. She couldn’t bear to witness the disappointment or to reveal her scepticism. Alma wanted so badly to communicate with her father, but Leona knew it was futile. The dead were dead and couldn’t speak.

Alma wondered whether one had to believe in the board, in which case the chances of it working were slim. She hoped her father might communicate through it, but deep down she didn’t believe that he would. Nonetheless, it was a last resort. The Potemkin Diamond was in this building, somewhere, she was certain of it. The various renovations to the property had not brought to light anything significant, so the Potemkin Diamond must, surely, still be here. Alma knew that her grandfather, being a playful man, had incorporated into the architect’s plans secret compartments here and there in which to hide his valuables – he’d never have settled for anything as obvious or pedestrian as a safe. One of those ‘clever little hiding places’, as he liked to call them, which his wife and son had known about, had been an invisible cupboard built into a decorative pillar in the bar. In there he used to hide his glass of whisky from his wife when he heard her approaching across the hall. Eventually, the bar had been destroyed by developers and so had the secret compartment. But Alma knew there were others, among them the very clever little hiding place where he had concealed the Potemkin Diamond. After his death, only his son had known its whereabouts. However, Walter-Wyatt died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of fifty-six, taking the secret with him. He had not concealed the fact that, like his father before him, he had intended to share the information with his son, but destiny had not allowed it for he had only had daughters. He had died before choosing an heir.

The only clue Alma had was the tiny key. She had found it the previous week when sorting through her things – she didn’t want to leave Leona to have to deal with drawers and cupboards full of useless knick-knacks when she died. Among those useless knick-knacks was a velvet-lined box containing an assortment of buttons and beads that had belonged to her mother. Alice Aldershoff had loved to collect pretty things. Alma had run her fingers through them, wondering why she had forgotten all about them, for they might have done nicely for her own dresses and jackets. She had been overcome, suddenly, by a wave of nostalgia, for she could see in her mind’s eye her mother choosing buttons with her dressmaker, Mrs Varga, when her fingertips had settled unexpectedly on the key. Alma had recognised it at once for her father had always worn it beneath his shirt and took pleasure in taking it out and showing it to her. ‘This is the key to the clever little hiding place where I keep the Potemkin Diamond,’ he would say, and he would tease her, telling her that if she was clever enough to find the hiding place, he’d give her ten dollars. Of course, she never found it. Her mother must have put the key in the button box for safekeeping, even though without the lock the key was useless. But now she had found the key, all she needed to do was find the clever little hiding place the key unlocked. If only her father could come back from the dead and tell her where to find it.

Alma blinked. Her jaw stiffened, her chin lifted, the air was drawn into her nose as she contemplated failure. And then, something happened.

The planchette moved.

Very slightly, but clearly with a force that had nothing to do with their fingers, it shifted. Bonnie gasped. Phyllis opened her mouth in astonishment. Leona’s eyes narrowed – she wondered which of the old ladies was making it move. They all stared at the planchette. Suddenly the candle flame began to sizzle and jump wildly on the wick. It seemed to grow, throwing dancing shadows over the walls. Bonnie glanced at them in alarm. They looked like demons released from captivity below ground.

The planchette slid to the word Hello. It was so swift and certain, Alma, Phyllis and Bonnie were in no doubt that Walter-Wyatt Aldershoff had, indeed, chosen to make himself known.

Alma blanched. ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she said in surprise. She blinked hard at the unexpected stinging of tears at the backs of her eyes. She hadn’t anticipated feeling emotional, or teary; Alma Aldershoff didn’t do tears. But at once she was a child again, in the presence of her father, hoping for approval, longing for affection that never came. ‘Is that really you?’ she asked. Hope flared in her chest. Did her father’s soul live on? Was he coming now to speak to her through this magical board? Could it be this easy?

The planchette vibrated. Bonnie’s face contorted with fear, but she was more afraid of Alma’s wrath were she to pull her finger away than of the spirit now communicating through the planchette, so she left her finger where it was.

With another sweeping movement the planchette slid onto the word No, taking the four fingers with it.

Alma gasped. ‘You’re not Walter-Wyatt Aldershoff?’ she asked in a small voice.

The planchette vibrated once more and then shuddered. But it remained most determinedly on the word No.

Alma’s throat grew tight. The temperature in the room plummeted. It was suddenly very cold. She cleared her throat. ‘Then who are you?’ she managed to say.

At that moment, the candle went out. Bonnie whimpered in panic. Then the table began to shake. ‘If it’s you, Phyllis, stop it at once!’ Alma demanded, glaring at her friend accusingly through the semi-darkness. ‘It’s not amusing.’

‘It’s not me,’ Phyllis replied as the table shook more violently.

‘Nor me,’ Bonnie added. ‘I wish it was.’

Leona felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck even though she couldn’t bring herself to believe that a ghost was doing the shaking. ‘Well, it’s not me, neither,’ she said.

‘Then who is it?’ Alma asked in a tremulous voice.

The planchette began to make large circles on the board. Round and round it went, with the ladies’ fingers circling with it.

‘Enough!’ Alma shouted, taking her finger off the planchette. ‘Leona, turn on the lights at once!’ Leona was only too happy to bring the seance to an end. She made her way across the room, illuminated weakly by the streetlights outside that shone through the gap between the curtains. She found the switch and flicked it. The lights lit up the terrified faces of the women and the rattling table that showed no sign of stopping. Leona looked at it closely, certain that either Phyllis or Bonnie was the culprit.

‘What’s moving it?’ Phyllis asked, lifting her hands off the table to show that it wasn’t her and leaning back to look beneath it.

‘Well, it’s not my grandfather,’ said Leona. ‘I’m sorry, but if it’s you, Bonnie, I think you should own up. It’s not fair on Mom.’

Suddenly everything began to move. Books, paintings, lamps, ornaments, chairs, even the floor appeared to tremble as if an earthquake were rumbling beneath Manhattan. Bonnie cried out. ‘Alma, what have we unleashed?’ Leona reached for the walking stick and thrust it at her mother.

‘I don’t know.’ Alma seized the stick and heaved herself off the chair. ‘I don’t know what I did wrong.’

‘You did nothing wrong, Mom. It’s an earthquake, quite obviously.’

‘We need to leave at once,’ said Bonnie, pushing out her chair and making for the door.

‘Wait!’ Alma exclaimed. Bonnie froze, hand hovering above the knob. ‘Leona, the box. Put the board back in the box. No one must know what we were doing.’

‘We can’t just leave it like this,’ said Phyllis. ‘We need to tell it to go away.’

‘You’re right.’ Alma pulled back her shoulders, drawing on the unfailing Aldershoff mettle that coursed thro. . .