The Shape Stealer Read Online Free

Durant’s praise, laid the book down on the table and gently opened its cover—I noticed she was wearing white cotton gloves—to the title page. “ A History of the Dutch Stock Market ,” she read aloud in proper, only slightly accented English. “ From 1602 to the Present .”
    “Ah, it looks like your friend Will has been busy.”
    “Will? Which Will?”
    Annick covered her mouth and giggled.
    “The one you left behind in 1602,” Monsieur Durant said, shaking his head. “He’s been changing things—nothing big, nothing that would threaten the world’s existence—but little things. Here, let me show you.”
    We left Annick poring over the Dutch stock market and walked to a table where a balding middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit and yellow bow tie was bent so far over an ancient-looking tome that his sharp nose nearly touched the page.
    “Anything more in the folio, Jean-Luc?”
    Jean-Luc’s head jerked up, his round spectacles fogging as he let out an excited gasp. “ Love’s Labour’s Won is no longer lost and Cardenio is appearing!”
    “There are some more sonnets,” a white-haired woman sitting on the other side of the table said. “Granted, some have fifteen lines and/or titles, not characteristic of the famed 154. But there are other signs of the same authorship, and they all laud your friend Will.”
    “But Shakespeare hated Will for stealing Marguerite,” I said.
    “That was BA—Before the Anomaly. The Will who stayed behind in 1602 made it up with his mentor. Here, listen to this…” She read a sonnet aloud:
    “Unmasked”
    Come here, dear Will, and let us pluck a rose,
    One petal Marguerite and one your Garet James;
    We’ll know their scarlet hues without their names,
    Rare tints a match for both our bloods. Wind blows,
    Rain falls, or sun burns bright—it’s all the same—
    When love exceeds both of our growing fames,
    And all the theories, facts we’ll ever know.
    A bond outlasting eons, drifting snow,
    And all the seasons calendars can grow.
    Our friendship now restored, we’re London-kin,
    As well as colleagues in the sonnet. Let’s
    Walk slowly on down Lyme Street, close to dusk,
    Envision our beloveds in the mists
    The river conjures, cleansing love of sin.
    Feel jealousy no more. Our loves unmasked.
    Friendship now restored? Could that mean…?
    “Wait,” I said. “I don’t understand. Where is all this coming from?” I looked around the great hall. Books were falling, pages were fluttering. “What is this place?”
    “I told you,” Monsieur Durant replied, smiling impishly. “La Salle du Temps of the Institut Chronologique. The great Hall of Time. We keep track of changes in the time line here. When the oculus is closed, the hall is impervious to changes in the time line. There is at all times…” His lips quirked into another smile and Jean-Luc smirked, leading me to believe that the chronologistes were prone to punning on the word time . “… a corps of archivists on the premises who are also impervious to the anomaly, as is our library.” He waved to the stacks of books. “We’ve assembled a collection representing the world’s literature, history, science, financial records, and assorted ephemera. As soon as we open the oculus the books in the archives begin to rewrite themselves. The chronologistes take notes on the changes they observe and assemble a report. We confer with our brethren institutes—”
    “There are more places like this?” I asked, gaping at the enormity of the place.
    Monsieur Durant sighed. “Fewer than there used to be. As you can imagine, this is a very expensive enterprise to maintain. And it is always vulnerable to corruption…” A pained look flitted across Monsieur Durant’s face. “And the vagaries of social unrest, or worse. We lost the Warsaw office in the Second World War. But there are still two great monasteries—one in the Pyrenees and one in the Himalayas—as well as institutes in New York City,