Into the Dim Page 8

  Chapter 11

  AFTER WE’D CLIMBED BACK UP THE STAIRS, Moira ordered us all to bed.

  “Rest,” she said, shooing us to our rooms. “That’s what is needed now. We can discuss all this further after everyone’s had some sleep.”

  Back in my room, the girl who glared from the silvered bathroom mirror looked like she’d been through a natural disaster. Pale, chapped lips. Dark curls frizzed and matted. The skin under my eyes like bruised fruit.

  Mom’s alive, I mouthed to the mirror. Alive.

  Unable to bear the fear in my own eyes, I averted my gaze, splashing my face with cold water until it ran down my chest, drenching my nightgown. Wet and shivering, I burrowed beween the sheets, praying sleep would erase the dread that slithered over my skin.

  After a few hours of disturbing dreams, it was time for my first official lesson. Time Travel 101.

  “It was easy after that.”

  Seated around a long table in the library, a modest, brilliant Doug fended off the others’ praise. “No, no. Tesla was the visionary, not me,” he explained. “It was his idea to use alternating current that could read the pulses from the Dim, then use a crosscurrent to interrupt the flow at specific times. My program merely amplifies his readings, pinpointing the time and place and giving us more time to prepare.”

  Doug was obviously eager to have a fresh audience. So far, he hadn’t noticed my lack of enthusiasm. For one thing, most of his intricate scientific explanations were way out of my realm of knowledge. And for the other, every synapse in my brain was taken up by thoughts of my mother. Of what might be happening to her in that other world in which she was trapped.

  “See, Hope,” Doug said, oblivious, “when the ley lines are interrupted in a certain sequence, it creates an opening. A vacuum. As I mentioned last night, it’s easiest to think about it like a small wormhole. Here, let me show you.”

  When he snatched a piece of paper and began scribbling more numerical equations, Phoebe jumped into his lap and planted a kiss on his wide mouth.

  “Enough, love,” she said with her lips pressed against his. “You’ll make poor Hope’s head explode.”

  Doug grumbled a bit, but plopped the notebook down on the table to snug Phoebe comfortably across his lap. I grinned at the sight of his brown cheek resting on the top of her crazy blue hair.

  My gaze drifted past to the torrents of rain sheeting the window. An image of Bran Cameron’s face wavered before me, somehow watery and indistinct, as if the features were blurry. All but the eyes. Those odd, mismatched eyes stayed clear and sharp.

  It’s pouring buckets out there. No way he’d come today. Besides, I chided myself, it’s beyond selfish, thinking about some boy when you just found out your mother’s still alive. Sort of. I tapped a fingertip idly on the glossy table. Still . . . if he came, and I didn’t show, that would just be ru—

  The slam, as Collum dropped a huge stack of books on the table in front of me, brought me halfway out of my chair. The top one slid off into my lap. Court Life Under the Plantagenets: Reign of Henry II, by Hubert Hall.

  “Quit daydreaming,” he said. “You’ve got a lot to make up, so get busy.”

  I thumbed through the stack, shrugged, and pushed them back across the table. “Already read them. What else you got?”

  “Read them again. You may know a lot, but there won’t be any reference books or computers where we’re going.”

  “I don’t need to read them again.” His attitude made me mulish. “I know what they say.” I flipped open a book at random, glanced at the page number, then stared at him as I recited the words. “Page sixty-seven. Paragraph three.”

  As I delivered the dry, dusty facts of the 1154 coronation of King Henry II and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the words tumbled effortlessly from my tongue. But the subject drew me back to another voice that warmed in admiration whenever she spoke of her favorite person in history.

  Eleanor of Aquitaine was a brilliant and powerful woman, Mom had lectured, poking the crackling logs in our little-used fireplace. She was a champion of women’s rights even then.

  On a rare impulse of mischief, I’d piped up. Yeah, and I read that when she went on Crusade with King Louis of France, she showed her boobs to the troops.

  Blood rushed to my face. Daring words from an eight-year-old. My mother had laughed, though. Throaty and genuine.

  Yes, she said. That is true. But perhaps not her most notable accomplishment.

  When she smiled at me, eyebrows raised, pride had bloomed across my chest. I grinned back, so thrilled to contribute to a subject my mother loved.

  Wanting—needing—more of her approval, I sighed. Oh, Mom, wouldn’t it be neat to travel back in time and meet Queen Eleanor in person?

  My mother froze with the poker shoved deep in the fireplace. A log popped. A glowing ember landed on the carpet, but she didn’t react.

  After a moment, she stood and kicked the coal back into the hearth. Yes. Well. She cleared her throat. You never know what is possible in this world, Hope. But now I think it’s time to resume your Greek lessons. Begin writing out your verb tenses.

  I looked up and realized the others were staring at me. Without realizing it, I’d recited seven pages from memory. Doug stood and clapped in admiration, while Phoebe gaped, open-mouthed.

  “That’s bloody brilliant, Hope,” she said. “And you can do that with anything you’ve read?”

  “Interesting.” Collum’s wide mouth curled into smugness. God, I wanted to smack him. “Then why don’t you tell us what you know of King John’s treasure?”

  “Hey, mate,” Doug said. “I don’t think—”

  “No,” Collum said. “She knows everything, right?” He turned to me. “Then you’ll know this tale. The one where a poor farmer who lived near the Wash in Lincolnshire found the lost treasure of King John in 1573?”

  I blinked at this abrupt change of topic. “What?”

  “What do you know of it?” he demanded.

  Though my brain was fizzing with everything that’d happened, it sharpened now. As they always did when presented with a history question, my thoughts quieted and focused. I flipped through my imaginary files for everything I’d read of the lost treasure of King John, youngest son of the medieval King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  John had been a bad king. His barons turned against him, forcing him to sign the Magna Carta, which took away most of his power. It was said that after losing countless battles with the French on his own soil, the feckless king was on the run. On October 12, 1216, John and those of his men who were still loyal were fleeing with all the riches of the kingdom through the eastern part of England. His train was attempting to cross a dangerous, boggy area of mud flats and marshes located between Northampton and Lincolnshire. The king himself had crossed safely, but it was raining, and an unexpected tide came in. Some were sucked down into pools of quicksand. Others washed away in the surge. Dozens of John’s people, horses, wagons, gone in moments. Worst of all, at least from John’s perspective, all of England’s greatest treasures, including the crown jewels, were lost forever.

  Puzzled by the question, I told them what I knew.

  “But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “What farmer? King John’s treasure was never found. It’s one of the world’s great mysteries. Treasure hunters still search for it today. I’ve read about it a hundred times.”

  Phoebe’s eyes blazed as she glared at her brother. Collum wouldn’t even look at her. He only stared at me in smug amusement, as if I was the only person not yet in on a joke.

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “That’s what they say. Now. But up until twelve years ago, the books told a very different tale. They spoke of a farmer who, while plowing his land in 1573, accidentally came upon John’s treasure. Apparently being a deeply superstitious man, he waited until he was dying to tell his son what he’d found. The son was a patriot and was hugely rewarded when he dug up the whole thing and handed it over to
his queen, Elizabeth I.” Collum’s eyes bored into mine. “So you don’t know everything. Because twelve years ago, history was changed, when the Timeslippers went back and—before the farmer could tell his son—took matters into their own hands.”

  “Obviously”—I whipped around to see my aunt striding angrily toward us, Moira in tow—“obviously,” she repeated, “we tried to stop them. We failed in that task.”

  “Th-that’s impossible,” I whispered.

  “No, lamb,” Moira sighed as she placed an ornately carved box on the table. “Unfortunately, it is not. Once we learned of the Timeslippers’ plans, we sent a team back to intercept them. But by the time we arrived, Celia’s father and his men had already murdered the farmer’s entire family and stolen the treasure.”

  I felt suddenly ill. My breakfast of toast and eggs gurgled in my gut.

  “And upon our return,” Lucinda said, “history had changed to what you now know to be true.”

  The implications of it made my brain ache. “But how?” I blurted. “I mean, okay. So it changed in the books. But what about people’s own memories? The ones who knew the truth?”

  “Even our own people’s knowledge of the event had altered,” Lucinda said, sitting down heavily in the chair opposite me. “No one but Mac, Moira, and I knew the truth of what had really occurred. The others had difficulty believing us. Fortunately, the Viator journals are always stored in the Dim’s chamber. Those had not been modified. They—along with our own eyewitness accounts—were the only proof we had.”

  Though she perched arrow straight on the edge of her chair, my aunt’s face looked drawn and horribly wan beneath what I now realized was obviously a blond wig.

  What’s wrong with her? ’Cause it’s obvious something’s going on.

  “It was my first decision as leader.” She spoke in a flat, tired voice. “My father had recently been stricken with a heart attack and was bedridden. My entire life, he and I had argued over the morality of profiting from objects taken from the past. I wanted to return them.” Her lips curved into a bitter grimace. “Father never took me seriously, of course.” Her voice took on a deep, gravelly tone. “‘What will you do, Lucy? Walk up to old Vlad Dracul with his crown, then wave from the stake as he impales you for thievery? No? Then leave well enough alone.’”

  “Your intentions were good, Lu,” Moira interjected. “We all knew that.”

  Lucinda shrugged off the comfort. “Yes, but who did Father blame for what happened next?” Her gaze dropped to the table. “And rightfully so. It was my fault Michael—”

  “Lu,” Moira insisted, “that was Celia, and you know it. Besides, old Roderick was already so ill. What happened had nothing to do with—”

  “No!” Lucinda jolted from her chair. “He said it himself, the night he died. ‘Have a care with your decisions, daughter. I might have acquired a few trinkets over the years, but I never lost a man under my watch.’”

  When my aunt met my startled look over the tabletop, she blinked, coming back to herself in an instant. Her shoulders straightened, but I could see what it cost her.

  Moira cleared an obstruction from her throat. “Shall we go ahead and show Hope the lodestones, then?”

  I watched the high color recede from Lucinda’s face as she eased back into her chair. “Yes,” she said, waving a hand at the box. “You’re right, of course. Please . . . proceed.”

  Moira unlatched the tarnished brass handles, Aunt Lucinda flipped open the heavy lid and reached inside. A long swirl of silver spooled out. Even in the watery light from the windows, a riot of rainbow colors shimmered in the black stone, set into a pendant that swung from the end of the chain.

  “Hope,” she said, “you’ll recall what I said about James MacPherson. That he was quite ill when he and the other two men returned?”

  When I nodded, she went on, her faded blue eyes fixed on the dangling necklace. “It was more than illness,” she said. “The man was unconscious for days. When he finally woke, he’d lost partial use of his left arm, and his face drooped on one side for the rest of his life. Dr. Alvarez also suffered a much slighter version of the illness, while Hubert Carlyle showed almost no signs.”

  Lucinda laid the pendant carefully on the table and placed the other objects from the velvet-lined box beside it. A thick man’s ring and two matching bracelets.

  “At first, they could not comprehend why the voyage affected MacPherson so much more than the others. By process of elimination, they came to realize that Carlyle and Alvarez each had on their person one thing which MacPherson did not. Or at least, not in the same manner, exactly. Can you guess what that was?”

  Moira reached behind her thick braid of black and silver and unclasped a necklace. She laid it beside the others. Hung on a slender chain was a gold ring set with a tiny white chip. The answer seemed fairly obvious.

  “Opals,” I said. “They’re all opals.”

  “Very good.” Lucinda nodded her approval. “Hubert Carlyle was wearing this ring.” She pointed out the heavy band lying on the table. It was set with a rare black opal, like the one in the pendant. “Carlyle’s wife had given it to him on the occasion of their twentieth anniversary. He never took it off.” She touched one of the twin cuff bracelets, which held smaller, though similar, dark stones.

  “Opals had become popular again, thanks to Queen Victoria. Dr. Alvarez happened to have these very bracelets in his pocket that night, as he’d planned to present one to his wife and one to his daughter Julia to celebrate her engagement to Jonathan Carlyle.”

  She nudged Moira’s contribution with a finger. “James MacPherson, fortunately for him, always carried his dead wife’s wedding band inside his sporran. Had he not,” she said, “he’d have died then and there. Though his stone was of lower quality, it saved his life and brought him home.”

  “The stones act as a sort of homing device, you see,” Moira said. “No other jewel will do. Not diamonds nor sapphires nor emeralds. Only the opal.”

  “I’ve studied the molecular compositions, but”—Doug shrugged his huge shoulders—“no definitive results. All we know is that the finer the stone, the less the journey affects you.”

  Phoebe nodded emphatically. “Without them, the Dim either kills you, makes you really sick, or leaves you behind. You don’t ever want to be careless and lose your lodestone. I mean, look what happened to Sarah.” Her face fell. “Cheese an’ rice. Hope, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . . See, I know how you feel, ’cause—”

  Collum cut her off. “Sarah’s wasn’t lost,” he said. “It was stolen by that she-wolf Celia.”

  “Collum is likely right about Celia,” Lucinda said. “My sister was anything but careless. She’d never lose something so precious. Still, you shall take the extra bracelet with you for her use, when you—”

  “How do you know she’s not dead?” I blurted out. “I mean, how can you possibly know that?”

  Moira reached across the table and squeezed my clenched fist. “We have proof—of sorts—that she was still alive several months ago. The tapestry you saw below was sketched in September of 1154. A few weeks ago, we traveled to a much later year and purchased it from a baron who was selling off his father’s belongings.”

  “And this timeline to 1154 is remarkably stable,” Lucinda said as she gathered up the jewelry and placed it back in the box. “When Mac, Moira, and I went back to search, we talked to several people who knew of her. That was less than a month after she disappeared, but Sarah is there, Hope. We know she is.”

  Doug spoke up. “I know it’s really hard to take in. See, Hope, once the Dim opens to a place, time flows in the exact linear fashion in both timelines. So the same eight months or so have passed there as have passed here.”

  Eight months. My mom had been lost in that horrible, barbaric time for nearly eight whole months. Sure, she apparently knew what she was doing. But even I knew the odds weren’t great that a lone woman could survive long in an era when plague and dysentery, b
rutality and war, were commonplace. An era when even the smallest nick could be fatal.

  I caught my aunt’s gaze. Though she hid it well, I could feel the thread of doubt twining through her.

  No matter what Aunt Lucinda claimed, my mother might already be dead.

  Chapter 12

  THAT NIGHT, PHOEBE AND I SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON MY MATTRESS, scarfing filched lemon bars that flaked, buttery and tart, on my tongue.

  “Here’s something I don’t get,” I mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs. “Why can’t someone just travel back to last summer and tell my mother not to go?”

  “I wish,” Phoebe said, nibbling at the pastry. “Be simpler, yeah? But the most recent year the Dim has ever opened to is around ninety years ago. Doug thinks it has something to do with not allowing someone to cross paths with their younger self. That things could get royally messed up if you met yourself.” She swiped a dusting of powdered sugar off her upper lip.

  “I guess I can see that,” I said, chewing thoughtfully. “Like, if you could go back willy-nilly, whenever you wanted, you could tell yourself not to marry someone. Or, hey, you could tell yourself to buy stock in Apple or Microsoft.”

  Phoebe snorted. “I’d tell myself to write Harry Potter. Be richer than the bloody queen.”

  “That’s a good one,” I agreed. “I’d invent Facebook.”

  In moments, we were howling with laughter, spraying lemon crumbs everywhere as each idea grew more outrageous than the next.

  God, it felt amazing to laugh. To laugh until I cried, until the muscles in my sides ached. Muscle that hadn’t been used that way in a long, long time.

  Phoebe sobered suddenly, wiping at her eyes. “I think you should know something.” She glanced at me sidelong. “You remember Collum mentioning something about Celia, and a thing called the Nonius Stone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, see, there’s this story about it, aye? It’s supposed to be, like . . . the mother of all opals. Lu and Collum believe it’s real. And they think Celia’s after it. That she wants it to gain control of the Timeslippers’ device.”