Into the Dim Read online

  The Nonius Stone. My hands twitched as I visualized my fingers filtering through the neatly organized files in my mind. I took a huge bite of the pastry, head tilted in concentration.

  There. There was the passage I’d read.

  The Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder spoke of how, in 35 B.C., Mark Antony had become entranced by the colored lights that moved within a marvelous stone, known throughout the Roman Empire. He wanted to present it as a gift to his love, Cleopatra. The owner—a Roman senator named Nonius—refused to sell, claiming the “jewel of the night” was everything to him. When Antony threatened him, the wealthy senator disappeared. He left everything behind—his family, his fortune—fleeing with only the clothes on his back. And the great jewel.

  “But, it’s just a legend, right?”

  “Could be,” she said. “But Coll is obsessed with finding it.” Phoebe fiddled with the pastry in her hand, spilling crumbs on the quilt. “It’s our da, see? He got left behind too. A long time ago.”

  The bite I’d just swallowed stuck halfway down. “Your dad? But . . . Moira said he died.”

  Even as I spoke, our conversation in the library rewound in my head.

  No. What she said was: He’s been gone.

  “Well, it’s likely,” Phoebe said. “He was injured. And it was twelve years ago. I was four, and Collum seven. A long time.” She sighed as she plucked at the crumbs on the quilt. “See, Lu had shut everything down after the King John thing happened and her father died. But no one beats my Gran when it comes to research. She learned that in 1576 a great jewel had been sold off by a tiny convent near the Wash. Apparently, it was found in the pocket of a young girl who’d fled to the nuns shortly after her whole family was murdered.”

  “One of the farmer’s family survived the attack?”

  Phoebe nodded, her small eyes gone round. “Aye. Betsy Fortner. She didn’t live long, though. But the nuns found something sewed into her skirts. The Viators decided it must be the Nonius. That the Timeslippers had missed it, somehow. Lu sent a team back to investigate.”

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

  “Who?” I could barely whisper the word.

  “My da,” she said in the same hushed tone. “Your mum. And Celia Alvarez. She was still a Viator then. Had been since she ran off from her own family when she was fifteen or so. Claimed she hated her father. That he beat her. Asked Lu and Sarah’s da to give her refuge.” Phoebe made a face. “’Course I don’t really remember much about what happened the night they returned, but Collum does, and it hits him hard sometimes.”

  “What . . .” I coughed to dispel the choking sensation. “What happened?”

  Phoebe stared off, dredging the memory from a deep, dark place. I wondered how much was actual recollection, or if it was that she’d heard the story so many times, it had inserted itself as memory. She picked up the last lemon bar, brought it to her mouth, then set it back on the china plate, uneaten.

  “All I recall,” she said, “is Mac waking us in the wee hours. Collum was in a rage, ’cause they wouldn’t tell us what was happening.” She paused to swipe at her eyes, smudging black streaks into the vivid blue hairline. “Da was everything, yeah? See, he’d got our mum knocked up when they were just kids. Seventeen or so. They were married for a few years, but Gran says they were never happy. Fiona hated everything about the traveling, too. Refused to have anything to do with it. She lit out right after I was born. Mac called and told her what had happened to Da. She never even came to see us. Not that I care.”

  She shrugged, as if being abandoned by her mother meant nothing. But when her mouth twisted, I put a hand over hers.

  “It’s okay.” She sniffed. “Truly. I have Collum, and Gran and Mac, don’t I? And Lu, o’ course. But Da . . .” She leaned back on the plush pillows. “Anyway, they sat us down and told us he was gone. I didn’t know what that meant. Not really. But Collum? Oh, he was in a state like you’ve never seen. Wanted to go get him, right then and there. Couldn’t understand when they told him it was impossible.”

  I could see it. The solemn, round-faced little boy I’d seen in the photos, confused and furious when he learned the only parent he had left was gone.

  “What about my mom?” I asked. “What did she say about it?”

  “I never saw her. They told us later that Sarah had left in the night. Celia, too. She went straight back to the Time­slippers, and that was the last we ever saw of her, thank God. Gran says your mum up and moved to Oxford. They didn’t even hear from her for a long while. And by that time, she’d adopted you, married your dad, and moved to the States.”

  I frowned. My mom just left? Took off in the middle of a disaster, leaving her family alone to deal with the aftermath? That didn’t sound like her at all. It didn’t make sense.

  “And it was all for nothing, anyway,” Phoebe said. “Wasn’t even the Nonius Stone. Just a bloody big emerald.”

  She went on, her voice getting raspier as she spoke of what happened. How all she knew was that on their return to the location where the Dim would take them back, the three Viators were attacked. Michael MacPherson had been injured in the fight, and the thieves had absconded with all but two of their lodestones. Apparently, there’d been a fierce argument about which one of them would be left behind.

  Phoebe stared down into her lap. “When the Dim began to open, Da ran into the forest, sacrificing himself so Celia and your mum could come home.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed. “That’s awful. Your dad must’ve been really brave staying behind like that.”

  She smiled through the tears. “Aye. He was a hero for sure. We’re always hoping the Dim will open to that time again, but it never does. Collum’s convinced if we find the Nonius Stone, we could use it to control the Dim. That maybe with the great stone, Doug could program it to open to when and where we want. That we could find Da and bring him home.”

  “Would that work?”

  “No idea.” She shrugged. “But Coll believes it.”

  “Jeez. No wonder he hates me,” I whispered. “He’s waited so long, and it’s my mom we’re going after.”

  “Nah.” My new friend picked up a lemon bar, her sunny personality back in a blink. “It’s not that. Ever since Lu assigned him to this team? Forget it. He’s the leader. The big boss man. He’s just acting like a git now ’cause you’re smarter than he is and he knows it.” She squeezed my hand with her sticky one. “But he’ll work like the devil to bring Sarah home. Don’t worry about that. He takes this mission very seriously.”

  As she hopped down off the high mattress, scattering crumbs all over the shiny wooden floor, I followed, my mind working through this new information.

  Phoebe dropped onto the floral loveseat, and unfolded a worn leather bundle she’d brought along and tossed it onto the cushions. Nestled inside lay a trio of lethal-looking throwing knives. She selected one of the slim blades and began sharpening it against a whetstone.

  “From the day Da was lost, Lu started hunting the Nonius Stone, determined to get him back. You heard Lu,” Phoebe said. “She blames herself. So now we follow every lead, no matter how obscure. And Collum’s even worse.” Sparks flew from each agitated stroke as she resumed, apparently unsatisfied with the results. “The only one who doesn’t travel is my Doug. And it’s not fair. He would be a bloody amazing traveler, but for the epilepsy, see? Got it from a head injury in the car accident that took his parents.”

  “Oh, that’s awful,” I exclaimed. “The poor guy. He was with them when they died?”

  She twisted the stud in her brow, frowning. “Aye, it’s bad, Hope. And he’s convinced it’ll get worse, that one day his beautiful brain will get all scrambled. He swears he’ll leave before he’d let me see him like that.”

  Sparks. The grinding of steel on stone. The smell of wood floors and metallic shavings. The sweet, tart taste of lemon bars that coated my throat as my heart sank.

  A wave of protectiveness washed through me f
or Phoebe and her kind, brilliant boy. My chest ached at the thought of something happening to Doug’s exquisite mind. And what it would do to my new friend if it did.

  “Aw, but when he gets all maudlin like that, I just tell him to bugger off,” she said, sniffing. “He’s not getting out of marrying me someday over some little thing like that. Still, the travelin’ is too dangerous for him. If he were to have an attack while we were away, well . . .”

  Phoebe set the whetstone aside and tested the blade’s sharp edge against the pad of her thumb. She smiled grimly at the thin line of red that appeared. Teeth sunk in her lower lip, she took aim and, with a flick of her tiny wrist, sent the blade spinning across the room to bury itself in the paneling.

  Chapter 13

  SOON ENOUGH, I LEARNED THEY WERE ALL SKILLED WITH some kind of weapon. Not only could Phoebe pin a fly to the side of the barn with her knives, she’d been trained in martial arts since she was a kid. In astonished awe, I watched the petite girl grapple both Doug and Collum to the ground over and over.

  “You could learn this, Hope,” she called. “Doesn’t matter how small you are. Aikido uses your opponent’s own momentum against them.” Phoebe demonstrated a few moves, her small hands and feet flying as she once again dropped her sweating brother to the mud-slick ground of the stable yard. “Of course, if that doesn’t work”—she patted the knives at her side—“you just stick them with your blade.”

  Collum’s weapon of choice was a short, wide gladiator sword that had belonged to his father. Watching him and Mac spar left me clenching and breathless. Even Doug was astonishingly fast with his staff, a six-foot piece of rock-hard oak.

  No surprise to anyone, especially me, I was clumsy and awkward with any weapon they tried to put in my hands. After days stuck inside while the skies shed buckets onto the mountains and moors, I’d discovered the only place I was of any use at all. The library. And even there, practically every time I opened my mouth, Collum shut me down. It was getting old.

  The rain had finally stopped. I peered down the misty valley toward the river and wondered if Bran Cameron would be there today.

  Even thinking about the possibility that he might be there—could be there—made my face go hot. It was a stupid hope, I knew. But I so needed a little normal in my life just then. Not that meeting up with a boy was normal. Not for me. But I’d take what I could get.

  As I watched, Phoebe flipped Doug for the third time. The massive boy landed on his back with a whoomp that shook the ground. He lay still, gasping. Eyebrows waggling, Phoebe held out a hand. “That’s six to two,” she said. “Done, then, are you?”

  With a move quicker than I would’ve imagined possible for someone his size, Doug rolled to his feet. And in one smooth motion, he’d hauled Phoebe over his shoulder and—both of them giggling madly—carried her off into the house.

  Mac and Collum had finished their earlier battle. The older man was now watching as Collum eviscerated a leather-bound, straw-filled dummy that hung from a beam sticking out the side of the stable wall.

  Earlier, I’d tried to chuck a few of Phoebe’s knives at the figure. The few that had miraculously struck had bounced off and splatted to the ground.

  “Nice work, lad,” Mac called as he sheathed his blade. “Old Angus will need some stitchin’ up ere we use him again, I bet.”

  He strolled toward me, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepening as he called over his shoulder. “And take it easy on our lass here. Remember, this is all new to her.”

  Mac’s hand was gentle as he clapped my shoulder. “Ye’re doin’ fine, lass,” he said in a voice for me alone. “Ye’re smart as a whip and twice as tough. ’Tis a lot to take in, I know. But Collum’s a good lad. Ye’ll be right safe in his care.”

  Mac headed inside, leaving only me and Collum in the muddy yard. A fact I wasn’t totally thrilled about.

  The Highland mist swirled down off the far mountains and writhed across the moors like a mass of angry spirits. Exhausted from three eighteen-hour days of endless study, costume fittings, and practicing the twisty medieval dialect, I turned away to head inside. If I hurried, I could change out of the long practice skirts Collum had insisted on and be headed out on Ethel’s back in ten minutes.

  Collum moved to block me, dropping a knife at my feet.

  “Not yet,” he said. “You didn’t do so well earlier, and everyone should know how to use a blade. We’re going to a brutal time. You won’t be able to fend off an attacker by quoting passages at him, so pick it up. We aren’t leaving this spot till you know how to use it.”

  I frowned down at the slender stiletto. Nothing mattered more than finding my mom, but Lucinda had already lectured us time and time again to have as little contact as possible with the “natives.” So why he thought I’d need to use a blade was beyond me. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew where we were headed was a dangerous place. But I’d already managed to nick myself three times with the miniscule eating knife I’d been rehearsing with—no forks in the twelfth century—so how the hell did he suppose I’d do with an actual weapon?

  Grumbling under my breath, I retrieved the knife and balanced it gingerly on my open palm. The color of aged ivory, the hilt was carved with whorls and odd symbols. I smoothed a finger across the satiny surface.

  “That’s bone,” Collum said, “with a canny sharp blade. Got it off a count on a trip to 1823. It’ll do for you. Now grip it like this.”

  Collum wrapped his rough palm over mine, showing me an underhand grip.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. I slapped at the full skirts. “But let me go change. I’ve tripped on these stupid things a dozen times already. If I don’t get some jeans on, I’ll end up gutting myself. “

  I was hoping for a laugh. A chuckle. God, even a twitch to break the guy’s unrelenting intensity. But Collum’s expression never wavered as he looked skyward. “And will you be wearing jeans where we’re going? I can’t be with you every second. You have to be able to defend yourself. But if you’re not going to take this seriously, then—”

  “Fine,” I muttered. “It’s just that I’m really not into the whole piercing, slicing, mutilating thing. You have to admit that’s not something a normal person learns.”

  He nodded slowly and slid his own knife back into its sheath. “Aye. All right, then. I understand.”

  My shoulders slumped in relief. “Great. So I’ll just concentrate on—”

  He moved on me so fast, I stumbled back and fell flat on my butt. He danced away, smirking.

  “Oh, that’s just great,” I groused as cold thick mud soaked through layers of material.

  He held out a hand to help me up. I ignored it. “I got it.”

  I jerked to my feet, then bent over to kick up the knife. Before I could blink, Collum slapped it to the ground and crushed my hand in his iron fist. The pain sent me to my knees.

  “Going to quote at me from your wee books, now?” he said. “Terrify me with a nice factoid?”

  “Collum.” Irritation warred with a growing alarm as he squeezed harder. “Let go of me.”

  “I thought you didn’t need any help.”

  I twisted and squirmed, scratching at his arm. But his biceps felt as hard as the wood of Doug’s oak staff.

  Collum shrugged, taunting in a voice I didn’t like at all. “Aw, poor wee lass has lost her knife. Course, you say you can’t stab anyone anyway. So it wouldn’t have done you much good. Guess that means you’re helpless, then.”

  “All right, all right. I get it,” I said. “I’ll practice with the freaking knife.”

  He let go so abruptly, I nearly toppled sideways. “Good. Now—”

  As if my hand belonged to someone else, I whipped his own dagger from his belt and cracked him on the side of the head with the wooden hilt.

  Collum staggered back, stunned. My nerveless hand dropped the knife to the ground.

  Oh crap.

  He gaped at me as he reached up to rub at his temple. One side of his mouth twitc
hed. Then, as I stared in complete and utter shock, Collum threw his tawny head back and roared with laughter.

  When Collum MacPherson laughed, he did it with his entire body. Heaving and bellowing, he held his sides and just let go. Like his sister’s, Collum’s laugh drew you in, and soon the two of us were leaning on each other, wheezing and gasping for air.

  “That’s my girl,” he managed when he could finally speak. “Now, that’s what I wanted to see. Looks like there’s some spirit behind that wally, whinging facade o’ yours after all.”

  Before I could decipher his words and decide whether I was insulted or oddly pleased, he clapped me on the back with such enthusiasm, I stumbled forward.

  “Good show, Hope.” He nodded, still chuckling. “Good show. Now pick that up and let’s go again.”

  Chapter 14

  “THEY SAY THE HIGHLAND EAGLE MATES FOR LIFE.”

  After days of being trapped by weather, and enduring every kind of time travel lesson imaginable, I’d finally gotten a chance to sneak away. When I arrived at the river to find Bran Cameron waiting for me, I’d tried to play it cool, hide my excitement. But with my cheeks still hot from two hours of stabbing practice and the breathless flight on Ethel’s back, I doubted he bought it.

  After a long, twisting ride up a mountain path, we’d tied the horses and made our way to the edge of a great drop-off. Legs dangling, we stared out at the green and purple valley that sprawled out before us. In the distance, a lone mountain rose up above Christopher Manor, dwarfing the huge house. I stared, suppressing a shiver as I thought of what lay at its stone heart.

  The wind gusted through the valley, driving the pair of enormous eagles higher as they rode the currents, performing an intricate dance.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said, turning to Bran. “I’ve never seen eagles before.”

  A pulse of quicksilver hit when his gaze dropped to my mouth.

  “Yes,” he said. “They bond right out of the nest, you know. And stay by each other’s side until one of them dies. The other usually succumbs soon after. Grief, they say.”