Into the Dim (12 page)

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, brutality 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.

T
HAT NIGHT
, P
HOEBE 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.”

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 for 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.

S
OON 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.