Into the Dim (36 page)

Another image came, slamming into the first
. A doll tucked under my arm as I raced through the woods. Someone held my hand, dragging me away from a scene of screams and blood. Cold. So cold. Then blackness consumed me as I screamed inside the rotting trunk of the nightmare tree.

Someone tore away the huge branches that had trapped me inside. I was wrenched from the darkness. Gentle hands brushed the creatures from my hair, my gown. I looked up, but his face was lost in shadow. The only thing I could see was a small, silver medallion, hanging on a leather thong. “It was my mum's,” he said, when I reached out a shaking finger to touch it. “I took it off her after they . . . after they killed her.”

My heart refused to beat. Celia laughed, a pretty silver sound that sliced through the glade, sharp as a razor's edge.

“Sarah's daughter. Loved but not trusted. Too pathetic and frail to know her own truth.”

“Hope,” Mom whispered, but I was beyond hearing.

My savior pressed something into my hand. I looked down to see a small, withered apple resting on my palm. “Here. It's for you.”

I cried then, because I was so hungry, so tired. I missed my grandfather, and I'd lost my doll. My Elizabeth. As the boy lifted the meager fruit to my lips, I smelled the familiar, cloying
scent. Suddenly, three people emerged from the trees. A man and two women, dressed in fine clothes. The boy stood, a stick thrust out before him, protecting me.

One of the women hurried across the clearing and knelt down. “I won't hurt you,” she promised the boy. She called to the others. “They're starving and nearly frozen. They must've come from that burned-out village we passed yesterday. We can't leave them here. They'll die of exposure if we don't do something fast.” She smiled. “Don't worry, we're going to take care of you.”

When she returned to the others, the dark-haired woman began arguing with her. The man got angry, but the first woman only said, “You take them. I'll stay.”

The man shook his head. “Like hell you will.”

He pulled her to him, murmuring something that made the other woman furious.

As the three began struggling at the edge of the clearing, I could no longer hold myself upright. I toppled over onto my back and stared up as stars wheeled in the night sky. The boy crawled over and held my head in his lap. He smiled down
at me, and I remembered the first time I'd seen him in the small village. How his face had darkened as my grandfather explained that men were chasing us. He'd held so tight to my hand as we ran through the forest. He never let go, except to put me in the tree, where he thought I'd be safe while he went to search for food. As the moon snuck out from behind the clouds he looked over to the arguing people, and I could finally see his eyes. His odd, mismatched eyes.

I blinked, shaking my head, my breath coming in little huffs.

“. . . that your daughter did not come from any orphanage,” Celia was saying. “But was brought back, along with Brandon, from the year 1576.”

The images expanded until I thought my head would rupture. A small child's half-formed memories skittered through my mind. The gray-bearded man had been taking me back to my mother. My real mother. The lady with long, brown hair, who'd trained my hands to spin the wool. When the bad men raced into the small village, killing and burning, he'd shielded me with his body as he begged the boy to take my hand and run.

I knew that dear old face now. I'd seen it in history books all my life.

My poppy. My grandfather. Doctor John Dee.

Queen Elizabeth I's most trusted advisor. A scientist and astrologer. Religious fanatics had hated him. Called him a wizard. But he'd only been brilliant and far ahead of his time.

And . . . according to many biographers . . . he'd been blessed with an eidetic memory.

I sat back hard, falling away from my mother.

There'd never been an orphanage. That was my mother's lie. More memories splashed thorough in cyclical waves. A small, snug house with an herb garden out back. A crowded city. Horses. A flash of a scary white-faced queen with orange hair.

The boy.

My gaze locked with Bran's. The pity in his eyes was too much to bear as the earth and sky switched places. Tall, bare trees spun around me like horses on a carousel.

“Hope.” My mother's hand clutched at me, but I yanked away. She sagged against Phoebe, spent. “I had no choice. The two of you would have died. I should have told you, but . . .” Her anguished face begged for understanding. A spasm of pain racked her body. When it passed, she whispered, “I need you to know I will never regret taking you from that terrible place.”

Phoebe's voice was aghast. “Sarah, you didn't. You brought them back from the past? Both of them?”

“After Celia stabbed Michael,” Mom whispered, “he placed the extra lodestones on you children. Then he just ran away. He knew the Dim was coming, so he took the choice from us, you see.”

I looked at Collum. If he'd known about this, I didn't know what I'd do. But his mouth hung open in pure shock.

“Brandon.” Mom's voice was barely audible. “I wanted to take you, too, to raise you as my own.” Bran took a shuffling step toward her and stared down with an unreadable expression. “But when we got home, Celia took off with you so fast. We couldn't stop her.”

Celia stepped between the two of them, severing their line of sight. Bran's face had gone pale at my mother's declaration.

Celia's voice morphed into a low hiss. “You took Michael from me. You weren't taking everything. The honorable, loving family and
two
children to love you?
Never.
”

“N
OW YOU KNOW THE TRUTH
.” C
ELIA LEERED DOWN AT ME
. “That your mother is a liar. But the two of you will have much time in this age to discuss it.” She glanced down at the blood. “Or perhaps not. Come, Brandon, these people are nothing to us. Without their lodestones, they dare not travel the Dim.” She snorted and gave that brittle laugh. “Perhaps Babcock would take you back, Sarah,” she said. “And when I bring Michael home, I will tell him you are happily wed.”

Bran blinked at me. There was a message there, but I couldn't read it. Celia turned to go, then whipped back, something catching her attention.

An undulating lavender mist had begun to coalesce around Collum and Phoebe. The pendant, still clutched in my hand, twitched against my palm. I looked down to see the same purplish haze shimmering up my arm.

The Dim had come for us. Celia's eyes bulged as she realized that her son had never taken the lodestones from us.

“Traitor,” Celia snarled as she swung the pistol barrel at Bran. “I should have left you to die in that forest.”

Before he could react, Celia leaped forward and ripped Bran's opal cloak pin away. She danced back, Bran's lodestone—his safety, his only sure way back to where he started—clenched in her fist.

With the gun still raised, she spoke. “I should have known you would do this. You are weak. You are nothing.” She tossed her hair back, and gave a haughty laugh. “Eh, It is no loss.
You
are not of my blood. I will train Antonio to stand by my side. He is my only true son.”

“No!” Anguish and rage all balled together in one horrible expression skimmed across Bran's features. He took a step in Celia's direction, stopping only when she trained the gun straight at his heart. Hands raised in supplication, he begged, “Mother. Please. Tony's too young. He's not cut out for this. You know that. He'll only get himself killed.”

“Then,
querido,
” Celia sneered, “you should not have betrayed me.”

For one, brief moment I thought she would pull the trigger. That she would kill her own son where he stood. The blood in my veins turned to slurry as the second stretched into an eternity.

Then, with a disgusted huff, she turned and fled into the trees. Bran's hands fell to his sides and his head dropped in defeat.

Beside me, Mom was trying to say something, but the pain and blood loss were too much. Her eyes closed, and she slumped against Phoebe.

“Mom?” When she wouldn't stir, I lightly smacked her cheeks, then shook her hard. “Mom!” No response. Shaking, I groped for a pulse. It flickered against my fingertips, weak and thready.

A cold wind began to circle us. Back at Christopher Manor, Doug had flipped the switch. The Dim had come to take us home, but something wasn't right. The fractured light that danced over Collum, Phoebe, and me turned a deep violet. But the glow rolling across my mother was a sick, putrid shade of yellow.

Horrorstruck, I remembered what had happened to Dr. Alvarez's son. How he was sliced in two, only half of him returning when he traveled without his lodestone.

“The dagger,” I cried. “Celia took it. Without the lodestone to guide Mom, she'll go somewhere else. Or she'll die.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Bran, pale and alone, move to the edge of the clearing. At my words, his head came up, and our eyes met. I hesitated for only a heartbeat. Five people. Three lodestones. And though Bran stood outside the glade, that still left four of us.

As I let the pendant spool out of my fist, I said to Phoebe, “tell Mom I'm sorry.”

She didn't get it, but Collum did. He tried to tear the ring from his own finger, but the nerves in his injured arm wouldn't cooperate. “Cameron, help me,” he yelled. “For God's sake, get this bloody ring off and give it to Sarah. Hurry.”

Blood sheeted down Collum's arm and streamed from his fingers. I glanced from the pendant, then back at Bran. I could see the argument forming on his lips. But we didn't have time and he knew it. Finally, he gave a sharp nod. A silent agreement.

“Aye.” Collum nodded frantically as Bran approached. “I can't remove it with this blasted arm. You'll have to do it.”

“I'm sorry, Collum,” I said. “But you need a doctor.”

“What? No!” he cried, ripping at the ring.

I tossed the strip of fabric we'd cut earlier to Bran. He caught it and quickly bound Collum's hands together, then ran over and grabbed Michael MacPherson's sword. He shoved it into the scabbard at Collum's belt while Collum writhed against his restraints and cursed us.

“Make it fast, Hope,” Bran shouted against the roaring wind.

The translucent cyclone began to circle higher and higher, whipping dark curls into my face, blinding me. My hands shook so badly that I could barely wrap the pendant's chain around my unconscious mother's wrist. When I closed her limp fingers over the stone, the soft purple light transferred instantly to her. My own skin turned an ugly mustard color. “I love you, Mom,” I whispered.

“Come on. We've got to get out of here.” Bran hauled me to my feet and rushed me to the edge of the glade.

The instant we passed the tree line, the muddy haze around me faded.

“Oh, Hope. No.” Tears poured down Phoebe's ravaged face.

“Get them to the hospital as fast as you can,” I shouted. “Tell them it's placenta previa. There's time if you hurry.”

I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face had turned to stone. My knees wobbled. Bran's arm came around me, propping me up as he had when we were children when we were lost in the woods so long ago.

“We'll find a way back,” I cried. Bran pulled me farther from the cyclonic wind and raging light. “I swear it.” My voice broke on a sob. “Tell Lucinda . . . Tell her we'll find a way.”

Collum screamed in frustration. Phoebe and I had time to share one horrified look before the air around them ignited in a fireball of violet light.

T
HE SHOCK WAVE SMASHED INTO US AS THE INEXORABLE
power of the Dim wrenched the others back to their own time. Hurtling backwards through the trees, I slammed hard into the snowy ground, the breath knocked from me. Green spots danced behind my eyelids.

They're safe. Thank God they're safe.

Bran crawled over to me, groaning. “Well, that smarted.”

“You knew,” I blurted as I blinked up at him. Above him, the clouds glowed in a riot of amethyst and topaz. “You knew about us all along, and you didn't tell me.”

When he only gazed down at me, I shoved him away and sat up. “How could you? Don't you think maybe, just
maybe,
that's something you might've shared with me?”

He jumped to his feet. “And just how was I supposed to do that, hmm? Sit you down over a pint and say, ‘Oh, hey, by the way, you remember when we met as children back in the sixteenth century? Boy, weren't those jolly times?'”

I felt my lips peel back, ready to hurl an answer, but he was faster.

“Or maybe I could've reminded you of the time you and your rich pop-pop, or whatever you called him, burst into my tiny village, a group of men on your tail? Men who killed everyone and burned my home to the ground?” He paced back and forth, his voice growing louder. “Or . . . how I had to forget watching my real mum drop dead from an ax blow to the skull while I dragged your butt through the forest for two
days
before we got abducted by bloody time travelers!”

Bran was panting as he glared down at me.

Furious, I jumped to my feet. “It's better than being left in the dark!”

“Oh, you think ignorance is worse? Worse than being the only person who knows you don't belong in your own fucking time?” he shouted. “Worse than your mother spewing poison and telling you every day that you're nothing but a mongrel who's only alive on her charity?”

“Maybe not, but . . . but . . .” I trailed off at the look of unutterable pain that creased his face. He turned away and slumped down on a nearby log.