Secret of Light (12 page)

“Well, it worked better for me, too,” said her mother, hugging back. “I have surgery scheduled this afternoon and this gives me a chance to get back and do my rounds beforehand. Love you!” She kissed her daughter's cheek, and with a wave to Mrs. Follett in her spot at the front door, she drove off in a spray of gravel.

Darrell had a quick look around for Delaney, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Back in his old hunting ground,” she muttered, smiling a little. She gathered up her suitcase and backpack and headed into the school. To her disappointed surprise, standing in the shadows behind Mrs. Follett at the door was Conrad Kennedy.

“Isn't this nice, dear? You can be good company for Conrad, since he's here as well.”

“I don't need company,” snarled Conrad and turned on his heel.

“Now, dear, don't be like that,” Mrs. Follett called after him, but he disappeared in the direction of the music room.

“I'm sorry, dear,” Mrs. Follett twittered at Darrell. “I'm afraid Conrad wasn't very happy at having to spend the long weekend at the school.”

“He didn't go home?” Darrell said in surprise. “Wasn't the whole school shut down?”

“Oh no, dear. The buildings remain open and a few of the staff stay as well.” She leaned towards Darrell conspiratorially. “I'm on my own since Mr. Follett passed on, God rest his soul, and since we still can't seem to get a hold of Conrad's mother, I was hoping he would agree to come home with me. In the end, he decided to stay at the school with the custodian and Mr. Gill.”

For a moment, Darrell felt a little pity for a boy whose mother couldn't be troubled to bring him home for Thanksgiving, but as the discordant sounds of an amplified guitar turned up high came pounding out of the music room, she changed her mind.

Once a creep, always a creep.
After assuring Mrs. Follett that no, she didn't require a second breakfast, Darrell strode up the stairs of the school.

Filled with nervous excitement, she flung her backpack on her bed and began to make the preparations for her journey. Every time she had journeyed through the fabric of time, whether to ancient Scotland or to Renaissance Italy, one thing stood out. Somehow, in a way she could not begin to understand, time seemed to compress in the past. Journeys that seemed to last days turned out to have taken only a few minutes. She felt certain her absence on a trip of any length at all would not be noticed, and if things went according to plan, she was hoping to be in and out of Verrocchio's home in a matter of minutes.

A loud crash resonated from somewhere in front of the school. Darrell fumbled several of the items she was loading in her pocket and they dropped to the floor. She scooped up a tiny notebook, a roll of mints, a large pad of soft cotton, and her fragment of stick and jammed them into her pockets. She ran out of her room and down the hall until she found a classroom with windows fronting the school building. It was surprising to discover the noise wasn't the result of Conrad smashing a guitar to bits on the front lawn or making any disturbance at all. Instead, she saw a huge flatbed truck idling at the front of the school, with several other trucks pulling in the driveway. The truck had just unloaded a small construction Caterpillar down a metal ramp, and that must have been the source of the crash.

Torn, Darrell hesitated. Should she look into what was going on with this equipment or make her way down to the beach? After a moment's indecision, she decided this was too great a diversion not to take advantage of. A quick peek over the banisters confirmed Mrs. Follett was busy talking to the driver of the Cat, and Darrell slipped down the back stairs and out the side door near the kitchen.

Delaney came bolting around the corner as more equipment crashed at the front of the school, and Darrell rubbed his ears to calm him down.

“Let's go for a walk, boy,” she whispered and headed down the path to the beach. The sky was a watery blue, and a thin winter sun pushed its way through the wisps of cloud. A stiff breeze was blowing off the ocean, though it eased somewhat when Darrell emerged from the path at the base of the cliffs.

She paused to catch her breath and then scurried to find a place to hide behind one of the large boulders at the bottom. A few large rolls of industrial fencing lay on their sides nearby, and as she watched, a small Caterpillar similar to the one in front of the school scooped up a roll and trundled off down the beach. It looked like the lighthouse demolition had begun. Darrell smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand and sat down behind the boulder to think up a solution to this new problem.

A whistle shrieked and Delaney jumped at the sound. Darrell was huddled with her back against a rock, alternately feeling frustration because of the delay and gratitude
for the thin sunshine. A wait like this in the rain would have been torture.

Luckily, I'll only need a few minutes.
She stroked Delaney's back to calm him.
Besides, this demolition project will probably take weeks to complete.
While she watched, a pair of construction workers began to unroll the fencing around the lighthouse, but at the sound of the whistle, the small Caterpillar turned a tight circle and drove straight for Darrell's hiding place.

I'm only watching the workers. I was bored and thought I'd sit here and watch.

Excuse formulated, she wrapped her arm around Delaney's neck and waited. The Cat lurched to a halt on the other side of Darrell's boulder, and she heard the crunch of gravel as the workers jumped out and marched up the pathway. She looked up, but they walked right by her, silver Thermoses in hand.

The power of coffee.
She grinned with satisfaction.
I love living on the
West Coast
.

She gave the men to the count of one hundred to labour up the path in their heavy construction boots, then slipped out from behind the boulder, Delaney at her heel. Keeping close to the cliff, she hop-skipped her way over the protruding stones on the firm sand of the beach. Where the rock wall curved to meet the lapping waves, she paused and gazed back toward the path and the school. Nothing. Not even a seabird hopping along the shore. No one could see her and nothing stood in her way.

Her heart gave a sudden lurch and she stumbled, trying to find her footing on the rocks at the base of
the lighthouse. “Come on, Delaney. Let's go find that arrogant artist.”

She stepped easily over the uninstalled fencing lying loose on the ground and, Delaney in the lead, slipped under the chain barring the door.

Tiny specks of dust and wisps of straw floated in the sunbeam pouring through a crack in the wall of the small stable, and Darrell decided to finish the mint she had popped in her mouth before moving again. She'd already clonked her head on the walking stick, and the egg-shaped bump above her hairline convinced her to slow down a little. Lifting her arm gingerly, she held the ornate stick in the sunbeam, marvelling. The round gold handle seemed a little loose, but that had probably been caused by her own hard head. She thrilled at the feel of the stick in her hands, returned to its former glory. A glow of triumph warmed her and she sat up, bumped head forgotten.

Her theory was right! Delaney had picked up the walking stick in his teeth the last time they were in this stable. The stick he dropped on her in the dark of the lighthouse had looked like a broken piece of drift-wood, but...

What would have happened if she hadn't stuffed it in her pocket? It wasn't until the next day when she went to throw it away that she noticed the fine lines in the wood, carved by an artisan long dead.

She rolled the ornate stick between her fingers. The wood was a rich mahogany colour and the bottom of the stick looked well worn.
I don't remember noticing that before
. Not that there had been time for noticing much of anything.

“And there's no time to waste right now, either,” she whispered to Delaney. She pulled up the hem of her heavy brocade overskirt and unwrapped the long cloth that bound the wooden peg into place. Darrell swiftly folded more soft padding into the hollow opening at the top of the carved wooden prosthesis. It was a matter of less than a moment more to replace the wooden leg below her right knee and rewrap it securely in place. Creeping along so as not to put too much weight on the knee, she peered over the edge of the tiny loft and nearly jumped out of her skin as a pony whickered in the stall below. Delaney brushed past her and lightly tiptoed down a rickety set of steps.

These are new.
The wooden steps didn't look new, but Darrell remembered the broken ladder they had all struggled up on the last trip. As there was no handrail, it seemed easiest to turn around and hop down the steps on her left foot. A broken riser in the middle proved to be a little tricky, but she managed it and got down at last. She peeked around the corner at the small pony tethered in the stall. Placidly chewing on a wisp of
hay, he lifted his head and gazed calmly at her a moment before ducking back for another bite.

She turned to Delaney. “Stay!” she said in as stern a voice as she could muster, and the dog dropped to the straw-covered floor of the stable, paws curled under. He looked up at her and raised alternating eyebrows.

“Good boy. I should be back in a few minutes.”

Darrell clutched her walking stick, grateful for its support, and poked her head out of the stable door. The yard appeared to be empty. The sun shone down from almost straight overhead, and the air was still and hot. An insect thrummed, and Darrell noted with satisfaction that all movement seemed to have slowed down, as people slept through the warmest part of the day. A trickle of sweat slipped down her spine, and she crept along the path a few steps before realizing something was missing.

The kitchen garden sat still and green in the autumn sunshine, but the wall behind it was new, made of stone fitted neatly together, mortarless. Where was Cristofo's tiny villa? Fruit trees heavy with ripe pears formed a small orchard where the villa had stood within the stone walls of the yard.

A sliver of doubt wedged painfully into the back of Darrell's brain. She made her way to the kitchen door.

“Federica?” The girl shook her head. “I'm sorry,
signorina
. Are you sure you have the correct villa?”

Darrell nodded, her frustration growing. “It doesn't matter. I haven't been to visit Verrocchio for a
while,” she said, trying to curb her impatience, “and I just need to find his student, Leonardo. Can you show me to his room?”

The maid tucked a strand of hair into her kerchief. “Master Leonardo has not lived here since he was a boy. His studio is close to the centre of the city.” She eyed Darrell with growing suspicion. “Everyone knows this. What did you say your name is?”

Realization hit Darrell so hard she practically heard her brain click. “My name is Dara. I — I come from...” She searched her mind and settled on the home city of her mother's grandparents. “Verona. I have only this afternoon to visit my father's friend Leonardo. Can you direct me to his home?”

Slightly mollified, the maid pointed Darrell in the direction of the studio, apparently not too far away. Darrell headed off down the lane. A last look over her shoulder showed the maid still standing outside the door in Verrocchio's yard, a frown on her face and hands on her hips.

Darrell slipped around a corner in the lane and then stopped to think a moment. Time had passed, of course. The small villa behind the main house was gone. Giovanni's grandfather, Cristofo, was probably gone, too, long dead and buried.

Her heart sank at the thought of those piercing blue eyes, now finally stilled forever. The walking stick was worn down and the ladder in the stable had been replaced with a set of steps. She should have noticed these changes. But how much time had passed? A cool nose pressed against her leg and she started.

“Delaney! I thought I told you to stay!” Instead of impatience, sudden relief flooded through her, and she bent over to rub his ears.

“You'll help me find him, won't you, boy?”

But even with Delaney at her side, her luck didn't improve. The directions given by Verrocchio's maid seemed clear enough, but Darrell was soon so turned around by the maze of lanes and streets that it wasn't long before she realized she was lost. She hurried from one street to the next, looking for the low, white building with a marble lion guarding the doorway that Verrocchio's maid had described. She followed the winding streets, twisting one moment along a lane lined with row houses hunched and dark like crows on a line and then, steps away, broadening into a
piazza
lined with beautiful buildings or the elegant arches of a stone
loggia
.

Florence came alive as the warmth of the day gave way to the cooler air of evening. Darrell felt nearly frantic with worry. Her leg throbbed in spite of the soft cotton pad she had applied under the prosthesis. A red blister had risen on the palm of her left hand from her over-enthusiastic use of the walking stick. She had spent most of the afternoon trying to find her way through the humid streets of Florence, and now found herself wandering down a treeless lane without a clue as to where she was.

The unmistakeable aroma of the river rose in the cooling air. Earlier, Darrell had crossed the Arno on a tiny footbridge but now decided to return across a strange bridge she spied that embraced the shallow river. She stepped carefully along a narrow cobbled path that
threaded its way across the bridge. The bridge contained a number of strange edifices of different sizes and shapes. Butchers jostled with merchants, and shops abutted tiny apartments where people seemed to live, all atop the slender bridge crossing the river. The bridge was teeming with people.

As a small child ran shrieking by, Darrell clutched at his arm. He shrank against a wall as if he expected to be struck. “Excuse me,” said Darrell, her voice quiet among the cacophony on the bridge.