Time out of Time

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  Sarah walked to the window and wiggled the sash, making sure it was locked. “How are we going to protect ourselves?”

  SILVER DUST

  HAT NIGHT TIMOTHY didn’t sleep well. When he did manage to drift off, his dreams were a troubling collage of ravens and magicians. He’d put the map under his pillow, and now in the early-morning light he slipped his hand under his head just to reassure himself; it was still there. The thought of leaving it and his crown in the back of Sarah’s closet all day while he was at school was intolerable. No, it was more than intolerable; it was excruciating—an interesting word he had never been able to use in Scrabble but one he kept in reserve just in case.

  Timothy wrapped the comforter tightly around himself, reluctant to rise from the warm cocoon of his bed. The room was cold, and the light coming through the window was a milky white. Snow light, Timothy thought. He shuffled to the window. The sky was gray flannel, heavy with the expectation of snow. Last year there had been no snow for the holidays, only a thin and disappointing dusting late in January. Maybe this year there would be proper snow for Christmas. Then Timothy remembered: They wouldn’t be home for Christmas this year. He wondered if it snowed in Edinburgh.

  It was Friday. Tomorrow they’d be able to visit Mr. Twig again. Timothy had decided deep in the middle of the night that he would have to return the map to Mr. Twig; it would be safest there. He would leave the crown with him as well. He couldn’t take the map and crown to Scotland with his family and put them all in danger. But what could he do with them in the meantime? He pulled on his clothes, adding an extra sweater. He ran his fingers through his hair while worry continued to nip at his stomach. School wasn’t safe, and he had the feeling his own house wasn’t, either. He remembered the rowan branches on his windowsill keeping the one-eyed cat out. Jessica had given them enough from her tree for every windowsill in the house. A few extra branches were piled in the garage. It might help to put some right inside Sarah’s closet.

  Timothy mumbled to his mother’s back as he passed her in the kitchen and hurried to the garage with Prank at his heels. The cold waited for him. He shoved his hands into his pockets and sniffed the air, hoping to catch the scent of snow. The garage was not much warmer than outside. Timothy gathered the last three slender branches and sped back to his sister’s room. He placed the limbs inside her closet, against the false back to their secret space. Grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl and his backpack, he ran for the bus stop.

  All that morning Timothy waited for snow and for a chance to talk to Jessica. By lunchtime, it looked as if neither was likely to happen. The problem with someone like Jessica, he thought grumpily, was that she was never alone. Finally, in desperation, he stopped by her table at lunch. She sat surrounded by three of the most popular girls in school. A large boy, who had recently taken to shadowing her every move, hunkered at a table nearby. Timothy paused and leaned in toward Jessica. “We’re going to Scotland for Christmas.” He hoped he had spoken quietly enough that only Jessica had heard.

  “So?” Tina Salcedo stared up at him, her brown eyes ringed in dark shadow. Timothy thought she looked like a skinny raccoon.

  Jessica raised her eyebrows and flipped her hair. “Is Sarah going, too?”

  “The whole family,” Timothy muttered. Tina snorted. Timothy didn’t stick around to hear Jessica’s response. He’d imparted the information. He’d talk to her later.

  That afternoon the bus was a war zone. Outside, a freak windstorm tore the limbs from trees and sent garbage cans careering down the sidewalks. On the bus, spitballs pelted like rain. The bus driver pulled over twice and told everyone to quiet down. Even then, the noise subsided only until the bus moved once more. The energy in the air was palpable.

  But Timothy was distracted; the map absorbed his thoughts. He would just tell the old professor that he’d failed. That he had no idea about the solution to the map. That he wasn’t worthy of being a Filidh. His heart beat heavily in his chest, and he wondered for the millionth time who in his family had been the Filidh before him. Who had turned to the Dark? Timothy tried to cheer himself up by remembering the fireworks and the longship promised in Edinburgh, but a sense of failure whipped through him like the wind, weighing as heavily as the leaden sky.

  By the time the bus reached Timothy’s stop, the wind had slowed. Clouds skimmed the tops of the tallest trees. Drivers flashed on their headlights. Timothy picked his way over stray branches and debris, thinking of his warm kitchen and the muffins he hadn’t had time to eat at breakfast. He nervously checked the treetops for birds.

  When he rounded the corner to his street, red and blue lights almost blinded him. A flashing police car was parked in his driveway. Timothy ran.

  He pushed his way through the front door. In the living room, his mother sat bewildered among the litter of a ransacked house. A police officer was talking into a cell phone. Cabinet drawers were tossed onto the floor, their contents spilled, sofa cushions overturned and torn open. Mrs. Maxwell ran one finger back and forth across her eyebrows the way she did whenever she was distressed.

  “Mom?” Timothy’s voice caught in his throat.

  “Timothy.” She looked up. “We’ve had a break-in. Your dad’s on his way home. I was out at the grocery store.” She gestured vaguely toward two paper bags.

  Timothy dropped his backpack on the floor. “Are you okay?” He had a sudden vision of Sarah’s closet, the door open and the map and crown gone. It took all his will to keep from dashing upstairs to see if they had been discovered.

  “She’s fine, son.” The officer clicked shut his phone and cracked his neck. He reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a small notebook. “We just need to determine if anything’s been stolen. Why don’t you take a look around and see if you notice anything missing?”

  Timothy quickly scanned the living room. It was a shambles, but as far as he could tell, everything was still there, including a new camera sitting in plain view on the coffee table.

  “Strangest thing.” The officer shook his head. “They left that nice camera. Something must’ve frightened ’em off.” He looked at Mrs. Maxwell. “Don’t you worry, ma’am. Crime in the middle of the day like this—neighbors must have seen something.”

  “Usually drug-related.” A female officer walked into the room, clicking off several shots with a digital camera.

  Timothy inched toward the stairs. “I want to check our bedrooms.” He took the stairs two at a time and burst into Sarah’s room. Just as he had imagined, everything was overturned. Books and clothes were tossed indiscriminately across the floor. The closet door was open! But the three rowan branches still lay inside as he had left them. Heart racing, he removed them, then loosened the panel on the back wall. It was too dark to see anything. He thrust his hand into the opening. The map in its leather pouch and the crown were still there!

  Timothy grabbed the pouch and crown and pressed them against his chest. He could feel his heart still beating wildly. He should keep them with him until he went to Mr. Twig’s tomorrow. He could sleep with them by his side. At least he’d know that they were safe. He looked around Sarah’s room and shuddered. No place felt safe. Better to leave them back in the closet with the rowan wood as protection. Reluctantly, he placed the items behind the panel in the closet again.

  Nothing in Sarah’s room or his own room, as far as he could tell in the chaos, was gone. His computer still hummed on his desk, and his mineral collection still lined the windowsill. His bed was just as rumpled as he’d left it, but along one side was a long, ominous gash.

  Sarah and his father were standing in stunned silence in the living room when Timothy returned downstairs.

  “Sarah, go check your room,” Mr. Maxwell ordered. “Timothy, anything missing?”

  “It’s a mess, but everything’s there.”

  His father nodded, and Timothy followed Sarah up the stairs.

  “Timothy, the map? Tell me it’s safe!” Sarah, still bundled in her ballet s
weats and parka, waited for him on the landing.

  “The map and crown are fine. I put rowan branches inside your closet before I left this morning.” He followed her into her bedroom. “But if rowan branches work, and we have them on the windowsills, how did the Dark get into the house?”

  Clothes and books were tumbled across the floor. Sarah’s favorite collage hung in tatters from the wall. She collapsed on the bed, head in hands. “It’s worse than I thought!”

  Timothy sat down next to her. “It wasn’t a robbery. Someone was looking for the map.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know. It was the Dark, looking for the map. Think about what happened at my school.”

  Sarah was quiet for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “I’ve got something to tell you, too. I came in the back door when I got home. There’s silver dust on the back deck.”

  Timothy gaped at his sister. “Star Girl wouldn’t do this. Show me.”

  Timothy grabbed his flashlight, and Sarah followed him out the back door. It was murky dusk now, the lights of the city reflecting off the low clouds. As the flashlight beam played across the deck, Timothy saw a faint glitter.

  Sarah bent down and ran her fingers through the dust. “She was here.” Then she scraped the dust into the cracks between the boards with the toe of her shoe. “I don’t want anyone else to see this.”

  “I’m giving the map and crown to Mr. Twig tomorrow. I haven’t solved the cipher, and we can’t take them with us to Scotland. It will only put everyone in danger.”

  “How do you know that taking them to Edinburgh isn’t exactly what we’re supposed to do, especially if there’s a chance the stone is in Scotland? And how did the Dark get into the house?” Sarah echoed Timothy’s question.

  A lone crow cawed overhead and landed in the bare branches of the sycamore. Timothy shrugged deeper into his jacket. He looked up at the windows of their house. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. But, look, the rowan branches are gone from the windows. Even the wind is against us.” He felt a cold deeper than the bite of late afternoon, as if eyes followed him from the shadows, but except for the lone crow, the yard was deserted.

  ELECTRA

  TAR GIRL WATCHED the night deepen. As the sky darkened from blue to black, a screech owl hooted softly above her head, its feathered horns dark silhouettes against the sky. From her perch in a locust tree across town from the Maxwells, she could identify six stars of the Pleiades glowing just above the horizon. Tonight the astronomers would again wonder about the missing seventh star, the lost Pleiade. Few would know which star was missing, and fewer still would be able to give the name of the missing sister, Electra.

  The Pleiade sisters had been called many things over hundreds of years: doves, maidens, flames. Each description captured a part of the truth, but none could describe them entirely. Now scientists peered through ever-evolving telescopes and defined them as an open star cluster and pinpointed their distance as four hundred light-years from Earth. But many astronomers still used the old names from Greek myth when referring to them individually: Alcyone, guardian of the winds; Merope, the youngest and most eloquent sister; swarthy Celaeno; Maia, the eldest; twinkling Sterope; Taygeta of the long neck; and Star Girl’s own name, Electra, the bright and shining. There had been names before these, given when the world was new. On any particular night of winter in the northern hemisphere, six or all seven of the sisters were visible from Earth. And that variability had led to speculations, legends, and stories of a missing sister.

  Electra had heard the call when November darkened to December, when she and her sisters became visible in the sky soon after dusk. The call meant it was time for her to watch, to bear witness. Each time one of the sisters was summoned, it was to a crossroads of history. Sometimes it had been a momentous event, such as the crowning of King Hugh O’Neill of Ireland, when the coronation stone cried out in joy. Sometimes it was a moment of sadness so great that all creation was called as witness, as when fires of the death camps burned day and night. Often the events were increments as small as finches, events unnoticed by most, such as when the boy Timothy stood against the Dark and received a crown. Each time, something greater than the event itself hung in the balance. Electra knew that all the happenings of thousands of years were mere prelude to a story that was still unfolding. And it was her task now to witness and not intervene in the affairs of humans.

  From her tree, she witnessed two figures enter the professor’s house. It was in the quietest hours of night, right before dawn. One wore the shape of a werewolf and the other a hunched hag, but she had seen them before in other guises. They entered stealthily, turning the knob of the locked door, though they needed no doors to enter. Methodically at first, they began a search. As their frustration grew, the search became frenzied. Drawers gaped like open mouths, books flew to the floor, and in the middle of the racket, the old professor in striped pajamas staggered in from his bed on knobby bare feet, a baseball bat clutched in his hands. Before he saw their shadowy shapes, he hesitated, as if he could feel their presence, a coldness in the air.

  The wolf thing reared onto its back legs, towered as tall as a man, and snarled, but the hag was swifter. She struck a blow from behind that sent the old man sprawling.

  Electra watched as the two shadowed figures left without finding whatever they had come for. She watched still when the professor pulled himself to his feet and, with a trembling hand, dialed the phone.

  Later she watched the dark shapes visit the house of Timothy and his sister, Sarah. The sky was flanneled with clouds, and the scent of snow lingered around the edges of the afternoon when the dark ones moved toward the empty house.

  This time they looked like two young women out for a winter walk, bundled against the cold and wind that tore at their clothes. Electra noticed how they rang the doorbell and waited on the front porch. Anyone passing by would assume visitors had come to call. Then, when no one responded, they wandered toward the side yard. Where the rowan branches were set in the windowsills, they could not enter the house. Electra followed silently, her long silver hair brushing the backs of her knees, her bare feet quite comfortable on the freezing ground. Once they were out of view from the road, the outlines of the two young women blurred to shadows. The shadows grew thick and took the shape of large cats, easily leaping the fence and disappearing into the backyard. The winds grew stronger. They roared through town and swept about the house. Outside an upstairs window, a branch came loose and fell.

  Electra watched the cats enter the house through that window and transform once again into dark shapes. While they searched, she hummed. It would not snow yet, she thought, looking at the sky. The leaves had fallen from the red twig dogwood growing near the bare garden plot. Its branches stood out among the browns and grays like stiff red arms. Soon it would be time for her to move on. The cats reappeared on the roof. They carried nothing with them. One leapt deftly to the top of the fence. The other opened its mouth as if to yowl. She could see the pointed teeth, the pink throat. But no sound emerged, just a ribbon of inky black, as dense and cold as despair.

  PROFESSOR TWIG

  N THE EARLY HOURS of Saturday morning, long before the rest of his family was up, Timothy was awake. He took the map and crown from under his pillow. He spread the map across his comforter and tried, once again, to puzzle out its secrets. But nothing came to him.

  Timothy, with the map and crown inside his backpack, was only too glad to escape the house with Sarah after lunch. His parents were busy putting the house back together and seemed relieved to have them go. Timothy and Sarah had arranged to meet Jessica at the city bus stop and return the map to Mr. Twig. Sarah had tried calling the professor several times that morning, but the phone rang unanswered.

  “Tell me about the break-in,” Jessica said, rubbing her mittened hands together.

  “It was awful. Everything’s a mess! Nothing was stolen, and nothing really important was broken, except my mom’s
latest painting was slashed. She was pretty upset about that.” Sarah stomped her feet to keep them warm.

  “They had to be looking for it.” Even though there was no one else waiting at the bus stop, Timothy couldn’t bring himself to say map out loud.

  “Did Timothy tell you about the silver dust?” Sarah asked.

  Jessica nodded. “It had to be Star Girl. Do you think she scared off whoever it was?”

  “I don’t know.” Sarah exhaled, and her breath hovered like a white phantom in the air. “But after what happened at your school, nowhere seems safe.”

  “I can’t believe your family is going to Scotland before we’ve figured anything out.” Jessica’s voice was muffled behind her scarf, and Timothy noticed that she didn’t look at either of them.

  He was consumed by his own gloomy thoughts. It irked him to return the map to Mr. Twig without having made any progress on it. If he, Timothy, truly was a Filidh, he wasn’t a very good one. A puff of warm air hit his face as the doors of the bus swung open.

  The sky was still low and brooding. The weatherman had predicted snow before nightfall. Houses were festive with Christmas lights, and Timothy, his face turned toward the gray world, could see decorated trees in windows. They had decided not to get a Christmas tree this year, since they would be leaving before the holidays. Timothy loved the ritual of getting up early on a weekend, going into the forest, arguing over just the right tree, and returning home to cinnamon rolls.