“Don’t you remember what else they said?” Sarah stuck her finger between the pages of the guidebook she was reading to mark her place. “I knew I’d heard of Dunsinane even before the Seaborgs told us. It’s in the Scottish play. ‘Not till Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane.’ ”
“That’s from Macbeth?” Timothy asked.
“Don’t say the play’s name aloud; it’s bad luck. Everyone knows that. But, yes, this book says that’s where his castle might have been, and that’s what the Seaborgs said, too.”
“I thought they might be wrong about that. I never thought he was real. I thought he was just a character Shakespeare made up for a play,” said Jessica.
Sarah shook her head. “No, he really was a king from the Iron Age, just like the Seaborgs said. The guidebook says there are some ancient ruins there but that it’s not a big tourist draw because there’s not too much to see.”
“Well, it’s going to be what we want to see most of all. We can say it ties in to school,” said Timothy.
“Hot chocolate or tea, anyone?” Mrs. Maxwell appeared in the doorway, smiling. “Then we’re heading into town to hear the choir at Saint Giles’ Cathedral.” She paused in the doorway, looking at the maps. “Are you making plans?”
“Oh, we’re just checking out all the best sights.” Jessica pointed to the guidebook. “After all, how many times do we get a trip to Scotland?”
Electra had watched through the long dark night as the Wild Hunt rode, as the Dark gathered itself into a relentless storm and battered the stone city with cold. She had seen the ginger-haired boy first at the house in the woods and then, in the earliest hours of the morning, on the High Street, shivering. She had watched as he huddled miserably against the wall of a pub, waiting. Finally, the pub door swung open. A tall man with golden curls and a woman with long dark hair emerged, pausing only long enough to speak with the boy. Electra had seen the woman before. She was one of the Daoine sídhe but not the one who had appeared at Nessa Daring’s. As Electra watched, the man spoke to the boy. When he heard the boy’s answer, the man angrily raised his arm. The boy cowered. And as the arm was lowered, the boy collapsed, writhing on the sidewalk. The man and woman had continued on, arm in arm, into the snowstorm.
Now in the sun of Christmas Day, Electra stood outside the cathedral. She watched as the Maxwell family, chattering happily, joined the throng of people waiting to enter the tall wooden doors. The glittering world of ice had melted, leaving the city gleaming like polished stone.
“Did you see her?” Jessica asked.
“See who?” Timothy was busy looking up at the stone arches framing the entry. The enormity of the cathedral made him feel very small.
“Star Girl, Electra. I’m sure I saw her on the corner across from us when we came in.” Jessica looked over her shoulder. But the corner was empty now. Timothy turned to look. “If she was here, she’s gone now.”
“Why do you suppose they made cathedrals so big?” Jessica craned her neck to follow Timothy’s gaze.
“To reach up to God,” Sarah answered.
“I think,” Timothy said, “it’s to remind us of how very small we are.”
The rest of the day was quiet. Mr. McMorn had promised to drop by on his way home from dinner at his sister’s house. So when the doorbell rang, Timothy, who had had enough of reading, was ready for a diversion. Brian McMorn stood in the doorway with a bottle of Scotch and a tin of cookies in his hands.
Again Timothy had the strange feeling of an insect crawling over his skin. He froze, searching the man’s face, one hand on the door. Whenever Mr. McMorn smiled, it seemed to cost him a great effort, Timothy thought. Then he noticed the tremor in the man’s hands. Was he nervous?
“Well, are you going to invite me in?”
“Oh, sorry. Come in, and Merry Christmas!”
“Happy Christmas to you, too!” He held up the bottle of Scotch. “Arthur, some Christmas cheer and a tin of my sister’s shortbread—the best in Scotland!”
Mrs. Maxwell served them all the shortbread. They sat around the table, eating and talking.
“Tomorrow is Boxing Day. I promised to take you all somewhere. Have you any special plans in mind?”
“Boxing Day? Does everyone fight?” Sarah asked.
“No, Boxing Day traditionally was when rich folks would box up their leftovers for the servants. Today it’s just another bank holiday, one more day to exchange gifts. Don’t want to miss the torchlight procession later this week, either. People carry wax torches through the streets. Scottish pipers and drummers accompany the crowds. On top of the hill, we burn a Viking longship, and at midnight there are fireworks.”
Now, that was exactly what Timothy wanted to see, and for a minute he completely forgot about the map and Dunsinane, but Jessica wasn’t so easily distracted.
“Well, there is a place we want to see, and it isn’t the kind of tourist attraction that will be closed. It’s Dunsinane Hill, where Macbeth’s castle was,” she said.
Mr. McMorn put down his fork. “I know Dunsinane. There were some archaeological digs there a few years back. They found two buried chambers, an ancient torque, or metal collar, and some human remains, I believe. No one is sure that it was Macbeth’s seat, but then, I’m sure there’s still much to discover.” He looked at Timothy from under his heavy eyelids. Again Timothy noticed something in McMorn’s glance. Was it fear?
“But your mother and I have been invited to the Gladstones tomorrow. He’s one of the major backers of the conference. I’m afraid we can’t get out of it.” Mr. Maxwell shrugged.
“I’d be happy to take them, Arthur,” Mr. McMorn said.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to inconvenience you on your day off,” Mrs. Maxwell countered.
“No inconvenience at all. I’d like to see the place again, see what I missed the first time. And to have young people so interested in one of our historic sites . . .” Mr. McMorn’s voice trailed off.
Go with Mr. McMorn without his parents? Timothy wasn’t so sure. McMorn didn’t feel like a person he should trust. He looked at Sarah and Jessica. Sarah looked as alarmed as he felt, but Jessica didn’t hesitate.
“That would be great! Thanks so much! I have to write a paper on a Shakespeare play in the spring. I could do Macbeth!”
Timothy recognized her manipulative tone, but this time Jessica might not know what she was getting them all into.
BOXING DAY
N THE QUIET MORNING of Boxing Day, John Ahearn rapped on the shop door. It took a little while before he heard the lock turn, and then Newton Seaborg, still in a bathrobe, cracked open the door.
“I’ve come for me map.”
Newton looked the burly customer up and down. His tweed jacket strained across broad shoulders, and his thick neck rose into a gray-streaked beard. A preposterous hat, as tall and wide as a chimney, sat on top of his unruly crop of hair. His shoes were thick brown brogues, well scuffed. Newton shuddered. He had a particular fondness for shoes and never liked to see them treated poorly. This fellow in his ridiculous hat annoyed him.
“It’s Boxing Day. We’re closed.”
“I’ve come for me map. Name’s Ahearn. John Ahearn.”
Then Newton heard a clicking, the sound of toenails on cobbles, followed by panting. Two hunting hounds with strange, pale eyes circled Ahearn’s thick legs.
“Who’s at the door?” Maggie Seaborg, wrapped in a fuchsia silk housecoat, pulled the door wide. She eyed the man and his dogs. “Mr. Ahearn. The map’s been ready for several days now. I believed you were in a hurry for it.” She looked at him severely.
“Pressing business came up, but I’m here now.” A string of drool dropped from one of the hounds’ jaws onto his shoe.
Maggie was displeased. She didn’t like to be rushed in her work, and she had rushed for this Mr. Ahearn. On the other hand, he had paid handsomely for the illuminations, and they could use the money. “Why don’t you come in? As you can see, we’re barely up and about. I
’m afraid your dogs will have to remain outside.”
Mr. Ahearn hesitated. “Stay.” The dogs whined and dropped to sit on the cobbles. He ducked his head to enter through the low door but did not remove his coat or hat.
As Maggie went to get the map and Newton poured tea, her mind ticked. The children had mentioned a fellow named Herne, and she had suspected something then. Now, when John Ahearn returned to her shop wearing the same exceptionally tall hat he had worn on his last visit, she was curious. He was hiding something under that hat—she was sure of it. It was no coincidence that the children had come with a map to find the coronation stone, and now this Mr. Ahearn showed up with his hunting hounds. There was a connection. She could feel it in her bones, and her bones were rarely wrong. Could Timothy really be the new Filidh they had waited for? If the old myths were walking the streets in broad daylight, things must be very close to the prophecies indeed.
She walked over to her worktable, where the map lay finished. Hopefully, the children had gone to Dunsinane straightaway. The sooner the stone was found, the better. “Mr. Ahearn, take a look at the finished work.”
He met her at the table and traced her intricate drawings of hounds and prey with a hairy finger.
“I hope it is satisfactory?”
“Aye.” He nodded. “More than that.”
Maggie thought fast. Why would Herne, the Master of the Hunt, be busy after Christmas? Traditionally this was the time of year when the Wild Hunt rested, though it could be summoned to seek out traitors.
“What keeps you busy on Boxing Day?” Maggie asked.
He looked at her with an eyebrow half cocked and drew his hand across his mouth as if he’d just tasted something good. “I’ve been told there’s some interesting prey about.”
On Boxing Day morning, Mr. Maxwell disappeared into the bedroom and returned with three very small packages wrapped in white tissue with red ribbons. “Last week Nessa gave me Boxing Day presents for the three of you. She was very particular that I save them until today. I almost forgot.” He started to randomly hand each of them one of the small gifts. “Wait. It seems there’s a name on each one.” He redistributed them according to their tags.
Sarah undid her red ribbon as she finished her breakfast muffin. “Look. It’s a lovely stone.” She held up a cut, polished rock with deep blue concentric rings. “It’s beautiful!”
“It’s an agate. Must have come from one of her botany excursions.” Mr. Maxwell ran his fingers over the smooth surface. “Funny she didn’t give you them on Christmas Eve.”
Jessica’s gift was also a polished and cut stone, the color of rust with rings of white. “Open yours, Timothy.”
He wiped his fingers and hoped his stone would be something impressive to add to his collection at home. But the stone he unwrapped was a flat gray-blue, and a hole ran through the middle of it. It wasn’t polished. It definitely wasn’t an agate. It was something he could find anywhere, except for the hole in the center. He tried not to let his disappointment show.
A small gift tag was attached to the package. “It says it’s a fairy stone, and the hole was made by a brook tumbling onto it.” He held the stone up so everyone could see it and then continued reading. “‘Legend says if you look through a stone with a naturally bored hole, you can see what others can’t. You can see the true nature of things.’ ”
His mother reached for the stone. “What an odd idea, but the stone is lovely!” She turned it over in her hands, running a finger around the hole. “What a thoughtful gift, a piece of Scotland to take home.” She handed the fairy stone back to Timothy.
Timothy held the rock up to one eye and looked at his mother through it. For a moment the light caught her in just the right way to reveal how healthy and happy she was. He waited, but she didn’t change. What had he expected? He didn’t see anything that anyone else couldn’t.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Good. You look like my mother.”
She laughed.
He slid the stone into his pocket. He liked the smooth feel of it. Poking his little finger through the hole in the center, he wondered why he hadn’t received an agate instead of just another Scottish superstition.
Timothy was forced to take the front seat with Mr. McMorn on the long Boxing Day drive to Dunsinane Hill. The girls had conspired against him and bolted for the back. Timothy sat close to the door and hoped he wouldn’t have to do much talking. But he didn’t have to worry. McMorn kept up a monologue about bits of history and geology as they drove through the foggy countryside.
Trees rose like wraiths from the white fields, as if the car were traveling through a dreamscape. The temperature had risen, and rain now turned the snow to patches. This early on Boxing Day the roads were almost empty. Timothy hardly listened to a word McMorn said. His thoughts were consumed with plans for searching out the Telling Stone. He and the girls had spent hours going over the map again and working on the cipher. Then they tried to come up with a plan to distract Mr. McMorn. But every plan had a flaw. Now Timothy was relying on improvisation and serendipity to see them through, which he found quite unsatisfactory.
They drove the A9 to Perth, stopping briefly for hot drinks and a bathroom break. The fog grew denser on the road to Collace, a town just north, according to Mr. McMorn, of Dunsinane Hill. The heater was turned on high. Timothy fought to keep his eyes open. When the car stopped on the side of the road, he jerked awake.
“What are we doing?” Sarah’s sleepy voice from the backseat held a note of alarm. Timothy was immediately alert. His hand felt for the door handle and rested there.
“I thought a bit of history about the hill might be useful.” Mr. McMorn paused, his eyes, fastened on Timothy, glittering like a snake’s. He cleared his throat. “I happen to be a member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.”
Timothy wasn’t sure how to respond to that pronouncement, so he kept silent.
“Chalmers, one of our historians, claims that King Macbeth reigned for seventeen years from a castle near the Britons’ fortress on Dunsinane Hill.”
“Dunsinane was a British fortress? Not Macbeth’s castle?” Jessica leaned forward from the backseat.
McMorn held up a pale, black-haired hand. “Dunsinane Hill was the place King Macbeth hid many of his valuables. It was really a fortress, built in the Iron Age by the Britons. Macbeth ruled from a nearby castle with a view of the famous Birnam Wood.” McMorn’s voice became melodious, and with one hand he stroked his long chin. “‘My flyttand wod thai callyd ay, That lang tyme aftyre-hand that day.’ ” When Macbeth saw Birnam Wood move, he was really seeing the approach of an invading army led by Malcolm, son of Duncan. Macbeth’s army was defeated. But Macbeth didn’t die then; three years later, in 1057, he was murdered.”
The car was silent as the word murdered hung in the air.
“What was that other part you said?” Timothy asked, his mouth gone dry.
“‘My flyttand wod thai callyd ay, That lang tyme aftyre-hand that day,’ ” McMorn repeated and then continued. “Like any experienced general who sees an approaching army, Macbeth gathered his forces. The battle between the two opposing armies was brutal. In the end, Macbeth was defeated.
“‘I will not be afraid of death and bane till Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane.’ That’s Macbeth, Act Five, Scene Three. I looked up references in the play to Dunsinane last night,” Jessica added smugly.
That’s all very interesting, Timothy thought, but we’re here to find the stone. Silently he willed McMorn to hurry and get them to the hill.
The sun was winning its battle against the fog. Gradually the world emerged from a flat, white canvas. Hills appeared, and outcroppings of rock. Color bled its way back into the landscape. Mr. McMorn cracked his window; steam cleared from the glass.
“That’s Dunsinane right ahead of us.”
A craggy hill rose out of the patchworked miles of farmland. It looked like a nothing-special kind of hill, Timothy thought
.
“But there’s nothing on it!” Sarah’s voice held an edge of disappointment.
“There’s a great deal on it. But you have to be on the hill to discover its secrets.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Jessica had already opened the back door of the car.
“Wait! We need some sort of plan.” Timothy looked at McMorn. They needed to get away from him. He couldn’t know about their quest.
“A wise idea. There are several paths to the top, but I suggest taking a farm trail that begins in that field.” McMorn pointed toward a fenced field where a few cows grazed.
“Can we just go through someone’s field?” Timothy asked.
“Walking paths are open in Scotland. Anyone can cross another’s property,” Mr. McMorn answered.
Timothy slipped on his backpack and zipped his jacket with shaking hands. They were so close to everything he had been searching for, but they couldn’t lead McMorn to the Stone of Destiny. The man made him uneasy. How could they get away from him?
The air was damp and chilly. Timothy shivered. The soft ground squished underfoot as they approached the farm’s gate. White patches of snow still lingered in the fields like discarded papers. And cows appeared to float in a sea of fog. McMorn pushed open the wooden pole gate and gestured at a narrow, muddy track running across the field. “Stay on the walking path. It looks like we’re the only adventurers this morning. When we get through the field, there’s a reader board with some information about the fortifications at the top.”
Timothy set out across the field, the two girls and Mr. McMorn right behind. At the far end of the farmland, the trail disappeared into copses of heather as the field met the foot of the hill. Timothy walked as quickly as he could, hoping to leave McMorn behind. Sticking his hands into his pockets for warmth, he found the smooth rock with a hole in the center. He ran his fingers over its slippery sides. It was almost as soothing as the glass leaf from the Greenman. Nothing had happened when he looked through the stone’s hole before, but if he was lucky it might tell him something about McMorn. He drew it from his pocket and held the stone up to one eye.
Time out of Time Page 20
