by Morgan Rice
Esther helped guide the old man to the couch. She placed the tray on the coffee table. There was a dusty-looking teapot on it and three cracked mugs.
“Shall I get the curtains?” she asked the old man as he sank into his seat.
“Yes, if you want, my dear. Percy won’t like it though.”
Percy? Oliver mused.
Esther went over and pulled the curtains wide apart. Dazzling light filled the room, catching the dust clouds she’d stirred.
“Too bright!” a sudden voice cried. “Too bright!”
Oliver jumped to see a huge cage in the corner of the room. Inside was a parrot, pacing back and forth on a branch, flapping its beautifully colored wings in a very angry way.
“Sorry, Percy,” Esther cooed at the bird. “I’ll close them again when I leave, I promise.”
She blew the parrot a kiss. It seemed to placate him. He stopped pacing and started to preen.
“I rescued Percy from a fire during one of my missions,” the old man said, chuckling. “I was sent to close up a time warp. London. 1666. It was very hot.”
Oliver listened intently as the old man poured the tea. Then he handed everyone a cup.
“So you are students?” Professor Nightingale asked, taking his mug of steamy tea. “At the School for Seers?”
Oliver felt a pang in his gut. He instinctively touched his amulet. It was, as always, freezing cold.
“We were,” Oliver replied. “But we left to go on this quest to find my parents.”
“Ah yes, your parents.” The professor took a long, slurping sip of tea. “What makes you think I know them?”
Oliver shifted forward on his seat. “It’s hard to explain. I’ve been following a device. A sort of compass. It led me here.”
“A device?” the old man said.
Esther cleared her throat. “Show him.”
Oliver reached into his pocket. “Do you know what this is, Professor Nightingale?”
He handed the compass to the old man. Professor Nightingale held it very close to his nose and squinted.
“I’ve seen one of these before, yes.”
His tone was somewhat flat. He didn’t seem excited. Oliver wondered why.
“What is it?” Oliver asked.
Professor Nightingale shook his head. “One of the many trinkets invented by seers over the millennia. It’s supposed to help guide you in your decision making. It’s supposed to show you the future.”
Show the future? Oliver thought, his eyes widening with surprise.
He’d been under the impression that the dials were showing him a path to follow. But instead, they were showing him the future that was about to come.
So if it was showing him the future, then it must mean he was really going to find his parents! Hope and excitement bubbled through him.
He caught Esther’s eye. She was grinning widely.
“The symbols are too small for my eyes,” Professor Nightingale said. “What’s it showing you?”
Oliver shuffled closer. “Well, it’s pointing at a bird, which I believe is you, Professor Nightingale. The cap is Harvard. And the oak leaf is Boston.” Then he pointed at the fixed dial, the one that never moved. “These are my parents.”
Professor Nightingale spent a long time staring at the image. Then he sat back and shook his head. “This symbol isn’t what you think it is.”
He was pointing at the image of the man and woman holding hands.
Oliver frowned. “It’s not?”
The old man shook his head. “There is a more appropriate symbol for parents. Take a look. It shows a figure holding a child.”
Oliver began to scan the symbols, until he found one that matched the description. He hadn’t paid any attention to it before but as he looked at it now he realized that as a representation of parenthood it certainly fit the bill more so than the man and woman holding hands did.
“That’s why these things are tricky,” the professor added. “It’s easy to see what you to want to in them.”
“Well then what is this symbol?” Oliver challenged. “The man and woman?”
The professor shook his head. “That’s not a man and woman. It’s a boy and girl. It could mean friendship. Companionship. Perhaps even a first love.”
It dawned on Oliver then what the symbol meant. It was Esther. All along, the compass was showing him that he’d have a companion on this adventure.
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Esther hiding her face with her tea cup, sipping from it very slowly. She’d clearly worked it out too, that she was the other figure in the symbol, a symbol that could represent first love. Oliver felt his cheeks grow warm.
Professor Nightingale handed the compass back to Oliver. He slid it in his pocket, his mind now racing. It hadn’t been guiding him to his parents at all. It had merely been showing him his future. He was completely lost now. He tried not to feel too crushed. He’d been following the universe’s clues, after all, and she had guided him to Professor Nightingale. Not all hope was lost.
“I wonder,” Oliver said, “whether you knew my parents.”
“What were their names?” the professor asked.
Oliver stopped. He didn’t know. All he knew about his parents was that they’d given him up.
“I don’t know.” His voice sounded flat. Dejected.
Esther, clearly sensing his growing despondency, shuffled forward. “All we know about them is they had a son eleven years ago. One they had to give up. That’s Oliver.”
“Oliver…” The old man repeated the name. “Yes. Perhaps I do know something.”
Oliver’s heart leapt at the hint of recognition in the professor’s tone. Did he know something about his heritage after all? Perhaps not all hope was lost.
“I had two brilliant students. Theodore Blue and Margaret Oliver. Top of my class. Scientists. Inventors. Two brilliant minds. Naturally, they were drawn to one another and fell in love. Teddy and Maggie, they called each other.” He chuckled. “I wanted them to slow down and focus on their studies, but they married quickly. She took his surname on the condition their first child would be either Oliver or Olivia. They didn’t have to wait long. She got pregnant right away.”
Oliver was stunned. Were these his parents? Could they have been students here at Harvard University, studying under Professor Nightingale?
He felt Esther reach for his hand and squeeze it reassuringly.
“Were they seers?”
“No, no.” The professor shook his head. “Just incredibly smart mortals.”
“What happened to them?”
Professor Nightingale rubbed his chin. “When it came to the date the baby was due, early December, I believe, they took some time off their studies. But they never came back.” His voice cracked. “What we heard was that something terrible had happened during the birth. The baby had died and so had Maggie. We sent condolence cards to Teddy but they were returned unopened.” Suddenly, his eyes snapped to Oliver as if seeing him for the first time. “You mean to say…you’re Oliver?”
Oliver nodded slowly. “I think so. I think I’m their son.”
His head was spinning from the new information. Why had his parents up and left like that? Something must have driven them to flee. And how much of the story was accurate? If he’d survived, had his mother also lived?
“So you did not die…” the professor stammered. “Does that mean Maggie survived too?”
Oliver was no closer to his answers. “I don’t know. All I know is I was given up for adoption.” A painful lump formed in his throat. “Is there anything more you can tell me?” Desperation was audible in his tone.
But the man shook his head. “I wish there were. I’m old now and my memory is not what it once was. Perhaps if you meet me in another timeline, I may have more to tell you.” He let out a little chuckle.
Just then, Percy the bird began to squawk. “Notebook! Notebook!”
The professor’s eyes suddenly sparked. “Of course!” He s
tood and went over to one of his crowded bookshelves, searching for something.
“What notebook?” Oliver asked.
The professor came back and handed something to Oliver. It looked like a rare book.
As Oliver looked closely, he saw it was a fragile, leather-bound notebook.
“This, dear sir,” he said, “belonged to your father.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oliver looked at the small notebook in his hands. It was covered in doodles and scribbles. The name Theodore Blue was written in neat cursive in the top right-hand corner.
He opened it up and looked at the writing inside. It was just classroom notes but he scanned it all hoping for clues. He could hardly believe these were his father’s words! His heart began to beat quickly. He was really holding a piece of his parents.
He kept leafing through the pages, desperate for some information that might lead him onward. But there was nothing. Just formulas and diagrams and indecipherable mathematic equations. He felt his chest sink.
The notebook of his father’s was all he had to go on now. But it was at least something. A notebook and a name.
He and Esther stood. They’d taken up quite enough of the elderly man’s time.
“Goodbye, Professor Nightingale,” Oliver said. “Thank you for everything.”
The man led them to the door. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. Good luck in your search.”
*
Esther and Oliver headed out of the house. It was now dark and the air was much colder. Esther shivered beside Oliver.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Me?” She smiled. “I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. Because the compass isn’t guiding you to your parents.”
Oliver felt his shoulders slump. “I really thought it was.” He felt devastated. He wondered if he ever would see his parents.
Esther linked her arm through his. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
They headed back to the Charles River and began to stroll along its banks. It was very beautiful with the lights of buildings reflected into it. Perhaps any other time Oliver would have thought it romantic. But with his heart so heavy, he couldn’t.
They stopped by a small bench and sat down.
“What should we do next?” Esther asked.
Oliver shrugged. He felt so dejected. So demoralized. “I’ve no idea.”
“We could see if there’s a paper trail for Teddy and Maggie? Maybe there’s a record in the library, like a census or something?”
“That will only tell us that they were once in Harvard.” Oliver spoke in a morose tone. “It won’t tell us where they went. Or why.”
Esther rubbed his shoulder kindly. “Don’t give up hope, Oliver. There’ll be a clue somewhere. Maybe your compass will show you where to go next.”
But before Oliver had the chance to even look at the compass, he was distracted by the sound of running footsteps approaching. He looked over his shoulder to see a silhouette running toward him.
Oliver jumped up. He couldn’t see any flashing blue, so the person wasn’t a rogue seer.
But as the figure drew closer, Oliver began to make out the features. He gasped. It was…
“Ralph!”
“Esther! Oliver!” Ralph cried.
His tone wasn’t jovial. It was frantic. Worried. He almost ran straight into them then doubled over, breathing heavily.
“What are you doing here?” Oliver asked, surprised.
But Ralph shook his head. “The school. It’s in trouble.”
Oliver met Esther’s eye.
“In trouble how?” Oliver asked.
Ralph looked up, a deep frown across his forehead. Fear sparkled in his eyes.
“It’s the Orb of Kandra. It’s been stolen.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Oliver stared into Ralph’s eyes in disbelief. “The Orb of Kandra has been stolen?”
Ralph was still panting very fast. He nodded, his expression panic-stricken. His skin was pale and clammy, clearly from the effects of traveling through time to get here.
“Take a seat,” Esther instructed him. “You look like you have travel sickness.”
Ralph sank onto the bench and dropped his head in his hands. Oliver and Esther sat, too, taking up a spot either side of him, facing toward the Charles and the reflection of street lamps sparkling in the river’s black surface. They exchanged a worried glance over Ralph’s arched back.
“Start from the beginning,” Oliver said to Ralph.
Ralph straightened up, staring into the churning waters of the river. His eyes darted all over the place as if reliving a terrible moment.
“There was a siege on the school,” he began, emotion making his voice crack. “Professor Amethyst managed to get a message to me.” He looked at Oliver intently. “There is a temporary portal, right here in Boston. A route that seers have used for centuries in emergencies, a wormhole that the headmaster has connected to where we need to go next.”
Oliver recalled the wormhole in Professor Amethyst’s office, the one he’d rigged up to take Oliver straight back to Armando’s factory. It must take some extreme feats of magic to create; the sort of magic only someone as ancient and accomplished as Professor Amethyst could possess.
“What do you mean, where we need to go next?” Oliver said.
Ralph’s eyebrows drew together with consternation. “There’s only one person in the universe who can help us recover the Orb of Kandra. We need to find him.”
“Who is it?” Oliver asked, his heart hammering as the enormity of the moment sank in.
Ralph shook his head. “Professor Amethyst didn’t tell me. It was too dangerous to even utter the name aloud. All he said was their initials. I.N.”
“I.N?” Oliver repeated. “That’s not a lot to go on.”
“No,” Ralph replied. “And this person is our only hope. If we don’t find him and recover the Orb of Kandra, the School for Seers will only be able to remain standing for twenty-four hours before it crumbles to dust.”
The news was sobering. Oliver felt a heavy weight press onto his shoulders.
“Do you know who took the Orb?” he asked Ralph. “Was it rogues?”
Ralph shook his head. “No. Their eyes weren’t blue like the rogues’. But they were definitely powerful. Other seers. And they were all dressed the same. In uniform.”
“Like soldiers?” Oliver asked.
“No. Like… like students.”
At the news, Esther looked extremely confused. “There aren’t any other seer students. The School for Seers is the only place in the whole universe where seers can learn.”
But Oliver wasn’t so certain. Professor Amethyst had hidden the truth before in order to protect them. And he knew there were plenty of things they had not been informed of yet, being considered too young and too inexperienced to handle all aspects of becoming a seer at once.
“There’s a lot of things we don’t know yet,” he said. “Things that are kept from us in order to keep us safe.”
Esther stood suddenly. “Come on then. Let’s find this wormhole and save the school!”
But Ralph was still recovering from his journey. Oliver recalled how disorientating it had been when he’d traveled through a wormhole himself, and that had been back to a timeline in which he naturally belonged. Poor Ralph was over a thousand years out of sync with his own timeline. He must be feeling awful.
“There’s only one problem,” Ralph stammered. “Professor Amethyst isn’t sure that the portal still works.”
Esther sank back down to sitting. “Great.”
“It’s centuries old,” Ralph explained. “He can’t be sure it will still be active.”
“We’re going to have to try,” Oliver said decisively. “If we only have twenty-four hours to return the Orb of Kandra and save the School for Seers, we’ll have to act quickly.”
Esther looked at Oliver, her expression pale and drawn. Not as pale as Ralph, however. He looked
like he had a serious case of time travel sickness, like he might throw up any second.
“How did you get here?” Oliver asked Ralph.
“That’s the other thing…” Ralph began.
“Oh?” Oliver asked, feeling anxious that yet more bad news awaited them.
“In order to sneak out of the school and through time undetected, I couldn’t use the normal route.”
“You mean you didn’t take the portal in the kapoc tree?” Esther asked.
Ralph looked troubled. “No. I had to make a rip.”
He removed something from his pocket. It looked like a small knife, but the blade was as black as coal. At the sight of it, Esther gasped.
“That’s a rogue knife.”
Ralph nodded. “Yes. An Obsidian knife. Professor Amethyst gave it to me. It’s the only tool that can slice through time. Very dangerous. Illegal to use in almost every circumstance but life and death ones.”
Oliver looked at it with a strange mix of fear and awe. “Could we use it to get back to the school?”
Ralph shook his head. “It’s far too dangerous. We shouldn’t use it at all. Every time a slice is made, it allows rogues from the dark realm to sneak through.”
Oliver’s eyes widened. The knife was clearly an instrument of dark power. Not something to be messed with.
“Wait,” he said, looking at Ralph. “But you used it once already. Does that mean…”
Ralph nodded gravely. “The rip may have allowed rogues to come through.”
At that exact moment, a noise made them all jump.
Oliver looked along the banks of the river. What he saw made his blood run cold. Flashing blue eyes. Ralph had indeed led rogues right to them.
“RUN!” Oliver cried.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Oliver pumped his legs as fast as he could. Behind, the sound of the rogues’ footsteps grew louder and louder. They were gaining on them, fast.
“This way!” Oliver yelled.
He hurried into a back alley. Esther and Ralph followed behind him. The shadows concealed them but Oliver could still see how deathly unwell Ralph looked. He wasn’t going to be able to run for much longer.
