by Lynne Jonell
“We want to go a little farther.” Will pulled at Nan’s elbow.
“Yes,” said Nan, reaching for Jamie’s hand. “We want to go where the air is really fresh. He’s still not breathing perfectly well—”
“Eeeessp!” Jamie said helpfully.
“We’re just going to those bushes.” Will pointed to a little rise just past the castle road. “The air is—um, clearer there. More leaves, more oxygen, see?”
The pot boy stared as they walked away. Behind him, the light from the hall’s torches streamed out into the darkness, and his gangly form was outlined like a cutout silhouette.
“Is this far enough away?” Nan whispered as they moved behind the bushes.
Will nodded. “He can’t tell what we’re doing in the dark. But we’ve got to stay close so he still knows we’re here, or he might give the alarm.”
Nan fumbled in her satchel for the Magic Eyeball book. Will scanned the surrounding hills, the dark mass of forest, all silver-edged with the moon’s light, and willed himself to relax. Everything was quiet; nothing was going to go wrong. “Okay, get behind me, you two, and grab on.”
The cold gleam of the moon shone pale on the open book. The pattern wasn’t clearly distinguishable, but it wasn’t about the pattern anyway, Will thought. It was about focusing his eyes somewhere beyond the pattern.… Would it be harder, now that it was dark?
A movement from the figure at the castle gate distracted him.
“He’s waving for us to come back,” said Jamie.
“Hurry up, Will!” Nan urged.
The pot boy moved his arm again, making a wide, stiff-elbowed sweep from shoulder to shoulder.
Jamie gave a little hop. “He’s waving like a windshield wiper!”
Nan’s dimple showed in the moonlight. “You remember windshield wipers and cars, do you? Good lad.”
“Shh!” Will crouched behind the bushes and tugged at their arms. “Get down.”
“What?” Nan knelt and pulled Jamie down beside her.
“I don’t think he’s waving to us,” Will said urgently. “It’s more like—”
The pot boy raised his arm again and made a stiff, back-and-forth motion, three times.
“A signal!” Will hissed.
The ground shook lightly, thump thump thump, as if a thousand ripe apples were falling to earth at the same time. There was a rustle of bracken and then the dark spaces between the trees suddenly sent out strange hunched shapes that ran with powerful legs. Armed men streamed from the forested hill and moved in a swift flood toward the castle, their long hair flying behind them and their swords glinting in the moon’s clear light.
“Stewarts!” Jamie whimpered.
“We’ve got to warn them at the castle!” Nan said with a sob.
But already the enemy was pouring through the gate the treacherous pot boy held open. There was a sound of metal meeting flesh and bone, and a terrible screaming. Over at the stables, horses whinnied and reared as Stewarts led them out of their boxes. Behind the moving shapes, flames licked at the wooden walls and caught at the thatch.
Jamie was crying.
“Hush, hush,” Nan whispered, rocking him. She looked over Jamie’s head and caught Will’s eye. “Get us home now.”
Will held out the book. He tried to focus on that still point just beyond the pages, that place where their own time waited. But he could not do it—could not relax his eyes, could not keep his gaze from the castle, now showing a flickering light from its upper windows.
“Look!” Nan gripped Will’s arm. “They’ve lit candles—Sir Robert’s awake, he’s going to fight back—”
Fear congealed in Will’s stomach like a lump of ice. A tongue of fire leaped out from the topmost window—and now there was another. “No,” he said, shuddering. “They’re burning the castle.”
“It’s stone,” Nan protested. “Stone doesn’t burn.”
“But there’s wood inside—wood beams, and wood floors—”
“There are people inside!” Jamie cried. “Uncle Robert, and Aunt Margaret, and Rabbie, and old Angus—”
“They’re going to be all right,” Nan soothed. “Look, they’re coming out.”
It was true, Will saw. The unmistakable form of Sir Robert was pushed out the castle gate, his hands tied behind his back and a sword at his throat. Armed Stewarts surrounded him and threw him over a horse like a sack.
“Uncle Robert!” Jamie leaped up.
Nan dragged him back down. “You can’t do anything to help him.” She grabbed the Magic Eyeball book from the ground where Will had dropped it and thrust it in his face. “Do it now!”
Hands shaking, Will held the book at arm’s length. Behind it, the castle glowed more fiercely. Dimly he was aware of Stewarts mounting; horses wheeling; of groups of men splitting up, some riding off toward the town of Weem, some galloping down the road toward the place where the children crouched, hidden.
Will never knew how he did it. Perhaps all that practice had helped. Perhaps he was so afraid that he had gone numb. However it happened, he found himself watching as the edges behind the book started to shimmer with light. He did not lose concentration, not even when horses’ hooves came thundering very near.
He heard Jamie’s panicked whisper—“Stop! They’ll see the light!” and Nan’s low, “No, they won’t. You can only see the light if you’re touching Will. Be quiet, now, and when I give you a push, go through!”
Will lowered the book slowly and stared at a patch of bright sunlit field, a little fuzzy around the edges. In the distance he could see the castle of his own time, sturdy and safe, with the cars of tourists in the parking lot and what looked like Cousin Elspeth’s car off to one side. “Go,” he said urgently. “Go now.”
Jamie stared, openmouthed, at the scene through the window.
The horses on the road slowed to a trot, then a walk. Will’s forehead grew damp; a drop of sweat rolled into an eye, but he forced himself not to blink. Slowly he lowered his gaze, and the window moved down until it was inches off the ground. If Nan and Jamie didn’t go through right now—
Nan grabbed Jamie and shoved him like a sack of laundry through the opening in time. Then she crawled after him.
The hoofbeats stopped. Will could smell the pungent odor of horse and unwashed men. He held himself perfectly still, his heart beating like a hummingbird’s in his throat. Had the riders heard Nan and Jamie moving? What if the men grabbed Will’s legs when he was halfway through the time window?
The horses circled, as if the riders had turned for a last look at the burning castle and its wailing inhabitants, now streaming out.
A rough voice spoke out of the darkness, very near. “What are you going to do with him, chief?”
Another voice laughed, softly and low. It was a sound so cruel that Will felt the cold crawling on his skin. He should go through the time window—it was dangerous to wait any longer—but something kept him rooted in place. What were they going to do with Sir Robert?
“I’ll persuade him,” said the smooth, malicious voice. “He’s got a king’s charter to some lands that are mine by rights. By the time I’m through burning his castle, and the village, too, he’ll respect me, or my name isn’t Neil Stewart!”
“But what are you going to do with him?” asked the other man again.
“Throw him in the dungeon at Garth Castle until he signs the lands over to me,” said Neil Gointe Stewart. “He can keep his little nephew company.”
No! thought Will, launching himself through the time window. He pulled the Magic Eyeball book in behind him and rolled on earth that felt warm and stubbly. The darkness fled, and all around him was a field of cut hay, its round stacks golden in the sun. Nan and Jamie stared at him from a few feet off, too dazed to speak. A dog barked.
“There you are!” cried Cousin Elspeth, bustling toward them from the castle garden. “Wherever have you been? I’ve been calling and calling, and it’s a good hour past lunchtime!” She stood before
them, her face red and her hands on her hips. “And where on earth did you get those clothes?”
7
ALL MIXED UP
JAMIE LOOKED UP AT COUSIN Elspeth, his eyes wide. His chin quivered.
“Now, lad, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she said. “It’s all right if you were playing dress-up, but I can’t think where you got the costumes—out of those old trunks in the storeroom, I suppose. Come, get washed up for lunch, and then you can put your own things on again.” She took Jamie’s hand in a firm grip and strode back toward the castle.
Jamie trotted beside her obediently. But two silent tears rolled down his cheeks, and then two more.
Cousin Elspeth looked down. “What’s this? Surely you aren’t upset because I asked about your costumes?”
Jamie shook his head. “They took Sir Robert,” he whispered. “And there was a fire … and murder…”
Cousin Elspeth frowned at Will and Nan. “What nonsense have you been filling his head with, now?”
Will hesitated. Should they try again to tell Cousin Elspeth what really happened? Could she even believe it? “It was a sort of window.… We traveled back in time,” he said helplessly.
Cousin Elspeth’s face grew severe. “We’ve been through this before. There’s a time for pretending, and there’s a time to tell the truth.”
“But it is—”
Nan stopped Will with a well-placed elbow to his ribs. “It’s my fault, Mum. I was telling Jamie what it was like hundreds of years ago, and we started to play we were living in the castle then, with swords and danger and fires. Jamie must have thought it was all really happening. He’s got a big imagination.”
Cousin Elspeth made a sound that might have been a suppressed snort. “Jamie, I can see. But you are old enough to know the difference. And, Will, you shouldn’t keep on pretending when it worries your little brother.”
Nan threw an arm across Will’s shoulders. “You know Americans, always so enthusiastic. They just don’t know when to quit.” She smiled enchantingly.
Will glared at his cousin. He wished for a moment that he had left her back in the past, dimple and all.
“There, there, my lamb, don’t you fret!” Cousin Elspeth gave Jamie’s hand a comforting squeeze. “None of it was real, laddie. It was all just pretend, like a dream, don’t you see?”
Jamie jerked back as if Cousin Elspeth had slapped him. “A dream?” he cried. “Sir Robert told me this was the dream!” He turned an accusing gaze on Will. “It can’t all be a dream. You told me the cars and planes and things were real, but the fire was real, too, and I was the laird’s nephew, you were there—” He rubbed at his eyes with grubby fists.
Cousin Elspeth glared at Nan and Will, picked Jamie up in her arms, and marched off indignantly.
Nan tossed her hair out of her eyes. “He’s never going to get it straight now.”
Will didn’t say anything. He felt too terrible.
The Magic Eyeball book was still in his hand. He flipped open Nan’s satchel, still hanging on her back, and stuffed the book down deep, where he wouldn’t have to see it again. His hand met something lumpy and hard, and he pulled it out. He looked at the dirty plastic figurine in his palm. Jamie’s Highlander.
Will ran after Cousin Elspeth. Jamie’s arms were around her neck and his face half hidden. His eyes showed above her shoulder, as round as a baby seal’s, and he stared reproachfully at his brother.
“Here,” said Will, and he tucked the small action figure into Jamie’s grimy hand. “That’s real.”
Jamie’s fingers closed around the Highlander as Cousin Elspeth strode past Gormlaith, who had been investigating the burrow of a meadow vole. The creamy dog lifted her head and trotted after them, her forehead puzzled as she kept her eyes on Jamie.
Nan caught up to Will, who gave her a look of scorn.
“Don’t get stroppy,” she said. “It isn’t my fault Mum wouldn’t believe you.”
“You didn’t help,” Will said bitterly. “Saying all that about Jamie’s imagination and how Americans never know when to quit.”
Nan grinned. “Well, you don’t, do you? You should have stopped trying to get my mum to understand about the time window long ago. Anyone could have seen that she’d never believe you, not if you opened a window and dragged her through it. Once Mum makes up her mind about something, that’s that. You know how mothers are.”
Will looked down. He knew. Once his own mother had made up her mind to go help in that other country, nothing Will said had made any difference at all.…
He kicked at the stubble with every step. It made a light crackling as he walked, almost like the sound of fire. Somewhere, back in time, the castle was still blazing and Sir Robert had been carried off to the Stewart dungeons. Will’s mouth twisted at the thought. He had done the right thing, getting Nan and Jamie back to safety—hadn’t he?
He cleared his throat. “Do you remember what that man said, right before you went through the window?”
“Who?” asked Nan.
“Neil Gointe Stewart.” Will hated the sound of the name. “He was one of the guys on the horses, remember? He was talking with one of his men.”
Nan shrugged. “I didn’t hear anything. Jamie and I must have gone through the time window before they started talking.”
“Oh, right.” Will remembered now.
“Was that why it took you so long to come through? What did they say?”
“They said they were going to put Sir Robert in their castle dungeons,” Will said slowly, “until he signed a paper that gave them his new lands.”
Nan bit her lip.
“And then,” Will said, kicking viciously at a particularly stiff bit of stubble, “Neil Gointe Stewart said that Sir Robert could keep his little nephew company.”
Nan narrowed her eyes as their feet crunched on the stones of the castle road. “Did he think they were going to capture Jamie, too?”
“That’s what I thought at first. But the way he said it—it sounded like he had a boy in his dungeon already.” Will picked up a stone and threw it to relieve his feelings. “Don’t you remember that kid we saw before? The one who looked like Jamie—the one they carried off on a horse when they murdered his two guards?”
Nan nodded. She looked as if she were going to be sick.
“That’s who they must have been talking about. I bet they’ve had that little guy in one of their dungeons for a whole year now.”
The castle door opened, and two tourists walked out, consulting a guidebook. “Should we walk up to Saint David’s Well?” the woman asked. “Or is it Saint Cuthbert’s well? I never can remember. It’s not far, at any rate.”
“I’d rather get lunch first,” said the man, sounding grumpy.
“Oh, all right.…”
Will blinked as the tourists got in their car and slammed the doors. Something in his vision seemed strangely askew, as if he had been a long time at sea and couldn’t quite get his balance.
Nan turned to watch as the car drove away. “It’s daft. Those tourists, chatting away about ordinary things … when right on this spot, just ten minutes ago, men dragged Sir Robert out, with flames everywhere and people crying.”
Will nodded. That was it exactly. The fire had been hundreds of years ago, really, but … “It feels like it just happened.”
“It did just happen,” Nan pointed out.
“No wonder Jamie’s so messed up,” Will went on. “If it’s this weird for us, after one day in the past, think what it’s like for him after a whole year!”
“He’ll get used to it.” Nan’s dimple made a brief appearance as she opened the castle door. “He’s a bright lad. Before you know it, he’ll be back to normal.”
But Jamie just seemed to grow quieter. The next day was Sunday, and he sat politely in church—they called it “kirk”—without wriggling or complaining. His face showed a gleam of interest at the reading from Psalms (“With Your help I can advance against a troop; with my Go
d I can scale a wall”), but lost all expression when he was dismissed with the other children for Sunday school. And after, when Cousin Elspeth asked him what the lesson had been about, he said, “Angels,” in a tone of such disinterest that she didn’t ask anything else.
He didn’t want to play games or run around when they got home, and he avoided Will and Nan. He spent most of Sunday afternoon by himself near the narrow, stony burn, tossing pebbles into the water. Gormlaith came up with a stick, dropping it at his feet in a clear invitation to play fetch, but when Jamie ignored her, the dog flopped down beside him with a gusty sigh, her brown eyes watching him soulfully.
The only time Jamie made a fuss was when Cousin Elspeth tried to take the Highlander away. “Come, now,” she coaxed, “you’ve had it in your hand all day, and it’s too clarty to take to bed. I’ll clean it up for you while you sleep, and tomorrow you’ll have it back, good as new!”
But Jamie put up such resistance that Cousin Elspeth gave up and tucked him into bed with the dirty plastic toy still clutched in his fist.
“Eh, well,” she said to Will and Nan as she closed the bedroom door, “I’ll pop him in the tub tomorrow, and the toy can get clean at the same time. But he’s got me that worried,” she added in a low voice. “Does he often get quiet like this, Will?”
Will shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Not often.”
“I wouldn’t think that game you played yesterday would have had such a lasting effect. Perhaps he’s worried about his mother.…” Cousin Elspeth shot a look at Will, and adopted a more cheerful air. “Maybe it’s just a growth spurt. He’s shooting up so fast, it’s taking up all his energy. I know it’s impossible, but I could swear the lad’s gone up an inch in a week!”
Will had a sudden coughing fit.
“It’s probably your cooking,” said Nan brightly.
Cousin Elspeth laughed. “I will say he’s taken a better liking to my porridge! And he asked me this morning for a bannock, bless him. We’re going to make a Scotsman of him yet.” She chuckled, ruffling Will’s hair. “I’ll bring you lads with me to Castle Menzies this week while Nan’s at school. Perhaps Jamie will enjoy playing in all the rooms. Though,” she added sternly, “no more telling stories to frighten him, you two.”
