Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(21)

Chapter 10


NO.

Logic battled with a crazy, hopeful notion that tried to rise inside me. My aunt’s words, so matter of fact, banged around inside my head like manic pinballs.

Impossible.

“I don’t . . .” I managed. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Carlyle, MacPherson, and Alvarez had disappeared off the face of the earth,” she went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Julia was distraught, convinced that the machines had somehow vaporized them. Jonathan convinced her not to speak of what they’d witnessed, until he could get in touch with Tesla. The only person with whom they shared their secret was MacPherson’s son, Archie. Who would’ve believed them, after all? They would’ve been thought mad.”

Pressure built inside me at each word. Soon I’d shatter and there’d be nothing left of me but a red smear on stone.

“The men reappeared,” Lucinda continued. “Suddenly and without warning, exactly seventy-two hours later. Just popped back into existence in the exact spot from which they’d vanished. Jonathan and Archie saw it with their own eyes. Jonathan writes of it in his journals. How bedraggled and ill they were. How MacPherson had bled from the eyes and ears. Yet all three men were still very much alive.”

Taking a breath, my aunt delivered the final blow.

“When the men returned, they told their wives and children an unbelievable tale. On oath, all three swore they’d been swept along by an unfathomable force and cast back through time itself. And,” she said, “they did not return empty-handed. They were in possession of a leather bag of freshly minted, four-hundred-year-old coins. A sword. And a fine jeweled dagger. Artifacts they claimed they ‘found’ and which they eventually sold for enormous profit.”

This was so far beyond imagination, it was laughable. My mother had raised me on a foundation of hard facts, historical evidence, analytical thinking. It was absurd to think she’d actually believed this fairy tale. This science fiction.

“Despite the danger,” Lucinda was saying over the noise in my head, “they tried it again. And again. Before long, they’d amassed a great fortune with the artifacts they ‘acquired’ while on these journeys. Tesla knew, of course. For a percentage of the proceeds, he kept it to himself. He eventually modified the machines to calculate the general era in which they’d arrive. Even with that rudimentary method, they could prepare. Costumes. Money. Weapons. Of course we now use a much more sophisticated and exact system, thanks to Douglas here.”

Doug ducked his head at the praise, but when he looked over at me, his gaze was sweet and open. “See, Hope, you can’t control the Dim, really. It opens when it pleases. All you can do is monitor the patterns of the different lines. That’s what the computer program keeps track of. The device . . . amplifies the power of the lines. They are symbiotic. One won’t work without the other.”

The airport board upstairs.

Antwerp 111713.21

Istanbul 041099.12

Brighton 071817.07

Not codes. Dates.

London Dec 4, 1154.

My back went cold.

Lucinda’s faultless posture drooped. She stumbled back suddenly, as if too exhausted to go on. Moira made a sound of dismay. Collum was there in an instant to keep Lucinda upright. When Lucinda tried to wave them both off, Moira mumbled a few, quiet words in her ear. Finally, my aunt nodded, and the two boys helped her sit in a straight-back chair.

Moira moved to my side. “Eventually,” she said in a calm, steady tone, “as men tend to do, Carlyle and Alvarez argued. Alvarez split from the others after he secretly found a similar location high in the Andalusian mountains of Spain. He persuaded—or more likely threatened—Tesla into building two new machines, and then he began his own exploration.”

Collum spoke, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “Alvarez’s descendants and the people who work for them call themselves the Timeslippers, if you can believe it.”

“Aye,” Doug said with derision. “Original, right?”

I spun to face Lucinda. Her eyes were closed and she was scrubbing a hand over her mouth, as if her next words tasted bitter.

“The Timeslippers are now led by Carlos’ great-great-great-granddaughter. A woman called Celia Alvarez. I understand you saw her photo in the library.”

“I did,” I mumbled. “She—”

I thought back to the expression on the black-haired woman’s face. Bitter. Angry.

“Hope,” Moira said. “Celia and your mother were once the best of friends. Sarah loved her like a sister. It was Celia who contacted your mother in India. I don’t know what Celia told her to convince her to go. But I believe Sarah thought she could still reason with her. Unfortunately, she was wrong.”

Sweat popped out on my face, despite the chill. The room began to spin, slowly but relentlessly, around me. Large as it was—the room suddenly seemed to contract, to press in until every atom of oxygen was squeezed from my cells.

I took a step back, heading for the stairs, but Collum followed.

“Oh, you can tell yourself we’re mad if you like,” he said. “Scuttle back home to your books. Continue to cower in your house and act like the poor wee broken thing you are.”

I whipped around, my face on fire.