Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(25)

Puzzled by the question, I told them what I knew.

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “What farmer? King John’s treasure was never found. It’s one of the world’s great mysteries. Treasure hunters still search for it today. I’ve read about it a hundred times.”

Phoebe’s eyes blazed as she glared at her brother. Collum wouldn’t even look at her. He only stared at me in smug amusement, as if I was the only person not yet in on a joke.

“Sure.” He shrugged. “That’s what they say. Now. But up until twelve years ago, the books told a very different tale. They spoke of a farmer who, while plowing his land in 1573, accidentally came upon John’s treasure. Apparently being a deeply superstitious man, he waited until he was dying to tell his son what he’d found. The son was a patriot and was hugely rewarded when he dug up the whole thing and handed it over to his queen, Elizabeth I.” Collum’s eyes bored into mine. “So you don’t know everything. Because twelve years ago, history was changed, when the Timeslippers went back and—before the farmer could tell his son—took matters into their own hands.”

“Obviously”—I whipped around to see my aunt striding angrily toward us, Moira in tow—“obviously,” she repeated, “we tried to stop them. We failed in that task.”

“Th-that’s impossible,” I whispered.

“No, lamb,” Moira sighed as she placed an ornately carved box on the table. “Unfortunately, it is not. Once we learned of the Timeslippers’ plans, we sent a team back to intercept them. But by the time we arrived, Celia’s father and his men had already murdered the farmer’s entire family and stolen the treasure.”

I felt suddenly ill. My breakfast of toast and eggs gurgled in my gut.

“And upon our return,” Lucinda said, “history had changed to what you now know to be true.”

The implications of it made my brain ache. “But how?” I blurted. “I mean, okay. So it changed in the books. But what about people’s own memories? The ones who knew the truth?”

“Even our own people’s knowledge of the event had altered,” Lucinda said, sitting down heavily in the chair opposite me. “No one but Mac, Moira, and I knew the truth of what had really occurred. The others had difficulty believing us. Fortunately, the Viator journals are always stored in the Dim’s chamber. Those had not been modified. They—along with our own eyewitness accounts—were the only proof we had.”

Though she perched arrow straight on the edge of her chair, my aunt’s face looked drawn and horribly wan beneath what I now realized was obviously a blond wig.

What’s wrong with her? ’Cause it’s obvious something’s going on.

“It was my first decision as leader.” She spoke in a flat, tired voice. “My father had recently been stricken with a heart attack and was bedridden. My entire life, he and I had argued over the morality of profiting from objects taken from the past. I wanted to return them.” Her lips curved into a bitter grimace. “Father never took me seriously, of course.” Her voice took on a deep, gravelly tone. “‘What will you do, Lucy? Walk up to old Vlad Dracul with his crown, then wave from the stake as he impales you for thievery? No? Then leave well enough alone.’”

“Your intentions were good, Lu,” Moira interjected. “We all knew that.”

Lucinda shrugged off the comfort. “Yes, but who did Father blame for what happened next?” Her gaze dropped to the table. “And rightfully so. It was my fault Michael—”

“Lu,” Moira insisted, “that was Celia, and you know it. Besides, old Roderick was already so ill. What happened had nothing to do with—”

“No!” Lucinda jolted from her chair. “He said it himself, the night he died. ‘Have a care with your decisions, daughter. I might have acquired a few trinkets over the years, but I never lost a man under my watch.’”

When my aunt met my startled look over the tabletop, she blinked, coming back to herself in an instant. Her shoulders straightened, but I could see what it cost her.

Moira cleared an obstruction from her throat. “Shall we go ahead and show Hope the lodestones, then?”

I watched the high color recede from Lucinda’s face as she eased back into her chair. “Yes,” she said, waving a hand at the box. “You’re right, of course. Please . . . proceed.”

Moira unlatched the tarnished brass handles, Aunt Lucinda flipped open the heavy lid and reached inside. A long swirl of silver spooled out. Even in the watery light from the windows, a riot of rainbow colors shimmered in the black stone, set into a pendant that swung from the end of the chain.

“Hope,” she said, “you’ll recall what I said about James MacPherson. That he was quite ill when he and the other two men returned?”

When I nodded, she went on, her faded blue eyes fixed on the dangling necklace. “It was more than illness,” she said. “The man was unconscious for days. When he finally woke, he’d lost partial use of his left arm, and his face drooped on one side for the rest of his life. Dr. Alvarez also suffered a much slighter version of the illness, while Hubert Carlyle showed almost no signs.”

Lucinda laid the pendant carefully on the table and placed the other objects from the velvet-lined box beside it. A thick man’s ring and two matching bracelets.