Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(26)

“At first, they could not comprehend why the voyage affected MacPherson so much more than the others. By process of elimination, they came to realize that Carlyle and Alvarez each had on their person one thing which MacPherson did not. Or at least, not in the same manner, exactly. Can you guess what that was?”

Moira reached behind her thick braid of black and silver and unclasped a necklace. She laid it beside the others. Hung on a slender chain was a gold ring set with a tiny white chip. The answer seemed fairly obvious.

“Opals,” I said. “They’re all opals.”

“Very good.” Lucinda nodded her approval. “Hubert Carlyle was wearing this ring.” She pointed out the heavy band lying on the table. It was set with a rare black opal, like the one in the pendant. “Carlyle’s wife had given it to him on the occasion of their twentieth anniversary. He never took it off.” She touched one of the twin cuff bracelets, which held smaller, though similar, dark stones.

“Opals had become popular again, thanks to Queen Victoria. Dr. Alvarez happened to have these very bracelets in his pocket that night, as he’d planned to present one to his wife and one to his daughter Julia to celebrate her engagement to Jonathan Carlyle.”

She nudged Moira’s contribution with a finger. “James MacPherson, fortunately for him, always carried his dead wife’s wedding band inside his sporran. Had he not,” she said, “he’d have died then and there. Though his stone was of lower quality, it saved his life and brought him home.”

“The stones act as a sort of homing device, you see,” Moira said. “No other jewel will do. Not diamonds nor sapphires nor emeralds. Only the opal.”

“I’ve studied the molecular compositions, but”—Doug shrugged his huge shoulders—“no definitive results. All we know is that the finer the stone, the less the journey affects you.”

Phoebe nodded emphatically. “Without them, the Dim either kills you, makes you really sick, or leaves you behind. You don’t ever want to be careless and lose your lodestone. I mean, look what happened to Sarah.” Her face fell. “Cheese an’ rice. Hope, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . . See, I know how you feel, ’cause—”

Collum cut her off. “Sarah’s wasn’t lost,” he said. “It was stolen by that she-wolf Celia.”

“Collum is likely right about Celia,” Lucinda said. “My sister was anything but careless. She’d never lose something so precious. Still, you shall take the extra bracelet with you for her use, when you—”

“How do you know she’s not dead?” I blurted out. “I mean, how can you possibly know that?”

Moira reached across the table and squeezed my clenched fist. “We have proof—of sorts—that she was still alive several months ago. The tapestry you saw below was sketched in September of 1154. A few weeks ago, we traveled to a much later year and purchased it from a baron who was selling off his father’s belongings.”

“And this timeline to 1154 is remarkably stable,” Lucinda said as she gathered up the jewelry and placed it back in the box. “When Mac, Moira, and I went back to search, we talked to several people who knew of her. That was less than a month after she disappeared, but Sarah is there, Hope. We know she is.”

Doug spoke up. “I know it’s really hard to take in. See, Hope, once the Dim opens to a place, time flows in the exact linear fashion in both timelines. So the same eight months or so have passed there as have passed here.”

Eight months. My mom had been lost in that horrible, barbaric time for nearly eight whole months. Sure, she apparently knew what she was doing. But even I knew the odds weren’t great that a lone woman could survive long in an era when plague and dysentery, brutality and war, were commonplace. An era when even the smallest nick could be fatal.

I caught my aunt’s gaze. Though she hid it well, I could feel the thread of doubt twining through her.

No matter what Aunt Lucinda claimed, my mother might already be dead.





Chapter 12


THAT NIGHT, PHOEBE AND I SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON MY MATTRESS, scarfing filched lemon bars that flaked, buttery and tart, on my tongue.

“Here’s something I don’t get,” I mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs. “Why can’t someone just travel back to last summer and tell my mother not to go?”

“I wish,” Phoebe said, nibbling at the pastry. “Be simpler, yeah? But the most recent year the Dim has ever opened to is around ninety years ago. Doug thinks it has something to do with not allowing someone to cross paths with their younger self. That things could get royally messed up if you met yourself.” She swiped a dusting of powdered sugar off her upper lip.

“I guess I can see that,” I said, chewing thoughtfully. “Like, if you could go back willy-nilly, whenever you wanted, you could tell yourself not to marry someone. Or, hey, you could tell yourself to buy stock in Apple or Microsoft.”

Phoebe snorted. “I’d tell myself to write Harry Potter. Be richer than the bloody queen.”

“That’s a good one,” I agreed. “I’d invent Facebook.”

In moments, we were howling with laughter, spraying lemon crumbs everywhere as each idea grew more outrageous than the next.

God, it felt amazing to laugh. To laugh until I cried, until the muscles in my sides ached. Muscle that hadn’t been used that way in a long, long time.