Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(86)

One of the women hurried across the clearing and knelt down. “I won’t hurt you,” she promised the boy. She called to the others. “They’re starving and nearly frozen. They must’ve come from that burned-out village we passed yesterday. We can’t leave them here. They’ll die of exposure if we don’t do something fast.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, we’re going to take care of you.”

When she returned to the others, the dark-haired woman began arguing with her. The man got angry, but the first woman only said, “You take them. I’ll stay.”

The man shook his head. “Like hell you will.”

He pulled her to him, murmuring something that made the other woman furious.

As the three began struggling at the edge of the clearing, I could no longer hold myself upright. I toppled over onto my back and stared up as stars wheeled in the night sky. The boy crawled over and held my head in his lap. He smiled down at me, and I remembered the first time I’d seen him in the small village. How his face had darkened as my grandfather explained that men were chasing us. He’d held so tight to my hand as we ran through the forest. He never let go, except to put me in the tree, where he thought I’d be safe while he went to search for food. As the moon snuck out from behind the clouds he looked over to the arguing people, and I could finally see his eyes. His odd, mismatched eyes.

I blinked, shaking my head, my breath coming in little huffs.

“. . . that your daughter did not come from any orphanage,” Celia was saying. “But was brought back, along with Brandon, from the year 1576.”

The images expanded until I thought my head would rupture. A small child’s half-formed memories skittered through my mind. The gray-bearded man had been taking me back to my mother. My real mother. The lady with long, brown hair, who’d trained my hands to spin the wool. When the bad men raced into the small village, killing and burning, he’d shielded me with his body as he begged the boy to take my hand and run.

I knew that dear old face now. I’d seen it in history books all my life.

My poppy. My grandfather. Doctor John Dee.

Queen Elizabeth I’s most trusted advisor. A scientist and astrologer. Religious fanatics had hated him. Called him a wizard. But he’d only been brilliant and far ahead of his time.

And . . . according to many biographers . . . he’d been blessed with an eidetic memory.

I sat back hard, falling away from my mother.

There’d never been an orphanage. That was my mother’s lie. More memories splashed thorough in cyclical waves. A small, snug house with an herb garden out back. A crowded city. Horses. A flash of a scary white-faced queen with orange hair.

The boy.

My gaze locked with Bran’s. The pity in his eyes was too much to bear as the earth and sky switched places. Tall, bare trees spun around me like horses on a carousel.

“Hope.” My mother’s hand clutched at me, but I yanked away. She sagged against Phoebe, spent. “I had no choice. The two of you would have died. I should have told you, but . . .” Her anguished face begged for understanding. A spasm of pain racked her body. When it passed, she whispered, “I need you to know I will never regret taking you from that terrible place.”

Phoebe’s voice was aghast. “Sarah, you didn’t. You brought them back from the past? Both of them?”

“After Celia stabbed Michael,” Mom whispered, “he placed the extra lodestones on you children. Then he just ran away. He knew the Dim was coming, so he took the choice from us, you see.”

I looked at Collum. If he’d known about this, I didn’t know what I’d do. But his mouth hung open in pure shock.

“Brandon.” Mom’s voice was barely audible. “I wanted to take you, too, to raise you as my own.” Bran took a shuffling step toward her and stared down with an unreadable expression. “But when we got home, Celia took off with you so fast. We couldn’t stop her.”

Celia stepped between the two of them, severing their line of sight. Bran’s face had gone pale at my mother’s declaration.

Celia’s voice morphed into a low hiss. “You took Michael from me. You weren’t taking everything. The honorable, loving family and two children to love you? Never.”





Chapter 42


“NOW YOU KNOW THE TRUTH.” CELIA LEERED DOWN AT ME. “That your mother is a liar. But the two of you will have much time in this age to discuss it.” She glanced down at the blood. “Or perhaps not. Come, Brandon, these people are nothing to us. Without their lodestones, they dare not travel the Dim.” She snorted and gave that brittle laugh. “Perhaps Babcock would take you back, Sarah,” she said. “And when I bring Michael home, I will tell him you are happily wed.”

Bran blinked at me. There was a message there, but I couldn’t read it. Celia turned to go, then whipped back, something catching her attention.

An undulating lavender mist had begun to coalesce around Collum and Phoebe. The pendant, still clutched in my hand, twitched against my palm. I looked down to see the same purplish haze shimmering up my arm.

The Dim had come for us. Celia’s eyes bulged as she realized that her son had never taken the lodestones from us.

“Traitor,” Celia snarled as she swung the pistol barrel at Bran. “I should have left you to die in that forest.”