Time out of Time

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  As if she could read his thoughts, Jessica tried to cheer him up. “Don’t feel so bad, Timothy. Mr. Twig doesn’t know what any of it means, either, and he’s a professor. You’ll probably have a great time in Scotland. Better than I will with my cousin Riley.” Jessica’s three-year-old cousin was the terror of the family.

  The porch light shone at Mr. Twig’s house, and all three children considered it a promising sign. A wreath of holly festooned the shiny black door. Jessica impatiently pushed the doorbell. Timothy, still brooding, kept his hand wrapped around the strap of his backpack, where the map lay hidden with its secrets.

  “Hurry! I’m freezing to death,” Sarah moaned. She leaned her ear against the door to listen for footsteps. “Try ringing again.”

  Jessica pushed the bell a second time. No one came.

  “He’s got to be here! We’re leaving in four days!” Timothy knocked just in case the bell wasn’t working.

  “He’s not home, you know.” A thin woman in red fuzzy slippers and bright blue earmuffs stood on the walk. “Ambulance took him this morning.”

  “What happened?” Sarah asked in alarm.

  “I told you. The ambulance took him. All kinds of strange people always going in and out.” She shook her head. “My husband says—”

  “Do you know what hospital he went to?” Jessica interrupted the flow of words.

  “Can’t expect me to know everything that goes on.” The woman gave them a sour look and shuffled back toward her house.

  “Wait!” Sarah called after her. But the woman crossed into her yard without turning back. “Now what do we do?”

  “We find him,” Timothy said. The three children huddled around a table at a nearby coffee shop while Jessica used her cell phone. There were three hospitals in town. On the second call, she got lucky. “There was a Mr. Robert Augustus Twig admitted at O’Conner this morning. The receptionist wouldn’t say why, just that he’s there.”

  “How far away is it?” Timothy blew on his cup of tea.

  “It’s right on the bus route. We pass it every time we come here.” Sarah looked at Timothy as if he were half-witted.

  “Well, I guess I never noticed. Let’s go.”

  The air changed the minute you walked through hospital doors, Timothy thought. It became medicinal and sterile. Hygienic, he thought. Seventeen Scrabble points and a very useful word, even if he didn’t much care for the sound of it. A confusion of signs and elevators filled the main lobby. People waited on vinyl couches and plastic chairs, their necks craned to watch the news on an overhead TV monitor. Was there any place more forlorn than a hospital waiting room, Timothy wondered. A woman wheeled her son toward the elevator, his casted leg propped on a cushion. People spoke in hushed voices; they fidgeted and checked their watches. The quiet and discomfort were contagious. The threesome walked silently to the information desk.

  “We’re here to visit Mr. Twig.” Jessica bit her lower lip. “He was admitted this morning.”

  “Just one moment.” The woman pushed her glasses up on her head and picked up the jangling phone. “O’Conner Hospital.”

  Sarah turned her back on the receptionist. “They might not let us in to see him,” she worried in a hushed voice. “Sometimes only family can visit.”

  “That’s easy—we can just say we’re his grandkids.” Jessica unzipped her coat. “Why are hospitals always so hot?”

  “What if they ask for proof or something?” Timothy eased the backpack off his shoulders. His shirt stuck to his skin, and he longed to be back out in the cold air.

  “Now, how can I help you?” The woman peered at them over the top of red glasses that had slid to the tip of her nose.

  “Mr. Twig. We’re here to see Mr. Robert Twig.”

  “Right.” The phone began to ring again. She entered his name into her computer and frowned at the screen while reaching for the phone with her other hand. “Third floor, room 312. Hello, O’Conner Hospital.”

  Before the receptionist could ask any questions, the three hurried to the elevators and rode up to the third floor. Getting into Mr. Twig’s room proved easier than Timothy had thought. A nurse asked who they were visiting and only nodded when Jessica mentioned they were grandchildren. “I didn’t say whose grandchildren,” she muttered under her breath.

  “He’s resting comfortably, but I wouldn’t stay too long, or you’ll tire him out,” the nurse said.

  Timothy paused in the wide hospital doorway. The room held two beds separated by a blue curtain. Mr. Twig reclined in the bed nearest the door. Timothy had never thought of Mr. Twig as feeble before. If anything, he would have described him as spry. A good Scrabble word, he noted. Nine points. But spry was a word used only to describe old people. No one ever called kids spry. Now Mr. Twig looked anything but spry. The bed seemed to have shrunk him. He was a bushy-eyebrowed skeleton propped on white pillows. Beneath the wild brows, his eyes were closed.

  “Is he sleeping?”

  “Certainly not!” The old man’s eyelids fluttered. His eyes snapped open wide. Timothy jumped. Mr. Twig struggled to sit up.

  “Can I help you?” Jessica plumped a pillow behind his back. And Timothy remembered her on the battlefield at the Travelers’ Market, tending to the wounded, the ruby necklace gleaming at her throat. That Jessica seemed a lifetime away from the Jessica anxiously hovering in the hospital room. Timothy wondered if she was wearing her necklace now and if she could do anything at all to help Mr. Twig.

  “Thank you.” His rattling cough didn’t sound healthy to Timothy. “It seems I’ve had an ‘episode.’ At least that’s what they’re calling it. Funny how they use euphemisms to describe things. Not a heart attack exactly, but something close.” He closed his eyes again. “The old heart couldn’t take the shock of confronting them in the night.”

  They crowded around his bed. “Them? Intruders? Did they hurt you? Are you going to be okay?” Timothy asked, and then felt stupid for asking it so bluntly.

  “Not just any intruders. As for my heart, they want to put a stent in, something to keep the arteries open, and I should be good as new.” His eyes again popped wide and fastened on Timothy. “You still have it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t figured anything out, and our house was burglar—”

  “And there’s another problem,” Sarah cut in. “Our parents are taking us to Scotland for Christmas vacation.”

  “We thought it would be better, safer, if we left the map with you.”

  Mr. Twig put one bony finger to his thin lips. “Hush. Don’t even think it. I’m in no shape, after what happened.”

  “What did happen?” Jessica asked, sitting on the foot of his bed.

  Mr. Twig motioned for them all to draw closer. “I was attacked.” He pointed to his cheek and turned his full face to them.

  For the first time, Timothy noticed a large purpling bruise.

  “They’d finally come for the map.” The professor’s hands trembled. “I knew they would at some point.”

  “Who came?” Timothy found that he was whispering.

  “Just like I told you, none of us are safe until you find the coronation stone.”

  “Mr. Twig, who came looking for it? Because someone broke into our house, too.” Sarah’s face knotted with concern.

  “His people. The Bent. Servants of the Dark. I heard a thumping in my house late at night, and when I got out of bed”—here his voice dropped so low that Timothy could barely hear the next words, even though he was leaning in as close as he dared—“there was this creature in my living room, going through my personal things. No doubt in my mind at all what it was after. Hit me with something, and I went down. Told them here that I got the bruise when I fell, of course.”

  “Mr. Twig, I don’t know if this will help, but I’d like to try,” said Jessica as she gently placed her hands on his bruised cheek.

  As Timothy watched Jessica grow pale, he remembered what she’d said about giving a bit of herself away when she h
ealed others. The bruise began to fade.

  “You’ve taken away all the pain!” Mr. Twig grasped Jessica’s hand in thanks.

  “I know I can’t heal everything. I’m never sure what will heal and what won’t, but I’m glad I could help you,” Jessica said.

  The same nurse reappeared, clipboard in hand.

  “Time to let your grandfather have some peace. He has surgery scheduled for Monday morning, and we want him rested up for it.”

  Mr. Twig’s other hand clamped on to Timothy like steel. “You’ve got a job to do. Keep it safe.”

  “But what about taking it to Scotland?” Sarah asked.

  “Alba,” Mr. Twig murmured. “That’s what Scotland was once called. A very interesting choice. Dangerous, perhaps. After all, it’s the land of the sídhe, the fairy folk, the Good Folk. I told you that there are rumors of the coronation stone associated with Scotland, rumors that the stone may be hidden there.”

  “Then it’s exactly where we should be going!” Sarah’s whisper was just a little too loud.

  “I did tell you it’s time to leave.” The nurse frowned at them.

  “We’ll be back to check on you,” Jessica said. As soon as the nurse was out of earshot, she added, “What are the sídhe?”

  But Mr. Twig had already closed his eyes once more, the bruise fading further from his cheek.

  THE SÍDHE

  HEY ARGUED ON THE BUS.

  “We have to take the map with us. Mr. Twig said the Telling Stone might be connected to Scotland. Then Dad ends up with a business trip to Edinburgh?” Sarah’s voice was an urgent whisper. “Too much coincidence. I think it’s a sign.”

  “But all he said in the hospital was, ‘an interesting choice.’ He didn’t say anything at all about the map.” Timothy looked over his shoulder. Just the regular type of commuters you’d expect to see on a bus. But what was regular anymore? “It puts us all in danger.”

  “So, who broke into his house?” Sarah tucked the ends of her red scarf into the neck of her wool coat. “It isn’t a coincidence that both of our homes were searched.”

  “He called it a creature. It had to be something pretty horrible!” Timothy shuddered. He remembered how the professor’s hands shook when he told the story.

  “He’s having surgery on Monday. He won’t be in any position to keep the map safe.” Jessica frowned at Timothy. “Besides, I think Sarah is right. You’ll need it to hunt for the coronation stone.” Timothy noticed that Jessica wasn’t looking at either of them. She was fiddling with a tissue in her lap, tearing it into tiny pieces.

  “We don’t even know what geography the map shows. There aren’t any labels. The forest and hills could be anywhere! Even if it is somewhere in Scotland, how do we find out where?” Timothy clutched the backpack firmly in his lap.

  “At least you both get to go.” Jessica’s lap was covered in a little mound of tissue now. “When I get home, I’m going to look up the sídhe. If you don’t want to take the map to Scotland, you can leave it with me.”

  Timothy and Sarah were silent for a moment. Timothy realized he hadn’t thought about how Jessica felt about being left behind. “When he gave me the map, Mr. Twig said my friends should help me. If Scotland is where we search for the Stone of Destiny, then somehow we need to end up there together. My parents would be happy to have you come with us.”

  Jessica shook her head. “There’s no way my parents will let me miss Christmas with cousin Riley.”

  She looked up from the mound of torn tissue in her lap, and Timothy noticed that her eyes were wet. He said the first thing he could think of to distract her. “And what about the silver dust? What does Star Girl have to do with stealing the map?”

  Neither girl answered.

  Timothy sat silently, listening to the hum of wheels on the pavement, the shifting murmurs of the other passengers, his own breath, the whir of questions inside his head.

  “I hope Mr. Twig will be all right,” Sarah ventured.

  “Don’t worry; I’ll visit him while you’re gone. It will give me an excuse to escape the three-year-old terror.”

  When Timothy and Sarah returned to the warmth of their house, their mother was sitting at the dining room table, a map and two guidebooks for Scotland spread out next to her laptop. Everything looked almost normal, as if there had been no break-in. “I’m making a list of sites we won’t want to miss. You’ll want to think about packing soon.”

  “Mom, it’s still four days away. No one packs that soon.” Sarah peered over her mother’s shoulder at the map.

  “Suit yourself. I’ve already started. Make sure you pack warm clothes; it’ll be cold and wet this time of year.” She pointed to a city on the map. “This is Edinburgh, where we’ll be staying.”

  Sarah looked where her mother’s finger rested. “Scotland looks like a funny hat on the top of England,” she said with a laugh. Then she looked closer. “Oh, there’s Loch Ness. That’s the only thing I know about Scotland, the Loch Ness Monster.”

  “Scotland’s full of myths and fairy tales. Nessie’s just the most famous one. I remember my grandmother telling me about selkies and the sídhe.”

  “The sídhe?” Sarah stared curiously at her mother. “But we’re not Scots, are we?”

  “Well, the O’Daly side is Irish, but there’s a little bit of Scots in our background, too. There was a fair amount of back-and-forthing between Scotland and Ireland. Anyway, my grandmother O’Daly always loved fairy tales. She used to tell stories about the sídhe all the time to your Aunt Ellen and me.”

  “You never mentioned the sídhe before. What are they?” Sarah tried to sound casual, but she could hear Mr. Twig’s words ringing in her ears.

  Her mother took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. “They’re the fairy folk, descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann, ancient kings and queens of Ireland with supernatural gifts. According to legend, they live in a world parallel to ours. I saw a painting of them once.” Her eyes took on that dreamy expression she got whenever she began talking about art. Sarah needed to keep her on track.

  “What are they like?”

  “They’re tall and handsome and rather fierce. Not little people with wings. The sídhe go their own way, Grandmother O’Daly used to say. They don’t have much to do with the lives of men except to use them for their own purposes. I remember her saying that you never want to get on their bad side. When she was growing up, she always set a bowl of milk out for them on special nights. She said her brother Edward made fun of her but that she thought he believed in them more than she did. Great-uncle Edward left home as soon as he could. Supposedly he made a vast fortune but ended up dying as a penniless recluse. I don’t really know. He never kept in touch with the family.” Mrs. Maxwell stretched and got up from the table.

  Sarah stared at her mother’s back as she walked into the kitchen. Her mother always managed to surprise her. Now that she had a nugget of information to share with Timothy, she realized that her brother had disappeared as soon as they came home.

  Timothy sat cross-legged on his bed in the semidarkness. The only light was his bedside lamp. On his head he wore the delicate golden crown, the crown of a true Filidh. The antique map was unrolled and spread across his knees, and in the soft light from the lamp, its jewel tones glowed.

  “The crown! Why are you wearing it?” Sarah asked.

  He started at her voice, and his fingers ran along the rim of the crown self-consciously. “I thought it might help me with the map.” He shrugged. “But it hasn’t.”

  “When you wear it, I can remember the Travelers’ Market, the Greenman, everything. It’s so easy to forget.”

  “I know. Sometimes it seems like none of this ever happened.”

  “Timothy, I found out something about the sídhe.”

  Timothy raised his eyebrows. “You did?”

  “Yeah. Mom brought them up. Our great-grandmother O’Daly believed in the sídhe. Mom said that they’re a kind of fairy that has litt
le to do with the affairs of men and that you never want to cross them.”

  “A fairy?”

  “I don’t think she meant the Disney kind. She said they’re descendants of the Irish gods, and they’re tall and handsome and fierce. Her grandma used to tell her and Aunt Ellen stories about them.” Sarah sat down on the bed and tucked her legs up under her chin. “But Mr. Twig wouldn’t have mentioned them unless they have something to do with finding the Telling Stone.”

  “Maybe they’re dangerous, and he was trying to warn us.” Timothy stared intently at the map. “Look here, maybe I’ve found something.” He pointed to hatch marks in the corners. “That’s Ogham; at least I think it is. It’s a really ancient language. And these marks, over here, look like Ogham, too.”

  Sarah studied the series of hatch marks. “It just looks like lines to me.”

  “When I was in Julian’s caravan at the Market, he had a book. The entire book was written in this script, Ogham. At first it didn’t look like anything to me, either, but the more I stared at it, the more it began to make sense.” He looked up at Sarah. “I can’t explain it any other way except to say it was as if I could gradually read a language I had never seen or heard before. Like when you could understand what the birds were saying at the Market. I can’t understand the script anymore. Now the words look like they did to me at first, hatch marks.” Timothy adjusted the crown on his head. “The words feel like they are just beyond reach.” He traced the Ogham symbols with his finger. “There are four words here. They must label the pictures.”

  “There are the pictures,” Sarah pointed out. “A cauldron, a spear, a sword, a stone. Aren’t those the things Mr. Twig said Balor needs to control the Light? And then all these animals and flowers. It’s like a treasure hunt.” She chewed her lip. “There’s a coastline here.” She pointed to the lower right-hand corner of the map. “Ships like that sailed the ocean.” She ran her finger across the old paper. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “I thought we were supposed to all work together to find the stone. That’s what Mr. Twig said when he gave me the map—‘rely on your friends’ or something like that. We’ll be leaving Jessica out if we go to Scotland without her.”