Seeds of Time

by K. C. Dyer

  Darrell crawled over and patted Kate gently on the leg. When Kate’s sobs had subsided, Darrell directed the flashlight at the wall of the cave. The light cast a pale yellow glow onto the wall. The last of the symbols had faded from red to black, and the cave wall was a smooth, blank face of sandstone marred only by three charcoal smudges.

  Brodie spoke up, his voice dull. “It is over, Kate. The symbols are gone. There is nothing left to take us back.” He shrugged, and looked away from Kate, whose eyes were beginning to leak again.

  Darrell sat up, adjusted her prosthesis, and retied her shoe. As she stood up, Delaney loped up to her, tail waving delightedly. He licked Kate’s face as she struggled to get up and padded over to where Darrell was standing. He hopped up and planted his two big paws on her shoulders in greeting, and then spun back toward the entrance to the cave. Ears forward, tail wagging, he barked joyfully and bounded out of sight once more.

  “His paw looks completely better,” said Darrell. She felt relieved to see Delaney looked like he had made a full recovery, but her relief was tempered by sadness at the thought that their travels were over.

  Brodie reached over and helped Kate up, and the three of them slowly slipped out of the cave.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter if anyone sees us,” Darrell said with a sigh. She looked around sadly as they walked up the beach. Dawn was not far away. Lights shone out of the kitchen windows at the rear of the school. Exhausted from their travel through the centuries, they climbed slowly up the winding path into the garden. Delaney curled up in a tight ball at the base of the arbutus tree and closed his eyes.

  “I guess we all need some sleep,” Brodie said, nodding at the dog as he slipped in through the back door. “Good night, you two.”

  “More like good morning,” muttered Kate as she and Darrell headed for the stairs.

  The next thing Darrell knew she was being violently shaken up and down.

  “Hey! Leave me alone! What’s happening?” she cried.

  “Wake up, Darrell! I have to talk to you RIGHT NOW!”

  Darrell opened her eyes blearily to find Lily Kyushu staring into her face.

  “I have news!” she said, excitement in every word. “It started last night and I tried to find you and Kate, but you were nowhere to be found.” She paused for breath. “Where were you, anyway? I wasn’t going to tell on you but Andrea was worried and she told Professor Tooth, and with all the excitement and police cars and everything I thought she would freak out but she was really calm and anyway if you don’t hurry up, you’re going to miss it!” For emphasis, she jumped up and down a few more times on Darrell’s bed.

  Kate sat up, her red hair pointing straight at the ceiling, both front and back. She looked furious.

  “Lily, would you SHUT UP? Darrell and I didn’t get to bed until very late, early this morning really, and we need to sleep. So just GO AWAY, at least for a few more hours.” She lay back down and pulled the pillow over her head.

  Darrell looked sleepily at Lily. “Normally, I would agree wholeheartedly with Kate, but did you say police?”

  Lily looked smug. “Yes I did, and it is all because of me that they’re here.”

  Darrell sat up blearily and groped for her prosthesis. “Okay,” she said. “You’d better tell me the whole story.”

  Lily giggled. “Throw on a coat, you guys. I’ll tell you everything I know on the way down.”

  Darrell hauled Kate out of bed, and the two girls grabbed their coats to cover their pyjamas. They followed Lily down to the back garden, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. Many of the students were standing in the garden, staring down at the action unfolding on the beach. Lily waved at a police officer standing near the arbutus tree, and the officer walked up to Darrell.

  “Are you Darrell Connor? I’m Special Constable Rene Arseneault. Please follow me.”

  Darrell raised her eyebrows at Lily and Kate as they trailed behind the police officer. The sky was clear but there was an ominous line of clouds scudding across the horizon. The air smelled of salt borne on the wind. They made their way down the winding path from the school to the beach. Though the constable was silent, Lily chattered the whole way down.

  “Remember when I told you that Conrad Kennedy had been buzzing by me in his boat? Well, it turns out that he wasn’t just poaching crabs but he was smuggling, too!”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Darrell. “Smuggling.”

  “You don’t look very surprised.”

  “Ah — that’s just because — ah — I’m sleepy.” Darrell tried to think more clearly. “Smuggling,” she said again. “I can’t believe it!”

  Kate spoke up. “Oh, so those white plastic boxes were his, then.”

  Lily looked with a confused expression between Kate and Darrell. “How much do you guys know about this, anyway?”

  Darrell shot Kate a warning glance. “Nothing, Lily, really nothing at all. It’s just that you mentioned the boxes when you were bouncing on my bed to wake me up. Kate must have heard you say it then.”

  Kate agreed hurriedly. “That’s it, exactly Lily. I just heard you before.”

  Lily looked puzzled. “I’m sure I didn’t say anything like that. How ...” she interrupted herself with a shout. “Look! There’s Conrad Kennedy on the beach.”

  Still following the police officer, Darrell, Kate, and Lily made it down to the small cove near the rock face and the entrance to the cave. Constable Arseneault turned to Darrell.

  “I believe you made a report earlier this summer with regard to illegal crabbing activities on this beach?”

  Darrell nodded. “That’s right. Only, I didn’t actually make the report. It was my teacher, Mr. Gill. He promised to look into it for me.”

  A roar filled the air. “Let me go! You’ve got the wrong guy, all right? Watch what you’re doing!”

  Darrell looked up to see Conrad Kennedy being escorted off a small boat pulled up on shore. The police were having some difficulty getting him to walk up the beach. From the loud banging and crashing noises on the boat, there was clearly a struggle taking place in the small cabin of the craft as well.

  Police officers finally managed to place handcuffs on Conrad and they walked him along the shore away from the boat, which now was rocking from side to side on the beach. Conrad caught sight of Darrell.

  “Hey, Gimpy! I’m going to set the record straight with these guys. You’re the one they want, not me. All I’ve done is catch a few crabs. You’re the one who’s always snooping around down here.” He turned to the officer escorting him. “The boxes you found don’t belong to us, sir. That girl is always down here snooping around. They must be hers.”

  There was a resounding crash from the ship and suddenly a man leapt through a window of the small cabin, shattering the glass. He rolled on the sand and to his feet in one smooth motion. He pelted up the shoreline at top speed, heading right for the spot where Darrell stood with Lily and Kate.

  “Get down!” shouted Constable Arseneault to the girls.

  Conrad started yelling too. “Dad! DAD! Don’t leave me here, Dad! C’mon, Dad, wait for me!” He jumped to his feet but was quickly subdued by two large police officers.

  Conrad’s father, ignoring the calls of his son, easily leapt over a log and continued to flee up the beach. He made a move to run past the girls, when Kate stepped forward.

  “Going somewhere?” she said, and touched his sleeve.

  The next moment, he was on the ground with both Darrell and Kate sitting on his legs. Constable Arseneault pulled his arms behind his back and snapped on the cuffs she carried. She turned to Kate.

  “That was a very dangerous thing to do.” Her hat had blown off in the chase and a wisp of hair blew into her eyes. “But thank you all the same,” she smiled. Two other officers hustled Mr. Kennedy over to where Conrad was sitting on the beach. Before anyone knew what was happening, Mr. Kennedy started to kick Conrad in the head and torso. He was swearing and spitting like a snake.

  “Th
is is all your fault, you miserable idiot! This is what I get for trusting a baby like you to do a man’s job!” He managed to land another kick before the police officers got him down to the ground. They clipped his legs in irons, and the drama was over.

  Kate looked at Constable Arseneault. “What is in those boxes? Illegal drugs? Laundered money? What?”

  “It seems to be computer parts and software.”

  “Really?” Kate brightened up. “What kind of parts? IBMs, Hewlett Packards, IMacs?”

  Constable Arseneault smiled grimly. “I think I heard them say Atari.”

  Kate began to laugh. “And the software?”

  “Reader Rabbit, I think.”

  Kate doubled over laughing, clutching her coat to cover her pyjamas.

  Lily frowned. “What’s so funny, Kate?”

  Kate sat down on the sand, laughing hysterically. “Conrad was smuggling outdated game sets and,” more peals of laughter, “educational software!”

  Constable Arseneault raised her hand. “It may not be as funny as you think,” she said quietly. “Those game packages were empty of games, but stuffed with heroin. And not only that, there is some evidence of human smuggling as well. Your classmate and his father have a lot to answer for.”

  Darrell spoke up. “He’s not our classmate, officer. He just lives nearby.”

  Constable Arseneault nodded and jotted a few words in her notebook.

  Lily frowned again. “Conrad must have been watching the beach when he was buzzing me while I was swimming!”

  “Probably so. Thank you all for your help.” Constable Arseneault nodded politely and walked across the beach to join the other police officers.

  Darrell shook her head. “No wonder Conrad is such a bully,” she said. “With a father like that, anyone would have a problem.”

  “Yeah,” Lily agreed. “The policeman I spoke to said his father would probably go to jail and Conrad will get sent to a special school. He will have to go and live with his mom anyway, and she lives in Ontario.”

  “Well,” said Kate, still grinning, “I guess that’s the last we’ll see of him. It’s too bad, in a way. I really enjoyed practicing tae kwon do with him.” She chuckled. “His dad was pretty good at it, too.”

  They looked back to the shore, where three police officers each escorted Conrad and his father up to the squad cars parked in the driveway of the school. Conrad’s father was still spitting and swearing as they carried him up, but Conrad, who had been allowed to walk, turned and looked back at Darrell. His face was livid. He didn’t say a word, but bared his teeth and turned away.

  After breakfast, Darrell, Kate, and Brodie walked down the hall, looking worn and tired. Mr. Gill stepped out of the office and caught sight of them.

  “Ah, just the people I have been looking for,” he said warmly. “Darrell, Brodie, Kate, could you come into my office for a moment, please?” Brodie and Darrell exchanged startled glances as they followed Kate into Mr. Gill’s office. Kate glanced back at them in alarm. Had they been seen on their return this morning? Brodie shrugged one shoulder at the question in Darrell’s eyes. What did it matter now, even if they had been seen? Summer school was over. This afternoon they would pack the last of their things and tomorrow was the day to go home.

  Mr. Gill turned smoothly to Darrell. “I want to thank you for completing your self-portrait, Darrell.” His eyes twinkled. “I do believe you have successfully emulated the style of a somewhat well-known aritist ... Leonardo da Vinci, if I am not mistaken?”

  Darrell coloured a little and ducked her head to hide her smile.

  “And now I believe there is a telephone call for you, Darrell. You can take it right there.” He gestured at a telephone on the desk. “And if you two could join me in here, we can have a little discussion.”

  Brodie and Kate stepped into the inner office. Mr. Gill closed the door behind them. Darrell picked up the phone.

  After Darrell’s brief conversation with her mother to set up a time for the next day’s pick-up, she turned away from Mrs. Follett’s desk to look for Brodie and Kate, but the door to the inner office was open.

  “They must have left to do their packing,” she muttered to herself. She wandered outside, not able to face anyone in her present, bleak state of mind. She glanced down at the concrete slab in the garden, thinking with some surprise that she hadn’t done her morning endurance test for more than half the summer.

  “I guess I forgot,” she muttered out loud. “Or maybe I just don’t need to prove anything to myself anymore.”

  Darrell walked over to the arbutus tree in the garden and opened her now tattered notebook. She looked at the question she had written in bold letters after the return from her first journey.

  If somehow I am able to travel through time,

  Could I go back to when I was ten and prevent the accident?

  What if that was really what this whole summer had been about? What if she could somehow change things so that she once again had two strong legs and a father who loved her? Darrell’s mouth formed a grim line. She started down the winding path to the beach, determined to find the answer, once and for all.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Darrell strode down the beach with the wind swirling her brown hair as a late summer storm blew down through the fjord. She stopped in surprise to see Delaney lying on the sand, looking out over the stormy water. She followed his gaze and noticed with a start that the shattered driftwood log that had been his shelter had been drawn back out to sea by the waves. The salt spray stung her eyes, but Darrell sat down beside Delaney to watch the log drift away. She picked up a stick and traced patterns in the wet sand. The tide was going out, and because of the white-peaked waves that crashed against the shore, she could soon barely see the log, bobbing distantly among the whitecaps of the bay.

  Darrell looked down and saw she had sketched the outline of a fishing boat on the sand. It looked a little like the boat that belonged to Conrad Kennedy’s father. She and Delaney had walked back down to the beach after Conrad and his father had been taken away and watched a police tugboat haul the boat off the sand and chug down the fjord toward Vancouver with the small fishing vessel in tow. She had smiled as it shrank away to a tiny dot on the horizon, thinking of another small boat that had borne a cargo not of smuggled goods but of hope, in the form of two strong men who had fought the sea and won.

  Darrell kicked sand over the outline and shook her head, thinking about Luke and Conrad, and the choices they had made for and because of their families. She stood up and threw the stick for Delaney. He chased it down and shook it violently, snapping it in two. Job done, he trotted back up the beach to Darrell.

  The log was gone. Darrell and Delaney wandered down toward the cave and slipped through the crevice in the rock wall. Inside, she switched on her flashlight right away since the grey day meant very little light crept through the crack in the rocky roof. She wasn’t worried about meeting anyone. Kate and Brodie must both be up in their rooms, packing their bags to return home for the few short days before school began again in the city. And of course Conrad Kennedy was gone for good.

  And if he’s not gone for good, at least he’s gone for now, she thought.

  After the now familiar walk to the rear of the cave, she trained the beam of her flashlight on the images on the wall. They were blackened and smudged, and it was hard to see the shapes they once took. The oak tree, the sword, the mask. Just the three symbols, nothing more. She put her hand up to touch them. Was there a trace of warmth under her fingers?

  She swallowed and reached into her pocket to pull out a piece of red chalk. Holding the flashlight in her left hand she began to draw. She quickly sketched two figures, standing hand in hand beside a motorbike with a flat tire. Her fingers were shaking, so the sketch was not one of her best. She placed a trembling hand on the drawing, tucked the flashlight under her arm, and reached down to pat Delaney.

  Her head began to spin and her heart leapt in her chest. S
he felt dizzy and staggered, and her hand slipped off Delaney’s head. Her flashlight fell and she turned quickly, bumping her head sharply against an outcropping of rock. She slid to the ground, eyes open in the dark, and felt Delaney sit beside her and rest his head on her knee.

  She reached her hand out, felt for the flashlight, and leaned her head back against the wall. The tears that she never let anyone see welled up in her eyes.

  “I thought I could go back just one last time, Delaney. To stop him from getting on that motorcycle. To make it run out of gas. To hide his helmet so we couldn’t ride. Anything, just to somehow change what happened that day.” She sniffed and wiped at her eyes slowly. “I guess some things just can’t be changed.” She stood up and turned, miserable, to head back to the school.

  As she turned, a glimmer caught the corner of her eye. She looked up suddenly and nearly jumped out of her skin. Professor Myrtle Tooth stood in front of her.

  “Hello, Darrell.” The calm voice echoed in the cavern that surrounded them.

  “Professor Tooth! You nearly scared me to death. How did you know about this cave?”

  Professor Tooth smiled. “This has been a favourite spot of mine for many years. I’m pleased that you have been able to enjoy the use of it this summer, too.” She paused, and her clear, green eyes looked directly into Darrell’s. “I thought it was time we had a little conversation, and this is a good place to do it. Shall we make our way forward to the cave entrance?” She reached up and touched one of the dark smudges on the wall with a smile and then turned on her heel and headed for the entrance.

  Darrell followed the principal, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, her melancholy mood replaced by puzzlement. They walked to the entrance of the cave, Professor Tooth setting a brisk pace in the dark. The light of Darrell’s flash showed the principal was wearing walking shorts and sturdy boots, and she sat comfortably down on the sand near the entrance. Delaney plopped down beside her and placed his head on her knee. She patted him fondly.