by Janet Fox
“It’s almost time for supper,” Colin said. “I’m famished. How about you, Canut?”
The dog gave a happy grumble and they moved off together.
“And we’d better find out what Baines has been up to in our absence,” Kat said with a sigh. “Leo, do you mind?”
Leo shrugged and gave a little smile. “I’ll go check.”
“Kat,” Isaac said. “What more can you tell me about time travel?” Ame paused and turned to listen.
“Time travel,” Kat echoed. “Well. Scientifically speaking, time travel disrupts the space-time continuum.”
“The what?” Isaac asked.
“Space-time continuum. Albert Einstein has written about it. How space and time are related, how they work together. It’s physics.” She paused, tapping her lips with her index finger. “I’ll read up on it some more.”
“All right,” he said, still pondering. “So, is time travel science? Or is it magic?”
“Great question.” Kat looked away into the distance. “Until something can be explained logically by science, maybe we call it magic. I think magic has substance. I think it sticks, rather like lint. But it’s invisible. If we could see it, we’d probably give it a different name, like science. I think magic has stuck to Rookskill Castle for thousands and thousands of years, for as long as people have been in this place.”
Isaac wondered whether magic was sticking to him. Magic from his parents. Maybe that explained his so-called gift. “My parents said they are locked in a time stream. What is that?”
Kat shook her head. “Not sure. But I can find out. I’m guessing they aren’t in any specific time or place. But how they got there, I don’t know. Sorry.” She paused. “You do know about the law of unintended consequences, right?”
“Um . . .”
“If you change something in the past, you can change the future. You could change everything. Like a little ripple effect that can grow.”
“I know about that.” Isaac bit his lip, thinking about Hypatia, and his father’s admonition to not, for any reason, interact with the past.
Kat nodded. “Good. Next, we need to figure out your magical gift, Isaac.”
“Right,” he said.
Kat moved off and Isaac turned to Amelie. He asked her, “How would you like to time travel with me?”
CHAPTER 28
Ralph Baines
1942
Ralph Baines sat behind his newly constituted desk in the repurposed front parlor of Rookskill, his eyes glued on Leo. Leo was the only one of the children he could trust, not the least because Leo’s father was very high up. Someone who was important to know.
“I know you’ve said you don’t believe in magic,” Leo said, “but it’s quite possible.”
Baines shifted and took a sip of his strong tea. “Magic is possible,” he echoed, not believing a word of it. But he didn’t want to contradict the boy. He smiled, trying to encourage him. Must make Leo trust him.
“I’ve seen it myself,” Leo said. “Kat works spells, like the warding spells. Amelie can speak to spirits, and Colin can speak to animals. And Isaac has a time machine, and he’s carrying a map he picked up in ancient Egypt, a magical map of the castle. And that helped us find a really strange, well, bracelet. And the time machine is in the shape of a skull. Rather creepy, if you ask me.”
Baines wondered whether the boy had suffered a head injury. “A time machine?”
“Kat said it was called a Death’s Head watch and that Mary Queen of Scots had one like it,” Leo went on. “So, anyway, magic really does exist and we’re all learning to use it. I thought you should know so you won’t send us away from Rookskill.”
Completely barmy. Baines looked into his teacup, wondering whether there was something in the water here or whatever the children ate. He was pleased he’d brought a few days of rations along, which would do for the moment. He wasn’t at all certain how the children were getting their meals since no other adults were present in this crumbling ruin of a castle.
Leo said, “I’m hoping that you’ll put in a good word with my father.”
“Aha.” Just what Baines was hoping for from Leo.
“My father doesn’t understand all this,” Leo said, gesturing. “Magic and such. He’s never understood really what I can offer king and country. Even when I was invited here to join this special unit because of my abilities, my father was disappointed that I chose to come to Rookskill.”
Leo was definitely soft in the head. Baines began to wonder how he’d approach the boy’s father unless he reported to Falstone Senior that he would help stop the boy from making any further mistakes.
“So, I’m hoping you’ll keep an open mind,” Leo finished. “About me. About us, here.”
Baines nodded. “Always. Open.” Right. Bonkers. “Can you tell me, please, why the telephone is not working?”
“Oh,” said Leo. “It’s been down for a while. We really don’t need it.”
“I see. Then how do I contact my superiors?” Baines looked the boy in the eye.
Leo said, “We do have a wireless. Kat can show you.”
“Please let her know that I require it. As soon as possible.”
Leo nodded. “Dinner is in a few minutes,” Leo said. “I’d advise eating the food that looks inedible and avoiding what looks like normal food.”
He’d been right about the food, then. “I’ll be taking dinner in my room tonight.” Baines stood and gestured at his nearly empty desktop. “Now, if you don’t mind . . .”
“Of course,” Leo said. He left, closing the door softly.
Baines sat down. They were all insane here. Time travel? Talking to ghosts and animals? MI-6 had been duped.
He turned and looked out the window. Ralph Baines had always liked being out of doors. Liked tending his tiny pocket garden at home. But this place . . . The forest loomed not far off, a mass of thorns and vines and scratchy bare branches. It was pernicious and nasty. Perhaps a little tree pruning, put these children to manual work outdoors.
Gardening was healthy for the mentally weak.
Yes, that was the ticket. Tomorrow morning straightaway he’d get these children outside for a little hard work. Exercise and discipline. Outdoors in the fresh air, while he collected enough information about what was really going on here before he contacted the home office through that wireless.
Ralph Baines rubbed his hands together. He loved a good plan. Especially if it was his.
CHAPTER 29
Isaac
1942
“Can we go anywhere in time?” Amelie asked.
“Right now we have to go where it’s been set to take me, so I can collect the clues. But after that, why . . .” Isaac realized that Amelie was right. Maybe once he’d made these necessary trips, they could travel to really interesting times. Just as long as they didn’t interfere. And if he could figure out how to make it work. “Tomorrow, straight after breakfast?”
She nodded, her eyes bright.
Dinner that night was pretty regular, if you didn’t mind that it tried to skitter off the plate under your fork. Isaac gave up on that one but some of the side dishes were decent. And he knew enough not to eat that six-layer confection that was covered with what looked like sugar flowers and leaned like it might slide down the table.
He finally managed a good sleep after so many exhausting days and nights.
* * *
* * *
Straight after breakfast Isaac stood alone in the small library, waiting for Amelie and staring out the window. “Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane,” he murmured. Trees should not be doing what these were doing, but they were, for the second time. They were definitely closer, denser, nastier.
It was a grim morning all around, with low clouds and sleet. The deep hollows beyond the trees were inky black.
“Right,” came Baines’s voice. Isaac turned. The other children trailed in behind Baines. “I’ve called you here for a purpose. It’s high time you were exposed to some healthy physical activity. The woods around this castle are badly in need of grooming. Miss Bateson?” Baines said, looking at Kat.
She glared back at him.
“Where are tools and such?”
“I’m sorry?” Kat said.
“Garden tools,” Baines said slowly, as if speaking to someone who couldn’t understand English.
Kat answered equally slowly. “In the garden tool shed, I expect.”
“Jolly good. You shall all put on weatherproof clothing and shoes and make ready for outdoor activity.”
“Um,” said Colin, “it’s frightfully cold and wet today.”
Baines sighed. “And what of it? You are English, are you not?”
“We’re here to learn our magic,” Kat said tartly, “and we were about to start lessons.”
“That can wait,” Baines said, with a smirk. “The woods are a fright.”
“We can’t go past the boundary,” Amelie said.
“Boundary?” Baines echoed. “The only boundary is a mile off.” He clapped his hands together. “Coats and galoshes and back here in five minutes.”
They looked at one another in astonishment until he clapped his hands again. “Chop-chop.”
As they marched upstairs, Isaac whispered to Kat, “What about spelling him again?”
“Oh, I shall,” she answered darkly. “I’m looking for the right time and trying to come up with the perfect spell. And I don’t want to make a mistake. Much as that might be interesting,” she added with a snort.
“Telling him to take a leap might turn him into a frog,” Amelie added with a giggle.
“Or hop to it,” said Colin. “Or jump through hoops.”
Five minutes later the five children and Baines trooped in boots and mackintoshes through the hallways of the castle toward the kitchen. As they passed through to the back door, Baines stopped in his tracks.
“And who are you?” he asked.
Lark made a deep curtsy. “Lark, chief cook and bottle washer,” she answered. Today she was wearing a green skirt and jumper that matched her skin and her hair was flaming red. Above her, Willow hovered, rolling, as near as Isaac could tell, their eyes.
“A flower,” Willow said with a snicker.
Baines drew up. “Now, see here. How can a child of your age . . .”
“I’m one hundred and thirty-seven, if you don’t mind,” Lark answered, drawing herself up to her full three feet. “I haven’t been a child for eleven years. Officially.”
Isaac was gobsmacked but he wouldn’t show it. Willow made a rude noise.
Baines’s mouth dropped open and then he shut it quick. He muttered, “All. All completely daft.” He cleared his throat and said, “We’re going out for some exercise, which is good for body and mind. Get your gear.”
Lark narrowed her eyes at him. “I shan’t.”
“Hah,” said Willow. “Now, that’s the ticket.”
The two faced off for what felt like several minutes, Lark clutching a long wooden spoon, her arms folded across her chest.
“Fine,” Baines said at last. “We’ll finish this later. The rest of you, out.”
* * *
* * *
It was nasty weather and Isaac pulled the collar of his coat tight around his neck. A dense fog hung over the landscape and the ground was squishy wet. Isaac was especially grateful for the uniform’s trousers woven of thick, warm Scottish wool. Kat led the way to a garden shed that sat next to an old barn. Plenty of tools—pruners, saws, and axes—hung on the walls in neat order.
“I miss Hugo.” Amelie sighed. She glanced at Isaac. “He took care of everything here at Rookskill, for Lord Craig, but now he’s joined the local regiment. Look how nicely the tools have been left.”
“Let’s get to work,” Baines said, leaving the shed and heading for a place where the trees pushed right up to the edge of the castle. Isaac thought that the trees had again crossed Kat’s warding boundary, and he exchanged a glance with her that confirmed he must be right. She had wide, worried eyes. The thorns on the vines were huge and sharp, and the vines themselves were fat and knotty as if hundreds of years old.
Baines raised pruners and began to clip ferociously at the thorny branches.
The five children watched, mesmerized, as the branches fought back.
“What the devil?” Baines exclaimed, backing away as thorns reached for his arms and head, and vines grabbed at hunks of his hair and mustache. “Give me a hand!”
Leo was frozen with horror. Colin laughed so hard he was doubled over. Kat and Amelie bent together and whispered, so Isaac moved to extract Baines.
That was when it happened.
CHAPTER 30
Isaac
1942
The instant Isaac reached for a branch, trying to dislodge a thorn from Baines’s coat, he heard that hum—so loud his head ached and he had to take a step back.
As he did, the trees followed him. The vines, the thorns, let off attacking Baines and went for Isaac.
But they didn’t attack Isaac—they reached for him. Tried to enfold him. Cradle him. Absorb him. He couldn’t get away. He was a fly in a spider’s web, a fish in a net. When he moved, the trees moved with him, grasping as if they might tear him apart out of need and want. The entire forest hummed, singing in a low vibration so intense that Isaac clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes.
From a distance Kat was chanting. “‘Who can impress the forest, bid the tree unfix his earthbound root?’”
The next thing Isaac knew he was lying on his back on the soggy ground, the other children peering down at him. Baines exclaimed from behind them about “those dratted thorns.”
“What happened?” Isaac began.
“I get it,” Kat whispered urgently. “I understand. Your magic. Wow.”
“I have the kind of magic that makes trees attack me?” Isaac sat up and began to pull the dead leaves from his hair.
“No, no,” Kat said. “Look.” She pointed. “Listen.”
The entire forest stirred, moving restlessly. From deep in the woods came wolf howls that made Isaac’s skin crawl.
“I think,” Kat said breathlessly, “you’re like a wireless.”
“A wireless?” Isaac echoed. “I don’t understand.” He struggled to his feet.
“I do,” said Amelie. “That’s it. That’s why magic responds so well when you’re around, Isaac. You’re an amplifier.”
“An . . . ?”
“An amplifier. Like, you make things clearer. More distinct. Remember the ghost cat? I’d never seen it before. You channeled it to appear.”
“Right,” said Colin, excited. “The first time I ever heard Josie’s voice was when you arrived.”
Kat added, “I had the feeling that not only was my warding spell stronger yesterday when you were there, but I think you’re making the magic that’s moving the forest through the wards stronger. Which is weird because you’ve got the trees breaking through the wards, but also helping me keep them out.” She folded her arms over her chest. “You’re an amplifier for magic, Isaac. Whatever magic. Good or not.”
Isaac looked from one to the other. “An amplifier,” he echoed. Whatever magic—good or not?
Baines called out, “Mr. Drake, call off your dogs.”
“Dogs?” Colin said. Then, quietly, “Oh, dear.”
From the depths of the forest, they could all see the eyes. Pairs of eyes staring out from the shadows, shining.
“Dire wolves,” said Colin.
“Baines thinks they’re dogs,” Kat whispered.
“Mr. Baines?” Leo said urgently. “We need to get back inside.”
“I don’t see why—” Baines’s words were interrupted by a howl. Very close.
The hum inside Isaac had become a steady, pulsing beat, louder and louder. “They are coming,” Isaac said.
“Don’t run,” said Colin as the children began to move toward the castle. “I don’t think they can cross Kat’s boundary, but we still shouldn’t run.”
One of the wolves stepped out of the woods, and Isaac realized just how monstrously huge they were.
“Isaac. You can amplify not only good magic. You can amplify all magic. Bad magic, too.” Kat reached into her pocket and muttered under her breath.
He could feel it then.
A war raged inside him, a painful clash between the magic from the forest, grim, evil, and the magic that Kat clutched in her fist, shiny, sharp, bright.
He threw his hands to his head. He stumbled, and Amelie turned.
“No.” She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Try to control it.” She shook him, and he stared into her serious, wide blue eyes. “Try to focus.”
Isaac took a deep breath. He focused on the magic in Kat’s hand. He felt a sharp pain, and then a shift, and then, yes, energy zinged through him, from his head to his feet and back again. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
The pain was terrible, as if he was being torn to shreds, his skin bleeding from a thousand paper cuts, his veins on fire. But he refused to give in to it.
He refused to give up.
He thought about his parents, somewhere in time. About how they’d given him a responsibility to discover who and what he was and what he could do, and he decided—right then—that no matter how it hurt, he would never give up.
Never.
Little by little he could sense the magic. The two opposite magics, light and dark, good and evil. Little by little he could isolate them as if magic was a thread that ran from his brain to his hands. He took hold of that thread and pulled and then . . .
. . . and then he had control. He could choose the good magic if he wanted.