by Lynne Jonell
“We’ve got to find out how it works!” Her whisper was insistent. “Let’s try again tonight, after Jamie’s in bed.”
Will slumped. He had kept his eyes open during supper, but now he felt them closing inexorably. “I’m tired,” he said.
Nan looked at the clock. “It’s not even nine!”
Cousin Elspeth glanced up from the sink, where she was finishing the last of the dishes. “Will and Jamie had a long flight, and they need their rest.” She lifted Jamie, who was draped limply over a chair, and carried him up the stairs. Jamie roused long enough to mumble, “I want my bear,” and then his eyes closed again.
The room Will was to share with Jamie looked out over a stone-fenced yard of pleasant trees and grass—Cousin Elspeth called it a garden—and had a peaked roof, two beds, and a chest of drawers. Will had a vague memory of visiting the bathroom, fending off Nan in the hall (“I’ll knock on your door in half an hour, and we can try it again!”), and falling into bed with one sock still on. He sank into sleep like a stone falling into deep water, and if Nan knocked at his door, he didn’t hear it.
When Will opened his eyes again, the room was filled with the soft gray light of early dawn. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was through the fog of sleep, and then all at once he was awake. The clock on the dresser said 5:09 A.M.
He was terribly hungry. Would Cousin Elspeth mind if he got himself some cereal? Will pulled on his clothes and tiptoed down the creaking wooden stairs to the kitchen.
The light was growing, and through the open window came a trill of birdsong. Will stepped outside and stood with his hand on the doorknob, entranced.
Across the road was a narrow, stony river, and beyond it, a hill of enormous size swooped up and up. It was strangely scooped, as if a giant had pushed the land up with his thumb. At the very top, it was craggy with rock like a mountain, but Will could climb it, he was sure. It looked as if a person could run straight up to the very top.
A gleam of light from the far end of the valley turned the somber hillside bright with long swaths and patches of color, yellow and purple and tan and a green so vivid that it looked lit from within. Here and there, white woolly sheep dotted the turf, cropping it close, and the air was full of a sweet scent. Gormlaith emerged from her kennel with a jingle of dog tags and rubbed up against his side, licking his hand.
Will felt suddenly, intensely happy, as if everything was going to be all right.
He would climb the hill. He could be to the top and back before anyone else woke up. It didn’t matter about breakfast.
He leaped a stone wall, picked his way across the river on rocks slippery with spray, and strode up the green hill, whistling as the big creamy dog lolloped around him, ears flying.
An hour later, breathing hard, he stopped. The climb was steeper than he had thought. Will looked down into the valley and then up at the peak, measuring the distance with his eyes. He was only a third of the way up, his socks were soaked with dew, and his stomach was like an empty pail.
He threw himself onto a flat gray rock that stuck out of the hill like a sideways tooth. It looked ancient, as if it had been there forever. How many of his ancestors had sat right where he was sitting? Maybe his own mother had sat here when she was a girl.
And just that quickly, his mood shifted. Will clasped his forearms as if to hold in the ache that felt like a brick in his chest every time he thought of his mother.
Gormlaith stopped chasing butterflies and looked at him with concern. Then she padded over clumsily, nudging his leg with her nose.
Will’s hand stole out and stroked her smooth, warm head. The dog gazed at him with brown liquid eyes that never left his face.
“She’s in some kind of trouble,” Will said quietly. Somehow it was easier to talk to a dog. “Bad trouble, I think, and I can’t do anything about it.”
Gormlaith put a paw on his knee and whined softly.
“Why did she have to go?” Will pressed his face into Gormlaith’s furry back. His mother had explained her reasons, of course. She had shown him pictures of the children who needed her—kids who had something wrong with them, who didn’t have a doctor to help—and while the pictures made Will feel strangely ashamed, they made him mad, too. Why did it have to be his mother who solved all the world’s problems? He had still been angry when she had left … so angry that he hadn’t hugged her and had turned his face aside when she went to kiss him.
If only he could do that part over, just that one part. It wouldn’t matter that he didn’t agree with her. He would hug his mother and let her kiss him and not care who was watching.…
Clang clang … clang clang.…
Will lifted his head, blinking. Far down the slope, across the river, Cousin Elspeth’s house was a bright spot against a green field. It looked small and tidy, white with black shutters and a red-painted door. As he watched, a tiny figure moved by the door and the sheep bell rang again.
Cousin Elspeth must be calling him to breakfast. He’d better hurry—Jamie might be afraid if he woke up in a strange place and Will wasn’t there.
He headed down the slope, half slithering on the wet turf. Gormlaith raced ahead, with occasional surges off to the side to chase a rabbit (unsuccessfully). Will galloped the last stretch to the river and hopped across the stones. There was a smell of bacon and cinnamon and something nutty, like toasted grain.
“What’s this?” Jamie sat at the plain oak table, staring down into a bowl.
“Porridge, you silly!” said Nan through a mouthful of bacon.
Cousin Elspeth chuckled. “I can’t believe you’ve never eaten porridge before, my lad.” She picked up an armful of rugs and went outside. Through the open door came a rhythmic thwap thwap thwap as she shook them from the step.
“We call it oatmeal in America.” Will gave his brother a good-morning bump on the shoulder. “You’ve eaten it before, Jamie. Don’t be rude.”
Jamie raised eyes, which looked suspiciously wet. “But there’s butter on it!”
Will leaned over. A big lump of butter stared up at him from the center of the steaming bowl, melting slowly in the hot cereal. “That’s okay,” he said. “We’re in Scotland, and they make it like this. Just try it. It might be good.”
Jamie’s mouth pinched up, and he shook his head, looking miserable. “I want it the way Mom makes it.”
“Here, I’ll fix it for you.” Will took his spoon, scooped up the butter, and put it on his own oatmeal. It was a little greasy, but he slid the butter to one side and ate from the other, hoping Cousin Elspeth wouldn’t notice.
“Have jam on it,” Nan suggested.
Jamie cheered up at that idea and took a heaping spoonful from the jam jar, getting predictably sticky. “Are we going to watch the new TV again?” he asked between bites.
Nan choked on her toast. “Don’t you want to play in the castle?” She swallowed and smiled winningly, her dimple deep. “You can climb into the turrets on top and shoot the enemy with your arrows!”
“Okay,” said Jamie. “And then the big TV!”
Cousin Elspeth came in with the rugs. “It’s daft to talk about TV when you have a whole castle to explore. Get ready, all of you—it’s almost time for me to open up for the tourists. Oh, and Will, your father called late last night. He arrived safely. He’ll let us know when he has more news, but he says not to worry if he doesn’t call—it just means he’s not able to get phone service.”
* * *
Nan started their tour at ground level, in the castle kitchen. Will had never seen a fireplace so huge that a grown man could stand up in it. Inside, iron kettles and pots hung from hooks, dangling over a massive grate.
Jamie thrust his head into a hollowed space at the side. “What’s this hole for?”
“Baking bread.” Nan pointed at something that looked like a flat wooden spade. “You put the dough on that, then slide it inside. The stones get hot from the fire, and the bread bakes, and when it’s done, you use th
e wooden peel to get it out again.”
“Oh.” Jamie turned his head and took in a breath. “Now can we watch the big—”
Nan clapped her hands like a kindergarten teacher. “Who wants to see the dungeon?”
“I do! I do!” Jamie ran down the hall in the direction of Nan’s pointing finger, his footsteps echoing off the stone.
“That got rid of him,” said Nan.
“Not for long,” said Will.
Nan waved away this point. “There’s one thing I can’t understand. Remember how I couldn’t see the picture from the past at first? I had to get behind you.”
Will nodded.
“But when Jamie came up, he saw it from the side. How did he do that?”
Will shrugged. “You know as much as I do.”
“Maybe Jamie has the Sight, too.” Nan chewed her lower lip. “Am I the only one who doesn’t have it?”
“I don’t think Jamie has the Sight,” Will said, thinking back. “He looked at that Magic Eyeball book on the plane a lot more than I did, and he never saw anything weird. Anyway, Second Sight is about seeing the future, remember?”
“Call it Far Sight, then,” Nan said. “Or Time Sight.” She beamed at Will. “Because you can look far back into time, see?”
They passed the gift shop, where Gormlaith lay on the rug with her muzzle on her paws, apparently guarding the display of Scottish books. Cousin Elspeth, at the desk, raised her eyebrows, smiling. “Are you done with the kitchen already? Nan, don’t just read off the placards—tell them more. This castle has a fascinating history!”
“Yes, Mum,” said Nan patiently. “I’m telling them everything they want to know.” She steered Will down the hall, glancing back over her shoulder. “Mum’s a bit mad about castle history, and she thinks I should be, too. Lucky for you she isn’t giving you the tour—she’d bore you silly.”
Will turned the corner into the vaulted cellars that might once have been the castle dungeons. Jamie was busy climbing up a tiny, curving staircase that ended in a blank wall, and jumping down. “Did they hang the prisoners from that hook?” he shouted, pointing to the ceiling.
Will blinked. For a moment he could almost see a real body hanging in the room—and then he saw it was only shadows. He turned away, his fingers cold.
Jamie was so little. He thought life was like a cartoon; someone got bashed in the head, saw a few stars, and then popped right up again.
Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was good that Jamie didn’t understand about violence and war, the real kind where people got hurt and sometimes died. Will had been thinking a lot about it lately, more than he wanted to.
Nan spoke behind her hand. “We have to find out how to work that thing that happens. With the book. We have to practice somewhere.”
A chill ran between Will’s shoulder blades. The past might be safe, but it might not. What if somebody put them in a dungeon? Maybe he should quietly lose the book in the woods.
Nan tapped her fingers together, waiting for his answer.
“I’ve got to concentrate,” Will said. “I can’t do it with you-know-who around.”
“Leave him to me.” Nan rumpled her hair with all ten fingers. “Watch this.”
Jamie tore past them and up the winding stone staircase. “I’m going to see everything!”
“And I’ll tell you everything,” Nan said, with a sideways grin.
She did, too. At first, Will was interested. Who wouldn’t be interested in gun ports and arrow slits, a nearly six-foot sword, and big paintings of strange-looking men in skirts?
“They’re kilts,” Nan said. “Scottish men wear them. And the different tartans on the plaids tell what clan they’re from.”
“They look like skirts to me,” said Jamie, yawning. “Can’t we see the turrets yet?”
Nan pointed to the winding stair, and Jamie’s feet pattered up the worn stone steps.
“He’s almost done for,” Nan said with satisfaction.
“Huh?”
“I’ve seen it a hundred times.” The space between Nan’s front teeth showed briefly. “Tourists march around the castle, reading every single card and description until the kids are ready to die from boredom. Before they’re halfway through the castle, the kids are asleep on the parents’ shoulders, with drool coming out of their mouths.”
Will gave a snort of amusement. So Nan had been trying to bore them to death! “Jamie doesn’t take naps anymore,” he pointed out.
Nan mounted the stairs, talking over her shoulder. “He will after I’m finished with him. I brought the Magic Eyeball book in my school satchel for later, too.”
The top of the castle was mostly one huge empty room, with high, rough beams, a scarred wooden floor, corner towers, and turrets. Jamie was already at one of the shot holes, making artillery noises.
Will stepped into the south tower and looked out. From this angle, he could see the front of the castle and a row of high windows with carved stone panels above them. They were all different, but one was triangular and seemed more ornately carved than the rest. There was a carved hand, pointing down to some intertwined initials … I M B S, they looked like. Below them were letters grouped like words, but the spelling was odd: I OWR TYME. Will read slowly, sounding the words out. “Oh, ‘in our time’! But the N is backward.”
“Aye,” said Nan. “It makes me feel better about my spelling.”
“What’s it supposed to mean?” Will squinted as he tried to decipher another line at the bottom. “It must be important if they bothered to carve it in that stone thing.”
“You mean the pediment,” Nan said, with an air of authority. “Right, all I know is what Mum says when she gives the castle tour. Let’s see”—she squinted at the triangular pediment—“1577, that’s the year they carved it. And the I really means a J—back then, they switched the two letters all the time. So the initials are for James Menzies and his wife, Barbara somebody, and the ribbon entwines around the letters so you know they were in love, I reckon.”
“But what did they mean by ‘in our time’?”
Nan shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest. You can ask my mum. Or my dad, when he gets home.”
Will had almost forgotten about Nan’s father. “Where is he?”
“Off on some business trip for a few days. Actually, Mum’s better at Castle Menzies history. Dad’s the one you want to ask about Scottish hist—”
“Boo!” said Jamie from behind them.
“Is he always this annoying?” Nan asked. “Or is he being that way just for me?”
Will rolled his eyes. “Sorry—he likes to sneak up on people.”
“Mom says I’ll grow out of it, but I won’t,” Jamie added cheerfully.
Will gave him a light whack in the ribs. “It’s still rude, Jamie. Nan was trying to tell me something about her dad.”
Nan shrugged. “I was only going to say that he’s big into digging things up from the past.” She took Jamie’s hand. “Come on, I haven’t shown you Bonnie Prince Charlie’s bedroom yet!”
“Bonnie is a girl’s name.” Jamie dragged his feet after her.
“No, in Scotland, bonnie means ‘good-looking.’ So if you were good-looking, we’d call you Bonnie Jamie.”
“Don’t,” Jamie begged as she tugged him down the stairs.
Nan’s voice floated faintly up the winding staircase. Will grinned to himself. By the time he got to the bedroom where (apparently) the prince had slept, Jamie was lying on the floor, feebly kicking one leg.
“I’m tiiiired,” Jamie whined.
Nan gave Will a wink. “But don’t you want to hear more about Bonnie Prince—”
“No!” cried Jamie.
“How about a biscuit in the tearoom, then? And a lie-down on the cot, after?”
Jamie sniffled. “I don’t like tea, and I don’t want an old dry biscuit, and I’m too big for naps.”
Nan ignored this and pulled Jamie to his feet. “Come along. You’ll like our biscuits.”
Jamie cheered up considerably when he saw that a biscuit was really a cookie. He put his nose to the glass case and read the small sign next to a large cookie with white icing and a cherry. “Empire biscuit,” he read aloud. “I want one of those!”
“You can read already?” Nan was impressed.
Jamie took an enormous bite. “I was the kindergarten reading star,” he said thickly through a mouthful of crumbs.
The little boy was less excited about taking a nap. “I need my bear,” he announced. “Where is it, Will? It wasn’t there when I woke up this morning, either.”
Will had not seen Jamie’s stuffed bear since … oh, no. It must have been left on the plane.
Nan caught Will’s panicked look. “You’re kind of big for a stuffed bear,” she said cheerfully. “Wouldn’t you rather have a new toy?” She dug in her school satchel and pulled out a small plastic figurine. It was a man in a short tunic, with a sword held high.
“An army guy!” said Jamie.
“It’s a Highland soldier,” Nan said. “Close your eyes, and I’ll sing you a song about him.”
Jamie curled on his side, clutching the soldier, and let his eyelids droop. He peeked at Nan from under his lashes.
Nan began to sing in a low, soft voice: “O flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again—”
Jamie’s eyes popped open. “He’s not a flower! He’s an army guy!”
“Hush,” said Nan. “‘Flower’ just means the best and bravest men of Scotland. Shut your eyes now, or I won’t sing any more.”
Jamie screwed up his face into a frown. “Teach it to me. I want to learn my army guy’s song.”
Will gave a little snort under his breath and sat down. This was going to take a while. “What are you doing with a plastic soldier, anyway?” he muttered to Nan.
“School diorama,” she said. “Some battle or the other. Now quiet, I’m teaching Jamie his song. It’s practically the Scottish national anthem—you should learn it, too.”
Jamie picked the song up quickly. His voice was high and clear, and Will shut his eyes. The blended voices were sweet; his mother used to sing with Jamie, too, when she put him to bed.