Time Sight

by Lynne Jonell

  Breet gasped softly; then she stiffened her chin and stepped through the window. Will watched her walk up to the top as her father had done. She bent down to pick up a stone and held it in her hand, seemingly frozen.

  “Hurry up,” Will muttered. His head was starting to ache. He reached his arm through the window and snapped his fingers.

  Breet turned around and ran toward him. She took his hand and climbed through, and Will let the window close with a sigh of relief.

  “Did you see what your father saw?” Nan demanded from her perch on the wall.

  Breet pushed back hair from a forehead damp with sweat. “I saw.”

  “And?” Will asked. “It was just a bare hilltop, with some rocks on it, right?”

  “Ruins,” said Breet somberly. “Not one stone left upon the other. I know it was our hilltop, for the rivers and the shape of the land were the same, but our hill fort was in ruins. The Romans had destroyed it. That is what my father saw, and that is why he knows we will not defeat the Romans. They will come and destroy our village, and we must make sure that there is no one left alive here for them to torture and enslave.” She bowed her head, clutching her armband.

  “But that’s all wrong!” Nan cried. “The Romans didn’t win!”

  Breet looked up, her face contorted. “The hill fort was destroyed.”

  “Yes,” said Nan passionately, “but that’s just because you saw so far into the future—things fall down after two thousand years, you know, even rock walls! Your people didn’t lose to the Romans. They won! At least,” she added honestly, “I’m pretty sure they won. Anyway, the Romans went away. And we’re your ancestors in the future—your great-grandchildren, only with about seventy more greats attached—and that means you survived, don’t you see?”

  Breet frowned. “How do you know this?”

  “It’s in all the history books … and my class even took a field trip to—oh, I forget the name, but my dad said it was called Pinny Castra, or something, where the Romans built a fort—”

  “Pinnata Castra,” said Breet slowly, fingering the knife she carried on her deerskin belt. “That is what the Romans call their fort at the Island in the Flooded Stream. We call it Inchtuthil.”

  “Inchtuthil! Right, that’s the same word my teacher used! And the Romans left it in a hurry, only I don’t remember when, exactly.… Oh,” she burst out, “if only I could ask my dad, he’d tell us everything, and then you’d know the Romans didn’t win!”

  “I wish I could speak to your father,” said Breet darkly. “You don’t seem to remember very much.”

  “I never thought it was important,” Nan admitted. “It all happened so long ago.…” She trailed off. “Wait. Why don’t we just go tell your father that the Romans don’t win in the end?”

  “We can try,” said Breet, “but I don’t think he would listen. He saw for himself that the fort was destroyed. I think you would have to show him a battle where the Romans were actually defeated. Can you do that?”

  Will shook his head. He didn’t know about any battles except for the one about to happen tonight. And if he tried to show the chieftain that one, Will suspected he wouldn’t be allowed to bring the man back before that same time again. Will remembered the grayness that had come when he had tried to go back to just before Castle Menzies had burned; the time window hadn’t let him through. Oh, it was all getting too complicated!

  Will rubbed his eyes, frowning. “Okay, let’s figure out one thing at a time. First, we’ve got to get Jamie home—I have a feeling he should have been in bed hours ago—and second, we have to get Gormlaith away from the Romans. But the Roman camp is four miles away. It will take us hours to walk it with Jamie.”

  “We’ve got to get Gormly before the battle tonight, or she might be killed,” Nan said.

  Breet frowned. “I’d let you use my chariot, only the sentries would never allow it. If they saw you so much as cross the river, you’d be dragged back by your hair. They would be sure you were going to tell the Romans exactly where the camp was, and all our battle plans—”

  Nan gasped aloud. “Be quiet for a minute, let me think!” She gripped the sides of her head. “I might have an idea—it’s coming—”

  Will waited dully. Taking care of Jamie and rescuing Gormlaith seemed difficult enough, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Now a whole village was going to die because he, Will, had shown their chieftain a vision of the future that had filled the man with despair.

  A sound of two hands clapping together broke into his depression. Will looked up to see Nan’s face alight.

  “I’ve got it!” she cried. “Will, can you make the time window bigger? Big enough to drive a chariot through?”

  10

  FORWARD IN TIME

  “BUT I DON’T WANT TO climb another wall,” Jamie mumbled, his eyes closed.

  “Just one more.” Nan, perched on top of the last terraced wall, reached down her hand to the little boy.

  “You said that the last time.” Jamie sagged against the stone, his knees buckling.

  Will shook him awake. “Put your foot in my hand—that’s it—now step up.”

  Thoroughly grumpy, Jamie did as he was told. Nan locked her hand around his wrist and gave a mighty heave. She and Jamie tumbled over together, and Will heard a muffled series of groans.

  He glanced behind. They had come down three levels of terraced pastures, and no one had seen them. He scrabbled for a foothold between the rough stones and flung a leg over the wall. Then he was rolling on the spice-scented bracken that covered the hillside.

  Where was Breet?

  “Maybe she had trouble getting the horses,” Nan said.

  They sat shivering with their backs to the wall. The river valley was closer now, but it still looked like a long, long walk across, plus another few miles to the Roman camp.

  “I want Gormly,” Jamie said miserably.

  “She’d keep us warmer,” Nan said through chattering teeth.

  Will rubbed the goose bumps on his arms in sudden irritation. “It’s her own fault we’re in this mess. Seriously, she has to chase everything she sees?”

  “She’s just a dog!” Nan said heatedly. “She was only following her instinct!”

  Yeah, an instinct for trouble, Will felt like saying, but he caught sight of Jamie’s face and didn’t. In spite of his annoyance, he hated to think what might happen to the dog, especially after what Breet had said about the Romans.

  There was a sound of hoofbeats, a chariot’s distinctive rattle. “Oh, wow,” said Nan.

  Will glanced up, then took a second look. Breet’s cheeks were painted with blue spirals, slanted lines crossed her nose, and patterns of dots curled over her forehead. Every visible part of her body was covered with blue designs; he wouldn’t have recognized her without the flyaway hair and the deep blue cloak.

  “Sorry it took so long,” Breet panted. “My mother wanted to paint me with patterns of protection and the afterlife, and she wouldn’t stop. Get in, hurry!”

  The chariot was an open cart of wood and leather. The horses, small and shaggy, stamped and tossed their heads; Breet held them back with an effort. Nan got Jamie in and wedged against the front panel. Then, cramming herself in behind Breet, she grasped the curved wooden rim on both sides. “Come on, Will,” she said over her shoulder.

  Will looked at the restless horses, the jostling carriage. There was too much movement to open a time window. “I’ll do it from here. Wait till I give the word, Breet.”

  Breet nodded, her arms tense.

  Will quieted his mind. He let his eyes relax, focus on a spot that wasn’t quite there, until the air began its familiar shimmer. Now to find the right era, the right day, the right moment.

  He probed to locate the strongest pull, the pull of his own time. Almost … there …

  He passed a sort of grayness that pushed back; that had to be the time he had already lived through. Beyond it was a mist, not gray exactly, but dim somehow, as dim as the
future he had not yet lived. But in between the gray and the dim darkness was a bright sliver, thin as a bookmark between pages in a diary. That was the place. He sharpened his focus delicately and opened the window on the very afternoon he had left his own time.

  Through the window it was a bright summer’s day, midafternoon by the shadows. Breet and Nan, off in the chariot, could not see the window of course, but if he could just place it correctly, that wouldn’t matter.

  He was freezing, but he couldn’t shiver; he couldn’t move in any abrupt way, or he would lose the picture. Slowly, carefully, Will shifted his focus for more distance. The window enlarged the way a small picture grows if the projector is moved backward. It grew until it was higher than the horses’ heads and wider than the chariot. He adjusted its position, moving his focus ever so slightly to the side. Now the window was as big as a garage door and just a few yards in front of Breet’s chariot. His head began to ache, especially around his eyes; it was an effort to keep his focus steady.

  “All right, Breet,” he said tensely. “Drive straight ahead. That’s it, keep going.…”

  The horses’ heads were through the window. It was working!

  Suddenly the horse on the left tossed its head, snorting in alarm, spooked by the sudden change in atmosphere. Now the horses were trying to back up—the chariot tilted—

  “GO!” Will shouted.

  Breet cracked her whip over the shaggy hindquarters, and the horses bolted forward, whinnying in panic. The chariot surged ahead over the stony turf, bounced twice, hit the side of the window with a strange shimmering screech, and was through.

  Will let his breath out slowly. The chariot and horses dwindled in the distance; Breet seemed to be fighting to keep them under control, but that was her problem, not his. Carefully he adjusted his focus to bring the window closer, make it smaller, until it was close enough that he could step through himself. Then suddenly the blessed summer sun of his own time was shining warmly on him. Far overhead, he saw the silver gleam of an airplane going south; over the river was a modern bridge and a paved road leading toward Castle Menzies. His headache began to recede.

  Breet’s whip cracked again. The horses wheeled in a circle; she pulled the reins, and they stopped, trembling. “Hurry, Will,” she cried, “I can’t hold them forever!”

  Will scrambled to find a foothold in the back of the chariot. Breet clicked with her tongue, and the horses lunged forward.

  “Ow, somebody’s stepping on me!” complained Jamie sleepily.

  Will gripped the sides and hung on. The chariot had a springy, whippy motion, and every so often it hit a rock and jounced up a foot or more. His insides felt like eggs in the process of being scrambled. “Head for the road!” he shouted over the rattle of the chariot.

  Breet stared at the winding asphalt. “How can it be so smooth?”

  The wooden wheels made a sound on the highway like logs rolling; the drumming hooves echoed across the river valley. “Aiii!” cried Breet, her eyes blazing. “What a glorious road! Are you sure the Romans didn’t build this?”

  “Our people built this,” Nan shouted in her ear. “Your great-great-great-great-times-ten-grandchildren built it!”

  “Ha!” Breet snapped her whip as the horses charged across the bridge.

  “Don’t whip the horses so much,” Nan begged.

  “I’m not touching them,” Breet said scornfully. “I’m just encouraging them.”

  “Look out!” Will called in her ear. “Car!”

  Breet shrieked. The car passed them with a smell of exhaust and a blaring red whoosh; they swerved off the road into a stand of gorse bushes, and the horses reared, rolling their eyes until only the whites showed. The chariot tipped sideways.

  “Get out,” gasped Breet, “tip it up again,” and Will and Nan put their shoulders to the painted wooden sides until the chariot righted with a crunch. Breet flipped down a wooden lever for a brake and stared at the red car, fast disappearing down the road. “Was that a dragon?” she gasped. “Or an avenging spirit?”

  “It was a—a horseless chariot,” Will said with sudden inspiration.

  “Your great-great-times-twenty-grandchildren made those, too,” Nan added.

  Breet’s eyes had a strange glitter. “My descendants made that dragon chariot?”

  A low, fretful wail came from within Breet’s chariot. “I’m tired! I want to go home!”

  Nan glanced at Will. “Let’s put Jamie on his cot at the castle,” she urged. “My mum can deal with him.”

  “Perfect,” Will agreed. It would be far easier to accomplish what he had to do without Jamie along. “How far is the castle now?”

  Nan screwed up her face. “Maybe two miles? We’ll have to watch out for—er, dragon chariots.”

  Breet was hesitant to try the road again. Every time a car came into view, she pulled off to one side, and Nan and Will jumped out to hold the horses’ bridles. It took a long time to reach the castle. For the last half mile, Breet refused outright to use the road, preferring to drive the horses through a field of grain.

  “The farmers are going to hate us,” Nan muttered.

  Will stared at Breet’s blue-painted face and the designs on her arms. “How are we going to explain her to your parents?” he whispered in Nan’s ear as the castle loomed.

  She grinned. “I’ll just tell them she’s one of my weirder school friends. Here, Breet,” she added, “go around to the back of the castle, okay?”

  The horses, going slower now, turned in response to Breet’s hand on the reins. But Breet wasn’t paying much attention to her driving. She tipped her head back, staring up at the massive stone castle, and let the reins go slack. “I hear the Romans build marvelous things,” she said slowly, “great fortresses, and walls that go almost from sea to sea—”

  “The Romans didn’t build this castle,” Nan said. “Your descendants did. Come on, let’s get Jamie inside.”

  Will and Breet took Jamie under his shoulders, and Nan took his feet. They passed the gift shop, where Cousin Elspeth was busy with a tourist, walked up the long narrow stairs, and tipped the little boy into his cot. He grunted, rolled over, and fell asleep again.

  “Right, that’s him sorted,” said Nan. “Come on, let’s find my dad.”

  They went out the back way. “Let’s avoid the car park,” Nan said quietly to Will. “Too many dragon chariots. Oh, there’s Dad!” She waved at the man approaching with a ladder over his shoulder.

  Breet stared out over the fields, shading her eyes against the light. Then she stiffened, her face twisted with fury. “You betrayed me!”

  “Huh?” said Will.

  Nan looked where Breet was pointing, and her eyes widened. “Oh, no, no, no—”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t see?” Breet hissed. “Those are Romans!”

  Will turned. There, in the distance, the reenactors had begun their battle. Men in shiny metal helmets and tunics were waving their swords about, and wild-looking blue-painted people were brandishing spears.

  “Wait!” Nan cried. “You’ve got it all wrong!”

  Breet was already running toward the horses, reaching for the reins. The shaggy beasts sprang forward at the crack of her whip and headed straight for Will and Nan, gathering speed.

  “Jump on!” Will shouted. As the chariot passed, they leaped onto its open back, cracking their heads together in the process. By some miracle, they both stayed aboard. Will saw Nan’s father drop his ladder and begin to run after them.

  “They’re not Romans!” Nan screamed in Breet’s ear over the rattling of the chariot.

  “Do you think I’m a fool?” Breet shrieked. “Do you think I can’t see the Roman armor, and the Roman swords, and the arrogant red Roman crests?”

  “They’re just acting!” Will shouted, gripping the sides of the chariot. “It’s a mock battle, it’s not real!”

  “I will believe no more lies! I can die here just as well as in my own time. Look, where my people lie slain
!”

  Will groaned. Naturally some of the reenactors were playing dead. Some of them apparently used red dye for blood, too. In a minute, the horses were going to run straight into the crowd … someone was going to get hurt …

  “We’ve got to do something!” Nan cried.

  Will spoke into Nan’s ear. She nodded and readjusted her grip.

  “Now,” Will said. Together they each raised one leg and pushed their feet into the backs of Breet’s knees. The girl’s legs buckled, and Nan lunged on top of her while Will grabbed for the reins, pulling back. The horses reared, squealing, as the crowd of reenactors stopped in midbattle.

  Breet fought to get free, and Nan was getting the worst of it.

  “Knock it off, Breet!” Will tried to control the horses as the chariot slowed. “They were just pretending to fight!” He wound the reins around his forearm and grabbed Breet, turning her to face the crowd. “Look, no one is getting hurt, they’re having fun!”

  The audience was clapping delightedly now, the children craning their necks for a look at the horses and the painted chariot.

  Breet looked around, panting. “But—there’s blood…” She gasped as one of the blue-painted dead bodies suddenly sat up and put on his glasses to look at her quizzically.

  “Nice chariot,” he said. “Hey, what language are you speaking, anyway?”

  The English words sounded oddly strange to Will’s ears. He glanced at Nan, who looked slightly startled as well, but promptly switched to English.

  “We were speaking Pictish, of course.” Nan tossed her head, dimpling.

  The crowd chuckled.

  The man on the ground got up, hitched his pants up around a chubby waist, and looked the children over with a superior air. “Of course, no one really knows the Pictish language anymore. Some people believe that the language is of Celtic derivation, but most current scholars hold to the view that—”