Shades of Red

by K. C. Dyer

  “I didn’t kill him,” she whispered quietly. “I just sent him to hell.”

  Kate rubbed her eyes and looked at Darrell again. “You went back?” she asked, pulling one of her blankets up around her shoulders.

  Darrell nodded. “Took Paris with me, by mistake.”

  “What? You took Paris? How did that happen?”

  “He knew something was up after we disappeared down in the tunnels under the school that time. I never realized how much he missed Conrad — and I guess Paris listened in on enough conversations to know that I knew something about Conrad’s whereabouts. So he waited in the library every night for about a week knowing I might try to sneak away. When he tackled me through the doorway, we ended up there together.” She smiled a little. “I was going a little farther away than he’d realized, I guess. He spent the whole time barfing, though, so I don’t think he’ll be doing any time travel again in the near future.”

  Kate took one look at the dark circles beneath her friend’s eyes and climbed out of bed. She pulled a sweatshirt on over her PJs. “You’d better come with me,” she said, stuffing her feet into runners. “We’ll go find Brodie and Paris and maybe a latte and you can tell us all about it.” She threw a hoodie on over the eclectic outfit and pulled Darrell up off the bed.

  “So how did you send Paris to hell?” Kate asked as they settled into chairs in a quiet corner of the dining hall.

  She had her hands wrapped around a big cup of caffeine and had added a pair of sweatpants before going to wake Brodie and a very groggy Paris. The dining hall was almost deserted, with most students choosing to sleep in on a Saturday morning.

  “I didn’t go to hell,” said Paris smugly. He was sitting with the remains of an enormous breakfast on the tray in front of him, and Darrell was pleased to see a little colour in his face. He bent over and whispered, “I went to England. And not only that, I’m planning to go again.”

  “Maybe your next visit should be by airplane,” said Darrell dryly.

  “Listen, you guys. No matter what Darrell says, that was the most amazing experience of my life. I can’t believe that you’ve all been doing this for so long and I knew nothing about it.”

  Kate glared at Paris. “Can you keep it down? The reason we’ve been able to do this is that we know how to keep our mouths shut,” she hissed.

  Paris grinned, unperturbed, and lowered his voice. “So — you wanna hear who we met? Henry the Big-Wig Eighth, that’s who!” He looked around the table triumphantly.

  Kate cast a wary glance at Darrell. “Something tells me this is not all fun and games,” she said in a low voice. “Who did you send to hell, Darrell?”

  “Conrad,” she said simply and pushed the diary across the table to Kate.

  October 12, 1519

  This is a hard day. It always is, and has, I must admit, grown a bit easier over the years, but it still wearies. So, with no fear that anyone will ever be able to decipher it, I’m going to do what my patron has suggested so often in the time we have spent together and write some of it down. I have written nothing more than my name for sixteen years, and already my hand aches from the unfamiliar feel of the pen. But as there is no one alive who will ever be able to understand more than a few of the words I write and certainly no one to criticize my spelling or syntax, I will do as Brother Socorro suggests. I doubt it will bring me peace — but perhaps less pain, and that is something.

  Even with this simple start my hand aches. For today, that will have to be enough. I have many other duties to attend to. No one in the monastery knows or could possibly care that, not accounting for a minor five-hundred-year glitch in the middle, it is my thirty-second birthday today. An anniversary of sorts. I have lived as long in this century as in the one into which I was born.

  “Conrad was thirty-two when he wrote that?” Brodie shook his head. “It’s hard to even think it could be true. And I’m sorry, but those words don’t sound like him at all.”

  Darrell shrugged. “I know, the language sounds pretty formal, but you have to remember that he was writing this after learning to speak a form of the language he didn’t know before, and he’d been speaking that way for sixteen years. Besides, people change. When you have a chance to read more of this, you’ll see what he has been through.”

  “How did you get this thing?” said Brodie, gesturing at the worn and ancient notebook.

  “Anne Boleyn had it — she got it from Brother Socorro.” Darrell turned to Paris. “I was right, you know. When you read the diary, you’ll see. It was Socorro who found Conrad and pulled him out of a madhouse.”

  She dropped her head into her hands. “I sent him to a madhouse,” she said, her voice muffled. “I sent him into hell.”

  Kate patted Darrell on the shoulder. “Okay, enough of the dramatics, as my mother would say. I really want to hear what happened. Now Paris tackled you through the doorway — then what?”

  “It was more of a push with a twist,” Paris interjected modestly.

  Kate glared at him. “I want to hear this from Darrell,” she said sternly. “You’ll have time to explain yourself later.”

  Paris shrank back in his seat, chastened.

  Darrell leaned forward. “Well, the portal brought us through to Windsor Castle in England during the early sixteenth century. The biggest problem was that the longer I was there, the more I realized you and Brodie were right. I just didn’t have enough information about the time period.” she shook her head. “I even forgot who Anne Boleyn was.”

  “It didn’t help that we were introduced to her as Nan Bullen,” said Paris practically. “I haven’t taken any history at all except for what Gramps has taught us this year, so I didn’t know any of this stuff.”

  “Everyone knows that Henry the Eighth had six wives,” said Darrell scathingly. “I can’t believe I didn’t put it all together until I saw the king himself.”

  Brodie gave a low whistle. “Now there’s a man I would’ve liked to meet,” he said. “One of the most powerful men in the history of the world. Changed the face of religion and politics forever.

  “Was he fat?” asked Kate. “He’s always fat in the pictures I’ve seen.”

  Darrell shook her head. “No, but he wasn’t that old yet. I think he was just in his late thirties when we saw him. He was really big though — remember how small the people were as a rule?”

  Kate nodded. “I wonder if it’s just a myth that he was so big and fat.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Darrell. “The man sure loved to eat. We were there for two feasts and the food was amazing.”

  “Uh — I didn’t really enjoy that part,” admitted Paris.

  Brodie looked at him with interest. “So you were sick for the entire trip? Must be some kind of time sickness, maybe like motion sickness in a car or a boat. How long were you there?”

  “Three or four days,” said Paris. “Cool how we were only gone for a few hours from here, though.”

  Brodie nodded. “That’s how it usually seems to work. Time compresses as it passes somehow, so when you travel, the proportion goes off. You can seem to be there for a long time and only a few minutes or hours pass here.”

  “Okay, we know all that,” said Kate, impatiently. She clutched Darrell’s sleeve. “What do you know now that you didn’t before?”

  Darrell paused to think for a moment. “I guess I know that I have to read more of this book to find out what happened to Conrad,” she said. “The next time I go back, I don’t want to make so many stupid mistakes. If I’d known Nan was Anne Boleyn and remembered who she was going to marry, I might have at least figured out where we were a little sooner.”

  “So — do you think she was a witch?” asked Kate, with a glance over her shoulder.

  Darrell shook her head.

  “She made a mean time sickness potion for me,” said Paris. “It was the only thing that kept my stomach steady the whole time I was there.”

  Darrell shrugged. “That just means she could
have had a simple knowledge of natural medicine. We’ve had plenty of experience showing how women who had basic medical knowledge were often treated as witches.”

  “But I read she had six fingers and a giant mole on her neck,” said Kate. “More exaggeration?”

  Darrell nodded. “She wasn’t really a great beauty, but she wasn’t a monster, either.”

  “She sure had a way of looking at you that made you feel she was beautiful,” said Paris.

  Brodie grinned at him. “Caught your eye, did she?”

  “Speaking of eyes — hers were almost pure black,” said Paris. “And they kind of sparkled when she laughed and her teeth were really good — whiter than most, I’d say.” He wrinkled his nose at Darrell. “I think that’s one thing I’ll never take for granted again,” he added. “Good dental care is worth it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many missing and black teeth in my life. And the breath of some of those people!”

  “Made all those years in braces worth it, eh, Paris?”

  He shrugged. “I only wore braces for two years,” he admitted, “but I’ll think more kindly of dentists from now on!”

  “Listen you guys, I’m really tired,” said Darrell, standing up. “I’m going to go have a bit of a nap. We can talk about this more later, okay?” She picked up the book and trudged out of the room.

  “She looks really beaten up,” said Brodie quietly.

  Kate nodded. “I hate to see her this depressed. I think we need to keep a close eye on her for a while.”

  “Anybody want to hear my English accent?” asked Paris, grinning around the table.

  October 25, 1519

  It’s been hard for me to pick up my pen to write as my days are so full. No, that is a lie. I really just don’t want to remember, and on top of that I don’t want to go to the trouble associated with remembering to write in a language I haven’t spoken for so many years. It was always hard for me to write. I hated school. Always in the lowest class, with the other kids who hated school, too.

  One school was different, and I was only there long enough to mess things up.

  November 16, 1519

  This is worse than I ever thought it would be. Part of me does not want to remember. There’s nothing I can do about it, anyway. And what is there to go back to, even if I could? Brother Socorro says that I should write about my present if my past is so painful. My sadness will stay inside if I keep it there.

  Here is something I remember that doesn’t hurt.

  How to Make Chocolate

  Chip Cookies Mix a cup of butter with 2 eggs and 2 cups of sugar. Add vanilla and then mix into a bowl with 2 cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda. and a large pinch of salt. Add a whole pack of chocolate chips and bake ten minutes in a 350 degree oven.

  Hmm. That did hurt after all.

  I guess because even though there are ovens here, and even occasional sweets, chocolate chips are not going to exist for at least four hundred years.

  For the first time since picking up the old notebook, Darrell laughed a little. At least he was able to make a joke now and then, she thought. Leaning down beside the bed, she gave Delaney a little pat and then returned to her reading. She had never in her life so desperately wanted to know how a story ended.

  December 1, 1519

  Brother Socorro. Though I know his face much better than I do my own, it is still strange to look into his eyes. The good brother tries to teach me to trust and one day I may do so without pain. I can only hope.

  So, I will take his advice and write of my life right now. I spend my days labouring in a monastery. It is an old stone Abbey, near Blois, in France. The brothers who make their home here have accepted me, mostly because of Brother Socorro. In the winters I work on the river, collecting fish for the brethren. In summer, my job is harvesting not the waters but the gardens, where I labour under the steely eye of Pere Hortus from prime until vespers.

  And speaking of such — the bell tolls for Compline and after that, to bed.

  December 3, 1519

  Only two days have passed and I am drawn once again to this journal. It does bring a strange sort of peace, but perhaps only as a rest from the labours of gutting fish. My knife is sharp and the job is swift, but I tire of cutting heads, slicing bellies, and pulling guts. I hated to write a word at school, since I did so poorly, but now it begins to offer a weird relief for me, and allows me to think of my past, so far in the future.

  I’ve decided to write today of the bells, since the ringing drew me away before. The bells call the brethren to prayer eight times each day starting with Matins at midnight. Lauds follows at 3:00 a.m., Prime at 6:00 a.m., and Terce at 9:00 a.m. At noon there are the bells for Sext, None is at 3:00 p.m., Vespers at 6:00 p.m., and Compline marks bedtime at 9:00 p.m. The names are drawn from the canonical hours and are named for the prayers that are said at each time of the day. These are a devout people, though it is usually only the friars who fall to their knees so often in the day. Regular folk, even within the sound of the bells, usually pray a mere four or five times daily.

  The passage of time holds much fascination for me now, naturally. I will never know how it was that I passed through the wall of time. I know it was a mistake. And I know that in the style I had learned so well from my father, I made things worse. But was I meant to be here in this time?

  The bell rings again. Matins. And of course here in the monastery, practicality rules all. Here’s something I remember from the past: Time flies when you’re having fun.

  Christmas, 1519

  The day is so different and yet so much the same as the one I knew as a child. Was I ever a child? For a short while, perhaps, before my father had good use to put me to. Through the passage of years I now know he was a hard man. Not a just man. And perhaps not as hard as some.

  Christmas here is little different than a regular day. Much praying and for some, a fast. No feasting to be had — that is saved for the feast of St. Stephen, which falls on the following day, December 26. A shade different than the commercial twenty-first-century holiday that I remember. Not that I ever had a lot of toys or candy. I do remember a Tonka truck my mother gave me one Christmas. There was, of course, no Santa Claus in our apartment. No chimney, I always thought, but now I realize there was no magic. No acknowledgement that things could ever be not as they appeared. The Tonka was a yellow dump truck. I kept it for years. I can’t seem to remember anything else that was all mine.

  Until the dog.

  January 4, 1520

  Another year. I’ve put off writing because, as it turns out, I don’t really want to remember the dog. He was mine for a few days when he was a puppy. I didn’t see him again for three or four years, and by then he was hers. He knew me, but I pretended I didn’t know him. I hated everything then. Everything except my dad. I did all I could to get my dad to care about me. Even gave up the puppy. It still didn’t work.

  Again, this is making things worse, so back to the present.

  Today I walked through the village down to the fishing boat. Most of the folk here either make their living on the land or the river. A kind farmer offered me a ride on his cart and I travelled to the market in style, among the wooden crates of chickens.

  There is much kindness here, though I did not see it for many years after my abrupt arrival. In my fear after the fire I saw only madness and war and death. And that, I’m happy to say, is for another day.

  Darrell slid off the bed and put her arms around Delaney’s neck. “I never knew,” she whispered. “I never knew you belonged to Conrad, boy. All the time, to think he wanted you so much — he just wanted his dad to love him even more.”

  February 17, 1520

  These bleak, dark winter days are filled with work and sleep and little else. The truth is, I have put off writing about my arrival here to push away the sickening memories, but they haunt my dreams still. Brother Socorro suggests I write them and lock them in these pages so as to clear my sleep, and I hope he is right. My childho
od was harsh but it prepared me well for what I should find when hauled back through time and so — perhaps — I survived because of hard lessons learned under the hand of my father.

  Darrell read on, as Conrad wrote of escaping the fire in the stable only to be dragged away and sold into servitude as a soldier in the Franco-Italian wars. She read as he talked of trying to convince someone — anyone — that he was from another place and another time. And finally, of his sentence in the worst hell of all — a medieval madhouse.

  The book finished in the middle of a page dated 1523 — a few months before Darrell and Paris arrived on their short trip through time. Her face wet with tears, she closed the book carefully. “Your story is not over yet, Conrad,” she whispered. “I promise you’ll have another chance.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Spring arrived, and with it came the obligatory break from school. Before leaving for Kate’s house, Darrell received a brief call from the Middle East.

  “This is such an incredible part of the world, Darrell. This tiny country is where Africa, Asia, and Europe all meet, in a way.”

  “But what about the war, Mom? Are you in danger?”

  Janice Connor’s voice buzzed through the phone. “I won’t pretend this is always a safe place, Darrell. But I promise you that David and I are doing our best to keep each other out of trouble.”

  David and I. Darrell sighed and decided to let it go this time.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, kiddo.”

  Darrell was surprised by how much she had missed the sound of her mother’s voice. And while she was relieved that her mother still seemed caught up in her work and happy, part of her longed just to spill everything — to tell all about her fears for Conrad and for herself going back to find him. Oh yeah, now there’s a conversation that would go well, Darrell thought grimly. It would convince her I’m ready for the loony bin, for sure.

  The week with Kate was seemed to last forever. Darrell had never managed to master the art of superficial polite conversation and dove into her books and research at every opportunity, much to Mrs. Clancy’s chagrin. “Don’t you want to go shopping, girls?” she would cry despairingly as Kate and Darrell headed back to the city library.