Outshine

by Nichole Van

  It gave them a specific wave frequency and height, which Fossi had noted as a distinct pitch—D-flat.

  But when plugged into the framework, the remainder was the same—infinity . . . plus or minus one.

  Which didn’t make sense, did it? He would need to think it through more.

  But for now . . .

  “How will we sort this into a plan of action?” Timothy asked.

  Wasn’t that the question of the hour?

  “We are dealing with guesswork at this point, my lords.” Fossi nodded at them both. “However, I have an idea that may work. But it does mean quickly stopping by Kinningsley before continuing on to Duir Cottage.”

  They arrived at Duir Cottage two hours later after a brief detour to Kinningsley.

  The picturesque cottage emerged from the autumnal trees at the end of a short lane. Ivy had claimed the front of the house, as well as the stone fence surrounding it. A young oak tree grew to the right, though more a teenager now than a sapling.

  Daniel rushed out of the carriage almost before it stopped, waving at the exhausted coachman to stay on his perch. Poor man had worn his heart out to get them here so quickly.

  Timothy climbed out, Jasmine’s limp form in his arms. Fossi followed after, carrying the small bundle she had retrieved from Kinningsley.

  Daniel led the way up the front walk and through the carved front door. Down the central hallway and into a closet under the staircase. He lifted a large trapdoor in the closet floor. Stairs dropped away, disappearing into the murky darkness below.

  “Need a candle?” Daniel asked, turning to Timothy.

  “I can manage. There’s not much to see down there.”

  Daniel moved aside, letting Timothy pass by and descend the stairs. Daniel followed behind and then held up a hand for Fossi, helping her down into the cellar.

  They stood for a moment in the semi-darkness, allowing their eyes to adjust. Slowly, the familiar features of the small room came into focus. Stone walls, dirt floor, a carved granite slab directly opposite the stairs, the dark, circular depression of the portal in front of it.

  The space pulsed—a dark morass of energy.

  Normally the power of the portal hummed like an electrical wire. Orderly. Organized. A conduit.

  But at present . . . the portal was chaos. Frenzied. Disorganized. Kinetic pandemonium.

  “Heavens,” Fossi gasped as the energy whirled around them. “It is . . . intense.”

  That it was.

  Even in the dim light, he could see her wide, surprised eyes.

  It was one thing to learn of the portal’s existence. It was something entirely else to be faced with its potency.

  If Fossi had any doubts, they were rapidly evaporating.

  Jasmine moaned in Timothy’s arms, twisting as if in agony.

  “Hurry.” Timothy’s eyes pleaded with Daniel’s. “Being this close to the portal when it is in such disarray . . .”

  “Yes.” Fossi dropped into a crouch and unwrapped her bundle. A series of tuning forks and rubber mallet tumbled out.

  Quickly, she sorted through them, grabbing the mallet and tuning fork labeled D-flat.

  Daniel’s hand sought hers as she stood upright. She gave his fingers a quick squeeze.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  He felt her nod. “This has to work.”

  Timothy took a step and stood in the depression of the portal, turning to face them. Jasmine’s head lolled against his shoulder with another anguished gasp, her dark hair spilling over her shoulder.

  “Good luck.” Daniel gave him a standard guy chin lift.

  Timothy responded in kind.

  Fossi moved to face Linwood and Jasmine, not touching the portal but close.

  Lifting the tuning fork, she struck it with mallet.

  The chime of a pure note vibrated through the space.

  Daniel could feel the frequency wave oscillate with the portal, spinning through the chaotic energy in the room.

  C’mon, he mentally begged. Please work.

  The sound petered out.

  Timothy gazed at Fossi with fierce intensity.

  The muscles in her jaw tensed in determination. Fossi hit the fork again and the chime filled the space. This time she kept rapping the tuning forking, sustaining the tone.

  Nothing happened for a moment and then, the portal . . . softened.

  The wild kinetic energy calmed slightly, moving a bit with the sound.

  The portal obviously liked the tone.

  But it felt like spraying a bonfire with a squirt gun—too little to make a difference.

  Timothy shifted Jasmine in his arms. “Try holding the tuning fork at the base of the tines. There are octave overtones that might be causing problems.”

  “Of course. I should have thought of that.” Fossi adjusted her grip and rapped the tuning fork again.

  To no avail.

  After fifteen minutes of trying different iterations of the tuning fork, the stubborn portal wouldn’t budge. The frantic electricity responded fractionally to the sound, but not enough to change the portal’s state.

  Fossi’s face was a mask of frustration.

  “There is a one in two point six chance that this is the correct answer.” She brushed hair out of her face. “Those are decent odds.”

  Timothy looked up from where he had sat down in the portal, his wife in his lap.

  “Would it help if you stood in the portal too, Fossi?” Daniel asked.

  She paused, obviously thinking about it and probably running some mental calculations.

  “No.” She shook her head. “If the source of the wave realignment is at the epicenter of the portal, it would likely tear the source apart in the process of realigning. It has to be done from without.”

  “And from without, it’s just not enough.” Daniel rubbed his forehead. “We can’t get the resonant frequency to be accurate or strong enough.”

  Timothy smoothed hair off Jasmine’s face and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She continued to writhe, occasionally moaning and mumbling.

  With an exasperated huff, Fossi tossed the tuning fork back onto the bundle on the floor.

  “The D-flat tone has to be the solution,” she muttered. “It’s the only thing that makes sense with the equations. I’m just missing something.”

  She tapped her foot for a moment. And then shrugged.

  “Well, I suppose I can always try this.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and closed her eyes.

  Opening her mouth, Fossi sang.

  Her voice filled the room, powerful and strong. She sang higher and higher until she hit the D-flat.

  She held it, a piercing note of absolute crystal clarity.

  The potent sound wave bounced against the oscillations swirling around the room, this time a fire hose not just a squirt gun.

  The sound resonated with the oscillation. Wavering. Tugging. Pulling.

  Until suddenly—

  Pop!

  Everything snapped into uniformity.

  In a heartbeat, the portal clicked back into alignment. Electrical energy thrummed in harmony.

  Timothy’s eyes flashed with relief.

  And then he and Jasmine disappeared.

  Fossi screamed in surprise, breaking the sustained pitch.

  She stumbled back, Daniel catching her before she tumbled to the ground.

  “Th-they just vanished!” Her hand flew to her mouth. She turned wild eyes to Daniel. “I mean, obviously, that is what we’ve been trying to accomplish here—make the portal work—but . . .”

  “It’s one thing to intellectually know the portal exists, but something entirely more profound to see it in action,” Daniel finished the thought for her.

  Fossi nodded, eyes still flared in shock. “Where did they go?”

  Daniel shrugged. It had caught him off-guard too. “I am not entirely sure, to be honest. Though if I were to hazard a guess, perhaps the time period of Jasmi
ne’s birth?”

  They both stared at the innocuous-seeming depression in the earth.

  The portal continued to hum.

  Thank goodness.

  Elation swamped Daniel.

  They had done it!

  They had fixed the portal. Fossi’s singing had realigned it, forcing the portal back into its correct frequency.

  Jasmine’s health would be mended.

  He could return to the past and prevent the anachronism that caused Simon’s death. All would be restored to how it should have been.

  At last!

  He would have his happy, shiny boy back.

  What about Fossi? his soul whispered. What will happen to her?

  He pushed the thought aside. Who was to say they wouldn’t find each other?

  His actions had initiated this aberrant timeline with its catastrophic earthquake. Who was to say that he and Fossi weren’t destined to find each other in the proper timeline? He would just have to return to 1826 and live that life and find out.

  So . . . why did that thought make him feel panicky?

  “Well.” Daniel turned to Fossi with a strained smile.

  She met his smile with a one of her own. It didn’t touch her eyes.

  “Well,” she whispered.

  They stared for a heartbeat.

  “This is where I fix my mistake and set Time down the correct path. I just need to collect some medicines from the twenty-first century and then return to 1826.”

  “Yes. I hope all goes well with Simon.”

  “Me, too.”

  It hung between them. The knowledge of their fevered kisses only a few hours before.

  She had been magic in his arms. Soft, eager.

  She fit him. In every imaginable way.

  The moment stretched until it was tissue thin.

  As if the entire Universe held its breath.

  Waiting for . . . what?

  He couldn’t say, afterwards, which of them moved first.

  Perhaps she reached for him. Or he took a step toward her.

  But suddenly, she was in his arms again. Chest rising to meet his, mouth finding his with such . . . ease.

  As if they had done this a thousand times before and not just once.

  He kissed her as he had earlier. Hungry, desperate.

  It was hello and goodbye.

  Wonder at having arrived at this beautiful place.

  Anguish over being forced to leave it so soon.

  You don’t have go, that same voice murmured. You could stay for a while. Simon will wait. What’s another day? Or week?

  But . . .

  Every day he delayed was one more reason to delay another day. And another. And another.

  Until he had delayed his life away and Time fractured because it was on an incorrect trajectory.

  No.

  He adored Fossi.

  But a relationship just was not . . . possible. It had been a tiny green start of an idea, crushed by the harsh winter of reality. Dead before it even began.

  And so he kissed her once more.

  Who was he kidding? He kissed her ten more times, each more urgent than the last.

  And then . . . he released her, stepping back, chest heaving, eyes surely as wild as hers.

  Fossi canted forward.

  He steadied her, hands on her upper arms.

  “Goodbye.” He pressed a final kiss into her forehead.

  “Goodbye, Daniel.” A pause. “Thank you.”

  It caused something within him to crack, that thank you. Of course, Foster Lovejoy would thank him for this.

  He should be the one groveling at her feet in gratitude. She had given him back his son. Restored his future.

  She had given him redemption.

  He would be giving her precisely . . . nothing.

  He owed her a debt he could never repay.

  There were a thousand things he could say, that he wanted to say.

  But in the end, this whole world was temporary. In a matter of hours, all would go back to how it had been.

  He would have Simon again.

  He nodded at her and turned to go.

  That fissure in his soul stretched wider, pain choking him.

  He raised his foot to step forward into the circular depression in the earth—

  Crack!

  The portal splintered back into disorder.

  Frenetic power crashed through the room. Furious. Untamed.

  Daniel staggered backward, knocking into Fossi. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him upright.

  A pillar of strength.

  Fossi’s breath came in short bursts against his back. She pushed him away and filled her lungs with air.

  Her voice instantly resounded through the room, climbing higher and higher as she sang. Until that glorious D-flat resonated throughout the space.

  The portal energy whirled and spun around the room.

  Daniel stepped into the depression of the portal and turned to face Fossi as she sang.

  Electrical currents swirled and tumbled, not quite moving in alignment.

  Damn.

  Were things to go like this then?

  Fossi altered the pitch slightly.

  A thought occurred to him. He frowned.

  Wait.

  There was a problem—

  The portal pulsed around him, tumbling into harmony.

  Daniel felt the licking sense of vertigo, that swooping sensation of falling, falling, falling through time.

  It wanted to take him . . . home.

  But not before Daniel reached out a hand and grabbed Fossi, pulling her into the portal with him.

  The problem?

  She was his ticket to getting the portal to work.

  If he left her behind, he might not be able to return to 1826 so easily.

  At least, that’s the lie he told himself.

  And . . .

  And—

  He just couldn’t leave without her.

  Fossi’s singing abruptly stopped as she tumbled beside him in the portal.

  This, in turn, caused the portal to collapse back into chaos.

  The portal rumbled to a stop, tossing them out of the wormhole.

  Daniel staggered backwards, holding Fossi against his chest. His shoulders hit the carved granite slab that stood as sentinel over the portal.

  Darkness shrouded the space. Not even a slice of light.

  “Wh-why did you do that?” Fossi twisted in his arms, facing him in the dark, hands pressed against his shoulders.

  Daniel winced at the tentative hope in her voice.

  “Uh . . . I realized that without you, I may not be able to make the portal function again.”

  A pause.

  He felt her literally deflate.

  “Oh,” she whispered.

  That was it.

  No anger. No surprise. Just a sad little, Oh.

  He was such a cad.

  “That makes sense, I suppose.” Her voice hushed in the dark. “Where are we? No. Scratch that. When are we?”

  That, Daniel realized, was the critical question.

  Chapter 22

  Duir Cottage

  October 3, 2017

  Fossi struggled to draw air into her lungs, the cellar inky black.

  She certainly hadn’t anticipated being . . . wherever she was . . . when she awoke yesterday morning.

  Had it really only been less than twenty-four hours since the start of the harvest festival?

  “Hold on.” Daniel still had a hand around her waist, his warm chest a solid presence under her palms. “Let me see if this time period has light.”

  He pushed away from her and fumbled along the wall.

  Something clicked and light abruptly flooded the space. There appeared to be a type of instant lantern dangling from the ceiling.

  She stared.

  “A light bulb.” Daniel pointed at the lantern, noting her amazement. “It uses an alternating electrical current to generate light.”
<
br />   Oh.

  Other than the addition of the light bulb, the space looked generally the same. Packed dirt floor, granite slab, stone walls . . . time portal running amok.

  Daniel was already climbing the wooden steps in front of her, pushing open the trapdoor.

  Hesitantly, Fossi followed Daniel up the stairs, out the trapdoor and small closet. Entering the house proper.

  She hadn’t seen much of the house in 1828. Just an impression of a central hallway with a parlor off each side and a door to the kitchen beyond the staircase.

  The house appeared the same and yet . . . not.

  Standing in the hallway, she noted the same wood paneling on the walls. The same number of doors off the hallway.

  But . . . everything was more askew. The floors more worn, the walls less plumb. As if the house had ended up foxed, deep in its cups and tipsy.

  Daniel stepped to the rear of the house, where the kitchen would be in 1828.

  Fossi walked in behind him, staring at the space.

  Now this room . . . this looked nothing like the world she knew.

  Up until that moment, it hadn’t sunk in. She had generally believed Daniel’s tale about a time portal and being from the future.

  It was one thing to intellectually consider such a reality.

  It was entirely something else to be confronted with it.

  First Lord and Lady Linwood disappearing.

  Then the vertigo-inducing trip through the portal.

  And now this odd . . . place.

  Her chest felt tight, the air in the room so thick she struggled to breath it in.

  Stay calm, Fossi. Hysterics will not improve this situation.

  Sunlight filtered weakly through a bank of windows along the far wall. The right half of the room gleamed in steel and glossy stone. A large pale marble-topped cabinet sat in the center of the space, and there seemed to be some sort of spigot over a sunken basin, but everything else was unknown and baffling. Large metal cupboards and strange objects.

  An enormous rustic table stood directly ahead of her, its sides ringed with upholstered chairs. To her left, there appeared to be a seating area with a large sofa and wingback chairs facing an enormous fireplace.

  And everywhere more of those light bulbs. Nestled into little holes in the ceiling. Tucked into dangling lamps and wall sconces.

  Her mind fixated on them. Counting. Cataloging.