Secret of Light

by K. C. Dyer

  “Oh.” Leonardo looked disappointed and returned to his work, ignoring the lunch Darrell had brought.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked, as she turned to leave.

  “I will eat as I have time. I must prepare these canvasses before this evening. If I do not finish in time, Master Verrocchio will have me flayed.”

  “Perhaps I could help you,” Darrell offered, feeling a bit shy. “I have done a lot of canvas preparation in my time.”

  Leonardo looked shocked. “Certainly not!” he spluttered. “You are only a girl! Verrocchio would never allow it. Girls and women do not labour under his tutelage.”

  Darrell felt her temper flare.

  “Well,” she said, sarcasm dripping from every word, “I’m sure I couldn’t possibly paint as well as any boy.”

  “You are mocking me,” he said, his own face reddening. “No woman can paint with the talent of a man. Get back to your cucina, you serva.”

  Darrell stepped to the table and neatly overturned the entire contents of the lunch tray onto the freshly prepared canvas. “Enjoy your lunch, Senor Porco,” she said sweetly, and then, clutching her new stick, hurried out of the room to the sound of his anguished roars.

  Darrell hop-skipped her way into the kitchen and spied Kate right away, labouring over yet another pile of earthen crockery in the sink. “Where’s Federica?” she hissed.

  “She’s gone to lie down,” said Kate. “I was going to wait another minute or two and then come and find you. Shouldn’t we be looking for the portal?”

  Darrell could hear a roaring sound approaching from down the hall. “Something else has happened. We’ve got to go! Hopefully we can get to the stable and hide before...” She grabbed Kate’s hand and pulled her out into the garden.

  “Before what?” Kate, stumbling over the hem of her long skirt, yanked her arm out of Darrell’s grasp and picked up her skirts in both hands. She dashed toward the stable. “Who’s mad at you now, Darrell?” she called back over her shoulder, as Darrell hobbled behind.

  “Never mind — I’ll tell you later.” Darrell closed the door and slid the latch. “Hopefully he won’t think to look here.”

  “What’s happening?” A voice from inside the stable made both girls jump. In her haste to bar the door, Darrell had missed the dim glow emerging from the stall where Kate had found refuge the previous day. The glow quickly coalesced around a small lamp held high as Brodie stepped out of his place in the stall, Delaney wagging at his side.

  Darrell sighed in relief. “Look, Brodie, I don’t have time to explain, but I don’t think we can spend any time looking for the portal right now.” She grabbed the lamp from his hand and looked around frantically. A partly broken ladder appeared in the circle of light, angling to a tiny loft above.

  “That’s going to have to be it.” She was at the bottom of the ladder in an instant, peering up into the darkness of the loft. Angry voices swirled outside in the yard.

  “Take this,” she said firmly to Kate, handing her the lamp. She flung her stick into the loft and, pulling the ladder back as far as she could to lessen the angle, she patted the third rung. “Hop up, Delaney.”

  The dog put his front paws on the first broad rung and then ran to the top, nimbly hopping over a broken rung in the middle. He picked up Darrell’s new walking stick and held it gently in his teeth.

  “You next, Brodie.”

  “I’ll go last,” he said quietly. “I’m not afraid of these people.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” whispered Darrell. “I just want to stay out of the way for awhile — and I need you to pull me up this thing.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If you’re hiding from someone, don’t you think you should put out the light?” he said, as he scurried up to the loft.

  “Oh yeah!” Darrell grabbed the lamp back from Kate and twisted the knob. The wick hissed out as Kate clambered to the top. She flipped easily onto her stomach and leaned over the edge of the loft beside Brodie. Darrell grabbed Brodie’s arm and scrambled up, but missed her footing on the broken rung. She cried out as her left foot swung free, and the ladder slid to the stable floor with a thud. Four arms flailed in the darkness and managed to grab various parts of Darrell’s anatomy and drag her over the edge.

  “That was close,” Kate breathed, still holding Darrell’s hand. “Now are you going to tell us what happened?”

  Darrell wiggled her skirt down to cover her knees, thankful the darkness hid her current deficiencies in the underwear department. “I had a bit of a problem with Leo...” she began. The door below them crashed open and light poured into the stable.

  “I know she’s in here somewhere,” a furious voice thundered.

  Darrell rolled onto her stomach and put her hand on Kate’s arm, pulling her backwards. She reached her other hand out to Delaney, but at the touch of his fur she felt her hair blow straight back from her face as in the teeth of a winter storm. For an instant that seemed to last forever, she gazed down over the edge of the loft into the angry and astonished eyes of Leonardo. Then the wind took her and she was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “You’re kidding!” Kate’s face was incredulous. “We got blasted back to the present because you had a fight with one of the greatest artists in the history of the world?”

  Darrell felt sheepish. “Well — it was more of a disagreement than a fight,” she said with mounting indignation, “and besides, I was right!”

  She sat with Kate and Brodie in the deserted dining hall. It was early Saturday afternoon, and they had all recovered from the ordeal of the previous day. The night before, Darrell had found herself sprawled at the bottom of the spiral steps leading down from the lantern room, feeling like she had made it through the punishing final round of a wrestling bout. Nausea had coiled in her stomach like a sour serpent. Delaney licked her face twice and finally dropped an old stick on her chest before she was able to drag herself to her feet. Without thinking of anything but getting back to the school, she tucked the stick in her pocket and staggered off to find Kate and Brodie in the darkened lighthouse.

  Dizzy and sick, they dragged themselves outside to find howling wind and driving rain. Darrell clutched Brodie’s arm all the way back along the beach to avoid tripping over rocks in the raging night. By the time they reached the top of the path, sleet was stinging Darrell’s eyes. They struggled in the front door only to face the wrath of Mrs. Follett for being out in such a storm. She bundled them all upstairs for showers. Fifteen minutes later, Darrell was staring at the clock in her room as she rubbed her freshly washed hair with a towel. It was six-thirty, and the whole adventure had apparently taken an hour and a half. Including the shower!

  “It’s strange that you wanted to hide in the stable,” said Kate. “Didn’t you realize it would be the first place that Leonardo would look?”

  Darrell shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly,” she admitted. “I knew he would have to take the time to wipe his lunch off the canvases before they got stained, and I figured we would have a few minutes to decide what to do next if we hid in the stable.”

  “And instead, we got dragged forward through time.” Kate looked thoughtful.

  “I think we need to look at this thing scientifically,” said Brodie. “Last summer when we travelled through the cave, Darrell touched the glyphs on the wall.” He paused. “But this time — no cave, no glyphs. Just the lighthouse.”

  Kate shivered. “It’s so weird to think we have some kind of portal to the past right down the beach from where we’re sitting now. I mean, anybody could go through it.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” said Brodie. “If that was the case, everyone who has ever worked in the lighthouse could have been flipping back and forth through history. And what about the people who use the old hayloft in the stable? Do you see them dropping by for a visit?” He looked at Kate. “No. Think about it — who travelled through the cave?”

  “Well, duh! We all did.”<
br />
  Brodie turned his eyes to Darrell. “No,” he said, “that’s not quite right.”

  “I did,” she whispered. “With Delaney. Every time. If you guys were touching me, you came, too.”

  Brodie nodded. “So, if conditions are right, we can all travel through as long as we have Darrell and Delaney.”

  “But the cave had those three glyphs,” said Kate. “Somehow they helped move us through time. What made it work in the lighthouse?”

  Brodie shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’d like to go back and run a little test.”

  Kate stiffened. “Oh no — I don’t think I’m ready yet, Brodie. I mean — I love this time travel thing, it’s really interesting and everything, but — I’m just not ready to head back yet. What if we got turned around and went into the future instead?”

  Darrell jumped in her chair, feeling as though a tiny shock had crackled along her spine. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and gave her head a little shake.

  Brodie crumpled the paper napkin under his elbow and tossed it at Kate. “You goof! I didn’t mean we should take another trip into the past. As a matter of fact, I want to be completely safe, so I think Darrell and Delaney shouldn’t come at all.”

  Kate flipped the napkin back. “In that case, I don’t think I need to be there either.” She shuddered. “I don’t want to go near the lighthouse for a while. My stomach needs a chance to settle for a few days.”

  Brodie shrugged. “Okay by me. Still, it’s best to have an independent observer in any experiment. How about if you stay outside and watch from a distance? That way you can let Darrell know if I disappear and she has to come and find me.”

  He laughed at Kate’s look of horror. “I’m kidding! You can be the lookout to make sure no one comes along while I’m checking the place out. It’ll only take me five minutes or so.”

  Kate turned to Darrell, who sat in her chair fiddling with the old bit of stick she had taken from Delaney. “You seem awfully quiet about this,” Kate said. “Do you think it’s safe for Brodie to go back into the lighthouse?”

  Darrell gave a little start. “What?” She looked at her friends’ expectant faces and tried to remember what they had been talking about. “The lighthouse? Sure. Do you want me to come?”

  “Have you heard a word we’ve been saying?” asked Kate. She raised her eyebrows at Darrell and turned back to Brodie. “Okay, I’ll come, as long as we keep the space cadet here as far away as possible.”

  Brodie jumped to his feet, but Kate stood more slowly, staring at the solid wall of rain outside the window, her face a mask of gloom. “I need to go find an umbrella first,” she said, “although I don’t know why I bother. That rain is going straight sideways.”

  Darrell waved absently as they left, but stayed in her seat, staring into the empty expanse of the dining hall. She slipped Delaney’s old stick from her pocket, tracing her fingers over lines so thin as to be barely visible, and remembered the last look of anger and puzzlement she had seen in Leonardo’s eyes.

  After examining the fine markings on the old stick for an hour, Darrell came to a decision. She spent the afternoon in the school library, poring over books about a certain genius artist of the Renaissance era. Delaney curled contentedly under her chair as Darrell devoured everything she could find on the subject. At dinner, Brodie and Kate related their experience of spending what turned out to be the entire afternoon running up and down the stairs in the lighthouse, and they talked about it in what seemed like endlessly tedious detail. At the end of the meal, Professor Myrtle Tooth stood and announced the schedule for mid-term exams, slated to begin the following week and run until Thanksgiving weekend.

  Everyone groaned and Kate slapped her forehead. “Argh! Tests in math and computers won’t be so bad, but I am so dead in English and history.”

  Brodie chuckled. “Since Professor Tooth usually gives essay questions, I think you may be able to find something to write about the Renaissance, don’t you?”

  Kate’s face brightened. “Right!” She reached over and poked Darrell with a pencil. “That won’t be so bad, will it?”

  Darrell smiled automatically. “Yeah, not so bad.”

  Kate grabbed Darrell’s shoulder and shook it a little. “What are you thinking about? You haven’t eaten anything and I don’t think you’ve said more than a few words in the past hour.”

  Darrell stood and slid her chair back into place at the table. “I’m not very hungry, that’s all. I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got to go study.” She stuck her books under one arm, grabbed her tray with the other hand, and left the table, hardly noticing the puzzled glance exchanged by Kate and Brodie.

  Over the course of the next week, Darrell spent most of her spare time in the library. She even gave up time in the art room to spend reading and making notes about Leonardo’s life. She read how he professed to have no use for women and how his mother had been a servant girl named Katerina with whom he had little or no relationship. Federica was right. A mother who abandoned him and a father who paid little attention. No wonder he was so rude.

  However, much of what she found in the library proved unsatisfactory, and it irritated her to see how often the authors of history textbooks were wrong about the simplest details of everyday life. She read about the china dishes used in Italian kitchens and scoffed, remembering Kate’s busy morning labouring over sinks full of pottery and earthenware and the endless stream of wooden platters they had to wash after the evening meal. She even laughed a little when reading about the elaborate underwear said to be worn by the nobility of fifteenth-century Florence. But for the most part she felt just one emotion.

  Frustration.

  Frustration that there was so little available about the man who interested her most. She read tedious tomes about the history of the period, and the Medici family who sponsored many wonderful artists of the era, including Leonardo for a time. But she couldn’t find a single source of information written by someone who knew Leonardo. Really knew him — knew how he spent his days, knew his low regard for girls and women, knew his passion for his art and what his deepest thoughts revealed.

  When she ran out of resources in the library, Darrell turned to the Internet. She didn’t want to share her ideas with Kate, so she used the school computers to find out more. Initially, she was thrilled to discover more information about Leonardo’s notebooks on-line, but the euphoria of this discovery was dashed when she examined the collections and found many had been cut up or lost by his friends and heirs.

  I know he wrote about time travel. He told me he was going to invent a machine to travel through time. It must be here somewhere!

  Kate and Brodie were immersed in their own studying but still teased Darrell, saying they never saw her anymore. It was true — she had stopped going to the study room altogether, instead spending all her time in the library or the computer lab, poring over documents. Twice she had to be summoned to write an exam, and on the Friday before Thanksgiving weekend, she only just managed to turn her art portfolio in to Mr. Gill on time.

  “Haven’t seen much of you in the studio lately,” he remarked, as she handed him the folder, its cover still damp and redolent of fresh ink. “Been studying for exams?”

  Darrell nodded. “I’ve — been a bit too busy for art, I guess,” she said, averting her eyes.

  Mr. Gill frowned. “Don’t bury yourself so deeply in your studies that you can’t find time for your art, Darrell,” he said, his voice stern. “It’s a huge part of who you are.”

  Darrell had nodded mutely and left the room. But she thought about the conversation later that night as she lay, feeling like a stranger in her own bed at home in Vancouver, staring unseeing at the ceiling.

  A huge part of who I am. The memory left her heart bleak. And just who am I? A kid with one leg. A kid with no dad. A kid who likes art, but who cares about that? It’s only a way to forget about my leg and my dad.

  And as the autumn moon rose to cast its t
hin glow across her bed, she caressed the idea that had been driving her since her return from Florence. She looked down at the bulge her left foot made under the covers and the flat expanse of bedclothes where her right foot should be. What if he did find a way to make a time machine? What if it was among the lost papers? I know where he kept his notebooks — he showed me. I know he wanted to discover the secret of time.

  From her end table, she picked up the stick Delaney had dropped on her as she lay on the floor of the lighthouse. The intricate carvings were long lost, though thin lines still traced across its worn and dirty surface. Still, there was no doubt in her mind. She knew it for what it once was. For the first time, she had brought something home with her, even if it no longer resembled the beautifully carved walking stick it once had been.

  She sat up in bed, no longer seeing her legs, or the covers, or the silver moonlight. All she could see were eyes from another time. Leonardo’s eyes, staring at her — thinking about her — as she disappeared through a hole in time.

  She had to go back to find out just how much he knew.

  The next morning began her first full day home for the long weekend, but Darrell waved off her mother’s offer of a shopping trip and caught the bus to the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Faced with the size of the Renaissance section, her head reeled. This one section dwarfed the entire library at Eagle Glen.

  I’ve got to start somewhere. She pulled out the first book in the stacks.

  Ducking her mother’s suggested activities, Darrell spent every day of the long weekend at the library. Her list of questions was so long she soon learned the name of every research librarian who was on shift when she appeared each day. Her best find was an old, leather-bound tome depicting both images and text from a few of Leonardo’s manuscripts.