Outshine (House of Oak Book 5)

by Nichole Van

  Duir Cottage

  October 5, 2017

  Fossi stared at Daniel from the kitchen window.

  He had been pacing in the back garden for the past three hours. She had sat watching him for most of them, eating her way through another tin-can of pineapple.

  It tore her apart, seeing him so distraught.

  The time portal’s stubbornness was weighing on them all. Kit said the portal being fickle was, “kinda its MO.” Which apparently meant it was the portal’s modus operandi.

  They were at an impasse. Unable to move forward or backward, quite literally.

  Fossi had spent the last two days working sums and plugging in new aspects to the theorems, trying to find another answer. But everything kept landing the same.

  Infinity.

  Plus or minus one.

  How could you add someone to infinity?

  Daniel had stopped pacing and now braced his hands on the stone fence around the old kitchen garden.

  He was dressed as a man from this century—jeans, a black t-shirt and leather shoes. Again, words she had learned from Kit.

  The clothing was not . . . unattractive.

  The t-shirt hugged his shoulders and molded to his chest. October sun shone on his hair, catching the copper highlights in it.

  Fossi crossed her arms, pulling her sweater tighter around her. Kit had found her some clothing—a maxi skirt, t-shirt and cardigan sweater.

  Fossi’s vocabulary was growing hourly.

  Perhaps it was time to use some of her new words on Daniel.

  She pulled open the back door and walked down the path. The autumn air had just the right mix of crisp cool and warm sun, all wrapped in the humid smells of damp soil and green things.

  Daniel turned at the sound, watching her approach with silent eyes. Every emotion firmly locked down behind the buttresses of Fortress Whitmoor.

  “I simply wanted to get some sunlight.” Fossi gave a strained smile and tilted her head toward the weak sun.

  “No answers?” His question obviously referred to her work.

  “No answers.”

  She stared into the trees for a moment, catching glimpses of green grass through them. A golf course, Kit had said it was.

  “I want you to stay.” His unexpected words knocked all the air out of her lungs.

  What?! What did he mean by—

  “Stay here in this century,” he continued, oblivious.

  Oh.

  Fossi’s chest deflated. A leaden rock plummeting through her stomach.

  Right.

  This had nothing to do with them—Foster and Daniel.

  “Kit and Marc could easily help you get established,” he added.

  “Why do you assume that Time and the portal would allow me to stay?” she asked. “Once you go back, won’t I be returned to 1826 too? Whether I return to 1828 initially first or not?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t . . . I honestly don’t know, at this point, Fossi.” He turned his blue eyes to her. Bloodshot and so . . . lost.

  Her own eyes stung.

  She rubbed her forehead. “These time travel paradoxes are giving me a headache.”

  “Confusion is understandable.” He nodded. “This whole situation is unprecedented. Theories on time travel involve ideas of parallel multi-verses—” He waved a hand. “I’ll spare you details. Basically, you might be allowed to remain.”

  “Even so, why would I stay?” It seemed baffling to her. This century was too confusing. Too fast.

  “There are opportunities here,” he replied. “You could be recognized for your mathematical genius. I consider it a crime that your ideas are lost to history. No one here today knows who the author of Fourier’s Nemesis was. It isn’t right.”

  Fossi sighed and leaned against the stone fence with him. An errant breeze tugged at her hair in its loose bun. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I’m not eager to be renowned, Daniel. You know my dreams.”

  A beat.

  “A witness,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  A boulder of emotion lodged in her throat.

  How could something so simple be so impossibly difficult to obtain?

  Most of humanity had someone in their life. Someone to love. Someone to love them in return.

  If not a spouse, at least a child. Or even an adopted child.

  “You could have that here. Societal customs are more open—”

  “Daniel, no.”

  “—and you could find men and women who share your same brilliance and love of numbers.”

  “I’m not certain that is what I wish.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well . . .”

  Because you wouldn’t be here.

  Those were the words stuck around that aching lump.

  I can’t stay here because you will be there.

  Daniel misread her silence.

  He turned to her eagerly. “You should stay, Fossi. I know it seems frightening, but you would like it eventually. You would make new friends and go to university and . . . and have a life that is of your own choosing.” He grasped her hands. “Think about it.”

  Fossi had thought about it. She pulled her hands from his.

  “Listen to your own words, Daniel. Eventually. New. How is that comforting to me? Yes, there seem to be advantages here, but this isn’t me.” She waved her arms to encompass the surrounding landscape. “Besides, it’s a moot point. If everything reverts back to how it was in 1826, I will never be here. This isn’t where I belong. I don’t want here.”

  “Fossi . . . please.”

  “No. A wise man once told me that everyone deserves choices. Well, I have made my choice. I choose to stand by you and see this entire situation through. I’m not going to promise to stay here to soothe your conscience. You have chosen Simon. I understand that. I cannot fault you for choosing your child; it is what any good parent would do. But in making that choice, you negate everything else. You cannot have one without the other.”

  “B-but I’m hurting you.”

  Well . . . obviously.

  “Of course this hurts.” She couldn’t stop the words escaping. “It hurts because I feel you were less than truthful to me. It hurts because my dreams will never be realized. It hurts because I will regress to my unhappy life of two years ago.”

  It hurts because I will lose the only man I’ve ever loved.

  Silence.

  Daniel braced his hands on the stone fence, head hanging between his arms.

  She didn’t want to say it.

  She did anyway.

  “It hurts because I dared to dream.” Her voice drifted through the quiet. “Only to see that dream shatter into a million jagged pieces. I should have known better than to reach too high.”

  He noticeably flinched, head sagging.

  She turned to leave. She needed a quiet corner to cry her eyes out.

  His hand on her arm halted her.

  “You can’t—” He started and then came to a gasping halt. “You can’t do this.”

  She turned her head his way. Noted the terrible desperation in his gaze.

  “Do what?”

  “Force me to watch you suffer. Reject my help. ”

  “I am not rejecting you, Daniel.” She touched his elbow. “I’m just doing what I have always done.”

  She applied pressure to his arm. Please let me go.

  He released her.

  “And what’s that?”

  She smiled then. A sad, forlorn thing. “Making the best of the paltry choices life gives me.”

  Chapter 23

  Duir Cottage

  October 8, 2017

  Daniel sat in his room, staring out the window into the autumn gloom. Rainy with low hanging clouds, the day fit his mood. Rivulets streaked the glass, turning the outside world into blobs of distorted color.

  The world viewed through a lens of sadness and desolation.

  It was a fitting
metaphor for the last five days.

  What was the solution to be?

  Giving up Simon, as Jasmine asserted and Kit hinted?

  How would that solve the problem of the portal anyway? The earthquake and deviant timeline were the problem here.

  Simon had to be key to it all.

  He would not give up on his shiny, happy boy.

  But . . . restoring Simon was currently denied him.

  Which left . . . what? There was no path to pursue.

  He was lost in a fog shrouded wilderness.

  The door behind him snicked open. Kit’s perfume wafted in.

  She had called her office manager and put everything else in her life on hold to stay here with him and Fossi.

  You need emotional support, was all she had said.

  That was true. But at a certain point, there was nothing more to say.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Heaven knew he and Kit had more than covered this territory the past couple days.

  The sound of wood scraping across the floor and then Kit appeared beside him, sitting on a stool.

  “I like your Fossi.”

  “She’s not my Fossi.”

  Kit snorted. “Uh, yeah. She is. You’re just being your usual stubborn self about it all.”

  What was it about hanging around Kit that made him five-years-old?

  Even knowing it would make him feel infantile, he said it anyway.

  “I’m not stubborn.”

  His sister smiled. One of those all-too-knowing smiles women specialized in.

  Great.

  “Fossi cares deeply for you.”

  “I care deeply for Fossi.”

  Daniel shifted in his chair. Thinking about Fossi . . . hurt. It was a constant, unyielding ache.

  She had been subdued in 2017. Not terrified or upset or concerned or anxious or anything . . .

  Just muted.

  Bleached color.

  She worked equations day after day, trying to find another answer. Something that resulted in infinity without the remainder.

  And she avoided Daniel. Just as he avoided her.

  Kit sighed next to him. “You need to let Simon go, Daniel.”

  He said nothing.

  “That’s my tough love statement for the year. Probably the decade, truth be told.”

  He still said nothing.

  “Sometimes . . . even the best of things are not meant to be, little brother. This is your path.”

  Nothing.

  “It’s hard, I know—”

  “No.” Voice dead. “You don’t know. You’ve never lost a child. It’s not hard.” His voice raised with the word. “Losing your job is hard. Recovering from surgery is hard. This”—he tapped his chest, right over his heart—“this is hell. This is agony that is fathomless and vast and it Never. Freaking. Ends.”

  It was Kit’s turn to remain silent.

  “Don’t patronize me, Kit.”

  More silence.

  Kit shook her head. “You say I didn’t try to stop you from taking the candy back to Simon. I didn’t say or do anything. Which means . . . something prevented me. I’m betting every time I tried to bring it up, the universe shut me down somehow.” A long, rasping breath. “I watched you leave, knowing the end result. Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know hard.”

  A clock ticked in the corner. Daniel drummed his fingers against his thigh, the motion becoming more agitated with each passing second.

  He shook his head. Left. Right.

  “Why did I give him that damn candy, Kit?” Tone harsh. “How could I have been so bloody stupid?!”

  “It was an honest mistake—”

  “I had to watch Simon . . . d-die—” His voice broke, ending the phrase on a hiccupping gasp.

  “I am so desperately sorry this happened to you, Daniel-mine.”

  Silence.

  Rain pattered against the window. The house creaked in the wind.

  “You have to forgive yourself, Daniel.” Kit’s voice drifted in the hush.

  A serrated sob broke from his throat.

  “I k-killed him—”

  “No. No, you didn’t. It was an accident.”

  Air lurched from his lungs in gulping gasps.

  How could he ever forgive himself for doing the unforgivable?

  He buried his fists in his eyes, shoulders heaving. Chest so tight he could hardly breathe.

  “I was s-supposed to keep him safe. It was my one job. The s-simplest thing in the world and I k-killed him—”

  “Daniel—”

  “No!” He managed to bring his razored breathing under control.

  “Accidents happen. Sometimes children die.” Kit swiped a tear off her cheek. “It’s what gives us empathy.”

  He shifted, shaking his head. “I refuse to accept that this pain will be the rest of my life. And don’t you dare give me that favorite Princess Bride quote—”

  “‘Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something,’” Kit recited with a watery chuckle. “That one?”

  “Yep. I’m not buying it.”

  He studied a droplet trailing down the windowpane, air bellowing in and out of his lungs.

  “I’ve realized over the years that the quote is wrong. Life isn’t pain, Daniel.” Her voice hushed. “Life is joy.”

  Daniel’s throat was too raw for words.

  Life is joy.

  Kit continued, “Pain and Joy are opposite sides of the same coin. You can’t understand joy unless you’ve felt pain. The pain of losing Simon is tied to the joy of being his father. You can’t know one without knowing the other.”

  She wiped more tears away. “The cost of loving someone is the pain of losing them. That’s the deal. Joy is always Pain on borrowed time.”

  A pause.

  “Who said that?” he asked.

  “Lots of people, probably. But right now, it’s me.”

  “You’ve grown wise.”

  “So have you, Daniel.”

  “No. I haven’t. I don’t want joy at that price—”

  “Yes . . . you do. It’s what life is for. Imagine the joy of a life with Fossi.”

  Daniel inhaled sharply.

  He had imagined that. And he had stopped imagining it because it was . . . compelling. Tempting.

  Kit pressed her case. “You can’t have the joy of being with Fossi without the pain of losing Simon.”

  He knew that. It was a choice he couldn’t make.

  “I can’t give up on Simon. I have to fix my mistake.”

  Kit said nothing for a moment and then, “I think that’s your excuse, Daniel.”

  “Pardon?!”

  “This isn’t about Simon. He’s in a happy place, Daniel. Probably romping through angel clouds with Dad. This is about you.”

  “Me?” Daniel whirled on her, eyes stormy, brows drawn down. “Stop, Kit! This has never been about me—”

  “You’re wrong. This is entirely about you and your need for absolution.” The compassion in her eyes belied her stern tone. “You’re desperate to avoid the pain of Simon’s death. Of having to face your own shortcomings and letting go of your guilt. You don’t want the anguish of missing his presence in your life.”

  Daniel hissed, agony crashing through his chest. A precision bullet strike.

  That wasn’t true. That couldn’t be true—

  “You cling to him because letting him go is too hard. The pain and guilt too great. That’s not the brother I know. My brother, Daniel Ashton, is the bravest, most courageous person I have ever met. He deliberately chose to make a life for himself in the nineteenth century. He has fought pirates across the high seas and been wounded for his actions. He has braved dark alleys at night to bring truth to light. He has even lasted through years of Lady Ballard’s musical evenings and we all know what courage that takes. The Daniel I know would meet the pain with the same aplomb and mettle that he uses to face down organized crime rings.”

  Daniel bit h
is lip, fighting against that raw, wet knot in his throat trying to escape.

  “Don’t deny yourself the joy because you’re afraid of the pain.” Kit sniffed and rubbed her damp cheek with her shirt sleeve.

  “I d-don’t know—”

  “You do know, Daniel.” Kit turned and fixed him with pooling eyes. “Mourn him. Love him. Own your mistakes. And then Set. Him. Free.”

  She leaned forward and clutched his arm.

  “Embrace your Fossi and the joyous future you can have with her. You love her. She loves you. You are brilliant together. You will have more children. You will have an heir, Daniel. It just won’t be Simon.” She wiped her wet cheeks. “And that’s okay.”

  It was too much. Daniel tipped forward, holding his face in his hands. Sobs tore at him.

  Dimly, he felt Kit gather him into her arms. Just as she had when they were children.

  “I love you, Daniel mine.” She brushed a kiss against his hair. “I want your happiness. Fossi wants your happiness. And Simon”—a gasp—“Simon would want you to be happy, too.”

  Chapter 24

  Duir Cottage

  October 9, 2017

  Fossi sat in the front parlor, listening to the hum of Daniel and Kit talking upstairs.

  When they first started their conversation, she had been in the kitchen. Their voices had been distinct there, drifting down to Fossi with brutal clarity.

  “I like your Fossi.” Kit’s voice.

  “She’s not my Fossi.” Daniel’s rebuttal.

  The words, though utterly true, had stung.

  Their discussion descended to murmurs for a moment.

  Then Kit again.

  “You need to let Simon go, Daniel . . . It’s hard, I know—”

  More murmuring.

  “No.” Daniel’s voice carried throughout the house. “You don’t know. You’ve never lost a child. It’s not hard. Losing your job is hard. Recovering from surgery is hard. This . . . this is hell.” So much torment. “This is agony that is fathomless and vast and it Never. Freaking. Ends.”

  Fossi clapped her hands over her ears and darted out of the kitchen and into the front parlor before she heard any more.

  Tears slipped helplessly down her cheeks.

  Oh Daniel.

  His pain . . . it ripped through her with all the subtlety of scatter shot.