by Jessi Gage
But the first bloody man he’d asked once he’d arrived in Inverness had kent of MacLeod and directed him to the cobbled close in which he currently stood. Beyond the wide archway he’d ridden Rand under minutes ago, the street stunk of refuse and garbage as the streets in larger towns tended to, but once in the sunny courtyard, away from the rattling pony carts and crippled beggars, he smelled only the clean straw and animal scent of the stable where he’d stored Rand for the day, and fresh-cut timber.
While he glowered at the stone and mortar furniture shop, a patron pushed out the front door, tucking his purse in his sporran. The man started when he noticed his height, but he quickly recovered and gave a cordial nod before continuing on his way. He wouldn’t be doing himself any favors by blocking the entrance to MacLeod’s shop all day. Blowing out a resigned breath, he pulled open the door and went inside.
The centerpiece of the shop was a grand dining table the likes of which Steafan had up at Ackergill Keep. It had ten matching chairs, each with intricately worked arms and legs. Darcy didn’t much care for finery, but even he could tell the set was well made and expensive. A dozen or so patrons ran their hands over the table and chairs as well as the other wares lining the walls, a chest of drawers, two armchairs with matching footstools, smaller chests and tables, and slabs of stained wood that might serve as mantles for fireplaces in well-to-do homes. At the back of the shop was a shelf covered with smaller items, candlesticks, carved children’s trinkets, shaving kits, and–he gulped–boxes.
A white-haired man, far along in age but agile and strong of build, gestured as he spoke with a smartly-dressed man and woman eyeing a chest of drawers.
He moved close to listen, pretending to study a circular table with spindly legs.
“Och, ’tis a fine piece,” the white-haired man was saying. “Worked it last winter. Notice the inlaid foils of cherry wood about the edge. ’Tis a technique you’ll nay find used elsewhere in Scotia.”
After bending their heads together for a conference, the man and woman agreed to the high price, and the white-haired man led them to a counter where they made arrangements for payment and delivery of the item. At a sharp call from the white-haired man, another white-haired man hurried to the counter from a door tucked away behind the shelf at the rear of the shop. He moved with such haste that Darcy missed the man’s face and saw only his back. It was a strong and straight back, too fit to match the hair atop the man’s head. He couldn’t look away, struck by the contrast between the man’s auld hair and youthful movements.
The new man bobbed his head earnestly at the various commands issued by the first white-haired man. “Yes, Mr. MacLeod,” he said in the squeaky voice of a lad not quite settled into manhood. He turned and rushed back to the hidden door, and Darcy saw the man’s face. He had to stifle a startled intake of breath at the sight of pink eyes and skin whiter than a cloud. ’Twas no second auld man, but a young man with the coloring of a pail of milk.
The young man kept his eyes downcast as he rushed back to the hidden door. Except for his face and neck, he kept the rest of his skin covered. He even wore trews in place of a plaid so no skin on his legs showed. With gloved hands, the lad pushed through the door and disappeared into what must be MacLeod’s workroom. He must be MacLeod’s apprentice.
Returning his attention to MacLeod, he watched the finely-dressed couple exit to the courtyard. Before he could step in and meet the furniture maker, a plump woman in a peacock-blue dress too fine for day wear in his opinion tugged on the man’s elbow. “A moment of your time, sir,” she said, dragging him away with a string of questions about an upholstered armchair near the front of the shop.
He sighed. It might take some time to meet the man. Mayhap he should return at the close of business. In the mean time, he perused the items on the shelf, eyeing the boxes in particular. They didn’t look unlike Malina’s box, but none were quite the same as hers, either. Some were rosewood, some maple, some cherry. Most had inlaid bits of different colored wood or carvings in lovely patterns, but none had patterns done in metal of any kind.
He itched to peek at their bottoms to inspect the dates, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch them, afraid of what magicks they might possess.
But that was daft, wasn’t it? Surely MacLeod kent better than to keep nefarious objects that could send people hurtling through time just lying about his shop for anyone to touch. Reaching out, he stroked a finger over a box about the size of Malina’s. When it didn’t bite him or do aught else suspicious, he lifted it from the shelf to inspect it.
It was lighter than Malina’s box. A sturdy brass latch kept it shut. He worked it with a nudge of his finger and peered inside. The thing was lined with velvet. He closed it and turned it over. The date read 1517. The dark brown ink beneath the stain looked familiar, but the script that read MacLeod and listed Inverness as the place of manufacture was larger and more slanted, written in a different hand.
He put the box back and looked at the others, finding the writing and the date the same on them all, with the exception of a few 1516’s and one 1514. They were just ordinary boxes designed for keeping ladies’ jewelry or precious trinkets.
“Is it a gift ye’re looking for, for your wife, mayhap?”
He turned to find MacLeod at his side and realized with a flop of his stomach he had no idea what to say to the man. He couldn’t very well blurt out the question foremost in his mind: Do ye make magic boxes? At least, it wouldn’t be wise to do so where the other patrons might hear him.
“I was hoping to have a word with ye,” he settled on. “Mayhap after ye close for the day. At the pub down the way?”
MacLeod narrowed his eyes. “I dinna imbibe in spirits,” he said in a clipped tone. He passed his gaze over Darcy’s dull brown plaid, bare arms, and scuffed boots. Compared to the other patrons, he was woefully underdressed, but he hadn’t felt such until MacLeod looked at him that way. “If ye are nay here to browse my wares or purchase somat, I’ll be asking ye to leave. I am too busy for idle chit chat.”
The man turned to stalk away. To stop him, Darcy blurted, “Have ye ever put magic into one of your wares?”
MacLeod stopped mid-stride. His shoulders went tight. He slowly turned. His voice low so no one else could hear, he said, “I’ll nay have men speaking of heresy in my shop. Be gone with ye and your devil-talk, and let me see ye no more.”
The man hurried away to serve another patron, casting him sharp looks until he made his obedient way out into the courtyard. As he closed the door behind him, he wiped a hand over the back of his neck and cursed himself. If he couldn’t get MacLeod to talk with him, how would he find a way to help Malina?
“Sir?” A quiet voice pulled his head around. Pink eyes peered around the corner of the stone building. “A moment, sir?” the young man said.
Darcy followed him into a shadowed alley that stank of stagnant water. What could the lad possibly want with him? The alley opened into a smaller courtyard where stacks of fresh-cut beams, sawdust, and wood stain scented the air.
The workroom behind MacLeod’s shop opened to the outdoors with a door as big as the side of a barn propped in a horizontal position with poles. Three men in the workroom sawed and hammered and bantered and ignored him as he followed the white-haired lad into a narrow, leaning outbuilding. It was a neglected woodshed piled with mismatched scraps of materials. Dust motes floated above a bowed workbench in the meager light from a single grimy window.
The lad crouched at the workbench and pulled out a crate covered with a ratty cloth. He hugged it to his chest as he stood up. Darcy got an unhurried look at the lad as his gaze darted everywhere but his face. He wasn’t tall, but he had good, strong shoulders and a broad chest that would serve him well as apprentice to a wood-worker. But he appeared painfully shy.
Darcy waited for him to speak, afraid that if he spoke first, he might cause the lad to faint.
“P-pardon me, sir,” the lad said at last, “but I overheard ye
asking Mr. MacLeod about magic, and–” His gaze cut to the door, which Darcy had left cracked open. At hearing the word magic, Darcy yanked the door shut, kenning a stray ear could spell danger for them both.
“Well, I suppose I was wondering what ye might have meant by it,” the lad went on. Those strange eyes turned up to him, and they were full of hope. “Have ye seen magic, sir? Do ye ken how it works? How to…control it?”
“No. I havena seen it. But I ken someone who has. ’Twas magic in a box, a box not unlike the ones your Mr. MacLeod sells at the back of his shop.” Taking a chance, he added, “In fact, ’twas a box with the very name of your mentor on the bottom.”
The lad’s eyes went wide. He hugged the crate so tight that the wood creaked. He shook his head, white hair flopping. “Surely not, sir. I dinna mean to argue, but Mr. MacLeod has no tolerance for anything not deemed proper by the church.”
“I saw the inscription with my own eyes. MacLeod. Inverness. ’Twas a box with no clasp and with white gold patterns on the lid.” He kept the date to himself, not willing to give away too much before he understood the lad’s purpose.
The lad’s expression didn’t change. If he’d ever seen such a box, he gave no indication of it.
Darcy tried not to be too disappointed and reminded himself the box wouldn’t be made for another twenty-five years.
“You’re certain it was magic?” the lad asked. “What–” He looked down and scuffed his toe in the dirt. “If you dinna mind me asking, sir, what did the box…do?” He whispered the last word.
“It brought a fair lass through time. From far in the future.” He watched closely for a sign of recognition.
If the lad could have grown any paler, he might have done so then. “The future,” he whispered as if it were the answer to a question that had long plagued him. He stared at Darcy in an apparent state of shock before spinning to put his crate on the workbench.
Making a racket, he pulled the cloth off and unpacked an armload of tools, horseshoes, and haphazard bits of metal. He paused with his gloved hands clutching a second cloth, one much cleaner and finer than the one that had been on top. The crate was like a cake with layers. No one would look twice at the junk making up the top layer, which served as a disguise for the second layer.
He leaned over the lad’s shoulder, anxious to see what the second cloth hid.
The lad pulled it away to reveal a mass of objects the likes of which Darcy had never seen before. There was a shiny object the size of a man’s palm with wee decorations–no, not decorations, but raised bumps declaring the letters of the alphabet, numbers, and other symbols. A similarly-shaped flat object looked like a rectangular stone, so black and glossy he could see his reflection in it like an expensive mirror. There was a large sheet of parchment somehow made stiff. Across the top, it read, Rise and Shine Bed & Breakfast, Inverness, in business since 1928. Below that were lists of foods, some he kent well, like blood pudding, kippers, eggs, and smoked eel, but many of the foods sounded foreign to him. Pancakes? Waffles? Hash browns? A heavy, porcelain cup with a handle had bold black letters across it saying, SCOTS DO IT WITH A BURR. Do what? And why would someone paint such large letters across a perfectly good cup? Several spoons jutted from the pile and several spoon-like objects that had tines like a pitchfork, rather than a broad surface for scooping. Amidst the strange trinkets, he recognized a circular face that reminded him of the big pendulum clock in Steafan’s office, but this clock was set into a strip of leather as if it were meant to be worn on a man’s wrist.
His fingers twitched, wanting to explore the contents of the crate, but his neck prickled with warning.
“Some of them would glow when ye touched them just right,” the lad said. “But the glowing always stopped after a few days. Except this one,” he said, lifting out the wee clock. He touched it with his gloved finger and thumb on each side of the face, and the thing gave off an unearthly green light.
Darcy jumped back. “Christ,” he breathed. ’Twas surely magic making that light. ’Twas likely magic that crafted such curious objects…or brought them here from a future time. Magic the likes of which might help Malina.
He bent closer, his initial fear forgotten as hope for his wife rose to the fore. The lad beamed at his interest as he released his hold on the clock and the light went out. “I’ve had this one for nigh on six months, and it still does that when I touch it so. And I havena had to wind it once, yet it still keeps the time.” His look of pleasure at revealing his secret to a stranger made Darcy worrit for him. Did he not realize what ill fate might befall him if he showed his collection to the wrong person, or if anyone stumbled across it?
“Put it away. Put it all away. In fact, ye should bury it. What are ye thinking, keeping such things where anyone might find them?”
The lad’s eyes dimmed. His shoulders fell forward as he pulled the cloth over the strange items and began piling the tools back in. Working with his back to him, he muttered, “’Tis only me that uses the shed, and I keep it locked.”
He’d kept Malina’s box locked away, but that hadn’t stopped Steafan from finding it. Though he hardly kent the lad, he couldn’t help the urgency that sharpened his tone when he countered, “Any fool kens locks can be broken. Are ye mad to trust this pitiful shed to keep safe that which might condemn you?” A twitch of the lad’s shoulders, like a dog expecting a beating, made his scolding fizzle out. Gentler, he said, “Ye may trust my authority on this. Ye dinna want anyone to find these objects.”
The lad crouched down and scraped the crate back into its hiding place. “I ken as much,” he said with more than a trace of wounded offense. Still low to the dirt floor, he turned his fair head just enough to show his profile. Though old enough to shave, he still carried a child’s roundness in his cheeks. He would be about sixteen, an age at which a lad thought he was a man and hoped to be treated as such by other men. “Ye willna tell Mr. MacLeod, will you?”
Sympathy doused him. He didn’t understand what manner of burden bent the lad’s sturdy back with shame, but he’d borne his own burdens long enough to ken only understanding and acceptance would make that back straight and proud. “What’s your name?”
Eyes that looked pale lavender in the dim light turned up to meet his gaze. “Timothy, sir. Though most call me Milky.” He grimaced with the nickname.
“I shall call ye Timothy. And ye may call me Darcy. And ye may be assured I willna be speaking to your Mr. MacLeod about that crate or aught else. The man doesna seem to care for my company.”
Timothy’s face relaxed. “Dinna think ill of him, please, sir–Darcy. He is firm in the teachings of the church, but that makes him charitable as well. If it werena for him and his wife taking me from the orphanage in Edinburgh, I’d surely be begging on the mile with the lame lads.” A frown furrowed Timothy’s white-fringed brow. “But if he kent the odd things that happen around me, he would send me away for being wicked.”
“Happen around ye?” He tried not to sound overly eager. He also tried not to dwell on the inevitable loneliness and heartache that awaited him once he found what he was after. “Ye refer to these objects? How do ye come by them?”
“’Tis my blood that does it.” Timothy’s eyes searched his face.
He worked to keep his features free from condemnation or disbelief.
He must have succeeded, because the lad went on. “Ever since I was a wee ane in the orphanage, when I’d scrape my leg on a stray nail or get a bloody nose from one of the bigger lads, odd things would appear at my feet. At first ’twas toys and trinkets that amused me, but as I counted the years, the objects grew more complex and less obvious as to their function. And though I dinna like to say such things, I suspect the objects may be made by the fair folk, for I ken of no substance nor craftsman, at least nay in Scotia, that can create such things.”
“I dinna ken about fair folk, but I ken where such things may have come from.” At least, he’d heard descriptions of similar objects, wondrous ob
jects made of materials called “plastic” and “batteries,” objects that could fit in a man’s hand and bring the world to him, and send him out to the world in return. He hardly understood why a man would need the world in his hand or why he would want to send part of himself away into the air, but Malina seemed to miss such “conveniences.”
The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose with the suspicion that some of these objects, mayhap all of them, had come from Malina’s time. But he had more questions than answers, such as if Timothy’s blood could bring these objects here, could it also send them back? Were aught from Malina’s America or were some from Scotia as the paper and the cup indicated? Could Timothy access a specific time and place with his magic? He suspected not, since it seemed the lad was looking to him for help.
Timothy raised his eyebrows in desperate curiosity, but before Darcy could say more, a lady’s high-pitched scream grated through the cracks in the shed.
He threw open the door and charged toward the main courtyard, Timothy close behind.
What met them when they plunged from the alley was a sight so outlandish, he didn’t ken whether to jump into the fray to assist the screaming woman or to laugh. ’Twas the same overdressed patron he had seen in MacLeod’s shop, only when she’d been inquiring about the armchair, she’d not had a shrieking monkey in red trews jumping upon her head.
The woman’s hat lay trampled on the cobbles like a wounded game bird, and great chunks of her graying hair had come loose from her pins. As she flung her arms about her head in an attempt to rid herself of her meddlesome cargo, she called to mind a twirling mop. Her violet-faced husband bounced from foot to foot, clutching his coin purse as though he might use it as a weapon, should he summon the courage to come to his wife’s aid.