Listen, I—I don’t know what else to do. Hope’s just so fragile. I assumed she’d grow out of it as she got older. As she assimilated into . . . well . . . but it just gets worse. Though her mind is the most astonishing I’ve ever known, the phobias and anxieties she’s racked with are—
The voice on the other end of the line cut in. On the wall, my mother’s shadow covered her eyes. Yes, and I take full responsibility for that. But I wouldn’t change it. Not ever. You weren’t there. It wasn’t even a choice. I will never regret taking Hope from that awful place.
I’d startled at that. Oddly, I had no memory whatsoever of the Eastern European orphanage where my mother had found me when I was four. Was the voice telling her she should’ve left me there?
Still, she was saying, so that I had no time to process the comment, I’ve begun to think it might be kinder to keep all this from her. If the thought of a plane ride practically incapacitates her, how do you suppose—? The voice spoke. Mom sighed and said, I know, but she’s my daughter. And I’m beginning to believe she may never have the strength to bear the truth.
I remembered creeping away, the apology still captured in my throat. So she thinks I’m a weakling? Fine, I’d decided. Let her think it. Who cares?
Anguish, bitter and dense as lemon peel, nipped at the back of my tongue as I realized it was my fault that Mom went on that trip alone. If I hadn’t been such a coward, if I’d gone with her, maybe none of this would have happened.
My throat clicked when I swallowed. I took a step toward them, my eyes dry and flinty as they locked on my aunt’s. “So when do we leave?”
Chapter 11
AFTER WE’D CLIMBED BACK UP THE STAIRS, Moira ordered us all to bed.
“Rest,” she said, shooing us to our rooms. “That’s what is needed now. We can discuss all this further after everyone’s had some sleep.”
Back in my room, the girl who glared from the silvered bathroom mirror looked like she’d been through a natural disaster. Pale, chapped lips. Dark curls frizzed and matted. The skin under my eyes like bruised fruit.
Mom’s alive, I mouthed to the mirror. Alive.
Unable to bear the fear in my own eyes, I averted my gaze, splashing my face with cold water until it ran down my chest, drenching my nightgown. Wet and shivering, I burrowed beween the sheets, praying sleep would erase the dread that slithered over my skin.
After a few hours of disturbing dreams, it was time for my first official lesson. Time Travel 101.
“It was easy after that.”
Seated around a long table in the library, a modest, brilliant Doug fended off the others’ praise. “No, no. Tesla was the visionary, not me,” he explained. “It was his idea to use alternating current that could read the pulses from the Dim, then use a crosscurrent to interrupt the flow at specific times. My program merely amplifies his readings, pinpointing the time and place and giving us more time to prepare.”
Doug was obviously eager to have a fresh audience. So far, he hadn’t noticed my lack of enthusiasm. For one thing, most of his intricate scientific explanations were way out of my realm of knowledge. And for the other, every synapse in my brain was taken up by thoughts of my mother. Of what might be happening to her in that other world in which she was trapped.
“See, Hope,” Doug said, oblivious, “when the ley lines are interrupted in a certain sequence, it creates an opening. A vacuum. As I mentioned last night, it’s easiest to think about it like a small wormhole. Here, let me show you.”
When he snatched a piece of paper and began scribbling more numerical equations, Phoebe jumped into his lap and planted a kiss on his wide mouth.
“Enough, love,” she said with her lips pressed against his. “You’ll make poor Hope’s head explode.”
Doug grumbled a bit, but plopped the notebook down on the table to snug Phoebe comfortably across his lap. I grinned at the sight of his brown cheek resting on the top of her crazy blue hair.
My gaze drifted past to the torrents of rain sheeting the window. An image of Bran Cameron’s face wavered before me, somehow watery and indistinct, as if the features were blurry. All but the eyes. Those odd, mismatched eyes stayed clear and sharp.
It’s pouring buckets out there. No way he’d come today. Besides, I chided myself, it’s beyond selfish, thinking about some boy when you just found out your mother’s still alive. Sort of. I tapped a fingertip idly on the glossy table. Still . . . if he came, and I didn’t show, that would just be ru—
The slam, as Collum dropped a huge stack of books on the table in front of me, brought me halfway out of my chair. The top one slid off into my lap. Court Life Under the Plantagenets: Reign of Henry II, by Hubert Hall.
“Quit daydreaming,” he said. “You’ve got a lot to make up, so get busy.”
I thumbed through the stack, shrugged, and pushed them back across the table. “Already read them. What else you got?”