Shades of Red (19 page)

November 16, 1519
This is worse than I ever thought it would be. Part of me does not want to remember. There's nothing I can do about it, anyway. And what is there to go back to, even if I could? Brother Socorro says that I should write about my present if my past is so painful. My sadness will stay inside if I keep it there.

Here is something I remember that doesn't hurt.

How to Make Chocolate

Chip Cookies Mix a cup of butter with 2 eggs and 2 cups of sugar. Add vanilla and then mix into a bowl with 2 cups of flour, a teaspoon of baking soda. and a large pinch of salt. Add a
whole pack of chocolate chips and bake ten minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Hmm. That did hurt after all.

I guess because even though there are ovens here, and even occasional sweets, chocolate chips are not going to exist for at least four hundred years.

For the first time since picking up the old notebook, Darrell laughed a little.
At least he was able to make a joke now and then
, she thought. Leaning down beside the bed, she gave Delaney a little pat and then returned to her reading. She had never in her life so desperately wanted to know how a story ended.

December 1, 1519
Brother Socorro. Though I know his face much better than I do my own, it is still strange to look into his eyes. The good brother tries to teach me to trust and one day I may do so without pain. I can only hope.

So, I will take his advice and write of my life right now. I spend my days labouring in a monastery. It is an old stone Abbey, near Blois, in France. The brothers
who make their home here have accepted me, mostly because of Brother Socorro. In the winters I work on the river, collecting fish for the brethren. In summer, my job is harvesting not the waters but the gardens, where I labour under the steely eye of Pere Hortus from prime until vespers.

And speaking of such — the bell tolls for Compline and after that, to bed.

December 3, 1519
Only two days have passed and I am drawn once again to this journal. It does bring a strange sort of peace, but perhaps only as a rest from the labours of gutting fish. My knife is sharp and the job is swift, but I tire of cutting heads, slicing bellies, and pulling guts. I hated to write a word at school, since I did so poorly, but now it begins to offer a weird relief for me, and allows me to think of my past, so far in the future.

I've decided to write today of the bells, since the ringing drew me away before. The bells call the brethren to prayer eight times each day starting with
Matins at midnight. Lauds follows at 3:00 a.m., Prime at 6:00 a.m., and Terce at 9:00 a.m. At noon there are the bells for Sext, None is at 3:00 p.m., Vespers at 6:00 p.m., and Compline marks bedtime at 9:00 p.m. The names are drawn from the canonical hours and are named for the prayers that are said at each time of the day. These are a devout people, though it is usually only the friars who fall to their knees so often in the day. Regular folk, even within the sound of the bells, usually pray a mere four or five times daily.

The passage of time holds much fascination for me now, naturally. I will never know how it was that I passed through the wall of time. I know it was a mistake. And I know that in the style I had learned so well from my father, I made things worse. But was I meant to be here in this time?

The bell rings again. Matins. And of course here in the monastery, practicality rules all. Here's something I remember from the past: Time flies when you're having fun.

Christmas, 1519
The day is so different and yet so much the same as the one I knew as a child. Was I ever a child? For a short while, perhaps, before my father had good use to put me to. Through the passage of years I now know he was a hard man. Not a just man. And perhaps not as hard as some.

Christmas here is little different than a regular day. Much praying and for some, a fast. No feasting to be had — that is saved for the feast of St. Stephen, which falls on the following day, December 26. A shade different than the commercial twenty-first-century holiday that I remember. Not that I ever had a lot of toys or candy. I do remember a Tonka truck my mother gave me one Christmas. There was, of course, no Santa Claus in our apartment. No chimney, I always thought, but now I realize there was no magic. No acknowledgement that things could ever be not as they appeared. The Tonka was a yellow dump truck. I kept it for years. I can't seem to remember anything else that was all mine.

Until the dog.

January 4, 1520
Another year. I've put off writing because, as it turns out, I don't really want to remember the dog. He was mine for a few days when he was a puppy. I didn't see him again for three or four years, and by then he was hers. He knew me, but I pretended I didn't know him. I hated everything then. Everything except my dad. I did all I could to get my dad to care about me. Even gave up the puppy. It still didn't work.

Again, this is making things worse, so back to the present.

Today I walked through the village down to the fishing boat. Most of the folk here either make their living on the land or the river. A kind farmer offered me a ride on his cart and I travelled to the market in style, among the wooden crates of chickens.

There is much kindness here, though I did not see it for many years after my abrupt arrival. In my fear after the fire I saw only madness and war and death. And that, I'm happy to say, is for another day.

Darrell slid off the bed and put her arms around Delaney's neck. “I never knew,” she whispered. “I never knew you belonged to Conrad, boy. All the time, to think he wanted you so much — he just wanted his dad to love him even more.”

February 17, 1520
These bleak, dark winter days are filled with work and sleep and little else. The truth is, I have put off writing about my arrival here to push away the sickening memories, but they haunt my dreams still. Brother Socorro suggests I write them and lock them in these pages so as to clear my sleep, and I hope he is right. My childhood was harsh but it prepared me well for what I should find when hauled back through time and so — perhaps — I survived because of hard lessons learned under the hand of my father.

Darrell read on, as Conrad wrote of escaping the fire in the stable only to be dragged away and sold into servitude as a soldier in the Franco-Italian wars. She read as he talked of trying to convince someone — anyone — that he was from another place and another
time. And finally, of his sentence in the worst hell of all — a medieval madhouse.

The book finished in the middle of a page dated 1523 — a few months before Darrell and Paris arrived on their short trip through time. Her face wet with tears, she closed the book carefully. “Your story is not over yet, Conrad,” she whispered. “I promise you'll have another chance.”

Spring arrived, and with it came the obligatory break from school. Before leaving for Kate's house, Darrell received a brief call from the Middle East.

“This is such an incredible part of the world, Darrell. This tiny country is where Africa, Asia, and Europe all meet, in a way.”

“But what about the war, Mom? Are you in danger?”

Janice Connor's voice buzzed through the phone. “I won't pretend this is always a safe place, Darrell. But I promise you that David and I are doing our best to keep each other out of trouble.”

David and I. Darrell sighed and decided to let it go this time.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, kiddo.”

Darrell was surprised by how much she had
missed the sound of her mother's voice. And while she was relieved that her mother still seemed caught up in her work and happy, part of her longed just to spill everything — to tell all about her fears for Conrad and for herself going back to find him.
Oh yeah, now there's a conversation that would go well,
Darrell thought grimly.
It would convince her I'm ready for the loony bin, for sure
.

The week with Kate was seemed to last forever. Darrell had never managed to master the art of superficial polite conversation and dove into her books and research at every opportunity, much to Mrs. Clancy's chagrin. “Don't you want to go shopping, girls?” she would cry despairingly as Kate and Darrell headed back to the city library.

Darrell caught a little break one day when she and Kate met up with Brodie and Paris, taking the bus all the way out to the university to visit the acclaimed Museum of Anthropology. Completing research for Gramps made Darrell feel like she was at least making some progress in her knowledge about the Reformation. And yet, it seemed like a lesson in the intolerance of humanity throughout the eras: first against the Jewish and Muslim people during the Inquisition and then back and forth between the Protestants and the Catholics during the Reformation. Darrell recognized a discouraging pattern of ongoing dissent between three of the world's major
religions; in one way or another it always seemed to be Christianity versus Judaism versus Islam.

“The Reformation is almost a bit of relief,” said Brodie as they sat down to lunch at the cafeteria. “At least the Christians are going after their own for a change, instead of continually waging war on the Jewish people or the Moors.”

“None of these wars were one-sided,” said Kate. “The Christians weren't always wrong, either.”

“You know what's interesting?” said Darrell slowly. “Everything we're learning here at the museum or in Gramps's class is already in the pages of Conrad's diary. He talks about the things he's gone through, yeah, but he also talks about the things he sees around him, day to day.” She pulled the scarred old notebook out of her backpack.

“Darrell! I can't believe you are carrying that thing around with you,” exclaimed Kate. “What if you lose it or something?”

Darrell smiled grimly. “I can't lose it, Kate. I think about it every waking hour.” She riffled through a few pages. “Listen to this. In this bit he's talking about when he begins to help Brother Socorro get the Jews out of Spain before they are tortured or killed.” She cleared her throat. “‘In this age of madness, I have watched the blood flow around me like a river, watched countless pounds of human flesh seared away from
bone, and I must have cried a thousand times a thousand tears. And yet, with all the agony, it still interests a part of me to note that everyone — be they Catholic Christian or heretic, Jew or Moor — everyone bleeds the same shade of red.'”

She closed the book and replaced it in her pack. “I wish I thought we had learned some of the lessons that history has to teach us,” she said quietly. “but when I think of where my mom is and what she is doing, I'm not so sure.”

It was a sombre group that returned on the bus that day, assignments completed. And for another of what seemed like an endless stream of nights, Darrell lay awake and worked out a plan.

Back at Eagle Glen, students threw themselves into schoolwork with new vigour. Even Paris returned with his hair a natural blonde.

“I didn't feel like colouring it, for some reason,” he said sheepishly. “It still freaked my family out, though. They're convinced I'm going to move on to piercing next.”

Darrell finished her watercolour of Lisbon and began one of Windsor Castle.

“You seem to have a thing for castles lately, Darrell,” remarked Mr. Gill.

Gramps continued to drone on in history class, and both Paris and Brodie were slated to present their field trip project results in the first week back. The official word from Mrs. Follett was that, due to an illness at the Swiss campus, Professor Tooth was now filling in there until another teacher could be hired. And no, she didn't know when that was going to happen.

On the first Friday evening back, Darrell headed down to the beach with Delaney. They stopped for a moment at the twisted old arbutus tree behind the school and then walked down the winding path to the beach. The path was a little wider than it had been last year, cut through the pebbles and sand by the small caterpillar tractors that had ferried building materials to the site of the new coastal light.

Delaney ran ahead of Darrell, the wind ruffling his fine golden fur. She stuck her hands deep in her pockets and strolled along the edge of the shoreline. The tide was out, and seagulls wheeled and squawked their way across the sky, dive-bombing the beach with mussel shells and squabbling over tidbits.

Darrell walked out onto the point where she had first met Conrad, a day that seemed more like a decade than a year ago. Superstitiously, she craned her head over the edge, just to make sure Conrad's boat was not tucked underneath, out of sight.

Delaney barked and capered at her feet as she walked on, right up to the base of the new light. Its beacon shone out to sea day and night, oblivious to the rubble of the old lighthouse that had once stood proudly on the same spot.

With the wind at her back, Darrell walked to the other end of the beach, where giant boulders tumbled over the cliffs and down into the sea. Behind the row of boulders was the cave where Darrell's time travel adventures had begun. She stopped at the first of the giant rocks and looked back across the sand, marvelling that deep under the windswept beach a labyrinth of passages stretched into the past.

One of those passageways led directly to Conrad. She was sure of it.

Darrell lay on her bed and watched the moon rise over the mountains to the east. No lunar sliver on this cool May night. A full, round, white moon made its way across the sky while its twin swam through the water, ever westward. One o'clock was her witching hour, and by then the moon was almost ready to sink behind the mountainous islands to the west.

Delaney rose to his feet and stretched lightly before prancing out the door ahead of Darrell. They made their way down through the secret door at the back of
the library and down farther still into the very bowels of the school. Darrell sat on the bottom step, the cold from the stone creeping through her jeans.