Forever His(51)

“You will find it,” Brynna said with the same tone of certainty Fiara often used. “You have an exceptionally kind heart, Lady Celine. It radiates from you. But first, it is I who must help you, is it not? You must tell me all you know of how you came to this time. It was on the eve of the new year?”

“Yes. From what I can figure out, I think it was a lunar eclipse—”

“Eclipse? A dark of the moon?”

“Yes, I guess you would call it that.” Celine barely knew where to begin. Most of what she knew in this area came from listening to her sister, Jackie, who loved science and studied it. She herself hadn’t taken a single science course her first semester—her only semester—in college.

Boy, the little decisions that made a huge difference in life.

“I know a little bit about how eclipses work,” she said. “Let’s see, I guess first of all I have to explain that the world is round, not flat ...”

They spent the better part of the day talking about astronomy and time, putting together Celine’s twentieth-century science and Brynna’s ancient knowledge to try to make sense of how the lunar eclipse had sent her here. Celine used bails of wool to demonstrate how the earth orbited the sun, and the moon around the earth, and how a lunar eclipse occurred whenever the three lined up straight: the moon on the earth’s far side, the sun casting the earth’s shadow on the moon.

Later, Brynna opened her ornate trunk, which contained sheaves of her father’s writings, to see if his papers had any useful information to offer.

Fiara returned in the afternoon, and the three of them ate a meager supper—it pained Celine to note just how meager it was. Afterward, Fiara went to bed, exhausted by her midnight walk and her day of excitement. She slept soundly, except for a brief moment when she sat up, staring drowsily at the wall next to her pallet, almost as if she could see outside, and mumbled something like “He means no harm. “ Brynna tucked her in again, explaining that her daughter often awakened when wolves or other forest animals wandered close to the hut.

Hours later, as darkness fell, Celine and Brynna sat with brows furrowed, contemplating drawings and star charts sketched by Brynna’s father. Both were pleased that they were finally making some progress.

“So time, you see, is not so precise as many believe,” Brynna was saying, lighting a candle. “It is not a solid thing, to be carved into days and hours at our bidding. It is fluid, liquid. It can change as easily as the sea changes, on one day calm and smooth, on another stormy and dangerous.”

“So New Year’s Eve was just a dark and stormy night, timewise,” Celine muttered, studying an ancient piece of parchment with runic lettering and lavish illuminations in silver and gold.

Brynna smiled. “Aye. And just as the sea can be affected by outside forces, such as wind and rain, time can also be affected by outside forces. You have told me that it is the moon that controls the ocean tides—”

“Yes, something to do with gravity. And if the moon is strong enough to affect massive bodies of water that cover half the earth—”

“Is it not also strong enough to affect something so liquid as time?” Brynna pointed out with growing excitement. “On the eve of the new year, the eclipse must have been strong enough to cause a ripple in time ... a whirlpool.”

“And I was standing right on top of it,” Celine whispered. “And it pulled me in.”

Brynna nodded, eyes bright. “Like a door. A trapdoor that fell open beneath you. You are most intelligent, Lady Celine.”

“Not really.” Celine laughed. “At least, not compared to the rest of my family. So if that’s how the moon sent me back in time, how do I get it to send me home?”

Brynna spread out the paper she had been poring over, a roll of parchment so ancient it was yellowed and cracked and disintegrating along its gilt edges. “According to my father’s chartings of the stars, there will occur four more darkenings of the moon this year—‘eclipses,’ as you call them. First a partial one, here.” She pointed, to a circle on the map. “Then a complete one, several months later.” She pointed to another spot. “Then two more partial ones after that. Here ... and here.”

“Did you say several months later?” Celine felt her heart drop to the bottom of her toes. “I ... I don’t think I have several months, Brynna. I’ll have to get home on the first one. I’ll have to. I’ve got an ... injury that needs attention. Soon.”

“In your back.” Brynna glanced up with a concerned expression. “I thought I sensed something odd there. Something amiss.”