Nieve refused to wear the shoes, shaking her head adamantly as she tied the laces on her runners. Knowing that Gran wouldn’t let her through the door without them, though, she did agree to take them along.
“You’ll be glad of them when the time comes,” Gran finally said, knowing herself that Nieve could only be pushed so far.
They’d been standing in stubborn silence listening to the mantel clock, which had unaccountably begun ticking – loudly, adding its two cents worth – the moment she was handed the shoes.
Nieve gave her grandmother what she hoped was a grateful smile as she folded the shoes carefully and slid one into each of her back pockets. If the time should come when she needed them (it was hard to imagine), and if she recognized it when it did, she was certain that the shoes by then would be nothing but broken leaf bits and dust.
Lias emerged from Gran’s bedroom wearing one of her old blouses under his tunic and not embarrassed at all about it. Again, Nieve had to wonder who he was – certainly no boy she knew would have been caught dead in a woman’s blouse, except maybe on Halloween. Which this night was beginning to resemble more and more. Only a Halloween with real terrors and no treats.
“Your arm?” Gran asked him.
“Better thanks, Grandmother.” Touching his swollen jaw lightly, as if adding, and no thanks to her, he said, “I suppose I’ll have to lead her by the hand?”
“What do you mean?” Nieve started to ball up her fist.
“You’ll be blind as a grub out there.”
“And you won’t be?”
“Course not.” He grinned at her, then gave a little hoot, like an owl.
“Don’t tease, Lias,” said Gran. “Remember, you two are going to have to get along. He can see in the dark, Nieve. Some call it night eye. He can mine the dark for the tiniest speck of light and use it to see with.”
Not likely, she wanted to say, but had in fact read about this. It was an ability that nocturnal animals had. She’d been interested in how it worked for Mr. Mustard Seed, how an extra layer of cells behind the retinas made his eyes glow with reflected light, and had spent some time trying to examine them. This prompted her to step closer to Lias for a better look at his eyes. Did they have vertical slits?
He danced away from her. “Don’t you give me a blasting.”
“Or a bashing?” Her turn to grin. “Better watch it then. Gran, do you have a flashlight I can borrow? Lost mine at Ferrets.”
“No, sorry hen.”
“But how–?”
“I’ve something better.”
Nieve grimaced. Please, no more amulets and charms.
Gran dug into her cardigan pocket again, even deeper this time, and pulled out an azure glass bottle capped with a dropper. She held the bottle up and tilted it back and forth to check how much remained of the silvery liquid within. “Only a smidge left, but enough to do the trick.”
Nieve grimaced even more. “That stuff isn’t going into my eyes.”
“Ah, but Nievy, one drop in each eye and you’ll be able to see in the dark, too. It won’t be bright, not like daylight, but it works well. Will seem as if everything is bathed in moonlight.”
Nieve hesitated.
“Or I could hold your hand the whole way,” Lias offered.
“Put them in, Gran.”
Would the drops work? She very much doubted it, but she’d never convince them if she didn’t try. Nieve tilted her head back and gazed at the ceiling (not a cobweb to be seen), while Gran administered the drops – one, two, easy as pie. Easy except for feeling as though someone had dropped a pie into her face, blinding her with crumbs and sugary grit and globs of lard. Her eyes stung and watered and she couldn’t see a thing.
“Don’t rub them.” Gran patted her arm. “They’ll be fine in a tick.”
True enough, Nieve blinked and blinked until her eyelids began to feel oddly slippery, and then her vision became blurry, and then, as if she’d suddenly emerged from underwater, she could see clearly again. Everything in the room looked exactly the same. The drops hadn’t done a thing.
She marched over to the window, and leaning close to the glass, nose almost touching it, looked out into the black night. “Oh!” She craned her neck, gazing upward to see if the moon had come out. “Holy smokes.” No moon, but the moon’s silvery light seemed to be everywhere she cast an eye, illuminating the path that led up to the cottage, the stand of birches off to the right, the sundial on the left.
“This is so cool.” She didn’t even try to suppress the excitement in her voice.
“It is, Nievy. But it will only last so long. You and Lias will need to act as quickly as possible.”
As if backing her up, the clock on the mantel struck a few insistent notes on the quarter hour.
“But how?” Nieve returned from the window. “How are we supposed to get to the city? How are we supposed to find Dr. Morys even if we do get there? And why us? I don’t get it, I don’t get any of it.”
“It’s not easy to get, Nievy. My thinking that you’re the ones for this, it’s only a hunch, but a strong one. I could be wrong, mind, although I pray that I’m not. As for how you’ll get on when you arrive, well, you’ll have to follow your nose, I’m afraid.”
“Noses,” said Lias.
“Noses, right you are. I know that doesn’t sound very . . .”
“Helpful?” said Nieve.
“Aye, not helpful at all. But I have faith in you, faith in you both. If things start to go amiss, get word to me. Lias knows how. As for getting there, I’ve arranged a ride. A ride to the hospital, that’s the place to start.”
“Who with?” Not her dad, she didn’t think. Nieve bit her lip, wondering where her parents were right now, wondering what had happened to them at the wake after she’d fled.
“Frances Murray.”
“Malcolm’s mum? But they’re . . . are they back? You’ve seen her?”
“At the hospital. I hate to tell you this Nieve, but Malcolm’s very ill. They don’t know what it is, he’s delirious half the time, he’s . . . not well at all.” Gran gave her an apologetic look. “Frances has been with him constantly, but she’s had to make a few quick trips home and she’s back tonight. She said she’d wait until half past the hour for you.”
With that, they all looked up at the mantel clock. It was banging away as though soldering minutes and tossing them out willy-nilly, rather than simply recording them. Twenty-five past twelve.
“Tsk,” said Gran, seeing how late it was. “I’ve kept you too long.”
“That’s not even the real time,” Nieve objected.
“It is now,” Gran said. “It’s their time, and it’ll only take us deeper into a night without end.”
“Let’s go, then.” If Nieve managed nothing else, nothing in this crazy exploit, she was determined to see Malcolm and do whatever she could to help him. “Are you ready?” she asked Lias.
“I am,” he answered, already fastening his cloak.