1
MAGIC EYEBALL
WILL WASN’T ENTIRELY SURE WHY he was on a plane to Scotland, with only his little brother and no parents at all. His father had explained, of course, but there hadn’t been time for all the questions Will wanted to ask. Everything had happened in a great hurry.
There had been that first phone call in the middle of the night, and then more phone calls to follow, so that Will thought his father’s ear might fall off from being pressed so tightly to the receiver. Then Will had been put in charge of packing for himself and his brother, Jamie, one suitcase each, and it had been hard to know what to take and what to leave behind. Jamie still slept with his stuffed bear, but it took up so much room! And they would need underwear and socks and things.
“Pack sweaters, too,” Will’s father had said in between phone calls, his face pale and his hair still wildly on end from where it had lain on his pillow.
“But it’s almost summer, Dad!” said Will.
“The Highlands can be cold any time of the year. Damp, too. Pack rain jackets.”
Jamie had fallen asleep in the cab to the airport, a warm huddled bunch against Will’s side, clutching his bear in a death grip. Will felt like clutching something, too, only he was twelve and past that sort of thing. He did wish, though, that his father would talk to him, instead of to whoever it was on the other end of the phone.
His father put the phone away long enough to buy them books at the airport. Jamie got something with pictures—Magic Eyeball, it was called—and Will hardly noticed what he grabbed. Something thick, to last him for the nine-hour flight. He stuffed it under his arm and looked up at his father.
“You’re a good lad, Will,” said his father. “I know you’ll take care of Jamie. And once you land in Scotland, Cousin Elspeth will take care of you.”
“Will you bring Mom home?” It was an effort to push out the words; Will’s throat felt strangely tight.
“Of course I will.” Will’s father spoke heartily. “It’s all just a mix-up, I’m sure, but sometimes these things are better handled in person. Don’t you worry a bit.” He smiled, but the line between his eyebrows deepened, and he blinked twice, his eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. “Now one last hug all round, and then get on your plane. I’ve got a plane to catch myself. Oh, and here’s some spending money—you might want to buy a souvenir at the castle.”
“Cookies or salty snacks?” The flight attendants were coming down the aisle with their cart. “Coffee, tea, or soda, sir? Cookies or pretzels?”
The white-haired man on Will’s left flipped a latch on the seat back ahead of him and pulled down a tray table over his knees. “Coffee, please,” the man said, his voice a warm Scottish rumble.
Will copied the old gentleman, pulling down his own tray table and Jamie’s, too. “Two root beers, please,” he said, just like an experienced traveler. “And cookies. Jamie, stop bouncing on your seat, or you’ll knock over the drinks.”
“But look, Will! I can see it, I can see the picture! I have the magic eyeball!” Jamie thrust the book across his armrest and bumped the tray table, hard.
The root beer sloshed—the plastic cup rocked. Will lunged for it, but the cup slipped away from his fingers. Brown frothy liquid poured over the tray’s edge, soaked his jeans, and splashed all the way to the old gentleman’s newspaper.
The man was surprisingly nice about it, but the flight attendant had to mop up the mess with towels, and the other passengers turned around to stare. Will’s ears felt hot, and his legs were damp and sticky.
“Can I have another root beer?” Jamie asked.
“No,” said Will.
Jamie kicked his legs a little. Then he kicked them a little more. His foot hit the back of the seat in front of him.
The woman in the seat turned around and gave them both a meaningful glare.
“Hold still!” Will hissed in Jamie’s ear.
“I’m boooored,” said Jamie.
“Look at your book, then. That’s why Dad got it for you.”
Jamie’s lower lip pushed out. “You look at my book. Tell me if you can see the pictures. I bet you can’t.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Of course I can see the pictures.” He opened the Magic Eyeball book and glanced at a page. “See? It’s just some random pattern. Why did you want this book, anyway? It’s dumb.”
“No, look at the pictures. My friend Ben has one, and he showed me how. Read the directions.” Jamie moved a stubby finger along a line of type. “Method … One. Put … your … nose … close … to … the … book,” he read aloud.
Will sighed. Jamie had only just finished kindergarten, but he was already reading well, and he loved to show off. “I’ll do it if you stop bothering me. Look out the window, why don’t you? You asked for the window seat, so get some use out of it.”
Jamie had fallen asleep, huddled in the corner of his seat with his cheek pressed against his stuffed bear. Will was still trying to see what his brother had seen in the Magic Eyeball book.
There were apparently pictures hidden in the repeating patterns. If you held the book at a certain distance—or unfocused your eyes just slightly—or somehow looked past the page while still looking at it, then a whole different picture would appear. The book said to be patient, and relax, and not to try too hard. Will had been patient for what seemed like a very long time, and nothing had happened. It was a stupid book. He slammed it shut.
Outside, the sky had grown dark. Will unbuckled his seat belt, leaned across the armrest, and peered out past Jamie’s nose. Behind him, the plane’s wing stretched away in sections of gray riveted metal, and a flashing light glowed orange every other second. Far below, he could see pinpricks of lights like fallen stars: ships, sailing on an ocean as black and endless as the sky.
The world seemed all at once far too big and dark. It was a place people could get lost in.
Will leaned back in his seat and tried as hard as he could not to think about his mother. His father was going to her. Surely that meant things would be all right in the end?
The interior of the plane was like a snug cocoon. The cabin lights were dimmed, and most of the passengers were asleep. The old gentleman reached above his head to turn a small knob, and a thin ray of light speared down to pool on the book in his lap. His hand turned the pages with a quiet sound.
Will wished he could sleep. He had been awake since the call in the night, and his eyes were gritty, but his mind was too full of worried thoughts to rest. He shook his head, hard, to clear it. He would read his book.
But it wasn’t in his backpack under the seat, and it wasn’t in the seat pocket in front of him. He remembered with a pang that he had set it down in the airport, when he’d used both hands to put on his backpack.
“Have you lost something?” the old gentleman asked.
“Just my book.” Will shrugged as if it didn’t matter. But the book was the last thing his father had given him, and Will had lost it.
The old gentleman was on his feet, rummaging in the overhead compartment. Then he handed down something heavy and rectangular in a plastic bag.
“I meant to give it to my granddaughter in the States,” the man said, dropping into his seat again, “but I forgot. You can look at it, if you wish. Do you like history?”
The heavy rectangle turned out to be an illustrated book about Scotland. Will turned the pages slowly, looking at the pictures. There were cave dwellers, and chieftains, and warriors, and kings.…
“Sure,” he said, “I like history. Thanks, Mr.—uh—”
“Craig.” The old gentleman shook Will’s hand. “And your name?”
“Will Menzies.”
Mr. Craig’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “Now, that’s an old and honored clan name. Visiting Scotland, are you?”
Will looked at him shyly. “I’m going to live at Castle Menzies. Or close to it, anyway,” he amended. “My mother’s cousin is the castle manager.”
The old gentleman chuckled. “You’ll have a grand time, laddie. How long are you staying?”
“I don’t know.” Will looked past Jamie’s sleeping form to the dark outside the window, and curled his fingers around the cold metal of the armrest.
His father had told him not to discuss his mother’s situation with strangers—that talking might make things worse if the wrong people overheard. Still, Will wished he could tell someone about it. How his mother had gone off for a few weeks with a medical team, to help children in some poor country that had more than its share of disease, war, and disaster. About the call in the middle of the night, warning that his mother was in some kind of trouble—political trouble, his father had said, hard to explain but nothing for Will to worry about. But the cheerful words had come from lips that had gone hard and thin, and his father’s knuckles were pale where they gripped the phone, and in the morning his face had new lines that Will had never seen before, as if ten years had gone by in a single night.
The plane was quiet except for the muffled roar of the engines, steady and monotonous. Will smoothed the pages of the history book on his tray table. It was open to a picture of some sort of warrior. The man had a spear, a sword, and a round leather shield. His body was covered with blue tattoos, and he looked tough enough for any kind of trouble. He looked like the sort of person you would want on your side in a fight, or if you needed to rescue someone in a hurry.
If Will was going to rescue someone, he’d like to have a sword. Or maybe he’d use karate instead—he’d taken lessons, after all—and surprise all the bad guys with his lightning-fast kicks. He drifted into a pleasant daydream where his father took him along to help rescue his mother … but then his father fell, wounded, in the street, and it was all up to Will.…
Will had single-handedly rescued his mother, and father too, and was at the point where he was receiving the Medal of Freedom from the president when the plane hit a patch of turbulence. Will came out of his dream with a bitter jolt.
He wasn’t going to rescue anyone. He was going to babysit a five-year-old.
Of course there was the castle to look forward to … if there really was a castle. Will couldn’t quite make himself believe in it. Just yesterday he had been living his ordinary life, and today everything had changed. It was as if a strong wind had come and whirled apart the pieces of his life.
The plane juddered again, and Jamie woke with a whimper. “Is the plane falling?” he whispered, his eyes wide.
Will sincerely hoped not. “It’s just a patch of bumpy air,” he whispered back. “Don’t be afraid, I’m here.” He saw that Jamie’s bear had fallen to the floor; he picked it up and tucked it in his brother’s arms.
Jamie’s lip trembled. “I want Mom,” he said, his eyes damp with sudden tears. “Where is she?”
“Dad’s going to get her. Shh, now, go to sleep. You can lay your head on my lap, see? I’ll pull up the armrest.”
The little boy subsided into Will’s lap with a gulp and a sniffle. Will patted Jamie’s back and stared, unseeing, at the history book. He wanted his mother, too. Why had she left them? Other children needed her, she had said … but he and Jamie needed her more.
The soldier on the page blurred. Will wiped his cheeks roughly with his sleeve and turned his face away. He closed his eyes.
In the morning Will gave back the history book and switched places with Jamie, who wanted to show the old gentleman his Magic Eyeball pictures. Will was glad to have the window seat as the folded hills of Scotland came into view. The plane flew a curving pattern over the coastline’s jagged edge, where green and brown met vivid blue, and the sea spiked into the land in a wide crooked V.
“We’re flying over Edinburgh Castle now,” intoned a voice on the loudspeaker, pronouncing it “Ed-in-burrow.” Will peered down at the sprawling castle on its hill. It looked grayer and more serious, somehow, than the pictures of castles he had seen in books. You could see at once that it was meant for defense.… It looked grim, and impossibly strong.
The ground grew closer, and water sparkled beneath them in a million points of reflected light. The landing gear engaged with an audible thump, the airport lights flashed by, the runway rushed up, and with a sudden bump, the wheels hit the tarmac and the plane was down.
Cousin Elspeth was a warm, brisk, hugging sort of person with wavy brown hair and a quick walk. She looked a little like Mother—enough to make Will feel almost at home and for Jamie to leap up and wrap himself around her. She took them first to the airport bank, where Will changed the dollars his father had given him into Scottish money. Then she herded them to baggage claim and out to the car, talking all the way.
A large, creamy dog bounded from side to side in the back seat, clearly ecstatic to see them. “Gormlaith! Down, girl!” Cousin Elspeth opened the back door a crack. “Get in quick, boys, before she jumps out. I hope you’re not afraid of dogs?”
“I’ve always wanted a dog!” Jamie climbed in, threw both his arms around the dog’s heaving chest, and rubbed his cheek against the soft, pale fur.
“Gormlaith?” said Will, ducking as the dog’s plumy tail whapped his cheek.
Cousin Elspeth looked over her shoulder as she backed up the car. “It’s an old Scottish name; it means ‘Splendid Lady.’ And you are splendid, aren’t you, Gormly?” she added fondly, putting the car in gear with a jerk.
Splendid was not exactly the word he would have chosen, Will thought as Gormlaith pricked up her floppy ears, sniffed his armpit in a manner that was a little too friendly, and licked Jamie’s face from chin to forehead with one swipe of her long pink tongue. Over-enthusiastic was closer to the mark.
But Jamie was laughing. Will hadn’t heard him laugh for a while now.
Gormlaith turned around, treading heavily on Will’s thighs with her big paws, and draped herself across his lap. She laid her head on Jamie’s knee and whined softly, looking up with melting brown eyes, and Jamie scratched her behind the ears, grinning.
Will settled in for an uncomfortable ride. His legs might be numb by the time they got there, but if it kept Jamie happy, it was worth it. A dog wasn’t much of a substitute for a mother, but it was better than nothing.
Cousin Elspeth drove madly on the left side of the road. Will almost shouted when he saw a truck about to hit them at an intersection, but the truck passed without so much as a toot of the horn, and he realized that, in Scotland, everyone drove on the wrong side.
Of course it wasn’t the wrong side to them. Still, he had to shut his eyes because Cousin Elspeth’s driving was starting to give him a headache.
“I’m glad you’ve come, boys,” she was saying. “You’ll be company for my Nan. She whinges that the castle is too far from her friends.… She’ll be proper glad to have some young people around the place for once. You’ll see her when she gets home from school.”
“Whinges?” said Will.
“That just means to complain … kind of like whining, you might say. Our Nan has it down to a science.” Cousin Elspeth chuckled slightly.
“I’m going to show Nan my Magic Eyeball book!” Jamie announced. “It has hidden pictures, and I can see them but Will can’t!”
Will rolled his eyes to keep from whingeing himself. If Jamie didn’t shut up about that book soon, Will was strongly tempted to give it to Gormlaith and see if she liked to chew on paper.
Fortunately, the car ride lulled Jamie to sleep, and the dog, too. With a little effort, Will managed to slide the animal down to the floor, where she lay with her paws twitching.
Will yawned. Cousin Elspeth was talking on and on about the Menzies family and how he was related to everyone.… He couldn’t imagine a more boring topic.
“—so you’re a Menzies from both sides, do you see?” Cousin Elspeth took her hands off the steering wheel to gesture wildly. Will gripped the armrest. She had lived this long, driving the way she did; she probably wouldn’t crash now. Or so he hoped.
“There isn’t one drop of your blood that doesn’t come straight down through the ages of the clan!”
Will decided not to tell Cousin Elspeth how little he cared. He quietly picked up the Magic Eyeball book and tried again to see the pictures—he didn’t want to look foolish in front of Nan—but it was hopeless. At last he closed his eyes and let Cousin Elspeth’s words flow over and around him like a bubbling stream rushing past a rock.
The car stopped with a jerk, and Will’s eyes flew open. In front of him a flock of sheep was crossing the road as if they had all the time in the world. Bells around their necks clanked with a hollow sound.
Outside, the landscape had changed. City buildings had given way to a forest that covered the hills like a bear’s pelt. The hills themselves loomed larger, higher, steeper, and their craggy faces were seamed with stone. Far below, a river gleamed in a narrow valley.
“You’re in the Highlands now, lad!” Cousin Elspeth gunned the engine to disperse the staring sheep, and the bells clanked more rapidly as the sheep moved off. The car jerked forward, and Will leaned his head back against the seat.
The next time he opened his eyes, the car was bumping through a town filled with buildings made of gray stone. And when he opened them after that, they were at the castle.
It loomed above them, tall and grim, with long square towers and corner turrets, but Will hardly had a chance to look up before he was bundled through the front door, down a cold stone hall, up a narrow stair, and into a small room crammed with trunks, boxes, miscellaneous furniture, and two cots.
Cousin Elspeth laid Jamie, limp as a rag, on one of the cots and turned to Will. “Sorry it’s so crowded—we use this room for storage, but you can take a kip in here until my Nan gets out of school. She wants to show you the castle herself, and she’ll tell you all about the history.…” Cousin Elspeth trailed off uncertainly. “At least, I hope she will. You let me know if you have questions Nan doesn’t answer!” She straightened and gave Will’s shoulder a brisk pat. “The loo is just down the stairs, and I’ll be at the front desk if you need me. If you get lost, follow the sound of the bagpipes—I play a recording for the tourists. Come, Gormly, we’ll let the boys get some sleep.”
A kip was a nap, Will guessed, and the loo was the bathroom. Or so he hoped. He tumbled onto his cot and kicked off his shoes.
But the dog wouldn’t go. She lay between the two cots with her head on her paws and her eyes closed. Cousin Elspeth tugged on her collar, but Gormlaith only shut her eyes tighter and whined.
Cousin Elspeth straightened, frowning. “We never let the dog sleep in anyone’s bedroom, and she knows it. I wonder why she’s acting like this now?”
“I don’t mind,” Will said sleepily. “Maybe she wants to guard us.”
“Could be. Or maybe she knows you boys are a little sad, and wants to stay close. I told you she was special.” Cousin Elspeth shook her finger at the dog, mock sternly. “But just this once!”
When Will woke up, he didn’t know where he was. The afternoon sun slanted through a high window to lay long gold bars of light across the opposite wall, and, disoriented, he watched the dust motes swirling. His gaze fell on a small writing desk and Jamie’s Magic Eyeball book. He caught a glimpse of a turret through the window, and then all at once he remembered.
Jamie and the big cream-colored dog were still asleep. Will sat up and put on his shoes. When was this Nan going to come and show them around the castle? He didn’t want to sit in the storage room forever. He rummaged in the desk for a pen and paper, and carefully printed a short note to Jamie. I’ve gone downstairs. Be right back. Will.
On a whim, he picked up the Magic Eyeball book. He would try one more time. Will tiptoed around Gormlaith, down the narrow stairs, and through the door.
The corridor was long and shadowed. Rough stone walls rose on either side and met overhead in a barrel-shaped arch. Here and there, electric lights shaped like torches burned dimly in iron cages. The windows were narrow, barred with iron, and set deep in walls that had to be three feet thick. Archers had shot arrows from those windows, probably.…
At the end of the hall was a door with wood so old it had darkened to black, and Will put his hand on the great iron studs and massive bars. Knights had come through this door. They had hung their swords on those hooks, and clanked down the hall with their heavy boots. For a moment Will almost thought he was back in that time.… Faintly, in the distance, he seemed to hear the sound of bagpipes.
He let out his breath in a little snort. Of course he heard bagpipes. That was the recording that Cousin Elspeth played for the tourists.
Grinning at himself, Will sat down with his back to the stone wall, stretched his legs out in front of him, and opened the Magic Eyeball book. This time, he would try the third method. He would focus his eyes on something a short distance away, and then slowly bring the book up within view.
Will concentrated. There! Was something shifting? He thought he had caught a sort of shimmering around the edges of the picture, but he lost it as soon as his focus sharpened. He shut his eyes to rest them before he tried again.
In the distance, the bagpipes droned their peculiar music, both sad and stirring, and Will thought he could hear children laughing. The tourists must have kids with them.… He hoped they wouldn’t come down this hall, not just yet. He opened his eyes and focused again on a spot in midair, raising the book slowly. There! There was that odd sort of shimmer again, as if a picture was coming clear.
He tried to relax as the book said and not look directly at the place where the picture seemed to be, but through it somehow. Except the shimmering was only at the edges of the book—no, it was outside the edges. And while the picture in the book remained the same, the air around it seemed to waver, like an image seen through running water.
The children’s laughter grew louder, and suddenly the gloomy hall was flooded with light, as if part of the wall in front of him had crumbled—
It had crumbled. Or at least it wasn’t there anymore. Will’s arms sagged down, and the book dropped from nerveless fingers. Before him was daylight, and green grass, and two small children playing a game with something like strings and what looked to be acorns dangling from them. Their laughter filled Will’s ears as they swung the acorns and then suddenly one of the nuts hit the other, came loose from its string, and flew toward him. He ducked instinctively and blinked.
The children disappeared, the light was gone, and the wall in front of him was as solid as ever. But rolling toward his feet was a single acorn.
A foot scraped on the flagstone near him. Then a girl plopped down next to him on the floor and curled up her knees. “How did you do that?” she asked.