Jack Staples and the Ring of Time Read online

  Mother will be so surprised. Why did the thought of her mother make her feel sad? For some reason, Alexia couldn’t make her mind stand still.

  Alexia suddenly realized she had no idea where she was. As she turned to look, her jaw dropped. In the valley below was an arena of sleek black stone that stood as tall as a mountain. As she looked at the arena, panic rose inside her. She felt it calling to her, willing her to come.

  “I need to find Mother and Father,” she whispered. “I need to tell them about the …”

  Fire.

  Alexia dropped her armful of blood-red flowers. Why couldn’t she remember? Something bad had happened. She placed her hands on her head.

  Raging fire.

  Dropping to her knees, Alexia was unable to breathe.

  “NO!” she screamed. In the ground in front of her were three freshly dug graves.

  “Mother!” Alexia shouted as she sat up in bed.

  It took a moment to realize she’d been dreaming again. It was a dream she’d had many times since her fifth birthday, and each time she awoke, she experienced the heartache all over again. Yet this time, when she woke, she heard the voice of her mother.

  “Ah, my girl. Everything is all right. You are here with us now, and it’s going to be all right,” her mother said as she ran her fingers through Alexia’s hair.

  Alexia was sitting in her bed in the darkness, and she couldn’t believe it. Her mother was alive, and once again all was right with the world.

  Chapter 10

  TO SAVE A LIFE

  “Mother!” Alexia screamed. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she jumped out of bed and hugged her mother tightly. “Mother! You’re alive! And Father, is he here too?” She buried her face in her mother’s chest, squeezing her tightly.

  For a moment, her mother tensed, then slowly pushed herself back, holding Alexia by the shoulders.

  “No … I’m sorry, I …” Something about her mother’s voice sounded wrong to Alexia. “I didn’t mean to make you think …”

  She felt as if a knife were slowly slicing into her belly. Alexia backed away, too afraid to speak.

  Her mother struck a match, lighting a lamp on the bedside table. At first Alexia didn’t understand what she was seeing.

  “My girl, I am not your mother, but I am a friend. And I want to help you.”

  A deep rage welled inside Alexia. How dare this woman pretend to be her mother! How dare she trick her like that! Springing to her feet, she rounded on the woman, ready to punch, kick, or bite—it didn’t matter. She was going to hit something.

  The horrid woman stood but didn’t back away. “I am sorry. I did not mean for you to think I was your … to think I …” A look of pain swept the woman’s face as she stopped herself. “I am sorry that happened.”

  Alexia backed into the corner like a wounded animal.

  “Is it true? Is your … did your mother and father—have they both passed away?” the woman asked.

  Alexia snarled as her face contorted in rage. She was going to kill this woman. Reaching for the sling at her belt, she stopped. It wasn’t there. The woman must have stolen it! That was the last gift her father had given her. And her clothes, her cloak. Where were they? This dreadful woman had stolen everything from her!

  “All of your things are right here,” the woman said, retrieving a small pile of clothes from the top of the dresser and holding them out to Alexia. “I cleaned them for you.”

  Alexia snatched her things from the woman’s arms. “You can’t keep me here,” she said.

  “I will not keep you from leaving,” the woman replied. “You are free to go whenever you wish. But I want you to know that, if your family is gone, you will always have a home here, with us.”

  Alexia felt as if someone had punched her in the gut, but she ignored it. She opened her mouth to speak, but the woman cut her off. “I don’t know how long you have been on your own, but you aren’t alone anymore. Whatever you need, we will be here for you.”

  “I don’t need anybody,” Alexia muttered, angrily striding toward the door. “If you try to stop me, you’ll regret it.”

  “Alexia!” the woman said boldly.

  Alexia stopped. How does she know my name? Alexia hadn’t told anyone her real name since her fifth birthday. She stood, frozen, unable to move.

  “Alexia, I am not your—” The woman stopped and brushed away fresh tears. “I am not your mother. Nor do I think I would ever be able to take her place. I am sure she must have been a strong and beautiful woman and that she loved you more than the moon or the stars.”

  Alexia swallowed hard but didn’t turn around. Her mother had often called her “my moon and stars.” It had been one of her many nicknames.

  “But I know she would want you to be taken care of. I have no doubt that you can take care of yourself, but it’s not what she would have wanted.”

  Alexia didn’t move. She wanted to run, she wanted to tell the woman to shut up, but she couldn’t move. How dare she talk about her mother like that!

  “Alexia,” the woman said softly, “I can never hope to be anything like her, but I promise you this: I will love you as much as any mother has ever loved a child.” The woman was crying now as she stepped forward. “You can leave if you like, but if you stay, you will be loved and cared for.”

  In an all-out rage, Alexia charged the woman. She pounded her with fists as she kicked and screamed. How dare she say these things!

  The woman let Alexia punch and kick her. Yes, she blocked some of the more powerful strikes, but mostly she just stood and allowed herself to be beaten. Alexia was so desperately angry! She was angry with the woman, with her parents, with herself—maybe if she hadn’t left the house, she could have stopped the fire. Maybe they had died because of her. Finally, her attack slowed, and in a moment of immense sorrow and exhaustion, she collapsed into the woman’s arms and began to sob.

  As she felt the woman’s arms around her, Alexia screamed again. There was so much she wanted to say, and though she still wanted to hit the woman, more than anything, more than any other thought in her head, she wanted to be held by her. She wanted her to run her fingers through her hair and tell her everything was going to be all right.

  And in the end, that is exactly what happened.

  The next morning, Jack woke up filled with anticipation. He lay in bed remembering his dream, savoring every detail. “It was so real,” he whispered. Shadowfog, a beautiful girl who climbed like a cat, a map that moved and transported him to another world … It was all so wonderful.

  He couldn’t wait to tell Arthur and Parker. Arthur would absolutely love it, while Parker, Jack was sure, would simply roll his eyes and ask why he hadn’t been in the dream. As Jack hopped out of bed to get dressed, he was surprised to find that more than half of his clothes were missing. Maybe Mother is mending them, he thought. Picking up the first things he found, he quickly dressed and sprinted through the hallway and down the stairs.

  “Mother, you’ll never guess what I dreamed last night!” Jack said, then grabbed the bannister and swung himself around. He ran full-tilt through the dining room and then saw his mother sitting at the kitchen table drinking her morning tea. Her lip was split and she had a black eye and a few cuts and scrapes on her arms, yet when she saw him coming, she smiled warmly.

  “Mother, what happened to you?” As he entered the room, he saw someone sitting on the opposite side of the table. In an instant, he realized it was the girl from his dream. Trying to skid to a stop, he tripped and crashed into the table, sending food and hot tea flying.

  “Jack,” his mother said, grinning, “I trust you remember your friend from yesterday? Her name is Alexia and—”

  Alexia jumped to her feet, shoving her chair back. “He is your son?” she shouted incredulously. “This is the boy I was telling you about! The one who killed my best
friend!”

  Jack crawled to his feet, still confused. “So yesterday wasn’t a dream?” he asked, rubbing the bump beginning to rise on his forehead. “What do you mean, I killed your friend? You tried to kill me!”

  Alexia balled her hands into fists and stepped forward threateningly. “I’ve beaten up boys twice my age,” she snarled, “so this will be easy!”

  Jack backed away fearfully. He’d seen Jonty Dobson start many fights, and he wasn’t excited about being in one now. “She slung a rock at my head!” he yelled to his mother.

  “Children! Stop this, right now. I will not have it in my house. Sit down!”

  Jack sat right away. He had rarely heard his mother so angry. But Alexia stood her ground, staring daggers at Jack.

  “You didn’t tell me he was your son,” she said fiercely.

  “Alexia, when you told me about your friend who died in the circus fire, I wondered if you were talking about the lion who saved Jack’s life, but I wasn’t sure. I was going to ask you when you finished your story. Yet you know as well as I that it was not Jack who killed your friend, it was the fire. And though I wasn’t sure I understood it until now, I think it must have been you who saved Jack—you and your lion friend.” Tears shone in her eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Alexia asked. “I’ve never seen him before yesterday.”

  “No, you never met Jack. But if the lion was your best friend, then I assume you spent many hours with him. I am sure you trained him for shows, you fed him, and you probably were the best friend a lion could have hoped for.”

  Alexia wiped a tear from her cheek as she turned to stare out the window. “He was my very best friend,” she said. “I used to sneak into the cages at night and sleep between Beast and Killer. They looked after me. They took care of me.” Alexia whispered the last words.

  After a moment Jack’s mother smiled sadly. “You see? It was because of you that … Beast was it? Or Killer?” She smiled at the names.

  “Beast,” Alexia said sullenly.

  “You were the reason Beast learned to love people. He loved you so much that he was willing to give his life to save someone like you. He chose to save my Jack because he was thinking of you.”

  Alexia opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, she said, “I really miss them.”

  Jack’s mother smiled and walked over, placing her hands on Alexia’s shoulders. “Ah, Alexia, you are a godsend. It is because of you that Jack is alive.”

  Both Jack’s mother and Alexia had tears in their eyes. And as he thought about it, Jack, too, began to cry. The lion had saved his life. It hadn’t been a mistake; the beast had given its life to save him.

  Chapter 11

  EVERYTHING IS NORMAL

  The following days were anything but normal. After his experience in the woods, let alone what happened in the schoolhouse, Jack was anxious about absolutely everything. He found himself jumping at every shifting shadow or unexpected noise.

  Had any of it been real? Jack hadn’t seen any more slithering fog or moving maps or other Jacks trying to kill him. Is this what it feels like to go mad? he wondered. At least three times a day his mother asked him if he was all right or if he wanted to talk. And he did want to talk, but he was afraid that she might think of him differently. Ethan Wild, the boy who’d gone mad at the schoolhouse, had been sent away, and from what Jack had heard, his family never visited him.

  Besides, Jack wanted to talk to Parker about it before anyone else. But his father and Parker had not yet returned from their trip. Every time he asked his mother where they were, all she said was that the masonry job was taking far longer than expected, and, “They will be home when the job is done.”

  With a beast roaming the woods, almost everyone in Ballylesson spent their days inside. The men still worked their farms, but they kept an ax with them at all times. The women only went out if they needed to pick up food from O’flannigan’s, Ballylesson’s general store. And even then, most were accompanied by at least one ax-hefting man. For the time being at least, all of Ballylesson was living in fear.

  With Mrs. Dumphry nowhere to be found and the beast in the woods, Minister McCarty had canceled school for the “foreseeable future.” Jack wasn’t upset about the school closing; he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to go back to the schoolhouse. What if that strange map was still there?

  A few days after Jack’s experience with the Shadowfog, Doctor Falvey stopped by the house. Jack, Alexia, and his mother were having breakfast in the kitchen. Jack’s mother told Doctor Falvey about the lion. As he listened to the story, the doctor began to grin. When it was finished, he shook his head, chuckling to himself.

  “Ah, these wee children do come up with the most delightful stories.” He winked at Jack’s mother. “I’m surprised at you, Megan, that you would believe the fancies of an orphan girl.”

  Before he could say another word, Alexia had grabbed a ceramic jug of milk and hurled it across the kitchen. The jug slammed into the doctor’s chest, spilling warm milk down his coat and all over the floor.

  “I am not an orphan, and I am not a child!” Alexia seethed.

  Jack watched in wide-eyed wonder to see what his mother would do. She just looked at Alexia for a moment, clearly taken aback. Doctor Falvey was sputtering and more than a little angry as he tried unsuccessfully to wipe the milk from his coat.

  Jack’s mother grabbed a towel and handed it to the doctor. “Alexia,” she said sternly, “we don’t throw things at people when we disagree with them.”

  Fire flashed in Alexia’s eyes, but when she looked at Jack’s mother, she nodded sharply. Without a word she stalked from the kitchen. Both Jack and Doctor Falvey watched her go with a look of incredulity.

  “And you, Patrick Falvey,” Jack’s mother said, “might want to work on your manners as well.”

  Doctor Falvey shook his head angrily. “That girl almost killed me, and you tell me to mind my manners?”

  Jack’s mother let the doctor’s comment pass, and instead reminded him of the circus fire from a week earlier. “Everyone keeps talking about this beast in the woods. What else do you think it is, if not a lion?”

  Doctor Falvey grudgingly agreed it was “possible that a lion was roaming the woods of Ballylesson.” After admitting this, he stalked out of the house.

  He paused on the porch, turned back, and said, “If there is a lion in these woods, we’ll get him. We’ll hang the beast’s hide in the center of town for everyone to see.”

  Jack and his mother both turned to see if Alexia was there. There would be no stopping her if she’d heard. Fortunately for Doctor Falvey, Alexia was nowhere to be found.

  Every day contained at least one unbelievable outburst from Alexia. And with each eruption, Jack’s mother gave her new instructions. “Alexia,” she would say in a firm, yet loving voice, “you shouldn’t punch or kick people.” Or, “Alexia, it’s not nice to scream at someone just because you don’t like them.” Or, “Alexia, my dear. You really shouldn’t threaten to feed people to lions. It’s better to sit and talk things through when someone does something you don’t like.”

  Besides Alexia’s constant craziness, her table manners were absolutely dreadful. She slurped her food, rarely said “thank you,” and used her hands as often as her fork or spoon. If a piece of meat needed to be cut, she was just as likely to grab it with her fingers and tear at it with her teeth as she was to pick up a knife and fork.

  In these moments, Jack would give his mother a disbelieving look. Yet his mother would say nothing of it. And more than once she had joined Alexia and began eating with her hands as well! The whole thing confused Jack.

  He couldn’t wait for his brother to return. He needed to talk to someone about it all. He never quite knew what to say to Alexia, so for the moment, he decided to say nothing. Any time they found themselves it the same room, Jack quickly found a
reason to be elsewhere. Only at meals did they spend any time together. And other than when he’d asked her to pass the potatoes, not a word had passed between them.

  Except for the fact that his father and brother had been away far too long and they had a crazy girl living with them, except for the fact that the town of Ballylesson was still living in fear of the beast in the woods, and except for his school being closed, life began to once again feel normal. It wasn’t the normal Jack was used to, but even insanity, if experienced long enough, can start to feel like a certain kind of normal.

  After waiting another five days for Parker to return, Jack began to feel as if he would explode if he didn’t talk to someone. Late on the evening of the fifth night, he walked into the kitchen to find his mother washing up. Alexia had gone up to her room a few minutes earlier.

  “Mother, I need to tell you something,” Jack said fearfully.

  “I know,” she answered with a smile. “It’s been obvious something has been on your mind for days now. But I knew you would tell me when you were good and ready. Come, let’s go out to the yard and talk there.” She held out her hand and waited for Jack to take it.

  Once outside, his mother lay on the grass and patted the ground next to her. “Come, my boy. Lie down and tell me what’s been on your mind.”

  Jack took his position in the grass, then looked up to see a perfectly clear sky filled with thousands of stars. Drawing a deep breath, he began telling his mother about the voice in the fire and the dark fog. He told her about the strange map and the other Jack. He spoke until his throat was hoarse and he could think of nothing more to tell her.

  When he finished, his mother stayed silent for a long time. Jack began to fear that maybe she thought he’d gone mad. Will she send me to the asylum like Ethan Wild? he wondered. Yet when she finally spoke, her voice was calm and loving.