searching all over the world for a place like this. The only other spot that had the same likelihood turned out to be in the middle of the ocean about a thousand miles south of Madagascar-not a great location for an experimental site.” He grinned. “Octavio found the Fault Line, he bought the land, he built the house. I think I will have a little of that cider, Sarah.”
Mrs. Needle seemed about to say something disapproving but kept her mouth closed, though her lips thinned to a line. “Shouldn’t these children be getting to bed, Gideon?” she asked instead. “After all, they’ve had a very busy day-especially Tyler.”
“He had a bit of an adventure, Patience, that’s all. Boys are sturdy! I know I was at that age.”
“Oh yes, but before that Tyler did his chores, and then all that boyish larking around, messing about chasing squirrels. He must be ready to sleep like the dead.” She caught Tyler’s gaze and something flashed in her eyes, a cold, poisonous glint that made his heart flutter.
She knows, he thought. She knows exactly what I did.
“But Uncle Gideon, what is the Fault Line, really?” Lucinda asked. “Did all the people here just pop out of it? I still don’t understand.”
Before their great-uncle could answer, Sarah, Azinza, and Pema emerged from the back with a young woman Tyler at first didn’t recognize. Her eyes were wide, as though at any moment she might have to run for her life. Her wet reddish hair curled around her face, and she was draped in a colorful length of fabric far too long for her-one of Azinza’s dresses. It was only when Tyler realized that the thin red lines on her face were doctored cuts that he realized it was the cavegirl, Last One.
“Ah, our newest guest!” said Gideon, with all the forced good fellowship of a department store Santa. “Ooola, welcome to the family. Someone get her some cider.”
“Don’t be mad, Gideon,” said Mrs. Needle. “She’s probably never had strong drink in her life. If you could bring her some water, Sarah, and something to eat. Not too much, though, or she’ll likely make herself sick.”
Tyler didn’t like the way that Gideon had just taken away the girl’s real name. He wanted to say again that she already had a name, a perfectly good one that meant something to her, but he knew he would simply be laughed into silence by the old man. He was dizzy with the warmth of the kitchen, and despite the nastiness of her intent, Mrs. Needle had been right-he was also extremely tired.
“To go back to your question, Lucinda,” said Gideon, “Octavio Tinker was decades ahead of his time. He deduced the existence of what he called the ‘fifth dimensional transit,’ and then proved it when he found this place. I won’t bother to try to explain it all-it’s very complicated. But the simplest way to imagine it is that the first three dimensions are space, the fourth is time, and the fifth is probability.” Gideon made a round shape with his hands, then indicated a straight line running through the middle of it. “The Earth has fifth-dimensional transit poles just like it has magnetic poles. That’s the point where the fifth dimension transits our four-dimensional space.”
He sat back with his cider, raised the glass, and took two large swallows. “So here’s to old Octavio. He may have been a tightfisted, mean-spirited son of a gun, but he sure proved all those other eggheads wrong. Because we’re sitting right on top of the fifth-dimensional transit. The place where our Earth comes into contact with all the other earths it has ever been-and we don’t even know about all the possible earths. The Fault Line is a doorway into time.” He sighed, suddenly looking as though the air had leaked out of him. “If only we knew how to navigate it-how to find our way back from inside it. You’re lucky that ice age bit of it stayed open long enough to let you out, boy. You could have been lost in it forever.” He looked down at his glass. Suddenly he looked very old. “Lost forever
… ”
“Now, Gideon, you’ll scare the children.” Mrs. Needle had resumed her “nice” voice-she sounded like Mary Poppins.
Only this Mary Poppins rides a broomstick, Tyler thought, not an umbrella.
He didn’t really understand what Gideon was talking about-he had found his own way out easily enough. Well, maybe easy wasn’t the right word, but… “You mean you can’t go into it and come out again?”
Gideon shook his head sadly. “We used to be able to navigate it. Octavio and my… ” He stopped and took a breath. “Octavio had an instrument that allowed him to move in and out of the Fault Line-to travel through it like an explorer with a compass or a sailor with a sextant. It was called the Continuascope. But it was lost several years back…”
Suddenly Tyler was wide awake. “That thing in the painting,” he said, unaware for a moment he’d said it out loud.
“Tyler!” Lucinda warned him, but it was too late.
“What are you talking about, child?” Gideon demanded, his voice suddenly harsh. “What painting?”
Tyler swallowed. It was too late to turn back. “There’s a painting of… of Octavio Tinker. In the library. He’s holding something-it looks kind of like a weird musical instrument, right?-and I always wondered what it was.”
Gideon stared at him with narrowed eyes. “And what were you doing in the library, boy?”
“Just… exploring. After my chores were done.”
For several heartbeats no one said anything. Then the dangerous moment-and it had felt quite dangerous- abruptly passed.
Gideon slumped back in his chair and took another gulp of cider. “That was it, all right. The Continuascope, the world’s only fifth-dimensional navigation device. It worked by crystallometry-genius, pure, elegant genius. But it’s lost now.”
“But can’t you make another one?” asked Lucinda.
“Hah!” Gideon’s laugh was bitter. “How could I replicate his genius- his secrets? The records are lost too. Lost… ” He shook his head in defeated anger. “You don’t understand how old Tinker worked! Making sure that everyone around him knew only a little bit of what there was to know. Then when it went wrong, there was nothing that could be done-nothing!”
Something important had slipped past him in all the talk, Tyler realized, some crucial detail, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He looked around. Ragnar and Sarah and the others were listening to the conversation, and everyone looked horribly tense.
“I’m… I’m pretty tired,” Tyler said at last. It was not a sentence he would ever have imagined himself using, especially when it seemed so many questions could at last be asked and answered, but he was very aware that he was no longer thinking very clearly. If he accidentally gave away that he had found Octavio’s diary, or that he had gone to the Fault Line by choice and then navigated his way out of it on his own, who knew what Gideon would do?
Gideon looked into his emptying mug of cider. “You two go on up to your rooms-plenty of time to talk. We still have you for a while longer. But this is all top secret! You two made me a promise, remember…” Gideon’s eyes filled with dark emotions.
“Sure.” Tyler nodded and got to his feet. “We made you a promise.” He swayed a little, and Lucinda stepped forward and put a hand under his elbow.
“Come on,” she said. “Good night, everybody.”
Tyler couldn’t help noticing that a number of new, quiet conversations had already started in the room before they even reached the door.
“Tyler!” Lucinda whispered as they climbed the stairs. “You were so totally right about Mrs. Needle being a witch!”
He tried to concentrate while she told him about the kitchen conversation, but it only confirmed what he had already known in his heart. “Bad,” he said. “She’s bad. But there’s more than that going on. They still haven’t told us… ” He shook his head. “I can’t think, Luce. Too tired. Tomorrow… ”
“But there were people trying to get onto the property-Mr. Walkwell caught one. And… and I think I heard the ghost. I heard it in my head! I’m scared, Tyler. I want to go home.”
“Are you kidding?” He was so exhausted he was slurring his words. “Things are just getting good.”
Tyler left his sister in the hallway. He managed only to kick off his shoes before he fell on the bed and tumbled down into a deep sleep.
