Secret of Light

What price will be paid for dancing with Time?

Darrell Connor is back for another term at Eagle Glen Alternative School, but is shocked to find that along with her friends Brodie and Kate, her nemesis Conrad Kennedy has enrolled at the school. The memory of her recent visit to medieval Scotland is still fresh and when Darrell and her dog Delaney investigate an abandoned lighthouse, they discover another route into the past. Lost in the magical beauty of Renaissance Italy, Darrell meets a young artist with fiery ambition. Does Leonardo hold the key to resolving the tragedy of her own past? Ignoring the advice of a kindly stranger, Darrell embarks on a desperate journey to find the answers to her own fears, unaware of the price she and her friends will pay for dancing with time.

An excerpt from the novel...

The room was empty and almost as dark as the stable had been. A small fire burned low in a grate in one corner, providing the only source of light in the tightly shuttered room. Darrell stepped quietly around a table laden with parchment and other paper-like materials. She rubbed the oily texture of a page between her fingers.

A scratching sound under the far side of the table caused her to stop and peer through the gloom for any further sign of rodents. One rat was more than enough for the day. Rising onto the toes of her left foot, she cautiously stepped around the loaded table. The sound came again, and Darrell gathered her skirts around her knees and squinted at the surrounding floor.

Like a wraith rising from the ground, a ghostly white face hovered over the far side of the table. Darrell bit down hard on her lower lip to stop from yelling out loud.

“You’re not going to scream, are you?” the head inquired.

Darrell, dumb with fear, shook her head.

“You can drop your skirts. There are no mice here, or rats either, for that matter. Dante looks after them.” As if to prove the point, a cat slipped between her feet, arching his back against the chiselled wood of her leg. Thinking of her neighbour’s cat Norton, she reached down for a pat, but the cat slipped off into the shadows.

Darrell let the silky material of her heavy skirts rustle out of her numb fingers, and gathered her courage.

“You can’t be a ghost,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily, “though your face is so white, you look like one.”

The pallid face took on a thoughtful expression as it examined Darrell. “How can you be so sure?” it asked, and then stood, removing all doubt.

Darrell, her initial fear gone, looked at the figure in front of her with some curiosity. She stepped around the table and gestured at the floor. “Most ghosts don’t have feet.”

“Perhaps then it is I who should worry about strange, spectral girls wandering about, as you clearly don’t have feet either, from the sound of it.”

Darrell flushed and sagged against the table for a moment, avoiding his eyes. Then she lifted her chin.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “Though that does not make me a ghost, only a girl with one sound leg and one wooden.”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed and jumped at her in such a startling way she was forced to take a step backwards. “Let me see it, per favore, per favore! I want to examine how it works and how you are able to get around so well.” Darrell stepped back again, amazed that someone taller than she could sound so much like a small boy wheedling for a treat.

“Certainly not!” She knew from her time in the 14th century propriety would frown on her even being in this room unchaperoned with this young man, let alone showing him how her leg attached to the elaborate peg she wore under her heavy skirts. She frowned, a dark crease forming between her eyebrows.

“How do you know I get around easily, anyway? Have you been spying on me?”

The young man looked abashed. “Not spying, really,” he mumbled. “Just paying heed. I watched you walk in here and knew something to be amiss with your gait.”

Her eyes adjusting to the gloom of the darkened room, Darrell took a good look at this curious non-ghost. She could now see his face appeared white because it was well-dusted with chalk, and his hair stood out from his head in tousled red ringlets, with chalk dust liberally distributed through it as well. His hands were dirty and clutched a half-completed sketch along with the offending stick of chalk. From his appearance Darrell decided he must be fifteen or sixteen.

“You must be my friend’s cousin.”

Darrell raised her eyebrows, but didn’t reply.

An impatient look crossed his face. “Well, are you or aren’t you? Giovanni told me his cousin was coming to apprentice with my master for the season, but he didn’t mention a girl.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said his cousin is coming here from afar, and will stay with his family.” The young man gave her a long, appraising look, and then leaned over and lit a small taper from the fire in the corner grate.

Darrell frowned. “Did he say I am an artist, too?” she asked coldly.

“No, he did not. You are a girl, so I know it cannot be possible. You are his cousin also?”

Darrell laughed, and the boy flushed bright red. “I am the one who should be laughing, not you. Girls cannot be artists!”

Darrell tucked her amusement into her cheek. “Why not?”

He looked flustered. “Well, because your job is to run the household, not to draw and paint. How can you sculpt or paint with any accuracy if you are not apprenticed to a professional artist? Besides,” he scoffed, warming to his subject, “girls are stupid. They are not fit for a man’s work. They cannot see the world through the eyes of humanity.”

Darrell felt surprised at the extent of his prejudice. “Do you not think girls and women are human?” she asked.

He thought a moment. “I do believe they are human,” he answered slowly, his eyes looking into the distance. “Just a little less human than men.” He puffed his chest importantly, obviously proud of his membership in the superior of the species.

Darrell bit her tongue and changed the subject, thinking a lecture on women’s rights might not find interested ears at this moment. “What have you got there?” she asked, indicating the half-finished drawing.

He cast it carelessly down on the table-top. “It is a study for an idea I have,” he said, with a slight frown.

Darrell picked up the page. “It looks like a shield,” she said. “Like a family emblem or coat of arms.”

He looked at her with some admiration. “That is true. I am designing a crest to show my father — to show him…”

“To show him what?” Darrell was curious.

“To show him I can,” he said, and slammed his hand on the table-top. “I will show him all this and more. See here…” He pulled a small, leather-bound notebook from a satchel slung over a chair. “I write down all my thoughts and ideas and I keep them with me always.” He flipped the pages, holding the book a little too close to her face.

Darrell stepped back. The book was half-filled with notes in some strange kind of code, drawings, art studies and more.

“What is this?” she asked, sliding her finger into one of the pages.

A dark passion filled his eyes and he grinned ferociously. “This? This is the clock I designed to run with the power of water. And this? A study I made of birds that I will transform into a machine to make men fly — into the skies above us and perhaps one day into the past or the future.”

Darrell jumped a little, her heart pounding at his words. She slipped over to the doorway. “I’ve got to go and find my friends,” she murmured, fearful an adult would be drawn by the volume of his voice.

“I have to work anyhow,” the young man sneered, having clearly forgotten his interest in her leg. “I don’t have time to talk with stupid girls.”

Darrell gritted her teeth. “I am not a stupid girl,” she said. “My name is Darrell.”

“Who cares for your ridiculous name?” he said, throwing back his shoulders. “After I complete this design, only one name in all of Firenze will be heard on everyone’s lips.”

Darrell lifted the corner of her own lip sceptically. “And that is…?”

He grinned at her, and for a split second she was taken by the charm of his smile.

“Why, Leonardo, of course.”

Darrell fled.

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