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Prologue Dominic held his breath as he slid the key into the lock on the oaken double doors, the tiny click barely audible over the buzzing in his ears. He pulled the brass handle on the library door and allowed it to swing wide. The scent of leather, aging paper, and wood polish pervaded the space. As the moon pulled its light from the room, the shadows left behind on the wide floorboards seemed to mark the passage of time since the last person had entered the room, like a horizontal sundial. Red velvet drapes, cinched with a length of gold braid, hung in the middle of the windows, silhouetted against the moon's reflection in the lake beyond the diamond-paned glass. His cell phone beeped and he automatically reached for it. The tiny screen announced that he was out of service range. Those that could afford summer homes on the lake griped that their cell phones didn't work up here, yet they refused to allow a tower to be built for fear of destroying the view. Dominic was just as glad for it. He only came here when he wanted to escape the "big city" and all of the complications that went with it. He held down the phone's power button to shut it off and returned the device to his belt. He let go of the brass handle and moved into the room that seemed more sanctuary than athenaeum and tried to sort out the memories that came back to him in a flood. The ancient brocade wall coverings in pale cream, the slippery handrails on the curved stairs to a balcony above him, the painting of a man in a plaid kilt that hung over the mantle... all of those things instantly brought him back to the days he'd spent frolicking with his cousins in the back yard. The smell of pine-scented floor cleaner mixed into rusty water wafted to him from the floor. A deeper breath, and the scent of his grandfather's cherry pipe tobacco reached out to him, pulling him back to the summer that he turned fifteen... the year his father died. He knew where to look; he remembered seeing the books as a child. Like now, he wasn't supposed to be in the library. The ragged leather covers and the gold gilt lettering in some ancient language had drawn him in. His grandfather had caught him in the room, and forbade Dominic from touching the books. That was the day that the lock had gone on the door. His hand quavered for a moment, hovering over the row of books. He closed his eyes and reached out blindly, removing a tome at random. His first glance at the cover did not reveal anything startling. His name was not on the cover... not that he had expected it to be, but.... All right, he had half expected "Dominic Williams" to be written there, but he found a deep sense of relief that it was not. She had planted a seed into his brain with her ramblings, and he almost found himself believing her when she told him that the proof was in his grandfather's house. He didn't have to ask where. He tilted the book toward the moonlight. An inverted triangle with a crescent inside had been scratched into the leather cover, leaving behind a frayed, white tear. He turned the book slightly and glanced again at the spine. The words written there appeared similar to modern French, but were still archaic to him. Année - year - was the only word of the fifteen or so there that he could translate. Shaking his head once to clear it, he flipped open the cover to the first page. The scrawled lettering had faded to a pale brown, and Dominic searched his pocket for the little flashlight he used at crime scenes. Flicking the switch, he moved the halo of light over the slanted text. It is the year 1066. I shouldn't be here. He dropped the book and jerked backward. Not the ancient French that was on the spine, but plain English - modern English. He knew that handwriting. He ought to know it; he saw it everyday on files, reports, and notes. It was his. |
