Seeds of Time (7 page)

In the hours after the accident, the doctors (not including Darrell's mother, who found herself to be more shattered than Darrell's ankle) worked long and hard to try to save the foot. They thought about re-building the ankle, replacing the joint, microsurgery, and more. But Darrell's ankle, in spite of the indomitable spirit of its owner, refused to participate in the healing process. Infection set in and a further surgery was performed, removing the shattered bone, skin, sinew, and flesh below the knee. Pain, physiotherapy, and prosthesis — the three terrible P's — had followed.

Brodie looked horrified. “It's amazing you're alive!”

Darrell nodded. “It is, I guess. I never really thought of it that way. I lost my dad and my leg — well, part of it anyway — and for a long time I felt like I had lost my life, too. Things just aren't the same anymore.”

Brodie put his head into his hands, and they sat in silence for a few moments.

“I'm really sorry,” he said quietly. “Does your leg still hurt?”

Darrell smiled. “Just my ankle,” she said ruefully. “It really kills me on rainy nights.”

Brodie looked baffled. He looked more closely at the prosthetic leg. “Your ankle?” he said slowly. “But, you lost your leg below the knee.”

Darrell shrugged and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Tell that to my ankle,” she said. “I can always tell when the rain is coming.”

A buzzer sounded in the distance. Darrell and Brodie looked up. They could see Kate running across the sand, waving.

“I guess it's time to go back,” said Brodie.

Darrell jumped up. “Come on, I'll race you!” She took off like a bullet in the characteristic hop-skip running style that was all her own. Caught by surprise, it took Brodie a minute to realize what was happening. He was about to be creamed by a girl with one leg.

He scooped up his pack and ran after Darrell. “Wait up!” he called without thinking. He and Darrell reached Kate together, Delaney right at their heels. Gasping for breath, they looked at each other and burst out laughing at Kate's shocked expression. They turned and headed up the winding path toward the school.

Since the accident, Darrell had never cried in public. Much like her daily sessions standing on cold concrete, not crying was a point of pride, a way to prove something to herself. She was surprised that the talk with Brodie and even breaking down and crying did not make her feel angry at her own weakness. Instead, for some reason, things felt better. Their short walk left Darrell feeling lighter in spirit than she had for a long time. Things had also improved with Kate. Darrell still wasn't sure she was ready to trust anyone, but she might try to discuss her lingering questions about the crab trappers, if she could manage to do it without alienating Kate and Brodie again.

Darrell tried to draw on these positive feelings, and she approached her self-portrait with a new vigour. In the weeks since Mr. Gill had given the assignment, she
had struggled to find a direction to take. Every class, she had walked from easel to easel, looking at the choices the other students had made. One portrait took on the formal tones of a Rembrandt while the next had a distinct Andy Warhol feel.

The morning after the walk with Brodie, Darrell stood at her easel and clutched her paintbrush with the familiar feeling of anger and puzzlement gnawing at her. She glanced up at Mr. Gill as he helped out a student across the room. Once again, the face of Leonardo da Vinci flashed through her mind. In less than a moment, she made a decision.

At least Mr. Gill doesn't dictate one style over the other
, she thought as she dug around in her box of supplies.
Let's see what he thinks of this
.

At last, she had begun her self-portrait.

When she woke early the following Saturday and glanced at her watch, the date caught her eye. Darrell realized with surprise that she had been at Eagle Glen for nearly a month. It was not yet six o'clock, so she pulled the pillow over her head to try to go back to sleep. Eagle Glen catered only to boarding students, so classes were not completely cancelled on the weekends but instead ran to a modified schedule, allowing more free time for personal interests. Darrell planned to
spend the day mucking about with her self-portrait in the art studio. She was working with acrylics for the first time and really enjoying the flexibility of the colour and texture of the paint.

Lying in bed, her mind still whirled with the questions she had written in her notebook. She found that she could not go back to sleep after all. Breakfast wasn't served until nine on Saturdays. Darrell grabbed her sandals and her backpack with her camera and art supplies and ran down to the kitchen anyway. She poured a cup of coffee and quickly headed outside to size up the day. The sun had not yet risen over the mountains, and Darrell walked over to the concrete slab outside the kitchen door and automatically stepped up on it in her bare feet to drink her coffee.

She thought about the time she had spent every day, training Delaney, and how she had just taught him how to sniff out which of two closed hands held a treat. She was particularly proud of the way he seriously placed his paw on the hand holding the treat and then waited patiently for his reward. Delaney was a swift learner, and she had a sudden urge to see him before class.

Maybe I'll skip this today
, she thought suddenly and hopped off the slab, before her bare foot had even a chance to feel cold. She drained her coffee, put on her sandals, and then ran over and scrambled up the arbutus. She had not noticed Conrad on the beach since the
incident with Kate and Brodie, though she had spied him racing in his boat with his friends. He had been speeding along the north end of the beach near a group of large boulders that had tumbled from the cliffs down into the sea.

From her perch the beach looked deserted, and she decided to go down and investigate something she had seen on her walk with Brodie. She felt in her pocket for the bun and bacon she had taken from the kitchen on the way to grab her coffee.

The boulders near where she had seen Conrad in his boat formed a barrier that effectively hid part of the rock wall from anyone further down the beach and created a little protected cove. Darrell walked down to have a look at the cove and also at a little cleft she had noticed in the rock while hunting for fossils with Brodie.

As Darrell emerged from the winding path, Delaney bounded joyfully up the beach to meet her. He snuffled her hand, and she gave him the bacon and bun she had brought from the kitchen.

“We'll check your water later, Delaney,” she said. “Let's go see if Conrad's been on this part of the beach.” Glancing around a little nervously, she made sure that there were no boats in the water or distant figures on the stretch of shoreline before she headed back toward the rock wall.

The morning was still grey and the water was calm, but the humid, sluggish air warned of an approaching storm. The high tide meant Darrell and Delaney had to skirt very close to the cliffs to get around the massive reach of boulders. Looking above the tide line on the sand, Darrell noticed many footprints criss-crossing each other, blurry and indistinct in the grey light of early morning.

She bent down to study them more closely when Delaney gave a short bark. Darrell looked over to see he was pawing at a small white plastic container, about the size and shape of a shoebox, that had fallen over onto the sand. She ran over to find a whole stack of similar boxes crammed in between two of the large boulders. If the top box had not fallen out of its place, Darrell would have never noticed them, as they were covered with camouflage netting and were almost completely hidden from view.

Darrell looked into the box that was tipped over on the beach. It was filled with dozens of compact disc cases and a sealed bag of what looked like computer components. She sat back on her heels and thought for a moment.

“There's something going on here that's bigger than crab poaching, Delaney,” she said thoughtfully. Looking again to see that no one was around, she turned back and stepped slowly along the face of the
rock wall. Near the tide line, where the water lapped the shore, Darrell found what she was looking for. The cleft in the rock wall was very narrow, and Darrell reached her arm inside to see if there would be room to slide into it. To her surprise, she felt nothing with her arm except open air. She squeezed around the corner and found that the cleft opened up into a cave. It was not very bright, lit only through a crack in the rock face above.

Darrell peered out the entrance of the cave and discovered that she had a perfect view of the little protected cove and the stash of boxes on the beach. She looked delightedly at the dog.

“This is it, Delaney! This is our way of catching Connie at whatever he's up to.” She ruffled the dog's fur and then gave him the signal for
Stay
she had been practicing with him over the past few weeks. Delaney dropped to the sand and wriggled contentedly, his head in his paws. He looked up at her, raising alternating eyebrows.

She dropped to her knees in the sand and opened her backpack. Inside, among her art supplies, she found the small camera that she used for taking landscape pictures. She also grabbed a small flashlight. It was dark and dank in the cave, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know if anything lived inside.

As Darrell slipped her camera and flashlight into her pocket she noticed the medieval woodcut print tucked
in the side of her pack. She slid it into her pocket to look at later and ran up the beach to find a fallen branch on the sand. Walking quickly backwards down the beach with the branch dragging behind her, she carefully obliterated her footprints.

She poked her head around the corner of the cave, and Delaney sat up in his spot.

“Good dog, Delaney!” Darrell fed him some of the dry dog food in her pack as a reward for his long stay. She dropped the cedar branch behind her on the sandy floor of the cave. In the distance she heard the roar of a motor. She checked her watch: 6:20
A.M
.

Silently she readjusted her position, carefully stretching each leg before returning to her spot in the sand. Her biggest worry right now was the light. “Next time, I'll have to bring Kate,” she muttered under her breath. Darrell's camera was the simple single-action, point-and-shoot variety. Kate had a great digital camera with some kind of special ability to take pictures in near-darkness. Her expertise with digital photography would have been helpful, though Darrell was doubtful of Kate's ability to rise this early. She clicked off the flash button and leaned against the clammy rock face inside the cave. The air felt dank and still.

Delaney lay quietly on the sand. His wet nose touched her ankle, and she bent to give him a reassuring
pat. She looked into his brown eyes and felt happy for his company.

A gentle beam of light slid through the darkness of the cave. Darrell silently gave thanks. The sun had not yet risen over the mountains, but the sky had lightened and daylight slipped through the crack in the rock face above. With daylight came a better chance to get pictures. At the same time, her heart sank. Daylight also meant a greater chance of being caught herself, a prospect she didn't relish. She remembered with a pang that she had not told anyone where she was going.

Her chest rose and fell silently. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears. It sounded much louder to her than the waves lapping on the beach.

All her energy was poured into listening.

The engine noise died in the distance, so at first she wasn't sure. The sound, a low crunch, sounded like a part of the background: the noise of the tide gliding in over the rocks, broken shells, and sand on the beach. She heard it again and knew it for what it was. A footstep. Darrell tightened her grip on the camera, drew her breath in through her teeth, and waited. Everything depended on her silence right now.

The voices grew louder, though whoever was out there was speaking in low tones and was still at some
distance from Darrell's hiding place in the cave. Delaney stirred, his ears forward and his eyes alert. Darrell gave him the hand signal for S
tay
, and he remained motionless in his spot on the sand. She slid silently closer to the cave entrance, her camera poised.

Darrell peeked with one eye around the edge of the rock that guarded the entrance to the cave. Lichen scraped her cheek, but she ignored it as she aimed her camera at the action unfolding nearby.

A small boat was pulled up past the water line on the beach inside the tiny cove formed by the sweep of boulders that marched from the cliffs to the shore. The spot was completely shielded from the view of the school by the giant rocks. Two figures were loading the white plastic boxes into the boat, and Darrell could see that one of them was Conrad, dressed from head to toe in black. He wore a black woollen hat on his head and had smudges of mud smeared on his face. She pulled her head back into the cave for a moment, stifling a smile. He was clearly taking this commando business seriously.

Checking her camera, Darrell could see she had several shots left. She took a step backwards to make sure that no one outside would hear the advancing of the film, and her foot jammed against something soft. Delaney gave a little squeak as Darrell tumbled to the sandy floor of the cave with a thud.

Darrell could hear a sudden silence as all activity outside came to an abrupt halt.

“Did you hear anything?” she heard Conrad hiss anxiously on the beach. She sat on the floor of the cave, frozen with fear, her leg wrapped around Delaney's front paws, over which she had tripped. She didn't dare to move for fear of further alerting Conrad, but she had fallen in a position where she could not see what was going on outside.

Another voice, low pitched and rough, spoke out.

“It may have just been the sound of the water in the rocks,” the voice began. “Or it could be a problem. Conrad! You told me there wouldn't be any problems.”