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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McQuerry, Maureen, 1955–

  The telling stone / by Maureen Doyle McQuerry.

  pages cm. — (Time out of time ; book 2)

  Summary: Timothy James, his sister Sarah, and their friend Jessica race against time and an ancient Evil to save their mother and restore peace and harmony to the Travelers Market.

  Includes glossary and a map with a code for readers to decipher.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-1494-8

  [1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Mythology, Celtic—Fiction. 4. Space and time—Fiction. 5. Magic—Fiction. 6. Animals, Mythical—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M24715Tim 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014019618

  Text copyright © 2015 Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  Book design by Jessie Gang

  Published in 2015 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

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  FOR THE BOYS FROM THE BASEMENT WHO INSPIRED ME SO LONG AGO: BRENNAN, JOHN, THE MICHAELS, BEN, AND BRENT

  SEE THIS PAGE TO LEARN ABOUT THE TREE CODE USED IN THIS BOOK.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1 THE BATTLE OF THE TREES

  1 THE GOOSE WOMAN

  2 ERMINES AND FERRETS

  3 THE RUBY NECKLACE

  4 GATHERING

  5 THE PIPES OF WAR

  6 THE HEALER

  7 THE BIRDS

  8 PETER’S RETURN

  9 THE ROAD HOME

  10 SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT

  11 AT MR. TWIG’S HOUSE

  12 THE MAGICIAN’S TRICK

  13 SCOTLAND!

  14 SILVER DUST

  15 ELECTRA

  16 PROFESSOR TWIG

  17 THE SÍDHE

  PART 2 WHEN MYTHS WALK

  18 EDINBURGH

  19 THE CASTLE

  20 THE STONE OF DESTINY

  21 THE CARTOGRAPHER’S SHOP

  22 CODE CRACKING

  23 COMPASS POINTS

  24 A HORN IN THE NIGHT

  25 ICE STORM, DECEMBER 23

  26 THE MAP AND THE HILL

  27 CHRISTMAS EVE

  28 THE BIRD

  29 FINULA

  30 CHRISTMAS DAY

  31 DUNSINANE

  32 BOXING DAY

  33 THE BULL

  34 THE CUPPED STONES

  35 STONEWORK

  36 THE SPEAR OF LUGH

  37 MORGAN’S KISS

  38 THE HUNT RETURNS

  39 THE FILIDH RETURNS

  40 PARTINGS

  41 BALOR

  42 A NEW CHAPTER

  EPILOGUE

  THE TREE CODE

  MYTHIC GLOSSARY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  NSIDE A BRIGHTLY painted caravan, Balor stared into the cracking flames of a woodstove and wondered whether the rat had killed the woman. His long golden curls fell forward, almost covering his face. Around him silver cages were stacked among traps and elegant snares. He warmed his hands close to the flames. The night was cold and strangely silent, the only noise the hiss and pop of the burning logs. After leaving the Market, he had traveled deep into the surrounding woods. Here nothing would disturb him except the hoot of owls or the rustle of night predators hunting for food.

  He reached into the pocket of his tapestry vest and withdrew a small cobalt-blue bottle. Unstopping the lid, he sprinkled a fine gray powder into the fire. The flames leapt higher. Yes, he could see things quite clearly now. The boy, Timothy James Maxwell, was home tending to his mother. Somehow she had survived. Timothy had found a cure for the toxin that had entered her system when she was bitten by the rat. Rat-bite fever wasn’t usually fatal, but this had been no ordinary rat. It had been sent as a warning to Timothy and a reminder of the Dark’s power. The Dark didn’t like to have its warnings ignored.

  Balor blew into the fire. The flames shivered. He had done everything he could to bind the boy to him. He’d appealed to Timothy’s sense of pride by offering to make him his assistant Animal Tamer. He had sickened the boy’s mother and imprisoned his sister, Sarah Marie. Now he would use their friend, the curly-haired Jessica Church, as bait. When Timothy returned, Balor would own him. But first the Travelers’ Market must be destroyed.

  He opened the caravan door and walked down the folding steps. The sharp air bit at his face. He would search Timothy out just as he hunted his exotic animals. He was the Animal Tamer; he would catch Timothy, the Filidh by birth, a keeper of memories and wisdom. Timothy would have no choice but to lead him to the map he needed to find the Stone of Destiny. Once he had the map and the stone, he would have no further use for Timothy and his companions. If he eliminated the boy and his sister, no one else would remain of the true line of Filidhean. He, Balor, would rule without contest! The old stories would be forgotten. He would establish his own truth, and that truth would become the memories of the people.

  An animal mewled. One of the snow leopard cubs was restless, its cries only a minor distraction from his plan. The Light wouldn’t easily give up the Market and its Filidh. A defeat at the Market would tip the balance of power. It would put other worlds at risk. If it came to a battle, he would need allies. The sound of murmuring voices made Balor pause. But it was only the wind stirring up the leaves.

  The Greenman moved through the forest of old trees circling the Market, assessing his troops. The oldest, an oak, Quercus robur, had seen one thousand years. Its thick trunk was muscled like the torso of an aged wrestler. Even six men, arms outstretched, could not circle its girth. While the oak was the eldest, many of the trees in this part of the forest had lived through more than a hundred cycles of life: sap running, leaf budding, green unfurling, and color turning, golds and reds falling to the wind-rattled bare limbs of winter. Soon the trees would be awakened, needed for battle. He scanned the sky; it was a cloudless wash of blue.

  There was a time beyond most human memory when the trees had rarely slept. When they had been the guardians of the earth, and humans mere caretakers. That time had long passed, and the Greenman grieved its loss, knowing it would never come again. He stretched, straightening his limbs; a bird flew from his branches.

  He moved less stiffly now, though still more tree than man in appearance. In these next days the Market would be at risk. Balor would grow bolder now that Timothy was of an age to claim his title. The Greenman listened to the wind rising. It rustled his leaves as a breeze might lift the hair of a man or woman. The quest had been thrust upon Timothy Maxwell. But Timothy, he knew, was not alone. He, Cerridwyn, and Gwydon had known Filidhean throughout the centuries, and others had known them as well: Mr. Twig and Julian. Sarah and Jessica had their own roles in the story that was unfolding. Still, it would take time for Timothy
to grow into his powers. Whatever the outcome, it would be witnessed by Electra, one of the Pleiad sisters come to observe this intersection of history, to bear witness to the events leading to the crowning of a new Filidh.

  Timothy had escaped Balor twice, once from his workshop and once from a challenge in the Market. And Timothy had risked himself for Jessica Church even before she was his friend. The Greenman thought of the leaf he had plucked from his own branch. In Timothy’s hand it had grown as hard as glass, and its color shaded from cool blue to hot red. It allowed Timothy to measure danger, to gauge whom to trust. The leaf grew warmer to the touch as danger increased. It seemed a small thing against the growing Dark. Yet, the Greenman knew, Timothy kept it with him always. For now the leaf and its ability to warn was his only defense.

  THE GOOSE WOMAN

  O ONE HAD ever told Jessica Church how to rescue a girl who was enchanted. Yet here she was, alone in a strange market somewhere in time, trying to help her friend Sarah Maxwell, who had been turned into an ermine. Jessica sat on a bench away from the bustle of the Travelers’ Market. A beautiful white ermine lay curled in her lap. The bench was hidden behind a cartload of apples, and she was glad for the temporary cover because she had stolen the long, sinewy animal from its cage when the Animal Tamer was distracted. Now she had no idea what to do next. As she worried, she absently stroked the animal’s lithe body. “Don’t fret. I’ll think of something soon.” Did ermines worry? She had no idea. “Sarah, can you understand anything I’m saying?”

  A leg twitched. Did that mean anything? Jessica didn’t know. She considered the animal’s bright brown eyes. She’d never had a pet. She didn’t particularly like animals; they were smelly, and many of them drooled. If only the Greenman was here to help.

  A shout dragged Jessica from her thoughts. She startled, almost dropping Sarah. The ermine squirmed. A man’s voice boomed, followed by a steady stream of curses. Jessica’s fingers tightened around the ermine’s narrow body. She could feel the rapid heartbeat, the small bones beneath the silken fur. The animal twisted in her hands, and Jessica loosened her grip, just a little. She didn’t want to get bitten again.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do.” It felt ridiculous apologizing to an ermine, even when that ermine had once been one of her friends. Jessica shoved the still-squirming Sarah into a burlap sack. The bag bulged and wiggled. Claws scrabbled at the fabric. She eyed the thumb her friend had bitten when she’d grabbed her from the cage. In no time at all Sarah would chew or claw her way through the sack. Jessica needed a safe place to hide her friend and fast.

  The shouting subsided. Sarah stopped thrashing, and the bag on Jessica’s lap lay still. Jessica brushed a curly strand of hair from her eyes and took slow, deep breaths. She needed to put some distance between herself and the scene of the crime.

  Peering out from behind the apple cart, she considered her next move. Any minute now the Animal Tamer might find her, and then what would happen? Her memory replayed the Animal Tamer’s laugh as he turned Sarah into an ermine and locked her away. Their friend Peter had tried to save Sarah. He’d caused a distraction so Jessica could get to the cage. And it had worked. But distraction hadn’t worked so well for Peter. The last Jessica had seen of him was as a slinking brown ferret. She shuddered.

  As Jessica watched the crowd, an idea unfolded. The Travelers’ Market was bustling with men and women bartering wares, buying apples, filling their bags with green and gold squash, arguing over the price for a cheese. Her best hope would be to blend in with the crowd, a curly-haired girl carrying a dirty bag that might be full of a day’s purchases. She’d get far enough away from the Animal Tamer’s stall that she’d be able to think clearly and come up with a plan. Dusting off her skirt and with a firm grip on the sack, Jessica walked briskly into the crowd, looking straight ahead as if she had somewhere important to go. No one noticed how fast her heart was beating. It took great effort not to run.

  Was it only a day ago she’d come to the Market with Sarah and Timothy Maxwell to find a cure for their mother, who was desperately ill with rat-bite fever? No, she reminded herself, they hadn’t come to this market between worlds; they’d been led there through a portway by a scrawny little man called Nom, who looked like a rat himself. He had promised this was the place to search for a cure. And they’d be given an ointment, something that Timothy could take back to his mother. But nothing had gone as smoothly as Nom had promised. The Dark was already there waiting for them: Balor the One-Eyed disguised as the handsome Animal Tamer, and Tristan, the Master of the Market, who was his pawn.

  Behind her something hissed. Jessica froze. Had she been discovered? Before she could turn, something pinched the back of her thigh right through her long skirt and twisted. Jessica screamed. She grabbed for her leg. The bag spilled open.

  “Sarah!”

  In a flash the ermine was out of the sack, a white streak winding away behind a barrel of grain. Jessica dove after her, but the ermine was too fast. It disappeared from sight. Jessica swore in frustration, then screamed as something else took a pinch of her backside. She swung around. A large white goose thrust its serpentine neck forward, yellow beak and shiny black eyes just inches from her nose. Spreading its wings, it hissed a threat. In response Jessica rose up to her full height. The animal thrust its neck forward.

  “There, there, my pretty boy, leave the young lady alone!” A short gray-haired woman in a red bandanna tapped the animal’s neck with a stick. The goose straightened up, head wobbling but still hissing. Then she rapped him again, more sharply this time. The animal turned and waddled back to its gaggle. “I expect you’ll have a rare bruise there by morning.” The woman turned to Jessica. “And you’ve lost your pet, too,” she added with a cluck as she tucked her stick back under her arm.

  “She’s not my pet!” Jessica sobbed. Her leg stung like fury. Where was Sarah? She dropped gingerly to hands and knees, peering beneath tables of fruit and behind baskets of nuts. With every movement, she winced.

  It was no use. Sarah was gone. Jessica collapsed in the dirt with her nose running, a waterfall of tears coursing down her cheeks. She wiped her nose with her sleeve, but the harder she tried to stop crying, the more she cried. She cried because she had lost Sarah and Peter, because Timothy was gone, but mostly she cried for herself, stuck in this miserable Market.

  “Oh, my, this isn’t good, isn’t good at all.” The old goose woman bent over and peered into Jessica’s face. Her gaggle crowded close behind her, strutting and honking. “It can’t be that bad, now, can it? Well, I suppose it can. But how can I help you, since it was my dandy boy who caused the problem in the first place?” The old woman took Jessica’s arm and with surprising strength pulled her to her feet. “Suppose you tell me the whole thing, eh? Get back there, Minerva!” She wielded her stick at a big gray goose with a bulbous beak that was about to help itself to a barrel of grain.

  Too miserable to resist, Jessica found herself being steered by the arm to a bench beside a large pen.

  “You sit here”—the goose woman pushed Jessica onto the bench—“while I put my beauties away.” With a series of clucks and a few well-timed taps of the stick, the old woman managed to corral the entire gaggle into the pen. The geese fretted and honked in protest for a few seconds and then settled down to drink from a metal trough in the shade of an oak tree. She dipped a long-handled cup into a wooden barrel.

  “Here you go, Jessica,” the woman said finally, wrapping Jessica’s hand around a cool cup of water.

  “How do you know my name?” Jessica asked between sniffles. She was sure she had never seen the goose woman before.

  “So, you’ve forgotten me already?”

  And as Jessica watched, the lines in the woman’s old, round face softened, and her gray hair lengthened and cascaded into red waves around her shoulders.

  “Cerridwyn?” Jessica gasped. Could this be the same fierce huntress who had led her, Sarah, and Timothy into their first adven
ture? The same woman who had once been disguised as Jessica’s elderly great-aunt?

  “Yes, it’s me. Do you remember your first lesson? After the night of the storm when the Wild Hunt rode, you and I traveled together. Remember the first rule I taught you? Things aren’t always as they seem.”

  “But I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.”

  “I have had many names in many places. I told you that you would never see me again as I was in your world, your great-aunt Rosemary Clapper.”

  Nothing could have prepared Jessica for the events of the past few months: traveling through portways, fleeing from flying wolves, and discovering that her great-aunt Rosemary wasn’t just an old family friend but Cerridwyn, a character right out of Celtic mythology. Now here she was, just when Jessica needed her! Cerridwyn would help her, would tell her what to do.

  “It seems your friends have had a very difficult time of it.”

  “My friends?” Resentment sharpened Jessica’s voice. “I’m the one having a hard time! Timothy’s gone home with an ointment for his mother, and I got left behind to help Sarah. And even if I do find her, I don’t know how to turn her back into a girl. And Peter tried to help, but—”

  “Yes, he needs help, too. It can’t be pleasant being changed into a ferret! Nasty, slinking creatures. Always stealing eggs.” She glanced fondly at her gaggle, then turned back to Jessica with a solemn face. “I’m afraid things may get worse before they get better; they often do. But things won’t get better if you keep thinking of yourself first.”

  Jessica’s face flamed at Cerridwyn’s words. It was hard to think about how her friends felt when she felt so alone herself.

  Cerridwyn watched her with sharp eyes. “You are not alone.”

  How did Cerridwyn always know what she was thinking?

  At Cerridwyn’s urging, Jessica took a swallow of the sweet water. She wiped the back of her hand across her lips. “I think the Animal Tamer knows I’ve stolen Sarah.”