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Chapter Eighteen

B en had been worried that the letters on the standing stone would be nothing more than gibberish…or at least, symbols representing gibberish, just like the Ogham text they’d found carved into the trees in the oak grove. If that turned out to be the case here, he wasn’t sure what he would do next.

Go to Sidney at one like they’d planned and tell her he’d hit a brick wall once again, he supposed.

That wasn’t what happened, though. Sure, the online translator didn’t recognize the word at all, but when he just straight-up Googled it, the results came back faster than he’d thought.

Dark.

The word “dark” in seventh-century Old Irish, to be precise. Why that particular word had been inscribed on the standing stones, he had no idea, but he assumed it had to mean something.

What, though? Why that one word and not something else?

He didn’t know. He also didn’t know why anyone would be using a language that had never been spoken in this country — well, excepting any philologists and linguists who made a study of dead languages.

Still, it wasn’t as if he was dealing with Latin or French or the tongue of the indigenous people who’d once occupied this region.

And although Henry Ogilvy had eventually gotten back to him, his email had pretty much pointed out that Ben had already gathered enough information on his own to have the knowledge he required for this particular situation.

After all, he was only translating a word here and there, not an entire text written in the ancient letters.

Long ago, he’d gotten into the habit of pacing in his office when he needed to think something through.

He did the same thing now, glad that he was presently the only guest at the B&B and therefore didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone else in the house except Mabel.

Of course, this would have been a lot easier at home, where he didn’t have to navigate around a big four-poster bed and a chair and matching footstool and a couple of plant stands, but it still felt better than simply sitting at the table he was using as a desk and trying to puzzle through the problem that way.

Why “dark”? Why not “tree” or “stone” or “star”?

Right then, he wished he had access to some real research material and not whatever he was able to dig up on the internet.

University libraries contained troves that couldn’t always be accessed by the regular person off the street, and he thought maybe if he could read some in-depth studies on the old Irish language, one that predated modern Irish by centuries, he might be able to discover if they’d used “dark” as a synonym for something else, like an oak tree or a slab of granite or whatever.

The standing stones hadn’t been carved from granite, though. They’d gleamed pale in the light from the bioluminescent moss and the other glowing plants in the clearing, making him think they were probably limestone.

Was limestone even common in northern California? He wasn’t a geologist, so he really had no idea. It would be easy enough to look up, he supposed, and yet he couldn’t help wondering if those standing stones had been made from a material just as otherworldly as the unicorn itself.

Goddamn. He’d seen a real, live unicorn the night before. Why that should be particularly dumbfounding when he’d spent the last six years of his life immersed in the world of cryptozoology, he couldn’t say.

Possibly because there had been a whole hell of a lot more Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster — and yes, chupacabra — sightings than there had ever been any reported encounters with unicorns.

It wasn’t that people hadn’t claimed to have seen them, but more that it wasn’t too difficult for those stories to be debunked.

Dark.

All right, it had been a dark night, without even the slightest sliver of a moon. But….

Ben’s thoughts trailed off then, and he wanted to smack his forehead in realization.

Of course. Last night had been the new moon.

Did that mean the portal only appeared during that one particular phase of the moon?

If that was the case, then they’d have to wait a whole other month for it to reappear.

Not that he was averse to spending all that time here in Silver Hollow, especially when Sidney had been acting a lot friendlier today, but he wasn’t sure his budget could handle that long a stay.

And yet….

Technically, the new moon only lasted a single day. But the days on either side of it were also very dark, with the sliver of the waning or waxing moon so slender, it was barely noticeable.

Would that count as “dark,” according to the person…or other being…who’d carved the word into the standing stones?

Only one way to find out, he supposed, and luckily for him and Sidney, they’d have another night like that tonight.

He glanced over at the clock. Twelve forty-five, which meant she’d be here in another fifteen minutes. Right now, that felt like an interminable span of time, but he’d have to wait it out.

To keep himself busy, he checked his findings against other online resources he’d discovered, but they all seemed to confirm what he already knew. Those letters spelled out “dark” in the ancient Irish tongue, and his theory seemed to make sense.

They’d just have to confirm it to make sure.

At exactly one o’clock, someone knocked at the door to his room. Ben hurried over to open it, revealing a Sidney who looked much more upbeat than he was used to.

“The mayor tried to lie his way out of everything,” she said without preamble as she came inside.

“But he was so bad at it that I could tell he was trying to provide cover for Victor Maplehurst. So I told Eliza what was going on, and she got in touch with the town council members. They’re going to have a meeting tomorrow night to let everyone know what’s going on.

By the time that’s done, I doubt Mr. Maplehurst will want to show his face around here any time soon. ”

This was all excellent news, especially the part where the town meeting wouldn’t be happening until tomorrow night. That would leave Sidney free this evening to go back out to the woods with him and see if the standing stones would be there after night fell.

Assuming, of course, that she was willing to prove his theory in real time.

“I figured that was what happened after I noticed his car was gone,” Ben replied. “And I’m glad that Eliza’s helping to get the word out. I have some news, too.”

As quickly as he could, he explained how he’d discovered that the Ogham letters spelled “dark” in old Irish, and how he’d realized that last night had been the dark of the moon.

“It might still be dark enough tonight for the stone circle to reappear, or it might not,” he concluded. “The only way to know for sure is to go back there and see what happens.”

To his relief, Sidney immediately nodded. “That makes sense,” she said. “At least this time, we’ll be better prepared.”

True enough. They wouldn’t be dashing into the forest, chasing after a unicorn, but retracing the steps they’d taken this morning to get back to civilization.

And she hadn’t questioned him, had taken it on faith that he’d utilized the research skills he’d developed while getting his doctorate to lead them to the place where they needed to be.

“What time is full dark?” she asked next.

Luckily, he’d already looked that up as well. “Late,” he said. “Almost nine o’clock. So if we strike out around nine, it will be very dark by the time we get to the clearing.”

Her mouth twisted in a rueful grin. “When I hear stuff like this, I almost miss Standard time.”

Ben couldn’t really blame her for that. Although he didn’t think he could live in the scorching heat of southern Arizona for more than a few months at a time, he did appreciate the way the state stuck to one time year-round without all that foolishness about springing forward and falling back.

“Look at it this way,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of time to eat and get ready before we head out.”

Some women might have asked if that was an invitation to dinner. Sidney, however, only looked thoughtful. “I suppose so. Do you want me to defrost something else for us?”

That would be the easiest thing. On the other hand, if they went out to eat, they could let themselves be seen in a highly visible place, and people might not be quite so curious as to what exactly they were doing together if it seemed their sole interest was grabbing a meal.

“Let me take you out to dinner,” he suggested. “I figure it’s the least I can do if it turns out this was nothing but a wild goose chase.”

“Sure,” she said. Her expression still serious, she added, “Although something tells me it isn’t going to be a wild goose chase.”

A certain feeling in his bones told him it probably wasn’t. But acting as if everything was normal seemed like a good prelude to heading out into the woods and looking for circles of standing stones.

And unicorns…and glades of glowing moss. Over the past few years, he’d already pretty much trained himself to expect the impossible, but….

“There’s something else, though,” she said, and began digging around in her jeans pocket.

“I was thinking about everything we saw last night and wondering if my mother and grandmother knew about the stone circle as well. It just seems like too much of a coincidence for them to have stumbled onto it out of nowhere, you know?”

Yes, it did. He supposed the real question was, how long had they known about the standing stones?

And why hadn’t they said anything to Sidney?

They probably wanted to keep her safely out of it, he thought. They’d already come to the decision that they needed to solve the mystery once and for all, and that meant making sure she stayed in the dark .