by Jason Ayres
“In theory, I could take them home, but remember what I explained about the multiverse? Each time I go back I open up a new universe. As far as your universe goes, C.S. Lewis will always have gone missing in 1952. That’s now an established fact. If I do take him back it will be to a direct copy of this universe where he can finish writing his last two Narnia books.”
“I see – sort of. It looks like I’m not going to get to read those last two books anytime soon, then,” replied Peter. “So are you actually going to take these people back if you get back to your own time?”
“I’m not sure yet. Let’s see what happens first. We’re speculating about things we don’t know yet.”
“So why haven’t you come back already?” asked Peter. “Why aren’t you here now to tell us exactly what’s going on? Maybe you never make it back.”
Josh didn’t even want to think about that possibility. It was all very well spending a few months in the twentieth century, but he had no desire to stay there forever.
The two of them had been so wrapped up in their conversation that they hadn’t been concentrating on what they had come down here to do. They had taken their eyes off the riverbank and just as Josh was about to reply they were interrupted by a female voice, but it didn’t come from Rebecca, still watching from afar.
Even so it was a voice that Peter recognised immediately.
“Peter? What’s going on? And why is it so cold?”
“Christina?” replied Peter, turning to look at his ex-girlfriend, who was walking up from the edge of the river towards them. What was she doing here?
His eyes were immediately drawn to her appearance which was all wrong for a crisp, cold January day.
Her straight, short-cut strawberry blonde hair framed a slim, tanned and freckled face. Her chest was slightly sunburnt, as it often was. She always complained that she burned easily during the summer even if she smothered on the high-factor suncream.
He skin was red right down to the top of the skimpy, pale blue summer dress she was wearing. She was dressed for the wrong season and it wasn’t difficult to figure out why.
“You know her?” asked Josh.
“She’s my ex-girlfriend,” replied Peter. “Look at how she’s dressed.”
Christina approached them, shivering profusely.
“I’m freezing!” she exclaimed. “How can it be so cold all of a sudden?”
“That’s a very good question,” came another female voice from behind them.
The two men turned to see Rebecca, who had witnessed everything, including Christina’s appearance out of thin air that Josh and Peter had missed.
“You’re that policewoman we met at Jonty’s house,” exclaimed Josh as he recognised her. “Have you been following us?”
“Yes, I am and you should be thankful it’s my day off today,” replied Rebecca. “Because if I was in uniform, you two would be under arrest.”
“For what exactly?” asked Josh.
That was a good question, thought Rebecca. They hadn’t actually done anything that was recognisable as a crime. She knew they must know something about these disappearances, but how much exactly?
Rebecca had already deduced that the improbable possibility of time travel must somehow be involved. But how could she explain that to the likes of Adam and Dan Bradley down at the station? The simple answer was, she couldn’t.
“That’s a fair point,” she replied after a pause. “What about abduction?”
“Abduction?” asked Christina, hardly able to speak the word due to her teeth chattering. She was still completely bemused about what was going on.
“Here, take my coat,” said Rebecca, removing the thick, woolly garment she had donned before she came out. At least she still had a couple of layers beneath to protect her from the elements.
What was she to do next? She hadn’t really had any intention of arresting anyone, she was just trying to assert a bit of authority. Perhaps that wasn’t the best policy.
She wasn’t the only one flummoxed by the situation and there was a brief pause as the four of them looked at each other, all unsure about what should happen next.
Peter felt particularly uncomfortable as he caught Rebecca’s eye, feeling a surge of attraction again, despite the strange situation. Was that appropriate, with his ex-girlfriend also present?
As for that ex-girlfriend, she was the one who knew the least about what was going and was almost in a state of shock, confused and disorientated.
“Peter?” she asked. “I don’t understand what’s happening here. Who are these people?”
He wasn’t sure what to say and looked towards Josh for guidance.
Josh realised that he needed to take charge. Suddenly there were four people involved in all of this rather than two, which wasn’t ideal, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
“Let’s all go and get somewhere in the warm, have a drink and I’ll explain everything,” he said.
“But I’ve got a train to catch…” began Christina. She was beginning to get her breath back now she was feeling the benefit of Rebecca’s coat.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve already missed that,” said Josh. “By several months, judging by your attire.”
“What?” she said.
“Let’s just do as he says,” replied Rebecca, hoping that they weren’t about to be spirited off through time, as she could quite clearly see Christina had been. It was worth the risk – whatever was going on here, her gut feel told her that these two men didn’t mean them any harm – in fact the younger one was quite cute. Plus the older man had offered to give them all an explanation and there was no way she was missing out on that.
“But…” began Christina, leaving the word hanging in the air, unsure what to say next.
Peter stepped in. He was the only one there whom she knew and it was up to him to reassure her.
“It’ll be OK, Christina,” he said. “Trust me.”
Reluctantly, she complied, still confused about exactly what had happened but as keen on an explanation as Rebecca was. The mysterious change of season from midsummer to midwinter was more than enough for her to want to find out more.
As the four of them began to walk up towards the gates leading out of the park, it was starting to cloud over, and as they passed the botanical gardens, it started to snow, just light, powdery stuff, but something that Christina knew to be a virtual impossibility in Oxford in July.
An hour later the four of them were seated at a large, rectangular table next to the window in the Queen’s Lane coffee house in Oxford, the boys on one side, the girls on the other. They were well onto their second coffee by now and the explanations were in full flow.
Josh was reminded of another occasion, many years in his own past, back in 2018. It hadn’t been long after the first time bubble had been discovered and an impromptu team of people who had been affected by it in one way or another had met up in a diner in his home town to discuss what to do about it.
He had been seventeen then, and Peter had been forty-eight. His teacher had seemed so confident then and Josh had been grateful when he had taken the lead. Now their roles had been reversed.
There were plenty of other parallels from that meeting long ago. Just as then, a local policewoman had been involved, and they had also been dealing with the case of a missing girl, Josh’s school friend, Kaylee, who had disappeared for forty-eight hours. It was clear that Christina had been gone for considerably longer than that.
Josh had begun by telling an edited version of his backstory, before going on to explain what they had figured out about the time bubbles in the park. He took particular care to play down the level of his involvement with the whole thing. He didn’t want any more fingers apportioning blame being pointed in his direction.
Instead, he presented what was happening as more of a natural phenomenon, bearing in mind what Rebecca had said earlier about abduction and whatever consequences Christina’s disappearance may have had for h
er life. Peter knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth, but didn’t say anything.
Of the two women, Christina had been the more disbelieving. This was understandable as it was all new to her, whereas Rebecca had already had plenty of time to figure out a lot of this for herself.
Safely warmed up now with coffee and cake inside her, Christina had regained her composure and was keen to clarify exactly what had happened to her.
“So what you’re trying to tell me,” began Christina, “is that I’ve been locked up in this time bubble thing for months and that’s why it’s winter now.”
“That’s about the sum of it,” said Josh.
“But what about my course?” she replied. “I was due back at the end of September. I’ve missed a whole term. They’ve probably kicked me off it altogether by now.”
“They did ask me if I knew where you were,” said Peter. “I said I didn’t know – because I didn’t. I just assumed you’d decided teaching wasn’t for you and quit. We’ve lost quite a few since this course started.”
“What I’m more fascinated by is why no one has ever reported you missing,” said Rebecca. “After the first couple of people reappeared, I spent some time looking into the past records of missing persons in Oxford. I identified a few that could potentially be victims of this thing, but your name was not among them.”
“Probably because no one knew I was missing,” replied Christina, glumly. “I was supposed to be catching a ferry to France tonight. By that I mean tonight as in six months ago before I fell into this time bubble thing. I had a student railcard and was planning to spend the summer travelling around Europe.”
“But surely someone must have questioned why you didn’t come back?” suggested Rebecca. “What about your parents?”
“They’re divorced. I’ve hardly seen my dad for years and I don’t see my mum often these days. She’s remarried and I can’t stand her new husband. Goodness knows what she sees in him, but she clearly thinks the sun shines out of his arse because she’s more interested in him than she is in me. It’s not that unusual for us to go weeks at a time without any contact. She knew I’d gone off to Europe and probably just assumed I’d come back to Oxford at the end of the summer.”
“Surely she would have expected to see you at Christmas?” asked Rebecca.
“I doubt it,” said Christina. “I didn’t even get a birthday card this year, that’s how much she’s bothered about me.”
Listening to all this, Josh reflected once again how different the pre-internet era was. Someone going travelling and falling out of touch by not responding to emails and messages would be missed very quickly in his era, especially if they hadn’t been plastering what they had been doing all over Facebook and Instagram.
“So what are you going to do now?” asked Rebecca. “You’ve not been reported missing so no one’s looking for you.”
“Well, I can’t go back to my digs,” replied Christina. “I gave notice on them before I was supposed to go travelling. I wasn’t about to pay rent for three months on a place I wouldn’t be living in. I’m officially homeless. And I’ve no idea what’s happened to all of my stuff.”
“I know you said you don’t see her much but couldn’t you go back to your mum for a bit?” asked Rebecca.
“Not a chance!” replied Christina. “My old room’s been taken over by her new kid and Philip, that’s her husband, has made it quite clear I’m not part of the picture. Besides, they live up north and I need to try and get back onto my course here, if they’ll still have me.”
“You should ring her and let you know you’re OK,” said Rebecca.
“I will.”
“You do realise,” interrupted Josh, “that you can’t tell anyone about where you’ve been, don’t you?”
“Why not?” replied Christina.
“Well, it’s most likely no one will believe you, but if they do, it could bring a lot of unwarranted attention in our direction. I’m keen to keep all this under wraps. It’s vital for the future of the timeline.”
“Why should I be bothered about the timeline?” said Christina. “As far as I’m concerned, it hasn’t happened yet and I’m more concerned with getting my life back together than worrying about your future. You spring it on me that I’ve been thrown six months forward in time, I’ve nowhere to live and I’ve probably been chucked off my course. You should be worrying about my future, not the other way around.”
“Could she stay with us?” suggested Josh.
“There’s no chance of that,” replied Peter. “Gran knows I used to go out with Christina. She’d start going on about hanky-panky under her roof again.”
“No offence, Peter,” said Christina. “But I’ve absolutely no intention of going there again.”
“You know, when people start sentences with the phrase ‘no offence’ I usually find that’s exactly what they’re about to give,” retorted a slightly miffed Peter.
“Look, you two,” said Rebecca, taking charge. “Whatever’s gone on between you two in the past you need to put it aside. Christina, you can come and stay with me until you get yourself sorted.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Peter. “Everything’s sorted, then.”
“For now,” said Josh. “But what happens in four days’ time when the next person comes out? And don’t forget about C.S. Lewis.”
“What about C.S. Lewis?” asked Rebecca.
Josh and Peter explained about their differing memories of the author. Rebecca listened, fascinated.
“I didn’t look back that far in time when I was looking through the records,” she said. “But I have other, more recent possible candidates, one in particular I think that could be a victim of this thing. And I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to deal with them when they do.”
“One thing’s for sure,” said Josh. “We all need to work together as a team on this. For one reason or another, we’re all involved now.”
“I agree,” replied Rebecca.
“You’re not going to arrest us, then?” asked Peter.
“No,” she replied. “I never was and how could I anyway? The law doesn’t exactly cover this sort of thing and I’ve already got into this way more deeply than I should have done. If my boss finds out what I’ve been doing this last week or so, I’ll be in hot water. It looks like we’re on our own.”
She didn’t want to arrest Peter, anyway. Whilst Josh might be brash and bold, she found Peter’s honesty and slight vulnerability appealing. She had felt quite sorry for him when Christina had put him down. Working together with him as part of this team would give her the opportunity to get to know him better.
“What’s the plan, then?” asked Peter. “We’ve got four days to figure something out.”
“I suggest that I start by taking this young lady home and get her into some warmer clothes,” said Rebecca.
Turning to Christina, she added, “You’ve about my size, so I’m sure we can organise something. Then how about we all meet up for a drink tomorrow night and make some proper plans?”
Christina nodded her agreement.
“I guess so. Thank-you. Though I can’t pretend it was what I was expecting to be doing tonight. There I was, all excited about spending the summer bumming around Europe and now here I am stuck in the depths of an English midwinter.”
“I’ll look after you until you get back on your feet,” promised Rebecca.
“Sounds good to me,” said Josh, impressed by how Rebecca had taken charge of the situation. It was nice to share the burden of responsibility with someone else for a change.
For someone who usually had all the answers, Josh felt like he had very little control over the current situation. But what he did now have were friends. For the first time in a very long time, Josh no longer felt alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Wednesday 15th January 1992
The newly assembled time bubble team had arranged to meet at one of Peter’s favourite haunts on Glouc
ester Street.
Formerly known as The Red Lion, the spacious, circular building had been known as The Oxford Bakery and Brewhouse since the mid-1980s. As the name suggested it had, until recently, baked its own bread and brewed its own beer on the premises. It was a hit with students, real ale enthusiasts, and tourists alike.
Peter and Josh were the first to arrive, on what at first glance appeared a relatively quiet evening for the pub. Even so, as he looked around, Josh could see that there were at least fifty customers scattered around a venue that could clearly hold many more than that. The interior was set over three levels, with stone steps to the right of the front door leading down to a cellar area which ran underneath a mezzanine area above.
The various ways of accessing these levels made it a positive rabbit warren of a place and Peter loved it. There were many little bolt-holes, particularly on the lower level, which made it ideal for them to find a quiet spot to talk.
Their footsteps were loud on the solid wooden floor, something Peter always noticed in this pub. There weren’t many people at the bar, but as they approached, Josh could see two bearded, familiar figures in discussion with the barman.
“That’s most disappointing, don’t you agree, Kenneth?” said Benedict. “It says quite specifically here in my Good Beer Guide that you brew your own beer here on the premises.”
“I’m afraid we stopped doing that a couple of years ago,” replied the barman, a skinny young man in his early twenties with spiky, dyed white hair that made him look like a young Billy Idol.
“Your guide must be out of date,” he added. “But we’ve got a great selection of beers here. Do you like Boddingtons?”
“Boddingtons!” spluttered Kenneth. “We don’t drink Boddingtons anymore, do we, Benedict?”
“We most certainly do not!” replied his friend, looking horrified. “Not since Whitbread took it over. It’s not the same anymore now it’s not a local brand. You can’t mass-produce a beer and expect it to be the same.”
“You’re not wrong there, Benedict,” added Kenneth. “And now they’re selling it in cans, can you believe, with some fancy widget thing in it to try and pass it off as real ale! It’s an absolute outrage, as any CAMRA member will tell you. Proper beer comes out of a barrel, not out of a can!”