A New Reality

by Clare Solomon

  She stopped and said, “Do you know what went wrong?”

  Her tone was clinical – not accusing him of anything – and he tried to think about it objectively. “No. I wish I did. It seemed to all work okay. I remember feeling Time change and then, of course, I forgot everything and only had memories of the new timeline. Even though I know that old timeline now, it doesn’t tell me anything that can help us. The magic seemed to work and then this reality took over from the last one.”

  “But it didn’t completely,” Callie said, speaking slowly as if she was saying her thoughts aloud as she had them. “The ghosts appeared as soon as the new timeline began, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. Something must have gone wrong.”

  “But the ghosts aren’t from the past or present. They’re from the future. How could a change to the past cause damage in the future?”

  He shrugged. “Time isn’t divided up into neat sections of Past, Present and Future. It’s all kind of one thing. Izients think of Time as an actual entity – not like a living person but some kind of creature.”

  “I’ve read about that before, although I don’t entirely understand the idea.”

  “Imagine what it’s like to see it.”

  “Going back to my question, the past, present and future might exist together but they’ve never mixed before so Time must have some way of keeping them separate.”

  She was right and it was possible that Time itself might be able to help them. “I think you might be onto something important,” he said, “but Dervyl and Tchaffi understand Time much better than me. We need to go and speak to them.”

  Callie saved her work and they got to their feet, Callie a touch awkward as she clambered up off the cushion, her laptop in her hands, but no less lovely for it. They hurried towards the door and Farlden grinned at her with affection, impressed that Callie’s methodical mind had come up with an idea no one else had thought of.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  WITH LILA’s hacking assistance, Elliot had managed to get hold of some of the recordings of ghosts. Most had been destroyed, as even watching them could drive people insane, but he hoped that he was immune by now. At any rate, he thought it was worth the risk if he could discover more about what the ghosts were trying to communicate.

  He sent Lila away, as she would have been driven mad by the footage, and he locked the office door. He used the lever to get the small table down from the ceiling, grabbed a chair and sat down, pressing play and watching the first recording.

  It was like watching a horror film, seeing the ghosts appear out of nowhere and looking at the effects they had on the people who approached them. He had to remind himself that these weren’t actual ghosts. They were real people from the future who were going back in Time to communicate with current people, to show images of the other timeline.

  The more he watched, the less it felt like a fault in Time and the more it seemed like something deliberate. The ghosts never actually spoke first, he saw: people touched them or the ghosts touched people and that was when the ghosts tried to communicate and those they had had physical contact with went crazy.

  He switched off the laptop after several hours, with information whirling through his mind and no real progress made. The ghosts looked human but they didn’t act the way real people did: they didn’t show any emotions or interact with the world around them. Elliot remembered throwing his jacket at a ghost and the creature hadn’t seemed to be able to tell the difference between what was living and what was inanimate. All of them had blank expressions like mannequins and he wondered if they could be projections of people that Time was using to speak.

  If that was true, what was the point of the ghosts? Was Time angry at them for what Elliot and the others had done? Was it a warning? He needed to communicate with one of the ghosts again or with Time, although he had no idea how to do that or how to find a ghost.

  He got up and stretched. He hoped someone else had got further than he had with it all. He levered the table back up to its resting place against the ceiling, unlocked the door and headed down the corridor towards the stairs and the staff canteen on the first floor.

  A door opened as he got to the stairs and he glanced round and froze as Farlden and Callie came out of Dervyl’s office together. They were talking in an animated way, eyes fixed on each other, and Callie put a hand on Farlden’s chest, smiling at him. Elliot waited for Farlden to react but, instead of pulling away from her, he rested a hand on her shoulder, continuing the conversation in a way that looked more than friendly. They were comfortable with each other and attentive in a way they never had been in the other timeline and Fal still had all the memories of their relationship.

  Elliot turned away, ignoring the twisting sensation in his gut. Farlden and Callie still had to work together and maybe they had found a way to be friends. He and Farlden loved each other – he had to depend on that. He stopped abruptly on the stairs, remembering their earlier conversation: Elliot had said that he loved him but Fal had never said it back.

  He told himself to trust Farlden and he shoved the matter from his thoughts. He refused to let fear mess things up between them now and he would have the rest of his life to convince Fal that they were soul-mates. The ghost problem had implications for millions of people and he couldn’t become distracted from that, even for Fal. It was something Elliot had a responsibility to help fix.

  It wasn’t as easy as that, however, to get the image of Callie and Farlden gazing fondly at each other out of his mind.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ABBRIN CALLED another meeting the next day, one day before they were supposed to make the decision about Time.

  As soon as they had all sat down, he said, “Amy is dead.”

  There were gasps and exclamations, the news coming as the worst kind of shock. Elliot remembered that she was married and had said she wanted to have children. It wasn’t right that she had been denied the chance and that her husband was left to grieve. “How?” he asked.

  “A ghost attack,” Dervyl answered.

  The ghosts kept appearing to those with magic, those who might have the best chance of understanding them. The first ghosts’ appearances hadn’t been in this earth dimension, where Time had been changed, but in the Izient dimension, where everyone in that human race had some form of magic.

  “We cannot wait any longer,” Abbrin was saying, interrupting Elliot’s thoughts just as he felt as if he was getting close to making sense of what was going on. “We have to change Time back to the earlier timeline.”

  “That’s the last thing that’ll do any good,” Farlden insisted loudly. “How often do you have to be told that Time was changed for good reason?”

  “I don’t see any other option at this point,” Mosrra said, not looking happy at the idea.

  “There might be another way, a better solution,” Dervyl said. “Callie and Farlden have been analysing data and feel that the answer to the problem lies in the way the past, present and future are organised by Time.”

  “And I don’t think Time is damaged, as we thought,” Elliot added, knowing this was his last chance to say something, even if he wasn’t clear about exactly what he believed. “I think it’s trying to communicate with us via the ghosts. They’re images of real people, future versions of people, but I don’t think that they are human.”

  “People are dying almost every day now,” Abbrin said. “Something has to be done to stop this and changing Time back to the way it was before the ghosts appeared is the obvious solution. Even if you’re right, Elliot, it seems as if what Time is trying to say by showing people the old timeline is that the world has to return to that.”

  Elliot wanted to contradict him. He didn’t think Abbrin was right but everything he was saying sounded plausible and Elliot couldn’t deny that the situation was desperate.

  “Everyone with magic, who understands what is going on, should have the right to vote on this,” Dervyl said.

  “No one has a
ny idea what’s going on,” Al said, “and we might never understand it. At least by changing Time we can get rid of the problem and everyone will be safe.”

  “Exactly,” Abbrin said.

  “You don’t know that you can change Time back to what it was without causing more damage,” Callie said. “It might make things even worse.”

  “No, there is no reason to think that,” Abbrin said firmly. “We can use magic to go back to before the timeline was changed and prevent it from ever happening.”

  “But going back in Time and using magic to change the world is exactly what we did before that led to this,” Elliot said. “I know we all want to fix this but we’re getting close to a better solution. I vote against changing to the old timeline.”

  “So do I,” Farlden said at once and both Dervyl and Callie echoed the words.

  “The Prime Minister has agreed to my proposal.” Abbrin glared at each of them, as if trying to intimidate them into changing their minds.

  “Magic users haven’t,” Dervyl said.

  “How much worse does the problem have to get – how many more people need to die – until you see sense?”

  “If I believed that what you suggest made good sense, I would support it, but I am convinced that it will not solve the problem we face.” Dervyl was unshakeable but, looking round the table, Elliot could see a lot of angry expressions at this refusal to act. He could even see their point of view but, like Dervyl, he didn’t think Abbrin was right.

  Abbrin stood up and looked down at Dervyl. “I will find a way to perform this magic before you get everyone in the world killed.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  ELLIOT STAYED in Dervyl’s office after the meeting and gestured for Farlden to do the same, noting that Callie remained here too, at Fal’s side.

  “Abbrin has a lot of support,” he said to Dervyl. “People are sufficiently scared that he might be able to get a majority vote from your people.”

  “We have to do something now,” Farlden agreed.

  “I think we need to try to directly communicate with Time,” Elliot said, looking from him to Dervyl.

  “I am not sure any of us would survive that,” she said, “but it does seem to be our best chance of knowing exactly what is happening and finding a reasonable answer to it. The three of us are certainly not strong enough to do something of this magnitude, so will you come with me to the other earth dimension to find others to assist?”

  They all indicated their support of this and Dervyl opened the door to the other dimension. They walked through it, finding themselves in the countryside outside Tchaffi’s community. Less than an hour later they had formed a group of nine people, with Callie standing ready to ring a bell to pull them out of the magic trance if their lives seemed to be in danger.

  As they sat in a rough circle in a meeting room getting ready to begin, Elliot glanced at Farlden and was tempted to reach out and take his hand, the need to feel the connection between them so strong that it was almost impossible to ignore. It was a selfish desire, though, and he couldn’t risk distracting Farlden when their lives might depend on giving this their total concentration.

  Elliot saw Farlden glance at Callie as he closed his eyes and he tried to calm his mind, putting aside his own worries and thoughts, before reaching out with his magic. The strength of the magic that joined with his was like nothing he had ever felt before and he was pulled – with the inescapable power of a strong sea current – towards Time, something he knew was infinitely more powerful than the combined force of every magic user alive.

  There were images from this timeline, like millions of recordings all playing at once, and behind or beneath them he sensed Time itself. Since Time had no words, their group transmitted a crude construction of the old timeline with an emotion of uncertainty.

  Tell us what you want us to do, Elliot begged silently.

  A flood of information was pushed into his brain and he tried to understand it but there was too much to make sense of. Pain was building up in him and, just before he lost consciousness, he thought he heard a ringing sound.

  * * *

  Elliot opened his eyes to find only Dervyl, Farlden and Callie in the meeting room with him. He was lying on the floor with a cushion under his head and his skull felt so bad that he didn’t dare move.

  “Drink this,” Dervyl said, kneeling beside him and holding out a mug. She supported his back as he leaned up and she pressed the mug to his lips when his own hands failed to work. He closed his eyes before he passed out again and focused on sipping the herb-tasting drink until it was all gone. He lay back down and waited for it to work, making the pain manageable within what he guessed was a minute or two.

  With Dervyl’s help, he managed to sit up and look around. Farlden looked no better than Elliot felt, leaning against a wall, Callie sitting beside him, holding a mug of what had to be the same curative drink.

  Trying not to react to the sight of the two of them together again, Elliot said to Callie, “Did I hear you ringing the bell?” His voice came out as less than a whisper and he cleared his throat and tried again, getting the words out at an audible level this time.

  She turned and smiled at him. “Rang it? I was shaking the damn thing with all my strength!”

  She startled a laugh out of him, which his head didn’t appreciate.

  “I reckon she saved all our lives,” Farlden said, his voice more husky than usual.

  “No one died?” he asked.

  “No,” Dervyl confirmed.

  “Did we at least find out anything useful? Could anyone make sense of what Time was trying to communicate?”

  Her expression answered as clearly as her words: “I fear not.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  IT TOOK another two hours for Elliot and Farlden to recover enough to go through the magical doorway to their own dimension and Elliot wanted to hold on to his previous belief that they were making progress but it really didn’t feel like it anymore.

  He left Dervyl’s office and almost walked into Lila. “Where’ve you been?” she asked and then she put a steadying hand under his elbow. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

  “I’ve already done that, thanks, so I’ll say pass to another collapse.”

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll drive you home.”

  He glanced at his watch, his head protesting at the downwards motion, and saw that it was nearly six in the evening. He desperately wanted to be home and collapse on a soft bed in soothing darkness but it wasn’t fair for him to let Lila go all that distance. “Don’t you live in London? I’ll be okay on a train. The fresh air will do me good.”

  “Don’t be a moron,” was her only response and, seeing her determined expression, he stopped protesting and let her lead him down the corridor, hearing other voices behind them. He glanced back as they reached the stairs and, with a feeling of déjà vu, he saw Farlden and Callie standing together talking again.

  It didn’t matter, he told himself. There was nothing wrong. He had to stop overreacting whenever he saw them.

  Then, as if in slow-motion, as if every millisecond was imprinted on his brain, he saw Callie lean forward, her ebony hair falling over her shoulders, and kiss Farlden, who stood still, making no effort to pull away. Elliot wanted to shout at them to stop, to demand to know why they would do this, but he couldn’t speak or move. Fal was kissing someone else and Elliot’s heart seemed to have stopped beating.

  “Come on,” Lila called to him from a few steps down the stairs, standing at an angle where she couldn’t see the couple. Her voice wrenched his gaze away from Callie and Farlden and he stared at her. “You’re not feeling dizzy, are you?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Elliot refused to think about what he’d just seen or he knew he would fall apart. His legs felt wobbly but he kept them moving down the stairs, out of the building and round to the car park at the back. He distracted his mind – ignoring the voice in his head screaming in betrayal – by answeri
ng Lila’s questions, telling her about the magic they had done, what they had hoped to achieve and what had actually happened. By the time the words ran out they were halfway down the motorway towards his parents’ home.

  “So Callie saved everyone?” Lila asked, eyes on the road.

  “Yes. What a hero.”

  Lila glanced questioningly at him and he couldn’t deny what he had seen in the corridor any longer. He had lost Farlden. No, he had never had him, not in this timeline. He had thought that theirs was a love that could withstand anything, that it would last forever, yet it hadn’t even survived Callie’s intervention. He put his head in his hands, feeling sick and headachy and ready to give up on everything. He vaguely knew he would have to go back to work in the morning and keep trying to sort out Time, but at the moment it seemed impossible; he couldn’t think of anything but this all-encompassing grief.

  “What’s going on, Elliot?” Lila’s voice asked.

  He lifted away his hands and looked blindly out of the window, replaying what had happened in his head. Callie had kissed Fal and he had let her. He hadn’t backed away or protested or reminded her that he was seeing someone else. “Before we left I saw Callie and Farlden kissing.”

  “Oh, Hell. I’m so sorry.”

  That said it all. There was no relationship left to fight for: Farlden had clearly decided who he really wanted to be with and it had never been Elliot.

  It was over.

  * * *

  He got home, coming into the house quietly, unnoticed, to find the national News reporting another anti-Neon terrorist attack, even worse than the last one, with nineteen people reported dead.

  Maybe Abbrin was right and the old timeline would be better than this, as it was beginning to feel as if the world was heading towards a war between the human races. That was if the ghosts didn’t kill them all first, or if there wasn’t a collision of present and future, or whatever other world-ending catastrophe was being predicted now.