Eventually she pushed him back. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked. ‘It’s the middle of night.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I had a bad dream and couldn’t get back to sleep. I just wanted to check you were all right.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Did something happen to me in your dream?’
‘You could say that.’
Chrissie smiled and ruffled Sam’s hair, just like their dad used to. ‘I’m fine, see? There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘Okay,’ he said and turned to leave, his hand on the banister.
‘Sam?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Happy Christmas, little brother.’
‘You too,’ he said.
He went back to bed and less than a minute later fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
2
Sam woke on Christmas Day feeling more refreshed than ever before. His grandmother and Chrissie were already up and preparing the turkey. He wondered what Eva was doing, and whether in this reality she was still staying with Doug. You just need to come and find me, she had said. Well, today Sam would celebrate with his family, but tomorrow he would do just that.
He spent an hour peeling potatoes and sprouts with his grandfather and then set the table with their best plates and cutlery. As he stood back to admire his work, Sam realised that something was nagging at the back of his mind, so he sneaked up to his room and switched on the computer.
It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. His first search brought up a memorial page showing thumbnail photos of each of the hundred and twenty-nine people killed in the Thames House bombing. Close to the top was Dr McHayden, staring out from behind her half-moon spectacles.
A knot clenched in Sam’s stomach. He closed the window feeling an odd combination of happiness and guilt. His friends and family were now safe, but, through his inaction, he had not only signed McHayden’s death warrant but also those of the other hundred and twenty-eight people in the building, innocent people with loved ones of their own.
He shut the computer down, telling himself that they were strangers and not worth the lives of his own family and friends. It didn’t work, however, and he was left with the familiar empty feeling gnawing away at his insides. Much of what McHayden had told Sam was wrong, but she had also warned that there were consequences to changes made in the past that might not always work out how he intended, and, on that point, he had to concede that she seemed to have grasped the truth.
Before eating the family sat around the tree to hand out gifts. Several packages were poorly wrapped and had Sam’s handwriting on the labels. He was embarrassed to realise that he didn’t remember buying any of them and did his best to hide his surprise at what each contained when it was opened.
As they sat at the table the house phone rang and Sam went to pick it up.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Lewis said. ‘What’re you lot up to?’
‘The usual, just about to eat. Get anything good this year?’
‘Money from my folks. A couple of jumpers, neither of which fit. Listen, I won’t keep you ‘cos The Great Escape is starting in a minute, but I wanted to check how you’re doing, you know, what with it being the first Christmas without your dad and all.’
The relief that Sam had felt upon seeing Chrissie alive was tempered by the fact that his father was still gone. In all of the alternate realities he had seen, this was a constant. Sam’s ability to manipulate time derived from the same accident that had killed his father, and he could not pass back to before that point. That loss would always be there, he supposed, but with time he hoped that he could grow to accept it and, bit-by-bit, that his father’s absence might hurt a little less.
‘Lewis, you don’t know someone called Isaac, do you?’
Lewis paused for a moment. ‘You mean that kid I used to sit next to in Geography?’
‘That was Ivan.’
‘Then no. Why do you ask?’
Lewis had risked his life for Sam, but that had happened in another reality, a place that was inaccessible to everyone else. He would never know what he had done for his friend, and it was probably best left that way.
‘Forget it,’ Sam said, ‘I just wanted to say thanks for everything. I couldn’t have got through the last few weeks without you.’
Lewis laughed. ‘Hey, what are friends for?’
Sam hung up and returned to the table, where Lance had already carved enough turkey to fill each of their plates several times over. He pulled a cracker with his grandfather. There was a pack of mini screwdrivers inside, a paper crown and a joke.
He pulled the paper crown over his head and looked up at his family. ‘What’s black and white and read all over?’
Grandpa grinned. ‘I know this one.’
‘Wait a sec,’ Chrissie said, ‘before we start, I’ve got some news to share.’ She glanced at Lance. ‘I mean we’ve got some news.’
‘What is it, pet?’ their grandmother asked.
Chrissie smiled and squeezed Lance’s hand. ‘I’m pregnant. We’re expecting a baby!’
Grandma raised her hand to her mouth and made a squealing noise, while their grandfather stood up and clapped Lance round the shoulder.
‘We’d like to call him Matthew,’ Lance said, ‘if it’s a boy.’
For some reason, Sam had no doubt that it would be.
3
Three weeks later
George sat in his hospital bed, staring down at the sheet covering the spot his right leg would have once occupied. Peculiar, it seemed, that his severed toe, a handicap that had so drastically altered the course of his life, had now been erased by an even greater injury.
There was a knock at the door. He ignored it, yet after a few seconds the knock came again and the door opened a crack. It was the blonde nurse with braces on her teeth. In spite of George’s best efforts to be unfriendly, she appeared to have taken a shine to him. On several occasions he had considered filing a complaint in the hope that she would be replaced or at least take offense, however his only grounds were her seemingly limitless reserves of practical advice and good-natured optimism and he didn’t have the energy to fabricate a story.
‘Hello, Mr Steele,’ she said and beamed at him. ‘How are we feeling today?’
‘We? What are you talking about, airhead? I’m the only person here.’
Her bottom lip wobbled.
George sighed through gritted teeth. ‘What is it, nurse?’
She smiled again, revealing a mouth full of metal. ‘There’s a gentleman here to see you.’
He frowned. His parents had come to visit earlier that week, but they’d gone back to Northumberland the night before, leaving him at a loss as to who this unexpected visitor might be.
‘Fine, show him through,’ he said and dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
The door opened again a short while later and George saw a stranger standing at the threshold to his room. The man had a sickly complexion, and held a walking stick with a handle in the shape of a dragon’s head in one gloved hand and a bunch of tulips in the other. He was primly dressed in a pinstriped suit, shoes as shiny as polished glass and a black fedora hat. A large, faded scar covered one side of his face, where once he must have been exposed to heat strong enough to melt the skin.
‘Can I help you?’ George asked, trying not to wince at the sight of him.
The man regarded him with bright blue eyes that looked in slightly different directions, and George realised that the incident that had scarred his face must have also cost him an eye.
‘I certainly hope so,’ the man said eventually. He pointed his stick at the armchair by the side of the bed. ‘May I?’
George shrugged. ‘By all means.’
The man crossed the room and, with great care, lowered himself into the chair, propping his walking stick against the armrest. He glanced at the tulips absentmindedly, tossed them onto the bottom of the bed, then folded his hands in his lap and watched George with
a contented smile. There was something deeply unsettling about this.
‘Forgive me for asking,’ George said, ‘but don’t I know you from somewhere?’
‘No,’ the man said. ‘I know all about you, though.’ He did not elaborate, but continued watching George with the same contented smile.
‘Righty-ho. Splendid. And I don’t suppose there’s a reason for your visit, is there?’
The man rolled up his sleeve to reveal the metal plate of a prosthetic arm. ‘You and I have something in common, George.’
George felt the itch that plagued his missing shinbone return. He would have given anything just to be able to scratch it. ‘Look…hold on, I don’t believe I caught your name.’
‘Michael.’
‘I don’t know who sent you, Michael, but if this is some sort of counselling session then you’re wasting your breath.’
‘Counselling session?’
‘You know, “things will get easier with time, take it from a fellow cripple”. Believe me, I’ve heard it all already.’
‘No no, that’s not it at all,’ Michael said. He picked up his walking stick and began scrutinising the dragon’s-head handle.
‘So, why are you here then, if you don’t mind my asking?’
Michael looked up, his glass eye catching the light. ‘Because, George, I have a proposition for you.’
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About the Author
Damian Knight lives in London with his wife and their two daughters. He works in a library and, being surrounded by books, probably has the best day job ever. When not writing, reading, parenting or working, he often falls asleep fully clothed on the sofa.
The Pages of Time Series includes The Pages of Time (Book 1), A Trick of the Light (Book 1.5) and Ripples of the Past (Book 2). A new book is currently in progress.
To find out more or get in touch, please visit www.damianknightauthor.co.uk or email [email protected]
If you enjoyed the book, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads would be very welcome.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my friends and family, without whose support I could never have completed The Pages of Time. I am hugely indebted to my editor, Will Wain. His insight, advice and expertise went far beyond the remit of his job and helped to create an immeasurably better book. I would also like to thank Phil Patsias for his beautiful cover art and help with all things technical. Finally, I would like to reserve a special mention to Emmanuelle Banks and Damian Mortimer for their invaluable feedback on early drafts – look carefully and you’ll see your fingerprints all over the pages.
A Trick of the Light, The Pages of Time Book 1.5
It’s the summer of 1969, and as Apollo 11 touches down on the moon, Michael Humboldt, a soldier horrifically wounded in the Vietnam War, uses the strange and disturbing powers he has developed to escape a secure military hospital in San Francisco. Seeking to become the master of his own destiny, he travels the backroads of California in order to evade the police and military authorities who are searching for him. But before the year is out, Michael has fallen for the beautiful Rachel and returns to San Francisco to find the doctor who can help him control his powers. He is ultimately thrown into a deadly game of cat and mouse, the shockwaves of which will change his and many others' lives for decades to come.
Available now on Amazon!
Ripples of the Past, The Pages of Time Book 2
After altering the past on the night of Christmas Eve, reluctant time-traveller Sam Rayner finds himself trapped in a new timeline in which he has no recollection of the last month. Although Sam and his friends are now safe, he has lost the girl he loves and remains no closer to reversing the plane crash that has torn his family apart. As he struggles to make sense of this new reality, Sam sets out to obtain a new supply of Tetradyamide, the drug that enhances his ability, and finds himself pursued by forces of both good and evil as he is sucked into a conspiracy that runs far deeper than he could ever have imagined.
Available now on Amazon!
The Pages of Time Page 28