The Last Beginning

by Lauren James

  Clove drank it, breathing in and out, until she felt calm again. She wiped away her tears. By then, the watch had cooled enough for her to touch it. Cautiously, she tried to turn it on. The screen stayed black. This had never happened to her before. She had no idea how to fix it. All of those hours she’d spent studying programming were worthless in the face of a problem with the hardware.

  Clove tried to remember whether watches could survive high heats, but her mind was blank. She thought that they must be able to − they were solar powered, after all.

  “Do you want me to fetch someone?” Matthew asked, touching her forehead as if checking her for fever. “You need help.”

  Clove shook her head. She was so confused. Matthew seemed to know nothing about the future role he was to play. What if he decided that she was insane and took her to a doctor? By discussing this with Matthew she was risking more than she had realized. Who knew what the doctors here would do to her, if they thought she was crazy? They might even put her in an insane asylum – or burn her for witchcraft, like Ella had mentioned.

  “Please,” she said. “I promise I won’t cause any trouble, or whatever you think I’m going to do. Just – just don’t call anyone. I … I just need to rest.”

  He stared at her for a long time. “What if you hurt yourself?” he said finally. “I can’t risk it. You need help.”

  “I don’t! I’m fine!” She tried to lower her voice, which was getting increasingly frantic. “Nothing is going to happen. Please!”

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “If Spart really is a demon, then you’ve killed him, right?” Clove said. “It should just wear off, shouldn’t it? The spell. If there’s a demon, you’ve saved me from it. I don’t need help.”

  Matthew rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know what is happening any more. I need time to think. I can’t decide anything now.”

  CHAPTER 20

  An Unauthorized Biography of Clove Sutcliffe

  Clove Sutcliffe’s infamous first journey to 1745 would go on to inspire her later work as a History Revisionist. She ran into issues early on, and struggled to recover command of a situation which very quickly spiralled out of control.

  Her actions would later motivate her to create the first and most important of the Cardinal Rules of History Revision, now recited by children in nurseries everywhere:

  Time and space are complex and vast,

  So to roam freely in the past,

  To this one rule you must consent:

  Tell no fact to those present,

  Or however far you venture,

  Never shall you find your future.

  File note: Extract from An Unauthorized Biography of Clove Sutcliffe, first published in 2344

  Carlisle, England, 1745

  Clove turned the dead watch over in her hands, the rainbow strap flopping back and forth. She scrubbed at the blackened screen with her nails, trying to clean off the soot marks. The battery had been charging constantly for over twenty-four hours and her watch was still dead. Clove didn’t know what else to do. Nothing she did could make it switch on.

  She had always − always, for her entire life − had a computer to help her do anything she wanted. Any question she had, she just had to ask and it was answered. Any help she needed, it was given before she had the chance to think about it. Now that she was completely alone, she realized how much she relied on her watch. Worst of all, if she couldn’t work out how to fix it, then she would be stuck in the past for ever.

  She would never be able to go home.

  She would never see Jen or Tom or Meg again.

  Her parents would think she had vanished without a trace. They would never find out what had happened to her.

  This was such a mess. Especially as she hadn’t solved anything with Matthew at all. Did he really not know anything about Katherine or time travel? Would Katherine know more, if Clove ever found her?

  Trying to hold back her tears, Clove rested her head on the windowpane and stared down at the garden below. If only she could manage to think, just try and work out how to fix her watch − but her brain felt full of syrup. She couldn’t wade through the hysteria to find a solution.

  She had nothing. Nothing but her own mistakes and failures, weighing her down.

  The next day, Clove finally met Katherine Finchley. Her grandmother had died, and Katherine had come to live at the house in Carlisle. She had arrived late the night before and gone straight to bed. Clove only found out she was there when she was told to help her dress for breakfast.

  Katherine Finchley was sitting at her dressing table, staring blankly at her own reflection in the mirror. Clove stood in the doorway and looked at the back of her head, trying to slow the frantic beating of her heart. If Matthew’s DNA results were anything to go by, then this was her mother.

  Clove walked across the room, aware of every movement she made. “Good morning, Miss Finchley,” she said. She tried to keep her voice level, but it came out smaller than she had been expecting. “I’m Anise. Your – your maid.”

  Katherine didn’t move. Her hair was a tangle of knots, long left unbrushed. There were dark shadows under her eyes and hollows under her cheekbones. She was aching for her lost grandmother − so much so that she didn’t recognize her own daughter, right in front of her. Or at least Clove hoped that was the reason. Surely Katherine had to know the truth, even if Matthew didn’t?

  Clove swallowed. “Shall I help you dress?”

  Katherine inclined her head, just a little.

  Clove tried to stop her hands trembling with nervous energy. She took a dress from the wardrobe and helped Katherine to stand. She moved her limbs wherever Clove pushed them, like a puppet. She didn’t even seem to register the touch.

  Clove was desperate for Katherine to look at her, but she couldn’t see anything past her own grief. Would she recognize her? Clove had already decided that she wouldn’t tell Katherine what she’d told Matthew. She couldn’t risk getting the same reaction.

  When she was dressed, Katherine opened her mouth, lips pulling apart with an audible sound. “Thank you,” she said, after a pause.

  “It’s my pleasure, Miss. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Katherine shook her head, with a slight delay. “No, thank you.” She closed her eyes, opened them again, and Clove saw the visible effort it took to summon the energy to step outside her bedroom.

  Clove watched her for a moment and then looked at the strand of hair she’d palmed while helping Katherine dress. Getting it had been a lot easier this time, but she didn’t really need it. She already knew what the DNA would tell her: this was her mother.

  Later that day, Clove was scrubbing at more of the endless laundry and thinking about Katherine and Ella and her watch and Katherine-and-Matthew and Ella again, when Matthew appeared. Clove could feel him examining her as he leant against the door to the wash-house, and this time he actually seemed to take in how similar they looked. It was the first time since her outburst that he’d acknowledged her. She’d lost hope of him ever talking to her again. But at least he hadn’t called the exorcist.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” he said. “The one you said I—”

  “Yes,” she said, semi-casually, and not casually at all. “It’s her.” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice. Maybe now he was finally going to admit to knowing what Clove had been talking about. Clove still hadn’t given up hope, although she realized it was ridiculous.

  “You have her eyes,” he said. His gaze roved over her face. His skin was deathly pale, like he was looking at a ghost. “You have my nose, and her eyes.”

  Clove pushed her hair back behind her ears. “You’ve met her?”

  He nodded shortly. “Her aunt, Mrs Finchley, took her to the dressmaker’s. I drove them there in the carriage. She’s beautiful. And sad.”

  “You should talk to her,” Clove said. “If you get the chance. I think she needs a friend.”

  Matthew didn’t re
ply, just traced the tip of his shoes through the dirt in absentminded spirals. “You seem much calmer today. I’m sorry I upset you, by destroying your S−Spart.” He stuttered over the unfamiliar word. “I only meant to help. You really will be better off free of him.”

  Clove sighed. “It isn’t a demon like you think. But it’s broken now anyway, so you don’t have to worry about it any more. I’ve been trying to fix it, but I don’t think I can. I can’t exactly buy a replacement for anything broken.”

  Matthew’s forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean, fix it? Have you been feeding him?”

  “I don’t need to. It gets energy from the sun − like plants.”

  “Like plants?” Matthew said. He seemed curious despite himself.

  “The watch has plates. Like mirrors. They catch the sunlight and it collects the energy from the heat.”

  “Oh,” Matthew said. “That sounds … very strange. Could the smoke from the fire have obstructed the light somehow?”

  Clove frowned, thinking. “I’m not sure what the fire did.” Maybe Matthew was right, though. Maybe the solar panels were blocked up with soot. The watch’s screen had been black with ash and she’d had to scrape it clean. She hadn’t thought to clean the solar panels inside, though. Perhaps that was why the watch wasn’t working? Clove made a mental note to clean the solar panels later. She would have to find a way to take the casing off the back of the watch.

  “About Katherine…” Matthew said, breaking into her thoughts. “Why do you think it would matter … if Katherine and I did … fall in love?” He said the words quietly, a dull pink curling up his throat.

  As a servant, the idea of being in love with a gentlewoman must be close to treasonable for him, Clove realized. But now that he’d met her – and now that Clove had put the idea in his head – he seemed to be actually considering it.

  “You both … you help save the world,” Clove said. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but you both help to make sure things work out the way they should. There are some big wars coming up, and you two make sure that they always end in the safest way for humanity.”

  Matthew stared at her blankly. “That is … ridiculous. Why would you think that we make any difference to anything? I’m a servant. Is this what that … that demon told you?”

  “How I know is irrelevant.” She didn’t want him to start talking about Spart again. “You just need to know that you’re clever and brave and you fight for what you believe in. And by doing so you save the world.”

  He frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t – I don’t understand this. It seems like a fairy tale you would tell small children. Not real life.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you believe me,” she said softly. “It’s the truth.”

  Running a hand through his hair, Matthew stared out through the open doorway and across the garden. For a moment, there was a look in his eyes as if he was taking her seriously: a fleeting glimmer of passion as he imagined himself to be the hero she described. Then he shook his head and the look was gone.

  “People like me don’t save the world,” he said, pushing his hands into his pockets as he walked away. “Not even with Katherine Finchley to help us.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Ella-is-swell I REFUSE to model any more of luckyclover’s knitted hats for pictures for her online shop. The unicorn hat was a step too far, boo.

  Like • Comment • Share

  LuckyClover Do it for love, Ella-is-swell. DO IT FOR LOVE.

  Ella-is-swell I don’t even get paid minimum wage. I’ll be starting a workers’ union soon (The Sad Knitters’ Girlfriends Alliance)

  File note: Messages on social media, dated 14 December 2058

  Carlisle, England, 1745

  Any moment she could spare, Clove slipped away to the attic bedroom to work on her watch. Despite the hours she had spent attempting to open up the back, she couldn’t get the screws to budge. To her dismay, the casing was completely unmovable. She was close to giving up. Even if she did get it open, what chance was there that she could clean the solar panels? It wasn’t like she could get any spare parts. She dropped the watch back into its hiding place behind the pot of lavender and looked out of the window.

  Matthew stood on the driveway below. The reins of a mare were loose in his hand as he talked to Katherine. Or rather, they weren’t talking. They were staring at each other, not saying a word. His head was ducked towards her, even as she tilted her face to his. They were like magnets, drawn together.

  They both seemed to glow around one another. For the first time, Clove could feel in her heart that this was right, that they were meant to be together.

  Clove’s mother hadn’t just been an eighteen-year-old girl who had got pregnant in her first semester at university. Her parents’ love story had been going on for centuries. It was inevitable. Together, they made everything around them blur and fade into insignificance. They were always meant to be in love, from one life to another.

  The thought made Clove yearn for home even more. She wanted to find her birth parents in 2056, and she wanted to tell Jen and Tom that she loved them.

  She had to fix her watch.

  Clove heard footsteps in the corridor outside the attic room.

  “Good morning,” Ella said, coming into the room. She hooked her chin over Clove’s shoulder, peering down at the view outside the window. “What do you think you’re going to do to reconcile with Matthew, now that your spell has failed?”

  Matthew had started showing Katherine how to feed the horse an apple: holding her hand delicately as he rearranged her fingers and placed the apple in the flat of her palm. Even from up here, Clove could tell he was doing a bad job of hiding his crush – but she could also see just how widely Katherine was smiling at him.

  “Actually, I think my spell worked after all,” Clove said, softly. Whatever she’d said to Matthew, it had clearly made a difference.

  “Oh, that’s good. Anyway, here, I brought you some breakfast,” Ella said.

  “Is that bacon?” Clove said, sniffing.

  “Of course it is,” Ella said with satisfaction.

  As Clove ate, she thought about the enigma that was Ella. What could a girl in the eighteenth century possibly be doing, alone in a city? Searching for her family? A runaway lover? Buried treasure?

  “Are you ever going to tell me why you’re in Carlisle?” she asked.

  There was a moment when Clove really thought Ella was going to answer, but then she shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Clove felt like she’d just failed a test without knowing she was taking it.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it, Clove,” Ella said, tugging her hair out of its bun. “It’s not very exciting − not even worth thinking about.” She lay back on the bed. Her hair fanned out around her. It looked like it always did, as though she’d pushed her way backwards through four hedges while chasing a badger.

  From the back she looked a little like Meg.

  Clove missed Meg − except that she didn’t, not really. She missed the old Meg, and how easy their friendship had been. She missed that cheerful, relaxed Meg, not the new, embarrassed one who wouldn’t even answer her messages. Clove missed her soft, wispy hair, her wide twinkly eyes, her easy smile. The wishbone necklace she always wore. But she was starting to realize just how much she had idolized Meg.

  Now that she had some distance to get over her – centuries of it – she found she had been treating her as a figure of perfection, a dream girl. Clove had needed to take a step away so that Meg’s perfection resolved into a real person instead of an angel, so that she could see her properly.

  She was always going to wish that none of the mess with the kiss had happened, but at the same time she wouldn’t have got over Meg without a catalyst like their kiss. And if there was still a chance for their friendship to recover when she went home − if Clove hadn’t lost her best friend completely − then maybe the kiss had been a good thing. Maybe.

  “Come on,” Ella said
. “Mrs Samson has asked us to purchase some flour. She has used up all of her supplies.”

  Clove nodded. It was a lovely day – perfect for a walk into town.

  They walked home from the bakery with butter running down their chins. A boy had been selling steaming muffins from a tray outside the shop, each one glistening with melted butter. When Ella had seen Clove staring at them, she had asked the boy a series of questions about the cooking process, and then apparently satisfied that they were of suitable quality, had bought them one each. Clove was getting the impression that Ella took food very seriously indeed.

  As they walked past the row of shops, taking it in turns to carry the bag of flour, Clove had an idea. Maybe one of the shops here would contain something that could open the casing of her watch. Even just a better screwdriver than the one in Tom’s Swiss army knife might be enough to make a difference.

  She read the names of the shops off the painted signs that dangled above their doors, looking for anywhere which might sell tools, or… Her brow furrowed as she considered the problem. Would a magnet help? She vaguely remembered something about magnetic screwdrivers being used to open devices. A magnet might help her to turn the metal screws on her watch.

  How would she find a magnet, here in 1745?

  Didn’t they use magnets in compasses? Was that right? She could find a compass, surely? Were compasses household objects? Would she be able to buy one, or did they only have them on ships? Did she have enough money for a compass?

  “Ella, do you know where I could find a compass?”

  Ella stopped humming what Clove could have sworn was a Disney tune and wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. There might be an old lodestone in a curiosities cabinet in a shop somewhere.”

  “A lodestone?”

  Ella looked at Clove, and then grinning, reached over to wipe the butter off her chin. “It’s kind of…” She paused, obviously trying to find the right words. “It’s a big rock that turns due north if it’s dangled from a string. Like a really old-fashioned compass.”