‘All right,’ the boy slouched. ‘You don’t have to go on about that. I’ll do what I said. I’m just bored waiting, that’s all.’
‘Listen, kid,’ Lechasseur offered. ‘If you’re as bored as that, why not save yourself some time by opening up a path back to the tower for Emily and me?’
The boy tutted. ‘All right.’
It seemed a smart enough suggestion to Lechasseur. Keeping the kid – or whatever it really was – occupied for a few moments setting up a route back to 1995 might mean that he and Emily could escape after all. It was only when he saw the horrified expression on Emily’s face that he realised that he had apparently made the worst mistake of his life.
A splinter of the creature’s consciousness shot out towards the tower in 1995. This was the simplest of tasks, little more than the flexing of a muscle, but the tower was indistinct, drifting in and out of existence. Temporal energy pulsed and flowed around the tower, engulfing it in waves and then retreating and leaving the structure to ebb out of being. It took a dozen attempts to latch onto the tower and create the bridge for Emily and Lechasseur to use. For an instant, the creature wondered if the temporal energy was a by-product of the women returning home, as their time snakes and timelines settled back into place. But then the suspicion it had felt at Emily’s refusal of its offer to discover the truth about herself returned. Having devoured John Raymond’s time snake, the creature knew it should be able to break free at any time. The energy of a time snake was all it had needed to slip its bonds and set itself free. It began to slip through time. For a moment, it felt the familiar sensation of passing through the years, before a jolt hurled it back to 1995. It tried again, and was again repelled back to 1995. Over and over it tried to break through time, and on every occasion it was forced back.
The creature raged. It was still trapped – and it was certain that Emily Blandish knew why.
Honoré looked through the door, which had swung open a few moments earlier. An inky void was all that he saw beyond it. ‘Familiar?’ he asked Emily.
She nodded. ‘I had been hoping for something a little less …’
‘Terrifying?’ Honoré offered.
‘Insubstantial,’ Emily answered. ‘But I’m not complaining. To be honest, I’m surprised we even have this.’
‘What have you done?’ The accusation was screeched in a child’s high-pitched squeal. It echoed around the room, distorted by the last, fog-like remnants of the dissolving walls.
Emily kept her expression carefully neutral. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
The boy’s face was almost scarlet with fury, and his hands were bunched into small fists. ‘You’ve done something,’ he squealed.
‘Have I?’ From the corner of her eye, Emily saw another woman disappear. If she could keep the boy occupied until they were all gone …
‘What did you do?’ the boy screamed. Hot, angry tears wet his cheeks.
Emily retained her calm façade. ‘Exactly what we agreed,’ she replied evenly. ‘I offered you the time snake of a man who didn’t want his life.’ She paused. ‘And you took it.’
‘I know!’ the boy howled.
Emily eyed the women. A dozen or more were still in the room. Unfortunately, Tess was one of them. She clung to Joan as they watched the confrontation between Emily and the little boy.
‘You cheated,’ the boy squeaked.
‘No,’ Emily said firmly. ‘You got exactly what you asked for. It’s your fault that you didn’t think of the repercussions of your actions.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think about it,’ Emily said, again glancing furtively at the rapidly-diminishing group of women. ‘The man whose time snake you took leapt from the tower.’
One of the remaining women, dressed in a smart pinstripe business suit, pushed Patience aside. ‘John?’ she demanded. ‘What about him?’
‘Be quiet,’ Emily snapped, then added, more gently: ‘Please, Alice.’
Uncertainly, Alice consented. Emily saw the other remaining women close ranks around Alice, offering comfort. One by one, they were still continuing to disappear, returning to their own times and places. There were only half a dozen left now. She returned her gaze to the boy. ‘When you took that man’s time snake, it was as though he had never existed.’
The boy glared back defiantly. ‘So?’
‘You took the time snake from the end of his life, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘When he leaped from the tower?’ Emily pressed.
‘Yes.’ The boy sounded frustrated by the questioning.
‘The tower he built,’ Emily continued. ‘But if he never existed, he could never have built the tower, so he couldn’t have thrown himself off of it, and you couldn’t have become trapped in it.’
‘But he did jump,’ he boy sniped. ‘And I am trapped.’
‘Yes,’ Emily agreed. ‘You are – but you can’t be, because the place you’re trapped in never existed.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ the boy spat angrily. ‘You’re confusing me.’
‘You’ve created a mistake in time,’ Emily explained. ‘A paradox. You’re trapped in a place that can’t exist because of what you did.’
The boy’s voice rose in frustration. ‘I don’t understand.’
Lechasseur quietly sympathised.
Emily continued. ‘If the place you were trapped in never existed, you can’t be trapped. But you are trapped and it does exist – except you just made sure it never will exist. You’ve confused time, and time can’t deal with that. It will snap back into place, with a single timeline.’
‘What will happen to this place?’ The boy looked close to tears. ‘What will happen to me?’
Genuinely saddened, Emily hunkered down by the boy and grasped his arms. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I really don’t.’
A challenge came into the lad’s faltering voice. ‘If I’m trapped here, so are you.’
‘I know,’ Emily agreed steadily. It wasn’t something she relished admitting, but there seemed little point in arguing about it. ‘I hadn’t thought much past getting you to send the women back to their own times.’
‘You gave up your chance to get out so that they could go home?’ The boy seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because someone had to help them?’ Emily searched for a better answer but couldn’t find one. ‘They deserved better than to be trapped here.’
‘They didn’t all get away, though,’ the boy sniffed. ‘I didn’t manage to send them all home.’
Emily swung round, to see that Tess and Joan were still left in the room, standing huddled together near the open door to the void, mixed expressions of confusion and fear on their faces. A terrible thought suddenly returned to Emily: if Tess was still there, so was her baby. Would or could this creature, knowing that it remained trapped, simply take the life of Tess’s baby by force? Emily’s mind raced. Giving up the baby wasn’t an option, but there had to be an escape of some kind. There had to be.
The boy was looking at her, clearly puzzled by the worried expression on her face. ‘What is it?’
Realising that she had to deflect the creature’s thoughts away from Tess, she pulled the boy into a tight hug. ‘The end will be quick, won’t it?’ she asked.
The boy’s voice was muffled by her shoulder. ‘I don’t know.’
Emily was barely listening to the boy. Her eyes had latched onto the door beside Honoré and the inky void beyond it. If the creature had reached the tower, there was a chance for an escape that way. Behind the boy’s back, she made a brisk circling gesture towards Tess and Joan with her hand, and then pointed to the door. She looked urgently towards Honoré, hoping that he had understood. The deeply uneasy expression that came over his face told Emily that he had. She silently mouthed the words, ‘
Go! Now!’
For a moment, Honoré looked set to argue, but then he reluctantly conceded. Holding a finger to his lips, he ushered the two women towards the door. They held back, unwilling to go back into the blackness they had inhabited for so long. ‘It’s okay,’ Lechasseur said softly. ‘It’s not what it looks like. It’s just a tunnel.’ They weren’t convinced. ‘Okay,’ he said ruefully. ‘I guess I’m going first.’
‘Not bloody likely.’ Seeing that Lechasseur meant to do what he said, Tess grasped his arm, holding him back. ‘If this really is a way out, we’re having it.’ Clasping Joan’s hand, Tess hauled together her courage and plunged through the door into darkness, pulling Joan behind her.
‘The baby!’ The boy’s head jerked up from Emily’s shoulder. ‘It’s gone!’
Emily stiffened, desperately hoping that the boy wouldn’t say that Tess had died in the abyss between this enclave and the tower.
The boy pulled away and stared at her accusingly. ‘I could still have used it to get free.’
‘I know,’ Emily replied. ‘Are they still alive?’
‘Of course they’re alive,’ the boy grumbled. He sank to the floor and pulled his knees up tight under his chin. ‘They made it across the bridge I created for you.’ He glared at Emily. ‘You tricked me.’
Emily had no answer. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you,’ she said finally.
The boy choked out a humourless laugh. ‘If you knew … I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but I did.’
Lechasseur called from beside the door. ‘Emily.’ When she turned, he pointed meaningfully at the door.
‘You can go,’ the boy said bitterly. ‘You don’t have to make secret signals this time. I won’t stop you.’
‘Listen,’ Emily said urgently. ‘If there’s a bridge, perhaps you can cross it and …’
‘I have to stay here or it’ll collapse,’ the boy stated. ‘Don’t ask me to explain. You’re not clever enough to understand it.’
‘I don’t want to leave you alone.’
‘No doubt it won’t be for long.’
‘There must be another way,’ Emily protested. ‘There has to be.’
Lechasseur caught Emily’s hand. ‘There’s no time,’ he said, pulling her towards the door.
‘We can’t just leave him.’
‘Look around, Emily,’ Lechasseur demanded. ‘This place won’t be here much longer.’
He was right. Darkness was already breaking through one of the walls, and the contents of another room – Joan Barton’s prized sitting room, Emily realised after a moment – were trying to pass through another.
‘Emily.’ Lechasseur yanked hard on her arm. ‘We have to go – now!’
As she was pulled through the door, Emily turned and saw the small figure seated on the floor at the centre of a melting tumult. He shrugged at her, then looked away. Then Emily’s view of the room blinked out, and she was in darkness.
Chapter Twelve
Alice lurched forward and found herself in the familiar surroundings of the Dragon Industry Tower. She spun round, and looked at the sign on the door. Giovanni Imports. She was home. ‘It worked,’ she breathed. ‘It sodding well worked. I’m home.’ She slapped a wall hard, just to make sure. Her hand stung from the impact, and she relished the sharp pain that shot up her arm. It was real.
‘I shouldn’t do that if I was you.’
Alice spun round. Tess was standing behind her, arm-in-arm with Joan.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Wondering where here is,’ Tess snapped. ‘An’ you look like you know, so you can tell us.’
Alice eyed the familiar surroundings and wondered if Carol Fleming still worked in Giovanni Imports. How would her kids be doing now; especially Ellie, the eldest? People she had cut from her life and refused to talk to after John had died, she now wanted to see again. Maybe she could see Carol at the coffee shop for that espresso and the guilty pleasure of a blueberry muffin. She hoped it could happen. ‘I’m home,’ she said. ‘My home.’
Tess was unimpressed. ‘Weird looking home,’ she said.
‘No, it’s not where I live, it’s where I work.’ Alice caught herself. ‘Though there were times you could have thought I did live here.’
Two more figures stepped through the Giovanni Imports doors.
‘It worked!’ Lechasseur exclaimed.
‘You sound as surprised as I feel,’ Emily commented. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the small group of women standing there.
‘I’d kind of hoped that those two would be back in their own times,’ Lechasseur murmured, indicating Joan and Tess.
‘No,’ Emily shook her head. ‘He – it – had stopped sending them back to their own times when you put them across that bridge.’
Suddenly, a bolt of blue lightning arced across the doorway and into the wall. Around them, the building pulsed slightly and slipped out of focus momentarily.
‘Time’s catching up with this place,’ Emily said quickly. ‘We don’t have long before this building never existed.’
‘In that case,’ replied Lechasseur, ‘I’d suggest we get out of here.’
Alice didn’t argue, even though what they had said made no sense to her.
‘This is your time?’ Lechasseur asked briskly. Alice nodded. ‘Good,’ he continued. ‘You can lead the way out.’
Reasoning that, as in a fire drill, it was safest not to use the lift, Alice hurriedly led the small party through a nearby swing door and into the stairwell. They then descended the stairs as fast as they could, while around them the building rumbled and lurched ominously.
After what seemed an age, they finally reached the ground floor, and emerged into the reception area. ‘Probably best if we get outside,’ Emily said. ‘There’s no way of knowing what’s going to happen in here.’ She looked around, wondering if there would be any sign of Dorkins, the security guard that she and Honoré had met earlier, but he was nowhere in sight. It was possible he wasn’t in the building any more, his timeline already altered. She had no way of knowing. A crackle of energy arced across the reception area and shot through the wall right where Lechasseur had been standing. He managed to duck clear an instant before the energy hit.
‘Time to leave.’ Emily was already heading for the front door, pushing Joan, Tess and Alice ahead of her.
Emily had to jump to reach the top lock on the door, but on the second try, the door slid open automatically. Feeling Tess begin to take a step back, Emily planted a hand in the small of the girl’s back and shoved hard. ‘Outside,’ she ordered firmly. She could see that the snow had continued falling all the time they had been inside the tower and was now several inches deep on the ground. That couldn’t be helped. ‘Stop over there under the light.’ She pointed to one of the lights illuminating the car park. She gave Tess another push, and the girl tottered off in the direction she had indicated, Joan hanging onto her arm to stay upright on the slippery surface. Alice followed close behind, with Emily and Lechasseur bringing up the rear. Behind them, the crackles and sparks of energy had become bigger, and now arced their way around the building. By the time that Emily and Lechasseur reached the gathering point under the light, the entire tower was engulfed with sharp, blue lightning bolts shooting down, round and across the building, arcing from one side to another, imbuing the falling snow with an eerie blue colour. The blue electricity sparked faster and faster, and brighter and brighter.
‘Close your eyes,’ instructed Emily. The three women complied, Tess even covering her eyes with her hands and burying her head in Joan’s shoulder.
The final flash was bright enough to be seen even through closed eyelids, and there was a soft sound and a rush of wind before they realised that they were standing in darkness.
Lechasseur was first to crack open his eyes. ‘The light’s gone,’ he said.
Sure enough, the electric light under which they had been standing was gone. It wasn’t just out – it simply wasn’t there at all.
Emily peered into the snowy gloom. ‘That’s not all that’s gone,’ she said.
Behind them, where the tower had stood a few moments earlier, was a row of warehouses with the name BOLDMAN EXPORTS painted on their sides. The car park was also gone, and they were now standing in a large loading area surrounded by a chain-link fence.
‘So the tower was never there?’ Honoré asked Emily.
‘No,’ Emily replied. ‘Then again, yes.’ She grimaced. ‘Oh, don’t ask me. I’ll only get a headache trying to work it out.
‘Alice,’ she called.
‘Yes?’
‘Were those warehouses there before the tower was built?’
‘Yes, yes they were,’ Alice answered. ‘Boldman was an subsidiary of Dragon Industry. We kept smaller company names when we bought them over. Better PR with the local community.’
‘So time has settled into place,’ Emily said thoughtfully.
‘Wait.’ Alice sounded confused. ‘If John Raymond never existed …’ She waited to be corrected, but when neither Emily nor Lechasseur spoke, she continued: ‘… Why do I remember him?’
‘We were outside of time when it set this new path,’ Emily answered, ‘so our memories weren’t attuned to think of this path as being real and proper. We all keep our own memories.’
‘Good,’ Alice said firmly. ‘I don’t want to forget John. He deserved better than to be forgotten. And at least now perhaps his death served a purpose.’
Emily glanced across at Joan and Tess, huddled together nearby, shivering in the freezing weather. ‘But they’re trapped here,’ she said. ‘This isn’t their home any more than that void was.’
Alice looked too, then moved over to join the stranded pair.
Emily turned to Honoré. ‘What will they do, I wonder? We didn’t do a very good job here, did we? We saved them from a safe prison and left them here.’
Echoes Page 14