She began to open up to him. Her name was Jane, and she was an actress at the local theater and was preparing for an upcoming performance. She told him that she was new to the acting troupe and was unsure about her new job and her first performance at the theater. It was a whole new world to her, being on stage in front of such a large audience. She had never experienced anything like it, and it frightened her terribly, but her love of acting and intense training had prepared her, or so she believed, to take the acting world by storm.
After a thrilling afternoon of laughter, shared moments, and missed opportunities, they parted with reluctance, but with an invitation and a promise that Ben, or “Mr. John” as she now called him endearingly, would come to see her at her first play performance the following evening at the theater.
In the back of Ben’s mind that night, his mission seemed to weigh heavier and heavier. He tossed and turned on the stiff mattress that now reminded him of her.
The next day, he made his way to the theater. It looked like a full house, with play-goers jammed into the aisles and crowded into the small theater hall.
She was remarkable. The crowd was enraptured by her performance. As she caught his eye, she stumbled a bit through her lines. He felt a pang of guilt, but she recovered quickly, and after flashing a brilliant smile to the crowd, was met with thunderous applause and cheers.
He met her backstage after the play, and, sweeping her into his arms, exclaimed that she was God’s gift to the acting world as she laughed delightedly. She thanked him for coming, and they smiled at each other, silently marveling in each other’s joy.
“Can I ...” he hesitated, looking down. “Can I see you again?”
He knew as he said the words that he would come to regret it. If he walked away from her now, she might still live a life free from the interference of the time-jumpers. Still, he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to see her again, to talk to her, to see her smile. All of him burned to be near her, and he resisted the urge to grasp her hand in his and lavish upon her the compliments and praises he felt she deserved. Even so, he knew he had a mission to complete.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Yes, I will see you tomorrow night, Mr. John.” She took his hand and moved out of his embrace. “Room 29” was all she said as she squeezed his hand before disappearing into the back of the theater.
As he walked back to the inn that night, he hummed happily to himself. It was the first time in his life he had felt this way—like he was lighter than air. He even skipped a little and chuckled to himself as he imagined her dancing along beside him, the two of them lost in the beating rhythm of their own hearts.
However, as he approached the inn, he saw a figure standing outside and emitting an ominous red glow, which eliminated any lightness he had from his encounters that day. He stopped and looked down at his own chest, which was now glowing as if in response to a fellow time-jumper.
The figure began to approach Ben and stopped in front of him. She introduced herself as “Lia,” an experienced time-jumper who had been sent by the council. Lia explained his performance had been “sub-standard” and “did not meet the expectations of the council,” continuing on to say that the council was extremely disappointed, and the most disappointed of all had been Ben’s master.
It felt like she had stabbed him in the chest. She told him that the council had been watching. They had recognized that he had had plenty of opportunities to carry out his mission but failed on countless occasions. He questioned her, asking her what he was supposed to do to prevent her from giving birth to a child when he had only just met her.
She cocked one eyebrow and twisted her mouth into a scornful smile. “It’s simple,” she responded in an eerily grating voice, stepping forward. She grabbed his collar with one hand and yanked him toward her so that their faces were only inches away from each other. “You just need to kill her,” she whispered, her lips wet.
“I can’t kill her!” He backed away in shock, his eyes wide.
“While it may be your first mission, there is no question about it,” she said simply. “Eliminate your target and prevent the monster that she will bring to this world. This is the simplest way to complete the mission.”
“N-no,” he sputtered. “There’s more than one way to prevent the birth of a child. I just need time.”
“Fine.” Lia let go of his shirt. “You have until tomorrow night, Mr. John,” she added mockingly, before turning away and walking into the inn.
He stood outside room 29 and took a deep breath. He had been pacing outside her door for half an hour, wringing his hands and shaking his head occasionally as if trying to shake the doubts out of his head. Finally, he turned and raised his hand in a fist to knock on the door. The door swung open before he could knock, startling him as he gasped a bit in surprise and stepped back.
Jane peeked mischievously around the door at him. “I heard you pacing around.” She giggled as he blushed. “I was wondering when you’d finally come in.”
She was wearing a pink dress under a white, lacy apron that looked too clean to not be brand new. The sound of her voice was like medicine to his sick mind. He felt his thoughts clear, like dark-gray storm clouds being brushed away by a healing spring wind. They chatted for a while, but to him, it was never long enough. She brought a lightness to him that he didn’t know he needed.
“Why don’t you stay for dinner? I was just about to make a roast,” she offered, smiling and taking his hand, leading him to a small wooden table and setting out an extra placemat.
He sat at the dinner table blissfully, lost in peaceful thoughts and appreciating the cute designs of the placemats and the careful arrangement of the cutlery before him. Suddenly, he heard his name being whispered from the corner of the room.
“Ben!”
He heard the whisper again, and he whipped his head around to see Lia, standing in the shadows in the corner of Jane’s living room. She looked furious, her eyes dark and glaring, her smile twisted in a way that was neither subtle nor tolerant. The red stone around her neck glowed.
Ben had a lingering suspicion that she might be an illusion created from his own mind. “What are you doing here?” he whispered incredulously.
“This is your chance!” she hissed at him from the shadows. “Do it!”
Ben looked over at Jane in the kitchen, who was humming happily to herself as she stirred something simmering in a pan. Her back was to him. On the table next to his hand sat a steak knife. His hand moved as if on its own accord. The stone on his neck began to glow. He picked up the knife and, moving as if spellbound, slowly rose from his seat. Step after step, he moved toward the kitchen, his feet carrying him closer and closer to his target. He had almost reached her. The weight of the knife was heavy and asymmetric. Lifting it, he began to draw his arm back. He paused.
Suddenly, Jane turned around. “John?”
He froze. Her eyes wandered to the knife in his hand. He frantically searched his mind for an explanation. He came up with one sooner than he would have cared to admit.
“I just can’t wait to dig in,” he lied enthusiastically. “The roast smelled so good, I just had to take a closer look, and maybe get a few bites.” He winked at her while jokingly thrusting the knife toward the roast simmering on the stove.
She giggled a bit and turned back around. “Just a few more minutes, silly! Go sit down.”
The ease in which he lied to her made his heart ache. He did as he was told and sat down again, quickly putting the knife down. He felt Lia’s eyes burning him from the shadows.
The evening was over too soon, and before he knew it, he was standing in the doorway, bidding Jane a good night. In his mind, he wasn’t sure when he would ever see her again.
“Wait!” he heard as he began to leave down the hall back to his room. He turned, and Jane skittered up to him.
“Good night, Mr. John,” she whispered, before planting a kiss on his cheek and dashing away.
He stood mot
ionless for a time, reveling in his pathetic joy. His revelry was interrupted by a grating female voice, which spoke from the shadows of the hallway behind him.
“You’ve failed,” Lia announced, walking up to him. She grabbed his face and turned it so that he faced her. “Time’s up, Mr. John.” She smiled mockingly. “She dies tonight. I didn’t want to take this away from you, this being your first mission and all, but if you won’t do it, I will.” She shoved past him and began to walk toward room 29.
His body moved before his mind could react. He sprinted in front of Lia and blocked her path, spreading his arms out. “I won’t let you,” he stated defiantly.
They stared at each other. Ben felt himself start to fold from the weight of her stare, but he held fast. “She hasn’t done anything wrong,” he pleaded.
“She will,” Lia spat and tried to push past him. “Move. This is the only way.”
“No, it’s not.” Ben grabbed her arm. “Let me do this. Please. I can stop her from having this child. Just—” his voice broke. “Please don’t hurt her.”
Lia struggled against his grip on her arm, but upon seeing the look on his face, she stopped. “This is your last chance,” she said, her voice low.
Her fists were clenched, and he could feel the tension in her arm from where he held it. Ripping her arm from his grip, she marched back down the hallway from the direction she came from and disappeared into one of the rooms.
The next morning, Ben made his way downstairs and knocked on Jane’s door. There was no reply. He waited, bile rising in his throat. He knocked again. Still, there was no response. Panic gripped him.
Thoughts of Lia from the night before drifted into his mind before he could stop them. He imagined Lia stabbing defenseless Jane over and over with the steak knife he had used the previous evening, cutting into Jane the same way he had cut into the roast, the red juices spilling out onto the floor.
“Jane!” he shouted, rattling the doorknob. He shook harder, and with a crack, the rusty doorknob gave way, and the door opened.
Inside, the room was empty. There wasn’t a trace of the furniture or the table at which he had sat the night before. It was as if Jane never existed. He felt more than just panic now; it was pure terror. His head spinning as he stumbled frantically out of the room. He practically threw himself down the stairs toward the innkeeper, who was standing at the reception.
The innkeeper looked up when he heard Ben’s frenzied approach. “Good morning. How can I help you, sir?” the innkeeper said politely, subtly eyeing the disheveled man standing before him.
“Jane—” Ben gasped, panting. “Jane ... where is she?” He leaned against the reception counter for support, staring down at the innkeeper.
“Jane?” The innkeeper looked taken aback. “Why, she left just this morning.”
Ben felt a rush of relief flow through his body, from his shoulders to the soles of his feet. Knowing that she was safe and alive, somewhere, gave him hope.
“It was quite a last-minute arrangement,” the innkeeper continued. “I believe she mentioned something about how the theater troupe who employed her received an offer from a few towns over. It was an offer they couldn’t refuse, apparently, so much so that the entire troupe up and left overnight!”
Ben thanked the innkeeper profusely, who smiled politely, raising his eyebrows slightly. Ben started to walk, or practically skip, back to his room. He was interrupted by a voice that brought dread and terror to his very core.
“What have you done?”
Ben slowly turned around, although every part of his body wanted to turn away, ignore the voice, and pretend as if it didn’t exist.
Lia stood in the hallway behind him, her eyes dark with fury and violence. She raced up to him at an inhuman speed and grabbed his shirt collar with one hand, almost lifting him off the ground. He felt choked by his own collar. Gasping for air, he turned his eyes down to look at her.
“This mission has failed because of you,” she growled. “The target is gone, and we have no way of knowing when she will return, if ever. It’ll take us months to find her again, and by then, it’ll be too late.”
“No—” he managed to gasp.
“What did you say?” she asked incredulously, the outer corners of her eyebrows arching upward.
“I didn’t fail,” he rasped. “I saved a life.”
Ben saw Lia’s face lose any trace of humanity that remained. It turned stone cold, and her eyes went completely blank. Dropping her grip on his shirt collar, she reached into the inside of her shirt.
The next thing Ben saw was a flash of silver and a streak of red, not the bright-red of the stones they carried around their necks, but the dark-red of blood. She had slashed him across the face with her knife with such force that his entire body had been thrown to the side, and a splatter of blood had streaked across the adjacent wall. Through the blood that dripped into his eyes, he saw the fury in her face, an almost inhuman amount of anger and hatred dripping from her darkened presence.
“You disgust me,” Lia stated, her voice flat. “How many lives do you think you would’ve saved if you only had the decency to carry out your duty, no matter how hard?” Her voice sounded distant.
She left, and Ben was left sprawled across the floor, alone in the hallway of a dusty inn.
That evening, there was a knock at Ben’s door, and finding the strength in his legs waning, he took his time answering it. He heard the knock again, and mustering the mental willpower to get up, he made his way to the door and opened it just a crack, peeking out suspiciously.
Standing outside his door was a face he thought he would never want to see again, but every part of his body jumped at the sight of her face, once a stranger’s etched onto a piece of paper and thrust into his shaking hands. He realized he was smiling, and, opening the door fully, took in the sight of her form.
Jane smiled at him. “Hey there, Mr. John.”
“What are you doing here?” He tried to keep his voice steady. He failed, and his voice cracked. “I thought you had left.”
She shook her head and looked down. “I almost did, but I realized something as we were about to leave.”
She reached through the doorway and took his hand. “There are people here who inspire me, who excite me,” she said, putting his hand to her chest, “and who I’ve begun to cherish.”
As she did so, he felt a heat rising in his veins, rushing from the warmth of her hand against his and making his head spin. He unconsciously took a step forward, out of the darkened doorway, and into the bright hallway. The light from the hallway hit his face.
Jane gasped as she saw the vicious cut across his face clearly for the first time. “What happened to your face?” With her face full of concern, she reached up to touch his face.
Fear coursed through his body, an icy cold replacing the warmth from just moments prior. He was reminded then, with a jolt, of Lia’s viciousness, of her violence, and of his own mission. The joy he felt for that short moment was gone. He felt horror and repulsion, not at Jane herself, but at the image of her, bloodied and screaming at him to help her while Lia’s knife buried itself into her body.
“No!” he shouted, slapping away her hand.
Surprised, she withdrew her hand with a gasp and clutched it close to her. The way she looked at him now, with hurt and alarm, was agonizing.
Still, he knew that the longer she stayed, the more danger she was in. There was no telling when Lia might decide, unbeknownst to him, to hurt Jane. His face bore evidence of her bloodlust, and he knew that she would not hesitate if given the opportunity. There was, frankly speaking, also a small part of him that wondered if he might, just maybe, do something to Jane he might regret for the sake of the “mission.”
“I think you should leave.” His voice came out emotionless, flat, and grim.
“What?” Jane looked confused. She searched his face for a trace of that kindness she had begun to adore, but, finding nothing but an empty stare, dropp
ed her hands to her side.
“You’ve made a mistake. There is nothing here for you.” Ben’s voice sounded as if it were coming from another person. “You should leave,” he repeated, but his resolve was waning. The longer they stood there, caught in the doorway between the brightly lit hallway and his dark room, the more he wanted to follow her out into the light.
He decided then what he needed to do. He looked down at her sadly and closed the door in her face. The last image he had of her was the shock and regret on her face as the light from the hallway thinned and disappeared with a click as the door shut completely.
Behind the closed door, Ben slumped down, putting a hand to his eyes. “Please.” His voice broke as he whispered, knowing she would never hear. “Please leave.”
He heard the silence of her pausing outside his door, but a few moments later, heard her sad footsteps retreating down the hall. He rested his head against the back of the door and closed his eyes.
Just then, in the back of his mind, he had the smallest recognition that everyone back home had watched him turn away the target through that red stone he still had around his neck. He could picture the disappointment on their faces, the frustration at another missed opportunity.
However, something had changed about Ben. He almost didn’t care anymore, and he wasn’t sure if that delighted or worried him. Regardless, he had made a decision, and there was no reversing or going back on what he had done. He wasn’t remorseful in the slightest.
A YEAR PASSED BY, AND for Ben, the entire year seemed to have disappeared in the blink of an eye. He was no longer in control of time, but rather, time seemed to slip through his fingers as he lost the will to look after it.
He was gaunt, roaming the streets of nineteenth-century England. The bright spark in his eyes had diminished somewhat, and the energetic young man who had first come to this time, chasing glory and recognition, was no more. Over time, he had forgotten about his mission, although from time to time, he remembered the stone around his neck, which continued to glow feebly and weigh heavily on his chest.
Guardians of Time Page 19