by Jule Owen
All the way from Yorkshire, Mathew has been thinking of Clara, ever since he realised she will likely be there when he arrives. He thinks about her last rather curt message and how she seems to have retreated from him. It is not surprising, considering how distracted and distant he has been. But then, he thinks, she’s not that kind of person. She, of all people, will understand that he has just been overwhelmed by circumstances. There must have been something else going on for her. Perhaps there has been more trouble with her parents. So he puts aside all worry about whether or not she still likes him and pulls up a image he has captured of her, sitting on her bed with her dog Cassie ,and for the first time in weeks, he relaxes.
By the time they reach the outskirts of London, he is anxious again. Even though they sail through the checks at the M25 cordon, the abundance of army personnel and guns, and the tall fences topped with barbed wire, unsettle him. But more than this, he is worrying about what to do when he sees her. In some ways they are so intimate, those many calls, the sound of her voice late at night, but they have hardly spent any time together in the same room. He has no idea what he is meant to do.
Being on Pickervance Road again is a shock. He thinks, of course, of his mother. Part of him expects her to be there as he arrives. Instead, on the doorstep of her house is Gen, and walking steadily towards him is Clara. Before the car has even pulled up, he is opening the door, ignoring the barked commands of his minders. As he steps onto the pavement, he realises he has a bag in his hand and he drops it where it is because he needs to hold out his arms to the girl rushing into them. He needs to concentrate fully on how soft her skin is against his cheek, how warm and right she feels in his arms. And as he kisses her, he is thinking, I am home.
29 Epilogue
Inside the bay window of the front bedroom of number twenty-one Pickervance Road, two men watch as a teenaged boy gets out of a large black off-road vehicle that has pulled up at the kerb, sandwiched between two others.
One of the men standing in the window is tall, thin, rather gangly with pale skin and dark deep-set eyes. The other man is shorter, Asian in appearance, with greying black hair, a long nose and a body thickening around the waist.
The door of the house the cars have pulled up outside is opened by a middle-aged woman with shoulder length curly brown hair, wearing loose fitting trousers and a long bohemian-looking blouse. She starts to move forward down the path, when a girl flies past her, straight into the arms of the boy.
Two men in suits, get out of another car and walk over to speak briefly to the older woman. They shake her hand and hail goodbye to the boy, who isn’t listening, and doesn’t stir from the arms of the girl. They get back into their car and leave. The small party on the pavement outside slowly turns and heads into the house and the road is quiet once again.
The pale tall man in the window, whose real name is Atteas, but in this human time goes by the name of August Lestrange, leads the other man, who is Dr Mathew Erlang, former researcher in synthetic biology and artificial intelligence, now amateur time traveller, downstairs.
In Atteas’ library, Mathew Erlang browses through the large collection of books. “You say I can go anywhere in the collection?” he asks.
“All except these shelves,” Atteas says, standing near the door; he sweeps his hand down the last bookcase. “Especially from here.”
“So I can go back from there, but not forwards.”
“Exactly.”
“I can materialise in these worlds?”
“Yes, of course. You can be a ghost or fully materialise, as real as you are now, as you choose, and we can help with things like establishing an identity, getting you somewhere to stay,”
“And Clara can come and visit me?”
“Wherever you are, she can come for a while. She must always return to her own time, though.”
“I understand.” Mathew idly takes a book from the shelf. It is about Ida Lovelace.
“An early pioneer,” Atteas observes.
“Do I need to leave this time soon?” Mathew asks, leafing through the book.
“Now that you are fully recovered physically, if you wouldn’t mind, it would be most convenient if you could move on, yes. I wouldn’t want our young neighbour to become suspicious, and get distracted again.”
“I can tell you from memory, he is distracted in a different way now. I don’t think he’ll have the energy to be breaking into your conservatory again.”
Attic laughs. “Well that is a relief.”
Dr Erlang puts the book back and continues to run his hand along history. “What a lot of history there is,” he says. “Where should I go?”
“That is entirely up to you.”
THE END
Many thanks, dear reader, for sticking with me through The House Next Door. I really hope you enjoyed Mathew’s adventures. These days, authors are reliant on reviews in order to find new readers. If you enjoyed this book, if it made you think and entertained you for a few days or weeks, it would make a huge difference to me if you could tell others about it and leave a review here:
Yes I want to leave a review on the US Amazon site
Yes I want to leave a review on the UK Amazon site
Review on GoodReads
Sign up for the author’s Book Club to get an exclusive free story and to find out about new releases and offers.
Click here to get started:
http://juleowen.com/mailing-list/
For L.S.,
my mother, Patricia
and my Dad, John.
Notes
The Boy Who Fell from the Sky and the other books in the House Next Door trilogy represent my version of the future, inspired by non-fiction books by Michio Kaku, Martin Rees, K Eric Drexler, George Friedman, Alan Weisman, James Lovelock and James Hansen, amongst others. My full list of sources can be found on my website at
http://juleowen.com/futurology-resources
We are now living in the Anthropocene age, the first period in geological history when humans have had a significant impact on the earth's ecosystem. One direct result of this is climate change. We are also living in a time of exponential technological innovation. It is an extraordinary and frightening time to be alive. My stories are my way of coming to terms with this and exploring possible futures. Find out more about the background to my stories here http://juleowen.com/futurology/
WITH THANKS
I think the point when I realised that I needed others help to complete this book was the point when it became possible.
Thanks to my wonderful editor Lynda Thornhill for being so thorough and for “getting” my books.
So many people helped and encouraged me in the writing on these books. Thanks especially to eagle-eyed beta readers, Tommy Nakamura, Marc Weldon, Amy DuBoff, Lorna Barker, Mauro Rizzi, John MacBain, Adam Masojada, Chris Green and Peter Bell.
Thanks also to Emilie MacMullen, Akvilė Štuopytė, Caroline Juricic, Caroline Bertin, Mark Klein, James McCarthy, Lisa Beecham, Peter Jansen, Henry Blanchard, Pilar Knoke, Nativ Gill, Jonathan Hulse, Stephen Kennedy, Christina Hegele, Heather Allen, Lindsay Charman, Max Beckmann, Rae Dowds,Cassie Condon, Sun Kyu Choi, Jennifer Wirth,Triin Kambek, Zuzana Dobrovolna, Rob Crossen, Eilis Kerr, Bridget Beirne, Julie Walsh, Emily Brett, Stefanie Wai, Christopher J Ruby, and Laxmi Hariharan.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mark Speed, who was kind enough to read early versions of this book, edit and offer invaluable feedback. He took me under his wing and has been a constant source of encouragement and useful advice. Mark is the creator of the wonderful Doctor How series, the real story behind the Doctor Who myth. For those of you who like some comedy with their sci-fi, Mark’s books are a tonic. The first in the series, Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens: Book 1: The Doctor Who is not a Time Lord is available to buy on Amazon.
Thanks to my Dad, John Owen, for always being there, no matter what.
Most of all, thanks to Lauren for your endless patience, support and kindness. This
book would never have been written without you.
THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR SERIES
Text and Illustration Copyright © 2015 Jule Owen
All rights of Jule Owen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
First published in 2015 by Mean Time Books
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Jule Owen and Mean Time Books.
ISBN: 978-0-9934097-9-0
www.juleowen.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jule Owen was born in the North of England in a little place nestled between Snowdonia, the Irish Sea and the Pennines. She now lives in London, UK, where the weather is warmer, and there are more museums, but she misses the wide open spaces and the good quality water.
Jule spent many years working in online technology, latterly in the video games industry and is fascinated by science, technology and futurology, which she periodically blogs and tweets about.
Her books are her creative response to the exponential growth of technological innovation in the era of climate change.
CONNECT WITH ME
Check out my website at http://www.juleowen.com
Here’s where you can find me on social media