News from Gardenia

by Robert Llewellyn

  ‘I know, but, can I love you, hold you, can I be, you know…’

  ‘Gavin, what do you mean?’ she asked. She looked a little concerned.

  ‘I don’t know how you do stuff like this here. In my world, when a man and a woman make a baby, there’s kind of a social thing, you know, everyone knows they are together, people acknowledge their relationship. They get married and stuff.’

  ‘Married, you mean a wedding?’

  ‘Yes, a wedding. They live together and bring up the children together and all that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well, we all do live together anyway. I don’t quite know what you want.’

  I let my head drop. I watched the soft rain drip from my flattened fringe and fall on a leaf lying on the path at my feet.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. I lifted my head to look at Grace, who was now very soaked and looking a little more anxious.

  ‘Just put it down to pod shock. Maybe I just need a lie down.’

  Grace smiled and held out a hand, my spirits lifted and I walked with her, holding hands, through the Goldacre Hall gardens, past the big back porch and into the barn. Grace walked with me to the door but stood on the threshold as I entered.

  ‘Everyone will want to see you and hear of your adventures this evening. Why don’t you have a shower and a rest now? I have many tasks today but I will come to Goldacre Hall tonight.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ I said. I was disappointed but I was also very tired. I leant forward to give her a kiss, she allowed it briefly but too soon she delicately moved away, smiled at me sweetly and was gone.

  22

  I was awoken from deep sleep by great clamouring and noise. I had no idea what time it was but someone pulled back the curtains and my once peaceful sanctuary flooded with daylight that hurt my eyes.

  I felt embarrassed as I dithered and tried to focus on what was happening. I saw there were people in my room, lots of people, it was almost full and it wasn’t some kind of practical joke, they all looked very concerned. It seemed as though everyone in the crowd was looking at me, as I stared around in shock I noticed there were even more people standing in the doorway. For some bizarre reason what seemed like half of Gardenia had decided to wake me up.

  William, Halam, Grace and Paula were standing right by my bed looking very concerned, their clothes seemed to be soaking wet.

  ‘The cloud,’ said William. He was breathing heavily and resting his hands on his knees. ‘The cloud has formed around the tether, the anomaly.’

  ‘It’s the cloud you came through,’ said Grace. ‘It’s back.’ She looked ashen faced.

  I was fairly alarmed when they woke me up. Now I was having a bit of a mental meltdown.

  ‘The cloud?’ I asked. ‘What time is it?’

  No one seemed to know.

  ‘You’ve been sleeping for about four hours,’ said Grace helpfully, ‘but it’s still morning. William was out in the bow field when he noticed.’

  ‘It is exactly the same cloud formation,’ said William as calmly as he could. ‘We only see it rarely, but it is definitely back. It is the anomaly. Get dressed, come and see.’

  I slipped out of bed and pulled my clothes on. I had been sleeping naked and no one seemed in the least bit shocked to see me in my natural state. They just waited impatiently at the door, staring at me.

  I pulled on my weird Gardenian boots and tried to tie them up, fumbled and cursed under my breath. With one smooth movement Grace knelt down at my feet and did the job with no trouble.

  ‘Let us be gone,’ she said as she stood up.

  I walked through the entrance hall surrounded by people who all seemed to be talking at once. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying; my head was fuzzy and everything was too bright.

  The anomaly, that’s what I kept hearing. The anomaly.

  As soon as we got outside I could see that there had been very heavy rain, but it had just stopped. The air smelt incredible, so fresh and clean, the sky was getting brighter and it was very warm. I think I registered then that the air was much warmer than I ever remember air in old England being, not tropical but definitely Mediterranean.

  We walked around the side of Goldacre Hall and yet more people streamed out of the house. As we went through the orchard and into the bow field, more or less every occupant of the hall and a few more besides had come to see what was going on. I had come to know these people. I didn’t know all their names, but I’d conversed with most of them, eaten with them; I felt very at home with them. But hearing about the cloud again suddenly made me feel very isolated, very different, it was a savage reminder that I truly didn’t belong.

  As we approached the narrow gate I couldn’t help breaking into a run. I threw it open and started to run headlong into the centre of the field where I knew I’d get a view of the tether behind the trees.

  The oil seed had already lost its bright yellow glow and the seedpods were forming, but the runway I’d used for the Yuneec a few weeks earlier was still very apparent. It was slightly muddy due to the recent heavy rain, but by the time I reached the centre of the field the sun was shining. I kept glancing over my shoulder as I ran to see if I could spot the tether over the top of the trees surrounding Oak House.

  When it finally came into view I stopped and gasped. The cloud was there. It looked instantly familiar. It’s not that it was exactly the same cloud, but it was bizarre enough. What puzzled me at that point was why I hadn’t been more alarmed when I’d seen it the first time, when I was flying over familiar territory near Didcot power station. It was so obviously a weird cloud formation, it wasn’t the right shape, it swirled and billowed in a peculiar way, and the interior of the cloud occasionally flashed with lightning.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ I said, my hand over my mouth. A lot of the younger people joined me in the field. Grace stood by my side and held my arm. I then held her arm. We both somehow knew instantly what this could mean.

  ‘Does it look the same?’ she asked.

  ‘Fuck yeah,’ I said.

  William came stumbling across the field toward me. He was with a large group of the older folk who had taken a little more time to reach the spot we were standing in.

  ‘It has the same basic features, does it not?’ he said between gasps. ‘The cloud appears to be formed by the excess energy coming down the tether. Look around us: the rain clouds have long since moved on, but this one remains.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I said, all notions of being polite and not upsetting people forgotten. The shocking sight of this massive cloud swirling around in what was now a perfectly clear blue sky was at once terrifying but strangely uplifting. I felt like the stereotype seventeenth century sailor who’d been stranded on a beautiful desert island where he had fallen in love with an exquisite maiden from the gentle and caring tribe he had encountered, who suddenly sees a ship of the realm on the horizon.

  ‘I don’t know what it means,’ I blurted. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ said William. ‘It’s all to do with the current coming down the tether. This time of year when the sun is fully high in the sky, the voltage coming down the tether is, well, it’s enormous; the facility at the tether base will be shedding power by the bucket load.’

  I grabbed William’s frail old arm. ‘Will it have the same effect?’ I asked. ‘Will it send me back?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘No one knows why it happens. We have been studying it for years and still do not understand what is happening. It’s been a noted phenomenon wherever this style and size of power tether is in use, but no one knows why it happens.’

  ‘I’ve got to try,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to upset any of you, but I don’t belong here.’

  ‘Are you really going to leave?’ asked Grace.

  Suddenly G
race looked different, weaker in some way, like she almost wanted me to stay.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m so confused, I’ve only just woken up.’ Again I turned to William. ‘How long does the cloud normally last?’

  ‘Oh, well, only a matter of minutes. We’ve got used to it. I’m not sure, I’ve never timed it.’

  I held my head in my hands. I wanted to stay, I wanted to be with Grace, to help in the gardens, to see my child born. But it was utterly ridiculous for me to stay in this world, in this time. I’d seen what was coming and it was good and it somehow felt like my duty to go back and try and facilitate it. Maybe that was what this whole experience had been about, maybe I was destined to come here, see what could be done, then go back and make sure it did. That is how mad I was, standing in the bow field surrounded by people from the twenty-third century. Such an absurd notion actually seemed plausible.

  I grabbed Grace and hugged her hard, I didn’t care who saw us.

  ‘I have to go,’ I said into her ear.

  ‘I know,’ she said into mine.

  ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it.’

  ‘That’s okay, you can love me,’ she said. She gripped me tightly one last time and then gently pulled away.

  I turned to the gathered crowd surrounding us.

  ‘Can you help me get my flying machine into position?’ I said. Without another word the large group turned and headed back towards Goldacre Hall. The Yuneec had been stored under a large waterproof cloth at the edge of the field, an amazingly light material that had been pegged down around the plane. Within moments it was removed and I climbed inside.

  ‘I’ve left all my stuff in my room,’ I said. ‘You can give it to a museum or something.’

  ‘Good luck, Gavin,’ said William.

  ‘I can never thank you enough,’ I shouted. ‘I can never repay you. You have all been wonderfully kind.’

  ‘You must go now if you want to catch the anomaly,’ said Halam. ‘And thank you, Gavin, you have made Grace very happy.’

  The intensity of those few seconds, of looking into the faces of the future was too much for me. It was only when I closed the canopy that I realised tears were streaming down my face.

  I booted up the Yuneec and everything sprang to life with reassuring familiarity. The batteries were naturally fully charged, I started the prop, the gathered crowd scattered, I watched Grace lead William away to the side, and she then held onto Halam.

  Without delay I started bumping along the makeshift runway. The going was slow because of the softness of the ground. I increased the power to maximum and felt the plane lurch and shudder with the forces being exerted. I’d never taken off from soft mud before, and started to panic; the plane might not make it. As I started to bowl along the ground I could feel the plane starting to lift, and as soon as I felt it leave the ground I pulled the nose up as hard as I dared.

  I just made it over the trees and banked hard to the left immediately. I circled over the field a couple of times, slowly gaining height – I needed to be at around 2,000 metres in order to enter the cloud. I was craning my neck to see it as I turned. I didn’t want to fly too far away from it as I gained altitude but it did look like it was dispersing a little.

  I glanced at the screen – 1,900 metres. I levelled out and aimed at the cloud, glancing up to see the still shocking blue tether coming out of the heavens. I aimed slightly to the right of it, hoping I wouldn’t fly straight into a razor thin, unbreakable thread carrying several billion volts.

  I wanted to look back at the people gathered in the field behind me, but I had to focus on the cloud ahead. I was gripping the controls like never before; I could sense the old country coming back to me, the roads, the trains, the power stations, the houses, cities and the millions and millions of people.

  The cloud engulfed me suddenly and I was shocked by how dark it became. This dull grey world I had entered was suddenly and very shockingly illuminated by blinding flashes of lightning, more than I remembered on my first encounter.

  I glanced down at the controls. Everything seemed okay, and it was at that precise moment the plane lurched violently, almost as if it had been grabbed by a giant. Some force threw me up and then dropped me. I was terrified. I think I may have been crying out – I can’t quite recall, I was so scared. I lost all sense of direction, my eyes open in terror, at any moment expecting to see a flash of blue as the tether appeared out of the swirling grey cloud that filled my world.

  Again I felt the plane utterly lose lift and I felt myself drop. The engine was wailing, red lights started to appear on the dash, warning lights for engine over-revving.

  I tried to lift the nose and slowly managed to gain some control of the plane. I saw something through the cloud, light, some sunlight.

  ‘Fuck!’ I remember shouting. ‘Fuck yeah! Come on!’

  The cloud started to thin and the light increased. Suddenly, I saw something through a gap in the clouds. Could it have been a building, a structure of some sort? I panicked again and tried to gain height. I didn’t want to fly into Didcot power station after what I’d been through.

  Then, suddenly the clouds just dispersed and I was flying level and true. I glanced at the control panel: my batteries were low, 40 per cent. It made no sense; I’d only been in the air for about ten minutes. I experienced a sick feeling seeing the battery metre drop like that – it was like going from a hydrogen fuel cell car to a wheelbarrow.

  Then I looked up. If the battery level made no sense, what I saw below me made even less.

  Subscribers

  Unbound is a new kind of publishing house house. Our books are funded directly by readers. This was a very popular idea during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Now we have revived it for the internet age. It allows authors to write the books they really want to write and readers to support the writing they would most like to see published.

  The names listed below are of readers who pledged their support and made this book happen. If you’d like to join them, visit: www.unbound.co.uk

  Billy Abbott

  John Abraham

  Geoff Adams

  David Traver Adolphus

  Eric Aitala

  Monty Alfie-Blagg

  Tracey Allen

  Gareth Alston

  David Anderson

  Steve Angell

  Judy Anthony

  Brian Appel

  Paul Arman

  Marc Armsby

  Mary Arnold

  Simon Arthur

  John Ash

  Jon Ashton

  Lucent Askew

  Steven Askew

  Michael Atkins

  Michael Auerbach

  Simon Austin

  Nick Baber

  Kevin Bachus

  David Bafoot

  Matthew Bain

  Karen Baines

  Kevin Baker

  Lindsay Baker

  Paul Baker

  Emma Mim Baker-Cooke

  Graham Ball

  Chris Ballard

  Arthur Banks

  Tom Barber

  Genevieve Barbieri

  Stuart Barkworth

  Tom Barnard

  Nick Bartlett

  Cat Barton

  Derek Bashford

  David Basnett

  Brian Bassingthwaighte

  Frank Baxley

  Emma Bayliss

  Matthew Beale

  Gerald Beattie

  Jennifer Beattie

  Dan Beavon

  Frazer Beckingham-Smith

  Joseph Bell

  Amanda Benson

  Calum Benson

  Andrew Bentley

  Keith Berry

  Paul Berry

  Fredrik Berts

  Ben Best

  Rowanne Black

  Rachel Blackman

  Christof Bojanowski


  Paul Boland

  Lucy Bolton

  Phil Boot

  Duncan Booth

  David Boston

  Karl Bovenizer

  Doug Bowers

  Hazel Bradbeer

  Simon Bradley

  Adrian Bradshaw

  Julian Bradshaw

  Robin Bray

  LTC Jon P. Brazelton US Army

  Jon Briggs

  Cheryl Broder

  Philip Broder

  Alan Brookland

  Marie Brown

  Oliver Brown

  Scott, Sophie & Finlay Brown

  P.J. Bryant

  Adam Bryce

  Paul Bucknell

  Peter Buckoke

  Geoff Bullock

  Jonathan Bullock

  Rob Bulmer

  Adam Burke

  Alison Burns

  Jo Busuttil

  Sally Buswell

  Marcus Butcher

  Gareth Butler

  Siân Cafferkey

  Mike Calcutt

  David Callander

  David Callier

  Clare Cambridge

  Viv Carbines

  Caroline-Isabelle Caron

  Alexis Carpenter

  David Carrington

  Richard Case

  Tony Castley

  Wanda Caulfield

  Chris & Liz Chadwick

  Rohan Chadwick

  Eleanor Chalkley

  Sarah Chalmers

  Claire Chambers

  Martin Chapman

  Phil Chapman

  Derrick Charbonnet

  Gavin Cherriman

  Benjamin Chiad

  Paul Churchley

  Stephen Clay

  John Clayton

  Deborah Clement

  Robert Clements

  Sam Clements

  Mark Clifford

  Andy W. Clift

  Alison Cobby

  Don Cochrane

  Mark Cockshoot

  Richard Cohen

  Nicholas Cohn

  Sean Colbath

  David Coles

  Stevyn Colgan

  Lisa Pearce Collins

  Timothy Collinson

  Dave ‘sircompo’ Compton

  Cheryl Connor

  Ryan Conway

  Anthony Cooper

  John Cooper

  Samantha Cooper

  Simon Cooper

  Suzy Cooper

  Richard Coppen