Eli looks hurt. ‘Thee.’
‘“Thee” is not my name,’ I say.
His calm, blue eyes look at me with sadness. ‘Th–’
‘No! Stop! You’re crazy. You are not my brother and stop calling me that!’
I run past him to the door, but as my hand touches the doorknob, he says, ‘What about our eyes? We have the same blue eyes, Thee.’
Deep blue eyes.
I turn to face him; he has not moved. The drapes parted behind him, his silhouette glows in the moonlight. I take slow steps towards him until I can see his face. His eyes are exactly like mine. From the deep shade of blue to the dark rim of the iris. Memories of the young man staring into my eyes bubble up. We are small children, running around, playing in the grass; I poke my tongue out at him, he retorts by doing the same thing. He punches me; I cry. Our mother yells at him from the entrance to a small, wooden house. Standing in a field I hear a whooshing sound as he appears in front of me, deliberately scaring me. The air flutters again as he disappears, reminding me of the sudden breeze when he took me from the platform.
There is nothing I can be sure of other than one thing – this is my brother, and it has been an eternity since I have remembered him. Knowing Eli is my brother has unlocked my past, he is the key to my memories. My mouth curves up and down, undecided whether to smile or frown. I am happy to finally remember him, sad that he was ever forgotten. I hold my hand against his chest, feeling his pounding heart. His arms cradle me. My head rests below his shoulder and I hear his heartbeat matching mine.
We pull apart and once again I look into those familiar eyes. ‘You’re Reidie.’
He smiles.
I take deep breaths, trying to come to terms with this forgotten brother. How could I forget him? What else have I forgotten? His smile fades as my face falls. If he is my brother then I am like him. I am a Manipulator.
‘Who am I?’
Sadness returns to his eyes. He takes a deep breath. ‘You are Thea, my sister, my twin. And you’re a Variant like me. Like our dad and his parents before him.’
‘Twin?’
‘Yeah, but I’m older and don’t you forget it.’ He smiles before understanding what he has said. ‘Oh, I mean . . .’
Something clicks in my mind. A memory of him saying, ‘. . . and don’t you forget it’, on numerous occasions.
‘I guess you’ve forgotten everything and everyone,’ he says.
‘But why did Father keep you hidden after our mother died?’ I step away and pace the room. ‘Why a princess and no prince? Why keep you a secret? You are truly the heir to the throne.’ A smile creeps out of me at the thought of not having to rule.
‘Thee–’
My thoughts gather pace. ‘And how are we Manipulators? Was Mother one? Why would Father keep that from me?’
‘Thee–’
‘Wait, you said we’re Variants, like our father. He’s a Manipulator, too?’ All his talks on how dangerous Manipulators are and he was one all along.
‘Thea!’ He grabs my arms, stopping my pacing. ‘Thea, the cack-king is not our father. He stole you from your real family!’
The exhaltation I felt is gone. My stomach drops as I step back, out of Eli’s reach. ‘Stole me? What are you talking about?’
‘Whatever life he made for you is a lie. He is the one that kidnapped you, took you from your real father!’
‘No, that’s not possible!’ Is it? I revisit my dream; it is the key to my memories. ‘I dream of you, lying on the ground next to me, explosions going off. That night . . .’
‘That night is the night he took you. The night he killed our mother.’
My world is collapsing. How can any of this be true? ‘Tell me everything.’
‘We weren’t prepared for the raid. We thought the treaty with the North Empire would protect us but we were betrayed by one of our own,’ he says, his anger rising. ‘The soldiers had explosives and maserlocks. The fire from the explosions was so hot, and the pulsars shot from the armament sentinels’ maserlocks shredded through us like we were air. Our family, our friends, were screaming in pain and terror, trying to escape. My Ability wasn’t strong enough. I was too young to help. Too young to save you.’ His head drops.
My head swirls. My dream-nightmare is the raid. ‘The gangly, dark-haired man – he took me.’
‘You remember?’
‘Yes. I’ve been dreaming about the raid for as long as I can remember. There’s an explosion, and you, and then him.’ A cold shiver runs down my spine.
‘We didn’t know if the soldiers were from the North Empire or the Kingdom of Cardiff, so we didn’t know whether to head north to the Empire or south to the Kingdom. We didn’t know where was safe.’
A thought occurs to me. ‘Maybe she’s still alive. Mother, I mean. After all, you didn’t think I was alive so maybe she survived, too.’
His jaw tenses. ‘We . . . we found her charred body in the woods after the attack. The ring Dad gave her was the only thing we had to recognise her.’ My heart burns for the woman I cannot remember. ‘We knew – we thought we knew – that the same fate had befallen you.’
‘Why did they raid us in the first place? Who betrayed us?’
‘The Kingdom of Cardiff has never liked our kind. And since the reign of the current king began, the persecution has become worse.’
‘Why?’
‘His whole family was killed by Variants.’ My breath catches in horror. ‘Not by us,’ Eli says. ‘By one of the groups from the Wastelands; they’re all wild out there. Ever since then, the king has had a vendetta against all Variants.’
‘But why take me?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that we’ve found you. Concord won’t believe it.’
‘Concord? Your group? Our group?’
‘Yes, it’s what we call it. Dad is going to be so happy. He’s the leader of Concord. He keeps everyone out of trouble. Mostly. Except Jay. No one can keep him out of trouble.’
He smiles and I smile back, trying to place a mischievous Jay in my memories. From what I’ve seen of him, he’s brooding and angry.
‘He didn’t believe me when I said it was you. I guess it’s a twin thing. You’ve grown, obviously, and you look different with light brown hair, but I knew it was you.’
Anger rises in me. ‘What colour hair am I meant to have?’
‘Blonde, of course, like me.’
Has my hair darkened with age? How else has it changed colour?
The thought of family brings up the question of my father. Who isn’t actually my father. Was he part of the raid? How did I end up in the kingdom? Maybe he didn’t know where I came from, who I really am? But then why lie to me and tell me I was his true daughter? Why hide the truth?
‘So whoever took me brought me here and gave me to the king? Why?’
‘Like I said, Thee, I don’t know.’ He looks around the darkened room, walking to the window. ‘No one knows I’m here. Jay warned me about coming back. He said the kingdom would be on high alert. But I had to know.’ He turns back to look at me.
I smile. He risked coming back to find out if I was his sister.
There are so many questions zipping through my mind I can barely capture one. ‘What’s my power?’ The words blurt out of my mouth so quickly that I run them together. ‘I have to be a Manipulator – a Variant – too, right?’
The thought of having a power excites and scares me. I’ve been taught to fear the powers of the Manipulators, and yet, the idea of possessing a power from within is amazing. I don’t know how to feel.
‘You mean your Ability, Thee. We never knew. Normally Variants start to show their Ability around six or seven but you were taken when you were eleven, and you never showed signs of an Ability.’
‘So I’m not a Manipulator? If I come from a family of Manipulators, how’s that possible?’
‘Variant, please, Thee. Mum was a Natural so it was believed that you inherited more of her genes than Dad’s.�
��
I feel both relief and sadness. For a few moments I thought my seizures had an explanation other than the ‘accident’. I almost hoped they were a symptom of the Manipulator virus.
‘But I don’t think you are a Natural, not anymore.’
My heartbeat quickens. ‘Why?’
‘On the platform at the parade, you slowed the pulsar that would have hit you and Jay. And in your room, you froze those sentinels. You stopped time, Thee. If you can do it without noticing, imagine what you can do once you practise.’
My trances during my so-called seizures; all those times my mind wanders off and I feel like I have been lost for hours. It always felt like hours to me because I was slowing time. The slow pulsar at the parade, the frozen sentinels – it all makes sense.
‘Have you done it before?’ Eli asks. The look on my face must be amusing because he chuckles. ‘I still remember when I first knew I was Space Vaulting. It wasn’t as strange for me; I knew what to expect.’
I look at him with wide eyes.
‘I’ve got Dad’s Ability.’ He smiles at my blank expression. ‘Space Vaulting. I can transport from one space to another.’
‘Right.’ I feel overwhelmed. I’ve never been given so much information about the Manipulators before. All we’ve ever been told was that their powers, their Abilities, were dangerous and powerful, that they would be used against us.
‘I Space Vaulted us from the parade to your room. But your stopping time must have interfered with where I was taking us. I wasn’t planning on ending up here.’
‘I was thinking of my chambers, maybe that’s why?’
‘Maybe.’ He steps forward. ‘Here, give me your wrist.’ He reaches for my left hand and gently turns it over so my palm is facing upwards. He lightly presses a finger to my wrist, the exact spot where the tingling feeling occurs, and I realise the tingling always follows my seizure trances. The memory of the burning sensation flickers through my mind and I take my hand from his grip.
‘That’s odd,’ he says. ‘Your Token, it’s not there.’
I look down at my unmarked wrist, the intertwining lines gone. ‘Token? There was a mark there. It disappeared yesterday. What is it?’
He pulls back the sleeve of his jacket, revealing the underside of his left wrist. On it is a black mark, almost like a tattoo. In the centre is a solid black oval with dots spiralling out for four centimetres or so.
‘Tokens are a symbol of our Abilities. Each Variant has a Token with a pattern representing their Ability. Once you use your Ability continually, it will stay imprinted in your skin. Mine’s really black because I Vaulted here tonight.’
I run my fingers over his Token. It isn’t raised or bumpy, it’s just in his skin like it belongs there. ‘Does it tingle?’
He smiles. ‘Yeah, when you’re using your Ability it does.’
‘Does it ever burn?’
His smile drops. ‘It’s painful when it first starts to appear. Mine developed when I was nine. The burning is only meant to occur once, when the Token fully develops in your skin. It seems your . . . Time Freezing from the other day wasn’t enough to develop your Token completely.’
‘You mean I have to experience that pain again?’
He starts walking around my room. ‘Afraid so, sis. Unless you choose not to stop time again.’
‘Why wouldn’t the tests show what was wrong with me?’
He pauses at my timber bookcase. ‘What tests?’ He pulls out a book about monkeys, an animal I’ve never seen, roughly flipping through the pages.
‘Don’t! Those books are delicate!’
He squeezes it back on the shelf. ‘They’re just books, Thee.’
‘They’re not just books, they’re my escape. And they’re from the Old World so they’re fragile.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘All right then. Tell me about the tests.’
‘My father – I mean Duncan – I mean the king – he has had tests run on me since I can remember.’ The worry in Eli’s face is obvious. ‘I always thought they were tests to monitor my seizures. Now I understand that those seizures were me slowing down time.’
‘What kind of tests?’
‘Mainly blood tests.’
‘This isn’t good.’
‘He knew!’ I say. ‘He knew what I was all along and that’s why he took me – because of what I am.’ I sit down at the small dining table. ‘But why make me his daughter? Why not just lock me up and keep me hidden?’
Eli crouches in front of me. ‘I don’t know, Thee.’
‘He treated me like his daughter. Loved me like a daughter. Even some of those stupid books are presents from him.’
‘Don’t say the books are stupid, Thee. They’re delicate, you might hurt their feelings.’
His attempts to make me smile do not succeed. ‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re a Descendant.’
‘A what?’
‘A Descendant. Our ancestors were the first to be directly affected by the virus. They started showing signs of the virus only fifty years after the infection, others took over a hundred years to show a small Ability.’ He takes my hands. ‘The king wanted to have you examined and tested because you’re a Descendant of the first Variant. These blood tests, tell me more.’
‘He said they needed to keep monitoring me after the supposed accident, when my mother died. They took blood and platelets each month, and every few months, skin samples.’ The tests have never bothered me before. I thought of them as necessary to finding a cure for my seizures. Little did I know that my father always knew what was wrong with me. ‘It was clever of my . . . Duncan to say I had suffered a head injury. What better way to mask his true intentions than using my memory loss and “seizures” as an excuse for his tests and examinations? It’s too bad for him his lies are starting to unravel.’
‘Variants have been regarded as freaks for hundreds of years now, Thee. Our kind has been hunted for nearly two centuries. The dominions in the north and south have always wanted us gone. They’re constantly searching for ways to defeat us. Running tests on you sounds like just another way of trying to discover our weaknesses.’
‘I wish I could remember more. Our past, our history.’
‘There’ll be time to tell you everything. The best way would be to recover your memories.’
‘I don’t remember losing them in the first place.’ My memories shouldn’t have to be found, they should be there – my parents, my life, my brother. ‘It’s not fair!’ I say angrily. ‘I shouldn’t have my memories locked away with only my dreams bringing them out.’
‘I know, Thee, but your dreams show they’re hidden in your mind. We just have to find a way to get you to remember.’
‘It’s not like I can just make myself remember.’
‘You remember me, Thee. Your other memories can come back, too.’ He must see my doubt. ‘You’re halfway there.’
‘More like a one hundredth of the way.’
‘That’s the spirit, Thee.’
‘It’s funny. I remember you’re my brother, but I don’t remember why you call me Thee. Or why I called you Reidie before – it just felt right.’
‘I call you Thee because it annoyed you when we were kids. You only ever wanted to be called Thea, so, naturally, being your big brother, I only called you something that annoyed you.’
A memory of my irritation at him rolls into my mind and I smile; a memory to add to my small collection.
‘And you call me Reidie because you didn’t like my name.’
‘So where did I get Reidie from?’
‘Our last name is Reid, Thee. I think even your dodgy memories can figure that one out.’
I whisper to myself, ‘Thea Reid. Althea Cardiff.’
‘What?’
‘I just . . . why didn’t Duncan change my name completely?’
‘Who knows? Perhaps he thought it was a princess-sounding name, Princess.’
‘No. No, I’m not. I’ve never been one, ev
en when I was. I’ve never felt royal. I guess this explains it.’
‘I guess.’ He wanders around to my dresser, running his hands over the golden coils that decorate it.
‘How do you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘How do you – how did you put it – Vault through space? How do I deliberately use my, uh, my Ability?’
‘You mean, how do you stop time?’
‘It would be nice for once to know how to unfreeze time when I inadvertently freeze it.’
‘Or how to deliberately freeze it?’ He looks back at me with one eyebrow arched. ‘It’s different for everyone but basically it’s about concentrating. I focus on where I want to go. I have to know where I’m going though. I’m still not sure how you confused my Ability and we ended up here on your parade day.’
I look at him, just as confused as he is.
‘I’m guessing for you it’s about focussing on slowing time until it stops completely.’
‘I didn’t stop you two the other day.’
‘Perhaps you can only freeze Naturals. It may take some time until your Ability develops enough to affect Variants – or perhaps it never will. Thanks for that, by the way. I don’t think I could have got to Jay in time if you hadn’t stopped the maserlock’s pulsar. Do you remember Jay?’
‘He’s in my dream – a flash of blue, him disappearing behind the collapsed buildings – but not from my life before I was taken. Did I know him well?’
His smirk reappears. ‘Something like that. Let’s just say the two of you weren’t the best of friends.’
I don’t know why, but my immediate reaction is to be defensive. ‘If he wasn’t so sullen, he’d be easier to get along with.’
‘You’ve gathered he’s sullen from being with him for only a few minutes?’
I hesitate. ‘Yes.’
‘Jay has every reason to be sullen.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s had a hard life.’ He looks around again. ‘This is a nice place you’ve got here. Are you sure you want to leave?’
‘Leave? You’re going to take me with you?’
Time Catcher Page 7