Marisa shot him a look of pure irritation. “How should I know? I haven’t sliced his brain open recently. I just bring the food.”
“You’ve been inside the Time Lock? Wow, what’s it like?” He stood up and went to the kitchen door. Marisa jumped up and grabbed his arm.
“Don’t even think about it. Nobody goes in there except me and Varya.”
Connor shook his arm free and made as if to move back into the kitchen. “I’m sorry, I just… it’s so incredible. They’d tried to get the Time Locks working but never could. And then the technology was destroyed along with everything else.”
Marisa flicked her head towards the table. He sat down. She leaned against the bench and crossed her arms.
“Kir’s illness was very advanced. Varya was told there was nothing left to do for him. Sebastian wanted her to just let him go, but she couldn’t. She wanted to make sure they’d tried everything. Sebastian and Varya had an awful fight. Sebastian said his goodbyes—to both Varya and Kir. Then he left.”
“So, the kid’s still sick? Inside the Time Lock?”
Marisa shook her head. “Yes and no. Varya told the doctors she wanted to take him home and allow him to die there. They gave her drugs that would keep him comfortable and sent him home. She waited for a point in time when he was feeling well. You know that sweet spot just a half hour or so after you’ve taken your next dose of medicine? Then she set Elena—that’s her mother—and Kir up in the Time Lock. They’ve been there ever since.”
Connor gave a low whistle. “Wow.”
Marisa gave him space to process all this while she moved to the sink and started to fill it with warm, soapy water to wash the coffee cups.
“Why hasn’t anyone come looking for Kir?” Connor asked finally.
Marisa dried her hands on a small towel hanging from the oven. She shrugged before turning to face him.
“Guess they figured he’d died.”
“But wouldn’t the hospital expect a body? Wouldn’t Sebastian come back for the funeral?”
Marisa laughed. “Doctors and morgues are fairly separate entities. You should know that. Why would the hospital staff follow up? Zoe—she’s a doctor—told them she was checking in on Kir. And Sebastian… he was gone. He’d already said his farewell.”
The silence stretched between them. Marisa and Connor both waited for Varya to return and tell them what the next step was.
Marisa gazed at Connor. Connor looked away first. Marisa tapped her purple index fingernail on the table between them. Quietly, steadily. Tap, tap, tap. He looked up. She smiled sweetly.
“You work at the Cure Factory, then?”
He nodded slowly, frowning. “Cure Factory?” He tipped his head, lifted one side of his mouth. His eyes sparkled. “I guess that could work.”
They both looked up to see Varya gripping the doorframe tightly with one hand. She seemed surprised to see them.
“Var’?” said Marisa softly. “You okay?”
Varya frowned, focusing on a point just over Marisa’s head.
“I have to go and see Zoe.” Then she looked directly at Connor. “You need to leave now.”
“But…” he started.
She shook her head once, decisively. “We’ll talk later. Go back to work.”
And with that, she left.
Marisa watched the space she’d vacated, her brow lined with concern. She looked back at Connor.
“Off you go then, minion. Back to work.”
“What will you do now?” he asked, standing up from his chair.
“I’m going to stay here and have another coffee,” she told him.
She waited until she heard the door locks click shut after him, then sighed and stood, stretching her stiff back, and grumbling to herself. She rolled her shoulders to get the kinks out and then wandered out to the hallway and turned left, padding up the carpet to the end room. She laid her palm against the panel next to the door and waited. The square beeped and lit up a soft green. The door whooshed and opened slightly. Marisa pushed it wide but didn’t go in. Beyond the single bed was a mirror-fronted built in robe. At least, she knew there was a robe there, though she couldn’t see it. A shimmering oval obscured her view of two of the doors. Suspended in mid-air, she could just see the silver edge of the closet door beneath the oval’s lowest point. She checked the digital clock on the dresser. Another hour before she was scheduled to take the next food delivery through.
“Hope you’re hungry, kid. It’s burgers for you tonight,” she said softly to the shimmering portal.
Chapter eighteen
Elena
I’m never quite sure if it’s the sound or the smell of the portal that alerts me first. We don’t have real time here so it’s not like I can arrange a time for visits. Sometimes we’re here in the house when my Varya appears. Other times she just shows up when we’re strumming guitars at the music shop—which we found only a week or so ago thanks to a printed map Varya brought us—poring over books at the book shop or just sitting on the grass watching the clouds roll by. Actually no, that’s me romanticising again. The clouds don’t roll by anymore. They’re still… fixed in placed. I’m quite glad there were a few clouds around on day zero. Otherwise I would miss them. Blue skies are all very well but, somehow, they feel more transient than cloudy ones. Like an empty function room before the people arrive.
Today it’s definitely the smell. It’s mostly burning plastic, like when you leave an ice cream bucket too close to the stove and it starts—ever so slowly—to melt. But it’s also slightly sweet, as though someone tried to stop the melting by drizzling honey over it.
Our Kir smells it too. He twitches his nose and frowns as his little jaw continues to work at breaking up his breakfast. It’s not until he hears the static sounds sparking in the next room that he slams down his spoon and jumps up, cereal flying from his open mouth.
“Mummy!” He breathes the word out in a rush of air and bounces out of the kitchen door.
I smile and move to the sink to retrieve a sponge. I start mopping up the flecks left on the table, pushing down the slight pang of irritation that has started to surface with my daughter’s visits. By my calculations I’ve now been parenting this boy far longer than she did. Does that make me his parent, too? Doesn’t that give me the right to have him throw down everything at the merest hint of my arrival?
Of course, my jealousy is ridiculous, I know that. I’m always here for our Kir. I have the privilege of spending every moment with him. Something that Varya would kill for, I’m sure. Except that sometimes I’m not so sure. Sometimes, now, I feel the time stretch between her visits and I wonder if more days than usual are passing outside before she steps back through the portal. The way she runs her hand over Kir’s head seems more cursory, the nod and initial glance she sends my way have less warmth, more guilt. But perhaps I am simply feeling worn out by living in this endless loop. I’m a patient person but even the patience of a saint would be tried by living through one single never-ending day, over and over again. Even if it is the best of days. Even if it means I get to spend years with my grandson that I otherwise wouldn’t. I miss people. I miss their faces.
I wipe up the spill and toss the sponge back in the sink, resume my seat at the table and sip my tea.
After a minute Kir returns, this time attached to Varya like a back-to-front rucksack. Kir is grinning. Varya is not. Her face is a blank canvas, though her hand rubs circles around her son’s back. It leaves impressions against his jumper. He wriggles. She is rubbing too hard, she is tense.
“Varya,” I say. It is both a question and an acknowledgement.
Her eyes slide over me, but I catch the way she’s biting the junction between the corner of her mouth and her cheek. Most people wouldn’t notice, but I do. I am her mother. I’ve been watching this action since she was a tiny toddler: Varya is worried.
“Kir, your mother is not a tree. Please climb down and finish your breakfast,” I tell our monkey boy. Varya ge
ntly removes him and places him on the seat in front of his half-empty bowl.
“I’m not hungry!” he shouts gleefully, scrambling up to his mother again. It fascinates me, this habit of his. The way he seems to have imprinted on her so strongly in his earlier years that even though he sees her for only a few minutes of each of his days, she still holds such a significant place in his heart.
Varya sits at the chair next to him, opposite me, and lays her hands carefully on her legs.
“Eat, Kir,” she tells him.
He pauses and watches her, hoping she’ll change her mind. She turns away and his face crumples slightly, though he picks up his spoon, as instructed, and starts to poke at his cereal.
“Varya?” I say again.
“It’s Daniel,” she mutters, staring at the table.
“Is he sick?” I ask, though in the pit of my stomach I think I already know.
She nods and starts picking at her cuticles. It’s a dreadful habit. I tried using that foul-tasting paint you’re supposed to use, when she was little, which stopped her from biting them. But ever since then, she picks at them instead. I suppose that’s better than biting. There’s nothing to say, really. I wait for her to speak. I sip my tea.
“He’s… we don’t know how much time he’ll have left,” she says, finally looking me in the eye. I see desperation, guilt, and pain all mixed up. In my heart, all I want to do is comfort my child. She is hurting. But I don’t comfort her because she will not thank me for it. She must be allowed her strength. I know this from long experience of being snarled at when I’ve tried to comfort her. I stomp on my heart and tell it to shut up and take a back seat.
“Bring Daniel to me and Kir. He can stay with us until you work it out.” My mouth speaks without consulting my brain. It’s the mother-conditioning. I know that Varya has taken on Daniel as a substitute son. I know that Kir’s little fists clench every time Varya mentions him, though he doesn’t understand why. But it’s not Daniel’s fault. He’s only a child, too. He deserves to be safe until my Varya can find a cure for him as well.
I reach across the table now and touch my daughter’s fingertips with my own fingers.
“He’ll be safe here.”
Varya sheds tears then, rubbing at them quickly with her bony shoulder.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Then: “I have to go, I’m sorry.”
She stands and Kir almost falls from his chair in his hurried alarm.
“Mama!” he shouts, attaching himself to her leg.
“I’m sorry, baby, I have to go now. I’ll be back again very soon.” She tries to peel him off, but he’s stuck fast. “And I’ll be bringing a playmate for you,” she says brightly.
This news surprises him enough that he relaxes his grip. I scoop him up and hold him close on my lap. I nod to Varya. Go now. She nods back.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I have to… explain some things to Zoe first.”
Varya hesitates for only a moment before she turns and walks through the doorway. We hear a door open and close, more static as the portal opens again, and then she is gone.
Chapter nineteen
Marisa
“Dinner time!” Marisa called as she emerged from the portal. She’d started announcing her arrival after being greeted several times by a devastated Kir who had heard and smelled the portal open up with the expectation of his mother arriving. He would still come to greet Marisa—the bringer of food was also very much welcome in Kir’s small world—but no longer teared up due to mistaken identity.
Today she stood alone for several moments in the hallway, holding a dinner plate in each hand, waiting for the meaty smell of his favourite burgers to bring Kir to her. Eventually she shrugged and walked the several paces to the kitchen and meals area alone.
Elena stood next to the table, staring down at the cutlery set for two, water glasses neatly aligned above the knives, ketchup bottle in the centre.
“Where’s Kir?” Marisa placed the plates gently down on the table in their allocated places.
Elena sat and raised her voice, “Kir! Dinner time!” To Marisa she said, “He’s in his room.”
Marisa sat opposite Elena and waited. “Is he okay?”
Before Elena could answer, Kir appeared at the doorway, paused, glared at them, then trudged to his seat and sat down heavily.
“It’s your favourite,” said Marisa, pushing the plate a half-inch closer to him.
Kir sighed dramatically, propped his right elbow on the table and rested his head on his upturned hand. “I’m not hungry,” he declared, pushing the plate away and knocking the sauce bottle over.
Marisa caught it before it rolled off the table. Elena slid the plate back towards Kir.
“You’ll get nothing else except sandwiches and cereal until tomorrow night, so make the best of it now,” said Elena.
Kir pouted and picked up a chip. After using it to push several other chips around, he poked one end into his mouth and started to chew. With his free hand he stacked chips on top of each other to form a small fort.
“They’ve taken another one,” said Marisa. She watched Elena slice a chunk off her own burger and put it in her mouth.
“They say it tastes the same as real meat,” said Elena, pushing the food into her cheek and grimacing. “But I remember what real meat tastes like, and this is not it.”
Marisa tried again. “This one’s the kid of a friend of Varya’s.”
“Who took one?” asked Kir. “One what?”
“Kir, eat your food. Don’t interrupt when adults are talking.” Elena’s tone held the authority of a bygone era when children were expected to be seen and not heard. Kir huffed softly and started to deconstruct his burger, carefully removing the lettuce and tomato and putting them on the side of his plate before replacing the bun and biting into it.
“Daniel, yes?” said Elena.
“Yes. That’s two now,” said Marisa. “Ben and Daniel.” Her hands fidgeted and her jaw clenched.
“Are they sure it’s… them?” she asked, with hopeful doubt.
“The police don’t know. Daniel hasn’t been returned yet. But the other kid, Ben Williams… it was the same M.O., so…”
“But not confirmed. Not the same people.”
“No,” said Marisa through clenched teeth. “They haven’t arrested anyone, but it’s pretty bloody obvious…”
“Nanna, Nanna! She did cursing!”
“Kir! Eat your dinner!” Elena shouted.
Kir shrank down into his seat, confused. His grandmother never raised her voice at him. He sat silently, his hands in his lap. Seeming to remember his Nanna’s command, he poked one small hand above the table, plucked a chip off the plate and slipped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly.
“It’s not our concern,” said Elena to Marisa.
“You think it’s just, what, a coincidence? The…” Marisa glanced at Kir. “The timing?”
“I think it’s a tragedy. But do I think… he was involved? No, I don’t.”
“No, of course not…” Marisa paused, looked at Kir again. “He would never do anything to hurt anyone, but…”
“But you think that by dredging up the past, we’ve somehow awoken a great demon who has started to terrorise the city again.”
Marisa sighed. “I just…”
“You feel guilty.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Because you think that by helping me, it’s somehow your fault. Even if you didn’t directly cause it, if your action started a chain reaction of evil, you think that you might be to blame.”
Marisa nodded and exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
Elena put down her knife and fork and pressed her hands together, elbows on the table.
“We did what we believed was right, to help a mother and her little boy. Nothing evil can possibly come out of such a selfless act. If someone else has chosen to intervene in that process and create evil, then that is their choice and they will pay for it when the ti
me comes and they have to answer to the Lord Almighty.” She picked up her cutlery again and stabbed at the chips. “But, for what it’s worth, I don’t think it is related at all.”
Marisa tapped her fingers on the table noiselessly. Kir picked up his fork and stabbed at his own chips, missing and clattering against the plate more often than not.
“Did she tell you about the other kid? When she spoke to you about Daniel this afternoon?”
Elena shook her head and swallowed. “She told me that Daniel is sick. I think she wanted me to infer that he is sick like Kir is sick. No more and no less.”
“And you didn’t question her.”
“No. I will do whatever I can to help my daughter. At the moment, she is on the right course. So, I will believe what I am told to believe and leave the rest to her. Daniel is sick, he needs to be cared for. That’s all I care to know.”
Marisa stood. “Fine, you stick your head in the sand. I just hope this doesn’t all come back to bite you on the arse.”
“Nanna, Nanna, she…!” Kir was stopped by his grandmother’s raised hand. He wriggled in his seat, looking about fit to burst. “But! But!”
Marisa turned to Kir. “Kir, I am sorry for cursing.” To Elena she said, “I have to go now. I’ll collect the plates when I next come.”
As Marisa made her way back through the portal, the chiming of Varya’s apartment doorbell became louder and more insistent. She strode over and frowned at the screen showing the live feed of the other side of the door. She peered closely. He was a dead ringer for the photographs she’d seen, but surely…
“Identify yourself,” she demanded.
He held up his identification to the camera, placing it next to his face for easy comparison.
“Well, bugger me,” said Marisa under her breath, smiling as she imagined Kir’s excited face at her cussing.
Chapter twenty
Varya
The police had been and gone, leaving an unmarked car stationed a few houses away, watching out for Daniel. Varya sat in the armchair opposite Zoe and cycled through useless platitudes in her head.
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