And then one day, the king was taking his daily walk in the royal walled gardens when he spied a small boy sitting on a small boulder. The boy was whittling away at a piece of bark.
“What are you making, boy?” asked the king, as he sat beside him. The boy grinned at the king and placed the piece of bark in the royal fellow’s outstretched palm. The boy hung his head forwards and a great, deep laugh started to rumble its way up out of his shoes, travelled through his body and shot up out of his small mouth. The king could not take his eyes off the piece of bark in his hand. It was fashioned into a great wall of flames and started to heat up and burn into the paper-thin skin of his palm. The boy continued to laugh and laugh as the king opened his own mouth to scream. But nothing came out. As the king was engulfed by flames and reduced to ash, he heard the boy say:
“You cannot escape the inevitable, old man. Time will pass and your time will come when it is your time. And now, it is your time.”
My Varya, she did not like this story. She told me she was no longer a child who could be scared by silly old stories. She left in a great hurry that day. But when she came back, she told me her own story. She called it ‘science’ and spoke of ‘life spans’. But, as far as I could tell, it all amounted to what the old king was told. Your time will come when it is your time.
And so, I knew what I had to do.
I had to find out when it would be our Kir’s time. Because if I did not, my Varya could spend the rest of her time, and mine too, trying to outrun the inescapable. Do I regret the consequences of my actions? Yes, of course I do. But I did what I thought was right. I did what I had to do for my Varya and Kir.
Chapter forty
Varya
Varya strode into the small room adjacent to the main laboratory and pressed the door shut behind her. She peered over Connor’s shoulder.
“That’s Professor Langford’s research. Why aren’t you working on the transfer device?”
Connor looked up, surprised and blinking. He shook his head a little and went back to the papers before him. Varya stood above him and crossed her arms. Eventually he sighed softly and looked up, his head tipped to one side.
“They’re nearly there,” he pointed out. “They don’t need me.” He waited for her to contradict him. When she didn’t, he bent his head back over the papers, his finger moving on its journey down to the bottom of the page again.
Varya pulled a chair over and sat, trying to keep her shoulders straight in a seated stance of seniority. Connor was right. She’d just been to visit the room full of talented scientists and was astonished at the speed at which they’d worked through the problems. There was a near-constant buzz of conversation from several self-formed groups, each of which had taken ownership of a particular element of the recreation. Before she left, she’d given authorisation for the first build attempt to begin. At this rate they would have a prototype in the next day or two. Unfortunately, they may not have time to test it out on anything other than a live subject. But Connor was right, he wasn’t needed right now.
“Have you heard anything from the investigation?” Varya had kept her distance from Sebastian since last night, ignoring the several calls she’d received from him this morning.
“Yes. Nothing new yet. They’re still ‘pursuing leads’.” Connor kept his head down but raised his eyebrows at the last two words and intonated them in such a way as to suggest that the investigators were doing something other than what they said.
“They haven’t found Reg?”
“No. But if we can recreate the time transfer tech, it won’t matter.”
Varya was silent.
Connor looked up and frowned. “It won’t matter, will it?”
“No. No, it won’t matter,” she said quietly. She nodded towards the papers scattered over the table. “Found anything?”
Connor leaned back and spread his hands over his thighs, surveying the organised chaos. He glanced at his notes and scrolled up a little, then shook his head.
“Janet was a brilliant scientist.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And she’d been working on this for a long time. Years, in fact.” Connor paused for effect. “She was very thorough.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, Connor.” Varya picked up the stack of papers closest to her and shuffled through them to hide her agitation.
“There were projects that were being worked on when I was at Rest Time Corps. They weren’t official—strictly off the books and out of the media’s eye—but they had their own wing. It was locked down, entirely classified, and only a select few were given clearance to enter. I heard from a friend recently that some of the projects have had great success in finding what they were looking for.”
“You’re going to tell me that I should talk to Sebastian, aren’t you?”
“It’s the most direct way, yes. Your other options are to try to poach staff from Rest Time Corps and get them to come and work here on similar projects and hope they’ll be… flexible enough to find the answers you’re seeking. Or you can resort to non-legal avenues. Of course, both of those options will take much longer and carry greater risk.” He tried to catch Varya’s eye, but she was studying the papers intently. He noticed she’d read a single page several times. “It’s your call.”
“The other two options don’t involve telling Sebastian.”
“Varya, he’s going to find out eventually. Once you get Kir out of there, he’ll want to see his son. And he’ll want to know… everything.”
“You’re assuming he’ll get to see his son again.”
“What?” The word escaped Connor’s mouth before it had time to consult his brain.
“You heard me.”
“Varya, you can’t be serious,” he said softly. This wasn’t the Varya his aunt had told him about. Or maybe it was. Her single goal had become protecting her son. And protecting her son appeared to have morphed into keeping her son away from everyone who might have any interest in anything other than keeping him alive.
“Sebastian would have the best of intentions. But the thirst for knowledge—maybe not his, but Rest Time Corps’—would override everything else. Including Kir’s wellbeing. It’s just the way it is. It’s just the way we are.” The wave of her hand encompassed the room of scientists next door, Connor and even herself. “It was the way I was, before I had Kir to think of.”
Connor contemplated this for a moment. He didn’t think it was the way he was. But perhaps he’d spent too long working with the kids who had died at the hands of the time thieves all those years ago. It had certainly changed him in ways he couldn’t articulate. He swallowed and nodded.
“I’ll keep looking through these papers, see if there are any gaps, any avenues that could be explored.”
Varya stood and returned the chair to its original resting place.
“And that friend of yours? From Rest Time Corps?”
“Yes?”
“Feel free to let them know we’re looking for new staff. And we pay generously.”
Connor nodded and watched Varya straighten herself and stride back out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
Chapter forty-one
Zoe
It had been a long day and Zoe had been very much looking forward to escaping from the hospital to visit her son. Keeping up the charade of being a grieving mother was almost as traumatic as actually being one. Or so she thought. Actually, that was probably ridiculous. Nothing could be worse than actually losing Daniel. Her mind was exhausted. The days spent pacing around their home or frozen on the couch, staring at her screen, willing it to ring or not ring. Willing the door to open or not open. Fearing the worst. Living the worst through her own dark imaginings.
It was all too much.
In amongst it all, her gratitude towards Varya thoroughly overwhelmed her. Her friend was still living the nightmare, had been for years. And all through that she had managed to save so many other sick children with her cha
rity’s research. But was yet to save her own.
Zoe found her mouth forming a smile as she remembered the relieved look on the parents’ faces today at the hospital as she’d told them that the surgery had been successful. Their little girl would be coming home with them as soon as she had recovered. Thanks to the Minor Miracles Foundation they now had the right combination of a surgical procedure and post-surgery treatment that worked for this particular type of rare brain cancer.
Varya greeted her at the door to her apartment and ushered her through to the Time Lock.
“You’re not coming in?” Zoe asked, as Varya nodded her towards the portal but remained standing by the door.
Varya shook her head. “It’s not my usual visiting time yet. And I have some work I want to get done first.”
Zoe shivered as she stepped through the portal. She wondered if a person could ever get used to the strange feeling of passing through a burning waterfall. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it was a small price to pay to spend time with her son.
“Mum!” said Daniel, peering around the hallway. He seemed suspended in movement, unable to decide whether to act the nonchalant tween or run to his mother as he really wanted to. Zoe bridged the distance between them and flung her arms around him. Clearly relieved, he hugged her back.
“How are you? How do you feel? Do you have enough food?”
“Hi, Aunty Zoe!” Kir shouted, bounding down the hallway and trying to wrap his short arms around both of them at once. Daniel loosened his grip on his mother a little to include the small boy in their embrace. He smiled to see Kir happy again. With the comings and goings of outsiders over the past couple of days he’d come to realise that Kir wasn’t this upbeat all the time. In fact, his natural state seemed to be quiet and lethargic. He was happiest when Daniel suggested playing games or going outside, though he had trouble letting someone else be in charge of anything.
It was clear to Daniel that Kir was lonely. It couldn’t be easy having only your grandmother as a playmate all day, every day—for either Kir or Elena.
“Aunty Varya says they’ve nearly finished re-building the time transfer technology,” Zoe confided to Daniel as they sat around the kitchen table, her hand fluttering near his, trying to resist gripping it in her hands. He’d made it clear that he was happy to see her and be hugged temporarily, but now he would revert to the slightly reserved nine-year-old that he was.
“They still need to find the person to transfer it back from though, don’t they?”
“Yes, but they have some leads. I’m sure they’ll find them soon.” Zoe tried to exude a confidence she didn’t feel. Her face fell slightly as Daniel’s shoulders slumped.
“It took them months to find them last time, didn’t it?”
“You’re safe here for now. If it takes months, it takes months. I’ll download some series for you and bring them in, so you don’t miss too much.” Zoe’s forced laughter fell flat. Daniel glanced through the archway to where Elena and Kir sat, playing a card game of memory on a small table placed next to Elena’s armchair. Something felt off in here. The frozen world of people and animals outside the apartment, the way Elena seemed to move slowly to pass the time.
It was excruciating. He was used to the fast pace of life outside the Time Lock, where he could hold several conversations at once on his device, while watching a video on the large screen and reading an article on his personal screen. Here there was only one task at a time. Every time the portal closed after someone left it felt like the apartment shrank in around him, and Kir’s mood turned darker.
“I got one! I got the boats!” Kir exclaimed, snatching the matching cards from the table and adding them to his small pile. “I need to pee now!” He jumped up and ran past Zoe, nearly crashing into her chair and then into the doorway as he corrected his course to the bathroom.
Zoe laughed. “How has he been? Still no signs of disease progression?”
Elena smiled. “No, he’s fit as a fiddle, or so it would seem. No memory loss, no seizures in a long time. It’s as though he were never sick.”
“No pain? Restricted mobility?”
“None.”
Zoe ruffled Kir’s hair as he came flying back through the kitchen to take his seat at Elena’s feet again. As she placed her palm lightly on his scalp and felt a thin ridge running across his skin, she frowned, the vision suddenly replaced with the memory of another small head, around the same size, on an operating table earlier today. She shook her head slightly to clear the vision and questioned her own memory. There were lots of variations of childhood brain cancer and they all behaved differently.
The rest of the visit seemed to pass quickly. They ate the dinner Marisa delivered, Varya came to spend her daily hour with Kir, and then she and Zoe said their goodbyes and left together.
Chapter forty-two
Varya
Back in the apartment, Zoe turned to Varya. She hesitated, opened her mouth, and then closed it again.
“What?” asked Varya.
“It’s probably nothing. It’s just…”
Varya’s tone was gentle but impatient. “It’s been a long day for both of us, Zoe. Just spit it out.”
“Kir’s tumour, it was a ZhangWei’s cyst, wasn’t it? I mean, I could check his file, but I just figured you’d remember.” She let it hang in the air between them. It felt like time had frozen again. Zoe silently urged her friend to tell her she was wrong, that it was another disease, a much more complicated one for which the cure eluded them.
“Varya?” she said faintly.
Varya avoided her pleading gaze. “Yes, it’s a ZhangWei’s cyst.”
“But I operated on one of those this morning. Using the technique and treatment plan your facility developed.”
Varya nodded and moved towards the couch. She sank down, her legs seeming to give way beneath her.
“I don’t understand. Varya? Talk to me. What’s going on?” She went and sat beside her friend, desperately hoping for a reasonable explanation about why she would keep her own son locked up unnecessarily. Eventually Varya lifted her face and Zoe saw the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s my fault. The treatment won’t be enough and it’s all my fault.”
The words tumbled out on top of each other then, like a broken dam wall. Varya told her everything. It was a relief, to be able to talk to someone about it again, properly.
But Zoe understood completely, as a paediatrician and a mother. Varya began to wish she had confided in her friend long before now.
“Oh Varya, I’m so sorry.” Zoe’s own eyes filled with sympathetic tears. “I know you feel like it’s your fault. And I know you think that your mother and Kir are safe for now, so you have time. But living like that, it’s no life for them. Connor’s right, you have to go to Sebastian and ask for his help.”
Varya nodded. “I know. But if Mum leaves the Time Lock, she doesn’t have…”
Zoe held her hand and finished the sentence Varya couldn’t. “She doesn’t have long to live. I know. But you’ll get through this, Var’. You need to do it, for Kir’s sake.”
“I can’t lose my mum, Zoe. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
Zoe smiled through her own tears. “We all lose our mums, eventually. And it’s awful, but it’s also normal and inevitable and necessary.” She patted Varya’s hand. “And I’ll be here for you.”
“I’m so scared, Zoe.” Varya wiped at her tears and took a few deep, shaky breaths. “Let’s just get through this first, we’ll get Daniel back. Then I’ll go to Sebastian, I promise. I just need some time to prepare mentally. And Kir is safe for now.”
Chapter forty-three
Elena
The sunshine is soft but warm in this little world of ours. It’s a mid-afternoon spring sun, the kind that doesn’t burn. There’s no frost or dampness left on the grass and the gentle heat releases the wonderful new grass smell into the otherwise odourless air.
I watch Kir chase
Mon-Mon, his favourite magpie, around a tree. Mon-Mon squawks at him, waiting for him to come within centimetres of his tail feathers before hopping away. I smile. The bird is in no danger. I know that he will fly up into the branches of the big gum tree if Kir starts to annoy him. Once Mon-Mon misjudged and Kir managed to grab him, pulling a small black feather from amongst his black plumage. Mon-Mon got his revenge by flying up into the gum and defecating into Kir’s outstretched hand. Kir refused to play at all for several days after that. Mon-Mon hasn’t used that particular punishment again.
“Can we go to the music shop?” Kir is bouncing up and down in front of me. I don’t want to go to the music shop, it’s a good half hour walk from here. I am tired. But Kir is not. I glance over at Daniel, who is sitting against the gum tree staring into space and wonder whether nine years old is old enough to be left in charge of an energetic four-year-old.
I check my watch, which tells the true time, and sigh. It is still hours until bedtime. Until I’ll tuck Kir into his little bed and close the blackout curtains against the afternoon sun. The same sun he’ll wake up to on the morning of the same day. I wonder if Mon-Mon gets tired, if he sleeps. I’ve never seen him do so, but then I wouldn’t. He’s a bird.
I brace myself and push up from the park bench. I hold out my hand and paint a smile on my face.
“Yes, baby boy. Let’s go to the music shop and see what they have today. Daniel, would you like to come?”
“Yay!” Kir hurls two fistfuls of grass into the air and twirls. I’ve told him not to pick the grass. I can see bare patches in the distant lawn where he pulled too many in the early days before it occurred to me that they might not grow back. We’ve moved play areas since then. He’s getting better at remembering.
Daniel joins us, a pace or two behind, and as we walk, I watch two white butterflies duel in the flowers. Butterflies or moths? I never could remember. The smaller animals seem to have stayed with us in this world, moving and thriving. After all these years I still can’t see a pattern. The dogs stay frozen, next to their owners, out for a never-ending walk. But a few of the birds and the bees, they roam freely. I wonder if Mon-Mon’s feather has grown back, or whether that’s something else that will never return.
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