Chasing Stars

Chapter 5

Although the sun was shining and the air was warm, Ryan and I had our hoodies pulled up, hiding our hair, our faces disguised behind sunglasses. He raised an eyebrow at my strip of unflattering passport photos, lightening the mood for a second.

‘You look like a hardened criminal,’ he said.

‘You don’t look so hot yourself,’ I said, pointing at his.

He pulled out his wallet and counted the rest of his money into my palm. Seventy-five pounds. ‘Go to the phone shop and buy two cheap pay-as-you-go phones. Then take the bus back to the Towans and wait for me in the chalet. I’m going to drive to Truro and arrange for the ID.’

‘Won’t he want money now?’

‘He’ll get the money when he gives me the documents.’

He headed off in the direction of the car. I hurried into Perran Digital, picked up the two cheapest phones I could find, and hurried out again. There was still half an hour until the next bus. I walked down to the seafront furtively, sticking to the shadows, my hood up and my head low. Perran was a small town. I knew too many people.

Down by the harbour, I sat by the boats, away from the clean, warm sand that the locals and tourists preferred. The harbour beach was jam-packed. I saw my friends, Megan and Connor, at the other end of the beach. They were holding hands and paddling in the shallows. Amy and Matt and a few other kids from school were lying on a beach blanket under the wall, which was more sheltered. The tide was coming in. When it was high they would probably go jumping off the harbour wall. They always did.

I took my new phone out of its box and inserted the SIM card. The battery was fully charged, so I started adding the names and numbers of all my friends. I knew that it was stupid. I couldn’t call them in case Lauren was monitoring their incoming calls. But it made me feel safe – connected – to have their phone numbers programmed into my phone. There was another ten minutes till the next bus. I shoved the empty box into the bin, kicked off my flip-flops and wandered down to the sea. I walked along the water’s edge, leaving footprints in the damp sand. Halfway across the beach, I stopped and just watched.

I’d known them practically my whole life.

I would never see them again.

They would all go on to college together, celebrate their eighteenth birthdays, choose their universities and careers. How long would it be before they forgot me?

I would never forget them.

The bus rattled its way along the seafront road. I said a silent goodbye and turned back the way I’d come. My footprints had already been washed away by the incoming tide.

The bus was almost empty. The only people that ever used this service were the tourists staying at the chalets on the Towans and the kids too young to drive. It was that time of day when most people had already headed out where they were going, too soon for anyone to be headed home.

I stared through the window at the sea as we passed by. Where would we go? I didn’t really care so long as Ryan and I were together. But what if something happened to him? What if the cleaner caught him breaking into the farmhouse and took him back with her? What if something happened and I was left here all alone? Again.

We had to get out of here. Soon. We needed to put as many miles between us and Lauren as we could.

The bus pulled into the stop outside Perran Towans. I stayed aboard. I didn’t want Ryan going to the farmhouse to collect the rest of his money. I had a better idea.

When the bus dropped me off outside the village stores in Penpol Cove, I pulled my hood up and put my sunglasses back on. I headed for the fields in front of my house and climbed the stile into a freshly ploughed field, the furrows in straight lines like a row of small waves. I walked along the perimeter of the field until I was just across from my house. Scrunching myself down, I peered over the hedge. The street was empty. I decided to give myself twenty minutes. If there was no sign of life from within the house in that time, I would risk it.

Minutes passed. Gulls tossed and screeched on the wind. Clouds raced across the sky. A boy dribbled a football along the street until his mother called for him to come home for lunch. Then nothing. My legs shook with the awkward effort of crouching behind the hedge. Surely a cleaner sent back to catch Ryan would have more important things to do than hang out at my house in case I came home. I scanned the parked cars on the street. There were six of them. Four I could see clearly. Two were partly hidden from view.

I stood up and shook the cramp out of my legs. She wasn’t here. I made my way back through the field, across the stile and on to my street. Trying to seem like someone taking a casual stroll I walked up the road, flicking my eyes from left to right, making sure the parked cars were empty. They were.

For a moment I considered marching right up to my front door and unlocking it with my key. But a small part of me still felt uneasy. I kept on going right to the end of my street and then turned the corner, doubling back on myself along the rear alleyway. It was narrow. Both my street and the one behind it had back gardens that opened on to the alley. It was big enough for wheelie bins and not much else. There was no one there but me and the ginger cat who liked to come and visit us from time to time.

When I got to my back gate, I paused. The garden was small with nowhere to hide. Just a picnic table, a washing line and a few scraggly shrubs. I unlatched the gate and pushed it open with my toe. It swung inwards with a creak.

I would only need two minutes to get what I needed. One hundred and twenty seconds. In and out. Surely the odds were on my side.

I swallowed my fear and slowly put one foot in front of the other. There was no sound. I’d always enjoyed the quietness of Penpol Cove before; now, it just felt creepy. I pulled my house keys out of my jeans pocket and slipped the back door key into the lock. I turned it and pushed the door open.

I stepped inside. The kitchen looked just as it always did. The table still had a half-finished bottle of red wine next to the salt and pepper shakers. Miranda’s mug was sitting in the sink. The address and phone number of the house she was staying at in Bath were stuck to the side of the fridge with a magnet. The house was silent. All I could hear was the hum of the fridge and the all too familiar pounding of my heart.

I left the back door open and tiptoed into the hall. The door to the sitting room was ajar. I glanced inside. Nothing. Exhaling deeply, I climbed the stairs.

It was an old house. Every other stair squeaked or groaned and some of the floorboards on the landing were loose. I wished I could remember which stairs and boards were bad, but I’d never been the sort of girl who liked to sneak out of the house at night. Upstairs were three rooms: my room, Miranda’s and the bathroom. I was pretty sure that Lauren wouldn’t be hanging out in the bathroom, but I pushed open each door in turn to check. Nothing.

My cash savings were in a jam jar on the top of my bookshelf, hidden behind a copy of Great Expectations. I pulled out the jar and emptied the cash on to my bed. One hundred and four pounds. Not a lot, but enough for petrol to get us out of Cornwall. Enough to buy food for a few days.

My mother’s engagement ring was in my jewellery box. It was a slender band with a large diamond, which I had attached to a thin gold chain. Miranda had had it valued just a few months ago when renewing the house insurance. The jeweller had said it was worth three thousand pounds. The ring was all I had left of my mother, except for a handful of photographs. I put the necklace around my neck and picked up the framed photo of me and my parents which stood on the bedside table. It was the photo I said goodnight to every night before turning off the light. I was about to slide the photo out of the frame, when I remembered I couldn’t. Ryan had said we would make it look like we had drowned. So no one would look for us. If I took that photo, Miranda would know I’d run away. Instead, I rummaged through the shoebox of photos I kept under my bed until I found another photo of my parents, as well as one of me and my friends on the evening of the Year Eleven Ball.

I heard a noise from downstairs. Light footsteps. Like someone trying to move stealthily. I stood perfectly still, holding my breath. The footsteps were coming up the stairs. Quickly. I spun around, looking for something to use to defend myself. The atlas. Just as I reached for it, the door opened a fraction and the ginger cat padded inside. He glanced at me, before jumping on to my bed and curling up on my pillow.

Stupid cat. Of course – I’d left the back door open.

‘Sorry, Katkin,’ I said, picking him up. ‘You can’t stay here today.’

I left my room, Katkin in my arms. He purred loudly, not yet understanding that I was about to kick him out. I didn’t bother with keeping quiet any more. I just wanted out, back on the bus, back to the chalet.

I ran down the stairs, through the hall and into the kitchen.

I was not alone.

Sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, a gun resting on the table in front of her, was Lauren.

I stopped in my tracks. Katkin struggled and jumped out of my arms.

‘Hello, Eden,’ she said.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out except a strangled, ‘What?’

‘Sit down.’ She nodded at the chair opposite her, a nod that managed to acknowledge her gun as well as the seat.

I glanced at the open door. If I ran, she’d have time to pump several shots in me before I crossed the threshold. But what if I screamed? Called attention to her. She wouldn’t like that.

‘I suggest you do as I say. Any other choice will not lead to a good outcome.’

I hesitated.

She picked up the gun.

I sat down.

‘I’m going to make this simple for you,’ she said, putting the gun back on the table. ‘You have a choice. You can lead me to Orion Westland . . .’

‘Never. I’ll never do that.’

‘Or I will kill everyone who has ever mattered to you.’ She reached behind her and pulled the slip of paper with Miranda’s contact details from the fridge. ‘Starting with your aunt. And then your friend, Connor. And I will continue killing your friends until you lead me to Orion.’

I stared at her. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

‘Take him back where he belongs. 2123. I won’t harm him.’

‘You won’t harm him? What about me?’

‘You will have to come with us. To 2123. You know too much to be allowed to remain in this time.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Then I will have to kill you.’

I rubbed my head. Could I trust her? She was a cleaner.

‘It’s a simple choice,’ said Lauren. ‘You and Orion come to the future with me and you get to be together. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

I looked at her.

‘Or you refuse to help me and everyone you care about will be killed.’ She stood up. ‘What’s it going to be?’

He was in the kitchen, cutting a slice of bread, when I walked in.

‘Hey,’ he said, smiling.

‘Ryan,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

He looked confused for a millisecond. Then, when the knife clattered to the counter and he raised his hands above his head, I knew she’d come in as well.

‘Why?’ he asked Lauren. ‘Why do I matter? Why can’t you just let me run? I won’t affect the timeline. You know that. You’re from the future.’

‘There’s a bounty on your head, Westland. Three million credits. Can you match that?’

He swore and looked away.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.

‘It’s not your fault. This is what she does.’

‘Actually, you were very hard to track,’ said Lauren. ‘My research told me that you would spend your first couple of weeks in the Perran area. After that you would disappear.’

‘That’s why you came so soon.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What about Eden?’

‘She’s coming with us. She knows too much.’

Ryan lowered his hands. ‘You know I won’t run. You have Eden. But please, can I leave some of our stuff on the beach? So it looks like we drowned. Just to give some clos­ure to Eden’s family and friends.’

‘Go ahead.’

Ryan took our beach towels, hoodies and my backpack and left to plant them on the beach. I watched him through the window.

‘Who put a price on Ryan’s head?’ I asked.

‘Ryan’s father is a Guardian of Time. You don’t get that powerful without making a few enemies along the way.’

I watched him walk away, along the small sandy path that led down to the beach. He disappeared behind a chalet and then he was gone.

Two boys, dressed in wetsuits, boards under their arms, ran past the chalet towards the beach. Seagulls swooped from the clifftops and then hovered, almost stationary, in the uplift. A palm tree bent in the sudden gust of wind.

I heard a car driving along the road. A small plane travelling overhead.

Would I ever hear such things, see such things again?

High clouds raced across the sky. Out at sea, white foam sprayed from the breakers. 2012 clouds. 2012 waves. My sky. My beach.

My home.

Two hours later we arrived at an isolated farmhouse on a remote part of the moor. Like Ryan, Lauren had hidden her ship in a barn. It was black and almost circular, with legs that held it off the ground, like a four-legged spider.

‘Get in,’ she said.

‘Aren’t you going to wait till dark?’ said Ryan. ‘We always travel at night.’

Lauren gestured around her. ‘Who’s going to see us here?’

I walked my last few steps across the springy moorland grass, breathed my last few breaths in 2012. I didn’t want to leave my time. This was where I belonged. Something glinted from amid the purple heather and I stopped. It glinted again, a copper eye blinking up at me. Crouching, I parted the heather. It was a penny. Tarnished and weather-beaten, but still bright enough to catch the sun. I slipped it into my pocket for good luck. ‘Goodbye,’ I whispered to the world around me. My blood thickened and slowed, and a leaden dread filled me as I mounted the metal steps that led up to the hatch.

The inside was tiny. Just a cramped cockpit with a huge and complex-looking instrument panel and one row of seats behind it.

Ryan went first.

‘Watch your feet,’ he said.

Lying across the footwell was a body bag containing Travis. As I climbed into my seat, I was careful to avoid stepping on it.

Lauren sat in the cockpit. She tapped the console in front of her and the whole ship began to vibrate. A circle began to appear through the cockpit window. It began as a pinprick and gradually expanded until it was about three metres across. I could still see the moorland through it, though it was slightly opaque, like looking through cataracts.

‘Stabilised,’ said Lauren, checking her instruments. ‘Are you both ready?’

For a few seconds it felt as though we were moving backwards. The moor retreated into the distance. Whether this was an optical illusion or we really were travelling backwards, I couldn’t tell. The moorland began to distort until everything was curved. And then we were moving forwards into the circle, which – it became clear – was a tunnel.

No one said a word. Lauren appeared to be concen­trat­­­ing very hard on keeping the ship in the middle of the tunnel.

‘Ninety seconds,’ she said, reading the instrument panel in front of her.

I glanced sidelong at Ryan. He smiled and reached for my hand.

The edge of the tunnel was now completely black, while the centre was brightly illuminated. It reminded me of stories people told about near-death experiences – about travelling towards the light.

‘Sixty seconds,’ said Lauren.

It felt like the ship itself was holding its breath. I remembered Ryan telling me that portals through space-time were unstable and could collapse in on themselves and that travelling through portals this close to each other was like playing Russian roulette.

‘Thirty seconds,’ said Lauren.

Ryan crushed my hand with his. Suddenly the tunnel we were travelling through began to narrow and curve. I could see the blackness of deep space, the farmhouse shed we’d left behind and a bright green field all at the same time, as though looking at a marble. A light on the dashboard began to flash and an alarm began to sound. My nausea started to grow and I slammed a hand across my mouth.

‘The portal’s collapsing!’ Ryan shouted.

‘Hold on!’ said Lauren as she frantically tapped away at the screen on the dashboard. ‘We’re going to have to make a slight adjustment.’

The ship rolled over. The sphere unravelled and we were travelling through a tunnel again. The shed, space, the green lawn were all gone.

‘What’s the destination?’ asked Ryan.

‘August,’ Lauren said, hitting buttons on the dash. ‘Or close to August. I’m going to land at the Institute.’

‘We’re going to make it,’ said Ryan, squeezing my hand.

‘Ten,’ said Lauren.

The bright light at the end of the tunnel faded.

‘Five.’

Colour returned to the edges of my vision and the curved tunnel we’d been travelling through opened out. Ahead of us was a large green field with curved white buildings in the distance. The tunnel collapsed into a pinprick and we had arrived.

‘Where is this?’ I asked.

‘SATI headquarters,’ said Lauren. ‘Space and Time Institute. Not our original destination, but with the portal collapsing I had to make adjustments.’ She turned around to face us. ‘You two had better say your goodbyes. Orion will be arrested the second we open these doors. You have ten seconds.’

‘Where will they take you?’ I said.

‘They’ll put me in a cell for a few days,’ said Ryan. ‘I’ll be OK. Try to find my friend, Pegasus. He’ll take care of you.’

‘Pegasus,’ I said. ‘OK.’

He pulled me into a tight hug. ‘Everything’ll be fine.’

There was a sigh as the doors unlocked. We clambered out of the ship. Waiting for us on the grass was a man in a charcoal grey uniform, flanked by four heavily armed guards.

‘Mission complete,’ said Lauren. ‘We have repatriated the remains of Travis Deckard and brought you Orion Westland. The girl is here both as a witness and a precaution.’

‘You will need to be debriefed,’ said the man in uniform. He nodded to the guards. ‘Take these two to Central Holding.’