Copyright © Ryan O’Riordan 2011
Smashwords Edition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used ficticiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011
Summary: Rebecca Conner starts to secretly investigate why the world is changing without anyone realising and what connection a strange, violent cult have to it – all while trying to convince everyone she is just an ordinary girl. With Freddie refusing to acknowledge her, she finds herself drawn to the new boy, Euan Tate, but how long can she keep her secrets from him?
Print edition ISBN: 978-1467940665
‘Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it.’
- Muhammad Ali
Rebecca Conner was silently furious. She didn’t know where her brother Ben was or even her best friend, Valencia Graham. She was stuck in a restaurant car park with no clear view of what was transpiring inside the building and she just wanted to give up and go home.
Unfortunately, there was no chance of that being a possibility. They were out on an operation, the conclusion of an investigation that had lasted all summer, with their success now depending on their actions in the very narrow window of time they had.
Seven Minutes Left.
Rebecca’s home was the small town of Matlock in the middle of England and begrudgingly, it was as far as you could get from the ocean. Her brother – who was now eighteen and technically an adult – didn’t live with them and hadn’t for the past four years. This was not because of a spiteful family feud or a personal drive of independence; it was because her parents thought he was dead. Rebecca would never admit to it, but his continued existence was down to her.
Tonight however, they found themselves somewhere in Ashbourne, another village in their Shire, about half an hour’s drive away from home. It was an extremely affluent area and Ben had made the decision during the dry months leading up to the summer that they would just have to ‘chase wherever the money was.’
Why was it that so many rich people were willing to accommodate a team of amateur teenage detectives? It had puzzled Rebecca on countless occasions, who had expected reality to gradually shift back over her elaborate labyrinth. It was actually down to the loose lips of some officers in the Metropolitan Police and a certain incident that had taken place underground off Old Kent Road six months prior that had earned them such high namesakes.
They had ended up taking on a case from the mother of a scientist, who was certain that her son’s invented formula had somehow been stolen by a man he’d never met from Southampton. They had all journeyed down South to spy on the man himself, but they’d found nothing to suggest he had; all the research was in place and correct. He knew how to mix the chemicals in the right order and at the right temperatures, just like the Ashbourne scientist could – only he had gone public with it sooner. The scientist from the South’s name was Jon Bannister and he was a simple man who led an otherwise ordinary life. However, Ben found it suspicious that though Bannister could understood chemicals well enough – but before Eupherofosphenate, it was as if he had never attempted to create a compound in his life.
When Jon heard about the disgruntled scientist, Robert Longdown, he decided to make a goodwill gesture by travelling to Ashbourne to explain his own creation of the compound so there could be no more suspicion. Having signed away the rights to it, he was now filthy rich and could certainly afford to take a day out.
Six.
Rebecca couldn’t take much more of this. All she could see through a tiny, square window was the restaurant kitchen and the people she recognized as the chef and sous-chef who kept walking by. The fire exit opened and the porter walked out and lit up a cigarette. For a second, Rebecca enjoyed a wider view of their clattering workspace, noticing the chefs working at a leisurely pace before the closing door spoiled her view. Luckily, her position hidden in the bushes at the boundary of the car park kept her hidden. She was using her magnifying glass, which their inventor friend, Tarquin, had improved the last time they had visited him, by replacing the glass lens with an electric version which basically acted like digital binoculars. Tarquin had been instrumental in their progress of technology. He was another person she quietly took credit for, because he had popped into the real world from out of her thoughts. She hadn’t seen him for a few months, since their visit to London when they had rescued Ben from Frank Magnus, the criminal she had sadly invented as a foe to their work in order to explain Ben’s vanishing. It had all been well and good until he came through into reality and tried to kill Ben for real.
Rebecca hated not knowing where her team-mates were. Time was that she once knew exactly what they were both doing, albeit only because she was imagining it all. That was all the past now (somehow) and Rebecca had learnt to accept the actuality of the situation.
Every day she woke up half-expecting the world to have snapped back into place, for her fantastic delusion to be no more and for the mundane existence she had known to be back in place. There was no logic behind why it had happened – why everything she wished for the world had leapt out from her mind and galloped over the life she knew – but for now at least, it looked to be set.
All of a sudden, a twig snapped. She froze and looked for the source of the noise somewhere on her left, but behind the bushes were only trees and the darkness that engulfed them. She wasn’t going to be as foolhardy as to dismiss it as a small animal or coincidence, so she got up and carefully moved in the direction of the sound. She could remove her phone and shine it into the blackness, but it was wiser not to risk breaking her cover.
Five.
Another stick snapped. She strained her eyes, trying to see into the nothing, but there was an intermediate line between her actually seeing shapes and her eyes simply playing tricks on her. Irritated, she removed her phone and shook it, changing the screen into a makeshift flashlight. They were rushing at her, startled by the light. She didn’t even have time to react and an elbow smashed against her jaw with enough power to knock her off her feet. She lost her grip on both the phone and the magnifier as she fell to the ground, sprawled out in the thicket of dirt and shrubbery. The figure who had smashed into her face breezed past her, their feet pattering across the stones of the car park.
As soon as she was able to, Rebecca gingerly sat up and turned back to her observation post – but now there didn’t appear to be anyone left. Even the porter was missing. She hastily picked herself up and pattered herself down. No, the porter wasn’t missing; he was sprawled out flat on the gravel.
“Oh, no.” Rebecca said under her breath and rushed at the building, crossing the car park – which was almost at vehicle capacity – and aimed for the fire exit.
It would have been of more use to retrieve her phone, her best attempt at contacting her team-mates, but that would have to wait. Rebecca had assumed she would be able to handle her observation point on her own, but the truth was that she lacked the physical combat skills of the others and her assailant had just proven that. She knew the others were better at self-defence and though she had been practicing, it made more sense for them to take the front and inside of the restaurant. How stupid of them to demean the infiltration value of the car park! But the restaurant backed onto a wood – it seemed unlikely that if anyone was going to interrupt the two scientists’ dinner, that they would come on foot. Rebecca hastily realised they had broken the rule of underestimating their opponent, a total faux-pas given that their opponent was unknown.
Rebecca pulled open the fire escape and a vacuum of heat escaped the kitchen. She was already bolting across the room before she noticed that neither chef was at their workspace and a large pan on the stove was boiling over onto the linoleum.
She rushed through the rubber door into the restaurant, where she was greeted with the not altogether unusual visual of her friend Valencia, (who was wearing a teal dress with her flawless auburn hair tied up), trying to fight a tall man adorned in big boots, dark camouflage gear underneath a weighty black trench coat – and a brown leather bird mask that covered his entire face. Rebecca froze. She had seen the style of mask before, when two men had broken into their hotel room in London. Luckily, they had been hiding next door.
Now though, it seemed they had been found.
The patrons of the restaurant were exploding in shouts and gasps and at the centre of the room, where Jon and Robert were sat, their jaws hung open in disbelief.
Ben bounded into the room from the far side, barging past the host and involving himself in the fight just as Valencia took a slash to her bare arm from the attacker’s knife. Ben kicked out at the assailant, then grabbed a bottle of wine out of a metal cooler on the table next to him and threw it at him. The man deflected the bottle, which smashed against the wall, the remaining contents decorating the white surface a deep red. Valencia scrambled towards Jon and Robert, though she wasn’t sure who to protect.
Rebecca knew she had to do something, involve herself in the fight somehow. She fumbled in her jacket pocket for her Taser. The dinner guests nearest her, an adult family of four, gasped when she removed the bright yellow gun and aimed it at the attacker. He was too far away though, so she started winding through the tables to the centre of the room, which was elegantly decorated with a chandelier that hung down from a high ceiling.
The veiled attacker set into Ben with a series of hard blows. Ben had his forearms raised in protection, until the attacker clocked him in the solar plexus. Ben was momentarily stunned, giving the attacker the second he needed to push him, hard, over a vacant, round table and onto the floor. Valencia had tied a silk table napkin around the slash on her arm and returned for a second spar. Rebecca spotted something glint in her hand and in the next moment, Valencia wrenched the metal object – what looked to be a fork – into the attacker’s own forearm. He grunted in pain, seized her by the scruff of the neck with his other arm and jerked her backwards, then rapidly spun a roundhouse kick to her gut. She went over, dropping her cutlery weapon, leaving the attacker clear to move towards Jon and Robert. Both scientists jumped out of their chairs, now with their table itself as their only shield.
“Hey,” Rebecca said, finally close enough.
The invader looked up at her through eerie glass goggles on his mask as she pulled the trigger. Two electrodes mounted onto conductive wire were propelled from the handset onto the chest of the assailant. He grimaced as the charge met him and strained against it. But he didn’t fall as he should have done and instead reached forward with his gloved hand, gripped onto the wire, wrapped it around his hand then yanked at it, causing the gun to become dislodged from Rebecca’s hand. Without applying force onto the trigger, the electricity ceased and the cartridge was spent. The man pulled the electrodes out of his waxed coat and tossed them to the floor. Ben and Valencia were gradually getting up and he knew it. Without warning, he ran at Rebecca. The dinner guests screamed. She would be ready this time. She adapted a sideways stance and braced her knees, but instead of colliding, the attacker jumped up into the air. She instinctively ducked, concerned he was about to kick her. But the assailant landed perfectly behind her and dashed back through the rubber doors of the kitchen, his trench coat billowing behind him.
“Kitchen!” She shouted to the others and made for the room. She darted into it just as the Fire exit hit its widest apex and started to close. She pushed through and noticed the beak man was running back to the woods. She knew it was imperative to capture him before he became invisible and pushed herself forwards, into the blanket of night. She could hear a pathway of snapping twigs ahead of her. She followed it but as her shoulder was struck by an overhanging branch, her pace slowed as she started to tentatively feel her way through. The light had failed her and her eyes hadn’t adapted to the dark. She stopped and listened to the thicket carefully. The fleeing attacker’s noisy pathway was moving further into the distance and there was nothing she could do about it.
Ben yelled from behind her,
“Bec! Bec!” He had called her this from childhood as he didn't want to exert more effort than she did in saying his name. What started as a cruel joke had soon stuck and now she didn't even mind it.
“Here,” She shouted back and started retreating to the restaurant. “He’s gone.” She said in frustration.
“Where?” Ben asked, trying to train his own eyes to decipher the secrets of the darkness.
“I don’t know.” She said hopelessly. Ben sighed. “He must be wearing goggles. We haven’t got a chance of catching up with him in this.”
Rebecca couldn’t hide her dismay, but was relieved that it wasn’t as obvious in their current surroundings.
She didn’t understand what was going on. The bird man didn’t seem interested in her or Ben and Valencia and instead seemed to be there for Jon and Robert. When she had seen the two beak men in London, it had only been for a split second, in a dim corridor through a small peephole. It hadn’t been long enough to make her obsess over the fashion choice and Rebecca had assumed they worked for Magnus, though that was because of her sleep-deprived state: over time, a nagging internal voice made her realise they must be a separate group altogether. A separate group hunting for her. Perfect.
Rebecca hurriedly tried to recall what she could about the man in the bird mask and what little she could see of the person behind it. To be truthful, she was surprised to have seen human eyes beneath it - she had almost convinced herself this was a phenomenon restricted to the fantastical nature of her impossible world. Now it looked to be more fanatical than anything else. “Is V alright?” She asked.
“Yeah, she’s attending to our esteemed scientists.”
She found herself smiling as she wondered if perhaps her friend was out of her element.
“Which one was he after?” She queried, unsure what the beak man’s motives were.
“I couldn’t tell.” Ben said in annoyance. Hopefully Valencia knew something they didn’t from the beginning of the attacker’s strike.
Suddenly, she heard the shrill sound of her phone from somewhere nearby.
Oh no. She realised. Four, three, two, one. She had lost track of her countdown to zero along the way – but this was the real evil moment she had been dreading.
“Is that yours?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” She said in panic as she started what felt like a futile search for the handset. “Ben, help!” She cried desperately and her brother started moving around the shrubbery.
“It’s coming from in here,” He said and reached into a circular bush, finally pulling out the flashing phone. Rebecca couldn’t snatch it quickly enough and soon saw the incoming call – from her mother.
She finally answered. “Hello?” She said as breezily as she could manage.
“Hi sweetie,” Her mother said.
“Hi mum!” Her enthusiasm was a bit too much and she made a mental note to ease off.
“What are you doing?” Her mother asked immediately.
“I’ve just had dinner with Valencia,” She said and hoped her outdoor location wasn’t too discernible over the phone line.
“At this time?” Her mother said suspiciously. Admittedly it was far later than she would normally eat.
“Yeah,” Rebecca said, “It was a big meal.” Ben was laughing to himself and she swatted her hand to quieten him.
“Who was that?” Her mother tried to sound breezy too.
“Valencia.” Rebecca claimed and pointed at her brother threateningly.
“Oh right, but you girls aren’t staying up until all-hours are you?” Her mother asked. Her parents were currently away for the weekend in the Cotswolds and it had already taken a lot of persuasion on her part to encourage them to leave her home alone.
“Nope, I think V wants to go to sleep already,” Rebecca claimed. It was believable enough; Valencia loved to sleep. “How’s the hol?” She tried her usual tactic of deflecting attention away from her.
“Oh, it’s fabulous. Your father’s been a bit reluctant to get involved though.”
“Has he?”
“Yes, I think he’s missing his house.”
Rebecca tried to laugh but it didn’t come out right. “He’ll miss out on the whole holiday.”
“Yes, well, what can you do? Some people just don’t like change.”
The words reverberated in Rebecca’s head like an exploding grenade shell.
“Oh my god,” She found herself saying under her breath. Some people don’t like change.
Change like what she had accidentally done to the world…change like what one of the scientists must have done.
“What is it?” Her mother asked, her hawk-like hearing missing nothing.
“Oh, nothing,” Rebecca quickly claimed. “So dad’s looking forward to getting home?”
“He is.” Her mother said, her caution easing just slightly. “How is the house? You haven’t burnt it down have you?” It was an attempt to joke, but the worry in her voice was unrelentingly obvious.
“No, mum.” Rebecca sighed. “The house is fine.” Having barely been there all day, it was something she could claim with authenticity.
“Ok, well you two have fun and we’ll call you when we’re about to leave tomorrow.” Her mother replied and it was obvious that she had already started the countdown.
The call ended and Rebecca breathed a huge sigh of relief. For obvious reasons, it wouldn’t do for her parents to know what she was really up to, operating as a detective, taking on secret cases and avoiding the occasional threat of death.
After the sheer expanse of time it would first take to explain everything, from Ben’s secret survival, to the detective business, to Valencia’s complicity with it, they would definitely denounce her from being involved with it again. Not yet sixteen years old, her existence was still unfortunately ruled over by her parents. Of course, even that explanation would only be the long and short of it – she smiled to herself as she considered what they would do if they ever found out the further truth, that all of that had only transpired because of her imagination and she still didn’t even know why it had become real.
“We have to talk to those scientists.” Rebecca said suddenly. She now believed she understood the beak man’s link between her and the inventors and it was all to do with this overwritten world.
“We do.” Ben agreed and she noted his glossing over of the conversation with his birth mother. It seemed that for Ben, the less he knew, the happier he was. While ignorance might be bliss for him, Rebecca had to contest with two sets of memories; her make-believe work as a detective with him and the real knowledge that for three-and-a-half years she had known Ben would likely never come home and her friend Valencia was just a normal, somewhat spoilt girl who knew nothing about guns or muay-thai. She knew you should never hide behind a story – unless of course, the story was more agreeable than the truth.
Outside the kitchen’s fire escape, she felt guilty for this being the first time she had been able to check on the porter. He was still and had apparently bled out over the cement. Rebecca counted how lucky she was not to have been stabbed.
“Come on,” Ben said encouragingly. There was nothing that could be done for him.
Further disparaged, she followed him inside where the blood from the two chefs had now pooled around the sides of the workstation island in the centre of the room. Their miraculous disappearances no longer seemed as impressive once they found their dead bodies around the back of it. Rebecca shook her head at the impassive, reckless nature of the beak man.
The patron’s nervous chatter died down as they pushed their way back through the rubber door and into the restaurant. It looked like servers and patrons alike were struggling to account for their traumatic experience. Valencia was sat between Jon and Robert and they all looked extremely irritated, even in their silence. Rebecca and Ben ventured over – all the while getting stared down by diners who felt their evening was ruined. They didn’t challenge them however, so Rebecca knew Valencia had already said her piece to the patrons and staff. Gradually, their outraged conversations started up again.
“Did you get him?” Valencia asked eagerly, her face lit up, even though Rebecca and Ben’s faces told a converse story. Ben turned around a chair from an adjacent table and sat down and Rebecca leant on the arm of Valencia’s.
“He was here for them, wasn’t he?” She continued.
“Definitely.” Ben said. “But which one?” The scientists both stared at one another suspiciously. Rebecca thought they were a funny pairing. Robert had beady eyes and a receding hairline, whereas Jon was heavily tanned with veneers for teeth.
“Who did he go after?” Rebecca queried. She would have to keep her suspicions about one of them changing the world quiet for now, though it seemed obvious who had gained the most. She couldn’t risk unearthing that question without explaining how she knew about it herself.
“He looked at both of them,” Valencia said.
“He lunged at me!” Robert said irately.
“He winked at you!” Jon scoffed.
“How would he wink through goggles?!” Robert interjected but Jon was ranting.
“-I should have known you wouldn’t stop until you got some sick revenge, how many times must I tell you; I didn’t steal your formula! I didn’t even know you were researching it!”
But Robert wasn’t browbeaten. “I’m not even bothered by you beating me, but you’re clearly bothered that there’s someone else out there who knows your dirty little secret. To stoop so low as to try kill me, though…”
Jon laughed aloud and gestured at his nemesis to the teens. “Are you hearing this? What possible use would I have for you dead! It’d just make it look like I really did steal the idea from you. Which is ludicrous, how would I be able to do that without ever meeting you?!”
Rebecca smiled to herself because she could think of a way. Freddie Sherman had appeared in her classroom one day, with everyone but her seeming to know who he was; so it was entirely possible that people could equally go from knowing to forgetting about people, which could explain how the scientists initially knew one another when – she presumed – Jon wished to have stolen the formula from Robert.
She knew that at some point she would have to try explaining to Valencia and Ben that the world was being constantly overwritten. Initially she had thought it was wonderful that Ben was back on this mortal coil and wanted to enjoy it – but things kept changing. Literally.
First she noticed the London Underground had been changed so no one had to pay to use it anymore (though everyone believed it had always been free), then she had discovered that the Millennium Dome had never been built. It was as though someone had changed some important details in London’s heritage and of course, no one could remember the former construct. Some pain-staking research on her part unearthed early concept plans for the Dome, but they were never approved for construction, which directly contradicted the world she could remember.
Rebecca had figured the only reason she could remember both ways the world had been was because she had changed elements of it herself. What had really driven her crazy was not being sure if she had always been able to see both scenarios, or if she had only gained the ability after enacting her own alterations. But then she remembered the untimely arrival of Freddie, who had seated himself into her timeline as though always there. She recognised him as a fraud, though he didn’t seem out of place to look at. She had decided – for now – that he was a result of someone else’s change.
Freddie was not a pleasant subject for her to think about any more, so any excuse she could give herself to ignore him helped her substantially.
It seemed that her actualised dream world was shared with whoever else fed their consciousnesses into it. It meant that she could never relax; constantly worried something awful would happen, like someone would wish for the world to blow up.
As for now, she had her suspicions on Jon, who seemed to be the sole benefactor from the overwrite. She wasn’t sure if everyone who changed something could remember the old ways, but she was pretty confident that they could.
“So, why a plague doctor?” Valencia interrupted the scientists’ bickering.
They looked baffled by her remark. Even Rebecca frowned. Valencia looked surprised to be the only person with the knowledge.
“A plague doctor. That’s what the bird person was dressed like. Seriously?” She said off their uninformed reactions. Valencia sighed. “I learnt about it ages ago, they patrolled London when there was the plague outbreak, I think in the 1600s. Has one of your got a fetish for the medieval or something?”
Jon and Robert seemed stunned by her assuredness.
“Didn’t you work at a museum?” Robert asked, turning to his rival.
Jon scoffed. “Briefly, in palaeontology!” He said in revulsion.
“I still say you’ve got more motive than I do.” Robert said.
“Well, you would, wouldn’t you?!” Jon replied angrily.
It was like watching a really tame version of a street fight, except happening in a fancy restaurant and being argued by two of the least threatening people in the world.
“Can we please just resolve this…?” Ben said tiring of their squabbling.
“I’m done here.” Jon said, rising angrily and leaving the table.
“Well,” Valencia said testily.
“He really was going to kill me,” Robert said. “It’s not fair.”
The teens had little patience left for their charge and dropped him off back at his mother’s house before starting their return to Matlock.
They all groaned through their collective failure. It wasn’t often that the three of them were subdued by just one perpetrator.
“We’re off our game,” Ben said disappointedly from the driver’s seat. He decided he was too tired to manually drive this time; they had an automated navigation system built-into the jeep which was getting them home at a ‘legal speed.’
From next to him, Valencia said, “Well what did you expect; we’ve been dealing with pinky and the brain all summer.” Then she testily added, “And for future reference, I don’t enjoy spending my evenings separating the nerd herd.”
“Valencia,” Ben said meekly. “Don’t insult the clients.”
She scoffed but kept silent. Rebecca felt partially responsible. They knew by now that she was not as quick in combat as she used to be, but when it actually affected their scorecard as it had done tonight she felt simply awful.
Rebecca was keeping quiet about having seen the plague doctors before. The only other people that knew about it were Freddie, who was gone and Henderson who was dead. It upset her to think about both of them. Then she hated herself for dedicating more time to missing Freddie when Henderson had given his life to save them, it seemed more substantial than her juvenile feelings. It hurt to have people leave.
“Ben,” She said tentatively.
“Mmm?” He replied while biting his fingernails. He always did that when he felt stressed by something.
“You want to stay over at the house tonight?”
Valencia couldn’t resist turning to Ben to see how he reacted to that. For one, he stopped eating his own fingers and turned around to face his sister. Because the jeep was able to drive itself, that was fine to do. It did take on the quality of a bad old movie however, when the man driving the car would never watch the road.
“What?” He asked in astonishment.
Well, it wasn’t the worse reaction ever. He knew it was at least possible, otherwise he would have simply laughed in her face or said something sarcastic.
“Mum and dad aren’t back until tomorrow night. It’s just V and me, come on!” Rebecca said enthusiastically. She knew it was their best chance of Ben finally seeing inside the family home he had never been a part of.
“Go on, Ben.” Valencia encouraged.
Ben was obviously curious about the idea but said, “No,” and turned back to the windscreen. “No, it’s too risky.”
The girls voiced their protest through nonsensical sounds rather than words.
“Hhmm,” Ben said and Rebecca could tell they were wearing him down.
“Mum and dad are going to call when they set off.” She teased, careful to emphasise the no-risk factor this plan had. She also noticed Valencia’s eyes pleading at him encouragingly.
“Oh, go on then.” Ben said, caving to the demand.
“Yay!” Valencia exclaimed happily.
“Awesome.” Rebecca said. Because it was. Her brother was coming home, sort of.
What do you think?”
It was all Rebecca seemed to be able to say when she wasn’t gawping in wonder at the sight of her brother finally being in her own house. Even without her parents there, it felt like a good enough confirmation that his existence was solid, that the two worlds she found herself in for day-to-day life could definitely co-exist, one inside the other, like Russian dolls instead of just next to each other, like dominos.
Ben nodded politely, careful not to express too much by way of opinion. Every so often he would pick up an object he remembered from the ‘before time’ like a cushion cover on the sofa that their grandmother had embroidered. It was maroon with gold stitching in the shape of a grapevine. It matched absolutely nothing else in the room which was predominantly blue, but it was kept for sentimental reasons. He smiled weakly before setting it down again. It was the first time he’d seen it in four years.
They had left the jeep along the main road, which was a few minutes’ walk around the corner. They figured it would blend in there much more easily than being a foreign object on the driveway. Ben had never known the Conner family home of current as they had moved into it half a year after he disappeared.
“It’s small.” Ben said, slightly unimpressed. To him, the idea of the home had become exaggerated over the years to the point where it represented a bigger idea for him than a simple dwelling could ever live up to.
Rebecca shrugged, taking the comment personally as though he didn’t want to stay put. “It’s got three bedrooms, sort of.” The third bedroom was actually taken up by their mother’s crafts.
Rebecca wished Ben would come home and fill it, but for now, he had decided not to. For the time being, it was better for their parents to think he was dead in order for them to carry on with their work. Too much time had passed to simply pull the surprise of his survival on them. For years, their parents’ hopes had dwindled to the point of acceptance that their first born had died at sea and indeed, for all intents and purposes, he had. Rebecca didn’t like to entertain the idea very often, but on the night six months ago, when everything she had known went kerplunk in favour of her imagined escape world, her parents had been breaking the news to her that a body suspected to be her brother’s had been discovered.
She thought back on that night with confusion – elements had escaped her, but she could definitely recall jumping from her bedroom window in order to avoid the situation. She could remember fleeing the house and getting hit by a black car travelling at speed along the main road. The car had sent her flying and she had ended up sprawled out at the side of the road. The impact was forceful enough that she really should have sported at least a couple broken bones. It was quite miraculous that she had survived at all.
But she was in perfect health without a scratch on her and no one ever attested to her claims that she had been mercilessly ploughed down.
She could vividly recall the time on her watch: it had happened at 01:23am in the morning. Rebecca had come to accept that somehow, this had been when the world had changed around her, when every private thought she kept inward had found its way out, spreading itself over the world she knew, into every vestibule of her life.
It didn’t happen that way anymore. She soon learnt that the ‘set-point’ had been up until that night because everything she imagined since would no longer become true. She was too ashamed to admit it to anyone, but she had silently hoped for Freddie to come back into her life. She reasoned he would have a change of heart about not wanting to be on their team. She was fairly certain that if she had hoped for it before her thoughts were ‘deployed’, it would have happened – but because the meshing of her worlds had only happened once, it wasn’t happening again.
It felt strange to be here with Ben and Valencia, almost like the world was theirs and they could get away with anything right under their parents’ noses. Rebecca was impressed with herself for keeping the secret about where she occasionally slipped off to. Whereas she had initially been intimidated by how far it was in actuality to walk to the barn, the warm spring and summer months had helped her become accustomed to it. She had narrowed the journey down to fifty minutes at a confident stride and sometimes if it was vital, Ben would come pick her up midway anyway.
She would often use Valencia as an explanation and vice versa. As they were usually both going to the barn, it was easy to rely on each other as corroborators.
It even seemed her parents carried no memory of her spontaneous free-fall dive out of her bedroom window, something that had occurred before their very eyes. Rebecca had also improved at scaling down the window ledge and shimmying down the column that held the slate roof up. This occasionally enabled her to escape at will. She dreaded the day that she would lower herself down over the front porch only for one of her parents to open the door and question her divisive method of exit.
As such, the window escape was only used when she could be sure they were already in bed.
With so much effort going into keeping them unaware of her secret occupation, it seemed almost wrong that she now found herself standing yards apart from the very person she was trying to keep secret, in the very place he had sworn never to interfere in.
She couldn’t put her finger on it – but without their parents here, she felt something akin to being completely victorious.
“Rebecca?” Ben said delicately. Apparently she had just been staring into space for several moments, watching him interact with the space, finding the whole thing fascinating.
“Oh,” She said by way of apology.
“You alright?” Valencia asked suspiciously.
“All good.” Rebecca replied.
Valencia smiled at her in good-humour as though she didn’t quite believe her.
Ben had found his way into his father’s study. Rebecca and Valencia followed him through. Valencia was keeping a loose tail on the siblings, understanding how momentous this moment was for both of the people she had known her entire life. Rebecca was grateful. She wanted to allow Ben his time to explore and it seemed only fair given that it had been years since he had known any kind of homely environment.
Ben picked up a letter opener which was a long miniature sword. It was made out of silver and was one of their father’s prized eclectic objects.
“Hmm,” Ben said handling the thing and twirling the handle of the blade. He pricked the tip of his finger against it. It was fairly blunt, but it could tear through letters like the best of them. Rebecca didn’t challenge him; it seemed to be some sort of ritual to prove his own existence, or to test his own hazy memory of the object.
“I didn’t know he still had this,” Ben said fuzzily. It was obviously a source of pride for him.
“Do you want us to get you one, Benny?” Valencia asked sarcastically.
Ben shot her a disgruntled look and put the tiny sword back on the bureau. “I used to play with that, ok?” He said defensively. Rebecca involuntarily did a rapid double take between her brother and the sword. How could she have forgotten that?
She found herself smiling though, because the fact that he could remember it made her feel much better about this Ben being genuine, full of his own memories as well as her own.
“I’m hungry.” Valencia wailed.
“You’re not.” Rebecca said dismissively.
“I am.” She persisted and started itching to move out of the room in the direction of the kitchen. Rebecca rolled her eyes and Ben happily followed them.
The cream-walled kitchen was fairly traditional and hadn’t had much changed from the twentieth century fixtures, apart from an updated oven, dishwasher and more spacious fridge.
The round kitchen table was a dark red and showcased the family-feel of the room. For some reason, the ceiling was higher in this room than any of the others and Rebecca and her parents always enjoyed spending time in the airy room until the winter came, when it became draughty and rather unpleasant.
Valencia started ransacking the cupboards and helped herself to a pack of cream-filled biscuits.
“That’s better,” She said as crumbs filtered down her dress.
Ben seemed quietly impressed with the size of the kitchen which was enough to finally set Rebecca at ease. She took a seat at the table while Ben prised open the fridge to see what food the Conner’s ate. Barbara Radbourne had apparently expected her daughter to starve over the three days they would be away and had crammed the fridge with everything she liked to eat: cream cheese, pineapple rings, spicy potato skins, cheese and onion quiche, olives, yoghurts and a half-eaten lemon cheesecake which Rebecca and Valencia had already started on. Ben turned his nose up at his sister’s food store, his own choices apparently absent.
“Wish you lived here?” Valencia asked him slightly recklessly. She knew about his decision to stay away because she had already quizzed him on it, but he was unrepentant.
Ben shrugged. “I guess.” He said but on seeing Rebecca’s deflated expression, he added, “Would be nice to live with real people again, though.”
Rebecca appreciated the remark all the same.
“Who was that guy?” Valencia suddenly asked in frustration.
Rebecca kept quiet, knowing she was referring back to their attacker.
“He had skills,” Ben acknowledged. “He might be a professional hitter. Someone could have hired him to try get…whichever of the scientists he was trying to get at.”
Valencia seemed irritated at herself. “If I’d just let him edge a bit closer we might have seen who he was going for.”
But Rebecca shook her head at that. “Did you see what he did to the chefs?” She said with a shudder. “He probably would have killed them both just to be efficient.”
It was a dark thought, but impossible to ignore. The three of them didn’t move for a moment, before they realised how affected they were and broke their solidness in good humour.
“We can look into it at the barn tomorrow.” Ben said enthusiastically. “I bet there won’t be many groups who dress up as birds.”
“They’re not birds:” Valencia warned. “They’re plague doctors.”
Ben stifled a laugh at her assuredness. “And what do plague doctors do, apart from look creepy?”
“Well,” Valencia said trying to take her brain back several years. “They thought they were helping people who were sick – only they weren’t,” Rebecca moved her feet unconsciously as Valencia continued. “I think they used to go around finding people who had the plague, then they would strike off their houses so everyone knew they had it and to keep away.”
Valencia flashed her eyebrows and bit into another cream biscuit. Rebecca nodded cautiously. The idea that the plague doctors were looking for her and people like her was daunting. How did they even know? Well, she had worked out Jon’s guilt at overwriting his and Robert’s lives because it was so obvious from what he had gained – but she had worked meticulously at keeping their detective society a secret. She thought back with anger to Sergeant James, the policeman from Scotland Yard who had sold out their location. The plague doctors must have sources tied into that. They must have heard that a young group of detectives were in the city on police protection and realised how peculiar that was in itself.
“Where shall I sleep, Bec?” Ben asked changing the subject entirely and thankfully distracting Rebecca from stressing.
“Is the sofa alright?” She responded with a small measure of guilt. She wished there was somewhere a bit grander for him, but knew her mother would sense it instinctively if anyone ever slept in her bed.
“Yeah, that’s fine.” Ben laughed it off. In the imagined past she had furnished him with, he had suffered much worse nights sleeping rough while in hiding. “Would I be able to have a drink?” He added awkwardly.
“Of course!” Rebecca said rambunctiously. There was no need to ask, really.
When Ben continued to look clueless, she pointed at the tall cupboard and said, “Oh, glasses are in there. We’ll only have what’s in the fridge or tap, though.”
“That’ll be fine,” Ben assured her. “Do you two want one?”
Rebecca nodded her agreement that water would be fine though Valencia refused, so Ben started to fill up two glasses at the sink before smiling broadly at a chalkboard, on which he had recognised his mother’s cursive.
“What’s ‘Rebecca’s patches?’” He asked reading out loud one of the items of Barbara’s agenda of tasks.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. “It’s so stupid, she thinks she can repair the elbows on my blazer without having to buy another one,”
“Urgh,” Valencia couldn’t hide her revulsion at that. Patches and DIY clothes solutions were a no-no to her; it was always best to buy new. But her blazer had worn – as it always did – from leaning on the elbows in lessons and it was the most expensive piece of uniform to replace. With the school year ending 2 months earlier than usual, Barbara was attempting to be a spendthrift and making the most of the uniform she had leftover.
“Why don’t you just get another one? You can afford it.” Ben pointed out. It was true that their employment on various cases ensured a steady stream of income.
“I can’t though, can I?” Rebecca pointed out. “Not without mum asking questions I won’t be able to answer about where the money came from.”
Ben nodded sedately. He had forgotten the intense focus a child was under from their parents. “Say you dad got it for you!” Valencia proposed cheerily and Rebecca couldn’t help but laugh. She would simply soldier on in her fallen, faded blazer and make do with her reinforced elbows.
“School on Monday.” Ben said like he couldn’t believe how fast time went. This wasn’t a surprise. For months, Matlock’s shops she had been polluting Rebecca’s vision with news that is was ‘back to school’ time. Taunting her with reminders that her time was not her own. She thought sardonically: If only I had wished it out of existence. Everything else she had wished for seemed to be working out well for her.
“Looking forward to it?” He added slyly, causing the girls to grimace. He hadn’t attended it in years since going into hiding and was technically way behind. Rebecca quietly considered whether she was smarter and more knowledgeable than him now, but it was unlikely given all the time he spent reading and studying things that interested him when at the barn. The introverted, almost-academic he had become was quite different to the social, surfer boy who had gone missing all those years ago.
“Would rather be out watching scientists,” Valencia answered emotionlessly.
“Would rather be in the Cotswolds with mum and dad,” Rebecca said because it was the worst thing she could think of. Ben smiled at the girls’ sorrow.
“I don’t know. I kind of miss it.” He said optimistically.
“Of course you do; you were always popular.” Rebecca argued.
“I wasn’t popular, I just liked my friends.” Ben said modestly.
“So? I like my friends and I hate school.” Valencia said. Rebecca didn’t doubt that she was also popular amongst her classmates.
“Come on,” Ben focused on his sister, “You’ve had a month and a half off. There must be someone you want to see?” It was unfair on Rebecca that her mind instantly flicked onto Freddie and she hoped it didn’t show on her face. Valencia looked like there was something she wanted to ask her but thankfully, she kept quiet.
“No,” Rebecca claimed as believably as she could, “The only people I want to see have all passed through this house.” She smiled and Ben raised his glass of tap water with a hearty “Here, here.”
Valencia stretched her arms above her head, a simple gesture which drew their eyes towards her.
“Tired, V?” Rebecca said because she knew how prudish her friend was about her sleep.
“Uh huh,” Valencia smiled sweetly. The dried blood on her arm needed washing off.
Rebecca looked to Ben and they shared a knowing grin. “Come on then. Let’s get some sleep.” Ben agreed.
Once the girls had clambered into Rebecca’s double bed and switched off the lamp, Rebecca decided to start talking because she found it strange to be so near to someone when she normally wouldn’t be. Whenever Valencia had stayed over lately, it only served to miserably remind her how embarrassing she would probably be if she ever had a boyfriend.
Valencia was a perceptive friend. As though knowing what she was really thinking, she suddenly asked, “What’s happening with Freddie?”
Rebecca’s heartbeat suddenly started to rock her chest and she hoped the beat wouldn’t expel across the mattress. She pulled the duvet up just underneath her chin in a divisive attempt to conceal the permeations.
“What do you mean?” Her tone was tellingly short.
“Freddie. You know who I mean.” Valencia said, not believing this was a non-issue.
“Nothing’s happening.” Rebecca snapped and turned away from her friend. Valencia tutted and said, “Honestly, I only ask because I care.”
Valencia then fidgeted into a comfortable position and said no more.
Rebecca felt instant remorse and rolled back towards her friend, who had her eyes closed in an attempt to sleep. Valencia enjoyed her sleep. There was a risk of causing further frustration by continuing this.
“You really want to know?” Rebecca said quietly and Valencia opened her eyes once more.
“I really do.”
Rebecca sighed under her breath, partly to try control her erratic heartbeat.
“Don’t tell Ben.” She said tentatively. It wouldn’t do for her brother to get any more riled up about the situation than he already was.
“Why not?” Valencia asked calmly though Rebecca refused comment.
“You want him to come back,” She realised and Rebecca absentmindedly shook her head. From her sideways position lying on the pillow though, it almost looked like she was nodding her agreement.
“Freddie said he wasn’t coming back.” She said sadly. Thinking back to the end of their London adventure when he had made it abundantly clear he had no intention of continuing on helping their team had been devastating, both at the time and in each subsequent memory of it. It was as though he had frozen her heart with words and left before she could find out how to restore it.
“I know what he said.” Valencia commented. “But you obviously want him to.”
Rebecca didn’t enjoy that her friend could read her with such ease and be so upfront about it. It was a skill perfected through years of knowing her. Still, it was easier not to have to face up to her problems.
“I don’t know.” Rebecca said in sorrow.
“When did you last see him?”
“Freddie? Just before summer,”
“At school?”
“Yeah,”
“And you’ve not seen him since!” Valencia cried outlandishly and sat up in bed.
Rebecca rolled onto her back and stared at her friend in puzzlement. “Why is that so strange?” She asked, wondering how it was irregular to only see someone you’re not really friends with in school term-time.
“Becky, I might go to an all-girls school, but I bet I’ve seen more boys this summer than you have!”
Rebecca huffed. “Well, yeah.” She wasn’t disputing that. But she wasn’t making it a moot point either. The last thing she needed was a fall-out before bedtime.
Valencia wasn’t finished. “You need to make an effort otherwise they either don’t know you’re interested or worse think you’re too uppity for any kind of relationship.”
“I’m not after a relationship!” Rebecca proclaimed. The label was appealing but the idea was not, a bit like the old ‘dream date’ phone game. It was nice to get a sample, but she wasn’t interested in going further than that. Unless it was with Freddie, of course.
“Sure,” Valencia scoffed. “So, have you been keeping a nice stalkerish eye on him?”
Rebecca glared at her friend. She hadn’t seen Freddie in six weeks and had a very good reason why not.
“He’s been in France.” She said glumly. She knew he had gone with someone from their school called Neil, whose parents had a house out there – but she didn’t want to admit to that in case Valencia realised she had been doing her research on their own computer system, the legality of which was already questionable at best.
“All summer?” Valencia said in a voice salivating with jealousy. She had managed to get away for a week with her parents to Mexico, but the sunny holiday she craved with her schoolmates had been set on the backburner for another year. Apparently her school friends’ parents were not as liberal as Valencia’s own. Rebecca had been quietly pleased about this development. She wordlessly referred to Valencia’s friendship troop as ‘The Intolerables’ for obvious reasons and this meant Valencia had taken a no-mess-no-fuss attitude to the annual family holiday. She had simply gone, come back and given her some wooden maracas as a gift. If she had been going away with the Intolerables – Rebecca had assumed it would be two weeks of packing prep followed by three weeks of stories of explicit fond memories and in-jokes that excluded everyone else. This was better.
“Pretty much all summer.” She sighed. She had gotten too used to lying to her best friend and so decided this was a subject she could be frank on.
“I do want to be over him, I’m just…not.”
Valencia smiled in surprising resonance. “You can’t make yourself get over someone. You can’t hear it from someone either, even if they’re right. That’s why I’m not trying to persuade you one way or another; not because I don’t want to, just that I know for a fact it can’t be done.” She shook her head gently and stretched her arms across the room.
“Love or lust…whatever is it – it never makes sense.”
Rebecca smiled, seeing the arm above her trying to stretch out in defiance. “So I should just go with it?”
Valencia scooped her feet out from under the bed onto the floor.
“That’s right, Snow White.” She reached back and ruffled Rebecca’s hair to her protests.
“I think I will get a drink.” Valencia decided.
“Ok.”
“Want one?”
Rebecca shook her head then spoke out loud for good measure in case Valencia misunderstood the gesture in the dark.
“Good. Less for me to carry.” Valencia said happily and let herself out of the room. She didn’t return before Rebecca had fallen asleep.
Sunday morning broke with a pleasant wave of sunshine. Unusually, Rebecca awoke before Valencia, who remained unimpeded as she got out of the bed.
Valencia didn’t even have a glass on her side, but Rebecca didn’t find that unusual, presuming she had been fickle enough to change her mind again once downstairs. The top of her teddy bear pyjamas were showing and Rebecca loved the epic contrast from them to her formal guise from the previous evening.
Rebecca’s room looked pretty in this light: white cotton curtains allowed in much of the bright light that demanded entry to signal the new day. It was a little messy with both her and Valencia’s stuff strewn around and a neglected pile of school books propped up against one leg of her desk. In the absence of homework, her laptop had been given pole position in the arrangement. One of her walls was a mural to better times which she had painted herself. It suddenly caught the beam of sunlight that pierced the curtains, lighting up the blue sky and ocean it represented. Rebecca closed her eyes longingly, wishing she was waking up at the Cornwall coast it was based on.
Nowhere seemed as important to her and now Ben had miraculously returned, the bleak associations Cornwall carried could one day be overwritten as well.
Hastening herself, she silently abandoned her bedroom and tried to tiptoe down the stairs. She jumped over the usual offenders at the bottom in order to make the quietest descent on record.
Rebecca turned into the living room, which was darker than normal as she had worked out how to draw the curtains in this room too, which were on a fancy cable she’d never had to interpret before. Ben was still KO’d on the sofa. He slept neatly, almost in a foetal position with his hands under the front half of his pillow.
A strange memory flashed-bulbed across her brain, as she remembered the last time she had seen her brother sleeping on the very same sofa. It was for the entirely different reason of Christmas, when he’d planned to stay up all night and be the first child to ever catch Santa Claus in the act of delivering presents. He had always wanted to investigate. Obviously, he didn’t last the night and Rebecca had trundled into the room with refreshed zeal early Christmas morning to find him despondent with his own failure.
“It’s alright,” She’d told him, “You’re just not meant to see him.”
She gently approached the sofa, wondering if her brother was dreaming, or if he even could dream.
“Ben,” She said softly. “Ben?”
While she was all for leaving Valencia to rest – she had felt the wrath of her before when her sleep was not satisfied – she wanted to get every spare moment she could out of her brother’s rare visit.
“Ben?” She said for the third time and her brother’s eyes shot open, instantly narrowing as his arm shot out for her jugular. Rebecca reacted far quicker than she would have given herself credit for. As the hand sought to make contact with her neck, she dodged backwards and straightened herself up.
“Whoa!” She said without warning and Ben slowly realised his mistake.
“Oh,” He said gruffly. “Soz,”
Rebecca forced herself to smile. “S’ok.” She said. It wasn’t. She suddenly felt more sorrow than ever for him.
“What?” He said. Apparently he was getting just as good at reading her emotions as Valencia.
“Nothing,” She claimed and retreated to the adjacent sofa.
A slight pause ensued before Ben shuffled himself up in his makeshift bed until his head leant across the arm of it.
“I’m not used to having people wake me up,” He explained awkwardly. “Not anymore anyway.”
She frowned but kept her comments to herself. The awful life he had known – whether it had really happened or not – had happened for him and that was all that mattered.
“It was always important in London.” He said offhandedly. He had spent a couple months there gathering information on Frank Magnus. Rebecca had invented the whole idea, which is why she found it strange when she heard him speaking about it, especially as Ben somehow now possessed even greater knowledge of that city than she ever would.
“Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to worry?” She found herself saying and regretted it instantly.
“I don’t know,” He said defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with being alert from a vulnerable state.”
Rebecca nodded. Ben dug around his leg and retrieved the remote she had left out for him.
He flicked on the television and cartoons came on.
“Oh!” Rebecca said gleefully and her brother looked at her with miscomprehension.
“Seriously?”
“Yes!” She laughed happily and finally relaxed on her sofa.
It was an old episode of Scooby Doo. Every episode seemed slightly familiar to her, but that could be due to the formulaic element of the show.
“Remember when we used to watch this?” She said suddenly enthused.
“Uh, yeah,” Ben replied.
She raised her eyebrows tellingly.
“You don’t want to watch this?” He sounded somewhat perturbed but made no effort to switch the station over.
“Why not?” She asked, mildly offended.
“You realise how long it’s been since we did that?”