City of Time

“So what is it, Cati?” he said. “Why did you come looking for me?”

She rubbed a hand wearily over her face and he saw the dark shadows under her eyes. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said slowly. Then she told him about the flight of geese and how they had turned into skeletons and then dust.

“That’s like what happened to me!” Owen said. “A girl in school. Freya Revell. I was talking to her and for a moment she turned really old. I mean, her face looked ancient.”

“So I didn’t dream it!” Cati exclaimed. “It must have happened!”

“I think so,” Owen said. “It sounds as if it’s something to do with time going wrong. You should wake the others …”

Cati shook her head. “I tried, but I can’t. There’s something wrong.”

Owen’s heart went out to his tired-looking friend. “Maybe I can …” he began. Cati looked up at him hopefully. He knew that he possessed a strange power to awake those who were in the long sleep, although he didn’t understand it.

Cati nodded. “That is why I called you. I don’t know if it’s wrong or not. There may be consequences. But when I couldn’t wake them I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did the right thing,” Owen said, hoping it was true.

“Do you think you can wake them?” Cati asked eagerly.

“I can try,” Owen said, frowning. He had awakened people before, but it had felt like an accident. He didn’t know if he could wake the whole Starry.

“Come on then,” Cati said, jumping to her feet, her tiredness forgotten.

Owen barely had time to put the cup back on the table before she had hauled him through the gap in the bushes and out on to the path. Within minutes they were standing before a wall of rock. Cati put her hands against it and the outline of a massive door appeared, delicately carved with small, ancient looking figures and decorations. Cati produced a tiny key and inserted it into an almost invisible lock. Silently, the massive door swung open.

Owen stared at the sleeping people. Part of him thought of the Resisters as a dream, but now he saw them, memories came flooding back.

“Come on,” Cati said. “We’ll try to wake Dr Diamond.”

Owen nodded approvingly. If anyone would know what to do, then it would be the scientist and philosopher. They slipped between the rows of sleeping people and he recognised many of them. Here and there, one of the simple beds was empty. Defending time was a dangerous business.

Finally they came to Dr Diamond’s bed. The scientist’s chest rose and fell gently as he slept, and there was an expression on his face somewhere between a smile and a frown, as though he was on the verge of solving a particularly tricky problem that had cropped up in a dream. The pockets of his faded blue overalls bulged with mysterious objects.

“Will you try?” Cati whispered. Owen nodded.

He gently placed his hand on the man’s forehead. There was a faint tingling in Owen’s fingers, but nothing more. He straightened up. A simple touch had worked before, even when he didn’t know he had the power. He tried again, with the same result.

“Call him,” Cati said. “Call out his name in your mind.”

Owen bent forward again. This time he put both hands on the man’s forehead and closed his eyes. “Dr Diamond,” he whispered, then formed the words in his mind. Dr Diamond, Dr Diamond. Suddenly he felt as if he was sinking in a deep well, going down into the darkness.

“Dr Diamond,” he whispered again. Something was wrong. He felt staleness in the air around him and in the spaces his mind reached out to. The Starry felt airless and Owen found himself gasping. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. He tried to detach his mind. Then, in the distance, he felt another presence. A warm presence, calling his name, groping its way towards him in the darkness.

Owen had the feeling that another mind gripped his like two strong hands and propelled him upwards, out of the darkness and into the light.

“Owen! Owen!” It was Cati’s voice. Owen came to and found himself on the floor of the Starry. He sat up and shook his head, feeling groggy and disoriented. Cati’s face swam into focus. She looked both anxious and relieved.

“What happened?” he asked. “I was calling Dr Diamond …”

“And I heard you,” a voice said.

Owen looked up. Dr Diamond was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at him. There was a half-smile on his face.

“Then that was you …?” Owen said.

“Who came and joined my mind to yours? Yes, indeed. I don’t think either of us could have awoken on our own.”

“We’d better get out of here,” Cati said, her eyes heavy. “Before the Starry sends us all to sleep.”

“Yes,” agreed the doctor, stretching. “It gets very musty in here after a year or so.”

More than musty this time, Owen thought. He watched Dr Diamond looking carefully around the Starry, as though there was something wrong that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He was definitely worried.

Ten minutes later they were sitting on the sofa in the Den with Dr Diamond examining the camping stove. “Ingenious,” he said. “Now, Cati, tell me everything that has happened in the past year.”

Cati went quiet. How could she explain how it had felt, autumn stretching into winter. Standing under the trees as they changed, then lying awake at night listening to the wind howling through the Workhouse battlements. How could she tell him about the time it had snowed, and how in the stillness she could hear the voices of children playing? How there was no one to talk to when she was worried or scared?

“Nothing much happened,” she said finally. “It was just … a little bit lonely sometimes.” Owen reached out and touched her hand.

They both know what loneliness is, Dr Diamond thought. That is why their friendship will endure.

“And what happened then?” he said eventually, his eyes shrewd and penetrating. “What happened that you reached out of the shadows to contact Owen? Is time under threat?”

“I was watching on the battlements,” Cati said. “There was a flight of geese that turned to skeletons and then to dust.” She looked defiantly at Dr Diamond as though he might disbelieve her.

“I saw something the same,” Owen said. He told Dr Diamond about the girl in school who had changed in front of his eyes.

“I tried to wake the Resisters, but when I touched them it was as if my fingers were hurting them,” Cati continued. “I didn’t know what to do, so I called Owen.”

Dr Diamond looked grave. “You did the right thing,” he said. “Something or someone is interfering with time. That is why you saw what you did and why the sleepers could not be woken.”

The scientist looked at Owen and Cati over the top of his glasses. “I don’t know what is happening yet, but I do know one thing, my two young friends. There is a mystery here. And where there is mystery there is an adventure. Now, where is my pencil?”

“I think it’s behind your ear,” Cati said, exchanging a smile with Owen. Dr Diamond produced a notebook from his overalls, licked the tip of the pencil, then started to write at lightning speed. This action had a strangely soothing effect and Owen and Cati both felt their eyelids grow heavy. Within minutes they had both fallen asleep, as Dr Diamond had intended they should.

The doctor got up, lifted their feet on to the sofa and covered them with sleeping bags. Then he sat down with his notebook again.

“Night good,” he said, speaking backwards as he tended to do when distracted. He bent his head to his notebook and began to write.

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