A New Reality

by Clare Solomon

  The London street and the people in it vanished before his eyes and he knew he was looking inwards, directly at Time itself, although he couldn’t have explained what he was seeing amid the darkness and chaos.

  He felt as if he were falling and, when the movement stopped, he could see the point in Time where he had changed reality, with the group of primitive Sapiens and Neans meeting in the ancient world beneath him. He knew somehow that Time wanted something from him and he struggled to understand what it was before it was too late and his mind shattered.

  He felt again that he was being pulled at high speed through a passageway and he saw images – reminiscent of what Tchaffi had done to show him the new timeline, but all lumped together and crowding his brain, too much for him to take in. He knew now what had driven Barve and the others insane as he felt it do the same to him and Farlden.

  Fal! They had been touched by the ghost together, he remembered, and he couldn’t let Farlden go mad. Elliot tried to find his magic amid everything that Time was throwing at him, the effort feeling as if it were killing him. At last, he managed to get the magic to manifest and reached out with it towards Farlden, pushing out to find him with every last bit of strength he possessed.

  Their magics connected and it was like a warm embrace that focused his mind, letting him begin to make sense of what Time was showing him. He could feel not just the magic but Farlden’s mind joined with his and, shared between them, the agonising pain became manageable.

  Images kept filling their minds and he knew they were meant to understand something from the explosion of information from different timelines and different historical periods, but he could not work out what. It was just history, the new history mixed with that of the old reality.

  Then he understood.

  The moment of clarity ended the communication and Time vanished from his mind, as did the link with Farlden. They were back where they had been, standing outside the government building where they worked, people around them, with the sounds of voices and traffic in his ears. It seemed as if hours had gone by but their colleagues hadn’t moved, Barve and Mosrra nearby and Callie still pale and wide-eyed, her gaze fixed on Farlden.

  The ghosts were gone but that was irrelevant as there was nothing more for the creatures to achieve and they didn’t scare Elliot anymore.

  He knew what mistake had been made when they changed reality.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “ARE YOU hurt? Can you speak?”

  Elliot glanced over to where Farlden sat on a bench in the street, Callie talking frantically to him, clearly fearing his mind was lost. She had one hand on Farlden’s chest and the other on his arm, the touches a gesture of casual intimacy. After the strong connection between him and Farlden during the magic – where their minds had worked together as one and they had shared every experience, thought and emotion – it hurt to see him and Callie so close again, but at least they had all survived. Just about.

  “I’m not mad,” Farlden answered and then, no longer having any reason to stay near him, Elliot moved out of earshot of them.

  Most of the rest of their colleagues were still standing around, as if fearful to go back inside after what had happened. Those who hadn’t been present when the ghosts appeared were quizzing the others and Elliot knew it would be his turn to answer questions soon but, first, he needed to speak to Barve. The Nean’s dark eyes darted this way and that as he stood having a nonsensical conversation with people who weren’t there. Elliot touched his shoulder but Barve didn’t show the slightest awareness of his presence and it made Elliot ache with grief. He refused to believe that he might have lost one of his closest friends permanently, so he told himself that he would find a way to return Barve to the man he had been.

  “I know what you saw,” Elliot said to him. “You saw Time and both versions of history.”

  Barve looked directly at him. “Time.”

  “Yes,” Elliot said, hope surging at the response. “We saw the changes in Time and we’re going to solve what went wrong.”

  “Tick-tock, pictures everywhere, two paths.”

  “I understand,” a gruff voice said behind Elliot and he turned and looked at Farlden, who came forward to hug his brother. Barve didn’t fight against the embrace but his hands stayed limply at his sides and his face remained blank.

  Fal pulled away and, visibly pushing away his misery, said to Elliot, “It sounds like gibberish but it’s not, is it? He’s talking about what Time showed him.”

  Before Elliot could respond, Dervyl approached, looking intently at them. “You are both unaffected by touching the ghosts?”

  “Not unaffected,” Elliot said, trying to get his thoughts in order through the throbbing headache the recent experience had given him. “It was Time that was speaking through the ghosts and we know part of what it wants.”

  “Come inside and explain what happened,” she said and they nodded, Farlden putting an arm round Barve to lead him. Behind them, Dervyl called to the rest of the group to join them.

  She assembled the team in her office, a pale nervy group, some of them looking round worriedly as if expecting ghosts to appear at any moment. She lowered the table from where it was chained up on the ceiling and they all sat down, the meeting feeling incongruously ordinary after the adrenaline burst of the ghost threat, racing about to get away from them and having a conversation with Time.

  Without a word, Farlden took the seat beside Elliot instead of his usual one, gently pulling Barve into the next chair. Callie hesitated and then sat next to Barve. The others took their usual seats, Dervyl at right angles to Elliot.

  “How is it that the two of you weren’t driven insane by the ghosts?” Abbrin asked at once and the others fell silent.

  “We communicated with Time through the ghosts and saw the two different realities,” Elliot said. “It was an overload of information that made others go mad but we were able to combine our magic to understand what it wanted us to know.”

  “And what’s that?” Dervyl asked and everyone else looked intently from one to the other of them.

  “We made a mistake when we changed Time. The creatures that have been appearing aren’t ghosts or aliens or even our past selves. They’re future versions of ourselves that, obviously, shouldn’t exist in the current time.”

  There was a brief silence at this revelation, followed by a rush of exclamations and questions that Farlden cut across as he said to Elliot, “There was something else but I couldn’t really make sense of it. Something about needing to merge both timelines.”

  “That is not possible,” Mosrra said.

  “Even if it were, that would damage Time even more,” Abbrin agreed.

  “No, Fal is right,” Elliot said, trying to ignore the queasiness and headache that proved how close he had come to having his mind destroyed. He hated to think that Barve had experienced the same thing and, not having someone to share strength with, it had broken him. “We were shown a kaleidoscope of images from both timelines. I didn’t understand it either but Time was definitely trying to get us to see something about needing something from the past timeline in this reality.”

  “Think about what you saw,” Dervyl urged, leaning towards him, “and try to work out the message in what you were shown.”

  Elliot did as she said, trying to make sense of the entire experience, but he didn’t understand anything except what he had already said. He glanced round at Fal, who shrugged and shook his head.

  “Sorry,” Elliot said. “That’s all we know.”

  “You saw images from both timelines?” Callie asked, turning her head to look past Barve – who was still muttering to himself – to where Farlden sat.

  “Yes.”

  The implications of this struck Elliot for the first time and his heart began to pound. He hardly dared to ask and risk having the fragile hope shattered, but he had to know. “Does that mean you remember some of the previous reality?”

  “All of it,” Farlden s
aid and gave Elliot a lopsided smile.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ELLIOT’S MOBILE rang before he could get near Farlden and, as other people walked past him to the door after the meeting ended, he saw Callie approach Fal. He answered his phone as he headed into the corridor, too distracted to notice who was calling. He had to find out how Fal felt about him now. The return of his old memories had to make a difference but, after everything that had kept them apart, it didn’t seem possible that they might get together again. Excitement mingled with fear and he just wanted to grab Fal and find out where they stood.

  “Elliot, are you all right?” It was his mother’s voice.

  “Yes.” He frowned, confused to hear from her when they were both normally working. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just heard on the radio that there had been two ghosts inside the building where you work and I was so afraid that you might have been hurt. You didn’t see them?”

  “I definitely saw them but I’m fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Thank goodness for that. What happened?”

  He gave her a quick account, saying he would explain properly when they drove home together tonight.

  “Those terrible creatures,” she said and, as much as he appreciated her concern for him, he was on tenterhooks to speak to Farlden, who had now vanished from sight. “The Prime Minister says the ghost problem will be resolved soon, but it’s all so unnatural. My secretary’s just come in so I have to go. Take care of yourself and I’ll see you in a few hours. Oh, and give your father and brother a call to reassure them.”

  “I will.” He rang off and phoned the other members of his family, leaving a message for Dad, who was in a meeting, and having a quick word with Jasper, who hadn’t yet heard about the ghosts and couldn’t understand why Elliot would want to speak to him about them.

  When he was at last able to put away his mobile, he walked to the office Fal and Callie normally worked in, but then he hesitated. It struck him that what had happened to Fal might change or end his relationship with Callie and, as much as Elliot wanted to burst in and talk to Farlden, it wouldn’t be fair if they were talking things over.

  He silently swore, hardly able to think straight when he had no idea what would happen when he talked to Fal. After the depth of their closeness in the other timeline, these weeks without being involved with him had been endless misery. They had relied on each other for everything while on the run and then, when they were captured by the Magic Control Department, Elliot had been terrified that Farlden might die. Having Fal lose everything they had meant to each other after going through that... Elliot didn’t know how he had kept going.

  But he had let himself hope that their relationship would change when Fal had briefly broken up with Callie and it had come to nothing. He would almost rather not have an answer than be rejected again.

  No longer sure what to feel or think, he turned away from the room containing Farlden and Callie.

  * * *

  “Does the return of your old memories change anything between us?” Callie asked.

  They were standing in an office to talk – the same one where the ghosts had chased them and hurt his brother – and Farlden felt like a different person from the one he had been when that had happened. The return of his other memories made the last few weeks feel almost like a dream. He could still vividly remember meeting Callie in this timeline and falling in love with her, though.

  “Fal,” she prompted when he didn’t answer immediately. She lifted a hand to touch his face and he pulled away, out of reach. She breathed in sharply at his reaction and had to blink back tears, making him feel terrible for doing this to her. He remembered loving her – there was a part of him that still cared just as deeply for her as he had before – but he could also recall her betrayal and how devastated he and Elliot had been by it. He knew that his Callie wasn’t the same person as the other one – their different experiences had shaped them into new people – but he still looked at her with this new knowledge and wondered what it would take to make her turn against them or lie to him again.

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “So you suddenly love Elliot now?” She sounded bitter and he couldn’t blame her. He had promised, when Callie asked him to be sure of his feelings just days ago, that she was the only one he loved and wanted to be with, but the man who had said that wasn’t exactly who he was now. He was altered both by the return of his memories and the sense of sharing his very soul with Elliot inside Time.

  “I have both sets of memories so it’s complicated.” He wished he could find better words to explain this to her.

  “Then why can’t you choose me?” she asked. “You loved me just a few hours ago and we were happy together.”

  “You mean a lot to me but there are things I can’t tell you about our relationship in that other timeline and all the memories I have of being with Elliot change things between you and me. We have to break up.” He needed her to understand that he wouldn’t change his mind so she didn’t waste time hoping for a reconciliation that would never happen, but he could see how much his words hurt her and he hated himself for that.

  “All right.” She wiped her eyes fiercely as she turned away and walked out of the office.

  He stood watching her go, with conflicting feelings about what had just happened. In this timeline she had been the first love of his life and the side of him with all those memories wanted to run after her and take back everything he had said. The larger part of him knew it was necessary, that a romantic relationship could never exist between them now.

  He hoped they could still work together and eventually, as much as it was a cliché, he really hoped that they could be friends. They had shared too much for him to be able to imagine a life that she had no place in. It was up to her, though, and he would have to wait to find out if she would ever want anything to do with him.

  He let out a deep breath and went to find Elliot.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  FAL FOUND Elliot talking to Lila in the canteen. It was strange to see her here now that he remembered everything she had done to help him and Elliot in the other timeline. No wonder he had experienced déjà vu over seeing them in here a little while ago: the situation was almost identical to the lunchtime meetings between the group members at Uni and Lila looked no different than she had then, with the same nose piercing and heavy black kohl around her eyes.

  He walked over to their table. Lila had a mug of coffee and a slice of toast in front of her but there was nothing on the table in front of Elliot. Farlden got the impression that Elliot had been waiting for him to come to see him, which wasn’t surprising after Fal told him that his memories had returned.

  Lila and Elliot looked up at him. He met Elliot’s gaze and was flooded with memories of the two of them from the past reality, from their first kiss to Fal’s fear when they were on the brink of altering the timeline that it might tear them apart. “Can we talk?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He nodded to Lila as Elliot got up, but she didn’t respond and there was a hard edge to her expression. She seemed to have become good friends with Elliot in her short time with the team, even without her memories from before. Farlden wondered what Elliot had told her about him and the relationship they had once had as he got the impression that she was concerned that Fal might hurt Elliot.

  “See you later,” Elliot said and she smiled at him.

  The two of them left her and walked upstairs, going back into the office he had just vacated. He and Callie hadn’t tidied it up when they were in here, so it was still looking worse for wear, with the overturned chair and jacket Elliot had thrown at a ghost lying against the wall on the far side of the room and cushions kicked across the floor.

  Elliot went and picked up the jacket, dusting it off. He seemed nervous or unsure of himself.

  “I ended things with Callie,” Fal said. “It couldn’t have worked out between us now.”


  “You remember everything?” Elliot asked quickly, standing a foot away from him, looking as smart and handsome as the day they had met in the Halls of Residence at Uni. “Our lives together?”

  “Every second.”

  “How do you feel about me?”

  The words came easily to him in a way that they hadn’t with Callie. Perhaps some unconscious part of him had always known there was someone else in his heart. “I love you.”

  He wasn’t sure who stepped forward first but they fell into each other’s arms and clung together. Farlden closed his eyes and savoured it: the warmth of Elliot’s familiar slender body, the fragrance of the cologne he had always worn, the sound of his cultured accent saying Farlden’s name. All his former feelings flooded back and made him hold the other man even more tightly. How could anything have made him forget something so right?

  Fal would have been happy to stay like that for hours, drawing strength from the closeness, but Elliot moved back, within the space of their arms which were still wrapped round each other. Elliot stroked Farlden’s face, tracing the shape of a cheekbone with a feather-light touch, the look of pure need in his eyes causing a rising longing in Farlden. Elliot leaned in and they kissed, passion igniting between them that sent bolts of adrenaline through Fal’s body. He cupped Elliot’s face, his fingers encountering a hint of stubble, and the kiss deepened until it felt the way it had when their magic joined earlier, as if their two souls had become one.

  Before it could grow even more intense, Fal gently pulled away. His heartbeat was still pounding but he realised he needed to let the past go before he could move forward with Elliot.

  “Is something wrong?” Elliot asked, the happiness in his eyes dimming.