The Light Between Us

by Katie Khan

  I never need you. She stops herself from saying it as she realizes it’s not true: it’s an echo of what she used to say, of how she’d taunt and push him away, but she never meant it. ‘Okay,’ she says slowly. ‘That sounds … good.’

  ‘Good.’ He sounds similarly cautious.

  ‘Safe travels.’

  ‘Thea?’ The tannoy comes on again, and this time she can hear his gate being called. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You sound strange.’

  ‘I caught a chill or something, sleeping out in the barn. It might even be flu.’ She grimaces. ‘And honestly? We haven’t spoken like this for a while … It’s probably making me overly sentimental.’

  ‘Oh no! Feel better.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Because if this is you overly sentimental,’ he says, ‘I’d like to see you positively nostalgic. Perhaps we’ll break out the photo albums when I’m back.’ Isaac laughs, bidding her farewell as he boards the plane.

  She gets dressed quickly and heads downstairs to the kitchen. Ayo has worked a miracle: the countertops are free of dust, the rustic tiles a sunny red and yellow instead of a grubby grey. Rosy’s flowers are blooming in their glasses on the scrubbed table, and Rosy is pulling the cottage pie Ayo has made from the oven.

  ‘Our babysitter is enjoying an early night upstairs,’ Rosy declares. ‘Hasn’t she done a brilliant job?’

  ‘Incredible.’ Thea sits down on the kitchen bench, looking around. ‘I haven’t been back here for ages – it was such a state.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘The others – they don’t know.’

  ‘No,’ Rosy says, sitting down next to Thea, ‘I don’t suppose they do. But that’s okay.’ She brightens as Thea takes a bite of warm cottage pie, gravy sliding down her chin. ‘Not everybody has to know everything.’

  Urvisha slides in. ‘Who doesn’t know everything? Me?’

  ‘Yah,’ Rosy says, somehow playing up to the wide vowels Urvisha teases her for. ‘You don’t know when to mind your own beeswax, for one.’

  ‘Beeswax? You talk funny sometimes.’ Urvisha takes a seat at the table, helping herself to some cottage pie. ‘Does this have carrots in? I hate carrots.’

  ‘Pick them out,’ Rosy says, not unkindly. ‘The meat is halal, at least.’

  Thea takes a minute to look at the two women and feels the raw affection of true friendship. They came for her. They’re here. And with them by her side, she’s invincible.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Rosy smiles at Thea warmly. ‘Good sleep? You look punch-drunk.’

  Thea doesn’t want to get emotional with them right now – probably a side effect of being unwell. ‘I guess it’s the anticipation of what we’re going to do.’

  Urvisha shakes her head. ‘You mean, what we’re going to achieve. Where’s Ayo?’

  ‘Staying way out of this,’ Rosy says. ‘She’s taking advantage of twelve hours’ baby-free sleep. And you’re not to wake her,’ she warns. ‘Ayo has her reasons for not wanting to be involved.’

  ‘Even if she’s wrong,’ Urvisha says, plucking carrots from her plate.

  ‘Cautious,’ Rosalind says, more fairly. ‘After all, she has a child, and a husband – dependants – unlike any of us.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Thea agrees. ‘Especially after the Beecroft experiment – we’re not quite sure what will happen, how far this could go. It’s not right for Ayo to risk anything.’

  ‘But it is for us.’ Urvisha grins. ‘I, for one, cannot wait to be on this winning team. The first people to successfully establish time travel, fully documented. Everyone will know our names.’

  Thea is quiet.

  ‘I want to see what it’s like.’ Rosy smiles dreamily. ‘If I could travel back … Imagine the notes a historian could take. The worlds I could see—’

  ‘The textbooks you could correct,’ Thea interjects.

  ‘Quite. I can’t wait to see what other historians got wrong.’

  Thea nods. ‘And we’ll be the ones to tell them.’

  They demolish Ayo’s dinner, then suggest that a bottle of red from the farm’s cellar would be a good investment in their success.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ever cautious, Thea doesn’t want any slowed or impaired reactions. She’s already concerned about suffering with the flu.

  ‘Just a tipple,’ Rosy says, pouring much more than a tipple into everyone’s tumblers. ‘I couldn’t find any wine glasses,’ she apologizes, but nobody has noticed. ‘Here – to being together.’

  ‘To success!’ Urvisha clanks her glass against the others’.

  At midnight, they pull on wellington boots and thick jackets once more and head out of the warmth of the farmhouse kitchen. ‘Here,’ Thea says. ‘These should make it a little easier.’

  ‘Head torches! It’s like being on holiday camp,’ Urvisha says, though she’s never been on a holiday camp, nor has she ever been camping.

  ‘Jack Frost,’ Rosy says, pointing at where the windows have begun icing over as she pulls on her head torch. ‘Winter is on its way.’

  Urvisha huffs her breath, watching the air she exhales condense to a puff of cloud in the night chill.

  They walk across to the barn, three streaks of light against the darkness of the night. Moving past the firewood, Thea opens the door, and Urvisha and Rosy pull off their head torches.

  ‘No,’ Thea says, ‘keep them on. They might help.’ She sets up the three industrial lamps to point at the glass house, illuminating it against the dark wood of the barn, then moves to the controls for the new laser. Urvisha sets up her laptop, a black page of code open on her screen. Rosy stands by the glass house, ready to take her place.

  ‘Thea?’ Rosy says quietly, but is interrupted by Urvisha cursing.

  ‘Oh, piss.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Thea says, turning to Urvisha.

  ‘I’m trying to … communicate, shall we say, with the National Grid.’ Urvisha indicates the code on her screen. ‘To keep the power regulated while we do this, and handle any surges in the local area.’

  ‘Communicate?’ Rosy says. ‘Or “hack”? She means hack, doesn’t she.’

  ‘Hacking is a dialogue,’ Urvisha says, tapping at the keys. ‘And this host server seems to need a constant stream of dialogue.’

  ‘Like some men I know,’ Rosy murmurs, and the others laugh gently.

  ‘Can someone take over the recording and reportage?’ Urvisha says distractedly. ‘I’m going to need my full attention on talking to the Grid.’

  ‘I will.’ Thea turns on the camera and walks back to the laser, leaving the camera rolling. They may as well capture everything, including the setup – plus this way she won’t forget to hit record as she fires the laser.

  Rosy is running her hand over the variegated and wavy texture Thea has had carved into the prismatic surface of the glass house. It might even be 3D-printed – they know so little about the work Thea has put into this.

  ‘Ready, Rosy?’ Thea calls.

  ‘Do you know, I’ve always felt like I was meant for something like this. Ad majora natus sum,’ she says, ducking into the prismatic booth. ‘Oof! I forgot how cosy this was.’

  ‘It was designed for someone a little shorter than you.’

  Thea runs a final check on the camera setup at forty-five degrees to the laser, then places a multifaceted, cut-glass prism in the door of the glass house. ‘You might want to wear this.’ She throws Rosy a blue striped oven glove, and Rosy barks a laugh.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘In case it gets too warm. We’re on a budget.’ Thea grins, tossing cheap school lab goggles at Urvisha and Rosy, then pulling her own down awkwardly across the torch on her head.

  ‘I’ve come prepared,’ Urvisha declares, pulling out a roll of kitchen foil and stretching it vertically in front of her, like a shield.

  ‘Smart,’ Thea says approvingly. ‘Though God only knows where you’re going to reflect the laser beam. You’ll
probably wipe out the entire village. Goodbye, Dunsop Bridge.’

  Urvisha smirks, but lowers the foil and pulls out a pair of sunglasses instead. ‘What?’ she says, seeing their faces. ‘I need to be able to see my screen when it gets super-bright in here,’ she explains, returning to her simple task of hacking the National Grid.

  In a repeat of the routine from the Beecroft, Thea looks around the barn one last time, then says: ‘We’re ready. Launch status: go or no go?’

  Urvisha checks and rechecks her screen, then verifies all the doors to the barn are clear and the farm is deserted. ‘Go.’

  Thea checks the recording devices are live, and that the ley line between the glass house and her new laser is perfectly set. ‘Go.’

  ‘I’m ready.’ Rosy waves from behind the glass.

  ‘You have to say “Go.”’

  Rosy opens the glass door and leans her perfect cream-blonde head out. ‘Go!’ she bellows, making the others jump.

  ‘Thank you, Rosy. That red wine is clearly working wonders. We are good to go. After three?’

  ‘I’m so excited,’ Urvisha says.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘… One.’

  Thea turns on the laser, and once again the light is blinding. Just like before, all she can see is white. Her vision of the barn, and of the others, is bleached in the moment, violently drained of colour.

  Thea doesn’t allow herself to become excited this time. Once more she feels the tingling of the laser, the goosebumps rising on her skin. The background smell of the barn is replaced by a metallic tang as the light gets whiter and whiter.

  She can hear Urvisha near her, typing furiously, but Thea’s eyes are fixed on the faint outline of Rosy.

  Urvisha makes a noise, but Thea can’t quite hear her over the thrumming and the heat.

  ‘What?’ Thea turns towards her.

  Urvisha gestures at her laptop, pointing at the screen.

  It’s so bright in the barn, Thea moves towards the bench slowly, shielding her eyes, looking back every few seconds at the glass house. She doesn’t want to miss it, if Rosy makes the leap. That’s the key, that will be the fundamental marker: the moment. She takes a step—

  And it hits. The blinding flash, followed by the lurch into darkness, then the sound they all dread.

  The womp as the power cuts out.

  ‘Oh no,’ Urvisha says, audible now the thrumming has been silenced. She scrolls through the code, watching as the transformers sitting next to the high-voltage pylons across the country flash a warning. ‘Oh no, no, no. This one’s a biggie.’

  On Urvisha’s screen, Thea sees the major arteries of the country lose power. City by city, she watches them fall into darkness. She can see the details in her mind’s eye: traffic lights and shop windows blinking off. Bus stops and station signs turning blank. The power is sucked from the National Grid like a blood transfusion.

  Thea watches as the power cut spreads down to the limbs of the south coast until, finally, the whole of Great Britain has turned dark.

  But just outside the barn, at least, the night remains quiet.

  ‘Oh no.’

  At the dead centre of the country, surrounded by the black, Thea feels a remarkable sense of déjà vu.

  ‘I think we did something bad,’ she echoes from another time. But there’s no emergency lighting to sputter on around them now, no backup generator out in the barn. The three photographic lights are extinguished, so they turn their head torches on, the beams cutting through the dark, shafts of light bobbing and ducking across the walls of the barn.

  ‘Rosy?’ Thea calls, feeling her way across the barn as quickly as she can.

  ‘Is she there?’ Urvisha says.

  ‘Rosy?’ Thea’s voice is half excited, half terrified. She yanks open the prismatic glass door. ‘She’s gone.’ She lets the door swing all the way open so Urvisha can see. ‘Rosy’s gone.’

  ‘That’s brilliant!’

  Something stirs in the pit of Thea’s stomach. Is it?

  Now the glass house is open, the metallic tang is stronger; if they licked their lips, they’d taste it. Thea pauses, thinking about what to do. ‘Can you get the power back up online?’

  ‘For the whole country?’ Urvisha cocks her head. ‘It’s going to take some time. The entire Grid is drained.’

  ‘Hurry. Before they spot where the drain originated from.’

  ‘It’s fine –’ Urvisha’s hands skate across the keys – ‘it’s untraceable. The benefit,’ she says, making an ironic face, ‘of being at the central point of the country. Probably the only benefit.’

  Thea moves quickly to the barn door, craning out into the night towards the village. ‘It’s dead quiet out there.’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ Urvisha says, fingers flying. ‘Any sign of her?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Thea looks out into the darkness, then back at the hourglass. All of the sand has run out. ‘She should be back any minute.’

  Urvisha doesn’t look up. ‘You think …?’

  ‘Any minute now.’ Thea is certain. ‘Just like at the Beecroft, Rosy will walk back in and tell us precisely where she’s been.’

  Excited, Thea looks back and forth between the glass house and the path leading back to the farmhouse.

  ‘Why won’t she turn up inside the glass house?’ Urvisha says.

  ‘She might. I’m only going on what happened before, when she ended up in the atrium.’ Thea ponders it. ‘Perhaps because the Earth’s turning while she’s gone, she ends up outside the glass house. I don’t know.’

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve done it,’ Urvisha says eagerly.

  ‘I know. Let’s watch the tape.’ Thea moves towards the camera, hurrying to play back what they witnessed simply moments before. But like Thea, Urvisha is still staring at the glass house.

  ‘We know it worked, don’t we?’ Urvisha says. ‘She’s gone. We should be celebrating.’

  Another womp and the lights in the barn flicker gently back into life, the outbuildings and farmhouse beyond lighting up like a chain letter of fluorescent bulbs stretching across the fields. Urvisha smiles, her mouth taut. It’s still night outside, the rest of the world not yet awake, and the small Lancashire village they’ve made their base is deserted.

  ‘Not yet.’ Thea speaks softly. ‘We’ll celebrate when Rosy reappears. Making someone disappear is only half the act. The other half is bringing them back.’

  Seven

  Fiery clouds splay against the horizon as another pot of coffee percolates, and they down it quickly, black and hot. Dawn is breaking, so they move outside to wait for Rosy’s return. Urvisha leans against the barn door, jiggling her leg, while Thea, crouched low, holds a steaming mug of coffee in her hands.

  The distant windows of the local village stay dark as Thea throws back painkillers laced with caffeine, eyeing the first light of the sunrise. ‘Red sky in the morning …’ she whispers, noting the worried crease across Urvisha’s face, the agitation in her jiggled leg.

  ‘Shepherd’s warning,’ finishes Urvisha. ‘Don’t take too many of those.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘It’s 5 a.m. Rosy should be back by now.’

  ‘Last time it was five minutes,’ Thea says, ‘maybe this time it’s five hours.’ Her voice belies a rising worry.

  ‘Do you think? I mean, the power cut was probably ten times bigger than last time.’

  ‘That’s it – she probably jumped back further than we expected.’

  But they both find it increasingly hard to be excited when Rosy hasn’t yet returned.

  Urvisha stands up straight. ‘We need to wake Ayo and start a search.’

  ‘We will,’ Thea says. ‘Soon. Five minutes more. She’ll turn up, I know it.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Urvisha, her voice suddenly bleak. The exhilaration of ambition has been etched over with reality.

  ‘She’ll come back.’ Stiff from the cold, Thea gets to her feet and rests her
hand on her friend’s arm with reassurance. ‘She’s going to stroll in any second now.’

  They leave the barn door open, and beyond that, the door of the glass house is open too. Thea watches the first, tentative shards of daylight filtering through the clouds and streaking the frosted ground, but most of all she notices the heavy absence of their friend. She hadn’t foreseen how nerve-racking this would be.

  Soon they notice the lights in the farmhouse turning on.

  ‘Ayo’s awake. That’s early,’ Urvisha says.

  ‘She’s a mum, isn’t she? Ayo’s used to seeing the dawn.’

  ‘Let’s go and tell her. Maybe she can help.’ Urvisha doesn’t wait for Thea to agree, striding past the dovecote and stepping stones, back towards the kitchen.

  Ayo is unsuccessfully trying to figure out the Aga when they almost fall through the door. ‘You startled me!’ she says. Then: ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We … may have been successful,’ Urvisha starts.

  Thea speaks at the same time. ‘Rosy hasn’t come back yet.’

  ‘… So we don’t know exactly how successful.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ayo says, her eyes going wide. She drags an old copper kettle on top of the hob. ‘But it’s the morning. Do you mean to say Rosy has been missing all night?’

  Thea slumps down on the floor to remove her boots. ‘I don’t want to use the word missing.’

  ‘Absent,’ Urvisha says.

  ‘In transit,’ Thea tries out.

  ‘For nearly six hours?’ Ayo says.

  ‘Until someone’s been gone twenty-four hours, it doesn’t qualify as a missing persons case,’ Urvisha, an avid watcher of detective shows, states.

  Ayo looks frightened. ‘A whole day?’

  ‘She’ll be back before then,’ Thea says. ‘I know it.’

  ‘Have you tried calling her?’ Ayo asks.

  ‘We both have,’ Thea says, pacing around the kitchen. ‘Numerous times.’

  Ayo picks up her mobile from the table and dials Rosy anyway, getting through to her voicemail. ‘Voicemail,’ she says unnecessarily, as they can all hear the plummy tones of Rosy’s recorded message coming from the handset.