by Lauren James
ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND, 2056
Clove was in an alien world. It was morning, but the sky was a dark, thick grey. The air was arid – she could feel the dust at the back of her throat when she inhaled. The flower gardens that used to fill her street had turned into dusty yards with barbed-wire fences and snarling dogs. The few trees that remained had brown, dry leaves. Every house was covered in graffiti, with boarded-up windows and security cameras.
And every sign was in Russian.
She could have sworn the world hadn’t looked anything like this when she’d first got back to the house. She’d been tired, but surely she would have noticed such big changes? Whatever had happened, however she had messed up time, it must have taken a while for the changes to take effect.
She couldn’t believe that so much was different. Surely she couldn’t have done all this, just by visiting the eighteenth century for a single week? She felt something inside her collapse.
It had to have been her. She’d done this.
She turned back to Tom, open-mouthed. She was glad he still existed. He may no longer be her father, but at least she wasn’t alone and adrift in this brutal new world.
“I can’t let you walk home alone. The gangs—” He broke off. “It’s not safe for a girl.”
“I don’t…” She stopped talking as she noticed the shrivelled body of a cat in the gutter. She put her hand over her mouth. This world was horrible. Broken glass littered the pavement, and a soldier marching past with his gun raised shouted at her to get back inside. Clove jumped. She swallowed a mouthful of bile. It tasted like dust.
“Come on,” Tom said, “come in. It’s curfew. We’ll get into trouble. Let me call your parents.” Tom’s anger at finding an intruder in his house had turned into concern, which was somehow even worse. He was acting just like her father, as if he was still the man who had raised and loved her. But he wasn’t, not any more. “At least come and have a cup of tea while you calm down. You’ve had a shock.”
She let him lead her back into the house, one arm around her shoulders.
Inside, she noticed more things that had changed. Half the furniture was missing, and none of Jen’s things were there − not her books or her paintings or her random gadgets. The walls were painted cream instead of colourfully wallpapered.
It was a ghost house, existing on without its occupants.
Tom cleared his throat. “I don’t know where you even got it from, but you … you should probably take that band off,” he said, pointing to her watch strap. It was the rainbow-coloured one which he’d proudly given to her when she’d come out to him and Jen the year before.
“What?”
Tom averted his eyes. “You should know what will happen if you go around showing Pride like that. You’ll be arrested.”
She gaped at him.
“I don’t know how you’ve survived this long.”
Clove felt a hard, ugly knot twisting her gut. She’d never, ever felt ashamed of her sexuality. How had she managed to change the world so much that her own dad thought that she should hide who she was? How was her home now a place where it was illegal to be gay?
She had to fix this. Now. She needed to get away from her not-father, so she had time to think.
“Excuse me,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Well, you know where it is,” he said, trying to be upbeat.
She turned her lips up in an imitation of a smile and then went upstairs, bypassing the bathroom to go to her bedroom – which was now apparently an office.
By the time the door was closed she found that she couldn’t even breathe through the tightness in her chest. She wasn’t going to have a panic attack. She wasn’t.
“Spart, what’s going on?” Her voice came out stronger and more authoritative than she’d expected. She was going to fix this. She could fight anything life threw at her, and she was going to win.
> History changed after your visit to 1745. I’ve been searching online, and it looks like the time-landscape diverged completely.
“But how is everything so different?! It looks like Russia has taken control of Scotland!”
> They have. Russia invaded the British Isles in 1855, after defeating the English in the Crimean War.
“What? How has that got anything to do with me? I didn’t even go to the nineteenth century!”
> Your visit had a knock-on effect. Apparently, after you left 1745, the Jacobites seized and entered Carlisle almost immediately. I’ve run a comparison between the Folios I created of historical documents in our 2056 and those in this one. It seems the main difference is that during the siege of Carlisle, instead of subject “KATHERINE FINCHLEY”, subject “MATTHEW GALLOWAY” died protecting COLONEL DURAND, the commanding officer of the castle’s defences.
Clove swore loudly. “He must have sacrificed himself to protect Katherine. He promised he wouldn’t, the liar!” She ran her hands through her hair. She was such an idiot.
> You informed him of the events which would take place in his future?
“Yeah, when you were out of it. What a colossal mistake that was.”
> You shouldn’t have done that, CLOVE. It changed history.
“But I don’t understand! Why did it make such a big difference? I mean, Durand survived, right? It should have all gone exactly the same after that, except that it was Matthew who died and not Katherine.”
> DURAND survived, but subject “MATTHEW” wasn’t there. Previously he had helped to convince DURAND that he should hold the defence against the Jacobites.
“And Katherine never did that after he died. She must have been too grief-stricken.” Clove remembered how in love Katherine and Matthew had seemed. When she’d seen them by the carriage, they had looked so happy. How could you ever get over losing a love like that?
> It is unlikely that the colonel would have taken the advice of a woman, regardless. She might have tried to convince him to hold off the Rebels and been ignored.
> When subject “MATTHEW” died, the support DURAND needed to ensure that he kept holding off the Jacobites wasn’t there. He gave in to the overwhelming pressure of the attacking forces. The Jacobite forces took control of the city.
Clove knew what happened next. “So then they defeated the English Army, because the battle happened sooner, when the English hadn’t had a chance to gather their forces.”
> Precisely. England lost, and Scotland established their national independence.
“What happened next? How did that affect the nineteenth century enough for Russia to win the Crimean War?”
> After Scotland achieved independence, there was an economic collapse. According to the data I can obtain, this lead to a nationwide famine in 1765. Millions of people died.
“No.” The concept was impossible to grasp. She’d killed literally millions of people. Clove was responsible for the deaths of entire generations and Spart was only up to the 1760s. Who knew how many other people were dead because of her?
> The next big change was the Napoleonic Wars. Scotland refused to contribute their numbers to support the English and Allied ones. However, it didn’t make much of a difference, and England still defeated France by a margin.
“OK…” Clove felt relieved that there was at least something she hadn’t changed, but it didn’t seem like much of a consolation.
> But then there was the Crimean War.
“Oh no.”
> This time the Russians defeated England and France. Both countries lost their commanders early on in the battle when a rocket hit a tent. They were defeated and Russia invaded both England and France. They took Scotland too.
“You’ve mentioned a tent before,” Clove said. “Ages ago. Katy and Matthew, when they were in that time, saved the commanders from the rocket that hit their tent.”
> They didn’t save them this time.
“Why not? Weren’t they there?”
> They were, but subject allocation “KATY”
died before the rocket attack. She was shot at the Battle of the River Alma.
“What? Was she never shot before, then? That’s new?”
> Before things changed from the previous history, one of the articles subject allocation “MATTHEW” published in The Times mentioned that he and his assistant were saved on the battlefield by a Highland soldier. The Highlander took a bullet and died to protect them. As the Scottish forces weren’t present at the battle this time, the Highlander never protected them, and subject “KATY” was shot.
Clove had killed her mum. And her dad. More than once. “So they never saved the commanders?”
> Evidently. After the commanders died, the Russians won the war easily. England came under their control, as did Scotland, which couldn’t stand up to their forces.
“So I made everything Russian.”
> There’s more.
“Nooooo, no! How can there be more? Isn’t that enough?”
Clove wiped tears from her cheeks. She felt overwhelmed by guilt. She was picturing everyone she’d ever known and loved being put through the worst kind of hell … all because of her.
> Nearly everything after 1854 changed from the history we know. During the Second World War, Germany seized England from Russia. Germany won the war.
It was so big that Clove couldn’t comprehend it. Germany had won the Second World War because of her. England was German. Scotland was Russian. This was the biggest mistake anyone had ever made in the entirety of human history.
> Then there was the Cold War against America. In this timeline it wasn’t a “cold” war. Russia had superior forces to their enemies, even after losing England. They had a large portion of Europe under their control by that point. They fired nuclear bombs at the American continent, and the resulting backlash lead to a global nuclear holocaust.
> At this point in time, most animals and wildlife are extinct, and the global population is at 70 per cent of what it was in the original timeline.
Clove couldn’t hear any more. It was too much. “I need to fix it.”
> How?
“I … I don’t know.” Clove buried her head in her hands. “I don’t know.”
There was a knock at the door. “I hope black tea is OK. I’ve finished my week’s milk ration,” Tom said, as he came inside.
Clove nodded dully, taking the mug. “Black is fine. Thank you.”
“You’ve found my office, then,” Tom said, nodding at the computers humming behind Clove, where her bed had once been. His tone was sharp.
“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak around.”
“Right.” Tom sat down, rubbing his mug between two palms. “Why don’t you tell me who you’re working for?”
Clove raised her eyebrows. “Working for?”
“How did you know to come here?” he asked, voice hard. “How do you know about us? What were you really doing in my bathroom?”
“‘Us’? I don’t … I don’t know who that is.”
Tom’s gaze roamed over her face. Finally, he relaxed. He put his mug down, bracing his hands on his knees. “You really don’t know. You’re not with the politsiya, are you? You’re just a child.”
Clove didn’t let herself be offended by that. “I don’t even know what the police-ia is,” she admitted. Clove desperately wanted to ask who “us” was, but she didn’t want to ruin whatever was happening here.
“How is that possible? Where have you been, that you don’t know that?”
She swallowed. “You trust me? Just like that?”
He frowned. “I don’t know why… Just … there’s something about you … something familiar. Yes, I do trust you. I think.”
Clove wondered if a part of him remembered her – or recognized her somehow. She’d changed time so abruptly that perhaps some part of Tom’s old memory still existed. Deep in his subconscious, a part of him remembered that Clove was his daughter.
Clove decided she was going to tell Tom everything. She had to try and get him on her side, even if there was only a small chance that he remembered who she was. She couldn’t deal with this alone any more. She took a fortifying sip of tea. “I have something to tell you, Tom. It’s going to sound like nonsense. But please hear me out.”
Tom folded his arms and leant back in his chair, his gaze never leaving her face.
“So” − she scratched her head − “I’m not really sure where to start. You know the time machine?”
Tom’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “What time machine?”
“You’re not researching time travel at St Andrews Uni?” Clove asked. She couldn’t get a hang of all of these changes. Maybe it was best to assume that everything was different here.
“I’m not, no.” He frowned at her. “I work with computers. Not time machines. I don’t even think there is a time machine at St Andrews.”
Clove didn’t know what to say. She had used the time machine yesterday, and it had definitely been at St Andrews University. Unless… That couldn’t have changed while she was sleeping too, could it?
The realization knocked the breath out of her. The time machine was gone. Her changes to time meant – somehow – that even the time machine wasn’t in the same place any more. Did it even exist?
“Well. OK. That changes things.” She pinned her hand to her thigh to stop it from shaking. She’d had a vague plan to go back to 1745 somehow and stop herself from ever talking to Matthew, to make sure she never changed the future. But if there wasn’t even a time machine any more … she was stuck here. For ever. And she was completely alone. If her parents didn’t know who she was, then it was unlikely anyone else would either. Not even Meg.
“Well,” she said again. “The reason I don’t know about the politsiya … and the reason I just turned up in your bathroom out of nowhere…” She wished she didn’t have to say this. “I’m … I … I travelled here in a time machine.”
There was a long silence.
“From the future?” he asked. She could tell from his voice that he didn’t believe her, even though he was trying hard to hide it.
“… no. From some kind of alternate version of time, where I’m … I’m your daughter.” She took in a deep breath, feeling it rattle around the cavernous nervy space inside her. Clove decided to just blurt information out until he stopped looking like he was about to throw his mug at her and flee the room.
“In my version of 2056, you and my mum work on a time machine at the university. I broke into the lab and used it to travel back to the eighteenth century. But while I was there, I told people things about the future. Information that I should never have shared. It must have changed things, because now everything is different. You don’t know who I am, and Scotland is some kind of Russian police state. Nothing from my world was like this. Nothing at all. And I need” − Clove couldn’t stop herself sobbing − “I need you to help me get my world back. Please, Dad. Please.”
Tom didn’t say anything for a long time. He scratched at the nail of his thumb. Then he swallowed. “Right,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“I can prove it. Ask me anything.” Clove wondered how many times throughout history she was going to have to try and convince people that she was their daughter.
“You don’t need to prove it. I just … I need a minute.” Tom stood up, running one hand through his hair. He walked over to the window and stared at the ruined world outside.
Clove chewed at the inside of her mouth, waiting.
“When you were little, did you hide inside your duvet cover when you were upset?” he asked, without turning to look at her.
What? What did that have to do with—? “Yes?” Clove said, slowly, and then more quickly, “You – did you remember that?”
“You used to call it Cloudland.” His shoulders relaxed.
“Yeah. I did.” Clove couldn’t stop the hope bubbling inside her.
“I … I believe you.” Tom’s voice was hollow. “The first time I saw you, I recognized you
. I ignored it. But I knew. And I remember you. I remember the life we used to have. How is that possible?”
Clove thought about it. There was no way to know what a person would remember, if their whole life was rewritten. It wasn’t like anyone had ever created an alternate timeline before. Maybe this was normal. “I have no idea. But I’m so glad you do.”
“I’m going to help you. We’re going to get your world back,” Tom said. “What do you need me to do?”
Clove tried to calm her raging thoughts enough to focus on the problem. She needed to find out whether there was a time machine anywhere in this world. And get to it. There was only one woman who could help with that.
“I need to find Dr Jennifer Sutcliffe,” she said.
CHAPTER 27
Saturday 16 November 1745
A disastrous meeting today. A local man and volunteer by the name of Matthew Galloway was killed by a round of musket fire after the militia refused to guard the castle against the Rebels.
A local woman named Katherine Finchley was greatly affected by the passing of the man. I feel responsible for her grief as it was in the act of protecting not only Miss Finchley but also myself that he was killed. His life was given to save my own, and for that I will never forget him.
I find myself persuaded to surrender. His violent and cruel death was seemingly without cause, and it has resulted in more panic and disillusionment amongst the militia.
I see no future where the siege of Carlisle can result in anything but more death. I must choose to surrender peacefully now, before more innocent lives are lost.
I will declare my surrender immediately, to ensure that Matthew Galloway has not died in vain.
Folios/v1/Time-landscape-1745/MS-12-alt
File note: Diary entry of COLONEL DURAND, written during the 1745 Jacobite Uprising. The entry concerns subject allocations “KATHERINE” and “MATTHEW”, as recorded after CLOVE’s arrival in 1745
As shown in Folios/v1/Time-landscape-1745/MS-12, CLOVE’s influence on “MATTHEW” during her visit to 1745 was a direct cause of the surrender of COLONEL DURAND during the siege, a disastrous decision which would impact the next three hundred years of British and global history
