Mount Emily

by Low Ying Ping

  The photo that would stand on her mother’s dressing table years in the future was the one that they had taken on Talent Night. Patsy had no doubt the third girl in the photo was Maggie.

  Patsy frantically dialled Maggie’s telephone number. Nobody picked up the phone at her house. She then called Elena and told her to get to Maggie’s house as soon as she could. There was neither the time nor the privacy to explain, over the phone, what she had deduced.

  Yelling to her grandmother that she was off for her sleepover, Patsy grabbed her bag and dashed off to the bus stop. After the agonising bus journey to Bukit Timah Road, she ran as fast as she could to Maggie’s house. The rain was so heavy that her jeans were totally drenched despite the fact that she was using an umbrella. Her hand trembled so badly that she dropped her copy of Maggie’s spare key once before she managed to open the door. Elena was waiting in the living room.

  “Is she here?” Patsy panted, closing her umbrella and propping it up against the wall next to the door.

  “No, only Mrs Kwek—I mean Miss Yoong—is home,” Elena replied. “She said Maggie’s at her art class, but should be back any time now. What’s wrong? Quick, tell me.” They went up to Maggie’s room, where the window had a view of the front door and the road in front of the house, and Patsy quickly filled Elena in. “Are you sure it’s this year that the friend died?” Elena asked.

  “I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but it seems too much of a coincidence, that tomorrow we’ll be activating the time crystal and her death anniversary is today.”

  “How did your mum’s friend die?” Elena asked.

  “I don’t know. She never said, or maybe she did but I wasn’t listening,” Patsy said with a sigh. “She’s your mum’s friend too, you know. The three of them were in the photo together. Did your mum say anything about Maggie to you?”

  Elena shrugged. “She doesn’t talk about her past to me, so how would I know?”

  “I haven’t really missed all our stuff from the 21st century, but I really wish we had our mobile phones now,” Patsy said, looking worriedly out of the window again. “When in the world is she coming back?”

  The shadows grew longer outside the house and eventually disappeared altogether. The rain that had gone on forever that day had petered off as well, leaving a shiny glaze over the surface of the road now lit by road lamps. Patsy telephoned Charlotte, but the latter had not heard from Maggie either. Patsy explained what she had found out about 8 August, then promised she would call Charlotte once she had news of Maggie.

  Even the usually placid Yvonne Yoong came into the room twice to wring her hands and blink anxiously at the girls. She said she had called the art school and the teacher said Maggie had left hours ago. So where was she?

  The call came slightly after midnight. A neighbour had found Maggie floating face down in the nearby Rochor Canal that was swollen with a full day’s worth of rainwater.

  chapter twelve

  atsy and Elena stood some distance away, watching as Yvonne wept over Maggie’s body. And that poor woman never did know who her neighbour’s child really was, Patsy thought irrelevantly. She scrubbed at her eyes with her fists to clear her vision, but the tears kept refilling.

  A girl ran up to them. “I came as soon as you called. Are you sure…” Charlotte stopped suddenly and took in the scene in front of her. Several policemen and medical officers were standing near Maggie’s body and Yvonne. Neighbours and other passers-by were milling around, trying to catch a glimpse of the tragedy. Nobody seemed to pay any notice to the three girls standing huddled together.

  Tears filled Charlotte’s eyes and she sank to her knees. “Just when we’d found each other,” she said in a low, tremulous voice. “You promised to teach me everything you knew about time magic. How can you break your promise now…?”

  “I don’t get it,” Elena said angrily, her voice shaking. “How could this have happened? How could she have just fallen into the canal like that? It doesn’t make sense!” Her voice was getting louder, as if she could shout away the fact that Maggie was no longer with them.

  “It’s my fault,” Patsy said suddenly. She realised she was shivering uncontrollably and wrapped her arms around herself tightly to try to stop the shaking. “I should have figured it out earlier. The death anniversary, my mum’s photo…I could have stopped it. Could have made sure I was with Maggie the whole day to keep her safe…”

  “There’s no way you could have stopped it.”

  Patsy looked round in surprise. Through the mist of her tears, she saw a small, middle-aged woman she had never seen before. The woman put her hand on Charlotte’s shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.

  It’s Charlotte’s mother, Maggie’s xiao-yi, Patsy realised, with a start.

  “When Charlotte came to me just now and said that in your future time, Maggie had died tonight, I knew it would happen, no matter what we did,” Min Ling said softly, almost dreamily. Her voice was gentle and wispy, as if the wind could easily blow her words away. “Because you can’t change the past. That’s one of the laws of the time stream. I’ve known it all my life. Even knowing this, I tried to change the past once and I…” her voice faltered a little, “I didn’t manage to bring back the dead and nearly destroyed the time stream instead. Don’t blame yourself too much. Maggie had already died before you even travelled backwards in time. For you, she’s been dead 28 years.”

  The three young girls held each other and cried together then. Patsy didn’t know if the grief she was feeling was hers, or her mother’s, but she knew it was the worst pain she had even known in her life.

  Min Ling stayed by Yvonne’s side until the ambulance took Maggie’s body away. Yvonne insisted on accompanying the body on her own, so Min Ling returned to the girls, who were still huddled together. They walked in silence along the road towards Maggie’s house, where Min Ling had parked her car. Just as they neared the point where they usually turned to enter the private estate along Dunearn Road, Charlotte suddenly stared hard at the canal. “What happened to the bridge?” she demanded.

  Patsy looked at the canal. The bridge over Rochor Canal looked perfectly normal. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what has happened to the bridge? Why is it gone?” Charlotte asked impatiently.

  Patsy rubbed her eyes and looked again. There the bridge was, standing strong and solid under the bright glow of a street lamp. She gazed at Charlotte. “Are you all right?” she touched Charlotte’s ice-cold hand in concern.

  “The bridge! It went away, came back and now it’s gone again!” Charlotte cried.

  Still holding Charlotte’s hand, Patsy turned to look at the bridge a third time. This time, with Charlotte’s hand in hers, she finally saw what Charlotte had seen. Where the bridge used to stand was empty air. She let go of Charlotte’s hand in shock and the bridge reappeared.

  “It’s a time breach,” Min Ling realised. “The time crisis is getting worse. At some time in the past, the bridge had not yet been built, and that’s what we’re seeing.”

  “What? What?” Elena asked, anxiety filling her voice. In answer, Charlotte grasped Elena’s hand so that Elena could share in her time power.

  “That’s how Maggie fell in!” Elena cried. “She was crossing the bridge when she encountered the time breach!”

  Min Ling nodded. “That must be it. The bridge disappeared when she fell in, but the time breach was not big enough for Maggie to remain in the past, so by the time she hit the water, she was back in the present time, and the canal waters swept her some distance downstream, to where her body was found.”

  “The time crystal!” Patsy suddenly remembered. “Was Maggie carrying it?”

  “I didn’t sense anything when we were near Maggie,” Charlotte said and looked as if she was about to cry again.

  “It wasn’t on her body,” Min Ling said quietly. She looked around her. “I can feel it. Faintly. It’s very near here.”

  Charlotte closed her eyes and knitted her
brow. “Yes,” she whispered, as if afraid to break her concentration by speaking too loudly. “I feel it too!”

  “We’ve got to get it,” Patsy said urgently. When she saw Charlotte’s blank look, she said, “We’ve got to heal the time breach. It’s the least we can do for Maggie. Being a Time Keeper meant so much to her. She would have wanted us to finish the task for her.”

  “Mum…” Charlotte turned to look uncertainly at her mother.

  Min Ling remained silent, a pinched look on her face. Finally, she said quietly, “I told you, I’m done with this time business. It has ruined my life enough.”

  Patsy struggled to control her frustration and keep her voice even. “Then you must do it yourself,” she said to Charlotte.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Charlotte whispered. “If even Maggie couldn’t…how can I?”

  “Charlotte,” Patsy said as calmly as she could, even though she felt a strange, slippery rage burning inside her. “If you do nothing, everyone will be in danger. The time breach will get bigger and bigger. For centuries, your people have kept the time stream safe. Didn’t you want to be a Time Keeper too, like them? Wasn’t that why you stole the time crystal?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte whimpered. “But I didn’t know it was so dangerous. I didn’t expect Maggie to die. Do you think…do you think if I hadn’t stolen the time crystal, things would have been different? Maybe Maggie wouldn’t have died?”

  “Stop it! Will you stop it?” Patsy almost shouted. “Maggie died 28 years ago! It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault, okay? It just happened!” She felt Elena’s arms go around her shoulders and realised she was shivering again. She took a deep breath to calm herself, to quell that urgent need she had to convince Charlotte, because only then could she convince herself that there was nothing she could have done to save Maggie.

  “Girls,” Min Ling’s thin voice cut the chill night air like a blade.

  The girls looked at her, but she didn’t say anything more. Instead, she stood staring at the canal. Patsy thought that in that moment, there was something different about her bearing. Despite her small build and nondescript clothing, she seemed somehow almost regal in the way she held herself upright.

  Charlotte grabbed her friends’ hands again and Patsy finally saw what had drawn Min Ling’s attention. The bridge had disappeared again and a dark, hooded figure draped in a long cape was standing at the opposite bank of the canal.

  Patsy instantly recognised the figure who stood in silence across the canal, his cape billowing in the wind.

  It was the Midnight Warrior she had seen near the slope at Mount Em.

  chapter thirteen

  his time, the figure did not disappear immediately, nor did he just stand still. He had his palms pressed against some invisible barrier, as if he were pushing to get through. Patsy could not see the person’s face, but in the shifting shadows, she thought she could make out a pair of bright, piercing eyes staring straight at her. She shivered at the intense malevolence she felt emanating from that vision.

  The Midnight Warrior reached out his right hand, with his left still pressed against the invisible wall. He seemed to be straining with all his might to reach further. With a cry, Min Ling suddenly darted forward.

  “Mum!” Charlotte screamed as Min Ling ran across the road towards the dark figure. Patsy froze in horror. What was Min Ling trying to do? Before Patsy could react, Min Ling had neared the edge of the canal and was stretching out her hand even as she ran. The Midnight Warrior’s own outstretched hand pointed in the same direction as Min Ling’s. Patsy gasped as she saw a blur of blue shoot up from the ground near the canal and into Min Ling’s hand.

  Then, for apparently no reason, the hooded figure straightened. His eyes gleamed darkly with intense hatred. Then he turned and strode away. The next second, the bridge reappeared and the figure was gone.

  The girls ran up to Min Ling, who now sat hunched over on the ground. As they reached her, she turned, and Patsy gasped as she saw what Min Ling was cradling in her lap.

  “The Crystal of Time!” Elena exclaimed. Indeed, the ball of iridescent blue was now gleaming in Min Ling’s cupped hands.

  “What happened, Mum? Who was that scary man?” Charlotte urged.

  “A Midnight Warrior,” Patsy said under her breath.

  “Yes,” Min Ling said, looking surprised. “How did you know?”

  “I saw him before. Just once. And only for a second,” Patsy said.

  “How long ago?” Min Ling asked urgently.

  Patsy thought for a moment. “Last Monday. Six days ago. But he wasn’t doing anything then. Just standing there.”

  “Not anymore,” Min Ling said. “The time breach is getting worse. The time barriers are breaking down faster and the Midnight Warrior knows it. I was wondering how the time gap could have been wide enough for Maggie to fall through. Now, seeing him here, I believe I know. He has been using his own power to widen the time breach.”

  The girls stared in horror at her. “So Maggie falling in was not an accident? She was murdered?” Elena cried.

  Min Ling nodded, her lips pursed grimly. “He killed her in his attempt to get at the time crystal. And just a moment ago, he was trying to get through the time barriers again, and with the help of the crystal’s power, he nearly did.”

  “But you snatched up the crystal before he could,” Patsy said in admiration. She saw again in her mind’s eye the image of Min Ling pulling the crystal into her palm by the pure strength of her time power.

  “But how did the crystal end up at the side of the canal?” Min Ling wondered aloud, gazing at the precious weight in her hand.

  “Maggie,” Patsy said softly.

  Elena gasped as understanding filled her eyes. “When Maggie felt the time barriers opening…”

  “…she threw the crystal to the side of the canal so it would not go with her into the past,” Patsy finished.

  Charlotte paled. “If she had let the crystal go into the past…” she trailed off.

  “If she’d let the crystal go into the past, even for half a second,” Min Ling said, “the Midnight Warrior would have drawn it to him with his power, which I’m fairly certain is much stronger than Maggie’s undeveloped power, especially at night.”

  The girls stood around Min Ling in stunned silence as they took in the full circumstances of Maggie’s death. Even at the moment of her being in dire physical danger, her first thought had been to protect the time crystal. Maggie is not a failure, Patsy thought, remembering with shame how she had once deemed Maggie an unexceptional person like herself. Maggie is better than I am, than all of us. She is indeed worthy of being a descendent of the Keepers of Time.

  “‘…the most honourable death a Keeper of Time can wish for, to die protecting the time stream’,” Patsy quoted quietly, recalling what Maggie had said of her parents.

  Min Ling looked up with a start, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re right,” she said, her voice trembling. “Maggie was a true Keeper of Time.”

  “What will the Midnight Warrior do now?” Elena asked, bringing the thoughts of everyone back to the urgent present.

  Min Ling collected herself, then said steadily, “If I’m not wrong in my guess, he has given up on this spot and is now heading for the nearest centre of time power, Mount Emily Girls’ School. That’s where the time power is more concentrated and he might be able to get through.”

  Patsy closed her eyes and felt again the tears pressing for release behind her lids. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to open her eyes and say instead, “Is there any way we can stop him from coming through?”

  When Min Ling looked hesitant, Charlotte shook her mother’s arm. “Mum, come on, surely you can do something. You’re a Time Keeper!”

  Min Ling appeared dazed. “A Time Keeper…yes, I’m a Time Keeper. I’d wanted to get away from this time business, but after all these years, I find I can’t run away after all. Maggie was so young, but she understood that be
tter than I did.” When she looked up at the girls, a newfound determination shone in her eyes. “Yes, let’s finish Maggie’s work. We owe that to her.”

  The girls looked at each other and nodded eagerly.

  “What we must do is this,” Min Ling said grimly. “We must get to the centre of time power and activate the Crystal of Time to heal the breach before he gets to it.”

  Patsy glanced at her watch. It was only an hour more to sunrise. After all the weeks of conscious and unconscious waiting for this very day, 9 August had arrived without their noticing it.

  “It’s almost six now,” Min Ling said. “If we’re lucky, we can catch the first morning light when our power is strongest, and activate the crystal before he gets there. We’ve got one advantage. He’s still stuck in the past with no modern technology. Let’s go get my car and I’ll drive us there right away.”

  “Charlotte, Elena,” Patsy said solemnly as they were walking briskly back to Maggie’s house, “let’s do this right. Maggie would never forgive us if we didn’t.”

  “Yes, let’s finish this job,” Elena said. “Then, Charlotte, you’ve got to continue Maggie’s work of guarding the time stream. You’re a Time Keeper now!”

  Charlotte looked at Patsy, then Elena, and seemed to draw strength from their enthusiasm. “Do you really think I can do it?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Of course!” Patsy said. “You were born with magic in your veins!”

  “All right,” Charlotte said with renewed strength. “I’m a Time Keeper,” she said with wonder in her voice. “I’m a Time Keeper.” The more she said it, the more she seemed to believe in it. “Mum,” she said, turning to Min Ling. “You must teach me all you know. We’re the only Time Keepers left in the world now.”

  Min Ling smiled warmly at her daughter and Patsy saw her hand tighten around the crystal. The blue pattern swirled almost imperceptibly within the glass, as if in anticipation of being released.