After Eden ae-1

by Helen Douglas

  I shook my head, embarrassed. ‘I’m not dressed up.’

  Travis smirked. ‘Eden, in the few months I’ve known you, you’ve lived in jeans and hoodies. Now you’re in a very short skirt and – if I’m not mistaken – you’re wearing make-up. So who’s it for? Ryan or Connor?’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  I glanced at the platform. The others were already there, laughing and chatting. Ryan was wearing his usual t-shirt, jeans and boots combo, but no jacket. He had a green canvas bag, the sort you see in army surplus stores, slung over his body. He was standing next to Connor, peering at something in a magazine.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ I said, slamming the door without looking back.

  By the time I had bought my ticket, the train was gliding into the station. We scrambled aboard and jostled through the carriages until we found two tables for four.

  Connor looked at my short skirt and winked at me. ‘Jeans in the wash?’

  ‘Happy birthday, Connor,’ I said passing his card and present across the table. I had bought him a couple of books he’d mentioned the week before. ‘You’ll have to carry them around Plymouth, but I wanted you to have them today.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ he said, pointing to his large red backpack.

  Megan gave him a T-shirt with a logo that I didn’t recognise.

  ‘How did you know I love that film?’ asked Connor.

  Megan threw back her head and laughed. ‘I found it on a website called T-shirts for nerds. I immediately thought of you.’

  The others promised to find something in Plymouth.

  ‘What did you get from your mum?’ I asked.

  Connor flashed me a thick wad of twenty pound notes. ‘Cash to spend as I wish.’

  ‘What you gonna buy?’ asked Matt. ‘An Xbox?’

  ‘A telescope,’ he said.

  Ryan and I looked at each other.

  ‘But you don’t have any kind of games console,’ said Matt.

  Connor smiled. ‘That’s why I spend so much time at yours.’

  As the train made its way up the line, we all settled into various distractions. Amy and Matt both plugged into an iPod, an earpiece each. Megan had a celebrity magazine. Connor took out a printout about telescopes and binoculars and started talking to Ryan about the one he planned to buy.

  ‘It’s going to be heavy,’ Ryan said. ‘Why don’t you just order it online and have it delivered?’

  ‘I don’t want to wait. I’ve got the money today and I want the telescope today. If I order it online, it might be next weekend before I get it, and there’ll be the shipping cost. And Mr Chinn recommended this shop called Stellar Optics. The guy who owns the shop is a friend of his. He’ll give me a ten per cent discount if I show him my school astronomy club card.’

  This was it. I thought back to the photo of the telescope in The Journey to Eden. By the end of the day, Connor would have that telescope. And on the twenty-third of June he would probably use it to discover Eden. It felt like Fate was winning after all. What if Ryan’s mission really was just part of a bigger unstoppable scheme?

  The gentle rocking of the train combined with the sun shining through the window made me feel sleepy. It wasn’t until we’d just pulled out of St Austell that I had an idea.

  ‘So, Connor,’ I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘What’s the name of this telescope?’

  He pushed the printout across the table and pointed at a photograph. ‘That’s the one,’ he said. ‘It’s big enough to see the planets in some detail but not so big that it’ll be too heavy to carry around and set up. And it’s just within my budget.’

  ‘What will you be able to see?’ I asked.

  ‘Saturn’s rings should be clear,’ he said. ‘And the red spot on Jupiter.’

  ‘Will we be able to see the rings around Uranus?’ said Matt, sniggering.

  Connor ignored him and carried on talking about binary stars and nebulae and other objects that meant little to me, and I nodded and smiled and committed the make and model of the telescope to memory.

  ‘It sounds amazing,’ I said, pushing the printout back across the table to Connor.

  Ryan caught my eye and frowned.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Drinks are on me. What’s everybody having?’

  ‘Coffee,’ said Amy and Matt at the same time.

  ‘I’ll have a cappuccino with cinnamon and chocolate,’ said Megan.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Not on this train, you won’t. You’ll have coffee, tea or a soft drink.’

  Megan groaned. ‘I’ll have a Coke then. And a Kit Kat.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Connor.

  ‘Megan, do you have a pen and paper so I can make a list?’

  Megan laughed. ‘It’s a pretty simple order, Eden. Two coffees, two Cokes and two Kit Kats.’

  ‘I know. I think my short-term memory is full. Too much studying.’

  She passed me a piece of paper and a pen and I scribbled down the make and model of Connor’s telescope.

  ‘Ryan, can you help me carry the drinks?’

  We both got out of our seats and swayed our way along the carriage to the doors. I stopped in the space between the carriages.

  ‘You look nice today,’ Ryan said. He smirked. ‘And I love it when you blush.’

  ‘How much money do you have?’ I asked.

  ‘Enough to buy the drinks.’

  ‘Do you have a credit card or anything?’

  Ryan pressed a button and the door to the toilet slid open. ‘Inside,’ he said.

  We both walked inside and Ryan hit the lock button. He pulled a black wallet out of his back pocket and flicked it open. ‘I have dozens of cards,’ he said. ‘We were given one for every bank in the UK. My credit limit is huge by your standards.’

  ‘What do you mean, by my standards?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not yours personally. Huge for this time. But that’s irrelevant. How much money do you want?’

  ‘Enough to buy out the entire stock of telescopes in Connor’s price range.’

  Slowly, as my plan dawned on him, a grin appeared on Ryan’s face. ‘I think I can handle that,’ he said.

  ‘Does your phone have a web browser?’ I asked. My phone was a basic, cheap model that did nothing more than call, text and take photos.

  He nodded.

  ‘Find the phone number for Stellar Optics in Plymouth. Then we’ll call and you can buy up all the telescopes Connor wanted. I have the make and model here on this piece of paper.’

  By the time we emerged from the train toilet, ten minutes later, Ryan had called the shop and bought all five of the telescopes in stock that Connor wanted. Then, just to make sure, he had bought all the telescopes in the next price bracket, as well as the model just below, and arranged for them to be shipped to his house in Penpol Cove.

  ‘That was brilliant,’ Ryan said, laughing as the door slid open.

  Outside, a woman with a toddler glared at us. ‘Kids these days,’ she muttered.

  Ryan looked bemused. ‘She didn’t think we were making out in a toilet, did she? Ugh!’

  ‘That or doing drugs,’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s get the drinks.’

  Shopping had never been a favourite pastime of mine, but that Saturday in Plymouth was the worst. By the time I arrived at the Monsoon Palace late that afternoon, I was exhausted. Everyone else was there before me. They were sitting at a table by the window.

  Tealights in tiny red vases flickered on the table, which was already covered with plates of poppadoms, dishes of chutney and bottles of beer. Connor swigged from a bottle just as one of the waiters showed me to the table.

  ‘You’re late!’ Connor said, a little too loudly.

  ‘Sorry. I got caught up in the bookshop,’ I said.

  I’d gone to the bookshop to get away from Amy and Megan. Dress shopping had been horrible. It wasn’t the dresses themselves or the fact it took Amy nearly three hours to choose one. It was Megan.

  First,
she’d refused to buy a dress because she didn’t want to waste money on one if she didn’t have a date. Then she’d confessed that the person she really wanted to go with was Connor. Finally, she decided she was going to ask him and wanted all sorts of advice from me. Did he prefer long dresses or short? Hair up or down? What was his favourite colour?

  ‘I didn’t want to say before,’ she’d told me. ‘Not when there was a chance that you might go with him.’

  I couldn’t tell her. She was smiling and trying on dresses and Amy was encouraging her. And all the time I knew that I’d promised Ryan I would go with Connor.

  I ordered a Coke. Connor swigged from his bottle again and then burped. Amy, Matt and Megan were also halfway through their large bottles of Kingfisher beer, but Ryan’s was untouched.

  ‘How was your day?’ I asked Connor.

  ‘Awesome,’ he said, pausing to burp again. ‘Stellar Optics had sold out of the telescope I wanted, but I bought an Xbox instead. And Matt and Ryan both bought me a game for it. And guess what?’ Connor lowered his voice to a stage whisper. ‘Ryan has fake ID. He bought us beers.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ I said, catching Ryan’s eye.

  The flicker of a smile crossed his face.

  ‘So what did you buy?’ Connor asked. ‘Megan and Amy already showed us their dresses and stuff.’

  ‘I bought a dress and a couple of other things,’ I said.

  Connor swigged his beer and eyed me thoughtfully. ‘Why did you buy a dress?’

  ‘For the ball.’

  ‘You said you weren’t going.’

  ‘And you told me I would regret it for the rest of my life. Miranda said the same thing this morning. So I changed my mind.’

  Connor drained his beer. ‘Who are you going with?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  There was a silence around the table. I could feel everyone looking at me.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Connor. ‘I’m not taking you. I already have a date.’

  ‘You do?’

  Connor beamed across the table at Megan. ‘I’m going with Megan.’

  I looked at Megan. She gave me a tiny, uncertain smile.

  ‘That’s great,’ I said brightly.

  Connor was still beaming at her.

  ‘Ryan,’ said Matt. ‘You’re gonna have to go to the ball, mate. Eden has a dress and no Prince Charming.’

  ‘I don’t need a pity date, thanks,’ I said.

  Ryan smiled at me. ‘So how about it, Eden,’ he said. ‘Will you go to the ball with me?’

  Everyone fell silent again.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  Ryan grinned. ‘Control your enthusiasm, Eden. Or I might start to think you have a crush on me.’

  Connor banged his empty bottle on the table just a little too heavily. ‘Perfect,’ he said.

  Ryan drove me home that evening. Connor was too nauseous to notice what anyone else was doing. Matt had promised to take him around the block a few times to walk it off.

  ‘That was a successful day’s work.’

  Ryan nodded. ‘I wish I could have enlisted your help earlier.’

  ‘You should have. But you didn’t trust me.’

  ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. It’s forbidden by the Temporal Laws for me to tell anyone. You shouldn’t know any of this.’

  ‘S’pose not.’

  He glanced at me. ‘I do trust you, Eden. I’ve told you lots of things I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Not really. You just confirmed things I’d figured out for myself. You don’t trust me enough to tell me something you don’t have to.’

  He sighed and shifted down to take the sharp bend in the road above Lucky Cove.

  ‘I owe you,’ he said. ‘Not only have we successfully prevented Connor from buying a telescope, but we have him going to the ball with Megan. Now I know where he’ll be the night of the twenty-third. If there’s anything I can do for you . . .’

  ‘You already have,’ I said. ‘You’re taking me to the ball. One minute I didn’t have a date, the next minute you stepped in and saved the day. My hero.’

  My tone was much more sarcastic than I’d intended. But my feelings were such a jumble – I was both thrilled and mortified by the turn of events – that I had no idea how to express myself.

  Ryan glanced at me. ‘I hope you don’t mind. It was a bit awkward. I felt that I had to ask you.’

  I ignored the slight contraction of my heart and shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t hold you to it. Although I have to admit, I was rather looking forward to going to the ball with some freak from the future.’

  Ryan whistled through his teeth. ‘I do understand if the whole time travel thing is too weird for you.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with that,’ I said. ‘Strangely enough, I’ve got used to the whole idea. And it is weird, but not too weird, not like it would be if you turned out to be an alien or something.’

  ‘So that would be too weird,’ Ryan said slowly, looking sidelong at me through his long dark lashes.

  ‘Ryan?’

  He slowed down as we approached the street next to my house. ‘How would you define “alien”?’

  I backed up against the car door, not exactly scared, but definitely anxious. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m human. Completely human.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  He pulled the car to the kerb and switched off the engine. ‘I wasn’t born on Earth. I was born on Eden. Which means I’m technically an alien. But both my parents were born on Earth. I’m as human as you are.’

  I looked at him carefully, wondering if he was holding back information he ought to be sharing. ‘So you don’t have two hearts or a tail?’

  He shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not. No special powers. Just a regular human with a regular human body. I could take off my clothes and show you if you want.’

  ‘Don’t ask me again,’ I said, reaching for the door handle. ‘I might not be able to answer responsibly.’

  Ryan insisted on walking me the thirty-second walk between his car and my house. The air was cold and the sky clear and brightly starlit.

  ‘Seriously,’ he said. ‘You were a big help today. I wish I could repay you in some way.’

  ‘You can,’ I said, stopping.

  ‘How?’

  ‘By trusting me.’

  ‘I do trust you.’ He ran his hand through his hair and gazed up at the sky. ‘Do you remember any of the constellations I showed you after Amy’s party?’

  I stopped and craned my neck skyward. ‘That’s Cassiopeia,’ I said, pointing at the w-shaped constellation high in the sky.

  ‘You remember.’

  ‘Of course I remember.’ I searched the sky for Orion.

  ‘It’s the wrong time of year for Orion,’ he said. ‘Winter is the best season. But now I’m going to show you another constellation.’

  He turned me towards a different section of the sky and held out my hand as a pointer. High in the sky, he traced the shape of a letter ‘y’.

  ‘The constellation is Perseus,’ he said. ‘And that bright star is called Mirfak.’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘It is beautiful. But there’s another star in Perseus I want to show you.’

  Ryan moved my hand slightly. ‘Algol. The demon star. It’s also known as the evil eye.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Algol looks like a single star, but actually it’s a triple star system. One of the stars is small. But two of the stars regularly eclipse each other, affecting the brightness of the star to the naked eye. It’s almost as if the star makes a slow wink. If you watch it over a period of three days, you’ll see its brightness wax and wane.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it? But you know what’s really cool about it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Algol has a planetary system. Five planets orbit the thre
e stars.’ He paused. ‘Three are gas giants. One is too close to the main star for life to exist. But one of those planets is in the habitable zone. That planet is called Eden.’

  Gazing out across the black sky at this brilliant, white star twinkling brightly above me, I considered how incredible it was that this star had a planet orbiting it; a planet that sustained life. Human life. Earth life. I knew about it before Connor discovered it.

  ‘You need to forget that now,’ Ryan whispered in my ear, his breath warm against my neck.

  Goosebumps prickled my skin. The night air was cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket, but I didn’t care. Ryan had just told me that he was born on a different planet and told me where in the sky that planet was. And I was the only person from my timeline to know this. He shouldn’t have told me. But he trusted me.

  And I trusted him.

  The curtains to the front room were shut, but I could tell from the blue flicker that Miranda was watching the television. She would be alone, waiting for me to come inside and tell her about my day while helping her finish the crossword. The enormous gulf between her life and the one I was beginning lay there between us, between the world inside the house, where everything followed the laws of physics as we understood them, and the one outside, where stars were really suns to other planets and people could travel through time.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ he said.

  I nodded and opened the door. I turned just as Ryan closed the gate.

  ‘Goodnight, alien boy,’ I said.

  ‘Night, Earthling,’ he said, laughing, and then he was walking back to his car.

  Chapter 12

  Dust motes floated in a shaft of sunlight. Outside, the sun blazed. The invigilators had opened the windows as far as they could, but the room was still stifling.

  Physics. The last exam. The clock at the front of the hall read ten minutes to twelve. Ten minutes. Ten minutes until we were all told to put our pens down. Ten minutes until the end of exams. I should have been checking through my answers to make sure I hadn’t made any silly errors, but I couldn’t concentrate any longer.

  All around me, heads were bent over the question papers. Ryan’s seat remained empty. Although he had gone through the motions of sitting the exams over the past three weeks, he had decided to skip this one so he could help Ben and Cassie prepare for their departure in two days’ time, after the leavers’ ball. I wondered what sort of preparations you had to make for travelling through time. Was it complicated or dangerous like the old shuttle missions to the International Space Station or was it a more mundane journey, like a train ride to Plymouth?