Green Jay and Crow

by D. J. Daniels

  She stands close to me. I take Blue Jay’s hand and we all three of us stand in the dark, waiting for the time nets to pass. None of us speak. I am sure the time nets cannot hear us, but we have become like trapped animals, too frightened and unsure to speak.

  When the lights fade, Blue Jay pulls me back into the alley, away from Rose-Q. She follows, of course. “Thank you,” I say, because we would have been trapped without her. We move as quickly as we can towards the greenhouse. Not running, not quite, though I wish we could.

  Crow

  THE CHEMICAL CONJURERS say goodbye to us at the water tower. Olwin seems to have recovered. In fact, she’s recovered enough that she’s now insisting that we visit the farm. Who am I to complain? Most of the Tenties have gone their own way—back, I suppose, to whatever lives they previously led and whatever homes they previously inhabited. We have a retinue though, a few stragglers. I don’t recognise any of them. One in humant form, the others as the Tenties we’ve come to know and love. I don’t mind that they’re here, but I don’t want to talk to them either. I think about telling them about the water tower, showing them it’s a place they can stay if they need it, but that reminds me too much of Mac, so we walk past Ol’ Stick Man without a word.

  There’s no sign of anyone working in the garden, but the door opens as soon as we knock and Judith is crying and laughing and ushering us in and hugging anyone in sight, including Tenties. It’s obviously Judith—a younger version, but the same earth mother vibe. I wasn’t sure how they’d react to me, but I suppose, for them, this is our first meeting. And that’s quite possibly a good thing.

  We’re fed, of course. Tenties too, and if Ed looks less than completely comfortable with the idea, he says nothing. He looks almost exactly the same as last time I saw him. There are, of course, remonstrations that Olwin took so long to come to see them.

  “You could have come up to see me, Mum.”

  “No,” says Ed. And I can see, straight away, that we’ve moved to a delicate area of family disagreement. I can’t say I blame them. Even as a former employee myself, I don’t know that I’d want my daughter making deals with Guerra. But they move past that. Probably because of the Tenties, maybe even because of me. And then it’s family reminiscence and catch up and I feel completely out of place.

  “How long will you stay?” asks Judith.

  “In Barlewin?” Olwin asks. “I don’t know.”

  “One night?” asks Judith. “In your old room. And of course, your friend is welcome. And the Trocarn, if they would like to stay.”

  The Tenties release a cloud of orange happiness, apologise in the confusion, profess their exhaustion, and then follow Judith up the stairs and to a spare room.

  Ed looks directly at me. “You got them out of that Time Lock?”

  “Yes,” I admit. Because I have to show some courage.

  “Good job. Strange beasties, the Trocarn, but the Time Lock was cruel.”

  Which pretty much sums up my own feelings, so we sit in silence, drinking tea. Ed takes his leave, off to address the afternoon’s farm work. I get the feeling he’s considering asking me for help. But luckily he’s only just met me—as far as he’s concerned—and my leg is obviously buggered up.

  “I’ve been here before,” I tell Olwin. More making conversation than anything else. “Your mum gave me a phone from the future.”

  “She did?” Olwin’s question seems more polite than I’d expected.

  “Yeah. I lost it though.” Accidentally on purpose. “And the dragonfly visited.”

  Olwin is distinctly disinterested in my adventures in time and space. “And Aleris, did she come here too?”

  This, I could answer truthfully, even supposing by Aleris she meant Eva. “No, she was a little… freaked out by the farm.”

  “She didn’t want to remember me.”

  Olwin is right, but only partly right. I think of the footage up on the big screen, of Eva running from the shed. “How many times have you done this?” I ask.

  “Done what, Brom?”

  I don’t really need to answer that question.

  Olwin looks down. “Only the once,” she says.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Don’t forget you’ve been in different realities. Seen lots of mes, lots of ways this might have played out. Don’t confuse them with what has happened here.”

  “So you wouldn’t try it again?”

  Olwin stares into the dregs of her tea. “No, Brom. I won’t try it again.” She swirls the cup around as if she was a fortune-teller looking for portents. “I want to see her,” she says.

  Of course I know who she means, but I can’t admit to it. “You have seen her.”

  It’s possible Olwin might be crying, but if she keeps looking down at her mug I can ignore that. “What was it like?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” I begin. But then I realise I’m just being cruel. And that maybe one of the reasons we’re here is so that she can ask me questions out of Guerra’s hearing.

  So I tell her as much as I can. About Eva in the greenhouse, how she was captured by Guerra, about all the ways she was kept alive, including Mac’s surgery. I tell her about the three of us holing up in the water tower, because, fuck, I’m still mad at Mac, and what do I care if that knowledge comes back to bite him? I tell her a little bit about the alternate realities, though that’s hard to do without sounding like you’re off your tree. And last of all I tell her about the scenes on the big screen, the ones that got the Tenties Time Locked.

  “Was she always so scared?” asks Olwin.

  “No,” I say and I think that’s true. “She was”—and it takes me a moment to find the polite word for annoying and self-righteous—“determined.”

  Olwin snorts a little bit at that. And it’s difficult to ignore the tears and snot and the rest of it. I get up, find her a tissue. Well, not so much find, as have Judith hand me a box when I’m in the kitchen.

  I sit down again and Tal untangles himself from my leg and pulls himself into stick insect form. This, unsurprisingly, catches her attention. He hasn’t drawn himself up to full height, but he’s still taller than either Olwin or me.

  Olwin looks up, grins. “Very cool,” she says. “And hi.”

  “Hello,” says Tal. He shakes Olwin’s hand in a formal gesture that might have made me laugh in a time before I was used to the ways of robots.

  I stretch out my leg and rub my hands along the muscle. It feels unsupported and weak, but somewhat more human.

  “You can’t do that anymore,” he tells me. “Mess about with Time Lock.”

  “You said that before. Nothing happened.”

  “A lot happened. I did what I could. But you’ve prevented proper healing and your leg will not survive another outing.”

  “Oh, Brom, I’m sorry,” says Olwin.

  “Don’t be,” says Tal. “He would have done it anyway.” Which, I will admit, is a reasonable insight into my personality. “But”—and this is addressed to me—“you absolutely can’t do it again.”

  “Could you protect me,” Olwin asks him, “if I wanted to do it again?”

  Tal makes a noise which I interpret as a robot sigh. “Time Lock wasn’t designed for travel to alternate realities. It’s crude, it’s frankly unsafe even for the short periods messengers use it. I don’t recommend it.”

  “An unintentional side feature,” says Olwin.

  “Yes,” says Tal, convinced that she’s onside.

  “Yeah, but you’re from the future,” I say. “Maybe things have improved a bit.”

  “It may surprise you to learn that the focus of most research is not on travel to alternate realities.”

  “But the Trocarn,” Olwin says. “They adapted.”

  “Because their bodies are malleable and because they learnt from your offspring.”

  “Are you sure that the offspring aren’t just the Tenties with a new, improved look?” I ask.

  “No,” says Tal. “
If I understand the Trocarn correctly, it’s a homage. In the same way they copy your form.”

  “They helped Brom,” says Olwin. She picks up my wrist and shows Tal the raised patch of flesh. It’s a desperate bid and she knows it, seeing as Tal has already banned me from Time Lock.

  Tal is as unmoved as only a robot can be.

  “Looks like we’re both stuck here,” I tell her. Trying to cheer her up.

  “No,” says Olwin. It’s a quiet no, but it’s also a statement of belief. Just at this moment, I can’t blame her; I’d probably want an out too if I was stuck in that exoskeleton. But, speaking purely selfishly, I’m more than happy to have what amounts to doctor’s orders to stay in the one place.

  Judith comes in and if she’s surprised that there’s a new guest standing in her dining room, it doesn’t appear to worry her. “Perhaps,” she suggests, “you could all do with a rest.” Olwin shakes her head, but stands up and walks up the stairs, presumably to her own room.

  “I’m sorry you’ve had to see all this,” says Judith. Which is extraordinarily polite, given we were the ones who brought the trouble to her door and not the other way around. But perhaps this is not the first time she’s experienced strange, emotional events connected with her daughter. And even if it is, it probably won’t be the last. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks. “Another cup of tea?”

  I let her fuss, because yes, I would like another cup of tea, but also because she seems to need it. So much strange needs a little ordinary.

  While I’m waiting, I leave Tal at the table and go for a wander into the adjoining room. There are faded, comfortable chairs, books and a television. It’s almost exactly as I saw it before. It’s strange to observe a life where almost everything stays the same, but perhaps that’s Ed and Judith’s injection of sanity, given their daughter and her propensity for the bizarre.

  But there is one difference: a picture of Olwin up on the wall, a framed photograph. It’s the same shot as the one I saw on the phone Judith gave me, as the one superimposed over the map. It’s head-and-shoulders, no hint of the exoskeleton, even though now, in real life, that neck shows definite touches of metal. Even so, it can’t have been taken long ago. Olwin don’t look any younger in the photo.

  It makes me wonder what will happen to make her ever-loyal parents take it off the wall.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Green Jay

  I FEEL SAFE in the greenhouse, even dusty and abandoned as it is. The hallway has graffiti I never noticed the first time. And the very front wall of the building is painted, so that the front door is part of a woman’s yawning mouth and one of the windows is an eye. Blue Jay and I only plan to stay here for a while, he wants to work on the pole, something he has developed to move quickly and easily through Time Lock to other realities. He will still need more protection than I do, of course. Partly because of that, I hope that we don’t need it, but the time nets are still searching. I wonder if there is anywhere else I could make my home. It is strange to look up and see the bicycles whooshing past. A High Track without plants. A High Track without Guerra.

  Rose-Q is not quite the same as I remember her. Perhaps it is only that I am not drugged, but I suspect that she has not had time to fully form. She told us of the way the Crow released the Trocarn. Too fast, and almost without warning. Just like him. And the scattering of Trocarn released over different realities. She thinks it was unintentional; she does not blame him. But I do. He never does anything without causing more harm and confusion.

  It is a strange thought that there are still Trocarn caught in the dome on the High Track. Unless a different Crow from a different reality released them too. That should be my job, when I am well and whole. I will ask Rose-Q to help. She will understand how to do it properly. Although she does not appear to have been hurt by her time in the dome. She does not describe what it was like to take such a different form. It is almost as if those memories have faded away. I find that sad. As though they have lost a part of themselves, even if it was a part we forced them to create in order to survive.

  I tell Rose-Q about Aleris. I know I’m using Rose-Q as a confessor. I am worse than her. She did as Guerra asked her to and drugged me, but she also kept me alive. And in the end she did not abandon me. She helped me escape. I have made another and left her entirely to the care of Guerra and Olwin Duilis. I understand now why Blue Jay trusted Olwin to care for her, but that does not make it right. There is enough Olwin Duilis in me to know it was very wrong.

  Crow

  IT’S SOMEWHERE AROUND two or three a.m. There’s no clock, and of course whatever phones I once owned are long gone, but the night has that feel of the early hours. I’m lying in the room that Judith found for me. Because of course, Olwin was persuaded to stay the night, which means, so was I. Judith apologised several times for the room’s small size. I don’t tell her it’s one of the best places I’ve had to sleep for quite a long while.

  My brain, as usual, has taken a long time to catch up. It seems to me this is the perfect opportunity to get the hell out of here, away from Barlewin altogether. I’m feeling virtuous because of the Tenties. And, quite frankly, I don’t really want to experience more of the drama that is Olwin Duilis. I’m not without my sympathies for her, but I can see why Mac wanted to get away. Not that I’ve forgiven him.

  I take a piss and have a quick wash. There’s really nothing I can bring with me—I’ve had a quick check through the drawers. They live simple lives, Judith and Ed: food from the farm, money in the bank. Not much stuff around. It’s probably a good thing. I wouldn’t have felt all that bad if I had snaffled something, but it’s nice to leave quick and clean once in a while.

  I close the door to my room. I want them to think I’m having a sleep in for as long as possible. There’s voices coming from Olwin’s room. Soft, but I think she’s having a heart-to-heart with Tal. Which is a shame, he would have come in useful.

  I move past them and down the stairs. It’s dark, but I remember the house well enough from my first time here, so I’m out the front door without any fuss. I stand for a moment, taking in the lights of the High Track and planning my move out through the farm, past the shed and into the great unknown.

  Well, that’s an exaggeration. It’s not like I’ve never been out of Barlewin at all. Just not within recent memory.

  There’s someone standing in between Ed’s rows of beans or whatever it is he’s got growing there. Someone who looks a little like a ghost, though I’m not going to be fooled twice. It’s not a prophet, minor or otherwise, but Eila. Of course it is. She’s checking up on me, Aleris, the whole plan. I was stupid to think otherwise.

  She stands still, waiting for me, and I’ve half a mind to go back inside, but instead I walk towards her.

  “Hello, Brom,” she says. As if we’d planned all along to meet in the middle of the farm at two a.m. by the light of the High Track.

  I don’t say hello back. It’s childish; can’t help it. “The time nets are still out,” she says.

  “So he’s not convinced.”

  “It’s not Guerra we need to convince.”

  And with that it all falls into place. It’s Olwin Duilis I should be worried about. It has been all along. “She’ll never be convinced,” I say. “She… she’d turn herself into Eva if she could.”

  “She probably thinks she already did.”

  I shrug. “She’s the one with the time nets.”

  “And Eva’s the one with Mac.”

  “Yeah, don’t remind me.”

  “Eva’s not safe yet.”

  “What do you care? I mean, I’ve never understood this. You can’t be speaking for Guerra, because he don’t give a shit as long as he’s getting paid, which I’m guessing he is. So who are you speaking for?”

  “Maybe I’m speaking for myself.”

  “How is it that you’re in all these places? Following me around, up with the Barleycorn King, and then at the concert, and tapping into my phone an
d showing—”

  Eila puts her hand out to stop me and I’m kind of glad she interrupts because I’m getting more worked up than I really want to. “Have you ever done anything you regret, Brom?” she asks.

  Yeah, about a thousand things, but nothing that I’m going to admit to at this moment. “Maybe.”

  “And did you ever want to fix it?”

  “I’ve been told by authoritative source”—i.e. myself—“that’s a waste of time.”

  “Maybe,” Eila smiles in a truly irritating manner.

  “Goodnight,” I say and I turn to walk back towards the house, because what other choice is there? I’m still stuck in the middle of this crap, and somehow I need to convince Olwin to let me out; that’s the only way I’m really going to be able to wander off. But I can’t help but ask one more question. “Who are you?”

  “Ask Felix and Oscar, they’ll tell you.”

  Which is a half-arsed answer if ever I heard one, but it’s the middle of the night and all things considered, I’d rather be back in a bed. I lift my hand in farewell then trudge back through the farm. The door squeaks a little as I open it—thank God it didn’t lock—and I sneak back up to my room. Disappointed, but I’m getting used to that. Or that’s what I tell myself. The lights are out in all the rooms; Tal and Olwin seem to have finished their heart to heart. No-one will be any the wiser.

  Tal, of course, is in my room ready with the questions.

  “Don’t start,” I tell him as I climb into bed. I’ve taken off my shoes, but that’s all. A wave of tiredness has hit me and sleep seems very appealing. I don’t want to give Tal any conversational openings.

  Actually he seems more worried about my leg, but I show him that it’s working just fine by kicking at him. And then I’m asleep.