Page 19 of The Runner
She turned back from the window to face Eddie and cast her eyes from him to George and back again. She sighed. ‘I know I kept wishing we could time travel on demand, but now the prospect of it is real, it’s terrifying!’
‘It’s understandable you would feel that way,’ said George. ‘When we were time travelling at the whim of the vortex and we didn’t know what would happen next, the idea of being able to choose when we travelled was a luxury. Now we’ve stopped travelling and are settled here, it’s not remotely tempting…’
‘True. I wish it would all just stop,’ said Cara. ‘It’s like we’re on an endless mission, and each time we think we’re done, it just starts up all over again to test us.’
Eddie’s blue eyes shone with empathy. ‘Take some time to think about it. I’m not rushing off and will stay on for a few days and help you out around here, if that’s okay?’
They assured him it was more than okay. They’d love to have him. Then Cara walked over to the portion of the shelves to reveal the spot where she’d fallen through time. She pushed on the edge of one shelf and heard the familiar creak. The section shifted and swung open to reveal the dark hole. ‘Do you want to go in and have a poke about?’ She looked at Eddie and smiled, much like one might humour an enthusiastic child.
Eddie jumped up and was at her side in seconds. Cara reached over to the nearby console table and placed the torch in his hand. ‘Here you go—you’ll need this. It’s pitch black in there. It goes on for a while, so take it slowly and then you should come to a wall. My theory is my touching the wall triggered the vortex, but I won’t come in and take the chance, in case it occurs some other way. Nothing happened when George touched it, but that’s not to say the vortex won’t take you.’
‘I’m in the other timelines with you. Makes sense I could be in Georgiana, too,’ said Eddie, pursing his lips, torch in hand as he considered the possibilities.
‘I’ll come in with you if you like,’ said George. ‘I am immune to the wormhole.’
Cara stared at him, alarmed, her heart thumping. ‘Really? You’ve only been in there once. How can you possibly know you’re immune?’
‘It’ll be okay,’ he said, kissing her, taking the torch from Eddie, and preparing to step into the gap. He looked back at them both. ‘This way, if the vortex comes for Eddie, at least we’ll know for sure.’
‘Good shout,’ said Eddie.
‘Be careful,’ said Cara. She thought it was an awful shout but knew better than to try and get in George’s way once he’d decided. She should have seen this coming and steered him away from it in advance. It was too late now.
George switched on the torch and stepped into the dark space, ready to follow the narrow beam of light. Eddie jumped in after him. It was a high ceiling, so they didn’t have to crouch.
‘We’ll be back soon,’ called George, and a faint echo of his voice streamed back into the library.
‘Wish us luck,’ said Eddie, looking back at Cara before following George.
Cara watched as they disappeared, and the light grew faint.
‘You’ll need more than luck,’ she said aloud, knowing they wouldn’t hear her words. Her senses raced into overdrive as she contemplated all the things that could go wrong. A dark veil of gloom descended over her, and she felt her chest tighten as it always did when George was in danger. She wished she had agreed to the experiment because he would now be safe in the library, and she wouldn’t be waiting powerless, while her husband led the way into a wormhole, which Eddie said held the power to transport him to another universe, never mind another timeline.
Bloody hell. Why did I get us back into this?
Cara cursed herself for sharing her discovery with them. If they came back safely, she vowed to put an end to this and shut down the whole idea. The present-day timeline was perfect as it was, and she wasn’t going to meddle with it, no matter how enticing it was to develop their time travel system. She would not endanger them all again, even for a wormhole.
Willow Manor,York - Georgiana
It wasthree in the morning, and Willow Manor sat silently in the deepest depths of night. Even the birds still slept and there was not yet a faint whisper of dawn. This hour is known by those who understand such things asthe witching hour. Folklore has it that between three and four in the morning, supernatural events are most likely to occur.
Caroline writhed from side to side on the mattress, alone in her room, her nightgown damp with perspiration, the sheets twisted around her feverish limbs.
Unbeknownst to her, she had slept in this room many times before.
The layout of the sleeping quarters in the house had changed somewhat in a refurbishment undertaken by George’s parents, but this very room had been her and George’s bedchamber in Tudorville. She stirred in her sleep and gradually awakened. Or was she still dreaming? She couldn’t be certain.
Violent feelings of loss washed over her, and the vision of George kissing her passionately and touching her in a way she had never been touched before consumed her. She could still feel his kisses on her skin. It seemed so real. She shivered, echoes of desire rippled through her body, and she longed for him.
Caroline sat up in the bed abruptly, with only streams of moonlight casting eerie shadows around the room. Her heartbeat quickened, and she had an overwhelming sense of having been in that bedchamber before, perhaps even in that bed, in another time.
She pulled the sheet up to her chin to cover her rapidly cooling body and contemplated her dream. George had been different. He was significantly older, and there had been flecks of grey in his thick hair. Caroline sat unmoving for a long time, thoughts of another George tumbling around her mind.
What was the meaning of the strange dream? Was it some kind of glimpse into the future? She shivered again, having been warned by the local priest at church about the dangers of falling prey to the supernatural.
She sat and pondered the whispers of her vision as the early morning mists slid across the York landscape, coating the field beneath her window until the sun pierced the misty veil and triumphed in revealing a bright new day. It was only when the first shards of light streamed into the room and the witching hour had safely passed that Caroline surrendered to her intense longing to sleep. This time she slept a sweet dreamless slumber and when she awoke to the distant rumbles of the waking house, she wondered whether she had imagined it all.
She struggled to rouse herself from her comfortable bed that morning, her eyelids still heavy from lack of sleep. As the sounds of the house grew steadily more insistent, she could ignore the need to rise no longer, and with an effort she dragged herself from beneath the warm coverand rested her feet on the rug next to the four-poster bed.
