The Power of Forgetting (55 page)

‘What did you
do?’

‘What?’ I
said

‘What did you
do?’ she repeated in a bossy tone.

‘Nothing at
all.’

‘Liar. This is
paradox central you twit! Don’t you get it?’

‘But he’s
not…’

‘…your future
self? Yes, I know,’ she said, ‘rather a part of the self who can
safely meet this one, without giving too much away.’

‘You know
that?’ I asked

‘Brother dear!
What do you think I am? I haven’t been around these idiots all this
time without finding out a thing or two. And one is how to read
someone in about two seconds.’

‘Just now?’

‘Yes.’

‘But that’s
difficult.’ I said.

‘Yes I know.’
Janey looked smug, but she glanced at him and cried some more,
‘Drat!’ she said, as if ashamed to be betrayed by her own feelings,
and angrily rubbed the wetness away.

He meanwhile
had been watching her every move with an attention that would have
recorded every micro signal; ‘you must go now Janey.’ He said.

‘What!’ she
looked at him directly, ‘You sound like him too… too much… too
much,’ she glanced at me, ‘please help me. I cannot be in two
places at once. This is beyond all. And I’m falling my dear…’ she
turned back to him and said: ‘dearest…you don’t know it; but I will
tell you. You are the most precious thing to me… tell him, that…
tell him, I will find him if I can. I’m looking for him. I will
cross the barrier to find him.’

‘He will know.’
said my other self, and ran his hands through his hair in a gesture
of overloaded stress. Janey that close…. He stood again, and she
looked up at him.

‘Time to
leave!’ I said. I could hear some sounds of people approaching on
the other side of the door.

‘A second.’ she
said, and put her arms round his neck and pulled him down towards
her. I turned to the door. Someone banged on the other side. But
the door was heavy, and it seemed locked. Someone was jiggling the
handle. I heard muffled voices. The door was very heavy indeed. I
turned back to them. She kissed him, pulling him towards her in a
startled suddenly disarming manner. I felt shot through with a
black arrow of jealousy that five minutes later would seem quite
crazy. I am loopy for not seeing it. She was taking advantage of
the situation as she always could. My sweet girl; so persuasive, so
used to getting her own way. And in this she had me. I was rabidly
jealous, and I wanted to be the one to kiss her, and press her into
my chest, that pretty elfin creature that was like a tiny nuclear
reaction. He stood there swaying, stunned. Janey was smiling.

‘Thank you?’ He
said, and looked at me.

‘Yeah,’ I said,
‘it’s always going to be like that…. unexpected.’

‘I understand,’
he said, and then to Janey, ‘I will tell him what you said. And he
will see it for himself too.’

Someone banged
on the door again. Clearly they were not in a mind to let this
interview continue.

‘Take her
hand,’ he said to me, and to Janey, ‘Let go of me. I am not yet
ready for this. I am just a little of him, not quite enough to be
with you.’

‘Remember it
all.’ She said.

‘I will.’ He
answered, and looked at me. His expression softer more peaceful.
His mouth curved with that hint of joy. I remember feeling like
that once; but it had been gone from me for a long time now. He
passed me Janey’s hand and pressed it into mine as I went
forward.

There was a
fraction of a moment where we were all touching. Just one
millisecond. And it was enough to see a whole world in blueprint.
Perhaps he didn’t know what he had done. Then again, perhaps he
did. Rule breaker. That was always me. Taking a thing and twisting
it so far it broke then twisting it some more, to reshape the thing
into to something else.

‘Don’t hold
your breath.’ He said, ‘Jared!’ and my eyes snapped to his, which
pulsed with a light for a split second in a sharp wave.

Suddenly there
was silence.

Janey fell into
me heavily and we both tumbled onto the floor. From the diffuse
light of an old window we found ourselves in the same place…. And
yet it was a different time… it had to be. This place was long
deserted. Janey was crying and she wouldn’t let go. The dusty
floor, and long forgotten things and a weeping girl. This was
fitting. That it should be this way. The bitter years had eaten
away at my sweet girl, and she had not until now let it show. I
still had my arm round her as I looked all about. Something things
I noticed were the same, but very few, the mantelpiece and the
empty grate. The door hung sideways on its hinges as if blown
inwards by some greater force. And the whole place was dusty and
endured the creep of nature into its once well-kept rooms.

‘Come on.’ I
shook her gently.

‘What?’ she was
muffled, her face still buried in my chest.

‘It’s a good
job I’m water proof in this.’ I gently chided her. She looked up at
me glazed and dusty, tracks of tears on her face; ‘Oh Jared!’ she
breathed in a shuddering breath, ‘we must go so very soon… I have
to tell you. And I don’t know everything. But we cannot go with the
others. Whatever we do, fate has a different hand to deal. We will
go to the river if we can. The doorway that Amber told you and
Oliver about, that is the quickest way out of here. I think it is
just above us round the next hill.’

‘What do you
mean Angel?’ I brushed my thumb over one cheek then the other. She
moved her face against my hand and shut her eyes and hugged me
tight, as we sprawled on the floor in this long forgotten
place.

‘I must get it
together…. I must….’ She shrugged me off reluctantly and forced
herself to her feet. Whatever she had been saying to that other
before he sent us through time with one touch…. It had made her
sad. There were waves of it beating against my mind at a distance.
Regret, and sadness, and longing….so much. I thought of the sky at
night time filled with stars and breathed in long and slow, and in
those crusted constellations I found my sanity again. I stood,
finding the balance of the inner psyche reasserting itself, saying
all the sensible things that the other part to the mind really
doesn’t want to listen to but must.

‘Come on,’ I
took her hand and led her back the way I had come. As we entered
the room with the French windows, I saw that there still were
tables near the wide doorway. I stopped for a moment surprized. A
little basket like the one I had seen before, and in it the little
coloured objects like bean bags. I bent closer to inspect one
properly. They were indeed the same type of things. I looked round
suddenly suspicious. Who had put them there? Surely they must be
spying on us right now. I listened for a few moments concentrating,
looking for any hint of anyone’s presence. But something was
pressuring in my mind. So I tipped the little “bean bags” into a
sample pack and stuffed it in a pouch. I thought that were about
twelve in all… that is without counting them.

'Jared!' said
Janey, 'Look!'

Through the
French windows there was a girl stood. She was smiling at us, and
raised a hand in invitation. The girl in green. I started forward,
but Janey grabbed my arm. 'Don't trust blonds. Especially pretty
ones.'

'Well that's
you stuffed darling!' I dragged Janey forward through the doorway,
'besides, I think she can help us.'

'Really! Do you
know this woman?'

'I think I saw
her from a horizontal position Yesterday.'

'Actually that
was today; the first version. This is the third. And what other
position do you see pretty girls from?'

'Initially
upright. I'm not that clever....'

'Sweetie, I
thought you were smarter than that?' Janey seemed worried as we
came near to the watching blonde.

'I am. And
right now we need to think fast my dear Angel. Our friends are not
as invulnerable as we are.'

'You missed
what just said.' Janey frowned displeased with me.

'About the
first version? You could only know that if he told you something.
When you.... connected. And it was about me.' I pulled her close,
wrapping my arms around her. I felt her melt into me. I felt that
thing that she denied flowing again as it had a few minutes
ago.

'Please
don't....' Janey looked into my eyes clearly; she knew I was
testing her. A little way from us the green lady stood and smiled.
She turned and started down the steps. We both watched her, as
round her feet sunlight swirled; in denial of the misty place that
we were returning to. There were our friends in the distance; but
time was stilled. They would not have missed us. Janey looked up at
me again. It was as if she was holding her breath, waiting for me
to decide. I saw the edge of it.... the shallow water of this
devotion. That one I had never truly understood. And I didn't want
to see; and yet I did. And in the distance I saw our group. I
wondered why they were caught by a time distortion. And then
realised that it was not by us; but elemental made, perhaps the
green girl herself. There was a way to the door. And she was
showing us. We just needed to unlock it when we got there. So we
stood and watched, and traced the trail of light and lush greenness
with our eyes, as it curved down and then up to the hill on the
left. There was a zigzag in the path and then it went straight up.
There! In a little rocky enclave, that would be the place. And it
would take just five minutes to get there.

'Thank God!' I
said, 'I can get them out.'

'Have you
forgotten something?' Janey was still pressed tight against me. She
laced her hands behind my neck and pulled me down to her soft and
sweet tasting lips. I inhaled Roses. And then I could taste them.
She was too much.... Too much. I was shaking. I let her go. She
smiled slightly, as one who knows that she has outsmarted you; and
you can really do nothing about it. I looked out over the terraced
before time resumed its normal flow.

'You always
were the smart one.' I said, 'So tell me how we end this?'

'You want
answers?' stepped towards me again, 'Where there are only
questions.... You need to ask the right question...'

'What should I
be?' I did not fight her now, but let her take her percentage from
me. She drew out the essence of that past with the transference.
The touch that for others would take several sessions over several
minutes, she could do in thirty seconds. Unfortunately for me it
was also quicker by the method that Janey preferred. Kissing her
was strange when it was done to "download" as it were. She had
learned to read me better than before. And the resistance I had
been able to place in the past, simply didn't work with her any
more. She had grown in power. And I saw also in persuasion.
Everything counted against me. She knew me. She had seen me fail.
She knew my weaknesses and my strengths, and more importantly....
My hopes and fears. I was queasy with longing for her that I did
not want to show. She probably senses my tension. It wasn't as if
it was entirely an unusual thing. She often kissed me. Fully; on
the mouth. It was just her way. She had the power of an elemental
over any man. I was certainly not exempt. I was afraid to be
pleasant to her and had been always. She would use me as a way out
of the awkward inconvenience of dumping some poor guy. And sad act
that I am, I didn't care how many times she used me for that
purpose. I was tortured by my love for her. And, as we sat down on
one of the steps, we waited for the others to find us; as time sped
up and the misty lightness of clouds filled the air; I was
disappointed in myself for being pathetically incapable of throwing
out this idea. And even Marcia, Janey's dear friend, sent to me as
a distraction, had failed to erase the almost demented
self-annihilating obsession. I sat there as the others walked up
the now deserted terraces. Through the damp morning air, I saw
Marcia; and felt nothing. She had been put there to soak up the
overspill to some force of nature. She was far more powerful than
any other. But I could not find the doorway out. By going with
Marcia I had satisfied Janey's guilt for a while....and Janey had
arranged it that way. She had fixed it all so well.

'Anything up
here?' Joe asked me.

'Not at the
moment.' I met his gaze. He blinked, surprised at my answer; well,
the straightness of it I suppose. Doctors and such like always make
me monosyllabic.

'There's a path
over there.' that was Hanson, being practical and somewhat more
confident than yesterday. He pointed the way that the green Lady
had walked. The others gathered round, Oliver had his map but
seemed puzzled. It was Davey who said "Come on. Let's go." and
started off on that same diagonal course down the terraces. Janey
followed afterwards. Marcia came up to me and sighed. She seemed to
be measuring some invisible something.... something else other than
all that was seen beyond us all.

'Come now.'
Marcia seemed to have gained some new authority too; while I was
shrinking. I turned with the others and obediently followed
them.

We were nearly
there to the little rocky inlet. As we entered, I saw that it was a
tunnel and that the place we must reach was further than that.
Davey was looking ahead. The walls of this channel rose above our
heads almost meeting but not quite. I could see a band of blue sky.
Lorraine was there beside me staring up too. 'Not a good sign.' she
said to herself.

'What?'

'They're coming
Jayed.' she hadn't called me that in a long time; a memory of the
past. She was looking at me again, as if she could see inside, and
I was the only man around. And Lorraine really believed in the
deeper forces that held nature in order. She wielded a not
insignificant amount of natural magic. She could alter what was
already there as it were; but not create anything. But she never
attempted an illusion on herself. There are some things that cannot
be altered easily. They called her “Witch”, but she was something
else really; an elementals' friend, a sensitive, someone who
readily tuned to natures flow. She was no fake in that sense. But
she had ruined the situation by being overly enthusiastic with the
company she kept. After me she had, it was reported gone on some
kind of hedonistic ritualised journey. She had returned to London
after about six months and then quite suddenly one day, after a
particularly wild party which the police were called to, she just
stopped. She broke contact with all her former lovers and most of
those who dabbled in the craft. She had, it seemed; become a
recluse. The recent involvement in Sandglass was one thing that did
surprize me. She was extreme in her views on what was possible but
never had entered into a pact with the god of science before
this.