“What have you done!?” I cried. “Why?”
I collapsed to my knees, by her side. I was enraged. I was no man of violence, but I felt as though I could have flayed him with my bare hands. Yet though he did not necessarily hold me at bay he nonetheless still had a firm grip on his revolver, and as I came to realize, he was by no means a man to underestimate. I already had reason to suspect that he already knew my every move.
“Oh don’t shed any tears for her,” he said dismissively. “She is but merely an example of just how my design works, as well as a test before I utilize it myself. Did not kings at one time have official food tasters to assure them that their meals were not poisoned?”
“A disregard for human life,” I spat, “but even those kings did not kill those testers for sport.”
“Oh Mr. Fugit, for a scientist you are quite squeamish when it comes to serious investigation. Untie her,” he ordered, pointing to where her line tethered her to the support beam. I did as told. “Entering a timeline that flows in reverse is extremely disorienting, Mr. Fugit. It is not something to be taken lightly, and it is not something you can adjust to too quickly. Imagine swimming with the current, then suddenly turning around and attempting to swim upstream. A difficult task, yet still nowhere near satisfactory in explaining the shift. Pick her up, Fugit.”
Again I did as he said, lifting her gently and cradling her lifeless body in my arms. Only a few hours ago she vexed me with her excessive behaviour and impatience, but now I missed it so and only wished to at least see her breath again. I looked to the vicar with contempt, awaiting his next prompt.
“It is not as the silly sci-fi television programs and books depict it, either,” he explained. “Follow me, please,” he chirped as he stepped through the pinkish-red wall with very little hesitation. Warily I followed him through. It was a testament to his resolve and a credit to his story when I saw how easily he travelled from one ring to the next, from forward flowing time to null time. He wasn’t in the least bit disturbed by the random images that shifted with his each and every step. “Keep up, Tempus, will you?” His voice suffered the usual distortion and delay in this plane. “Now as I said, it is by no means an easy thing to describe. You do not suddenly find yourself in a world where cars drive in reverse and people comedically regurgitate food at dinnertime. It is a parallel where your every action makes as much sense to you there as it does to you here in forward flowing time. Have you ever considered the notion that we are currently in the ‘wrong’ timeline? Mind the cavemen, by the way. They are quite harmless. A timeline where we are born only to die? Where our world deteriorates with age, just as our own bodies? Wouldn’t it be a more utopian society if it worked in reverse? Rising from the grave? Growing young instead of old?” He stopped. “This is far enough,” he instructed, stopping just before the mirror wall where our slightly distorted silhouettes stared back at us. The vicar then reached down and picked up the end of the rope that trailed from where it was still tethered to Jill's waist. “Go on then, Fugit,” he urged me. “Throw her in.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt her. She is dead, after all. What have you got to lose?”
Was it my trust in that he knew what he was doing, or my own blasted curiosity that allowed me to treat her body so? Did she not deserve better, only moments after her own slaying? Nonetheless, shame me as it might, I did as he said. Using what little strength I felt I had, and wary of coming into any contact whatsoever with the mirror wall, I thrust her body into the unknown. I closed my eyes and bid her a silent farewell, then cursed myself to no end.
“Excellent,” the vicar chirped. “Now, how long was it? Since I shot her, that is. About three minutes?”
“And twenty seconds,” I added.
“Good, good, most observant,” he said, holding the end of the rope and staring blankly at the wall, like a man fishing for scientific phenomenon. He rocked back and forth on his feet impatiently as though this were the most mundane act he could possibly bare. “Waiting. It’s the worst part of anything, isn’t it?”
“Indeed.”
“Upon entering the reverse time zone it is just a matter of waiting. Adjusting and waiting. It is like enduring motion sickness for days, but eventually you adjust, you are able to think straight once more - or think backwards, perhaps - and by that point in reverse time the phenomenon has reverted and weakened and you are able to simply get up, walk out, and assimilate with the rest of the timeline. You will be tired, weak and weary, not to mention hungry, but the orientation itself will have been achieved. It is a week of absolute hell, mind you, but in the grand scheme of things it is but an inconvenient spec of time.” He looked back at the mirror wall. “Speaking of time, do you think we’re safe?”
I had no idea what he meant, but I marked that four and a half minutes had passed. I nodded, then snapped my pocket watch shut.
“Excellent,” he chirped. He then began to pull on the rope, attempting to retrieve her body. Though stout and able for a man in his eighties, he nonetheless had great difficulty and I found myself assisting him, if only to ascertain Jill’s condition. Eventually she was pulled back through the mirror wall.
I quickly fell to my knees, turning her onto her side as she seemed to cough and gasp. Her eyes were still shut and I was not yet sure if she was conscious, but her body was reacting appropriately. She lived!
“The gunshot, you will see, is gone,” the vicar illustrated. “Reverse time has healed her. She has, however, entered reverse time and just as quickly re-entered forward flowing time in under five minutes. If you think getting the bends while scuba diving is bad then you haven’t a clue. I doubt she will have a rational thought in weeks, but she will recover.”
I supported her upper body under my arm and held her near. She was cold, shivering, and her lips trembled and moved erratically as though her subconscious were trying to form a string of words, coherent or not.
“I suppose you think I will kill you now,” the vicar said. “After all, a villain doesn’t reveal his master plan unless he intends to destroy his nemesis. You do see me as a villain, don’t you, Mr. Fugit?”
The truth was I did not know.
“Your fate is of little interest to me, nor are your actions. Tell the world of what I have done and achieved. It matters very little. We are, after all, going in our own separate directions from this point on. You can do little to harm me now, and vice versa. You may take your friend and associate and nurse her back to health. I do enjoy your little tete a tete’s, Tempus, but I have my youth to regain, and only a little time to recoup before preparing to do it all again, albeit in reverse.” The vicar sighed, as though leaving behind an old friend. He then nodded and took his leave. “Good morrow, Mr. Fugit.”
And with that said, he stepped through the mirror wall and was gone.
With Jill still supported under my arm I scooped her up and stood. I turned into the direction from which my rope suspended and ran, heedless of my surroundings and the changing landscape, until I pierced the pinkish-red wall and returned to the cellar. My ears popped as the air pressure changed, and I shook off the effects of my slightly heavier movements. I placed Jill down upon the ground, no longer fearing the darkened corners of the Mews for I now understood their every mystery.
“Can you hear me?” I called softly, brushing my fingers through her hair. “Jill, are you there?”
Her head tilted from side to side, her lips quivered, and her stomach churned, but she made no conscious action or sign. I had only but to hope that what Mr. Grisham had said about her eventual recovery were true. Of course I had another issue to determine, and that was as to whether or not I wished to allow the vicar to continue this cycle he seemed to perpetuate. Was it really necessary for me to stop him? To undo murders that had already happened? That had happened time and time again? I knew that I could not let this repeat itself, but what could
I do? By his own words he eluded to the notion that we had been through this before, and I seemed to act and respond precisely according to his expectations. So what could I do but defy his expectations? To act in a manner that is unlike myself and, subsequently, unlike anything he could have anticipated. I had said that I deplored religion for I did not appreciate the notion that our lives were dictated and already laid out, so I saw this as my one chance to defy such ideals as kismet and destiny. The vicar’s scheme seemed to prove the existence of some unseen power, an idea that I would need time to absorb, but I now stood to defy the very fate I refused to be shackled by.
“Good morrow,” I whispered to Jill, stroking her hair once more. I’d have preferred to place her somewhere where she would be found, or somewhere the wouldn’t frighten or confuse her when she finally awoke, but alas I did not have the time.
I stood.
I unfastened the rope that tethered me.
I turned.
And I charged through the red wall that bore null time.
I paid little attention to the shifting images about me, or the sudden change in pressure that I had previously found so disorienting. Running at a mad pace I saw the mirror wall approach, and I immediately leaped, crashing through it and into the field of reverse time.
The sensation was far beyond anything Mr. Grisham could have possibly explained. It was like jumping headlong into the flow of Niagara Falls, not only for my body but my mind as well. The plane seemed to exist like a dark and swirling storm cloud, but whether this is because it was the way it manifested or due to the fact that my mind was simply unable to comprehend it I am still not sure. My momentum seemed frozen in mid-air. My feet did not seem to touch the ground. I flailed my arms outwards but then seemed to manifest overtop me. I moved my head to turn right but found myself looking at my feet. I gained the uncanny ability to look at my own body as though detached from all but my own eyes, as I could see my own mouth as it screamed, but no words would come. I attempted to drive myself forward, but in truth I had no idea in which direction I moved.
Then I saw it. A darkened silhouette against a grey-black nightmarish dreamscape. A solitary figure, intact, and handling the transition much better than I. Using whatever resolve I could muster I drove myself back, and found that I in turn thrust forward. My limbs flailed. My momentum increased. My ears and stomach had lost all perception. I felt my disentangled body make contact with the other, which could only have been the vicar. I felt resistance, yet somehow, inexplicably, I felt his panic. Had I control of my own mouth, I’d have smiled at his dismay. Our momentum carried us forward, and in the distance, breaking through the storm clouds, was a glowing wall of fiery orange. It loomed like the gates to Hell, and I could feel its warmth, its power, its sheer finality.
The deadly zone.
I knew that if I could spare myself I would, but at all costs I endeavoured to thrust the vicar forward, casting him into the wall of fire. My ears could register no sound, but my intangible body could feel his scream as he was cast into the realm of absolute non-being. Frantically I tried to resist, and pushed myself in all directions in order to retreat. I felt a hand singed by the wall, but I was otherwise spared. The sheer disorientation, however, was just too much to bare. My feet once again touched the ground, as did my hands, my face, my entire body. I struggled to lift myself once more. To escape. To leave this realm of absolute chaos. I had manage to stop the architect of this design, but I was unable to save myself from his works.
Unable to fight against the antithesis of my existence any longer, I collapsed into futility.
EPILOGUE
Had Mr. Grisham’s schemes not come at the expense of human life, invoking sinful behaviour, and exploiting human nature, then I would have seen no reason to stop him. Conceiving such a design, orchestrating such a fantastic cross of principles, and pioneering a scientific method virtually unheard of was an accomplishment worthy of praise, but like a mythological vampire his continued existence required human sacrifice, and thus I could not, with any moral boundary, allow him to continue.
We are all beings of causality, governed by laws that dictate not only our lives, but the behaviour of the world we live in. The tell us how to breath, how to process thoughts, how to make the very blood that sustains us flow through our veins. They tell our cells how to reproduce in the womb, which will become a hand, which will become a foot. They tell us which cells remain healthy and which become cancerous. They tell us which minds develop healthily and which will have flaws that attribute to disabilities or, at times, sheer genius. It is all dictated for us. Are we fated? No, but we are imprinted. Bound by reoccurring events, but infinitely able to change our path and destiny.
Like Daedalus, the vicar - Lord Gordon Randall Morrow - fashioned wings to attain freedom from unlikely sources. Like Icarus he flew too close to the sun, and his heedlessness led to his ruin. I, however, flew too close to the sea.
I awoke some time later, tired, distressed, and hungry. It took me a while to reckon what had occurred, and the memory of it all still perplexes me. I have done my best to recant my tale in a method which makes sense to you, in a manner in which the direction and flow of your minds can process. Are we running forward, or are we travelling backwards? Is there any difference between the two, or any possible way to equate one with the other and truly compare them?
I still find it very difficult to cope with your method of thinking and behaving. This flow is so very foreign to me, but I am sure that, if I endeavour, I will manage to find my place.
In time.
Cover Image
Cover Design by Jamie Crothall
Cover Photo by Paolo Gaetano (web.tiscali.it/paologaetano), purchased and used under license through www.istockphoto.com.
Map Image
Greyfield Map created by Jamie Crothall using Microsoft Visio.
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