*
The next Jump came much sooner, only four days after Melanie found herself back in the park in her own time, an odd feeling of melancholy pulsing in her chest. Somehow, the world didn’t seem as vibrant as before. After seeing a future Earth devastated by environmental catastrophe, she should have wanted to revel in the green trees and clean air.
When she Jumped again, she was surprised to feel excitement race through her veins. That excitement didn’t fade even when she realized she was in Victorian London again, not on Station Three, where she longed to learn more and spend more time.
This time, she found herself somewhere that looked an awful lot like a slum. She glanced around, horror settling into her stomach. This was the perfect place for someone to attack her, even though she didn’t have anything of value. There was almost nobody around, although she could somehow sense pairs of eyes watching her from the windows of dilapidated buildings.
She was just trying to figure out where she should hunker down and wait to shift again when out of a rickety shack stepped the same boy as before. Melanie froze. Some feeling in her gut told her that this was not a coincidence. Could this boy be some kind of anchor for her? Was there some reason they kept crossing paths, even when in completely different areas of the same city? There were so many questions and not enough answers.
The boy’s eyes looked downcast and his face worn-down. But when he saw her there, his eyes widened in recognition and an anger fueled by fear flashed through them. “What are you doing here?”
“I…” Melanie stuttered, struggling to think of a plausible explanation and not coming up with one. Unlike last time, she was wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt without a bra, attire that would be beyond unacceptable in this era. “I…” She began a half-baked lie, but the boy cut her off almost immediately.
“I’m not stupid, you tart,” he snarled. “Tell me the truth.”
In that moment, Melanie didn’t care. All the stress she’d been under because of her ability and what it entailed came out. Besides, Tanya had said Jumpers really didn’t have to worry about changing the future, right? And who would believe this kid if he went around telling people he’d met a girl from the future?
So she went at it. “The truth? Sure. I’m from the future.”
Of all the answers he’d been expecting, that clearly had not been one of them. After his look of surprise, however, his first reaction was to laugh in disbelief. “That’s the best one I’ve heard in a while.”
“It’s no lie,” she said, any kind of desperation completely absent from her voice.
“Then you’re crazy.”
“Maybe.” Actually, she couldn’t prove that wasn’t true. Perhaps all this time travel business had been a massive hallucination after all. Oh well, too late now. “I was born in 1997. For me, the current year is 2016. Somehow, I apparently have the ability to ride temporal “waves” and travel to a couple of specific points in time. This is one of them.”
The boy, William, she remembered, stared at her in what could only be described as utter bewilderment. Unable to form words for several seconds, he finally sputtered out, “What?”
She was never sure what possessed her, or where this courage was coming from, but she said, “You heard me.”
He seemed utterly taken aback by her words, before a look of amazement flittered across his face, followed by something that looked heartbreakingly like hope. “You… you really are.”
“What changed your mind?” she asked with a friendly smile.
“No woman from around here would speak to me that way.”
There was something about him that she was starting to like. “Well, it’s the truth.”
He glanced around. There were some people milling about in the shadows, making Melanie feel monumentally uncomfortable because she could never get a good look at them. “This isn’t a good place to talk. Follow me.”
Without questioning, she followed him through the slums of east London, uneasily looking from side to side as they stole along.
“You’re right smart to keep an eye on things,” William said as he moved quietly through the night. “I’ve seen people do some horrible things around here, especially when no one’s looking. You have a longer life expectancy if you watch your back.”
She didn’t say anything, but couldn’t imagine staying for too long, much less living there. The ladies dressed in their finery she’d seen during her first Jump and these poor people living in squalor, crime, and fear lived in the same city. It just wasn’t right. Her own time was better, but there were a lot of things she hated about it. But the future wasn’t perfect either - none of the people living on Station Three would be able to return to Earth in their own lifetimes, yet they seemed to have conquered many of the challenges humanity had faced throughout time.
None of them were perfect. No time would ever be, she realized with a clarity she hadn’t really had before, but someday soon, she was going to have to choose which one she wanted to spend the rest of her life in. The gravity of her decision, in that moment, felt like it was pulling her down into the Earth itself.
William finally turned into a rundown building that looked much like the others, not stopping until the door was shut firmly behind them.
“This place is safe,” he said. “It’s run by a good guy who doesn’t ask questions.”
They had apparently entered the back of a bar. It was well after hours and the room was shaded in darkness, but Melanie could still make out that all the chairs had been haphazardly arranged on the tables and the glasses a little more carefully arranged on the bar.
“Does a… friend of yours work here?”
“Something like that.” A pause. “I don’t live here, though.” He then looked like he regretted sharing such information.
Melanie asked anyway. “Where do you live, then?” The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted them, however. In her discombobulated state, she’d missed his body language and facial cues. She felt like such an idiot.
“That box you saw earlier, if you must know,” he said, a bit bitterly.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m looking around for a master to apprentice myself to,” he explained defensively. “I’m hoping one of the tailors around here will take me. I’m pretty handy with fabric.”
She supposed he would have to be, as she was relatively certain he’d repaired the vest he was wearing on his own.
She regarded William carefully. Where she was sure most people in this era saw a raggedy street urchin, she saw a poor kid trying to survive. She wanted to ask what his story was, but also didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or, worse, scare him away.
But he seemed to know what questions she wanted to ask anyway. “Tell me more about the future. Where you come from. And I’ll tell you about me.”
Melanie hesitated for a moment, the nagging fear of screwing over the future by changing the past still in the back of her mind. But then her thoughts from earlier returned: even if he told others, they wouldn’t believe him. So she told him. She told him of twenty-first century America, of Iowa, of her town and her life and going off to college. She found herself confiding how she’d never gotten along with her mother, never felt as though she truly belonged.
“At least you’re not on the streets,” William said morosely once she’d finished. He looked away, struggling to hold back tears. “I’m a terrible person – I’ll deserve every second I’m in Hell.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, genuinely concerned and confused as to why he thought so.
“Because I’ve sinned. I’ve stolen and I’ve lied. I haven’t killed, though, I swear.”
“Where are your parents?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Father took ill when I was young. My mother later abandoned me because she couldn’t provide for me. That was about two years ago.”
“And how old are you now?”
“Twelve, I think.”
r />
I’m glad we have a foster system in my time, she caught herself thinking. Even at its worst it’s got to be better than this.
William burst out laughing so suddenly it made Melanie jump. “What? What’s so funny?”
“It’s just so unbelievable,” he said though the heaves. “I was having a normal day and now I’m talking to a time traveling girl from the future.”
“It must be strange. Hey,” she asked, remembering something. “Did you ever get that brooch back?”
William’s expression darkened. “No. That old coot said he’d sell it back to me, but now he’s saying it’s too valuable and I shouldn’t have it. I have to get it back somehow. It’s the only thing I have left of my mother.”
“Even though she abandoned you?” Melanie said darkly, the venom in her words surprising her.
“I still love her; she did what she thought was best for both of us. Do you hate your mother?” asked William, surprised.
Melanie was taken aback by the question, and had to think for a moment. “I don’t hate her, it’s just…” She couldn’t bring herself to keep talking, because even she didn’t know how she truly felt.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he said comfortingly before steering the conversation off in another direction.
They proceeded to talk the night away.
Finally, Melanie fell asleep in a warm pile of blankets that smelled of mildew, and woke up back in her own bed, feelings mixing around in her chest as if they were in a high velocity blender. She had only just met that boy, and yet, her heart ached for him in a way she couldn’t express. He was so sad and his situation so helpless – struggle every moment to survive until one day, likely sooner rather than later, death would come. Never would he know a loving home, or have people to support him, or to have the time or means for hobbies that would enrich his life.
While she wasn’t happy with her own life, she had to admit it was miles better than his. The thought of living in the kind of despair she only felt every so often, with absolutely no hope that it would ever get better moved her soul to the point of tears.
She knew what she had to do, even though she had no idea how she was going to do it. The fear that it might not be possible to bring someone along with her when she Jumped brushed her mind once, but she did not allow the thought to bury itself deeper.
She had to get him out of that place. She had to.