After Eden

Chapter 8

Connor and Megan had been gone for nearly an hour when I noticed Ryan’s black jacket hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I ran my fingers down the material. Impulsively, I pulled the jacket down off the hook and buried my face in it, breathing in the scent of him through the fabric.

‘Eden!’

I stuffed the jacket into my backpack and picked up the tray of glasses just as Miranda poked her head around my bedroom door.

‘Ryan left early,’ she said.

‘Ryan and Connor don’t get on very well. He thought it would be better if he left.’

Miranda raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Travis and I are going to walk to the shop to pick up some milk. Won’t be long.’

She took the tray from me.

‘Actually, I’m going to go out too,’ I said. ‘Ryan left his jacket behind. I need to return it.’

‘Fine. Wrap up warm. The wind is cold.’

My eyes stung as the wind blasted against my face. I blinked and marched on, keeping my head down. The wind’s sharp teeth ripped through my thin clothing. Despite Miranda’s warning, I hadn’t dressed for the weather; I’d stayed in the tight blue top I’d worn earlier, the thin one that hugged my body and made me look like I had curves. I’d straightened my hair again, touched up my make-up and sprayed perfume behind my ears.

It was pointless. Standing in front of his door, I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to sort out the unruly tangle of curls. My heart thudded harder in my chest. Would Cassie be there? What was his dad like? Why had it never occurred to me to ask about his mother? Just as I was about to knock, Ryan opened the door, catching me with my fingers knotted in my hair.

‘Eden! What are you doing here?’

I had the horrible feeling he wasn’t pleased to see me.

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out his jacket. ‘You left this,’ I said. ‘I thought you might need it.’

Ryan stood aside to let me in. ‘Looks like you could use a jacket yourself. Come inside.’

‘I should go.’

‘No. Come in.’

He smiled and my nervousness evaporated.

I followed him through the hall and into a room on the right. Heat blazed out of a fireplace in the opposite wall.

‘Warm yourself by the fire,’ he said. ‘I’ll make us hot drinks. What would you like?’

‘Whatever you’re having.’

I crouched in front of the fireplace, rubbing my hands together. Once I could feel them again, I took a look around the room. The walls were covered in a pink florid wallpaper that had yellowed in places and was smoke-stained around the old fireplace. The carpet was bottle green and textured, the sort of flooring that looked like it belonged more in a shabby hotel than a modern home. But the sofa was modern and looked brand new. There was a large plasma-screen TV hanging in the alcove next to the fireplace. The only other items of furniture were a bookcase stuffed full of books and a coffee table. There were no family photographs or ornaments, no pictures or plants or games or rugs. Functional, with a hint of grandma.

I went over to look at the bookcase. You can tell a lot about people from the books they read. There was the complete works of Shakespeare, and poetry by Ben Johnson and John Donne. I noticed the usual nineteenth-century novelists: Austen, the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens and Hardy. The Rough Guide to Britain. A range of cookbooks. A guide to popular culture in Britain. Late twentieth-century fashion. World atlases and basic science textbooks. Biographies of Darwin and Einstein. All the books were well thumbed. Nothing pretentious or phony about this book collection.

I sat on the couch. Ryan’s backpack was on the floor, unzipped, a pile of books on the floor beside it. I glanced at the title on top. A History of Twentieth-Century Britain.

The door swung open and Ryan came in with two mugs of hot chocolate. He put them on the coffee table and sat next to me on the couch. I’d imagined Ryan as a strong-black-coffee kind of boy, not someone who would make hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

Although he had left a few centimetres of space between us, I felt suddenly conscious of his closeness; it was as though little electrical currents were running between his skin and mine.

‘Where’s your dad?’ I asked.

‘Out. Cassie’s out as well.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘We have the whole place to ourselves.’

I giggled nervously.

‘So what do you want to do?’ he asked, just the tiniest hint of suggestion in his voice.

‘You’ve been brushing up on your twentieth-century history this afternoon,’ I said, indicating the books piled on the floor.

‘That’s my weakest subject, as you know.’

‘I could test you,’ I said, unzipping my backpack and taking out my books.

Ryan laughed. ‘More studying. I’m not sure I can handle that much excitement in one day.’

I looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Half an hour and then we’ll do something fun.’

‘Is that a promise?’

‘Promise,’ I said, wondering what Ryan’s idea of fun would be.

He had clearly got to grips with his twentieth-century history. He had no difficulty answering questions about Hitler or Mussolini or Churchill; he had informed opinions on the causes of the First World War; described the cold war right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

‘You’re not just a pretty face,’ I said. ‘If that’s your weakest subject . . .’

‘Pretty!’ said Ryan. ‘Thanks a lot! How about gorgeous or handsome. Even cute is better than pretty. Pretty makes me sound like a five-year-old girl.’

I laughed. ‘You’re definitely not a five-year-old girl.’

‘Are we going to do something fun now?’

‘Whatever you like,’ I said, noticing that he had draped his arm along the back of the couch.

‘Hmm,’ he said, inching closer to me. ‘I can think of something . . .’

He shifted his gaze from me to the window. I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel, saw the headlights of a car sweeping across the window like searchlights, then the slam of a car door.

Ryan sighed. ‘We have company.’

‘I should probably go,’ I said.

‘Don’t go. I’ll introduce you to my dad.’

‘That’s just the sort of fun I was hoping for,’ I said.

‘We can go up to my room,’ he said.

The door to the sitting room swung open, but it was Cassie, not Ryan’s father. ‘You in here, Ry?’ she said as she ran in. ‘You’ll never believe . . .’

Ryan turned towards her. ‘Hi, Cass,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

Time slowed down. I saw Cassie look from me to Ryan to me again. I saw her clock his arm along the back of the couch, how close to each other we were sitting.

‘Well, this is a good idea,’ she said after a pause. She turned and walked out.

Ryan leapt up off the couch and followed her into the hall. ‘Cass,’ I heard him hiss.

I strained my ears. ‘How does this help anything?’ she whispered. ‘You’re not supposed to bring anyone home.’

‘I didn’t invite her,’ I heard him say. ‘She just showed up at the door. But it’s not a problem.’

‘Get rid of her.’

I heard Ryan’s voice again, but it was too soft to make out. I went back to the sofa and gathered up my books. I wanted to get out of the house as quickly as possible. Clumsily, I knocked Ryan’s neat pile of books over. I straightened his pile and finished stuffing my things back into my backpack.

Ryan came back in. ‘Sorry about her. She’s socially inept.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said, standing up. ‘I should get home anyway. Miranda will be wondering where I am.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘I can walk.’

‘It’s blowing a gale and the forecast isn’t good. I’m not letting you walk.’

I didn’t argue; I didn’t much want to face the biting wind.

‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’ he shouted, as we went out through the front door.

The wind whipped my hair in my face and despite the early hour, dusk was falling fast.

‘Cassie’s your sister?’ I asked, once we were both inside the car. I was thinking about some of the rumours I had heard when they first arrived in town that he lived with his girlfriend, a beautiful blonde.

‘Yes.’

‘She seems . . .’ I hesitated. I wanted to say jealous. ‘Overprotective.’

‘Don’t take any notice of her,’ he said, backing out of the driveway. He pointed to a brooding band of clouds on the horizon. ‘Looks like there’s a storm coming.’

I got the distinct impression he was trying to change the subject.

He parked around the corner from my house so that Miranda and Travis wouldn’t see the car, and then he walked me to my door.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ I said, when we reached the front gate. ‘Do you still want to do something tomorrow?’

‘Definitely,’ he said with a grin. ‘We never got on to the fun stuff.’

After dinner, I left Travis and Miranda in the living room with the Sunday papers and a bottle of wine, and went up to my room. Ryan and I were going to hang out alone tomorrow.

I knew he liked me. He was always friendly and attentive. And I was pretty certain he had been about to kiss me just before Cassie arrived home.

I didn’t care that his sister was weird and unfriendly or that Ryan and his family had possibly escaped from a cult. I didn’t care that Connor hated his guts; he’d get over it. All I cared about was that exams would soon be over and spring would soon be summer and the most gorgeous boy in the universe was spending the day with me tomorrow. Alone.

I put on my happiest, most upbeat playlist and unpacked my backpack, stacking my books neatly on my desk. Right at the bottom was a book I didn’t recognise. I must have taken one of Ryan’s by mistake. The cover had a picture of a blue planet floating in black space, three small moons around it. The Journey to Eden, said the dust jacket. I smiled to myself. Ryan must have been reading up on the Eden Project. I was just about to put the book back, when I caught the name of the author on the spine. Connor Penrose. Connor would be amused by that. I turned the book over to read the blurb on the back.

As a teenager, I spent countless evenings gazing through my telescope into the black abyss of space. I never took much pleasure in the distant suns of our galaxy. Faraway galaxies left me cold. What captured my interest were the planets of my own solar system: Saturn with its weird rings, Jupiter with its many moons, Mars with its captivating red glow. I dreamed of one day finding a planet with conditions similar to those on Earth. And one day my dream came true. Serendipity led me to be in the right place at the right time and I managed to detect a small, elusive planet. A planet with an atmosphere and water. A planet filled with life. The rest, as we all know, is history.

Connor Penrose. 11th January, 2081

My heart rammed against my ribcage in a series of slow, hard thuds. Eden. Connor. 2081. None of this made sense.

Adrenalin coursing through my veins, I opened the book to the middle and looked at the photographs. The first was a picture of a baby. It looked like any baby. The next page showed a toddler. Cute but generic. Could be anyone. I turned the page.

There, smiling brightly at the camera was Connor. My Connor. I felt dizzy, like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. The caption read Perran School, 2012. It was the photo I had taken two days ago. I remembered the photo perfectly. Connor in his scrawled upon school shirt, the sun in his eyes.

I jumped up and pulled my phone out of my pocket. Scrolling through my recent pictures, I found the three I’d taken on Friday. I held each of them up against the photo in the book. The last one was a match.

None of this made any sense. Either I was in a dream or I was having some sort of mental breakdown. Ryan owned a book called The Journey To Eden that was written by Connor Penrose, published in 2081 – sixty-nine years in the future – and contained a photograph that only existed on my phone. Was I losing my sanity, or . . .

I ran to my mirror. The wild-haired, bright-eyed girl in the mirror was still me. For a moment there I had expected to see the reflection of a woman of eighty-five staring back. Just for an instant, I thought that I had lost sixty-nine years.

I opened my mobile and dialled Connor. He answered on the first ring.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, before I had the chance to say a thing. ‘It won’t happen again.’

‘What?’ I asked. ‘It’s me. Eden.’

‘I know it’s you, Eden. I’m apologising for being an asshole this afternoon.’

‘Connor, you remember the photos I took of you on the last day of school?’

‘Yeah. When are you gonna send me copies?’

‘I haven’t done that already?’

‘No. At least put them online so I can see them. I posted yours ages ago.’

‘I’ll do it later.’

So I hadn’t posted the photos online or sent them to Connor. I knew that, but I was beginning to doubt my own memory.

‘What do you think?’ Connor was saying.

‘I’m not sure.’ I hadn’t been listening.

‘Oh.’ He sounded glum. ‘I suppose you have other plans.’

‘What are we talking about Connor?’

‘I asked if you wanted to get together on Tuesday to revise for French.’

‘That would be great.’

‘We could study in the morning and then go to the beach or the arcade in the afternoon.’

‘Perfect. I have to go.’

I snapped my phone shut and picked up the book again, flicking through the pages until I wound up back at that photo.

I turned the page. The next photo was of a telescope. The caption read My first telescope: a sixteenth birthday present. Connor was fifteen. His birthday was exactly a week away.

My heart thumping wildly, I turned the page. The next picture was an older-looking Connor, aged about twenty perhaps, standing on the beach with a surfboard. Connor had been taking surfing lessons for weeks, which he really enjoyed, despite the fact he couldn’t stand up on the board. The next plate showed him sitting behind a desk of books. The caption read Studying for finals, University of Manchester, 2018. I turned the page. Connor, now older, standing next to a good-looking young man identified as Nathaniel Westland. Westland. A relative of Ryan’s? Connor looked middle-aged, though it was clearly him; Nathaniel looked as though he was in his early twenties.

There were only three photographs left. One was of a blue planet that looked just like Earth but had three moons in its sky. The caption simply stated Eden from Mayflower II. The next was of a middle-aged Connor beaming at the camera, surrounded by towering pink cliffs, a green river winding into the distance. Zion Valley, Eden, 2053. And the last one was of an old man with white hair and a party hat. Connor Penrose at his eightieth birthday party, 2076.

This was insane.

I turned to the front of the book and began to read. The chapter described a boy born in the late twentieth century, the first and only child of David and Rosa Penrose. David, an accountant, died from bowel cancer when Connor was six. His mother, a teaching assistant at a local primary school, raised him alone after that in a small fisherman’s cottage near the harbour. All the facts added up. This was my Connor.

I needed the internet. The problem was Miranda had decided – on one of her overprotective whims – that the only computer with access to the internet should be in the living room.

I pushed the book under my pillow and ran down the stairs to the living room. Miranda and Travis were cuddled up on the sofa, the papers spread out between them.

‘Here. See if you can finish this,’ said Miranda, pushing the crossword across to me. ‘There are only two clues to do.’

‘What you been up to?’ asked Travis.

‘Science revision,’ I said.

‘You mustn’t study too hard,’ said Miranda. ‘You need some down time too.’

‘I’m having down time right now.’ Privately I was calculating how long I would have to sit there and socialise before I could go online.

‘Put the news on, Travis,’ said Miranda.

He clicked the remote and the BBC News 24 channel appeared on the TV screen. I plastered a mildly interested expression on my face and tuned out. I needed answers.

‘Do you mind if I use the computer?’

‘More work?’ asked Miranda.

‘I got stuck on one of the science questions.’

‘What was the question?’ she asked.

‘Is time travel possible? But I’m struggling with it. I thought I’d do some research.’

Travis shook his head. ‘That’s a complex topic for Year Eleven exams. Scientists themselves don’t agree on that subject. Whose theories are you supposed to be considering? Einstein’s?’

Einstein was supposed to be pretty smart. That seemed a good place to start.

‘Yes. Einstein.’

Travis pressed the mute button. ‘According to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, time travel would require faster than light travel and it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object to the speed of light.’

‘So Einstein thinks time travel is impossible,’ I said, feeling oddly disappointed.

‘Yes. And no. General Relativity is a different matter,’ said Travis. ‘And then, when you bring quantum mechanics into the discussion . . .’

‘Travis!’ said Miranda. ‘Where is all this geek-speak coming from?’

Travis grinned. ‘Would you believe me if I told you that, before I decided to train as a chef, I briefly flirted with a career as a science teacher?’

‘You’re joking?’ said Miranda, wide-eyed.

‘Forget Einstein and quantum whatever,’ I said. ‘Do you believe in time travel?’

Travis caught my eye. ‘No. Nor do most scientists. Just because something may be theoretically possible, doesn’t mean it’s likely.’ He stood up and removed a packet of cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans. Miranda pulled a face. Considering how much she loathed cigarette smoking, it surprised me that she was willing to overlook it in Travis. On the other hand, guys hadn’t exactly been knocking down our door.

He pulled a cigarette out of the packet and tucked it behind his ear. ‘I need to head home now. Early start tomorrow.’

‘I’ll see you out,’ said Miranda.

As soon as I heard the sound of Miranda brushing her teeth, I booted up the computer.

The first thing I searched for was Connor. Connor Penrose. Not a common name, but on a planet with 7 billion people, there must be loads. Googling Connor Penrose brought up over a million results. I scanned through the first ten pages of results: Facebook profiles, boys who had won sporting tournaments or competitions, place names. But I didn’t find any reference to an astronomer who had discovered a planet called Eden. I’m not sure I really expected to. Next I tried a web search for Eden, which brought up lots of pages about the Eden Project and an episode guide for Star Trek. It was a waste of time.

On a whim I searched for Wolfeboro, Ryan’s home town. Like the previous searches, it brought up thousands of results. Wolfeboro was a small town of about six thousand people and claimed to be America’s oldest summer resort. I scanned through images of the town, which was surrounded by blue lakes and huge forests of green trees. I remembered Ryan telling me that all the trees had died due to some sort of industrial accident. I added that to the search.

Nothing.

I tried again with a different search engine. I searched the news. There was no mention of an environmental disaster in or near Wolfeboro.

By the time I clambered into bed at eleven thirty, I had devised a theory. Although it seemed impossible, the evidence was staring me in the face. The book written sixty-nine years in the future. The fact that the book was written by Connor Penrose and my best friend was Connor Penrose. Ryan showing up at school just weeks before school ended. Ryan not recognising commonplace food such as pizza and burgers. Not knowing who Hitler was, or Gandhi or Mandela. Ryan telling me that an industrial accident had wiped out all the trees in Wolfeboro when that hadn’t happened. Yet.

Only one thing could explain all these things.

Ryan Westland was from the future.