Chasing Stars

Chapter 3

The woman at the reception desk smiled apologetically. ‘It’s almost impossible to get a room here in the summer without a reservation.’

‘Oh,’ I said, feeling foolish. Had I really dragged Ryan across twenty-five miles of stomach-churning sea to the Isles of Scilly just so we could turn around and make the same journey back home that afternoon?

‘Do you know of anywhere else on the island that might have a space?’ asked Ryan.

The woman pressed her lips together tightly and looked at us in turn. ‘I might be able to sort you out a room. But I warn you, it’s not really ready for letting. We only finished painting it yesterday. You’ll need to keep the windows open until dark or you’ll suffocate on the fumes.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ said Ryan. ‘We just need a room for a couple of nights.’

The woman gave us a look. ‘It is a double room.’

I looked at the floor.

‘Double is fine,’ said Ryan.

‘And the name is?’

Ryan and I looked at each other. He couldn’t risk using the name Westland.

‘Shall we book it under my name?’ I asked.

‘I’ll need both names.’

‘Right,’ said Ryan. He hesitated.

The woman cocked her eyebrows. ‘Will it be Mr and Mrs Smith?’

‘Yes,’ said Ryan. ‘Mr and Mrs Smith.’

We followed the woman as she led us to a room at the back of the guest house.

‘The air should be clearer by this evening,’ she said, as she unlocked the door and stood aside to let us enter.

The room was simply furnished with two wooden bedside tables, an armchair, and a large double bed made up with crisp, white bedding. I looked quickly away from the bed and focused instead on the doors that looked out on to a small enclosed patio with views of the sea beyond.

‘This is perfect,’ said Ryan.

‘The bed is made up, but I’ll need to go and get you some towels,’ the woman told us. She strode across the room and opened the patio doors. ‘I’ll leave the doors open to clear the air. The room is perfectly secure. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.’

We stood awkwardly in the centre of the room until she’d left.

‘So, what do you think?’ asked Ryan.

‘It’s great,’ I said, trying to ignore the big double bed that took up most of the room. My voice trembled. ‘Perfect.’

‘Hey,’ he said, closing the space between us. ‘What’s the matter?’

I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’

‘We’re safe here,’ he said, running his fingers through my hair. ‘The cleaner is back on the mainland dealing with Travis. She’ll be gone soon. There’s no need to be afraid.’

But it wasn’t the cleaner that I was scared of. It was every­thing else. Here we were. After months of wanting this, we were together. A room of our own. No adults conspiring to keep us apart. No friends to gossip and stare. No Fate to get in our way. Just Ryan and me.

And then we were kissing and all my fear floated away. I fell softly backwards on to the bed, Ryan beside me. My heart drummed against my ribs so hard that the bones ached. My limbs were tangled with his, my fingers in his hair. We were going to spend the whole night together. And then the whole of the next day. And then after that . . . for ever.

There was a knock at the door.

Ryan sighed. While he collected the towels, I jumped off the bed and walked through the doors on to the small patio, letting sunlight and warmth flood over me. The water was choppy; white foam sprayed and danced playfully above the waves. I breathed in deeply. The briny smell of the beach lingered in the air.

‘Where were we?’ he asked, as he pushed open the bathroom door and chucked the towels inside.

‘Let’s go and explore the island,’ I said. ‘Those paint fumes are still strong. I think we need to let the air clear.’

We hired bicycles from a shop overlooking the harbour beach. Dozens of boats were moored in the harbour, their masts clanging musically in the light breeze.

‘How come you never told me there were a bunch of subtropical islands a couple of hours away?’ Ryan said, as we set off along the seafront road.

‘It never came up,’ I said, wobbling as I tried to get the bike moving.

‘Eden, have you ever ridden a bicycle before?’

‘No.’

‘How can you get to sixteen without ever riding a bike?’

‘I don’t know. I just haven’t.’

‘The first few seconds are the hardest,’ he said, pulling alongside me. ‘Once you get going, it’s easy. Push down and start pedalling hard.’

I grimaced. ‘One day I’m going to discover something that I can do better than you.’

The bicycle gained momentum and I was off. The warm air blew my hair back from my face and I breathed in the scent of flowers and seaweed. We left the harbour behind and began climbing a steep hill, past a blur of tall, green hedgerows and fields of cows. My thighs burned with the effort.

‘You’re doing great,’ Ryan said, looking back over his shoulder at me.

‘Don’t patronise me,’ I yelled back at him.

It bothered me that I had no real skills. I wanted to be prepared for everything and anything. Ryan might be convinced that now that Travis was dead we were safe, but I wasn’t so sure. And if Lauren posed no danger to us, why had Ryan decided to run and hide until she’d left?

The narrow road that encircled the small island took us past farms and fields, a couple of duckponds and craggy beaches framed with brown granite. We were never very far from the sea and the gritty combination of salt and sand hung in the air, a constant reminder.

After a while we came across a sandy cove with a small slipway and a couple of sailing boats tied up above the high water line. Ryan pulled off to the side of the road. ‘Do you mind if we lie down and rest for a while?’ he asked, yawning. ‘I’m still suffering from time lag.’

I hopped off my bike and laid it carefully on the ground. ‘What’s time lag?’

Ryan rested his bike next to mine. ‘You know what jet lag feels like, right?’

I shook my head. ‘Sorry. I’ve never been further than Paris.’

‘You’re even more sheltered than I thought.’

‘It’s not like I don’t want to travel,’ I said.

Ryan held my hand in his and we walked down the slipway to the beach. It was a rare sunny day, the air hot.

‘I wasn’t judging you,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you haven’t done much travelling. We’ll get to see the world for the first time together.’

‘Anyway, I know what jet lag is. So tell me about time lag?’

‘The human body isn’t designed for time travel. It throws your body clock completely out of whack. For the first few days, you get these sudden bouts of sleepiness. It’s a bit like narcolepsy. The best cure is to have a short nap.’ He yawned again as if to prove his point. ‘I’ll probably only need twenty minutes.’

We strolled along the shoreline, shoes in our hands, feet just in the water. The helicopter from the mainland buzzed across the sky. A mother and her two young children were walking across the wet sand, collecting shells in a bucket. We waited till we’d passed them before looking for a patch of dry sand to sit on.

I laid out my hoodie and sat down. Offshore lay two other islands, rising from the ocean like turtles just breaking the surface.

Ryan squinted out to sea. ‘These islands don’t look that far apart. I wonder if it’s possible to rent a sailboat for the day. We could go and explore the other islands. Maybe dive on some shipwrecks; I bet there’re loads of wrecks around here.’

‘So you can sail and scuba-dive?’ I said with a dramatic sigh.

‘I grew up by a lake,’ said Ryan as though that explained everything.

I didn’t remind him that I’d grown up by the sea, but still didn’t know how to dive or sail a boat.

‘And when I come from, the sea levels have risen,’ said Ryan. ‘Lots of towns are underwater. My friends and I liked to scuba-dive in the drowned cities. It’s eerie, swimming along what were once roads, seeing fish swim in and out of the windows of buildings that were once apartment blocks and offices.’

He scrunched up his hoodie to make a pillow and lay back, an arm over his eyes to block out the sun, his muscles bunching and lengthening beneath his skin. I wondered what it must be like to be able to do so many things, to feel strong and capable.

‘I want to learn something new,’ I said. ‘I feel like I’m not good at anything.’

‘You’re good at Scrabble,’ he said sleepily. ‘And chess.’

‘Great. Next time I come up against one of your cleaners I’ll challenge them to a game of chess.’

He rolled on his side and opened his eyes again, narrowing them slightly against the bright light. ‘You’re good at running.’

‘That’s just the problem. I don’t want to run away from things. I want to be able to fight back.’

Ryan raised an eyebrow. ‘Like a ninja?’

‘Don’t make fun of me. It bothers me that if you hadn’t risked everything to travel back through time and rescue me I’d be dead. I should have been able to defend myself better. And now Lauren is here and once again I’m relying on you to protect me. I want to learn new things so I can take care of myself.’

Ryan smiled to himself. ‘You’re what – about a hundred and twenty pounds? Travis was about two hundred pounds of pure muscle. You could be a black belt in every martial art going and you still wouldn’t have had a chance against that sort of bulk. Running was the right thing to do. It’s what I would have done too.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And you managed your encounter with Travis brilliantly. You outsmarted him. You understood when to play along with him and when to run. And you outran him! He was a trained killer, but you managed to drive away from him, outrun him and then you had the smarts to lead him to his death. You did ninety-nine per cent of the job – I just came in at the end to take the credit.’

‘Don’t patronise me, Ryan.’

He sighed. ‘I’m not patronising you. Having your wits about you and the intelligence to think on your feet is worth a hundred black belts.’

He rolled on to his back again. I watched his breaths grow slower and deeper, the small shadow his long lashes cast beneath his eyes, the faintest hint of stubble under his skin.

He opened one eye. ‘I can’t sleep if you keep staring at me.’

‘I wasn’t staring at you,’ I said. I bit my lip. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘Thinking what?’ He yawned loudly.

‘What are you going to tell everyone else about coming back to Cornwall? What will your cover story be?’

He closed his eye again. ‘I’m not going to tell them anything.’

‘But they’ll think it’s odd. A few days ago you told them you were moving back to New Hampshire with your family and now you’re back again.’

‘They can’t know I’m here. You’ll need to tell Miranda that I’ve left again. Tell her that our departure was postponed by a couple of days if you need to. And don’t tell Connor or anyone else that I’m back.’

‘They’ll find out in September when you enroll at college,’ I said, confused.

‘I’m not going to college, Eden. I can’t. I can’t appear as myself anywhere. I mustn’t leave a trail to the future.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘I’ll find a job. Something casual like flower-picking where they won’t ask to see identification to start with. I’ll get some fake ID, but I will still have to keep away from anyone who knew me as Ryan Westland. Once you’re at university in a town where no one has ever seen me before, I’ll be able to come out of hiding.’

‘You can’t hide away for two years!’

‘I can and I will. If I start appearing as myself, the Guardians will pick it up and send a cleaner straight back to get me. I have to become someone else, and I can’t do that until we move to a place where no one has seen me before.’

It had never occurred to me that Ryan wouldn’t just slot back into his old life. I’d pictured him hanging out with the old crowd from school, studying for his A Levels alongside me, going off to parties together. Not hiding away at the farmhouse and working on the land.

‘But you’re missing out on your education.’

‘I can read books,’ he said through a yawn. ‘In any case, I’m already eighteen. I’ve had a pretty good education.’

‘You’ll be living like an outlaw.’

He smiled sleepily. ‘I’d sooner spend a lifetime living as an outlaw with you, than a single day of freedom without you.’

We had a table for two by the window, with a clear view over the harbour. We’d finished eating and Ryan had gone to pay the bill. Through the window, the moon hung like an oversized pearl, white and luminous, in a pink and turquoise sky. The perfect backdrop to a romantic evening.

That was what scared me. How exactly did Ryan expect the perfect romantic evening to end? For that matter, how did I want it to end?

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘I think I might need to walk off dinner before we go back to our room,’ I said.

‘OK.’ He held my hand and we strolled down towards the pier.

Despite the late hour, there were still boats returning from daytrips. A line of chalkboards tied to a railing advertised sightseeing trips to the other islands. One of the signs caught my eye.

Available for private hire.

Visit the uninhabited isles.

See seals, basking sharks and hundreds of birds.

Ask for a quote.

‘Shall we?’ I said, pointing to the sign.

And that was when I saw her. At first I thought I was seeing things, because she was dressed very differently. The suit was gone, replaced by a pair of shorts and a body-hugging T-shirt. She looked like a tourist. Her hair, which had been slicked back into a bun when I saw her last, now hung loosely down her back. But the way she walked, head straight, face unsmiling, limbs quick and efficient, gave her away. She wasn’t looking for a pleasure cruise; she was on a mission.

‘Ryan,’ I whispered, steering him away from the harbour. ‘Back up.’

His hand tensed in mine, but he said nothing. Once we turned the corner, he stopped.

‘What is it?’

‘Lauren.’

Ryan swore.

‘How did she track us here?’ I said. ‘We used cash to pay for everything and we haven’t used our real names.’

Ryan peered around the corner. ‘What does she look like?’

‘Tall, long brown hair.’

‘I see her.’

‘How did she find us?’

Ryan turned back to me. ‘We don’t know that she has found us.’ He leant around the corner again. ‘What’s she up to? Why is she talking to the skipper of a boat?’

‘Maybe she wants to take us to one of the uninhabited islands and kill us there. Maybe she already knows where we’re staying and she’s just sorting out where to finish us off.’ I struggled to keep the panic out of my voice.

‘There has to be another reason,’ said Ryan. ‘We’ve been careful.’

Suddenly my mind flashed back to Travis’s flat. ‘It’s something to do with that ticket,’ I said. ‘It’s what made me think of coming here.’

‘Slow down,’ said Ryan. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘When we went to Travis’s flat, she found a return ticket to the Isles of Scilly on the Scillonion. She asked Miranda about it.’

‘Travis had a ticket to the Isles of Scilly? Why would he have that?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He hadn’t used the return portion. I guess he saved it in case he wanted to go back.’

‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Ryan. ‘She’s following one of Travis’s trails. Cleaning up any trace of him. This has nothing to do with us. It’s just a coincidence because you thought of coming here from seeing the ticket, right?’

I thought about it. What an idiot. I’d led us into danger again. ‘I guess I did.’

‘Perhaps his time-ship is here somewhere. He could have ended his journey from the future on one of the uninhabited islands and hidden his ship there. He isn’t able to come back and retrieve it, so his cleaner has.’

That made sense. My heartbeat began the journey back to normal.

Ryan looked around the corner again. ‘She must be hiring a boat to take her to the islands tomorrow. She’ll destroy the ship and then go back.’

‘So we’re safe.’

‘We’re safe. But I think we should follow her. See where she’s staying.’

My stomach rolled over. ‘Do we have to?’

‘I’d sooner know where she is.’

‘What if she sees us following her?’

‘She won’t.’

‘Ryan –’

‘Look, you head back to the guest house. I’ll follow the cleaner. As soon as I know where she’s staying, I’ll come back. I won’t sleep if I don’t know where she is.’

The only thing worse than following Lauren was the thought of sitting alone in my room, worrying whether Ryan was OK.

‘I don’t want to be apart from you.’

‘It will be easier to follow her if I’m alone. She knows you, but she doesn’t know me from Adam.’ He pushed the room key into my hand. ‘I promise I’ll come straight to the room as soon as I know where she is.’ He took another look. ‘She’s coming this way. Go.’

I slipped the room key into my pocket and walked briskly up the road towards the guest house without looking back. This was not how I’d imagined our evening ending.

Back in our room, the smell of paint had faded and been replaced by the fresh laundry scent of the bedsheets. I closed the windows and the curtains and sat on the edge of the bed. Ryan seemed confident that Lauren being here was just a horrible coincidence. I needed to put her out of my mind.

I brushed my teeth and checked my breath and then dug through my overnight case for my pyjamas. They were a vest top and cropped bottoms with pink and white love hearts all over them. They were cute, girly, the opposite of sexy. If I’d had more notice about our little trip away, I would have bought myself something more sophisticated. Did Ryan expect to find me draped across the bed in a silk negligee? Or did he expect me to be tucked under the duvet in my girly pyjamas? And what if I undressed and went to bed and then Ryan came running to tell me that Lauren was after us and we needed to leave right now? I sighed. There was no way I was getting into bed until Ryan was back and I knew what was going on.

Silence. There was no television in the room to distract me. Not even a coffee-maker to hiss and bubble and make friendly noises. The double glazing kept out the sound of the sea, although it was just metres away. No one was walking along the thickly carpeted hallway outside my door. There was nothing but the rush of blood through my ears and the unnerving quiet.

I kept reminding myself this woman was a cleaner, and cleaners clean. And kill. Methodically. Efficiently. Probably quietly too. I swung around and looked at the door. Nothing. Just the sound of silence freaking me out.

I searched for something I could use as a weapon. Just in case. There were few furnishings in the room. I considered the wastepaper bin by the dresser, but when I picked it up it turned out to be made of thin metal. If I bashed someone over the head with it, all it would do was leave a dent in the bin. There was a New Testament in the bedside table, but it was a flimsy paperback.

I was about to give up when I noticed a set of fire irons in an alcove next to the boxed-in fireplace. It had a brush, shovel and poker. I lifted each one in turn. The poker was easily the heaviest of the three tools. Long and made from a heavy, black metal, it could probably do some serious damage if I hit someone on the head. I clutched it in my hands and stood by the door.

Right on cue there was a friendly rap-tap-a-tap-tap.

‘Who is it?’ I called.

‘It’s me,’ said Ryan.

Feeling slightly stupid, I unlocked the door.

‘Good thinking,’ he said, eyeing the poker as he slipped inside. He locked the door behind him.

‘So?’

He strode across the room and pulled the curtains open. Through the window, the daylight on the patio was nearly gone; the picnic table, the wall and the palm tree were blending into the shadows. He pulled the curtains shut again.

‘You want the good news or the bad news?’

I felt a shiver scuttle up my back, like a spider. ‘The bad news.’

‘She’s staying in this guest house.’

‘You have got to be kidding me!’

Ryan sat on the edge of the bed. I stayed standing.

‘The good news is that I’m certain the time-ship theory is correct.’

‘Why do you think that? Did something happen?’

He ran his hands through his hair. ‘After she left the harbour she walked up the street and went into the Co-op. I followed her in and bought a newspaper. She bought a lighter and some liquid paraffin. She’ll use the paraffin to try and make it look like some kids set fire to something. It’s a cover. She’ll use the leftover gas in the fuel tank to destroy the ship. From there she came directly back to the guest house. I stayed several metres behind her, but when I walked in the front door she was deep in conversation with the receptionist. She was asking for a map of the most isolated islands. It all adds up.’

‘Did she see you?’

‘No.’

I hadn’t realised I’d been holding my breath until I slowly released the air that had been trapped in my lungs. I sat beside him on the bed.

‘I don’t think we have anything to worry about,’ he said.

‘So, it’s a coincidence.’

He put a hand on my leg. ‘Yeah. But I don’t like coincidences. I think we should leave the islands tomorrow.’

‘The boat sails at four.’

‘We’ll keep a low profile until then.’

We stayed where we were for a minute or two, listening to the absolute quiet. It felt as though the room itself were trembling. My heartbeat. The booming silence. Knowing that an assassin shared our home for the night.

I turned and placed one palm over Ryan’s heart. It beat a frantic rhythm against my skin.

‘You’re scared,’ I said.

He placed his hand on top of mine. ‘This has nothing to do with Lauren.’

He stood up, opened his overnight bag and took out his toothbrush and toothpaste. He opened the door to the bath­­­room and leant against the door frame. ‘The door is locked and I’m going to leave this poker by the bed. Are you OK?’

I nodded.

My pyjamas were still stuffed in my overnight case. While Ryan brushed his teeth, I unfolded them and then refolded them and then unfolded them again. There was no way I could strip off here in the bedroom with all the lights on and Ryan just the other side of the bathroom door, almost finished brushing his teeth.

‘Hey,’ I said, as he came back in.

He smiled and glanced at the pyjamas in my hand. ‘You gonna put those on?’

I nodded and rubbed the frayed strip of lace at the bottom of the vest top. ‘They’re kind of old.’

‘They’re cute.’

I stepped closer to the bathroom door. ‘I’m just going to go in here and get undressed.’

Ryan shrugged one shoulder. ‘OK.’

I took my pyjamas into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Hurriedly, I stripped off my clothes and pulled on my pyjamas. The sliver of light under the bathroom door dimmed. Ryan was just behind that door. Waiting for me.

I took a deep breath, unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room was shadowy, the only light coming from the soft glow of the bedside lamp on one of the night tables. My gaze rested first on the bed. It was empty. Then I saw Ryan, standing by the patio doors, watching the last flush of the sunset redden the horizon. To my relief he was still dressed.

I joined him at the window, my blood pounding through every inch of my body.

‘They look even cuter on you,’ said Ryan, running a finger across the strap of my vest top.

I tried to smile, but my face was too tense to do it convincingly.

‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘I guess we need to talk about the sleeping arrangements.’

I bit my bottom lip. ‘What about them?’

‘Which of us gets the bed and which of us gets to sleep here?’ He pointed at the armchair by the fireplace.

‘It’s a big bed. I’m sure we’ll both fit.’

‘You don’t mind sharing?’

I shook my head and clambered under the covers. Ryan took off his boots and jeans, but kept the rest of his clothes on.

‘Aren’t you going to get undressed?’

‘I don’t have anything to change into. And I thought I might freak you out if I stripped naked.’

I laughed. ‘You got that right.’ I leant across and switched off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

‘Goodnight then,’ he said.

‘Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?’

He closed the wide space between us and found my face with his fingertips. I felt his warm, minty breath on my face and then he kissed me. My body was flooded with warmth and I kissed him back, all my inhibitions forgotten. For a few seconds, I was lost in the pleasure of the moment. And then, unwelcome and unbidden, an image of Lauren smoothing back her bun in Miranda’s sitting room floated into my mind. I forced it out and tried to focus on the feel of Ryan’s skin, but my mind was bombarded with images and sensations. Lauren standing at the docks, her shiny brown hair swinging down her back. The dip and roll of the boat that had brought us to the islands. The moon glowing in the twilight. My once final resting place in the woodland.

Ryan stopped kissing me. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m just a little tense. It’s really hard for me to relax knowing that she’s so close.’

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ he said. ‘She’s probably tucked up fast asleep in her bed. You want a back rub?’

I rolled away from him and he ran his fingers down the length of my back, making all the nerve endings tingle. He began kneading the muscles either side of my spine, starting in the small of my back and slowly working up towards my shoulders. My eyelids fluttered closed. Within minutes, I was lulled into sleepy forgetfulness. Just as I was tumbling over the dark abyss, about to leave the world behind, I felt Ryan roll away from me. The covers slipped over my body as he reached towards the door. I rolled over to face him just as he lay back down again.

In his right hand, he was gripping the poker.