“Where did you go?” There was something threatening in his voice. “Everyone has been searching for you, Helen. They’re blaming Niall.”
Because this wasn’t Niall. As if a shattered window suddenly began to reform in her mind, bit by bit, she saw the truth. This handsome man was Maurice, Niall’s cousin and his foreman, and she’d been stupid enough to spend one night in his bed. She’d done it in revenge for all the women Niall betrayed her with, but this man would not accept that. He’d always been jealous of Niall and one night made her his. He threatened to tell Niall, to blackmail her, he threatened to make her life a misery if she did not give him what he wanted.
So she was leaving him, and Niall.
“Helen?” he groaned. “You know if I can’t have you then no one can.”
“Yes. I am Helen.” Her voice was a whisper.
The dog struggled again and he noticed it for the first time. “Moppet?” he said angrily. “You came back for Moppet?”
Of course, this was Moppet, her dog. “I could never leave Moppet.”
Her placing her dog above him seemed to infuriate him even more. “Where have you been? Tell me the truth.”
“Through time,” she said, and laughed.
His features went hard, and suddenly he was no longer handsome.
Fear streaked through her, and Claire turned and ran. Back down the path, back towards the line of water that separated his world from hers. His boots thumped on the path behind her, his breathing heavy and gaining.
His hand closed on her shoulder, fingers pressing hard into her skin, imprinting themselves upon her. He pulled her around and into the hard grasp of his arms. Moppet leaped to the ground and Claire was dragged against his chest, aware of the faint scent of cigars and leather.
She’d returned to the past only to die here.
“Claire!”
Faint, desperate, a voice she knew like her own heart.
She began to fight Maurice. A flash of lightning showed his face and the determination to finish what he’d started all those years ago — or was it only an hour or two?
“Let her go!”
Suddenly Gabe was ripping her out of Maurice’s grip, knocking him backwards so that he fell heavily into the shrubs. Claire was gasping, stumbling into his arms, and Moppet was barking wildly. The little dog had been barking all along, she realized, but she’d been too occupied to really hear its cries for help.
“Come on,” Gabe said, voice rising against the growl of thunder.
And then Gabe was leading her through the water of the moat and the past was fading away behind her. A moment later they were standing on the baked surface of the reservoir, lightning and thunder creating havoc around them.
“He’ll be able to come into the present,” Claire said, wild-eyed, shaking uncontrollably. “The moat is drying up and soon he’ll come.”
Gabe reached down to pick up Moppet and put the dog into her arms. A big fat drop of rain plopped on to the ground beside them. And then another.
She turned her face upwards in amazement and joy. The drops were falling faster now, painful against her skin, but wonderful too.
“No, he won’t,” Gabe said confidently.
Later, as they sat on the verandah and watched the world through a curtain of rain, Gabe told her his story, which was her story, too.
“My grandfather had a photo of you. It belonged to his uncle Maurice. There was something secretive about the man, and my grandfather always had a suspicion it was to do with Helen. When Maurice died he told my grandfather that he and Helen had been lovers and that he’d tried to kill her, but she’d vanished. Just. vanished.”
“And your grandfather began to work on his time theory.”
“Exactly. Although I didn’t really believe in it until I found you four years ago. I knew who you were. I recognized you from the photo, and I remembered what he’d told me. It was you, Helen, but I was the only one who knew it.”
Claire rubbed her forehead. “The photo. ” She went into the kitchen and found the old album, then carried it back to Gabe open at the photo in the back. “I thought this was Niall.”
Gabe shook his head. “Maurice. They were alike. Must have made it even harder for Maurice to end up working for the man he wished he could be.”
“If he couldn’t have me then Niall couldn’t either,” she whispered.
“I found you down in the reservoir. You were dressed in old-fashioned clothing, like something from a costume drama. I got rid of the clothes, pretended I’d found you up in the hills. I didn’t want them poking around the homestead with so much of it exposed, but it started to rain about then anyway. I hoped it would keep raining but it didn’t, and. ”
“And I decided to find my past,” she said, reaching for his hand. “I wish I’d trusted you, Gabe.”
“I wish I’d trusted you, but you see my difficulty? When you couldn’t remember anything it was a blessing for me, really. But I always knew that eventually your memory would return and then we would have to deal with it. I thought I’d tell you everything then.”
They sat a moment in silence, contemplating the incredible truth.
Gabe smiled. “I meant what I said before. I’ve been in love with you all my life. I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
Her own smile trembled at the edges. “But who am I, Gabe? Helen or Claire?”
“Who do you want to be?”
“Claire,” she said. “I’ve grown up from Helen, I’m different now. I want to be Claire.”
“Then Claire you shall be. And just in case someone tries to make trouble. ” He slipped a photo from his pocket and handed it to her. Claire looked down into her own face, held stiff and unsmiling as the old-fashioned equipment recorded her image. She held one corner to the candle flame and watched it burn, turning the past and all its bad memories into ash. She raised her chin and kissed Gabe’s lips.
Margo Maguire
Sexual Healing
The Old City. Autumn, AD 2743
The temperature was well modulated in the residential unit and the sound level comfortable as D499-DG-098 observed the chairperson addressing the group.
“The population decline has reached a critical level,” said M277-CZ-398. She was the leader of GreenPiece, an ancient organization believed to have promoted the good health of the planet. It had been revived in recent years to address the concerns of the world’s troubled scientists.
M277’s demeanour was perfectly calm as she stated the fact they all knew. In 237 years, humanity would die out, becoming extinct, leaving only the fauna and flora to prosper without restraint. “The spiral will soon be irreversible,” she added.
“It’s time, then. Have we decided who will go?” one of the members asked. “D499 seems the likely candidate since he can gain access to a tempis-disc.”
D499-DG-098 remained on the fringe of the room, and listened with a growing fascination. The biologists of GreenPiece had studied the problem of the Federation’s population decline from many different angles, and had come to one simple conclusion. In order to save the human race, the inventor of Fusion XJ would have to be stopped before his creation came to fruition — before it could render increasing numbers of humans essentially infertile.
GreenPiece was meeting in M277’s unit, ostensibly a study group, so that the authorities would not perceive any change in social conduct. The Federation strictly enforced the Natural Progression, and interfering with past events was absolutely forbidden. The world had become a balanced place, where emotions were subdued and rationality prevailed. Where war and famine did not exist, nor violence or disease. Where knowledge was king.
It was a cold, tightly regulated world, and while humans no longer had the impetus to create chaos for themselves, they’d also lost the impetus to mate. The process of Fusion XJ had cured a multitude of diseases, and the side effect of diminishing libido had not been a problem at first. It had hardly been noticed. Once the change was detected, it was viewed as a positive social development.