After Eden (14 page)

I ordered a Coke. Connor swigged from his bottle again and then burped. Amy, Matt, and Megan were also halfway through their large bottles of Kingfisher beer, but Ryan’s was untouched.

“How was your day?” I asked Connor.

“Awesome,” he said, pausing to burp again. “Stellar Optics had sold out of the telescope I wanted, but I bought an Xbox instead. And Matt and Ryan both bought me a game for it. And guess what?” Connor lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Ryan has a fake ID. He bought us beers.”

“That sounds great,” I said, catching Ryan’s eye.

The flicker of a smile crossed his face.

“So what did you buy?” Connor asked. “Megan and Amy already showed us their dresses and stuff.”

“I bought a dress and a couple of other things,” I said.

Connor swigged his beer and eyed me thoughtfully. “Why did you buy a dress?”

“For the ball.”

“You said you weren’t going.”

“And you told me I would regret it for the rest of my life. Miranda said the same thing this morning. So I changed my mind.”

Connor drained his beer. “Who are you going with?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a silence around the table. I could feel everyone looking at me.

“Don’t look at me,” said Connor. “I’m not taking you. I already have a date.”

“You do?”

Connor beamed across the table at Megan. “I’m going with Megan.”

I looked at Megan. She gave me a tiny, uncertain smile.

“That’s great,” I said brightly.

Connor was still beaming at her.

“Ryan,” said Matt. “You’re gonna have to go to the ball. Eden has a dress and no Prince Charming.”

“I don’t need a pity date, thanks,” I said.

Ryan smiled at me. “So how about it, Eden,” he said. “Will you go to the ball with me?”

Everyone fell silent again.

“Okay,” I said.

Ryan grinned. “Control your enthusiasm, Eden. Or I might start to think you have a crush on me.”

Connor banged his empty bottle on the table just a little too heavily. “Perfect,” he said.

Ryan drove me home that evening. Connor was too nauseous to notice what anyone else was doing. Matt had promised to take him around the block a few times to walk it off.

“That was a successful day’s work.”

Ryan nodded. “I wish I could have enlisted your help earlier.”

“You should have. But you didn’t trust me.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. It’s forbidden by the Temporal Laws for me to tell anyone. You shouldn’t know any of this.”

“S’pose not.”

He glanced at me. “I do trust you, Eden. I’ve told you lots of things I shouldn’t have.”

“Not really. You just confirmed things I’d figured out for myself. You don’t trust me enough to tell me something you don’t have to.”

He sighed and down shifted to take the sharp bend in the road above Lucky Cove.

“I owe you,” he said. “Not only have we successfully prevented Connor from buying a telescope, but we also have him going to the ball with Megan. Now I know where he’ll be the night of the twenty-third. If there’s anything I can do for you …”

“You already have,” I said. “You’re taking me to the ball.
One minute I didn’t have a date, the next minute you stepped in and saved the day. My hero.”

My tone was much more sarcastic than I’d intended. But my feelings were such a jumble—I was both thrilled and mortified by the turn of events—that I had no idea how to express myself.

Ryan glanced at me. “I hope you don’t mind. It was a bit awkward. I felt that I had to ask you.”

I ignored the slight contraction of my heart and shrugged. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold you to it. Although I have to admit, I was rather looking forward to going to the ball with some freak from the future.”

Ryan whistled through his teeth. “I do understand if the whole time travel thing is too weird for you.”

“It has nothing to do with that,” I said. “Strangely enough, I’ve gotten used to the whole idea. And it is weird, but not too weird, not like it would be if you turned out to be an alien or something.”

“So that would be too weird,” Ryan said slowly, looking sidelong at me through his long, dark lashes.

“Ryan?”

He slowed down as we approached the street next to my house. “How would you define ‘alien’?”

I backed up against the car door, not exactly scared, but definitely anxious. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Don’t panic,” he said with a grin. “I’m human. Completely human.”

“So what are you saying?”

He pulled the car to the curb and switched off the
engine. “I wasn’t born on Earth. I was born on Eden. Which means I’m technically an alien. But both my parents were born on Earth. I’m as human as you are.”

I looked at him carefully, wondering if he was holding back information he ought to be sharing. “So you don’t have two hearts or a tail?”

He shook his head. “Unfortunately not. No special powers. Just a regular human with a regular human body. I could take off my clothes and show you if you want.”

“Don’t ask me again,” I said, reaching for the door handle. “I might not be able to answer responsibly.”

Ryan insisted on walking me the thirty-second walk between his car and my house. The air was cold and the sky clear and brightly starlit.

“Seriously,” he said. “You were a big help today. I wish I could repay you in some way.”

“You can,” I said, stopping.

“How?”

“By trusting me.”

“I do trust you.” He ran his hand through his hair and gazed up at the sky. “Do you remember any of the constellations I showed you after Amy’s party?”

I stopped and craned my neck skyward. “That’s Cassiopeia,” I said, pointing at the w-shaped constellation high in the sky.”

“You remember.”

“Of course I remember.” I searched the sky for Orion.

“It’s the wrong time of year for Orion,” he said. “Winter
is the best season. But now I’m going to show you another constellation.”

He turned me toward a different section of the sky and held out my hand as a pointer. High in the sky, he traced the shape of the letter
y
.

“The constellation is Perseus,” he said. “And that bright star is called Mirfak.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It is beautiful. But there’s another star in Perseus I want to show you.”

Ryan moved my hand slightly. “Algol. The demon star. It’s also known as the evil eye.”

“Why?”

“Algol looks like a single star, but actually it’s a triple star system. One of the stars is small. But two of the stars regularly eclipse each other, affecting the brightness of the star to the naked eye. It’s almost as if the star makes a slow wink. If you watch it over a period of three days, you’ll see its brightness wax and wane.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“Isn’t it? But you know what’s really cool about it?”

I shook my head.

“Algol has a planetary system. Five planets orbit the three stars.” He paused. “Three are gas giants. One is too close to the main star for life to exist. But one of those planets is in the habitable zone. That planet is called Eden.”

Gazing out across the black sky at this brilliant white star twinkling brightly above me, I considered how incredible
it was that this star had a planet orbiting it; a planet that sustained life. Human life. Earth life. I knew about it before Connor discovered it.

“You need to forget that now,” Ryan whispered in my ear, his breath warm against my neck.

Goose bumps prickled my skin. The night air was cold and I hadn’t brought a jacket, but I didn’t care. Ryan had just told me that he was born on a different planet and told me where in the sky that planet was. And I was the only person from my timeline to know this. He shouldn’t have told me. But he trusted me.

And I trusted him.

The curtains to the front room were shut, but I could tell from the blue flicker that Miranda was watching television. She would be alone, waiting for me to come inside and tell her about my day while helping her finish the crossword. The enormous gulf between her life and the one I was beginning lay there between us, between the world inside the house, where everything followed the laws of physics as we understood them, and the one outside, where stars were really suns to other planets and people could travel through time.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

I nodded and opened the door. I turned just as Ryan closed the gate.

“Good night, alien boy,” I said.

“Night, Earthling,” he said, laughing, and then he was walking back to his car.

Dust motes floated in a shaft of sunlight. Outside, the sun blazed. The exam monitors had opened the windows as far as they could, but the room was still stifling.

Physics. The last exam. The clock at the front of the hall read ten minutes to twelve. Ten minutes. Ten minutes until we were all told to put our pens down. Ten minutes until the end of exams. I should have been checking through my answers to make sure I hadn’t made any silly errors, but I couldn’t concentrate any longer.

All around me, heads were bent over the test. Ryan’s seat remained empty. Although he had gone through the motions of sitting for the exams over the past three weeks, he had decided to skip this one so he could help Ben and Cassie prepare for their departure in two days’ time, after the leavers’ ball. I wondered what sort of preparations you had to make for traveling through time. Was it complicated or dangerous like the old shuttle missions to the International Space Station, or was it a more mundane journey, like a train ride to Plymouth?

“Pens down,” said the monitor.

* * *

The sun beat down on us as we ambled toward the gate. Matt and Connor removed their ties and began whipping each other with them, laughing and saying that they would never ever wear a tie again for the rest of their lives.

Ryan was leaning against the gate, dressed in a white T-shirt and khaki shorts, a pair of very dark sunglasses hiding his eyes.

“Did I miss anything interesting?”

“Hell yeah,” said Matt. “That was officially the most fun I’ve ever had in school.”

Students were spilling out of the school gates, laughing and yelling, tying their ties around their foreheads like thin bandannas.

“Everyone’s going to the park,” said Chloe Mason, walking over to Ryan.

She had unbuttoned her school shirt halfway, exposing just the edge of her hot-pink bra. “I hope you’re coming. I have a going-away present for you.” She swaggered back to her group of friends, laughing and spiraling her tie above her head like a lasso.

“What’s the plan then?” asked Ryan.

“Looks like we’re going to the park,” said Connor.

Ryan groaned. “Really?”

“What’s the matter, Westland?” asked Connor. “Scared?”

Ryan laughed. “Terrified.”

Ryan’s car was discreetly parked a couple of streets away from school. He opened the passenger door for me and told the others to squeeze in together in the back.

Connor pulled a face. “Why don’t we walk? It’s not far.”

“I picked up the booze you wanted,” said Ryan. “It’s in the trunk. It’ll be easier if we take the car.”

“Come on, Connor,” said Megan. “It’s only a five-minute drive.”

Connor said nothing, but he got in the back of the car.

Ryan pulled away from the curb and onto the street that led across town to Perran Park. I turned around. Amy was half sitting on Matt’s lap, his hands resting on her thighs. With four of them in the backseat, it was inevitable that they would be squashed together. But Connor’s arm was resting along the back of the seat, behind Megan’s shoulders, and his body was angled close toward hers. He was laughing at something she had just said. Ryan took a corner sharply and Megan rolled against Connor, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” she giggled.

“Don’t be,” he said with a smile.

I turned away, whatever it was I’d been about to say forgotten. Until now I’d assumed that Connor had asked Megan to the ball because I’d said no, or even as a way to try and make me jealous. Could it be that he really did like her?

Even before we entered the gates to the park, we could hear squeals and laughter and the babble of voices. Over in the bandstand, two boys and a girl were drumming on overturned buckets while another boy strummed on his guitar. The whole park had the feel of an impromptu party.

“Let’s sit by the fountain,” I said, imagining the cool spray on my hot, sticky skin.

We found a shady spot beneath a thicket of trees, close to the fountain. I lay back on the grass, my face in the shade of a gnarled apple tree, my legs and body in the warmth of the sun. I kicked off my school shoes. The lightest spray from the fountain reached my shins and feet.

Ryan lay beside me. “I think apple trees are my favorite tree in the whole world,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

“I like their shape. The blossom in the spring. The apples in the autumn. The smell of their fruit. They’re perfect.”

“You’re really into trees and plants,” I said with a laugh.

“You know why.”

“What are you drinking, Eden?” Megan asked.

“Raspberry Juiska.”

She passed me an open bottle and I propped myself up on my elbow. I didn’t usually drink, but this was the last day of exams. I swigged from the bottle. A mouthful of slightly warm, sweet liquid left a trail of fire as it ran down my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and winced.

Megan took a cherry-flavored bottle and clinked hers against mine. “Cheers!”

“Beer or cider, Ryan?” asked Matt.

Ryan shook his head. “Not for me. I’m driving.”

Matt passed him a bottle. “You can have one beer.”

Ryan passed it back. “Maybe later.”

I swigged again from my bottle, trying not to screw up my eyes as the liquid burned my throat. Ryan was sitting
next to me, propped up against the tree trunk. I looked around. It was as if we were all paired up. Connor and Megan were sitting next to each other, tasting each other’s drinks. Amy was sitting in the shade, ensuring her milk-white skin didn’t curdle, while Matt ran his fingers through her blue-black hair.

“I’m so glad it’s all over,” said Connor.