After Eden (15 page)

“This is only the beginning,” Megan sighed. “It is going to be the best summer ever.”

The first bottle of Juiska was sweet, sour, and sickly. The second one was sweet and sour. By the time I had reached the bottom of the third bottle, it was just sweet and I realized I liked the taste.

I stood up and wobbled. I could sense the edge of a headache floating in from somewhere in the distance. “The strange thing is,” I said, “it doesn’t matter how much I drink, I’m still thirsty.”

“Sit down and drink this,” said Ryan. He twisted the top off a bottle of sparkling water.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I think I’ve acquired a taste for it.”

I stretched across for another bottle, but Ryan moved the bag out of reach.

“You need to slow down.” He put one hand on the back of my head. “Open your mouth.” Gently, he spilled water onto my tongue.

Although afternoon was blending into evening, the air felt ever hotter and thicker. I padded across the soft, cool grass to the fountain, a concrete construction of Poseidon
holding a trident. I sat on the edge and swung my legs over. Dangling my legs in the pool, I shut my eyes, letting the spray shower over my face and body.

“Come over here!” I yelled to the others. “This feels so good.”

Ryan joined me at the edge of the fountain.

“I’ve always liked the way you look in your school uniform,” he said, a light smirk on his face. “But it’s never looked as great as it does right now.”

Looking down, I saw the hem of my skirt was soaked, and my white school shirt soaked through and transparent. I waited for my habitual blush, but it never came.

Megan and Amy jumped in next to me, closing their eyes against the spray.

“Make a wish! Make a wish!” Megan yelled.

“It’s not a wishing well,” said Amy, giggling.

“I don’t care. I feel lucky. Make a wish.”

Connor climbed the fountain and straddled Poseidon’s shoulders and grabbed the trident with one hand while the other held a bottle of beer in a triumphant salute.

“Here’s to the best days of our lives!” he yelled. “Make a wish!”

“I wish for a summer of hot, sunny days at the beach,” said Megan.

“I wish I had a cooler summer job than washing dishes at the Fisherman’s Arms,” said Amy.

“I wish I could lose ten pounds without dieting,” said Megan.

“I wish I hadn’t dyed my hair black,” said Amy. She hiccuped.

“I wish that Megan would … oh crap!” Connor yelled with a nervous laugh, as he swayed dangerously atop Poseidon’s shoulders.

I squeezed my eyes shut and wished that Connor would get down from the statue before he fell and hurt himself. I wished that time would stand still and Ryan could stay with us forever. And I wished that the world would stop spinning.

Ryan drove me back to the farmhouse with the windows down all the way. I rested my head on the door frame, gulping lungfuls of fresh air. Ryan had insisted that I go back to his house and sober up before heading home to Miranda.

We left town and drove along the coastal road, passing the sand dunes that lay between the road and Perran Towans, the golf course, and the fields of cauliflower and potatoes. Overhead, the moon was a ghostly crescent in the bright blue sky.

“It must be strange having three moons,” I said.

“Not when you’ve grown up with them,” said Ryan “None of Eden’s moons are as big as Earth’s moon, but when all the moons are up, it is beautiful. And then there are the three suns. From Eden, the universe seems less lonely somehow.”

As we pulled into Ryan’s place, I noticed that Ben and Cassie’s cars were parked in the driveway.

“I think I need to splash some cold water over my face,” I said. “I’m burning up.”

Ryan smiled and ran one finger across my nose. “You’ve caught the sun. Your nose is all pink.”

“Fantastic. That will look great in all the ball photographs.”

Ryan opened the door and ushered me inside. “I’ll make some strong coffee. The bathroom is the second door at the top of the stairs. I’ll meet you in the living room.”

I gripped the banister and dragged myself up the stairs. The fresh air had helped me feel better and I no longer felt sick, just hot and dehydrated. Just as I reached the door to the bathroom, it swung open and Cassie came out. She was dressed in green combats and a white T-shirt, her long blond hair tumbling over her chest. Just below the sleeve of her T-shirt I could see the edge of a tattoo. It looked like the same tattoo I’d seen on Ryan a few weeks earlier at the beach.

“Oh,” she said, apparently surprised. “It’s you again.”

I said nothing. I refused to show how much she intimidated me.

Her eyes slid down to my school shoes and slowly back up to my eyes. “Apparently some guys like that look,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought it was Ry’s thing.”

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think,” I said.

“I think I know him pretty well.” She raised her chin as if averting her face from a bad smell.

A surge of anger coursed through me. “What’s your problem with me?”

“I don’t have a problem with you.”

“You obviously don’t like me.”

She shrugged. “I don’t get why Ryan spends so much time with you.”

I leaned against the door frame, wishing the squishy churning in my stomach would stop. “He likes me. And I like him.”

Cassie clutched her heart and batted her eyelashes at me. “That’s so touching. You like each other. Did you spend the afternoon at the beach making out? Has Ryan convinced you to sleep with him yet? Are you in love with him?”

“It’s not like that with us,” I said. “We’re just good friends.”

“I’m sure you’re a fascinating person,” she said, her tone serious again. “But I doubt he’s interested in you for your mind.”

I had a sudden moment of clarity.

“We weren’t alone. We spent the afternoon with Connor and our other friends in the park. You see, Connor is my best friend. If it wasn’t for me, Ryan and Connor wouldn’t even be friends at all.”

Cassie nodded slowly. She opened her mouth as if to speak and then snapped it shut again. I smiled to myself. She had no comeback for that one.

“So you see,” I said. “He’s not wasting his time with me. I’m helping him.”

“I understand,” she said quietly.

I smiled smugly.

Cassie galloped down the stairs, leaving me free to freshen up in the bathroom.

Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was a peculiar mixture of old-fashioned floral wallpaper and simple
functionality. As well as pink flowers blooming all over the walls, there was a neat pile of white towels stacked on a stool.

I filled the sink with water and dunked my face into it. The water was cold against my burning skin. Gasping for breath, I pulled my head out of the water. Cold droplets ran down my face and onto my neck. Blinking, I grabbed a clean white towel and gently dabbed my face dry. My skin felt raw. I opened the medicine cabinet to see if Cassie had some moisturizer and foundation I could use to soothe my skin and cover up the redness. But there was nothing more than a tube of toothpaste, a comb, and a couple of bottles of cologne. Of course. Cassie was a natural beauty. No need for makeup or straighteners or hair serum or any of the other items I relied on. I dragged the comb through my tangled hair until it was smooth, rubbed some toothpaste across my teeth, and headed back downstairs.

Ryan was at the bottom of the stairs, a mug of steaming black coffee in each hand. He nudged the door to the living room open with his shoulder.

“You’re looking better,” he said.

“I feel better.”

We sat on the sofa, close, but with several centimeters separating us. I longed to close the gap, to feel the brush of his skin against mine.

“That was a bad combination of too much alcohol and too much sun,” he said, passing me one of the mugs.

I bit my lip. “Did I make a complete idiot out of myself?”

He smiled. “No. You danced around in the fountain, which was kind of cute. And you stumbled around a bit on the way to my car, which gave me an excuse to put my arm around you.”

I sipped my coffee. It was scalding hot and I felt it burn the roof of my mouth. “You don’t need an excuse to put your arm around me.”

Ryan leaned closer to me and gently placed an arm around my shoulders. I lay my head on his chest.

“I was thinking,” said Ryan. “We’ve only got two days left. Connor will be at the ball on Saturday and we’ll be there to keep tabs on him. Why don’t we spend the day together tomorrow? Just you and me.”

I nodded, unable to trust myself to speak without choking up. We had just two days left before he returned to his time.

“How would you like to spend the day?” he asked.

“I don’t care.”

“Come here to the farmhouse tomorrow morning. There’s something I want to give you.”

I lifted my head and raised both my eyebrows.

Ryan laughed. “Not the sort of going-away gift Chloe was talking about. I’m not that much of a creep.”

“You’re not even remotely a creep,” I said softly, the words falling out of my mouth with more courage than I felt. “You’re perfect.”

“That’s the alcohol talking,” he said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

The door to the living room swung open, hitting the wall. Cassie stood in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.

“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “But Ben and I need to talk to you.”

“Both of us?” said Ryan, frowning.

“Both of you,” she repeated.

Ben was standing in the middle of the kitchen.

“Take a seat, Eden,” he said, gesturing toward the kitchen table.

I had the uncomfortable feeling I was about to be lectured on underage drinking.

Ryan pulled out two chairs. We each took one.

“You’ve told her,” Cassie said simply.

Ryan caught my eye. I tried to tell him with my eyes that I hadn’t confessed to anything, but all three of them were looking at me.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” I said. “I’m not sure what it is that I’m supposed to know.”

“She told me that she’s been helping you with your mission.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Cassie narrowed her eyes and looked at me appraisingly. “Not in so many words perhaps. But you told me.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” I said as I raced through my recent memory, trying to remember what I might have said.

There was a jug of water and a stack of glasses in the middle
of the table. Ryan filled two glasses and pushed one across to me. My hand shook as I lifted it to my mouth. What would happen if Ben and Cassie found out that I knew why they were here? Ryan had said things about laws, and about how much trouble he would be in if anyone found out.

Ben turned to Ryan. “You may as well tell me the truth.”

Ryan swirled the water in his glass. He didn’t look up. “She figured it out by herself.”

Ben was calm. “What exactly does she know?”

Ryan looked up. Up until now he’d always seemed mature, confident, in control, but now he looked like a boy who was in big trouble with his dad. “She knows why we’re here and where we’re from.” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

Cassie swore and sat down. “We should never have agreed to let him come with us. I knew he’d be a liability.”

“Be quiet,” Ben told Cassie. He looked back at Ryan. “Explain how this happened.”

“Eden figured most of it out for herself.”

Ben turned to look at me. “What did you figure out, Eden?”

I shrugged. “Lots of little things didn’t seem right. There were strange gaps in Ryan’s knowledge. He hadn’t heard of some really famous people and he didn’t recognize pizza. I knew there was something not right about him the first time I met him.”

“That doesn’t explain how you figured out where we’re from,” said Ben. I noticed that he had made no mention yet of them being from a different time.

I looked at Ryan. He gave me a faint smile. “You can’t get me in any more trouble than I’m already in.”

“I saw Connor’s autobiography. It was on the floor in the living room.”

Cassie laughed sarcastically. “Which is why we don’t bring people back to the house, Ry.”

“So I screwed up!” he said to her. “Just like you screwed up when you didn’t tell me about pizza. You’re supposed to be the researcher, but you forgot to mention one of the most popular dishes in twenty-first century Britain. And you weren’t so great on twenty-first century fashion either! I should’ve been wearing one of those sweater things with a hood!”

“Quit squabbling,” said Ben calmly. He looked at me. “Tell me everything you know.”

I glanced at Ryan.

“Don’t look at him,” said Ben. “Ryan doesn’t expect you to lie for him. He knows we have to know how much you know so we can figure out how to make this right.”

I swallowed hard, trying to calculate how much or how little I should say. I didn’t want to get Ryan into any more trouble than necessary. Nor did I want to put myself in harm’s way. “I know that you are from the future and that you are here to alter history,” I said. “I know that you don’t want Connor to discover Eden.”

Ben nodded, his expression unreadable. “What else do you know?”

“Nothing really. Ryan wouldn’t give me details. I do
know that a parasite from Eden destroys Earth’s ecosystem. I know it’s important that your mission is a success.”

“Do you know what will happen if we’re not successful?”

I glanced at Ryan again.

“Look at me,” said Ben.

“Billions of people will die. The planet might die.”

Ben nodded thoughtfully. “Is there anything else he’s told you?”

I shook my head.

“Ry?” Ben asked.

“I think that’s everything,” he said quietly.

Ben turned back to me. “How long have you known?”

I concentrated. It seemed a long time ago now. “About six or seven weeks,” I said.

“And how long have you known that she knows?” he asked Ryan.

“About six weeks.”

“Six weeks!” said Ben, raising his voice for the first time. “You’ve known we have a serious problem for six weeks and you didn’t tell me.”