Time Catcher Read online

  TIME CATCHER

  A love of reading delivered Cheree into a degree in Creative and Professional Writing. With a particular passion for young adult books, Cheree decided to write her first novel in that field. When she isn’t writing, Cheree works as a production assistant.

  To Peggy, Geoffrey and Yvonne

  First published by Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of

  HybridPublishers, PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204

  Melbourne Victoria Australia

  www.hybridpublishers.com.au

  Cheree Peters © 2016

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This publication is copyright. Apart from any use

  as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be

  reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the

  publisher. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction should be

  addressed to Ford Street Publishing Pty Ltd,

  162 Hoddle Street, Abbotsford, VIC 3067.

  www.fordstreetpublishing.com

  First published 2016

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Creator: Peters, Cheree, author.

  Title: Time catcher / Cheree Peters.

  eISBN: 978-1-925804-04-1

  Series: Peters, Cheree. Variants trilogy; bk. 1.

  Subjects: Speculative fiction, Australian.

  Science fiction, Australian.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Cover illustration: Stefan Todorovic

  Cover layout: Grant Gittus

  In-house editor: Gemma Dean-Furlong

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  The same thing happens every time. Everything seems normal. The air is quiet and the trees are still. Then the loud crash and I lose myself in the chaos. Bodies everywhere, unconscious or dead, I cannot tell. People screaming and running in every direction; me, trying to figure out what has happened.

  This is my dream-nightmare.

  The same faces appear, but they are blurred, almost like shadows of what they once were. I can make out the outlines of small houses; one of them is on fire. I swivel my head in slow motion, looking at the chaos in the open space to my right.

  The boy with the piercing blue eyes appears. Though he is blurred and distorted like the others, I can always recognise those eyes – so clear and bright, like stars in the night sky. Like mine. It’s almost as if my mind is reflecting me back at myself. The boy yells something to me but, like always, I cannot make out the words.

  Another loud bang and another boy comes running from a crumpled building, followed by a mesmerising blue light. I am transfixed by the glow in the night air, but the boy with blue eyes drags me away.

  Although I am dreaming, I can feel my heart beat faster. I anticipate what happens next. The explosion blasts us off our feet. I hit the ground hard.

  My mind is foggy – from the blast or my dream state? The blue-eyed boy lies next to me, unconscious. A tall, blurred figure emerges from the dust, moving towards us smoothly. His long black hair slides down his shoulders and his black eyes are dangerous. I recoil as he reaches down to grab me. His thin fingers curl around my arm and I wake.

  My heart is thumping like a drum but I cannot control the beat. The cold sweat on my forehead slides down my face. I sit up in my great, canopied bed and tuck my knees in, holding onto them for stability. As I always do, I close my eyes and slow my breathing, listening to the morning breeze through my windows.

  I am almost calm when I hear the knock at my door.

  ‘Come in.’

  It will be Lucy, my lady’s maid. Ever since my mother died, she’s helped raise me, as far as I can remember, anyway.

  Lucy walks in, smiling, her crisp white dress almost brushing the ground. ‘Good morning, Princess Althea. How are we this morning?’

  I only manage a grumble as she opens the mahogany drapes, cheerily whistling the national anthem of the Kingdom of Cardiff. The sun enters the room like an unwelcome guest and I flinch away from its warm touch.

  ‘My, Your Highness, what a fine morning for today’s parade. We could not have asked for better weather.’

  Just as I am feeling like I can force myself into a good mood, my spirits drop at Lucy’s words. The parade. In the stupor produced by the nightmare, I had forgotten that today was Kingdom Day. I wish I were still asleep, even if that means being in my confusing dream world.

  Lucy walks over to my wardrobe and removes a long red silk dress. Any desire I had to move evaporates. Every quarter, my father insists on holding a parade. I hate them, especially the Kingdom Day Parade.

  ‘It is tradition, Althea, and the people love the quarterly parades,’ he says constantly.

  I am not so sure that all the people love the parades. I do not like them myself, so I cannot imagine the crowds enjoy standing in the simmering heat or the biting cold and waving at the line of dignitaries and prominent kingdom citizens that pass by – me among them.

  Lucy is babbling happily about her brother’s wheat farm down south, but my mind wanders back to my dream and how real it feels. No matter how many times the man takes me, I am still afraid. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had the dream. Sometimes it strikes only once a week, but it is always in the back of my mind. Lucy snaps her fingers in my face. My father would not approve, but Lucy knows I do not mind.

  ‘Princess Althea, are you all right?’

  ‘Of course, Lucy.’

  ‘You weren’t having a seizure, were you?’

  ‘No, I do not believe so,’ I say quickly. Ever since the accident, I slip into trances – ‘absence seizures’, Dr Kelvin calls them. To me, it feels like time stands still. Sometimes they last for only thirty seconds. Other times, it feels like a whole hour has passed but in reality, it’s only been a few minutes. Thankfully, when I’m around other people, they can snap me out of them. During the seizures my mind feels hazy, almost as if time has slowed so I can process what’s happening around me.

  ‘Breakfast has been served downstairs,’ Lucy says.

  I do not feel like eating with my father who is entertaining delegates at breakfast. Lucy reads the reluctance in my face. ‘How would it be if I were to bring you something?’

  I raise my head and smile at her. She walks out of the room and I feel a twinge of guilt. Having Lucy as my constant companion for all these years has not made me comfortable with her servitude, though I know I should be – daughter of the king, as I am. Casteel, my home, is the largest building in the Kingdom of Cardiff, apart from the factories on the south side. The kitchen is four floors down, five flights of stairs Lucy has to walk down and back up, loaded with a tray of food for me.

  Out of bed, I glance at the red dress draped over my dressing table chair and walk towards the windows, stopping a few metres back. Living on the sixth floor has not cured my fear of heights. Lucy is right, it is a beautiful morning. I can see the parade already being prepared in the Imperial Gardens; workmen are putting the final wooden barricades in place and sentinels are stationing themselves along them. The kingdom’s subjects are gathered along the East Road below, dutifully waiting. For half a day, the city’s markets, schools and factories are closed. The king, my father, has decreed that his citizens be present for all parades. Normally the poor people of the Kingdom of Cardiff would not dare come to the East Quarter. This section of the city is reserved for the rich and powerful – and their servants. But I like seeing them there, equals in the east, if only for one day.

  In the distance to the right, I glimpse the Rampart. The wooden structure stretches across the north of the kingdom, twenty metres high and three metres wide. It was built a few centuries ago to defend us from the North Empire.

&nbs
p; Now we use it to keep the Manipulators out. I shudder at the thought of them getting in.

  During the Destruction Wars, bombs destroyed whole cities and countries. One of those bombs fell on a scientific facility in the Old City, and the ensuing explosion released toxins, which were absorbed into the bodies of people close by. The toxins irrevocably altered the genes of those affected, and for years no one knew a new breed of human was living amongst them: the Manipulators, mutants who can manipulate the world around them.

  Now we know, and now we guard against them.

  I sigh as I turn away from the window, my left wrist tingling as it always does after one of my small trance-like seizures. But someone catches my eye at Infinity Lake and I turn back. Only workmen and sentinels should be in the gardens while preparations are being made, but a young man with dark hair leans against a large oak tree on the edge of the gardens. His body is directed towards the wooden podium being erected for the parade’s speeches. Even from this height, something about him seems familiar.

  I inch closer to the glass, trying to make out his features. His emerald coat whips in the breeze as he steps away from the oak and looks across the road to Casteel. His head tilts up, and I imagine his eyes moving up the building. For a moment I freeze – can he see me? – but his head continues to move upwards.

  I glance over my shoulder as Lucy walks in carrying a tray of food. When I look back to the oak tree the young man is gone. My eyes search up and down the East Road, gliding over the carts and carriages, and through the tree line of the gardens, but he is gone.

  Behind me, Lucy places the breakfast tray on my small dining table and then she comes to stand beside me. ‘Is something wrong, Your Highness?’

  ‘No, no, Lucy. I just thought . . . it’s nothing.’

  I sit down on a crimson padded chair, picking up the open history book on the table. Stirring the berries through my porridge, I read without taking in a single word, disenchanted by the pictures of happy speeding motorcars and flying aeroplanes. I barely notice Lucy making my bed. I would usually help her, but I am distracted by the young man. He seemed so familiar – and so out of place in the Imperial Gardens.

  ‘Do not let your cocoa grow cold, Your Highness,’ Lucy says with a smile, and leaves.

  I tell myself the young man was just waiting for the parade but something niggles in the back of my mind. I pick up the cocoa, inhaling its delicious chocolatey aroma and pause, staring at the window. Why do I feel like I know the young man? Perhaps he is someone I have met in passing.

  My father has decreed that everyone in the kingdom must report suspicious behaviour. But he was not acting suspiciously. The only suspicion I have is the swirl of anxiety in my stomach.

  My cocoa has gone cold. Time always seems to slip away from me. I put down the cold cup and glance at my brass lantern-clock ticking away on the nightstand. It tells me I need to start getting ready for the parade. I curse the stupid clock for not being able to pause time.

  The warm water seems to sink into my skin, warming my veins. I have stayed in the shower too long, but I cannot bring myself to turn the taps off. I close my eyes for a moment and in my mind I see the man with the black eyes and thin fingers. He grabs me and I scream. I twist around and open my eyes. I am in the shower alone, gasping for air. The heat of the water turns to ice on my skin.

  I stumble from the shower and wrap myself in a crimson towel, shivering. I find myself wanting my mother. I do not think of her much; it is painful to wish for someone I do not remember. During the last battle with the North Empire, Father kept us hidden away. He wanted to keep us safe, but we were not hidden well enough. Manipulators found our refuge and she was killed while I sustained a head injury, losing all of my memories from my life before – including those of my mother. I had to start over, with Father filling in the gaps, although hampered by my absence seizures.

  I look at my reflection in my dressing table mirror, wondering hazily if I would look more like my father with blonde hair. But my father doesn’t have blond hair, and my mother did not have blonde hair. I must be suffering the after-effects of my seizure – vagueness, incorrect memories. I try to orientate myself as I have been taught, picking up the photograph on my dressing table that shows my parents, both dark-haired, young and happy, smiling on a sunny day. I have never seen my father happier than in this photograph.

  I slide my hands over the silk dress. I hate the fancy clothes I have to wear in front of everyone, reminding them, and me, of my status. Althea Cardiff, future heir to the Kingdom of Cardiff. It has never sat right with me. I hate that just because I was born into a certain family, I am considered to have a superior bloodline. My friend Tahan has no ‘superior’ bloodline, yet I consider her cleverer than I. This bloodline means I will rule our kingdom one day. I shudder; I am not a natural leader. My father, the king, basks in ruling an entire country.

  Unlike the Kingdom of Cardiff and the North Empire, the West does not have kings or queens. The kingdom has no contact with the West. The Wastelands make the journey between our regions highly hazardous, and Father says the risk is too great as the West is backwards and not worth trading with, their goods basic and unrefined.

  My great-great-great-something grandfather had money and land before the war all those years ago. After the war, he manoeuvred his way up through the ranks of the new world-order. He helped create the kingdom, and it has been passed down through the Cardiff family ever since.

  I stare at myself in the mirror – a sixteen-year-old girl with light brown hair in an expensive red silk dress, her blue eyes wide and scared. This girl will be the next ruler of the Kingdom of Cardiff. I almost cry.

  The silk clings to my skin, making me feel like I cannot escape.

  Francis, my personal sentinel, stands next to me in the open carriage. Stocky and strong, he is tense and ready. Ready for them. Ready for the Manipulators.

  Everyone from across the kingdom comes to watch the parade, not just the city folk. Even the farmers from the Southlands trek up to celebrate our nation’s birth. The parade’s apparent purpose is to demonstrate all the good the king and his delegates are doing for the people. Most of the kingdom’s upper echelons seem to love participating in the parade, showing off – except me.

  A whistle is blown in the distance and the horses jostle in their harnesses. We could walk, but Father insists on using the carriages. ‘It is prudent to remind the people that we are of a higher class, Althea. We are their rulers.’

  I jolt as my carriage starts moving, and Francis takes my arm to steady me. I straighten myself with a nod to Francis, and smile and wave. Hooves clatter on the sett granite paving as we make our way up the East Road, alongside the Imperial Gardens.

  I glance over my shoulder and see the procession of carriages, all the delegates dutifully waving and smiling at the crowd. Amongst them, I see the goofy grin of my swain, Finn. He stands beside his mother, the delegate for the North-east Quarter. He catches my eye and waves to me.

  The wheels of the carriage vibrate along the road and the sound of the crowd blasts my ears. Scattered throughout the crowd are flags of various sizes, the crimson background illuminating the emerald cross reaching diagonally across both sides.

  As we pass Finn’s three-storey family home on the right, I realise we are only halfway through the parade route and my forced smile drops momentarily. Casteel looms large in the distance and I wish to be back in my chambers, playing a card game or reading one of my books. At least the dangers in them would be fiction, unlike the Manipulators who Father thinks want to destroy us.

  The soft breeze whispers on my cheeks and I let it cool my nerves. I will never enjoy the parades. I look to Francis for reassurance. His long crimson coat is neatly buttoned to its high collar. His black leather gloved right hand grips the stumpy, rough black stock of his holstered maserlock. He will always protect me.

  Francis looks down at me. ‘Are you well, A?’

  I glance at my father on his steed b
eside my carriage, but thankfully he did not hear. He would chastise such informal use of my name. I have known Francis for so long he is more than just my protector.

  Although he is my friend, I lie to him. ‘Oh, all is fine.’

  He smiles and turns his attention forward. I straighten my back and hold my head high, mustering a slight curve to my lips. A roar of applause greets my father as he rides ahead of my carriage and rears his black-coated horse, displaying the fine horsemanship he perfected during the many campaigns against our enemy, the North Empire.

  Little girls push up against the wooden barricades, calling my name. Some frantically wave their tiny red-and-green flags. I smile and wave back. I love to see their grins, even if they only love me because I am their precious princess. I do not, however, like to see that most wear ragged dresses over their thin little bodies. I look down at my blood-red dress and my smile retreats. I cannot understand why the world has to be this way, no matter how many times my father explains. The extravagance of my life seems at odds with the state of the people we rule.

  My father doubles back to ride alongside my carriage. Unlike my smile, his wide grin is genuine. ‘Such a lovely day for the parade, do you not think, darling?’

  I take a deep breath before replying, ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Now, Althea, we have talked about this before.’ He leans in closer to me and says, ‘It is Kingdom Day, the most important of all our parades. You had best start behaving properly. I do not wish to tell you again. Now, smile!’ He straightens in his saddle and a wide smile appears on his hard-lined face before he rides forward on his horse.

  Francis leans in and whispers, ‘It’s all right, A. Don’t you worry.’ Francis always knows when to use his ‘father’ voice on me. It works on his little boy just as well as it does me.

  I smile before turning my attention once more to the cheering crowd. The branches of oak trees that line the border of the Imperial Gardens delicately sway in the breeze. The carriage jostles as its wheels transition to the dirt path at the entrance to the gardens. I stumble and Francis steadies me, stopping me from falling over the side.