was illegal. Before everything changed.
‘Remember the blackout?’ Mason asks quietly.
My heart beats quicker. ‘Of course.’
It seems only a few months ago. Not years. For us, I guess it is. That was the night Mason told me about his brother being sent to war, and about his hopes to travel back in time to save him.
No wonder he found it so hard to leave his parents behind in a ten-year jump. They’d already lost one son, and Mason would have seen the impact that had on them. Maybe that’s the reason he didn’t manage the full distance.
‘Do you still think about it?’ I ask gently. ‘Travelling back?’
A pause. ‘Sometimes.’
‘And … you still think it might be possible?’
Silence. But he’s thinking, I can tell from the stillness about him. I turn my head to check his expression, but it’s mostly in shadow.
‘Well, I have to face the evidence in front of me.’ Mason sighs. ‘We’ve never met a version of ourselves from the future, so that probably means we never work out how. People are born, they live, and then they die. Plants grow. It doesn’t happen in reverse. Things that have happened can’t be undone.’
He’s not saying it outright but I can hear his pain within each word. It can’t be undone.
‘Anyway. The way it feels when I’m on a really long jump inside the sinkhole, the sense of losing hold of who I am …’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s not about trying to find a way back in time anymore. Truth is, I’m still not sure I’ll always find my way out.’
The back of my neck tingles at what he’s saying. It terrifies me too, that sense of being lost in there. Frozen forever, outside time.
My eyes search his expression in the dim light. ‘Maybe you’ll find a way to go backwards one day,’ I say. ‘Just not the way you expect.’
‘Maybe.’ Mason hitches himself up onto one elbow and rests his head in a hand. ‘Sometimes I imagine that he’s still alive in some parallel world. My brother, I mean. Somewhere out there, he’s in an alternate universe, doing his thing. Maybe he came back from the war, or maybe he never went. So he still gets to experience it all … just not with me, now. Not in this reality.’
‘So you’re saying … there might be a different version of you out there? A different version of me?’
‘An infinite number, perhaps.’ I can hear a smile in his voice, the way he gets when he talks about stuff like this. ‘Or maybe not so many. Some scientists think that an alternate universe is created out of an event, a simple act of observation that splits reality in two. The moment when someone decides to take one path instead of another …’
I’m expecting him to keep talking, because this is the sort of stuff that Mason loves more than anything. He only ever seems truly alive when he’s thinking about these things. But he stays quiet for ages.
I tuck my arm under my head, staring into the infinite sky. Until I’d learnt to time skip, I would have said this was crazy weird. But after spending time in the tunnel, experiencing the place where no time exists … It’s not much of a stretch to imagine there could be another version of me, staring into an alternate universe at this very moment, wondering about these exact same things.
I’m turning my head to check his expression when Mason says, ‘When I think about a world where my brother never went to war, I can’t help wondering: would I still have gone searching for the time-skipping stuff I obsessed over these past years? Would I have noticed the gaps in the woman’s history map?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure I would have been looking. It gives me … a chill,’ Mason says. ‘Trying to imagine a universe where we never work out that time skipping is possible.’
That totally spins me out. I hold back a shiver, trying to imagine a world where I had never felt the flow and shift of time, never once had the full-body jolt of a return …
‘And the bit
‘Remember the blackout?’ Mason asks quietly.
My heart beats quicker. ‘Of course.’
It seems only a few months ago. Not years. For us, I guess it is. That was the night Mason told me about his brother being sent to war, and about his hopes to travel back in time to save him.
No wonder he found it so hard to leave his parents behind in a ten-year jump. They’d already lost one son, and Mason would have seen the impact that had on them. Maybe that’s the reason he didn’t manage the full distance.
‘Do you still think about it?’ I ask gently. ‘Travelling back?’
A pause. ‘Sometimes.’
‘And … you still think it might be possible?’
Silence. But he’s thinking, I can tell from the stillness about him. I turn my head to check his expression, but it’s mostly in shadow.
‘Well, I have to face the evidence in front of me.’ Mason sighs. ‘We’ve never met a version of ourselves from the future, so that probably means we never work out how. People are born, they live, and then they die. Plants grow. It doesn’t happen in reverse. Things that have happened can’t be undone.’
He’s not saying it outright but I can hear his pain within each word. It can’t be undone.
‘Anyway. The way it feels when I’m on a really long jump inside the sinkhole, the sense of losing hold of who I am …’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s not about trying to find a way back in time anymore. Truth is, I’m still not sure I’ll always find my way out.’
The back of my neck tingles at what he’s saying. It terrifies me too, that sense of being lost in there. Frozen forever, outside time.
My eyes search his expression in the dim light. ‘Maybe you’ll find a way to go backwards one day,’ I say. ‘Just not the way you expect.’
‘Maybe.’ Mason hitches himself up onto one elbow and rests his head in a hand. ‘Sometimes I imagine that he’s still alive in some parallel world. My brother, I mean. Somewhere out there, he’s in an alternate universe, doing his thing. Maybe he came back from the war, or maybe he never went. So he still gets to experience it all … just not with me, now. Not in this reality.’
‘So you’re saying … there might be a different version of you out there? A different version of me?’
‘An infinite number, perhaps.’ I can hear a smile in his voice, the way he gets when he talks about stuff like this. ‘Or maybe not so many. Some scientists think that an alternate universe is created out of an event, a simple act of observation that splits reality in two. The moment when someone decides to take one path instead of another …’
I’m expecting him to keep talking, because this is the sort of stuff that Mason loves more than anything. He only ever seems truly alive when he’s thinking about these things. But he stays quiet for ages.
I tuck my arm under my head, staring into the infinite sky. Until I’d learnt to time skip, I would have said this was crazy weird. But after spending time in the tunnel, experiencing the place where no time exists … It’s not much of a stretch to imagine there could be another version of me, staring into an alternate universe at this very moment, wondering about these exact same things.
I’m turning my head to check his expression when Mason says, ‘When I think about a world where my brother never went to war, I can’t help wondering: would I still have gone searching for the time-skipping stuff I obsessed over these past years? Would I have noticed the gaps in the woman’s history map?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure I would have been looking. It gives me … a chill,’ Mason says. ‘Trying to imagine a universe where we never work out that time skipping is possible.’
That totally spins me out. I hold back a shiver, trying to imagine a world where I had never felt the flow and shift of time, never once had the full-body jolt of a return …
‘And the bit
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