The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman

Author:Rowan Coleman [Coleman, Rowan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2017-06-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

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Somewhere, thirty years from now, Pea is waiting for me in the building. It feels important that I get there before Riss does – to avoid meeting her – and try and get home. After all, I could hardly explain to her what I’m doing hiding in her home if she happened to run into me on the landing. Breaking into a run, I wish that running here, in this time I am not meant to be in, was like flying in dreams, effortless and magical. Instead, I am sweating and gasping for breath in the hot, thick night. Pausing for a second as I slam against the wall of the building, I catch my breath before letting myself in.

My mouth is full of the fear of discovery as I edge ever so slowly up first one flight of stairs and then the next. Her bedroom door is shut, and I don’t remember shutting it. Hesitating outside, I feel as if I am glued to the floorboards by adrenalin. Did she beat me back, climbing in through the window via the fire escape? I can’t risk opening the door.

Uncertain of what to do now, of how to try, I stand in the darkness of the landing and listen. A faint humming coming from Riss’s room, and a masculine cough from downstairs; it must be my grandfather. Then I catch the scent of white lilies, and I sense my sister is near me again; the veil is thinning. Following her trail back down the stairs, treading as light and carefully as I can, I walk into the kitchen where her scent seems to be the strongest, and close the door. Feeling the hard edge of the knife press against my hip, I take it out, looking around for a place to hide it. There’s an air vent in the wall, and it doesn’t take much effort to pull up one corner and slide the knife behind it.

As I imagine Pea waiting for me, I try to will myself back to her.

‘It’s time to go back,’ I say as purposefully as I can, as loudly as I can, trying not to be afraid of waking anyone up. ‘Go back, go back! GO BACK NOW!’

There is a creak in the floorboards up ahead, and I hear footsteps.

‘NOW!’ I make myself shout, the words filling the corners of the room.

All that is solid blows apart in one great explosion at incredible speed, before somehow rewinding and coming together again; the same but different, older. I come to in the present with a panicked start, leaning up against a door, my legs heavy as lead, lost inside my own body. It feels as if every drop of life has been wrung out of me.

Opening the door, I’m disorientated. Nothing is where I thought it would be. I thought my sister would be on the other side of it.

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