The Named (6 page)

Ethan stops and turns round. ‘Why? We’re nearly there.’

With a wide sweep of my arm I indicate the surrounding deepening woodland. ‘It’s just bush. And it’s getting darker the deeper we go into it. It’s creepy.’

But then he says, ‘What happened to that pesky little monkey I used to know who couldn’t stop climbing trees and jumping down cliffs and getting into trouble?’

My head tilts to one side. He’s appealing to that part of me I’ve always found difficult to deny. ‘How much further? Exactly?’

‘Ten more minutes, I promise.’

‘And when we get to this half-standing deserted cabin you’re going to tell me how I managed to heal myself this morning?’

‘Absolutely.’

He has me now completely hooked, and he knows it.
He doesn’t even wait for a reply, but starts jogging off in a general forward direction. I run to catch up. After ten or so minutes he stops, and starts pulling vines down out of his way. I follow and before I realise it, we’re standing beneath a couple of old wooden cross beams.

‘We’re here,’ he says.

I do a full circle and wonder where the rest of the cabin is. After a few minutes of pulling vines down, the remains of a brick chimney and part of a decayed wall are revealed. That, apparently, is all there is left of the cabin, other than the two overhead beams and a couple of rotting timber posts on the other side.

‘This is it?’ I ask.

He nods proudly. ‘What do you think?’

I’m starting to think this guy is way too weird. ‘I swear you don’t really want to know.’

He walks around, stopping occasionally to describe the room – two rooms, he says. ‘The divider ran along here.’ He draws a line in the air with his hand about two-thirds across from the remaining beams, then points across my shoulder. ‘Over there was a small window. I remember it clearly. It had calico curtains held back by two bright-yellow ribbons Rosalind made herself. She made everything, come to think of it, including the family’s clothes.’ A warm, fuzzy expression slides over his face. ‘She liked to add a splash of colour every chance she got.’ He looks at me. ‘Their clothes were really drab. Half the time she made them out of old hessian bags.’

He walks to the other end of the imaginary room and runs his hand down an imaginary object. ‘This is where the wood stove sat. The damper she made in
here was the best I’d ever tasted.’

These words strike me as a little odd. A nervous flutter starts up in the pit of my stomach. How on earth could Ethan have tasted this damper, or seen the calico curtains for that matter?

‘You see over there?’ He points somewhere over my left shoulder. I turn to look. ‘That’s where Rosalind hung the family portrait. It was a hand-painted gift. It was the only time she allowed herself to show some pride.’

‘Ethan, who were these people?’

‘Relatives,’ he replies as if I should know this.

‘OK, but it’s weird how you know so much about them, like you’ve … researched them really well,’ I finish, too cowardly to voice what I wanted to ask. I mean, he can’t really believe he
lived
here. It’s plausible to think he wanted to live here. His own home sounds terribly depressing. But this is not what Ethan means.

‘I researched them all right. First-hand.’

This too is a strange thing to say. I decide to be brave. ‘But the people that lived here –’

‘Died well over a hundred years ago.’

‘So … how do you …?’

‘Know so much about where they lived?’

I nod, spooked and speechless.

‘That’s easy. You see, the woman who lived here – Rosalind Maclean – is a direct ancestor of mine. A great-great something-or-other on my mother’s side.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And I lived here with Rosalind and her children – all six of them – for three whole months. Three great months, to tell the truth.’

Now I’m completely freaked out. Ethan is just too
peculiar. Matt was right after all with his distrust of this guy. He knew something, obviously. Well, I wish he’d told me earlier what it was. Here I am in one of the most isolated sections of the national park, alone with this weirdo, in the near dark.

I think I’m in trouble.

Chapter Eight

Ethan

I’m going too fast for her, but hey, I don’t have a lot of time to play with. My main objective tonight is to make her believe, even if I have to shock her. Disbelief is the biggest hurdle to overcome. I have to open her mind to the concept that there is more to this mortal world than she’s been raised to believe. That there is such a thing as the paranormal.

She plonks down cross-legged on the moist earthen floor, shaking her head and dropping it into her hands. Then she looks up at me with dark, suspiciously narrowed eyes. ‘You’re freaking me out. I think we should leave.’

‘But I haven’t explained –’

She sticks out her hand with one finger pointing straight up. ‘That’s right, you haven’t. Now tell me how I healed my finger.’

I go and sit in front of her. ‘You’re a healer.’

‘
What
?’

‘I checked with Arkarian –’

‘Why do you keep mumbling that strange name? Who is
Arkarian
?’

‘He’s my …’ I try to find words she’ll understand. ‘My area supervisor.’

She squints at me. ‘As in your employer?’

‘Yeah, sort of. Well, yes, actually, but I don’t get paid.’ She groans. ‘You work for nothing? Somehow, Ethan, I can’t see it.’

‘Well, thanks. Whatever you think of me I’m not a mercenary. The rewards of this job far outweigh any monetary pleasures.’

‘O-K,’ she says slowly, humouring me, her head edging a little closer. ‘What exactly is your job?’

Hmm, Arkarian told me to go slow. In other words, explain enough for Isabel to understand without blowing her mind and stuffing all chance of her believing what I say in future. ‘I’m like a guard. Well, actually I
am
a guard. I was an Apprentice guard for a long time, but now I’m a Trainer.’

‘So what do you guard, Ethan? Girls?’

‘Very funny. And no, I don’t guard girls, though that idea does have its good points. I guard
time
. More specifically,
history
. My job is to make sure it all happens the way it’s supposed to, the way it already did.’

She greets this with a totally disbelieving lift of her eyebrows. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I know it’s a hard concept to understand, so don’t worry too much about taking it all in just yet. What I want you to accept tonight is that there is this other world that works within our mortal one. Time in this other world isn’t measured the same way it is here. There are all these different facets. Imagine a brilliant crystal that’s mostly round.’

The only indication that she’s listening is the narrowing of her eyes. But then she says, ‘Are you trying
to tell me that in this other world time is round, like a sphere?’

‘Sort of, but remember we’re just talking about the measurement of time, which is, by the way, a very mortal concept.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Yeah, and, well, there’s this place called the Citadel. It’s huge. You have no idea – rooms and corridors you could walk through forever and not have seen it all. Well, anyway, time there isn’t measured at all.’

‘Really?’

‘You see, way back in time –’

‘Mortal time?’ she asks with a mocking tone.

I try to ignore the tone, hoping my explanation will help unravel the mystery for her. ‘Yeah, that’s right. There was some trouble and, well …’ But the look on her face is too hard to ignore. She’s not taking any of this in. I’ve got to keep this simple. ‘Look, do you know your myths?’

‘Which ones?’

‘Greek. And Babylonian before that.’

‘Hmm, are you talking about the creation myth, and how everything supposedly started from a mist called Chaos?’

I smile encouragingly, but go on to explain, ‘It didn’t exactly go like that. You see, Chaos is a woman, one very uptight immortal.’

Her eyebrows lift, just a little. ‘You said that in the present tense.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What are you saying, Ethan? You’re starting to freak me out again.’

‘I’m trying to say that all our troubles began many
thousands of years ago when one very bored goddess decided to create a little chaos. She found a way to tamper with the past. At first it was just fun, but it gave her a sense of power above her compatriots.’

‘The other gods?’

‘Right. Well, this particular goddess began experimenting and soon discovered that by tampering with past lives, she changed the present. She realised that if she changed enough past events she could create a future that made her even more powerful. Her sole focus soon became total domination – of the world. The more she changed to suit herself, the more power she gained. Over the centuries she grew obsessed with the idea. She started recruiting her own army of followers and began a kind of order. We in the Guard have come to know it as the Order of Chaos. It’s because of her and her Order that the Guard was formed. And it’s sort of ironic that we refer to it as an ‘order’ ’cause her armies, and the result of their actions, create anything but order.’

Isabel doesn’t say a word, just stares at me with those big brown eyes that seemingly grow darker every passing second. Then she sighs and shakes her head. ‘That’s ridiculous. And if it were true, why don’t we see any physical proof in the world today?’

‘There’s plenty of proof, just look around. The result of this chaotic disorder is famine, plague, flood, war, hostility.’

She scoffs at me. ‘Those things are either natural or man-made disasters.’

I think she’s just being particularly stubborn. She’s not even trying to allow the idea to take shape in her mind. ‘OK, look, what if I tell you that you and I are
part of a Proph— a plan.’

‘What sort of plan?’

‘A plan to preserve history and maintain a stable present, so that – and this is the important part – the future unfolds as it …’ I’m losing her again. ‘Never mind.’

She groans dramatically. ‘Why should I believe this fantasy story of yours? You know you sound completely off your head. Are you on something?’

‘Were you on something when you healed your own finger this morning? Did you imagine the wound, or was it real?’

She glances down at her hand. I shine the torch on her fingers. She sighs and wriggles around. ‘I don’t know. It sure felt real.’

‘It was real. You know it was. You healed yourself ’cause you willed it to happen. You’re a
healer
and your time is approaching, so your skills are forming in a physical sense.’

For a second I think she’s accepting, but then her natural human scepticism digs in and she shakes her head. ‘This is too unreal. Everything you’ve said, it’s not possible.’

An idea hits me. There’s only one way to make her believe quickly. ‘Hold on, don’t move.’ I get up, thinking I’ll just have to use my other skill. Closing my eyes, I visualise exactly how the cabin was when I visited Rosalind in 1858, right down to the brick fireplace, the wood-burning stove and the window with the calico curtains.

‘Oh, wow!’

Her soft exclamation as she staggers to her feet has me opening my eyes and looking at my handiwork.
The cabin is now fully restored, including the roughly made cedar table and chairs, stacks of bunks with their coarse blankets and lumpy mattresses, the family portrait over the top of the fireplace; and of course the cabin wouldn’t have the right feel without burning kindling in the stone fireplace, and the warm scent of freshly baked damper wafting from the oven.

Isabel touches my arm with a trembling hand, her mouth gaping, eyes hugely round. ‘Ethan, how?’

It’s exactly the reaction I want. Complete awe. ‘It’s an illusion. It’s one of my two skills. You saw me use the other skill in the classroom this morning. Remember the pen?’

She nods, still staring at the transformed room. ‘You created this?’

‘Only in your head. If you wanted to, you could look through it to the reality, but you’re not trained to use that part of your psyche yet. I’ll teach you though, if you let me. You see, you’re one of the Named. And now you’ve been chosen to be my Apprentice.’

Her ingrained sense of adventure starts to kick in. It starts in her eyes. They lose their wild frightened look, switching to an interested, verging on eager, curiosity.

And I realise that for now at least, I have her hooked.

Chapter Nine

Isabel

Ethan is really weird, more than anyone else I’ve ever met or am ever likely to. But I can’t deny what I see with my own eyes. The cabin, fully restored, smells and all, leaves me breathless. At least now I can rest assured I’m not going crazy and I really did heal myself this morning. Or maybe I
am
going crazy and this whole scene is part of my delusion.

I inhale a final whiff of home-baked bread before leaving the warm cabin for the chilling air outside. A few steps away I turn for a last look, but the cabin is gone. Without the proof before my eyes it’s easy to think I imagined the whole thing. Instinctively I feel the top of my finger again. No wound. No tenderness. Nothing.

What on earth is happening to me?

Ethan tugs on my arm. ‘C’mon, Isabel, we have to hurry. We can’t risk upsetting your brother. We have to be careful not to alert anyone to what we’re doing. There’re these codes, you see, that must never be broken. The first is secrecy …’

By the time we get back to the house I sadly understand
what’s happening: I definitely am going crazy.

But we start training the very next day, straight after school, on the far side of the lake where hardly anyone goes. I’ve had all night to think about this strange other world within my mortal world, as Ethan puts it, and I have to admit it does sound a little exciting. Travelling backwards through time? Making sure the past evolves as it should? Wow.

But I’m no fool. It could still be some nasty elaborate hoax. A practical joke of the lowest degree. I wouldn’t put it past Ethan, or Matt for that matter.

Once we get right around the other side of Angel Falls Lake, it takes another twenty minutes for Ethan to be satisfied there’s no one in the area. He’s really careful about this secrecy stuff. It’s all part of their survival apparently. ‘We should really be training indoors,’ he explains. ‘Arkarian has training rooms within the mountain but I find it stifling in there when we have all this.’ He holds up his hands to the surrounding mountains and brilliant sky overhead. ‘People rarely come here anyway.’