Yesterday (35 page)

I don’t understand what’s happening. She could’ve taken us last night if she’d wanted to. She could’ve and she didn’t.

“It’s true,” I tell him. “That’s what I saw.”

The woman waves a small envelope over her head as I cautiously approach, Garren a step behind me. “I have new ID for you too. I’m going to set it down and walk away. The ownership papers for the car are in the glove box and made out in your new names. Take the car. Take the ID. Go to Vancouver or wherever else you think you want to be but you have to go
now.
”

We’re so focused on what the old woman’s saying that we don’t see the lean man barging over from across the street until it seems as if it’s already too late. I don’t recognize him but he’s walking with a sense of purpose that can be no coincidence.

“Are you going to shoot us all?” the old woman asks.

“Don’t you think that might create more problems than it will solve?”

“I’m not going to shoot anyone,” the man insists. “I’m this boy’s uncle. He’s a runaway. So is the girl. I’m just here to bring them home.”

“He’s not anyone’s uncle,” I object.

But the white-haired woman already knows that and is striding towards the man with a stillness in her blue eyes that steals my breath. “You’re not taking them,” she tells him.

“Listen, it has nothing to do with you.” The man retreats a step. “It’s family business, okay? I’m sure you think you’re helping these kids but what they need is to be back with their families.”

Across the street a radio crackles and a disembodied voice demands an update. The man casts a fl eeting look over his shoulder at his car as the radio continues to spit out noise. The voice could be the director’s himself and I hear it ask for a description of the vehicle.

“Freya, Garren, get in the car,” the woman commands, moving ever closer to the man whose job it is to steal us and make us forget forever. She’s closer to him now than she is to us.

“No.” The man raises his hand as we step nearer to the silver car. He reaches into his jacket for his gun and aims it at us. The woman lunges at him, one of her hands grasping for the gun as her body blocks his.

She’s still shouting at us and I’m staring at her, shocked that someone so old could hold him off, even for a moment.

“Freya, take Garren and go. You lost him the last time you got this far. It could happen again.”

Again.
My veins run cold as the truth echoes inside me.

What would I do if Garren was killed today? I’d do everything within my power to fi nd Victor Soto in the here and now, twenty-two years after Lake Nipigon whipped him into 1963. A U.N.A. archivist discovered evidence of him, which means there must be a trail to follow. And then, once I’d reached Victor, I’d ask him for the exact location of Lake Nipigon, which would send me back seventy-eight years, seven months and eleven days in time.

Eventually, I would come back to this moment, if I lived long enough. I would do anything I could to stop them from killing Garren.

It’s what I
did.
Once already. The woman in front of me is another Freya. Even as I realize it the fact seems impossible to grasp. It loops repeatedly inside my head, slipping and sliding as I tumble after it.
She
is
me.
The knowledge pounds between my ears as Garren tears towards the altercation.

The old woman— old Freya— is driving her fi st into the man’s Adam’s apple. I’m running too and the gun goes off.

She— I— collapse in a heap. The man gasps for breath but he still has the gun. Garren grabs for it, grappling with the man. I throw myself into the fi ght, hurl myself between them, the old woman lying at our feet.

When the second shot goes off I don’t know what’s happened— which of us has been hit— until the man sinks to his knees next to my dying old body, leaving me with the gun in my hand. My fi ngers are bloody but I can’t feel any pain— the blood must be all his. Garren and I watch the director’s man thump to the ground, blood gushing from his chest.

“We have to go,” Garren cries. “Get in the car.”

I drop the gun and sink to my knees next to the woman I could become. The man got her in the neck and she’s bleeding badly but still alive. “It’s me,” I tell Garren, because I don’t know if he understands that yet. “She’s
me.
”

I reach for her hand and squeeze. Her fi ngers are freezing. I can barely feel her return the pressure but her gaze is holding mine. Her stare is tender, protective. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

She begins to smile as if it’s okay, as if this is how it was supposed to go all along. I guess from her point of view it was. Then she shuts her eyes and stops breathing and I know we can’t stay here another second.

If we get caught now everything she did would have been for nothing.

I feel Garren’s arm on my back. “I have the envelope,” he says quietly. She must have dropped it when she lunged for the director’s man. “Please, Freya,
let’s go.
”

I get up and stumble towards the car, my face streaming with tears. She left the key in the ignition for us and Garren jumps into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. I burrow into the passenger seat, feeling miles away. We all lose ourselves to something eventually, but not like this. I can’t imagine what the other Freya must have gone through to get here. I thought I’d had it hard but suddenly my own diffi culties feel like nothing in comparison. So much of her life must have been lived with this day in mind. The odds would’ve been against her from the start.

I don’t know how I’d do it. But I would. I never thought of myself as weak but that kind of strength is a revelation. I would go back in time to give some newer version of me a better chance at happiness.

Only I won’t have to. She did it for me and I’m fi lled with a gratitude so cavernous that it makes me cry harder.

Why didn’t she approach me at the hotel last night? The sole reason I can imagine is that ominous visions kept her from intervening earlier. It seems that she wanted to get as close as possible to the moment that she lost Garren last time. Every step we take has the potential to change something, create a ripple that gives rise to potential new dangers from the director’s men. The confl icting visions in my head made me acutely aware of that. So did Garren’s gunshot wound. Having failed once, given the chance to do things over it appears that I’d walk in my own footsteps exactly until just before the crucial minute, as near as a person can come to cheating fate.

Not that I believe in fate. How could I, knowing that you can change the past? But old Freya must have reached the conclusion that she shouldn’t make waves. When she saw me in the lobby she knew which path we’d ultimately choose today and knew those hours in the dark with Garren lay ahead of me too. As right as those hours felt, like something that was meant to happen, that doesn’t mean they were fate either— only that some moments have a special shine to them, the quality of being the best and truest they can be.

We’re out of town, on a highway to who knows where, before Garren or I say anything.

“Where are you going?” I ask. I’ve cried all the moisture from my voice. It sounds like sandpaper.

“North.” Garren takes his eyes off the road to glance at me. “I don’t know where we catch up with the Trans-Canada Highway but it’s north somewhere. When we get far enough away we can ask for directions.”

I nod dazedly. I don’t know how long this will all take to sink in.

“It’ll be days before we get to Vancouver,” he continues.

“At this time of year we’re bound to run into some really shitty weather on the way. I see a lot of motels in our immediate future.” Garren lowers his voice, his right hand landing on my thigh. “I won’t ask you what you see.” His individual fi ngers tap my jeans in quick succession, over and over until I reach across the gearshift and touch him back.

I still don’t know what to say— how to put my feelings into words— and Garren just keeps talking through it. About anything. That he didn’t realize how strong the sun was until we got in the car. That he’s glad for the false memories because they make driving a snap. That he’s not sure whether the car has snow tires but he hopes so because we have a long, long way to go. Miles to go before we sleep, he jokes.

Garren’s eyes fi ll with something I can’t describe. “But you can sleep for a while if you want,” he adds.

I don’t want to. I want to stay awake with him. “I can drive later,” I mumble. “We can switch when you’re tired.”

Garren nods and touches me again. It’s like we can’t stop. We need to keep doing it to prove we’re both still here.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, good.” He scratches his cheek and then retrieves the envelope from his coat pocket, handing it to me. “Have a look and see what’s in there.”

I tear it open. There are two sets of identifi cation inside— driver’s licenses, birth certifi cates and the Canadian version of Social Security cards (Social Insurance cards). I stare at the faces in the photographs, our faces. My identifi cation is made out in the name of Holly Allen and the photo of me on the driver’s license looks almost exactly like I do now.

Maybe my hair’s ever so slightly longer. Garren’s photograph is the one I’ve spied on his fake student card. I guess it was the only one of him I had.

“You’re Robert Clark,” I tell him, clearing my throat.

“You turn twenty on July twelfth.”

“And who are you?”

I quote my name and new date of birth. I was eighteen as of December third.

“Holly,” Garren repeats. “That’s nice. Not as nice as Freya but I guess we have to get used to the new names.” His eyes seek mine out and now I think I recognize most of the various emotions I see in them. Some of them were in the fi nal look old Freya gave me. Some of them are mirror-image refl ections of feelings I can’t ever imagine having for anyone but Garren. The bit left over is pure admiration and I listen to Garren say, “I can’t believe everything she must have done to reach us. I can’t—” He cuts himself off, his eyes shining as he starts over. “
You
did
all
this.
You saved my life.”

He’s going to make me start crying again. I shoot him a look that translates simultaneously as
you’re welcome
and
shut
up.
I only stopped unraveling a few minutes ago; I’m not ready to get that raw again.

We fall mute, both of us gazing determinedly at the road ahead until I believe I can trust my voice. “I think … you’re more of a Robbie than a Robert.”

Garren’s green eyes glint wetly in the sun. “Okay.” He takes a swipe at one of his eyes. “So I already have myself a nickname.”

I lay my hand on his leg for what must be the fourteenth time since we started driving and try to think of something else to say that won’t make either of us cry. “
Robbie,
you know, ever since I got back here those Winston Churchill quotes from the Dailies keep popping into my head.”

“They were good quotes.” Garren raises his chin. His voice is bold and defi ant as he says, “Never, never, never give up.”

Never, never, never.
Winston was on to something there.

I smile for the fi rst time since we got into the car. It feels faint but I think it will soon be stronger. “Can we drive straight through to Winnipeg?” I ask.
Miles
to
go
before
we
sleep.

It seems right to be on the road. Like as long as we’re moving we’ll never be caught. Never, never, never. I can’t see anything but the present. No visions tugging at my mind. I hope it’s a good sign, and maybe when we reach Vancouver and see the whales I’ll fi nally believe we’re safe. We’re not invincible but we’re defi nitely each other’s best defense system. I’ve proven that.

“Of course we can,” Garren says, and there’s his hand on me again, again, again. “We can take turns sleeping in the backseat.”

“That sounds good,” I tell him, and I stare across the highway at the sea of 1985 people in their clunky old pollut-ing vehicles. The way the light hits the bobbing jumbles of metal makes the cars look nearly pretty. They shimmer as they hurtle forward and skate across lanes. There’s a ponytailed girl with a rambunctious dog in the backseat of the Buick ahead of us, and a bearded man in a leather jacket singing along to his radio in the station wagon on our left. These are our people now. This is our time. I fl ick on the radio and fl ip through the stations, looking for the fi rst familiar song I can fi nd. I stop on a Depeche Mode tune and Garren smiles.

We drive on, deeper into the present, disappearing seam-lessly into 1985. Just a regular teenage couple with the radio up loud, wondering what, aside from love, the world has in store for them.

As always, thanks to my husband, Paddy, for being my trusty fi rst reader and sounding board and for making me laugh when that’s what I need the most.

I’ve been on many journeys with my editor, Shana Corey, but this is our fi rst trip through time together. Thanks, Shana, for your patience and insight. You’ve made my books a greater thing on every occasion and that’s some special kind of magic.

Many thanks also to our partner in crime (and fellow Billy Bragg fan), editor Amy Black, and my trusty, unfl appable agent, Stephanie Thwaites.

My boundless gratitude to Nicole de las Heras for creating a cover that looks like a zillion dollars and awes me every time I look at it. Nicole, I can’t thank you enough.

Finally, I’d be remiss to write a book set in 1985 and not mention music in my acknowledgments. So
enormous
thanks to the bands and artists who shaped my experience of the fi rst half of the 1980s. It wouldn’t have been a fraction as cool a time without your music in my life: ABBA, Adam Ant/Adam and the Ants, A-ha, The Alarm, Alison Moyet, Alphaville, Altered Images, Art of Noise, Asia, Banana-rama, The Bangles, The Beat, Berlin, Big Country, Billy Bragg, Billy Idol, Billy Joel, Blancmange, Blondie, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, The Boomtown Rats, Bow Wow Wow, Bronski Beat, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams, Bryan Ferry, The Cars, China Crisis, Chris de Burgh, Clannad, The Clash, Corey Hart, Culture Club, The Cure, Cyndi Lauper, David Bowie, Def Leppard, Depeche Mode, Dire Straits, Double, The Dream Academy, Duran Duran, Echo & the Bunnymen, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Eurythmics, The Fixx, Fleet-wood Mac, A Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, General Public, Genesis, Go West, The Go-Go’s, Gowan, Grace Jones, Haircut 100, Heaven 17, Honeymoon Suite, Howard Jones, The Human League, The Icicle Works, Images in Vogue, INXS, Irene Cara, J. Geils Band, Jackson Browne, The Jam, Jane Siberry, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Joan Jett, Joe Jackson, John Cougar, John Waite, Journey, Kajagoo-goo, Kate Bush, Kim Wilde, The Kinks, Kirsty MacColl, Laura Branigan, Level 42, Lionel Richie, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Loverboy, Luba, Madness, Madonna, Marillion, Martha and the Muffi ns, Men at Work, Men Without Hats, Midnight Oil, Modern, English, The Motels, Naked Eyes, Nena, New Order, Nick Heyward, Nik Kershaw, Nina Hagen, Olivia Newton-John, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark (OMD), The Parachute Club, Pat Benatar, Paul Hyde and the Payola$, Paul McCartney, Paul Young, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Pink Floyd, Platinum Blonde, The Police, The Pretenders, Prince, The Psychedelic Furs, Public Image Ltd., Queen, Quiet Riot, R.E.M., The Ramones, Rational Youth, Real Life, Red Rider, Rick Spring-fi eld, Romeo Void, Rough Trade, Roxy Music, Rush, Sade, Saga, Scorpions, Scritti Politti, Sheena Easton, Sheriff, Simple Minds, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Slade, The Smiths, Soft Cell, Spandau Ballet, The Specials, Split Enz, The Spoons, Stephen Duffy, The Stranglers, The Style Council, Talk Talk, Tears for Fears, Thompson Twins, ’Til Tuesday, Tina Turner, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Toto, Tri-umph, Twisted Sister, U2, UB40, Ultravox, Van Halen, Violent Femmes, Visage, Wah!, Wang Chung, The Waterboys, Wham!, Whitney Houston, The Who, Yazoo, and Yes.