The Fifth World

"Where have you been?" I heard my mother growl when I teleported into the kitchen for her and Adam to see. Her hair is a mess, her face is even more pale than usual and there are shadows around her eyes. Adam ran towards me and wrapped his skinny, little arms around me.

"Out," I mumbled quietly, shrugged Adam's arms away and bolted for the stairs. Mum followed me angrily.

"Bo, you've been gone since yesterday, where have you been?"
I've been one for over twenty four hours?

I turned back to Mum and glared at her, "you definitely seem relieved to see me."

She scowls, "I'm used to it, Bo. For the last few months you've been disappearing for hours and sometimes days at a time! With no explanation! You remember last time, don't you?"

One time I had disappeared for a weekend, to me it was actually an hour but I returned to the present forty eight hours later around the same place I had disappeared. I had time traveled into the past, I had watched my father's funeral again. It's not the first time I've seen a replay of it. Seeing it for the first time, actually standing there when it had all just happened was one of the most painful things to ever happen in my life. But watching it again, watching my mother from a different angle, my brother, me, it was even worse. When I arrived back to the present I had found that Mum had called the coppers and there were search teams looking for me everywhere. I had disappeared without a trace.

"You won't understand," I whispered as Adam followed us. I charged up the stairs.

"Help me understand, Bo!"

I stopped when I got to the top and spun around to meet her, "Mum, please, if I could tell you I would. But there are so many reasons why I can't. I can't tell you because I'm protecting you and Adam."
I can't break the law. Ultimate secrecy is the law. If the Fifth World Government found out about me telling Mum and Adam about my secret... they could be in trouble as well as me. Not only that, but what if Adam told someone? He's a child, he could easily let something slip. He doesn't understand the importance of things like this. I don't think he even really understands that I have the ability to jump from location to location.

Mum breathed out once and calmed herself, she then looked away from me and back to me again, there was a tear in her eye, "then what do I do if you're missing for longer? What if you really are in trouble? I can't lose you too."

I suddenly felt guilty. I sighed, kissed her cheek once and turned around and headed to my bedroom. I shoved a chair in front of my bedroom door so nobody could get in. But I wasn't alone in my bedroom.

"When did you go?" I heard Cynric ask me.

I sighed in relief, turned around and sat on my bed as he sat on my window sill across from me. I smiled, "you'll find out in the future."

He raised an eyebrow, "we didn't break any laws, did we?"

I snorted, "I wish."

He smiled softly, "are you still mad with me?"

I shrugged, "I don't know. Are you going to start telling me the truth?"

"Bo," he groaned, "I can't tell you what happens in your future."

"It's your past!" I yell at him.

He shakes his head angrily, "you don't understand. If I tell you the future might change."

Oh come on! "Oh god, enough." I yell at him, "Why couldn't you just tell me that things had or are going to happen between us?"

He stares at me, a long glare, actually. He is trying to think of an excuse or any kind of answer that can avoid him giving me a good answer, an answer I want to hear. Or maybe he'll just answer with a question, I really hate it when people do that.

"It's against the law," he said through gritted teeth, "and I was young back then, I wasn't afraid of breaking rules and I was selfish."

I snorted, "Angelicans aren't meant to be selfish."

He didn't say anything. He just sighed and buried his face in his hands. I sighed. I want to learn to control my powers. I have to learn to control how my time traveling abilities. I want to learn so I can go back in time and see the younger Cynric, the naive one. I want to make him fall even more in love with me so when I get back to the present that maybe everything will work. Or I could just run away with the younger Cynric and I could live in the past, But how can I do that? It's selfish. If I go to the Fifth World, what about Mum and Adam?
No. It's stupid. I won't do that. Stupid plan. If I do that... the future could change. The present could change. I sighed.

"Cynric, I want to learn to use my powers but I can't leave home. Mum and Adam are here-"

He nodded his head, "I understand that and I admire you for choosing to stay."

"I love them more than anything. I can't leave them."

He sighed deeply and let his head fall into his hands again, something is troubling him. I out of almost everyone can probably read Cynric the best. I don't know who his family or friends are but I'm pretty sure I know almost everything about him - well, his manners, his habits, etc. I may not know his personal life, but I know him. What's the matter with him?

"What is it?" I asked.

He groaned loudly.

"Cynric?"

"There's something you don't know about me," he breathed, "I've told you that Angelicans have unique gifts - gifts that can be amazing and thoroughly help them through their life."
Yes... and why are you telling me this?

"I told you I didn't have a gift. But I do. I can see anyone's past."

My mouth dropped, "what?"

"One simple touch of anybodies flesh and I can see their entire past. It plays out like a movie and happens within only a matter of seconds. Every deep and dark secret I can see. Every hidden detail I will find. I can know everything about someone with just one touch of their skin."

"And why didn't you tell me this?" I demanded. This is valuable information. Cynric could know everything about everyone. He must know about my past! About me! What secrets lie there? What don't I know? Or what does Cynric know? Whatever it is, it must have been why he never told me about his gift.

"Because your past could kill you."

"How?" I asked again, questions are on the tip of my tongue, so many questions that need to be answered, "what is it, Cynric? You can tell me! You have to tell me! Tell me what you know!"

A strange expression came over Cynric's face, it was as if he were shocked or something, his eyes stared at me, hard, and then he opened his mouth to speak. He just started explaining, everything, from beginning to end. He couldn't stop speaking and the more words he spoke the angrier and more furious I got.
I know everything now. Somehow it all makes sense. I could imagine my parents, on the run, my mother absolutely terrified, my father saddened but determined to go on. To leave me. I felt my head fall into my hands. I could hear my mother's whimpering as my father kept an arm around her and as they disappeared into the cold night. I had cried as I lay across the door step, wrapped in thick blankets. I was a baby, an infant. I was crying for my parents. My parents that weren't there. That had left me.
My parents were important people, part of the government, actually. And they had fallen in love which to me isn't surprising at all. If you are attracted to somebody and are forced to see them every day at work then it is going to happen. Love will conquer. Anyway, Cynric told me that the Thornes had discovered the truth about my parents and wanted me. They wanted me because they knew that I would have capabilities that nobody else could have.

"I'm half Angelican," I whispered, "and half a Time Jumper."

He nodded his head, "you have a gift too."

"An Angelican gift?"

His long fingers ran through his golden hair and I heard him swallow, "you can manipulate."

I felt an eyebrow raise, "what? I can manipulate?"

He nodded his head, "I don't really know how it works... but what I do know is that you can influence anybody you want. Any argument, any debate, any command, that person will agree with you and listen to you. You did it to me just before. You made me tell you everything that I know... about your past."

My mouth fell open, "oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, Cynric."

He shrugged, stood up and came over towards me. "It's okay, you just need to learn how to control it. You have to be careful with what you ask for and what you say and do."

I nodded my head, looked down at the floor and then back up at him. I have an idea. An idea that will make him hate me. Or probably love me. I looked back up at him and smiled. "So," I say, "if you touch me, right now, you can see everything about me. Every memory I have ever had, every situation I have ever been in."

He shrugged.

"And I can make anybody, anybody, do anything I want. Even you."

I watched how his golden eyebrow raised, "where is this going?"

"Kiss me." I said.

He stared at my face, his eyes hard, "no."

"Cynric," I hissed his name.

"No." He knows that I can make him. I can just say the words and he'll have to do it, he'll want it, he'll enjoy it. He'll see every memory I have ever had. He probably has seen most of my life but he hasn't seen what's been happening in my life for the passed week. Unless he has been watching over me.

"Cynric," I said through gritted teeth, "I want you to kiss me."

His hands were suddenly at my shoulders and he thrust me into his chest, quite roughly. I was suddenly in his arms, warmth surrounding my body entirely, his lips touching mine. Beautifully. Perfectly.