The Tears of Time

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Elanor whimpered in the grass, the remains of pain still surging through her limbs. A few metres away, the woman lay completely still, having crumpled minutes after muttering the spell which had stripped Ella of her senses. The pain residing gradually in her head, Ella sat up, trying to make sense of her muddled sense, which seemed to claim that the sky was spinning rather fast. Pummelling her forehead, she promptly fell over at her first attempt to stand, her head dizzying frightfully with a rush of blood.

Her second attempt lasted a little longer, and the third managed to stay upright long enough to stumble over to the woman. Falling to her knees next to her, Ella pushed the gun away, and checked for a pulse. It beat lightly against her fingertips, a faint and slow rhythm. Thankful the woman wasn’t dead; Ella stood again and began to walk away. Unable to get her bearings, she found herself on the Library steps.

A siren began to wail in the distance, getting louder as a police car and ambulance wound its way into the square. A small group of people rushed past Elanor on the steps, hustling the paramedics into the building with a buzz of anxiety.

The Librarian Elanor had met two days ago remained behind, explaining something to the police in hushed tones, her voice higher than it had been before. One of the officers nodded, and they began to make their way up the steps. As they passed Ella, something the Librarian whispered stuck in her mind.

“…they found him slumped on the floor, crushing a very rare medieval text,” she whispered, more disturbed by the books fate than that of the victim. Ella started, remembering the leather bound black book that the Professor had shown her. Impulsively, she raced after the police, running around the bookcases in order to get ahead. She slipped quietly into the study, her gaze taking in the chaos in a few glances. With only seconds to spare before the police arrived, she slipped into the corner between two bookcases, which left a square space unseen but for a thin gap, which she quickly closed by dragging one bookcase towards her.

Footsteps closed in, and from the slit between the bookcases, she watched as the three policemen entered the room, followed swiftly by the librarian. The youngest began to cordon off the door with police tape, whilst the others looked unfeeling at the body. Both had ‘Homicide’ embroidered in white cotton on their dark blue shirts.

“There aren’t any signs of a struggle ma’am,” said the first, a square-built man with short cut brown hair, in his mid-forties.

“But we heard such dreadful noises!” insisted the Librarian, repeatedly rubbing her elbows as if by hugging herself she would cease from falling apart.

“If you’ll go with Jimmy, he’ll take down your statement. Try and remember as much as possible,” the second shepherded her towards the door and Jimmy, the underdog with a kindly smile. He turned around and rolled his eyes at the other. They waited until the two were out of earshot, then began to discuss in lowered voices.

“Looks like a heart attack, Michael,” said the first, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves so that he didn’t leave fingerprints.

“Just like the other cases. No signs of a struggle, but witnesses swearing they heard fighting. What the hell is going on,” Michael, or Officer Parkton as his badge stated, wound his way round the desk to the body. He took out a plastic bag, and began to sweep the area for any tiny pieces of evidence. Elanor suddenly realised that her shoes were muddy.

There was a slight trial of mud leading from the door, plainly skirting the Professor’s body and to exactly where she was standing.

Any second now, one of the officers would see it. They were combing the area for evidence, how could they miss it? Elanor shivered, and for the second time that day, concentrated on making her breathing inaudible to the human ear. She closed her eyes, and let her mind drift to no particular thought, simply concentrating on the unconscious need to breathe in and out, gently, slowly. Her thought sank in on themselves, and by the time the police did notice her trial, she barely noticed their exclamation.

“Mike! There are footprints here!” exclaimed the second cop, his eyes following the trail quickly to the bookcases.

“Huh?” Mike looked up from his crouched position under the desk, knocking his head on the underside with a grunt of pain.

“Look.”

Mike stood up carefully, avoiding the sharp edge of the desk this time. He came over, following the footsteps in a glance towards Elanor’s hiding place.

“Paul, mark the bookcase’s position,” he ordered, his eyes looking suspiciously into the dark crevasse. The second officer, Paul, took out a piece of tailors chalk from a pocket, and began to mark the edge of the bookcase. Once finished, Mike pushed the bookcase to one side, flooding the gap with light.

“Huh,” Paul grunted, as the light revealed only an empty space, “I guess they noticed their footprints and took their shoes off.”

“Nah, that doesn’t make sense,” Mike sat down, scratching his head. He stopped, wondering why anybody thought it increased a person’s mental capacities to scratch.

“I suppose…” Paul assented, beginning to mark round the body. Jimmy ducked back into the room under the tape, a note pad open in his hand.

“Kay, let’s hear her statement Jim,” Mike nodded.

“Right, er, yes sir,” Jim tried to clear his throat importantly but only succeeded in choking, “I was working at the front desk, filing some books. I can’t remember the exact time, but it must have been around 6.00pm…”

Elanor gazed quietly out from her no-longer hiding place, her thoughts reeling slightly. Two policemen, and now a third, had just looked right through her. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t noticed her. They clearly weren’t able to see her. In fact, light seemed not to acknowledge her existence, because she wasn’t casting a shadow against the wall. Elanor gulped, mentally and physically running through checks on her existence. She had four fingers and a thumb on each hand, the time did not change when she looked away from the clock, and she couldn’t breath with her nose held and mouth closed. She came hesitantly to the conclusion that she wasn’t dreaming.

Within seconds of her new found invisibility, Ella was testing it to extremes.

Sound did seem to be a problem, as she soon realised when she tripped on the edge of the carpet, and made a large thwump, which scared Mike sufficient to make him jump to his feet. Ella panicked, momentarily loosing her dream-like state, flickering into existence for a brief moment. Mike went white, stuttering to Jim for help, who just looked around confused, allowing Ella time to escape before loosing her concentration permanently.

Still confused by what had just happened, Ella escaped the library quickly, her heart beating a little faster than was perhaps healthy. Her thoughts turned quickly to Emily, who she hadn’t seen since that scare with Dr Patterson. Fearing for her foster-mother’s safety, Ella set off, determined to at least make sure that Emily was still alive. At first she only aimed to check if there were lights on in the house, but it was late into the night by now, and Ella knew that Emily didn’t like to leave lights running whilst she slept. By the time Ella reached the house, she was planning an elaborate climb up the drain pipe. Once she was there, such plans were immediately banished.

Posted outside the door stood two tall figures, camouflaged in the shadow of the veranda, but still visible to Ella’s wary eye. With a sharp intake of breath, Elanor realised exactly how much the people in the grove knew about her. Everything.

They knew about the Hospital, about Emily, probably about Miss Grey, and every single prediction she’d ever made. They knew about her visions, and from what they had talked about in the grove, they actually knew more about her than she did. “Does she already know about her heritage?” a voice whispered through her head. Heritage was a heavy word. It implied family, fortune and expectancies… it implied parentage. These people knew who her birth parents were.

They knew who had left her on the steps of the United Embassy 17 years ago.

The thought stifled Elanor, her mind reeling once more, as it had a million times that day. All these sudden realisations must account for the pounding headache that had settle to the left of each of her temples.

Elanor stopped a few houses down, ducking into someone’s garden, and working her way through several back yards. She peered cautiously over the fence, catching sight of a further two watchers posted in the back garden, one next to the kitchen window, another on the shed. She moved quickly back out of sight, hiding under a bush to think. Her mind flashed back to the library study, and how she had somehow managed to become invisible. She tried to remember how she had felt before it had happened, training her mind to the same feeling of intense calm, moving her thoughts in on themselves.

Her breathing slowed, and she fell easily back into the same tranquil state, a steady dream-like trance. She opened her eyes slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements, in case it destroyed her concentration. Somehow she felt more peaceful this time. When she looked down at her hands, her flesh wasn’t solid, but translucent. Her figure seemed to drift and warp in the air, her substance more like mist than flesh and bone.

She smiled, breathing deeply with a newfound sense of anticipation. Something felt right inside. As if she had discovered a hidden part of herself that completed her.