The bathroom was big enough Lizard could sleep in it, and there were all manners of tubs, benches, nozzles, showerheads, and spigots set among the marble and silver and glass. It smelled of sweet soap and lime blossoms.
I shut the door behind me, then bent, unlaced my boots, set them off to one side, and shucked out of my clothes.
I turned on the water to let it warm up the marble shower. I opened my duffel and pulled out my pajamas, pushing the scarf Grandma had given me to one side.
Speaking of time machine. She had said the little sheep attracted time and stored it in their wool. I glanced around the room. I didn’t see any cameras, although there was probably some kind of recording device here.
This seemed like a good chance to give Grandma’s theory a whirl, here alone, where I wouldn’t feel stupid when it didn’t work. I gathered the scarf up onto the bench where I was sitting, found the knot at the end of it, and took a second or two to loosen it with my fingernails.
The clock on the wall was an old-fashioned model, ticking away with a second hand. I kept my eye on the second hand, and tugged on the yarn, pulling a stitch.
Nothing.
Well, that was disappointing.
Just for kicks, I ripped out an entire row of stitches.
The second hand stopped.
I was still breathing; my heart was beating.
But the hand on the clock paused and the shower stilled, every drop of water frozen. I counted three seconds.
Then the clock ticked, and the water fell in a rush so loud and sudden, I jumped.
Holy handbasket.I stared at the scarf. A small, logical part of my mind insisted I had imagined it. Maybe I was seeing only what I wanted to see.
So I tried it again, this time pulling out row after row. The clock stopped, the shower stopped, and while everything around me had seemed still and quiet before, there was an underwater weight to the stillness now.
I stood with the scarf in my hand and touched the spray of water. The droplets pushed away from my fingers but did not fall. I could move, I could pick up something and put it down, but the world was frozen in place.
And then time started up again, water rushing, clock ticking, the stillness just stillness.
Prickly heat rolled over my skin. That was all kinds of unnerving. It made me itchy.
I tucked the scarf carefully back into the duffel and brushed my palms together like there was dirt there.
Okay. I could stop time.
Maybe. If it worked again the next time I pulled on the yarn. And there was no reason to think it wouldn’t. Except that stopping time was impossible.
It wasn’t a time machine—the hands on the clock hadn’t rolled backward. But that scarf did seem to be a pause button of sorts.
Grandma had been right. The sheep somehow caught up bits of time in their wool.
I wondered if my dad had intended for that to happen, or if tinkering with sheep DNA, plus the wild nanos mutating in the soil, had had unintended consequence on the little critters.
And how had Grandma discovered it?
Well, it didn’t matter. Having a little time in my pocket might come in very handy.
I stepped into the shower and let the strong, hot spray of water tumble over me to wash away the dirt, sweat and worries of the day.
16
No one imagined the fall would happen so quickly. The world balanced on a fragile tipping point for years. Then, suddenly, everything collapsed. Food supply, water supply, economic and political engines, loyalties and borders. And from the ashes of that fall, the Houses rose.—2090
—from the journal of L.U.C.
