And there’s only one place I want to be.
The attic’s atmosphere feels more charged than ever as I make my way down the dark, creaking corridor: its whispers, louder; its layers, very close.
I don’t lie on Iris’s bed, when I reach her room.
I don’t look in her mirror.
I go to her window, where I don’t so much see assensethe world around me shiver. I stare down at the security-lit set, so hard it blurs, and feel no alarm as the planes and buildings plunge into blackness, becoming dark shapes in a darker sky, only a certain conviction that the air I’m breathing no longer belongs to the night of 22 November 2018, but the dawn of this day in 1943.
I can’t be sure what’s happening – whether I’m in a past that’s already happened, or a moment that hasn’t yet been decided – I know only that I’m about to break under the weight of my own trepidation.
Do something.
The words sound in our minds.
He needs your help.
Help him.
Closing my eyes, I press my fingers to the window frame.
Help him.
I feel a chill on my face.
The icy touch of a tear, snaking down my skin.
I bite the insides of my cheeks, another tear falling.
How do I help?
I don’t know.
I still have no idea what to do.
And now, I hear a different voice: neither Iris’s, nor mine, but a young man’s.
Familiar, somehow.
They couldn’t get to their chutes. They were burning. Everything was burning.
My eyes snap open, a rush of adrenalin coursing through me as it comes to me that I do know something.
I know that whenMabel’s Furywas found, seven damaged parachute packs had been left inside it.
Wherever Robbie, Jacob, Henry, Ames, Gus and Danny werewhen they disappeared into thin air, they did it without those parachutes strapped to their backs.
I know this.
Iknowit.
But I’ve left Iris.
I’m terrified I’ve done it too soon.
I remain at her window, staring down at the base, willing myself to return to her, but Jeff’s security lights remain stubbornly on, and I stay maddeningly here.
Hoping,hoping, that she heard.
