Future me.
Something about those two words.
My mind ran away from me quietly, slowly at first, then all at once. I could have passed out, or maybe even fallen asleep for all I could tell, but in my mind, I was falling down this large hole in the ground, and I saw the strangest things—shelves and books and potions—and the cat. Cheshire with his impossible grin and senseless words.I live backward, O-ra—just the way he said my name.I only came to remember whatyou will forget—which waswhat, exactly?I already didn’t remember so much, and I didn’t even know how much I didn’t remember.Let the monster chase a future you instead—Iwasa future me now, from then, was I not?
Future me.
A clock ticked somewhere in the shelves of this tunnel that went down-down-down. Only in my mind, of course. But a clock ticked and a hand turned forward, not back. Not likemine.
My eyes opened. I held my breath as the smile stretched my lips wider and wider until I had a grin to rival the Cheshire’s.
Because I knew exactly what he’d tried to tell me, even if he didn’t say it in plain words.
The knives forgotten, I reached for the pouch again, put the clockbeast’s head on that raised root near the lantern, and got to work.
It cost me seven minutes’ worth of Sparetime to replace the gears I’d broken this time, but it worked. I straightened the hands with my fingers as well as I could, then put the face back in place, and wound the crown—ten minutes later. Ten minutes into my current future.
Then I pressed the crown in place and waited for a tick.
8
Iran.
Clockbeasts that wanted to devour me aside—and grinning, talking cats—the trial was done.Unwon.
It had worked. I’d set the beast’s clock ten minutes back, which was ten minutes into my future, and it had ticked, and its heart had started to beat so very slowly, and its fresh wounds had all closed up—while the clockbeast lay there on the ground still with its eyes closed. Its clock worked, the hands moved as they should.
It was alive, but…not yet.
Now was the time to run, get out of this forest, go back to the Labyrinth and the living quarters—and figure out a way to escape Neverwhen before the sun unrose again.
Then I heard it.
The growls. The screams. Even a little laughter.
The sound of something hitting the ground hard.
The other Hands.
They were there still, in the clearing and around it, each one dealing with their own clockbeasts—fixing the clocks, running for a bit, then breaking them again before the beastsregained full consciousness and speed. It took them a minute or two.
And I hid there behind a tree and watched.
I didn’t care to help them—they were of no importance to me. Strangers I didn’t owe anything to. Yet there was that voice inside my head that insisted I should and I would, back before…before what?
I had lost thebefore,it seemed, and I was eleven-hours certain that I had been different then.
Now, I wasn’t, though. Now I was just me. And I was going to get out of this game one way or the other—because I earned it. I brought the clockbeast back to life. I unkilled it.
The problem was a certain boy with curly hair and eyes that were half red, half brown, and all the shades in between. Some would call itmaroon,and they would be wrong—but the problem was, that I didn’t see those colors now.
I didn’t seehim.He wasn’t with the others, and neither was Helen.
I didn’t really care if Helen was hurt or not. And I didn’t really care if March was hurt or not—but he had to survive with me. Because, my mind insisted, I had to ask him if he liked glass before he died. Simple.
With that lonesome reason in my pocket, I went all around the clearing to search for him, always hiding behind the trees so that the rest of them didn’t see me. They weren’t looking, anyway—they were too busy fixing clocks, then smashing them again. All those clockbeasts and they were all dead. One came alive, then its clock was broken again by a sword or a fist or a rock.
I wondered if the Cheshire had come to speak to them, too.
