It was otherwise another innocuous day as Lila walked home from school, kicking along sticks on the path with her school shoes and feeling sick to her stomach as she kept on going.
The sun was beginning to set under the horizon, shining out a bright, vivid gold, lighting up the both the trees behind Lila, and the shallow ditch that ran concurrently with the path, following it for a little while before abruptly disappearing, the sunken ground which made it rising for no apparent reason to become flat and level with the path.
It was currently autumn, with various piles of rotting leaves filling up the hole in the Earth, and not particularly ideal to jump into and pretend that you were in a trench. That experience was reserved for only a few days in the summer - days that had decidedly passed a while ago.
Lila was reminded, by the sight, of several assesments that she had due on the Monday, after the weekend, on History, French, and Computer Science to complete ove
Lila didn't see the strangers for several days, before abruptly catching their reflection in the muddy puddle of the School Maths Yard, appropriately named after all the maths classrooms that overlooked it.The library wouldn't open for several tens of minutes, and Lila, already finished her bought lunch of a pasta pot and a square flapjack which was mostly uncooked with large, inexcusable clumps of butter sitting throughout the whole structure, with only one particular corner of the dessert containing any sweetness, the rest of the supposed, alleged treat tasting worse than damp cardboard.She had pulled out her borrowed book, one of the 'How to Train your Dragon' series that she knew would end with a cliffhanger, just like the last one, by the sheer virtue of needing the series to keep selling and keep as many readers as possible to keep spending money.Honestly, she wasn't even angry at the publisher, or the author.She only really fe
"We saw you at the school."Lila pointedly did not turn around as she kept walking back home, only a few months after the strange week when she had sent the strangers to the town the long way and then had run from them at the school."Lila Pavington."She continued marching back on the path back home, keeping her umbrella over her head and angling it to cover most of her back and bag, trying to obscure as most of as her body as she could, regretting that she had decided to wear a skirt together, after seeing a cloudless sky in the morning sun and believing that summer had finally arrived."You can't ignore us."The trench to the side of Lila had filled up with water, the excess liquid bubbling over the sides and splashing out onto the path in thick, murky rivulets that were saturated in loose mud and soil, smelling as foul as it looked, while simultaneously holding at least some charm compared to the menace of a man that was currently following her
"Why are you following me?" Lila asked the stranger behind her, swivelling around on her heels, digging through the mud to face him, twirling around her umbrella as she did so.If necessary, she could use the item as a bat, and maybe one of the spines, that stuck out, could be used to poke an eye out, if she got lucky that is.Or maybe unlucky.The man paused on his walk suddenly, an expression of surpise and increduality obvious on his face, from the raised eye brows to the slightly slacked jaw that left his mouth hanging wide open and receptive to any wandering, curious flies.Quickly, almost as if he could read Lila's thoughts, he composed himself to look as professional as he possibly could.This time, the idiot was dressed in a waterproof coat and lacking the excessive winter wear from before, but had, decidedly unsensibly, gone for the choice of wearing shorts and trainers, the marks of the bad decision obvious as the mud from the roads, path
"Lila Pavington! When you were young, you met a time traveller under the name of Jasper Red. He materialised within the area surrounded by cliffs behind your home. You were the one to find him, and you were heavily involved with his care as he recovered in your timeline. Has all that I have so far stated been correct so far?"From where she cowered on the floor, Lila scrambled backwards, slipping further on the mud on her attempts to get away and establish some distance between her and the man that was much more to the liking of her already fraying sanity.Her became matted down with mud and rainwater, her entire blazer and shirt collar being dyed an ugly, messy brown from the path below her.Kicking forwards to propell herself backwards and only dredging up more mud to mess up her school uniform, she finally was able to adequately keep herself out of potential striking distance between her and the man.Her entire body shook and was rendered a wobbly and
The man jumped out of the way of the umbrella smoothly as if he were anticipating the motion all along, his legs springing outwards to propell his body away in a smooth arch that left little to be desired.Lila let her body pull back away, as soon as she had completed her attack with the umbrella, bending her knees and body slightly forwards while keeping her makeshift weapon parallel with her chest, hands re-wrapping themselves over the handle, waiting for another opportunity to strike."Nice swing," the man complemented Lila, giving out a small smirk.Suddenly, the feeling of something being extremely wrong about the situation washed over Lila.She scanned through her memories quickly, trying to run through all the information that she had learned from the man, from his clothing style to where she had seen him walk to what he had ever said to her.The realisation and the rememberance that the man had a friend came upon her and doused her like a b
"Well get inside! My house is already cold enough as it is! And by the way, somebody left a message for you, a few weeks ago!"Mrs Holmes, to Lila in that moment, was simultaneously a God send and a harbinger of evil.Her full head of silver hair shone in the light, her beige cardigan looking perfectly calibrated to let her ride out the temperature and the weather comfortably and her walking stick currently standing proud on a dry part of her kitchen floor, the back door wide open for Lila, as if she had been expecting Lila to arrive around now.Feeling slightly guilty for tracking muddy fooprints in the temperamental old lady's kitchen, Lila decided to at leas take off her shoes and socks to spare her saviour's carpet from any kind of irreparable and irreversable damage.She knew the layout of the house well from multiple stays with the old woman and her comparatively kind and laid back husband who was happy to let his wife rage at whatever minutia she w
The water of the warm shower, pouring down Lila's tired and aching body, was absolutely luxurious. It felt like an over indulgence that felt a lot more expensive than it actually was.Lila, after spending too many nights at the Holmes House, had her own separate little basket in the bathroom for her own toiletries and essentials.The bathroom itself was covered in a slate grey colour, tiles on the floor and on the walls, the ceiling left a bare white with one central light bulb, hanging down from the centre. The toilet, sink, and bath were mercifully left a white colour, to avoid blending in, a window sitting just over the mirror which looked down into the sink from the wall, with a little cabinet off to the side next to the complex which housed each of the baskets for everybody.The shower and bath were cordened off by a slate grey shower curtain which held the power of multiple squares gathered together in a grid travelling diagnolly.
Quickly putting the photograph aside in her hand, Lila pulled out the letter from the envelope, folding out the sheet that held it to pull up an entire A4 sheet from the comparatively tiny envelope.Dear mini me,I am you from the future.The way you even have this letter is because of the idiot, self proclaimed time police that have managed to fuck up so badly and have become so desperate, that I've been able to use them to essentially get this through to you, sending it via Mrs Holmes.(If I were you, I'd suggest that you begin emotionally distancing yourself from those two. A set of broken pipes is going to have them both suffer from colds and pneumonia as the heating fails to work. There's nothing you can do. It involves industrial tools that you do not have access to, and whatever phone call you make now, will not be adressed and the incident will not be investigated.)
“Why’re you sleeping on the floor like that? Come on, get up. You’ll hurt your back doing that,” Doctor Marigold chided, dragging all her bits of heavy machinery around the office space to prepare for her demonstration.Behind her, Lila remained still.“I know that you’re not dead. Come, get up already,” she called out, stepping over a few sheets of paper that she had laid out to grab Lila by the shoulder and heave her up into sitting.The stubborn girl just flopped down again, not opening her eyes.“If you get the fuck up, we can move the flight a week forward so you can stop worrying about it,” Lucy Marigold shouted across the room.Like a rubber band, Lila snapped back up and finally opened her eyes.It had been harder to see the bags below them when they had been closed and Doctor Marigold wondered if she should buy the girl some sleep tablets.“I’m awake,” Li
Yolanda seemed to understand that she needed to back off and stop teasing Gretel, when the other woman's eyes suddenly misted over, and it was if she was no longer a part of this world.She kept the bubbling annoyance within her away from her face, putting on instead a mask of concern as she reached out and poked Gretel's arms, trying to maybe prod her out of her stupor and bring her back from the recesses of her mind.Yolanda had never actually seen somebody collapse inwards to a catatonic state over her own actions.It was interesting to see it all happen and fold out in front of her.She poked Gretel again, touching her in the face lightly to see if that would possibly work to pull the other woman out of her mind and back into the world where she was needed proper.It wouldn't reflect well on her if Gretel didn't wake up within the hour.It didn't feel as
When she awoke, she was sat ready to eat and was dressed just like her mother, in a pastel blouse and a lungi down to the floor.Lila looked down at herself and jumped when she heard rattling, noticing the ten, or so, bangles on each arm and the lines of mehndi that ran down all the way to the hems of her sleeves, resting halfway between her shoulders and elbows. A pin held her blouse shut at the top and a quick once over of her hair, with one of her hands, revealed that it had been styled in a simple bun and adorned with flowers.“This is weirdly romantic,” Lila commented, staring at the lit candles nestled in the variously sized candelabrums set around the circular room.There was no door, but a giant window which led to a balcony outside. There was no ceiling but the walls reaching upwards, all the way up, until they formed a dome in the same shade of dull brown that coated the floor and the giant, round table in the centre.The only dishes
“So, is she finally asleep?” Emmet asked the boy stood behind the counter. He was exceedingly slim for someone surrounded by sugar all day and Emmet could make out the outlines of his spindly elbows through his shirt. His face held a no nonsense, blunt, and almost bored expression. “Yeah, she is. She’s been knocked out on the sofa since I sent her back there,” Kai answered the long haired man in front of him, his hair pulled back by a ribbon matching his eyes before being pulled over his shoulder once more. He looked vain. “Oh good. Don’t tell her that I was involved,” the man asked, putting both his palms up to face Kai. “I’m telling her that you’re a fucking weirdo for that,” was the scowled answer. “No. Seriously, don’t tell her. She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her. She’s known my partner for longer that I’ve known him. She doesn’t trust me with him. Why’re you making that face?” Emmet tried to justify himself before giving up
“Are you sure that you’re getting enough sleep?” Kai asked Lila, watching her sway on her feet and clutching the front counter.“Yes,” she gasped, dropping her head into her hands, elbows on the table.“Go and lie down on the sofa. Go to sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when I have to leave for college,” Kai instructed her, tapping her on the shoulders and shepherding her towards the office.“… fine,” she conceded, letting Kai move her along towards the back.“You know that this just proves my point,” Kai pointed out, pushing her through the boundary of the door and closing it behind her.“Fine,” she whispered back to him, talking into the silence of the office.She let herself fall over the sofa, draping her upper body over the arm rest and letting her head be cushioned by the pillows. Shuffling a bit over to put her body entirely on the sofa, Lila f
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now again!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now keep on going!”Lila landed each punch, timing her breaths to the count as she moved her fists, dodging underneath the swing that came towards her head, before blocking the second hit that came to her and moving along with the force of the fist that hit her arm.The swinging punching bag forced distance between Lila and Tweedle Dum, and she stepped back to where she was stood before, within the path of the moving bad, to put more distance between him and her.“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”Lila punched the bag once more, landing all of her hits.“Okay, time for a break,” Tweedle Dum announced, grabbing the punching bag and pulling it back to him as Lila moved away from the centre of the room, sitting down on one of the rickety plastic chairs at the side of the room.She took of
“Bitch! Why’d you run off and abandon me like that!?” Lila shouted from behind the counter when Kai finally walked back into the store.She was waving her hands about and wore an apron covered in flour as the single customer in the store, an old man precariously balancing on his cane, slept whilst leaning on the radiator.“I thought that you wanted some bonding time with your family so I left you to do that it private!” Kai answered her, tiptoeing past their unconscious patron, in a combination of whispering and shouting.“They’re hardly my family and you left us in the middle of a public café!” Lila cried, not modulating her voice at all.In the background, the old man began to snore.“But you still talk to them a lot like you do to me, so I let you, and besides, I got about fifty more pages of Good Omens done in Waterstones,” Kai appealed, finally at the counter and opening up the
Gretel and Silver had their fun as he continued to teach her how the interface worked and how he had managed to figure out that the system was an older model from the lack of integration between the screen and the touch pad, and explaining how easily it would potentially be to do so once the technology, as displayed in this device, had been demonstrated and established to work in a functional product."We were working on something like this as well, back in the workshops back home for the company that I was in the research and development department for. We were trying to get our motion sensors to be as small as possible for more commercial and personal use of technology that we could sell to the public and those who couldn't afford the contact computers.We had no idea on how their tech worked, because of trade and company secrets and all, but we managed to piece together a few things by looking at the patents and when we bought a few and m
“Alright, the shop’s free. Why are you actually here?” Lila questioned, crossing her arms and staring down at the tablecloth of Jasper and Emmet’s table.“I’ve got lesson now. I’ll be back in a few hours,” the teenage boy behind Lila announced, picking up a bag that had been hidden behind the counter the entire time and rushing outside.Lila continued to stand there, waiting for a reply.Jasper couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t meeting either his or Emmet’s eyes.“Are you planning to leave us?” he asked her back.Lila’s fingers dug into the creases of her shirt,” I’m going to be leaving for a trip soon, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Kai’ll be running the shop and will be looking after things, broadly. He lives here now and I scheduled my leave for when his school term ends so he can take care of things.”“On thi