Page 3 of Echoes on the Wind (Borrowed Time #2)

“Tom, come and help me with some of this packing.”

I caught a glimpse of my brother as he passed the office on his way to the kitchen, but I remained still at my desk, staring at the notes that I’d laid out in front of me.

In the days since I’d met Elinor, I’d done little else. When I wasn’t writing notes, I was reading them over, or reading through books, or staring at the jewellery before returning to the notes. Round and round I went, never seeming to get anywhere new. Lee had been doing his best to keep my spirits up, but I was starting to feel desperate again.

I spun in my chair and pulled down the picture from the wall, given to me by Mair’s great-granddaughter. Smoothing it out, I laid it down on the desk and let my eyes wander over it again, like I’d done a thousand times before. There was nothing in the photograph that could help me, I knew that. But looking at myself alongside Mair and Gwyn, in a photograph that I’d never posed for, was the only proof I could cling to that I would one day get back to them .

“How much bloody longer do I have to wait?” I shouted, sweeping my arms across the desk and sending the photograph and several sheets of paper flying onto the floor.

“What was that?” Lee asked, following the sound of my voice into the study.

I leaned my elbows on the desk and sank my head into my hands as he approached. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s bloody freezing in here,” he said, motioning over to the open window as he took a seat on the other side of the desk. He glanced around at the mess I’d made, then brought his gaze back to me with a raised brow. “Nothing new to report, then?”

“Absolutely nothing.” I sunk back in my seat and stared out into the darkness that had descended over the garden. “I’ve had enough of trying to work it out. I’m not going to get anywhere by staring over the same bloody notes every day.”

Lee cocked an eyebrow and rolled his eyes. He’d been telling me the same thing all week, but he at least had the good grace not to remind me of that while I was sitting there sulking.

“Maybe I should break them?” I said, lifting a heavy round paperweight off the desk and hovering it over the jewellery. “Perhaps some damage might ignite a spark, or whatever it is they do when they start glowing?”

He took the paperweight from me and set it back down on the desk, then turned his attention to the necklace, which was laid out as though it was being displayed for sale. He brought his face close to it, poking at it hesitantly with his finger as though it might bite him. “Or maybe damaging them will stop them from working altogether? It’s not worth the risk if you ask me.”

“Then I’m all out of ideas.”

I dropped my head back into my hands as Lee began picking up my research from the floor. “Did that man come back to see you today?”

I leaned over the edge of the desk to get a look at him as he knelt down, collecting sheets of paper. “No. What man?”

“He came around this afternoon while you were at the library. I said you’d be back this evening.”

“What was his name?”

“I didn’t catch it.”

“Well, what did he want?”

He brought himself upright and put the reorganised stack of papers on the desk next to the jewellery. “I didn’t ask.”

“Did he have a badge or something? A uniform? What did he look like?”

“No, nothing. He just looked normal. I wasn’t paying that much attention if I’m honest. I was in a rush to get to town. It was only by chance that he even caught me. I was halfway down the drive when he walked through the gate. I had to pull the car over.”

“You don’t think it’s him, do you?”

“Who?”

“Whoever it is that’s been watching me.”

We stared at each other across the desk, an almost mirror image of each other, except that I’d let a beard set in, and my hair was getting long, and he offered me a sympathetic smile. He either thought I was crazy or overreacting. Or possibly both .

“Get some sleep,” he said as he made his way to the door. When he grabbed the handle, he turned back to me, but I hadn’t moved from my spot. “Come on. There’s no more you can do tonight. Sitting there all night again isn’t going to help. You need rest.”

I glanced over at him briefly and gave a nod. “I’ll be one more minute.”

As he headed back to the kitchen, I rested my chin down on the desk and stared at the ring and necklace. “Please,” I whispered to them, my eyes close to tears. “Just take me back.”

I allowed myself just a second longer to look at them, then with a pull on the lamp cord, I plunged the room into darkness and made my way to bed.

I was awoken from my sleep by a feeling of pressure on my face, and as my eyes flicked open, I saw Lee standing over me in the darkness, one hand clamped over my mouth and a baseball bat raised next to his head.

Moonlight from the uncovered windows cascaded over him as he stared down at me, his eyes frenzied, and I struggled against his grip to free myself. I tried to shout, but he pushed down harder, forcing my head into the pillow as he brought his face down close to mine.

“Shut up,” he whispered harshly. “There’s someone in the house.”

My body immediately tensed up, but I stopped struggling against him, and he released his hold on me, bringing his finger to his lips to ensure my silence .

The sound of the kitchen door swinging open cut through the stillness of the house, and I turned to face the bedroom door as footsteps crept along the hallway, unable to avoid the creaking of the floorboards.

I lay there motionless, afraid to move in case the bed made a noise, and tried to gauge where the steps were headed. When the door to the study clicked open, I let out the breath I’d been holding, then bolted to my feet.

“Lee, the jewellery,” I whispered. “I left the ring and the necklace on the desk.”

He inched towards the bedroom door and peered out onto the landing, trying to get a view over the bannister to the floor below.

“Can you see anything?” I whispered, and he turned and shook his head at me.

He raised the bat again and motioned for me to come towards him. “We have to go down.”

He reached down into one of the packing boxes that had been left near the door, grabbed my mother’s curling iron from inside, and held it out to me.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Give him a makeover?”

“We haven’t got anything else to hand,” he whispered. “Jab him with it or something.”

I took it from him and wrapped the cord around it, leaving the plug pointing outwards near the top. It would create some extra damage if necessary, but I hoped that I wouldn’t have to get that close, and that Lee wielding a bat would be enough to scare off whoever had helped themselves into our home.

As something smashed in the room below us, Lee moved out onto the landing, taking slow, calculated steps as he went. Unlike our burglar, he knew exactly which noisy boards to avoid, a trick he’d learned from years of sneaking around without our parents’ knowledge.

I followed him out, tracing his steps and keeping my breath quiet to avoid any noise, and raised the curling tongs above my head, ready to lash out if the intruder came out and took us by surprise.

The noise of cupboards being ransacked became louder as we hit the bottom of the stairs, making Lee pick up his pace a bit, but when we reached the office door, the noises suddenly stopped, and we both froze in place, unsure what to do next.

He looked to me for guidance, but I just shrugged and shook my head, no better equipped to deal with this kind of situation than he was. He rolled his eyes at me and slowly reached for the door, but before he’d gotten hold of the brass handle, it twisted, and the door swung inwards, bringing us face to face with the intruder.

“Shit,” Lee cried out, taken by surprise, and he immediately shot outwards with the bat as though it were a poker, hitting the man with the blunt end of it just below his eye socket.

The intruder stumbled back, and this time Lee readied the bat with both hands and took a long, hard swing at his ribs, causing him to cry out as he fell back into the desk.

“Tom, do something,” he shouted as the man began to straighten himself out.

Everything had happened so fast that I was still standing in the doorway with no idea of what to do next, but as the intruder lunged for Lee, I knew I had to act fast.

I ran screaming through the door, curling iron aloft, and whacked him across the head with it. As I expected, it had little effect, but it pulled his attention away long enough for Lee to take a defensive stance and raise the bat again.

He took a swing, but the man was expecting it this time and raised his arm to defend himself. Lee, outsmarting him, went low instead and brought the bat swiftly into the side of the man's knee with a loud crack.

He stumbled back again into the desk, unclenching his fist and spilling the jewellery he’d stolen out across the surface. With his hand now empty, he grabbed the paperweight and swung out, connecting with Lee’s temple and sending him into an unconscious heap on the floor.

I rushed towards my brother, but our attacker wasn’t willing to give up without a fight, and as I neared Lee, the man lunged out, grabbing me around the waist and sending us both tumbling to the floor together.

My elbow smacked against the desk, sending shots of pain up my arm. As I hit the floor, he landed on top of me, winding me with his weight. I instinctively reached for my stomach and tried to curl into a foetal position, but was blocked by his huge body pressing down on me. Taking advantage of my distraction, he grabbed the curling iron that had landed beside us and began to wrap the cord around my neck.

“Lee,” I gargled out as my hands grabbed at the wire that was choking me .

I tried to call out again, but this time, no sound came out. My cheeks began to burn, and pressure built behind my eyes as I desperately tried to suck in air. I thrashed my legs in the vain hope that I may be able to throw him off balance, but he was bigger and stronger than me, and I was losing energy as I fought for breath.

As his grip tightened, the corners of my vision started to blur, making the blackness of the room seem darker and causing the man above me to look fuzzy. I tried once more to say something as I desperately clawed at the cord around my neck, but it was no use. He was winning.

I clawed at the hardwood floor, desperately searching for something to use as a weapon, but my fingers found nothing. He hovered over me, smirking at my efforts as his grip tightened around my neck. My head felt like it might explode from the pressure, and my hands began to slow as I beat at his wrists, but suddenly, his grin faded into a grimace, and he let out a grunt. A second later, he lurched forward, collapsing on top of me, as the cord around my neck went slack.

I pulled at the wire and sucked in a huge breath, then coughed and sputtered it back out again. Over the man’s shoulder, silhouetted against the moonlight, I could see my brother, bat in hand and chest heaving, as he looked down at the bloody wound he’d inflicted to the back of the burglar’s head.

The intruder let out a groan, but his body remained still, and his full weight bore down on me, keeping me pinned between him and the floor.

“Get him off me,” I whispered, and Lee dropped down to his knees and gave the man a hard shove to the side .

His body rolled over and slammed into the units beside us, and we both paused to see if he would wake. When we were certain he was out cold, Lee moved to help untangle the wire that was still around my throat.

“I knew the curlers were a bad idea,” I said, rubbing my neck as it became free of the cord. I looked over to the unconscious man and rolled him over onto his back. He was huge. Tall and broad with a smooth bald head that was now covered in blood. “I know him,” I said, suddenly feeling even more uneasy. “That’s the man who’s been watching me.”

“He’s the one who came looking for you yesterday,” Lee said as he leaned down close to the man to get a better look. “Who the hell is he? What does he want?”

“Those, I think,” I replied, pointing up to the ring and the necklace on the desk. “But why?”

“Search him.” Before he’d even let the words out, Lee was rifling through the man’s pockets, and I leaned over to do the same, finding all of them empty.

“Here, grab his head,” Lee whispered, and he tucked his hands behind the man’s neck and unfastened a small silver chain before holding it up between us.

“You can’t just rob him,” I protested.

“I’m not. I want to see what it says.”

At the bottom of the necklace sat a small disc-like pendant, with a square hole cut into the middle that the chain ran through. He tilted it towards the moonlight, trying to read the inscription that circled around the inner edge, but then shook his head in frustration and passed it over to me. “Can you make it out? ”

“It’s not English,” I said, squinting to read it in the darkness. “It’s not Welsh either.”

“We can worry about it later,” he whispered as he leaned over our attacker. “What are we going to do with him?”

“Call the pol–”

I caught myself mid-sentence as the man’s eyes sprung open, and in a flash, he grabbed hold of Lee’s collar, pulling his face down to his.

Lee thrashed out, fighting against the man’s grip, and I pushed myself onto my knees and grabbed the bat that was lying between us. I gripped it with both hands but had no room to swing from my position on the floor, so I brought it tight to my shoulder and forced it downwards with all of my strength, connecting the base of its handle with his forehead, just above the bridge of his nose. He immediately went limp, and Lee fell forward onto his hands and knees, breathing heavily.

“Oh my god, is he dead?” I began to panic as I dropped the bat to the floor and tucked my head into my hands. “Have I killed him?”

“Tom,” Lee whispered.

He grabbed me on the shoulder and gave me a shake, but I couldn’t look. I didn’t want to see what I’d done.

“What am I going to do? I–”

“Tom! Shut up!” He shouted, cutting me off, leaving just the sound of our laboured breaths filling the room.

He shook my shoulder again, and I released my face from my hands to look at him. His features were bathed in a red glow that was lighting up the dark of the room and making his eyes dance like they’d been lit by flames. I followed his gaze towards the desk, and the jewellery that lay upon it, and held my breath again as I realised what had caught his attention.

“Lee…” I whispered, leaving his name hanging in the air as we pulled each other to our feet.

Our eyes were glued to the ring and the necklace as the tiny stones within them lit up the study. I brought my hands up to my head, running my fingers through my hair as my lips curled into an incredulous grin.

“Wait,” I said, spinning around in a sudden panic. “I’m not ready.”

I’d always envisioned that whenever I returned to the past, I’d be fully prepared, kitted out in the right clothes and carrying everything with me that I might need, but now, in that instant, I had none of it ready, and no time to run around the house throwing it all together.

I turned to my brother and grabbed hold of his hands. “Lee, come with me.” He still hadn’t taken his eyes off the desk, and I had to shake him to get him to look at me. “We’re not meant to be separated. Come with me. We’ve got nothing left here, and now we have the necklace as well. We can both go.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, contemplating everything I was saying, but still not allowing himself to believe it was happening.

“Come with me, please,” I pleaded again. “Just put the necklace on, and we’ll go. Together.”

The man on the floor began to stir, and I shook my brother again, this time more urgently.

“Lee, he’s waking up. We’ve got to go. ”

“Tom, I’d do anything for you, you know that,” he said, finally breaking out of his trance. “But if this is real, if this is really happening, then…”

“We haven’t got time, Lee,” I said, glancing at the jewellery again. “We can discuss it when we get there.” I rushed to the drawer under the desk to grab the wallet filled with old money, then turned back to my brother, spilling coins all over the floor as I moved. “Are you coming or not?”

“I must be fucking mad,” he said, suddenly springing into action and looking around the room as though he should grab something. “What do I need to do?”

“Pick those coins up,” I said. I turned to grab the jewellery from the desk, and he stuffed the loose change into his pockets as I handed him the necklace. “Just put this on and hope it works.” I grabbed his face and kissed his forehead. “I’m so glad you’re going to be there with me.”

“You can’t go like that,” he said, and I looked down at myself, wearing nothing but the pyjama bottoms that I’d woken up in.

“I haven’t got any choice,” I replied. I stuffed the wallet into the pocket of the loose trousers and shot him a nervous glance. “Are you ready?”

With an apprehensive nod, he put the necklace over his head, and I slipped the ring onto my finger. I reached out and threw my arms around him, and he held on to me tightly as the room started to go dark again, and that feeling of falling washed over me.

“Tom, what’s happening?” he called out, but before I could answer, I’d fallen into nothingness.