Chasing Stars

Chapter 1


Cornwall – June 2012, three days later



It was no ordinary cemetery. There were no white granite headstones sparkling in the diffused light, no ancient cracked tombs, no parish church. Just a deep, green woodland tumbling down the steep side of a hill to a stream.

‘First she had you cremated and then she buried your ashes next to a tree down by the stream.’ He looked at me. ‘An apple tree.’

‘My favourite. Blossom in the spring, apples in the autumn.’ I couldn’t keep the shakiness from my voice.

Three days ago I had been dead. Three days ago I had drowned in the swollen waves of the harbour during a storm. Three days ago, Travis, my aunt’s boyfriend, had pushed my head under the water and held me down until my lungs burned and I opened my mouth to let the water in. But now I was alive.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Ryan asked.

I nodded.

We made our way down the hillside, stepping over gnarled and twisted roots, past hawthorn and beech trees, plums and cherries, to an ancient apple tree whose knotted, weather-beaten branches reached across a small stream.

I ran my fingertips down the rough bark of its trunk. ‘So this is where I was laid to rest.’

‘Yes. She buried your ashes next to this tree. I saw it in your file.’

The nearby stream gurgled and the air was sharp with the scent of English apples. As final resting places went, this had to be one of the best. Miranda knew me well. I wouldn’t want to be buried in the ground, trapped under the weight of a granite tombstone. But my ashes nourishing the earth was a cool way to end up.

‘I should be dead,’ I said. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was living on borrowed time, that eventually Fate would catch up with me and it would all be over.

Ryan reached for my hand, twining my fingers through his. ‘No, you shouldn’t. That should never have happened. And now it didn’t.’

We left the darkness of the trees behind and followed the stream until it emerged into the sunshine. We were less than a mile from the sea; I could smell the salt on the air.

‘I just worry about the future,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You coming back and changing time works out great for me. I get a second chance. But what if you coming back to save my life sends ripples of change through time? What if we bring death and destruction to the future? What if the price of saving one life is too great?’

Ryan smiled. ‘You’re talking about the butterfly effect. When a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, it helps to create a hurricane on the other side of the world. Small actions lead to great consequences.’

I nodded.

‘It’s a beautiful theory. I studied it in pre-college science and philosophy class. Completely wrong, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just not helpful when applied to time travel.’

‘When you visited 2012 for the first time, you stopped Connor from discovering Eden and saved the future of the Earth. That was a pretty massive change.’

‘How can I explain?’ said Ryan, half to himself. He pointed at the stream trickling through the orchard. ‘OK, where do you think this stream runs to?’

I shrugged. ‘Probably to a larger stream or a river. And then eventually to the sea.’

‘Right. And there are millions of little streams just like this all running into the sea.’

‘What does that have to do with time travel?’

‘Think of the timeline as a giant ocean. It is fed by millions of tiny streams. If one of those streams runs dry, what impact do you think that will have on the size of the ocean?’

I shrugged. ‘Not much.’

‘Exactly. But if the Amazon or the Nile runs dry, it will have a significant impact on the ocean. Connor was an Amazon. His life changed the course of human history. But you’re just a little stream, Eden. No one in the future will notice whether you run dry or carry on.’

‘I guess.’

‘In any case, Travis changed the future when he killed you. If you’re concerned about the integrity of the timeline, I’m just putting the future back on course.’

We reached a wide section of the riverbank, where the ground was green and mossy. Ryan stopped suddenly.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘I want to dance with you.’

I looked around. ‘Here?’

‘What’s wrong with here?’

I laughed. ‘Well, there’s no music.’

‘I don’t care about music.’ His voice was quiet.

He opened his arms and I walked into them, resting my head on his shoulder as he held me. I’d never felt so alive. I felt the thudding of his heart against my chest, the blood racing through my veins, the mad tingle of electricity in every place his skin touched mine. I’d never felt so aware. Of the stream gurgling and sloshing alongside us, the honeybees, slow and drowsy, buzzing around like sleepwalkers, the soft ground yielding beneath our feet. I’d been given a second chance at life and I was going to make it count.