Eoin McNamee - City of Time

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Owen walked down to the riverbank, straddled the log that acted as a bridge over the water and shinned quickly across. It was a fine sunny day with a brisk cold wind blowing up from the sea. It stirred the branches of the trees over his head, where the first colours of autumn were just creeping on to the edges of the leaves.

He stopped at the end of the log as he always did and looked up at the dark bulk of the ruined Workhouse towering above him. It was hard to believe that it was only a year since he had stumbled across a secret organisation called the Resisters who were hidden inside, asleep until the world needed them.

Owen shivered at the memory of the deadly Harsh, the enemies of mankind and of life itself, who had sought to turn back time, spreading cold and darkness throughout the whole world. They had constructed a device called the Puissance, which was like a huge whirlwind, sucking in time. But the Resisters had emerged and Owen had joined with them to defeat the Harsh, imprisoning the Puissance in the mysterious old chest in his bedroom.

When the battle was over, the Resisters went back to sleep in the chamber known as the Starry, hidden under the Workhouse. It was where they waited until they were called again. It was his friend Cati’s job to watch for danger and to wake them when it came. She was invisible to the ordinary eye, hidden, as she said, in the shadows of time.

“Hello, Watcher!” Owen shouted as he always did, knowing she could see him even though he couldn’t see her. He paused and scanned the shadows under the trees, wondering if she was safe and if he would ever see her again. Time, he had learned, was a dangerous place.

He strode briskly along the path towards his Den. Owen had made the Den in a hollow formed by ancient walls and roofed it over with a sheet of perspex. The entrance was cleverly disguised with branches, so that it was almost impossible to find unless you knew where it was. He moved quickly. He was late for school, but he had an errand.

He uncovered the entrance and ducked into the Den. Everything was as it had been the evening before. The old sofa, the pile of comics, the battered old kettle and gas cooker, the lorry wing mirror on the wall. The only thing that had changed in a year was the empty space on the wall where the Mortmain had hung, the object that Owen had thought was an old boat propeller, the object that turned out to be the key to defeating the Harsh. It was a magical object, whose properties he didn’t really understand. It resembled a battered piece of brass a little larger than a man’s hand, with three leaves coming out from the centre. When activated, it transformed into an object of wonderful intricacy and power. The Mortmain was now in his bedroom as well, acting as a lock to keep the Puissance in the chest.

Owen looked at himself in the mirror. His face had filled out and the thin, worried boy of last year had gone. His brown eyes were still wary, but that wasn’t surprising, given the danger he’d gone through.

Quickly, he opened the small box he had left on the old wooden table. He reached into his pocket and took out what looked like a small jagged stone, one that glowed bright blue. It was the piece of magno that Cati had left as a keepsake, the stone filled with a power that the Resisters harnessed like electricity. He had taken it home with him the evening before, but he wasn’t comfortable leaving it in his bedroom. It belonged in the Den, close to the Workhouse. He shut the magno in the box, took a last glance round, then left.

Once outside, he climbed up the side of the bridge on to the road. His mother had forgotten to give him lunch again so he ran towards Mary White’s shop. He had to stoop down to get into the tiny dark shop with the whitewashed front. As always, Mary was standing in the gloom behind the counter wearing an apron and pinafore, her hair in a bun.

“Have you been down at the Workhouse recently?” Mary asked. Owen remembered that the Resisters spoke of her and seemed to have a great deal of respect for her. How much did she know about them and their battles with the Harsh?

“Be careful down there,” she said. “Be very careful.” For a moment the shop seemed to grow even darker and Mary’s face looked stern and ancient. Then she smiled and things went back to normal.

Owen bought a roll and some ham. He put the money on the counter and Mary looked at his hands, which were unusually long and slender for a boy. Just like his father’s , Mary thought. Hands that were made for something special.

Things had been easier at school since Owen had fought alongside the Resisters. No one knew about his adventure with them, or that if they hadn’t defeated the Harsh, everyone would have vanished from the face of the earth, but he had grown up a lot during that time and his classmates sensed it. He was still a loner, but he was respected. It also had something to do with the fact that his mother was not as depressed and forgetful as she had been, so no longer sent him out in clothes he had outgrown or cut his hair with the kitchen scissors. Now he had the quiet air of a boy who could solve problems, and the younger children in particular often came to him for help.

At lunch he sat in the shelter outside. He had forgotten to buy a drink so when Freya Revell sat down beside him and offered him a sip of her smoothie, he gratefully accepted.

“Look at the moon,” she said. “It’s so clear today.”

“So it is,” Owen said.

“You can see the man in the moon,” she said.

Owen looked up and saw she was right. He turned back to Freya and felt his blood run cold. Instead of Freya’s pleasant features, he saw the face of an old woman, more than old, ancient beyond counting. He felt himself recoil.

“What is it?” she said. “Is there something wrong?”

Owen rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again, Freya’s face was back to normal. “I just… I just felt a bit dizzy,” he said, knowing that didn’t sound very convincing. “I have to go now.”

He backed away, feeling Freya’s eyes following him, her expression puzzled and a little hurt. He looked up again and for a moment the man in the moon did not seem like the kindly face from the nursery rhyme, but hard and cold instead.

Owen walked slowly home, trying to rid himself of the image of Freya’s face, how it had changed. Was there something wrong with him, or had it been a kind of waking dream?