It was hard to argue, especially as once he stepped off this airship he’d be in a new world. He didn’t feel ready to face it in the dark of night.
“I’ll stay here,” Colton agreed. “Will you come for me in the morning?”
“I will. Do you need anything for the night? Any … I dunno … blankets?”
Colton smiled a bit, reminded of Danny’s mother. “I don’t need anything. I’ll be fine until morning.”
He watched David, along with the crewmembers and soldiers, head into the large compound beyond. Suddenly, he missed Danny’s bed. Making do with what he had, he curled up between two boxes and closed his eyes, trying to recreate Danny’s image in his mind. The clothes he wore still smelled of him, but that would fade with time. Everything faded, eventually.
It was hard to concentrate on Danny when he still saw Castor behind his eyelids. Annoyed, Colton opened his eyes and glared at the box in front of him. What sort of story had influenced these dreams, anyway? Why were they all about Enfield?
It’s like I’m reliving someone’s life, he thought as night fell outside. Someone from Enfield. Someone like Danny, who can sense time.
“Who are you?” he murmured, unaware he’d spoken the thought out loud.
He was so tired. It didn’t take much convincing to slip back into unconsciousness, curious to see if more dreams would appear. After all, he had an entire night.
And he wanted to know more about the sea.
Instructor Beele was a thin, middle-aged man with ear and nose hair amusingly disproportionate to the hair on his scalp. As he paced before his students, lecturing on theories of time measurements, that wispy hair blew frantically in the coastal wind.
“Units of time have, of course, been guided by the sun for centuries,” he said with a vague gesture upward. The sun was half-hidden behind brooding clouds, the sea restless, its soft roar underlying Beele’s words. “Other methods included heartbeats and the blinking of the eyes. On a grander scale, years have been divided into recordable measurements: the saecula, the aion, the lustrum, the olympiad …”
Students sat on blankets along the shore. They did not take notes, as most of them couldn’t write. This was a lecture they had to listen to and remember.
Which was why Bell glared at Castor whenever he flung little rocks at Bell’s leg, or made faces when Beele wasn’t looking, or leaned over to murmur in his ear.
“I wonder what unit of time is named after one of Beele’s lessons,” Castor whispered.
Bell couldn’t resist. “A beelenium,” he whispered back. They snickered as a couple other students gave them sidelong looks.
The Instructor stopped mid-pace. “Is there something you two find amusing?”
Castor cleared his throat. “No, sir.”
“Stand up, Bell.”
Flushed and ready to kill Castor as soon as they were alone, Bell stood and brushed the sand from his trousers.
Beele eyed him skeptically. “Since you’ve grown bored with time units, let’s alter the topic slightly. Name the five Gaian gods.”
Bell swallowed. “There’s, er, Chronos.”
“Who is?”
“Who’s the creator of time. And there’s Aetas”—he paused to bow toward the sea—“who was given the gift of time when Chronos could no longer control it.”
“Keep going,” Beele said.
“Oceana, the giver of water. Aetas takes refuge with her. It’s said that they were born together. Then there’s Caelum, the overseer of the sky and the heavens, who moves the sun and moon and stars. And Terra, the protector of earth, who grows our crops and raises mountains.” He glanced down to see Castor clapping quietly.
“Very good. Now tell me, since you already seem to know everything I have to say regarding time units, how Aetas came to be the Timekeeper?”
Bell chewed on his lips. Sheepishly, he shook his head.
“Sit down, then.”
Bell plopped down next to Castor, who sniggered as Bell poked him hard in the ribs.
“Chronos,” Beele said, resuming his pacing, “was born when the universe was breathing its first gasps. He is said to be the father of time. He understood how it moved and gave it shape. It had a will of its own, you see. Time is a flighty, complex thing; it will go in any direction, all at once, without control.
“Chronos saw this and set the earth on a straight track forward. One small slip, one pattern unraveled, and earth’s time would tangle together like a ball of twine. We would go forward and backward, experience the same day in ten different ways, witness our births as we experienced our deaths. Chronos is the giver of time, the founder of what we know as history.”
Beele stopped to stare out at the ocean for a moment, hands held clasped behind his back. “But it was too much, even for Chronos. Weary and losing control, he cut off four of his fingers, which grew into the four other Gaian gods. Aetas and Oceana were born first—in that, Bell, you were correct. Chronos gave Aetas power over time, and Aetas went to earth with Oceana to be closer to his new power.”
Beele took a deep breath and turned back to his students. “What you all felt in the sea during your initiation was more than time. It was Aetas allowing you to see and sense it for yourself, as he does. Time is not a tapestry, cleanly woven; it is far more complicated. You will do well to remember and respect that.”
Over the ground, Castor’s hand had found Bell’s, their fingers twined together.
“Sir?” A girl had raised her hand. “If Aetas is the one controlling time, then how come only time servants can feel it? My sister and parents can’t, but I can.”
Beele was rarely defeated by a question, and it showed in his frown. “That, we do not know. It’s one of the great questions that has no answer. A theory, of course, is that Aetas requires only some of us to help him regulate time over all the world. It’s too big a task for one being, even if that being is a god. So we offer ourselves to Aetas, aware of him always. That is what keeps this world turning.”
Abigail had another fever. Their mother had gone to help an elderly aunt and their father was working late, so Bell sat by her bedside throughout the day, spooning broth into her mouth, returning to the hearth to boil water for tea. He went out to pick herbs, plants that his mother and her mother before her had been taught to use as cures for ailments.
When Abigail was awake, he told her stories of his lessons. She loved to hear about the ocean and the waves and how it felt to be immersed in the water.
“Time was everywhere at once, and it was so large, and so frightening. And so lovely.” He brushed the hair off of her forehead. “I wish you could feel it, Abi.”
“Take me to the ocean, then.”
“I will when you’re better.”
As the sun began to set, he heard a knock at the door. Castor waited on the other side, a small, wilted daisy in his hand. “It looked better before I picked it,” Castor said, handing him the drooping flower.
“That’s why they’re supposed to stay in the ground.” Bell took the flower and twirled it by its stem, grinning. “Would you like to come in for supper?”