Page 60 of Right Place, Right Time
I turn towards him to pass him the photos and I find our faces are suddenly inches apart. In the dim light welock eyes for what feels like an eternity, but is likely only a few seconds as we both hold on to one end of the strip of photos.
‘S-sorry.’ I hurriedly let go of my end. ‘Here, you take a look.’
I step aside and wait for Adam to hold them up to the light like I did. But he doesn’t. Instead, he simply continues to gaze at me.
‘They’re a bit like the photos of Archie we found,’ I say quickly, hoping this will encourage him to break his gaze. ‘Remember? Of him in different outfits from different decades.’
As if he’s been in a hypnotic trance, Adam suddenly seems to remember where he is and what he’s doing. ‘Yes…’ he says, blinking. ‘Yes, of course I remember.’ He turns away and holds the negative strip up to the light. ‘Why is it your great-grandmother that’s dressing up in costumes now?’ he says to my relief. ‘Wartime was hardly the time for fancy-dress parties.’
‘If she is in fancy dress?’ I reply, pleased everything is back to normal between us. ‘Look behind her – you can see ordinary men and women going about their daily business again, just like in Archie’s photos. They look like they’re also dressed in the clothes from the early twentieth century, like she is – probably late Victorian, I’d guess.’
Adam squints at the negatives again. ‘Just what have we stumbled upon here, Eve?’ he says, turning back from the photos to look at me. ‘A secret room that looks like it was last used in the Second World War. Photographs of both our great-grandparents looking like they were taken in years they couldn’t possibly have been in. Crypticnotes hidden in classic novels, a clock that’s stopped on a time representing both our birthdays, and a painting that seems like it could have all the answers if we could only figure it out!’
‘The answers to what, though?’ I ask, completely lost. ‘What’s going on here, Adam? And why are you and I seemingly at the centre of it all?’
19
The next morning, I walk towards Clockmaker Court feeling physically and emotionally drained from the events of the night before. Both from our latest discovery down in the basement between our two shops, and also from what Adam shared with me about his past.
After we met, I knew quite quickly that Adam and I shared a connection. I thought at first it was because of our great-grandparents. But as time ticked by, I realised there was something else, something much deeper. Until last night, though, I didn’t know what it was. The question I now had, among the many others that were swirling around in my mind, was: would I ever be brave enough to share with Adam the secret from my past too?
As I walk through the streets of Cambridge, I don’t, unusually, notice the historic buildings I pass or the early-morning cyclists that pass me. Instead, as I make my way towards my shop, my mind is firmly focused on what happened last night.
Adam and I eventually left the secret room carrying both the strip of photos and as many of the files as we could manage between us. With the agreement we wouldboth go home and read as much as we could manage, in the hope we could work out what was being described within the reports.
But after I read five reports and still couldn’t make head nor tail of what they were saying, I decided to look some things up on the internet, beginning with Project Eden. But everything that came up only referenced the Eden Project in Cornwall. Even when I eliminated Cornwall and gardens from my search, and put inProject Eden, Second World War, nothing of any relevance appeared. Eventually all I was getting were reports about primary school projects dedicated to the biblical Garden of Eden.
It was only after I gave up and got ready for bed that lightning finally struck, and after that I lay awake tossing and turning as my mind went into overdrive.
Is Project Eden actually a reference to the biblical Garden of Eden, and does that mean Adam and I, with our biblically matched names, are more involved in this than I first thought?No.I quickly tried to talk myself out of that theory.It’s just coincidental, surely? But then our great-grandparents clearly knew each other …
My mind went round and round until, finally, around 3 a.m., I nodded off, only to be woken again by my 7 a.m. alarm.
But now, as I walk through the market square with most of the stalls already set up, and the traders having a chat and a gossip with each other before their first customers arrive, my mind is still whirring. Not only about Project Eden, but about Adam too.
I couldn’t shake what happened down in the office between us – themoment, I was calling it. The connection wasn’t only the strip of negatives we were both holding.When we held each other’s gaze, something stirred inside me, something that I thought was buried a long, long time ago. Did Adam feel it too, or did I just imagine that? After all, there was a lot going on. Maybe I got confused? This felt like more than simply finding him attractive – it felt deeper, and it felt stronger. Much stronger.
I glance across at the bookshop as I arrive in Clockmaker Court and unlock the door to my shop, but there is no sign of Adam just yet. So I head inside and begin setting up for the day ahead. But I’ve barely set the till up when Barney comes wheeling through the door.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, surprised to see him. ‘You’re not working today … are you?’ With everything going on, it wouldn’t surprise me if I had got mixed up.
‘No, I’m just on my way to the lab and I wanted to call in on you first. Those books you gave me to look at? I think I know what they are.’
‘Go on.’ I wonder what he’s going to say. I had a couple of thoughts as to what might be happening, but they were so far-fetched that I quickly pushed them to one side. So I’m keen to know now what Barney’s theory might be.
‘OK, now hear me out first, all right,’ he says, looking a tad anxious. ‘Don’t shut me down before I’ve had a chance to explain.’
‘All right …’ Now I am getting worried.What if Barney has come to the same conclusion as me? A conclusion that simply can’t be true, however much the evidence is mounting by the minute to make it seem that way.
‘The diagrams and the equations seem to relate in physics terms to the theory of time travel,’ Barney says, confirming my worst fears. He waits to gauge my initial reaction to this.
‘Go on,’ I say calmly.
Barney hesitates, clearly not expecting this reaction from me.
‘I don’t know if you know, but the theory of travelling into the future is actually well documented in modern quantum physics. Thetheorybehind it, obviously. I’m not suggesting anyone has actually attempted it successfully.’
‘Of course not.’
