Stealing Time by Rebecca Bowyer (acx book reading .txt) 📕

walked over to claim her tablets and her time tabs andwent to bed.

Chapter forty-seven

Daniel

The Entiac was enough to make him drowsy but, try ashe might, for what felt like many hours, Daniel just couldn’t seemto fall asleep. His head felt heavy and fuzzy and his limbs werelike lead. He considered getting up again, asking Elena for ahigher dose, but the thought of getting out of bed was tooexhausting. He was certain he’d just fall on the floor if he tried.He wondered if this ever happened to Kir, or whether the dose wasmore accurately calibrated for his small body. He wondered whatwent on in the younger boy’s head each day that he was stuck inhere, whether he wanted to get out and go home. Or maybethis was home. After all, he was just a little kid, hedidn’t know any different.

But the way he’d stood looking at the TimeLock’s portal, after Varya went back through it. Shoulders slumped,head still. It was as if a switch had been flicked in the smallboy. Daniel had stood in his bedroom doorway, watching him, unsureif he should call out to him or go to him.

“Kir?” he tried softly. “Kir, you okay?”

Kir’s only response was to sink down ontothe carpet, crossing his legs and settling in, never once takinghis eyes off the shimmering curtain. Was he really waiting for hismother to come back so soon?

“Come away from there, Kir,” Elena calledfrom the kitchen.

Daniel stepped back into his bedroom, afraidto be caught staring. But Elena hadn’t come.

“She’ll be back again soon enough; you knowshe will. Come and have something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry!” Kir shouted.

Daniel took one last peek at Kir, then creptdown the hallway to the kitchen. He sat down at the table, watchingElena prepare the food that Marisa had brought for them. Tomatoes,cheese, and whole wheat bread.

“Is Kir okay?” he’d asked.

Elena turned to look at him briefly,frowning in surprise, as though she’d forgotten he’d remained inthe apartment. She turned back to slicing the tomato, sawing thinsegments directly onto the bread. Daniel noticed she only had twosandwiches set up on the board. She glanced at him again andreached for more bread. A slice of cheese on top of each collectionof tomato, then she closed the sandwiches and plated them up.

“Kir misses his mother.” Elena sighedheavily as she balanced all three plates in her hands and placedthem on the table. “It’s good that you’re here. Good for him, Imean.” She flicked her head towards the hallway. “Bad for you,obviously. But good for him. He will miss you, too, when youleave.”

“But he’ll leave too, one day, won’the?”

“Maybe he will. But maybe not. It alldepends on what his mother decides.” Elena seemed to speak toherself as much as Daniel. “He needs other children; he needs tolive in the world. But his mother, she has trouble accepting thecruelty of the true world. She refuses to let the universe run itscourse, thinking she can always intervene to change the path offate.”

“She seems to be pretty good at interveningso far,” said Daniel.

Elena glared at him. “Kir! Come and eat yoursandwich! Right now!”

Kir’s stomping footsteps approached down theshort hallway. He stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. Aftera moment he stood on his tiptoes so he could see over the back ofthe chair, to find out what was on his plate.

“I don’t like tomato,” he announced.

“Yes, you do. You had it yesterday and youloved it,” said Elena. “Now sit down and eat.”

“I don’t like tomato!” he shouted, punchinghis fists downwards and lifting his chin. He advanced on the platethen, shouting alternately, “I don’t like tomato!” and “I don’tlike you!” Elena sat silently as the little boy picked up eachsandwich quarter and flung it at the wall. Finally, he picked upthe plate, hurled it on the floor and jumped on it.

“Are you done?” asked Elena, her lipspursed.

Kir flopped to the floor and started to sob,his shoulders heaving, struggling for breath.

Elena calmly stood and went to him, pattedhis head, and murmured into his ear before retrieving the sandwichpieces and putting them on a fresh plate on the table. She liftedKir onto his chair where he sat, hunched over his sandwich, noteating.

Daniel had lost his appetite, too, though heate mechanically so as not to attract attention to himself. Thiswasn’t a happy place. And Kir wasn’t a happy boy.

In his bed, he rolled over to face the walland lazily pried his eyes open to look up at the print whichadorned it. A wide, thin black and white printed photograph of along, old-fashioned pier stretching off into the distance.

Kir had cheered up a little as the day wenton and they’d headed outside for some fresh air and a walk. Danielhad looked around and realised how much the same everything was. Hethought he knew his own neighbourhood and that it was prettyboring. Nothing happened except that people went about theirbusiness every day.

But this frozen world didn’t even have that.In Daniel’s world, the balls were different shapes and colours somedays. The teams of kids would swap and come out at different timeson different days. People would get new cars or put dents in oldones. In Kir’s world, the children wore the same clothes and thesame pose every day. The sun was always in the same position, theair was the same temperature, and the light made the same shadowpatterns around the trees. The shadows didn’t even dance in thewind. The whole world was still.

Daniel heard the creak of floorboards asElena paced down the hallway, away from his room and towards Kir’s.He waited a few beats before tracking the sound of her movingtowards his own room. The door swished softly against the carpet asit opened. Daniel stayed very still until he heard the door close.Soon after, the warmth of the room, his own weariness, and thestrength of the Entiac combined to finally lull his senses enoughfor him to slip into a synthetic sleep.

Chapter forty-eight

Varya

The prototype time transfer device that her team atthe Minor Miracles Foundation had built looked almost identical tothe one she had searched the