City of Time Read Free

with a light that was almost dazzling.
    Cati sat down on a rock. Something was terribly wrong. There was only one option. She knew that her father had sometimes called upon special people in the ordinary world. She thought that the shopkeeper, Mary White, was one of them.
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    Owen was another. His father had known the Resisters and Owen had joined them to defeat the Harsh. Owen was called the Navigator, for reasons she didn't quite understand, and it was a title that the other Resisters seemed to respect; even, in some cases, to fear.
    She would never try to contact him under normal circumstances. But these were not normal circumstances. She jumped up and began to run.
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    Chapter 3
    Owen didn't know what woke him. A gust of wind, he thought, or a dog barking? As his eyes got used to the dark he lifted his head from the pillow. Everything in his room was the same as before. His guitar propped against the wall, the model plane hanging from the ceiling, the old chest under the window. Outside the wind stirred the trees. That was it , he thought, the wind .
    He allowed his head to fall back onto the pillow. It was cold and he gathered the blankets around him. He was about to close his eyes when he noticed something odd. He sat up. The air in the middle of the room looked strange. It was shimmering slightly. He rubbed his eyes, but when he looked again, there was still something different. The room looked distorted, as if he was
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    looking through old glass. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he sensed a presence in the room, and his heart started to beat faster.
    Then he thought he heard a sound, a voice. There was somebody else in the room.
    Without knowing how, he was out of bed now. The shimmering air was between him and the door. He started to edge around it. He heard the sound again, like a voice, but far, far away, as if in a cave or down a well. The words were mournful and distorted. He tried to squeeze between the wall and the shimmer, but it moved toward him.
    He stepped back, stumbling over his trainers, and instinctively put out an arm to save himself. The arm touched the moving air and to his amazement it felt warm and solid, like a living thing.
    He jerked his arm away and backed toward the bed. Something was resolving itself in the middle of the room. Suddenly there was a large flicker and he realized that it was a person, someone he recognized. He saw a clever girl's face with dark curly hair, then a body wearing a faded uniform with epaulettes on the shoulders. His heart leapt.
    "Cati!" he gasped. He could see her lips moving but could not understand the words, which still sounded distant. He grabbed her arm. Immediately he could hear her voice. It had been a year since she had disappeared back into the mists of time, but if he thought
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    that she was going to exchange memories with him like two old comrades, he was sadly mistaken.
    "Hold on to me, you idiot," she hissed. "It's the only way I can stay stable in your time." Owen grasped her with both hands. The flickering stopped and at last she was standing in his room, flesh and blood. Her expression was serious, but as always, there was a mocking look in her strange green eyes.
    "Cati," he said again. "I missed--"
    "Never mind that," she said. "There isn't time. I need you to come down to the Workhouse and meet me."
    "What's happening? Is it the Harsh?"
    "Come to the Workhouse and I'll explain. It's easier to stay stable there." As she spoke, Cati began to flicker again. One moment Owen had hold of solid flesh, the next there was nothing. But just before she faded completely, he saw a cheeky, lopsided grin on her face and thought he heard the words "Missed you too ..."
    Hastily, Owen yanked on jeans, a sweatshirt, and a jacket and fumbled for his trainers. Then he opened the door into the hallway. It was flooded with moonlight. From the room at the end he heard his mother's soft breathing. As quietly as possible, he crept along the landing