A snowy extract for a winter's day ... join Paleontologist Eve Wells is she is drawn into the recent past by enigmatic adventurer Ravenna Friere in this extract from 'Dinosaur Girl' the unpublished precursor to my Deeper Realms series.
Yamal Peninsula, Siberia.
‘Wow,’ was all Eve could manage.
The shock of the cold was literally breath-taking, tearing through every gap in her multiple layers of clothing to make her shiver almost instantly.
Reality seemed suddenly to quake and warp as it had done at the Messel Lake. She gasped to clear her head, fighting nausea as her consciousness seemed to lurch forwards into the white windswept world ahead of her. ‘It’s so cold,’ she stammered, her watering eyes struggling to take in the spindly trees and snow blanketed hills in which she now stood.
Ravenna Friere turned to glance at her, her expression neutral behind her snow goggles.
‘You don’t say.’
Eve swallowed, then glanced away, half of her unable to drag her gaze from the primal landscape in which she now stood, yet desperate to tighten every Velcro cuff, hem chord and press-stud on her parka.
Snow began to fall, a stinging blizzard torn from the glowering clouds which seemed almost to press down on top of them. They trudged forward a few paces, the powder almost knee deep in places, making her pant with the effort – at least she was warming up a little.
‘Where are we?’ she yelled over the gusting wind.
‘The Yamal Peninsula, Siberia, about sixteen days ago,’ Ravenna replied, her breath misting with every word.
It took a moment for it to sink in.
‘You mean …’
‘Just keep walking,’ the older woman said levelly, ‘or you’ll feint from the shock. Don’t try to contemplate it, just enjoy the scenery.’ Eve nodded, staring. It was indeed utterly captivating – in an inhospitably life threatening kind of way. She shivered uncontrollably. ‘Just keep the blood flowing Eve Wells.’
She nodded, flexing her fingers while beginning to swing her arms. It was impossible, wonderful – terrifying. Ravenna Friere trudged on purposefully ahead of her.
‘Ravenna,’ she dared to ask after what seemed a long time, ‘sorry for keep going on about this – and I appreciate if you don’t want to …’
‘You wish to know more about the door,’ the other woman interrupted, slowing her pace to fall in step with her, ‘how it is even possible to travel back in time.’
She nodded, feeling foolish, yet desperately curious. Ravenna looked at her for a moment as if assessing her, then turned to gaze at the treeline ahead.
‘Reality,’ she said slowly, ‘– time, as you understand it - is not a constant. It is not fixed, nor linear – moving only onwards – nor even truly measurable as you feel it to be, despite all your clocks and calendars.’ She broke off and made a gesture with her gloved hands. ‘Sometimes it seems to pass quickly, at others ponderously slow, so that five minutes can seem an hour.’ Eve nodded thoughtfully feeling suddenly uneasy. ‘Time is what an associate of mind describes as a flexible membrane, a fabric you can fold and twist - here.’ She pulled of a bulky over-mitt and folded it back on itself, then again to create quarters. ‘You see Eve wells?’
She wasn’t really sure that she did, but she nodded anyway. ‘There are places where the folds and crumples of reality, past, present and future, lie closely together - where the weave of time pulls so tight that physical reality itself touch and sometimes wears thin.’
Eve nodded, now she was beginning to understand. ‘Doorways.’ The girl continued, ‘places where mortal women and men can slip between the weave.’
An idea occurred to her.
‘Like the Bermuda Triangle!’ Countless boats and aircraft and had seemingly disappeared in the remote stretch of sea off Florida over the years. Ravenna nodded, her face breaking into an enigmatic smile.
‘Like the Bermuda triangle, yes,’ Ravenna conceded, ‘– and many other places.’ Eve frowned.
‘So sometimes when people go missing without a trace ..?’
‘Sometimes,’ Ravenna shrugged, ‘yes – sometimes mortals have walked through such a door and become lost. In fact, Eve Wells, wherever you hear tales of strange legends, disappearances, apparitions and sightings of terrible creatures, there is a good chance that this phenomena is the reason.’
Eve let out a long misting breath feeling stunned.
‘The Yeti,’ she said breathily, ‘The Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch - sightings of aliens …’
‘It is best not to get carried away,’ Ravenna cut in quickly, ‘such doors exist Eve wells, and sometimes regular mortals can step through them. For now, that is all you need to know.’ Eve closed her mouth then nodded. There was that word again: mortals. The wind continued to howl.
They trudged on for a little further, struggling out of a deep depression between snow laden larches, yet as they neared the top she couldn’t contain her curiosity any further.
‘So you know how to find these doors?’
Ravenna paused, pushing back her hood to remove her goggles, and wipe her brow.
‘Eve wells, you frustrate me a great deal,’ she said coolly, ‘you’re questions are as annoying as a small child’s and your insecurity makes me want to answer them – even though I should not.’
She waited, looking away apologetically as the wind whistled between them. Ravenna cleared her throat.
‘Though many have slipped through a door into the past by accident, a chosen few can make a door – pull the weave of reality close at will …’
She stared at her in disbelief and found herself asking the question before she could stop herself. ‘But how?’
‘There are deeper realms Eve wells, things that it is much safer you do not know about.’
‘But …’
‘Eve wells, my patience is wearing thin.’
They set off once more, trudging into the merciless blizzard, the shelter of the trees their only saving grace. Eve forced herself forward for a dozen more strength sapping paces then asked: ‘So why are we here – in the middle of nowhere? This has to be like the coldest place on earth?’
‘It is not.’ Ravenna called back in a mildly annoyed tone. They moved forward a few more paces, the only sound the rustling of clothing and the crunch of their boots in the snow. ‘Many have slipped back into the past,’ Ravenna continued begrudgingly, ‘and occasionally, something from the past moves forward in time. But not often. The former is a troublesome matter in its own right, but the latter …’
Eve couldn’t get her head around it. How could someone or something step into a future which did not exist – which hadn’t been created?
‘And we’re here because someone from the past has moved forward, into our time?’
‘Perhaps,’ Ravenna returned slowly. ‘I am pledged to investigate such things – to intervene when I am most needed.’ Eve fixed her gaze on Ravenna, wondering suddenly exactly who and what she was, but the confident young woman kept her gaze firmly on the track ahead.
‘So – so we’re here to plug a leak?’ she ventured, ‘a faulty valve in time?’
Ravenna Friere turned and raised her eyebrows then shook her head, but whether in amusement or despair she couldn’t tell.
‘You are near unbelievable Eve Wells.’
The wind dropped as they rounded a corner to see the one thing Eve least expected: a series of squat building arranged around an open courtyard with prefabricated walls and corrugated roofs.
‘Wow, where are we?’
‘All in good time Dinosaur Girl, just keep quiet, smile and do whatever I tell you.’ She nodded and though she felt pleased at the prospect of some shelter from the biting wind her nerves begin to stir uncontrollably.
‘So this person from the past we’ve come to …’
‘I never said it was a person,’ Ravenna shot back briskly, then gesturing to the buildings ahead raised a hand. A woman in a red jacket was striding forward to meet them. ‘Come. Enough of your childish questions, our work now begins.’
Eve shivered and followed as briskly as she could.
A faulty valve.
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