“I know. Start doing the things you have to do.”

Nick drew Laurel through the door.

25

She resisted for a moment, then came along. He stopped in the small galley alcove and faced her. In that moment, with his face less than four inches from hers, she realized a dismal truth — he was the man she had been hoping to find in Boston. He had been on the plane all the time. There was nothing at all romantic about this discovery; it was horrible.

“I think we might have had something, you and me,” he said. “Do you think I could be right about that? If you do, say so — there’s no time to dance. Absolutely none.”

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was dry, uneven. “I think that’s right.”

“But we don’t know. We can’t know. It all comes back to time, doesn’t it? Time... and sleep... and not knowing. But I have to be the one, Laurel. I have tried to keep some reasonable account of myself, and all my books are deeply in the red. This is my chance to balance them, and I mean to take it.”

“I don’t understand what you mea—”

“No — but I do.” He spoke fast, almost rapping his words. Now he reached out and took her forearm and drew her even closer to him. “You were on an adventure of some sort, weren’t you, Laurel?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

He gave her a brisk shake. “I told you — there’s no time to dance! Were You on an adventure?”

“... yes.”

“Nick!” Brian called from the cockpit.

Nick looked rapidly in that direction. “Coming!” he shouted, and then looked back at Laurel. “I’m going to send you on another one. If you get out of this, that is, and if you agree to go.”

She only looked at him, her lips trembling. She had no idea of what to say. Her mind was tumbling helplessly. His grip on her arm was very tight, but she would not be aware of that until later, when she saw the bruises left by his fingers; at that moment, the grip of his eyes was much stronger.

“Listen. Listen carefully.” He paused and then spoke with peculiar, measured emphasis: “I was going to quit it. I’d made up my mind.”

“Quit what?” she asked in a small, quivery voice.

Nick shook his head impatiently. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not you believe me. Do you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I believe you mean it.”

“Quik!” Brian warned from the cockpit. “We’re heading toward it!”

He shot a glance toward the cockpit again, his eyes narrow and gleaming. “Coming just now!” he called. When he looked at her again, Laurel thought she had never in her life been the focus of such ferocious, focussed intensity. “My father lives in the village of Fluting, south of London,” he said. “Ask for him in any shop along the High Street. Mr Hopewell. The older ones still call him the gaffer. Go to him and tell him I’d made up my mind to quit it. You’ll need to be persistent; he tends to turn away and curse loudly when he hears my name. The old I-have-no-son bit. Can you be persistent?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and smiled grimly. “Good! Repeat what I’ve told you, and tell him you believed me. Tell him I tried my best to atone for the day behind the church in Belfast.”

“In Belfast.”

“Right. And if you can’t get him to listen any other way, tell him he must listen. Because of the daisies. The time I brought the daisies. Can you remember that, as well?”

“Because once you brought him daisies.”

Nick seemed to almost laugh — but she had never seen a face filled with such sadness and bitterness. “No — not to him, but it’ll do. That’s your adventure. Will you do it?”

“Yes... but...”

“Good. Laurel, thank you.” He put his left hand against the nape of her neck, pulled her face to his, and kissed her. His mouth was cold, and she tasted fear on his breath.

A moment later he was gone.

26

“Are we going to feel like we’re... you know, choking?” Bethany asked. “Suffocating?”

“No,” Brian said. He had gotten up to see if Nick was coming; now, as Nick reappeared with a very shaken Laurel Stevenson behind him, Brian dropped back into his seat. “You’ll feel a little giddy... swimmy in the head... then, nothing.” He glanced at Nick. “Until we all wake up.”

“Right!” Nick said cheerily. “And who knows? I may still be right here. Bad pennies have a way of turning up, you know. Don’t they, Brian?”

“Anything’s possible, I guess,” Brian said. He pushed the throttle forward slightly. The sky was growing bright again. The rip lay dead ahead. “Sit down, folks. Nick, right up here beside me. I’m going to show you what to do... and when to do it.”

“One second, please,” Laurel said. She had regained some of her color and self-possession. She stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on Nick’s mouth.

“Thank you,” Nick said gravely.

“You were going to quit it. You’d made up your mind. And if he won’t listen, I’m to remind him of the day you brought the daisies. Have I got it right?”

He grinned. “Letter-perfect, my love. Letter-perfect.” He encircled her with his left arm and kissed her again, long and hard. When he let her go, there was a gentle, thoughtful smile on his mouth. “That’s the one to go on,” he said. “Right enough.”

27

Three minutes later, Brian opened the intercom. “I’m starting to decrease pressure now. Check your belts everyone.”

They did so. Albert waited tensely for some sound — the hiss of escaping air, perhaps — but there was only the steady, droning mumble of the jet engines. He felt more wide awake than ever.

“Albert?” Bethany said in a small, scared voice. “Would you hold me, please?”

“Yes,” Albert said. “If you’ll hold me.”

Behind them, Rudy Warwick was telling his rosary again. Across the aisle, Laurel Stevenson gripped the arms of her seat. She could still feel the warm print of Nick Hopewell’s lips on her mouth. She raised her head, looked at the overhead compartment, and began to take deep, slow breaths. She was waiting for the masks to fall... and ninety seconds or so later, they did.

Remember about the day in Belfast, too, she thought. Behind the church. An act of atonement, he said. An act...

In the middle of that thought, her mind drifted away.

28

“You know... what to do?” Brian asked again. He spoke in a dreamy, furry voice. Ahead of them, the time-rip was once more swelling in the cockpit windows, spreading across the sky. It was now lit with dawn, and a fantastic new array of colors coiled, swam, and then streamed away into its queer depths.

“I know,” Nick said. He was standing beside Brian and his words were muffled by the oxygen mask he wore. Above the rubber seal, his eyes were calm and clear. “No fear, Brian. All’s safe as houses. Off to sleep you go. Sweet dreams, and all that.”

Brian was fading now. He could feel himself going... and yet he hung on, staring at the vast fault in the fabric of reality. It seemed to be swelling toward the cockpit windows, reaching for the plane. It’s so beautiful, he thought. God, it’s so beautiful!

He felt that invisible hand seize the plane and draw it forward again. No turning back this time.

“Nick,” he said. It now took a tremendous effort to speak; he felt as if his mouth was a hundred miles away from his brain. He held his hand up. It seemed to stretch away from him at the end of a long taffy arm.

“Go to sleep,” Nick said, taking his hand. “Don’t fight it, unless you want to go with me. It won’t be long now.”

“I just wanted to say... thank you.”

Nick smiled and gave Brian’s hand a squeeze. “You’re welcome, mate. It’s been a flight to remember. Even without the movie and the free mimosas.”

Brian looked back into the rip. A river of gorgeous colors flowed into it now. They spiralled... mixed... and seemed to form words before his dazed, wondering eyes: