CHAPTER THREE – SEPTIMUS MASON
Tom snapped the light back on and saw a slender, fit looking man in his late twenties. He had a neatly trimmed beard and moustache and was wearing tightly cut jeans and a smart black shirt. He moved away from the bed over to Tom’s bookshelf and, having perused the titles, was now examining a mobile model of the solar system. He gave the planets a spin on their axis.
“Interesting – just nine planets ...”
“Er ... who are you?” Tom squeaked, his heart thudding.
The stranger turned back and looked at him.
“I apologise: that’s bad manners that is! My name is Mason; Septimus Mason.”
Jumping out of bed Tom started backing away from the stranger and towards the door. He glanced across at the window. It was shut. He could see that the security locks his dad had fitted after the neighbours had been burgled were still intact. So how had the man got in? His own door was shut and in any case, the landing went straight past his parents’ bedroom: they surely would have noticed someone creeping up the stairs? On second thoughts, obviously not!
“Don’t be afraid, Tommy, I’m here to help you ? not hurt you,” promised Septimus in an oddly accented voice, which was at the same time formal and polite, yet warm and friendly. Was it Irish or Scottish? Perhaps it was Welsh. Yes, it was Welsh; but somehow a little different, as if belonging to a man who had travelled and picked up words and phrases that were not native to him.
“How do you know my name? Who are you? What are you doing here and what do you want from me?” Tom asked, still edging towards the door and reaching out to grasp the handle.
The man shrugged and then pointed at him. “To myself and those I work for you have become quite familiar of late, young sir. I’m here to help you, I assure you.”
Septimus moved closer. Tom froze.
“Oh yes,” said the Welshman, “I forgot to say, Happy New Year. Stayed up to listen to Big Ben did we? Quite an occasion, eh? Tell me, did you enjoy it better the first or the second time around?”
After he had said this, Septimus stared at Tom for a moment, his eyes scrutinising him, as if waiting to see how the boy would react. Suddenly, his face relaxed and he chuckled.
“Best New Year party I went to was in 1945. All that relief after the war was won made people celebrate – even if they were still on rations and had to scrounge to get a decent spread. Food was a bit basic but nice enough, although the beer was warm – yuk, I hate warm beer, what about you?”
“Erm ... I’ve never drunk any beer; but this is all rubbish, isn’t it? You weren’t alive in 1945 – you couldn’t have been!” Tom shouted, but his voice betrayed some lack of conviction. This man seemed to know a lot about him and if so, perhaps it was foolish to dismiss him so easily.
“Thomas, go to sleep!” shouted his dad from down the corridor.
Tom glanced at Septimus and then carried on in a whisper. “Why should I trust you and not yell for my dad right now?”
“Come on, Tommy boy, I know what has been happening to you. I understand it: I can explain it to you. No one else can, at least, no one in your family. Not them, nor a doctor: not even a psychiatrist,” he said, smiling as the boy gave a little gasp of surprise. “Yes, Tommy, I know you must have been thinking that you’re going mad. Am I right?”
Tom nodded slowly, still suspicious, but wanting to know more.
“You are not. You are discovering your talents. And very rare and special they are too.”
“What talents?” Tom asked, letting go of the door handle.
“Well, I’m not talking about playing the recorder here, boyo! No, your talents are extraordinary, I’m sure of that, but you will need to trust me. Come with me this night and I will show you what you want to know.”
“Come with you? It’s three in the morning on New Year’s Day. My parents would not ...”
“And it still will be when we finish and your parents will never know what happened,” Septimus interrupted.
Tom hesitated. When he was younger his parents always told him never to go off with strangers. Not that they had ever covered the variety that materialised in your bedroom at three a.m. and promised to tell you the secret of your existence. Tom was pretty sure he would have remembered that conversation! He thought of the strange events these last few months and how he was convinced he was going mad. It had to be worth any risk to get to the bottom of all that.
“Ok, I’m in. Let me get dressed.”
“Nothing too heavy, mind: no jumpers,” the man suggested.
“Mr Mason, can’t you see that there’s ice on my window?” Tom protested.
“Ah, but where we are going there won’t be ice for a million years!”
Tom stared at the man for a moment, but in the light of all the other bizarre occurrences he decided to let that one pass. He walked over to his wardrobe. Five minutes later, he was dressed in jeans and a shirt but with a jumper tucked under his arm just in case.
Septimus had been reading Tom’s book on the history of the world and giggling occasionally, but finally he replaced it on the shelf, looked Tom up and down and said, “Ready now?”
“I guess so,” said Tom, wishing his voice would stop quavering.
“Then, let’s go!”
It was like changing channels on the TV. One moment they stood in the dark bedroom of the terrace house. The next, they were standing on a sun–bathed hillside looking down upon a valley with a river meandering lazily through it. Ferns grew all about them and dotted here and there were bushes and trees.
Shocked by the abruptness of the change, Tom staggered backwards, tripped on a rotting tree trunk and fell with a cry onto his behind.
“Where am I?” he blurted out.
The strange man was smiling in amusement. “Yes, it fair takes the breath away the first time, doesn’t it?” he observed with a laugh. “Don’t worry ? it did the same for me, also.”
“But ... but what have you done, where am I? We were in my bedroom a moment ago!” Tom insisted. Suddenly, he heard a snort from behind and spinning round, he saw an odd creature standing there. It was about the size of a pig, green in colour and looking a little like a lizard as it waddled along on short stumpy legs. Seeing it, Tom gave another shout of surprise. The creature snorted in alarm and scuttled away through the ferns.
“You know, Tommy, you are going to have to stop shouting, or you might alter history by giving some vital species a heart attack,” Septimus commented. Then, crouching down beside the boy he patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s all just to show you the truth. You asked me what had happened to your bedroom, didn’t you? Well, in a way we are still standing in it.” He waved his arms across the vista, “In two hundred and forty million years, or so, this will be your city. Of course, it will spend most of that time at the bottom of the ocean, for this is Pangaea: all of Earth’s land mass in one lump. This is where your house will be, America is only about two hundred miles that way; the continents have yet to split and the seas to form." He pointed, “That green creature was an early dinosaur, by the way.”
Tom was not sure whether he believed Septimus or not, but that beast did look like a picture in his dinosaur book. So, in that case, was this all some kind of museum? James had been telling them all, just before the holidays, of a museum in America he had visited with his parents, which had amazing animated monsters that seemed almost lifelike. Maybe he was in one of those? But even if that were true, how had he been brought here, and so fast? Had he been drugged and while asleep, somehow put on a plane and flown to America? Was that any more likely than Septimus’ statement that they had travelled back to the time of the dinosaurs? The other possibility, of course, was that he was again dreaming – and yet this time, ridiculous as the strange man’s claim would have seemed a few months before, Tom was willing to at least entertain the idea that all this was real.
“Ok, say I believe you for now, what is the point of this?” he asked.
“Goo
d question. Well, you need to know what talents you possess: what you can do and how. I brought you here, but I could not have done it without tapping into the power you have. You have more power than you can dream of, more than most of us certainly. That’s why I came to you. You have been drawn to our attention.”
“Who are you? Hang on – you said ‘our attention’. Who else is with you?” Tom glanced nervously at the ferns in case one of Septimus’ allies was there.
“All in good time, you’re rushing ahead. Let me explain a little about the powers you have,” Septimus said.
Tom shrugged and let the evasion pass for the moment. “Alright, go on then,” he said and moved to sit on the log.
Septimus took a deep breath and started talking in a voice that sounded a little formal, as if he was lecturing a class. “I said earlier that you had many powers and talents. Most of the people on our planet don’t possess them. They go about their lives, each living one day after the preceding day from birth to death. They are time–bound: immobile and restricted. They are happy enough for all that, I suppose. But we,” and he indicated both himself, Tom and, with a general circular movement, unseen others, “are different. Over the centuries there have always been those who could see in some way outside the limited frame of their own time. Some were just good gamblers, able to predict the outcome of a race, or the roll of a dice. Others claimed to see the future and foresee disasters. Still more claimed to have lived previous lives in the past.”
Tom nodded, thinking now of Mrs Brown and her tales of Florence Nightingale.
“I see I am striking a chord here,” Septimus went on. “Well, those are all related talents. In some way they are manipulating time. They don’t know it, of course. There are organisations that pick up and train those with the potential,” he added.
“Ah, so you work for one of those?” said Tom. It all sounded phantasmagorical, but he was prepared to go along with it.
“Indeed,” Septimus agreed with a quick nod then hesitated, “… more or less. So, you can perhaps begin to see that what you have been experiencing lately are all examples of these kinds of talents. In you they are at present, wild, uncontrolled and possibly dangerous. That can change. If you master them, given the raw power I can feel in you, you will be a force amongst the Walkers.”
Tom frowned, “Walkers? Who are they?”
“Not so much who as what. Walkers is the name given to the most powerful Temporopaths or time manipulators: those who can move freely through time; those who can physically alter reality. I’m a Walker, but only a weak one. I tapped some of your power to bring us this far. You could do it alone.”
“So, I’m some sort of god?” Tom felt dizzy. He had never seen himself as some all powerful being.
Septimus laughed and shook his head. “Don’t get delusions of grandeur, boyo – you’re still mortal. You can die and will do one day and that day might be soon if I don’t start teaching you a little.”
“Teaching me what?” Tom asked, wondering if he was having another of those lifelike dreams.
“It’s time for your first lesson in Walking. Time travel for dummies, if you like,” Septimus said. Then he stopped and looked searchingly at Tom’s face, “That is, of course, unless you want me to take you home and you can just pretend it was all a dream.”
Tom shook his head. “Not on your life! Not after what you have just shown me. I need to see more.”
“Very well,” Septimus placed one hand on Tom’s shoulders. “Close your eyes and relax: try and clear your mind. I’m going to teach you how to Walk through time.”