NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 128

Now I'm in a completely black room with blinking lights. They go from red through to violet. After trying to adjust my eyes to it, I see figures appear on the ninth round of blinking. There is Xaxu. Qira, Raea, Fejj, Suke, Jarka, two strange women and, finally, my shadow, all dressed in black bodysuits. But none of them speak. They simply take up formation around a glowing circle, with Xaxu's white hair facing me at twelve o'clock. But there are only nine of them so I guess that won't work. Nothing I can't fix by kicking out three numbers though. It's settled! They're a clock with nine numbers. While I'm redecorating my imaginary clock, they step aside and part it at the base, and I see that the circle is liquid gold, with an etched golden triangle dead centre. One of the strange women beckons me forward.

"I'm Mira," she says with her thoughts, black onyx eyes beaming at me in the dark room.

Oh, so we're back to this again? Dammit! That means they just heard everything I said.

"Yes, we did." She smiles at me. "Come stand in the middle of the triangle."

I cautiously do as I'm told. They take advantage of that and instruct me to lie down. Well, this is an uncomfortable fit, I think to myself. Mira chuckles. Dammit! I've got to remember my mind is an open book in this room. The other strange woman, with hair like mine, scowls at her. Mira brings herself to order immediately. I follow suit and try to make myself fit into the triangle; but my head is cut off at the peak by one of the etches and my feet are outside the middle of the base.

I take my mind off it when the witches start humming a song I've never heard before. Then they move one notch. Xaxu is now at eleven o'clock. I mean nine o'clock. The etch across my neck extends to the left and right of the circle. They do it again and the one at the left of the triangle extends the same way. One more movement puts Xaxu at seven o'clock and activates the right etch. Now my feet are enclosed by an inverted triangle with a cone as its base. And if I extend my arms into the two inverted triangles at my left and right, I can touch two more cones there too.