Parallel [ONC 2020] // Shortlisted

Chapter Eighteen

Ricky stepped forward and once again removed the glass cover from the clock and slowly twist the hands back to the time we had all memorised. This could be my only chance of going home and we had to get it right first same or we would be in trouble. It had to go right, it just had to. I had to go home, and I had to be with my family or else I didn't know what I would do. I liked some aspects of modern life, but my home would always be my home and I needed that back.

When the hands had been wound back, we had a full minute of doing nothing but watching the clock to see what would happen and for the right time to hit. That minute stood in silence watching the seconds count down were some of the longest minutes of my life and I had sat through Mother teaching me the intricacies of fan communication. Ever movement of the second hand had me fixated on that clock and waiting for the moment when we could finally enact our plan the way it was supposed to be, and I could finally go home.

The seconds continued to tick down.

After what felt like an age of watching the clock count down those last few crucial seconds, the hand finally moved, and we were staring at ten past four once more. I brushed my hands over my dress and turned to look at Mrs Likens who took a breath and stood with her hands pressed behind her back, just as Mother used to do. She gave me a knowing look.

"You'll need a shawl, Harriet," she said.

"Yes, Mother," I replied, though it felt awkward to say.

"Be quick about it, the carriage is waiting."

I nodded my head, turned and disappeared back up the stairs in the same direction I had taken the evening of the theatre trip. Behind me, I could here Ricky as she made her first comment as Luke and I knew I wouldn't have much time to grab my shawl and walk back out of my room in time. That door would only stay open for a short space of time and whatever I did, I had to make it in time, or I would never make it home.

The hall to my bedroom seemed to stretch on forever as I walked past the other students rooms and eventually to my own. I opened the door and stepped inside, closing it partially behind me just as I had only days before. The shawl had remained inside the wardrobe, but I didn't grab it immediately. Instead, I crossed to the desk at the far side of the room and snatched a piece of paper that someone had left lying around.

On the sheet of paper, I wrote some very simple words, a note to Ricky so she would forever know my gratitude for all that she did for me in my quest to get home. Even if the photograph faded, I hoped the note would remain as a mark of my thanks for risking her own position at the school and most likely her own sanity to help in my mission to return back from where I had come from. She had done so much for me and it felt right that I remind her of that.

Once I had written my note, alongside a few extra words for Mitch as he too had stopped his own life in order to help me get back to my own, I pulled my copy of the photograph from my pocket. With a thick marker I had found on the desk, I wrote our names on the white boarder that framed the photograph. I wanted to know who these people were if the photograph survived back home. Although I wouldn't know who they were, it would be nice to have it with me regardless.

I tucked the photograph back into my pocket and took the shawl out of the wardrobe, pausing briefly to look around the room one more time. The posters that had seemed outlandish when I first arrived were somewhat comforting now. The four beds in each corner of the room had transformed my room in ways that I never imagined, but they made it feel less lonely then when it had just been my own four-poster bed standing in the middle of the room with very little else.

Before I left the room, I paused by the slightly open door to listen out for the sound of the clock as it hit the ground. I had never heard the clock fall in my own time, but if I left my room too early, I would miss the opening of the door and if I was too late, the door would have closed before I had the chance to walk through it and return home. The moment that clock hit the floor would be the moment I needed to walk through as the door opened.

There were so many small details to this plan and they all had to be done to an exact science or else it would fail. One wrong move and we would have to start all over again and I knew we didn't have that much time before those in the dining room were released and would fill the hallway, stopping our plan completely.

On the ground floor, I heard Mrs Likens cry, the same way Mother had in the echo from just hours before. A few seconds after, the loud crash filled the hallway and carried up the stairs to my room. I wrapped the shawl around my shoulders, pulling it tightly over my chest before grabbing onto the door handle.

A strong wind passed by as I pulled open the door and stepped back into the hallway.