The Other Side of Time

A short story by Elizabeth Ottosson

I am very excited to be launching this substack of Thrutopia writing. We are a group of creatives who are imagining a future where we humans are genuinely tackling the environmental - and other - crises which we currently face. This month we are serialising a short story by Elizabeth Ottosson as well as featuring an interview with the author. Enjoy!

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The Other Side of Time by Elizabeth Ottosson (Part 1)

“You’re going to do this, Marnie.” Bowden’s voice held her like a vice. “These people aren’t real. They don’t count.”

The decontamination fumes were still clearing. Marnie stared through the viewfinder out into the meadow and beyond, at the house where Aminta was waiting: Aminta, with her very real kisses, her laughing eyes and fierce determination. Not real?

But maybe Bowden was right. What did a few weeks undercover count against a lifetime?

Bowden’s hand clamped on Marnie’s wrist. Not all the chemicals came from the decontamination spray: some of them she recognised as Bowden’s perfume. Marnie tried to breathe shallowly, willing her lungs to behave.

“I’ll see you here tomorrow,” Bowden ordered. “You’ll pick up the weapon, and you will kill this woman.”

“Mayana.” Marnie wasn’t sure why she had to say the name, only that she owed it to Mayana, a doctor as well as mayor, who’d dealt with her so gently and done more to help her lungs than a lifetime of London inhalers.

“Whatever her name is,” Bowden said. In the window reflection, her smile was a razor. “Take her out and the others will be in no state to stop us. Think of all that land, all those resources going to waste!”

Marnie had explained that the ‘wasted’ land here in Dunbarrow was overflowing with all kinds of food, but Bowden wasn’t interested. The sun winked off the solar panels down in the valley, and she wondered if she should try once more to get Bowden outside. Perhaps the heady scents would work their magic the way they had on Marnie, the first time she’d arrived here. But her lungs were closing in and she needed to get out before the attack took hold. She forced herself to meet Bowden’s gaze.

“I’ll come back tomorrow.” She hit the exit button, not waiting for the perimeter checks or Bowden’s farewell.

Outside, she inhaled deeply, hoping to clear her lungs of whatever gases her employers had used to destroy the microbes and fungi she might be carrying between worlds. Beyond the house, distant hills piled on top of one another like a pack of dogs snoozing under the scudding clouds. A breeze sighed through the eucalyptus woods and she turned towards it, gazing down at the sparkling solar rooftops of the town, trying to make out the office in which Mayana had treated her a few days earlier.

It was possible, she thought, to look down on Dunbarrow and believe in peace and prosperity – if only it weren’t for the building she’d just stepped away from. On this side, the world machine (she could never remember its technical term) looked like an abandoned shed. The window through which Bowden might still be watching was gunged up, dark. Not for the first time, Marnie wondered what would happen if she took an axe to it all.

She breathed again, more slowly. She needed to gather herself, and not fifty metres away, in the community house above the trees, Aminta was waiting.

Aminta would never forgive her. Marnie massaged her eyes with her palms. Obviously, what she was doing was unforgiveable in any case. Living under an assumed identity, plotting to destroy Dunbarrow so it could be plundered by her employers. It was all unforgiveable. But if she killed someone… if she killed Mayana…

If she did that, she would never forgive herself, never mind hope for forgiveness from Aminta.

Kill Mayana.

Mayana, whose kind hands and free medication had saved her from the kind of asthma attack that would have kept her in hospital for weeks at home. Who had welcomed her with a gentle touch that she admitted now she hadn’t felt since childhood. Since the day Mother had been torn away—

She shook her head. Mother was a traitor. Half the reason Marnie was in this situation in the first place was because she’d been desperate to prove to Bowden she could be trusted, unlike Mother.

With careful steps and slow breaths, she headed for the house.

The door was open as always. The giant kettle whistled from the kitchen; Marnie stumbled along the corridor and fell through the doorway, almost on top of Aminta, who greeted her with a world-lighting grin.

One she didn’t deserve. Marnie tried to smile, but Aminta’s grin dissipated like the steam above the kettle.

“Your lungs again?”

Marnie nodded. Shook her head. The kettle was screaming but she could smell eucalyptus in the mugs Aminta had prepared. “Tea,” she managed. “I’ll be fine.”

Aminta squeezed her hands and moved quickly: the kettle left off its keening, the fire subsided, and Aminta was back in the doorway holding two large mugs of eucalyptus tea. Her smile was worried this time, not world-lighting, but Marnie still couldn’t look at her directly. She didn’t deserve to have anybody smiling at her in that way, ever, but certainly not with Bowden’s orders hanging over her head.

Kill Mayana.

“Upstairs,” Aminta said quietly. “We have some time before the others arrive.”

Marnie kissed her. It helped her forget her lungs, and she put work into it, trying to also forget Bowden, forget Mayana.

Aminta stepped back, breathing hard. “You’re feeling better?”

Marnie twisted a smile. “Better now.”

They kissed again, and Marnie thought about how much she loved the feeling of softness between them. The layers of fabric – clothes that could be discarded slowly, a centimetre at a time, unveiling the soft-and-hard body beneath.

Aminta stepped back again, her breath quick against Marnie’s lips. “Come with me,” she whispered, pulling her down the corridor to the rickety stairs.

Even with the distraction of Aminta, Marnie wasn’t sure her lungs would manage stairs. But Aminta had planned for that: Marnie found herself in a padded chair that was welded to the bottom of the staircase; she must have passed it many times but had never had reason to notice it until now. It connected to a rail that ran right up to the top. A vine with trefoil leaves wound around the rail; she let herself sag onto the seat and studied the microgreen panels in the wall as the chair slid upwards.

“Does someone actually live here?” she asked when Aminta turned on the landing, waiting for her. “I thought you only used it for meetings.”

Aminta shook her head. “I’ll tell you.” She grinned. “In a little while.”

The stairs and chairlift continued up another flight, but Aminta led her into a bedroom at the front of the house, overlooking the meadow. It was large and airy, without much furniture but with a bowl of dried leaves and pinecones on the windowsill and pictures on the wall – portraits of serious looking women. All of them had dark brown skin. Before Marnie could take in more than this, Aminta tugged her down onto the mattress.

“All right?” she demanded, and Marnie found that she was.

“Definitely,” she said, and Aminta turned that grin on her again.

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Part 2 of The Other Side of Time by Elizabeth Ottosson will be posted soon… Subscribe so as not to miss an episode.