Time passed quickly when you were busy living your life. Days became weeks, became months, became years, became decades, and in the meantime, Scott had graduated high school, then college, had gotten married, had kids, and his kids had grown up and left home, just as he had. While all of that was happening, without him hardly even noticing, his parents had grown old, and then, so suddenly, or at least that was how it seemed, his dad was gone.

The funeral was everything it should have been, a celebration of the life of a great scientist who’d worked tirelessly to protect the environment. Colleagues old and new had attended, along with family and friends; there were even a couple of reporters covering the event with a tribute to a man of vision, but for Scott, it all passed in a blur. Nothing seemed real. His dad was gone, and he wished he’d spent more time with him in his last months, but he’d been busy with his own life, had kept putting off visits. That hadn’t seemed any need to rush. He’d thought there would be plenty of time, but time had run out.

Wasn’t that always the way with people you cared about? You always thought there would be time enough for everything, and then somehow it just slipped away when you weren’t looking; a blink of the eyes, and it was gone. After the funeral, Scott threw himself back into his work in conservation, a continuation of the work his father had dedicated his life to, using it as a way of dealing with his grief. Once again, the days flew by, and a few more months passed before he found time to visit his mother again.

She hugged Scott and Sarah, his wife, and shed a few tears, and again, Scott found himself wishing he hadn’t waited so long. His mom looked older than she had at the funeral, and it crossed Scott’s mind that like his father, she wouldn’t be around forever. If he wasn’t careful, he’d turn around one day and find her gone, before he’d said half of what he wanted to. He couldn’t let that happen, not again.

“You should come and live with us, mom. We’ve got plenty of room.”

His mother smiled. “It’s sweet of you to offer, but I’m not ready to leave this place, not yet. There are too many memories here.” She squeezed Scott’s hand. “I’ve hardly begun sorting through your father’s things, deciding what to keep and what to give away. That’s a job that’s going to keep me busy for some time. I’ve dug out some of his things that I know he would have wanted you to have, and I’ll give those to you before you leave, but…” She got up and went over to a box on a chair, picking it up. “While I was sorting out the hall closet, I came across some things from when you were a boy.”

That was unexpected. “My things? How?” This wasn’t the house that Scott and his siblings had grown up in; his parents had moved to a smaller house twenty or so years ago.

“I have no idea. I suppose they just got gathered up with everything else during the move and then the box just got pushed into the back of the closet. Anyway, here.” Enid put the box down on the sofa beside Scott. “It’s not much, just a few old toys and some notebooks.” She smiled fondly at her youngest. “I hope you don’t mind, but I read through a couple of the notebooks. You had such a vivid imagination when you were a boy. I think you must have been trying to write a book.”

Frowning slightly, Scott took the notebooks out of the box. There were ten of them, not particularly thick, and soft covered. Most of them only had a number written on the front, but the first…

Across the front in capital letters, carefully underlined, were the words: THE ISLAND. A TRUE STORY, BY SCOTT JORDAN, AGE 13.

The island.

Scott blinked; he hadn’t thought of that for… he didn’t know how long. Not even when his father had died. Slowly, he opened the notebook at the first page and began to read, about the research trip with his dad, and Fred, and the others. About the weird cloud and the shipwreck. About the Arawak native they met who was really nothing of the sort, a man from a future still two centuries and more away. Varian. And there was more. Atlanteum, Liana and Sil-El, Willaway and the Arusians…

Tears misted his eyes. He’d promised, all those years ago when they’d parted, that he would never forget them, never forget the adventures they’d shared, the dangers they’d faced and overcome, the fun they’d had, and the tragedies they’d witnessed, and yet he had forgotten. Reading through the notebook, it all started coming back to him, so that if he closed his eyes, he could almost see their faces, hear their voices, and their laughter.

“I’d forgotten all about this.”

“Well, that’s hardly surprising. You were just a boy with a wild imagination. Quite a grisly imagination too. I stopped reading when it got to the part where one of your characters was to be sacrificed to a volcano god. Wherever did you get that idea? I suppose it must have come from something you watched on the television.” Enid laughed softly.

“No.” Scott shook his head. “And Varian didn’t die, not then. His new wife sacrificed herself to save him. He travelled on with us, as our leader and guide, all the way to Evoland and the portal that brought us all back to our own times.”

“You remember how your story ended?”

“I remember, yes. I remember all of it. I just don’t know how I forgot for so long. This…” Scott gestured at the notebooks. “Mom, this wasn’t just a story I made up. I lived it, for almost a year, travelling across the island on foot. We walked over a thousand miles. There were times I thought I’d never get home, and I missed you and dad so much, but it was okay because I was with my friends. I knew they’d get me home somehow, no matter how long it took, and they did.”

“Oh Scotty.” His mom smiled indulgently. “How could that be possible? The summer you were thirteen, you went on a research trip with your father. I know some bad things happened, that some people died, and your dad, Eve, and that other girl got home first, but you and Fred arrived back just a few days later. You were a bit quiet for a while, spent a lot of time alone in your room when you weren’t at school. I suppose you were writing your adventure story, perhaps it was your way of dealing with what happened. That was a lot for a thirteen-year-old. But you weren’t gone for a year; it was hardly more than two weeks.”

Scott shook his head again, stubbornly. It had been real. Hadn’t it? It had to have been, or he wouldn’t remember it so clearly. In silence, he flipped through the other notebooks, pausing here and there to read a paragraph, remembering random incidents, happy moments and terrifying ones, until somewhere in the seventh book, something slipped from between the pages and fluttered to the ground. He bent to pick it up.

It was a photograph, except that it wasn’t printed on photographic paper, it was more like a thin plastic film, lightweight, yet rigid and unbendable, and it was as clear as if it had been printed that very day, not more than forty years ago. Scott was in the centre of the picture, sitting on a bench that looked like it was made of stone. To his left sat a beautiful young woman with long, blonde hair, a black and white tuxedo cat on her lap, and beyond her, an older man dressed entirely in black. To his right was a tall man, clad in shades of brown. He had short, curly brown hair, and bright blue eyes, and beside him, instantly recognisable, was Dr Fred Walters, still a family friend after all these years.

“It was real. All of it was, and this proves it. That’s me, Fred, Liana and Sil-El, her cat. That’s Jonathan Willaway beside her.” Scott pointed to the tall man. “And that’s Varian. Pacifist, healer, musician, our friend from the future. He doesn’t even exist yet, but someday he will. And perhaps, one day far in the future, my descendants might meet him. I hope they do.” Scott smiled sadly. “Stranger things have happened. I know. I lived through them.” He fingered the notebooks. “It’s all here, the most extraordinary year of my life. I wrote it all down so that I’d never forget, but I still did.”

Sarah touched his arm. “Maybe you wrote it down to remind yourself in case you did forget, so you’d never have to wonder if it was real, or if you’d imagined it.”

“Yes. Perhaps you’re right.”


The End