Young Writers Society

This was so different from the previous times Bo had been kidnapped and plopped into places. Instead of it just being him and the other people who’d been kidnapped, they were surrounded by people in another time. They were inserted into a foreign environment with no direction or instruction.

If one of them said something weird it could easily give them away, or just cause problems. The few times he’d tried explaining this whole other-world stuff to people who had no grid for it he’d been shut down and assumed to be imagining it. At least, that was the nice way of putting it.

He took a small step forward and smiled. He had no idea what to say.

“You guys decide to skip out on the movie too?”

The short man on the bench shrugged. He looked like he could be in some kind of 70’s band with the long hair and goatee paired with the mustache.

“More or less,” the guy answered.

"Out of towners?" Mary asked. "Most people who come here are. That's why I like to come and watch 'em."

I glared at the man with the long hair and goatee. I still didn't like him, even though I couldn't figure out why. Had we met somewhere? Was that why he rubbed me the wrong way? I didn't think it was just because the goatee was as tacky as the rest of his appearance. That was too petty, even for me.

So why did I...?

I let out a quiet, frustrated groan. I tried to tell myself I wasn't as disturbed as I was by what had to be a missing memory. I was over a century old. Even though my body was only around seventeen, there was nothing to say my memory was getting faulty thanks to being older than everyone else present.

A memory suddenly flickered out of the corner of my mind as Kirux held up his notepad with his name on the next blank page. Something about woods. I was trying to sneak up on someone, I thought. Which wasn't really surprising - I had been doing that a lot ever since Natty boy's enemies realized he was kicking around still. But something about the experience was related to that man. I was sure of it.

Was he the person I was sneaking up on? Was I blanking on someone who had wanted revenge on Asmira, Nathaniel, or even me?

(Not that I was deserving of it - they keep confusing me with that Bartimaeus guy.)

Queenie leaned against Julian slightly. He was freaked out and trying to calm down. It would probably be easier for him to do that if she was calm too. She took his hand and gave it a slight squeeze.

"Yeah, we're from out of town," she said, "This is my friend Julian, and I'm Queenie." She would let the others introduce themselves. She'd already given Kirux's name for him.

"I'm Bo!" Bo added with a warm smile, then put a hand on Skull's shoulder. "And this is Skull."

The man in the jean suit - the juit - smiled and nodded at the introductions.

"I'm Carter," he said. "Where are you all from?"

Bo blinked. "Oh! Well, actually, I'm from here-" technically not a lie. He was from LA. "-I'm showing them around."

Before Mary could respond to the tall man, she heard the voice of David Bowie coming from a stereo further down the block. She wasn't sure why whoever was commandeering it decided to blast it in the middle of the street, but at least he had good taste.

And it wasn't just any David Bowie song....

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile

She couldn't describe it, but it gave her an intense feeling of deja vu. More than just knowing the song. Someone she'd known had used to love David Bowie. And love this song. Her sister in law.

Wait, what? She wasn't married. She didn't think she would ever get married. She vomited on Fred Astaire's star.

"Shit, I'm sorry," she said once she could speak. Luckily, none of it got on her clothes. "Let's go somewhere else, yeah?"

Carter was not fond of the ragtag group that had migrated towards him, but he supposed he couldn't blame them. People were often drawn to him for a number of reasons, but these few... it was probably nothing good.

He was quick on his feet when Mary doubled over and threw up. He put an arm around her back to help her up and checked her hair with a quick glance to make sure nothing had gotten in it. She was fortunate to have missed herself. All of her vomit just ended up on the path.

"Of course," he said, showing concern clear on his face as he pulled his arm away before concern melted into a small smile.

Following someone who had just vomited sounded like a terrible idea, but I was still convinced that Carter was important. He had something to do with whatever we were here for - I just needed a little more time to figure that out.

Kirux, meanwhile, continued to stick right by my side. The notebook had been shoved back into his pockets. I admittedly took a little pride in Kirux picking me to stick near over everyone else; most people tended to leave me alone.

Even though Mary suggested going elsewhere, she didn’t look like she was physically ready to run off anywhere just yet. She had just thrown up, and the name in the star on the ground was now covered in her vomit. He hoped that wasn’t a problem. Hopefully, whatever stone of remembrance it was, it wasn’t that important.

He pat her on the back gently, waiting for her to recover.

When he glanced up back at the odd group of people beside them, his gaze fixated on Skull, who was looking at him too. There was something like recognition on his face, and Carter felt it too. He knew Skull, somehow, and he felt in his gut that their dislike of one another hd been mutual.

Oh, how quickly they’d become enemies. But Queenie... Queenie had been there too.

It rushed back to him, all at once.

Jay. Esther. Amy. Pretending to be a couple with Skull, then Queenie. The librarian tasking them with murder. Queenie taking the gun and using it for its appointed purpose.

They’d succeeded.

But why were they still here? Why had they been taken to another memory, if they had done what she wanted? Was that all a trick? A test? A test that they’d failed?

Dread formed like a pit in his stomach, but he kept his face painted with bored neutrality and concern for his new acquaintance Mary, who now he knew without a doubt probably had some connection to Esther, whom they’d killed as a consequence of association.

He looked at Bo and Julian. Kirux. Hearts he could still deceive and win over before their secrets were revealed. He didn’t know if Skull remembered everything yet, as he had, but he knew the moment Skull did, he would probably be very vocal.

“None of you would happen to have any water, would you?” he asked for Mary’s sake.

Kirux thought for a moment, only to shake his head and give Mary a very concerned look.

I was about to give an answer as well - I didn't hate Carter so much that I'd avoid being nice to the person he was with - but then a thought suddenly came to me. A correction. I'd still be nice to Mary, of course. But part of me was convinced that my mild dislike for Carter was a very deep-seated hatred.

And right after I had that thought, all of the memories came back.

Of the library. Of jumping between times. Of outfit changes. Of trying to track each other down. Of trying to track one person in particular down. Of a meddlesome all-powerful entity being convinced that person was worthless, and that it was more important to try saving other people's lives than her own.

I remembered Esther.

Understanding dawned on me.

"Oh, that's rich," I muttered. Kirux sent me a confused glance. I was sure the librarian was keeping an eye on all of us right now - that's what she had done the last times. "You realize your great big plan was a horrible mistake, so you decide to wipe our memories and plop us down somewhere else. And if you didn't learn the first time around, you added in the two murderers for good measure, too!"

I hadn't realized it yet, but my voice had been steadily rising this entire time. I didn't bother looking for the librarian; if she hadn't been brave enough to face us from the start, she wouldn't show herself now.

If I could use my powers, I was sure that everyone around me would have had a ghost lock - at least. Probably more than that. The anger was only really directed towards the librarian, Elizabeth and Carter, but I couldn't control where my powers went when they were active-

...Elizabeth, whose name really wasn't Elizabeth.

I turned to her.

"I should have known," I said. "You lied about having the gun, and you lied about wanting to go against the librarian. Elizabeth was just an alias, wasn't it, Queenie? I should have never trusted you."

I turned to Carter, my eyes burning with a barely contained rage. "And you, too. I knew I didn't like you even before you helped with the little scheme - you were probably the one who came up with it!"

Queenie's grip around Julian's waist tightened as Skull threw around his accusations. Julian was staring at her. Is that true? He didn't have to ask aloud.

She couldn't form an answer.

Her throat constricted around the words, regret tainting them before they even left her mouth. She was frozen in place, her limbs tense and unmoving. Don't say that, some pathetic part of her wanted to plead with Skull, Don't tell Julian.

A horrible scenario played out in her mind.

Julian asking questions, questions, questions. He was too clever not to find answers, and she was too much of a coward to lie to him now, when he already knew so much.

He'd find out and Julian, foolish, persistent Julian, would want to know why.

Queenie's breath shook as she drew it in.

No.

"What are you talking about?" Julian demanded of Skull, his gaze on him, then on Queenie, "Queens? What's he talking about."

She couldn't meet his eyes.

Fucking coward.

"Don't ask, Julian." Her voice was too small, retreating back into her throat.

Mary had no idea what the others were talking about, but the drama definitely seemed interesting.

Vomiting had definitely sobered her, although she wasn't fully there yet. She stood up, wanting to be as far away from the stench of her vomit as possible. "Hey, um," she said. "Let's walk."

They walked further down the block, past people in cheesy costumes and tourists taking pictures beside various different stars. Then, someone approached them.

"Film locations tour?" The guide asked, throwing a brochure in front of Mary.

Just then, Mary noticed a bundle of cash in her purse. Weird. She didn't remember ever having that much cash, but she choose not to questions. There was enough for all of them to buy tickets. There was a double decker bus parked in front of them, and several tourists already inside, waiting.

Then, she turned to Carter. "Get me a water, will you?" She gestured to a nearby food stand, and handed him cash.

Just then, she turned to the others. "What do you all say? I'm fine, I promise."

It was then they saw a woman standing inside. Apparently, the tour guide. She had red hair and who also gave her a feeling of deja vu.. She heard the tour guide say something to her in a Liverpudlian accent. Fun. She always wanted to go Liverpool. Why was she familiar?

Wow, Skull. Read the room.

Carter did not dignify Skull's accusations with a response. Instead, he only looked back and forth with mild annoyance and confusion. It seemed like Queenie's deeds of child-killing were something she would've rather kept secret, at least in front of her friend Julian, who looked more or less offended at what Skull was saying.

It was a shame. The librarian was the one to bring Julian here, knowing what had happened and what Queenie had done. The librarian also had responsibility in all of this. She knew Skull had a big, bitter mouth. If she didn't, well, she was at best, misguided, and at worst, dumb and naive with no clue to what she was trying to actually accomplish at all.

When Mary cut through the tension and recommended leaving her pool of vomit, Carter got up and joined her side, refusing to directly associate himself with the others. If he could distance himself from them he wouldn't be viewed as much as one of them. At least, that was his goal. But things were always wont to not go according to plan.

Carter was aware of the tension of the group behind him, but he didn't look back. The strange and new environment was enough to distract his mind from it all, and he worked as hard as he could to understand more of the culture and how people behaved in this world. At the end of the day, people were just people, but there were always little differences in how people communicated and the language they used.

Carter took the paper money Mary handed him and nodded, walking over to the food stand she'd pointed at. There was a sign on the side of the stand with prices listed beside items. "Bottled water" seemed to be the closest to what he was going for, so he looked at the money in his hand. She'd given him one sheet of paper marked with a one. He handed it to the man behind the stand.

"Just a bottle of water, please," he said.

The exchange went smoothly and he'd been given coins in return. He took the bottle back to the group and handed it to Mary. It wasn't made of glass, and it wasn't paper. It was another strange material that was somehow firm but also gave just a little bit under pressure, and yet, was still transparent.

Not that the material of the bottle mattered.

He didn't believe Mary for a moment when she said she was "fine," but he also knew he wasn't going to be "fine" in however many moments it took for the acid to kick in. Now with his memories returned to him, he was greatly regretting taking it with Skull and Queenie around, but at this point, it was too late. He was going to have to face the inevitable.

He looked into the giant car (if he was correctly remembering what they were) and saw Claire, one of the girl's in Jay's harem. She still had the same accent and the same face, but she didn't seem quite exactly the same.

"Let's go," he said with a small smile to Mary. "Sounds fun."

He saw the tall man draw closer to Skull in the corner of his eye. They seemed like they already knew each other.



The tension had been very, very awkward walking over. Bo wasn't sure what to say. He didn't know what had happened, but apparently Skull, Queenie, and Carter had all been together before all of this, and only now just remembered so?

When they got to the trolley he leaned in towards Skull.

"Do you have any idea what we're supposed to do here?" he asked in a whisper.

Every bit of me had wanted to reveal the truth to Julian - Queenie didn't deserve to get off scot-free for what she did - but then I saw the look on Kirux's face.

He knew Queenie, too.

I still didn't know a lot about him - I knew about his powers, and I knew that he was like a little kid. He tended to think the best of people before he thought the worst. If he already knew Queenie, and already knew me, he had to be torn on who to side with - on what to do.

So I kept quiet.

I gave Queenie and Carter looks that clearly said this wasn't over yet, then followed the group to some kind of tour thing.

That was when we saw Claire.

I crossed my arms when I noticed her. Of course the librarian was going to show us where everyone else was now that Jay was out of the picture. Maybe she was doubting that Jay's death was really all that bad - or maybe she just wanted to take her sweet, sweet time getting us to the point where Queenie and Carter killed Jay.

I looked over at Bo.

"...I have some," I said, my voice a little bitter. Bo, thankfully, didn't seem as torn as Kirux was about this whole thing. "In case my little rant earlier didn't give it away, Carter, Queenie and I were roped into a situation like this earlier by a supernatural, time-traveling librarian - along with someone else. She was convinced that killing a cult leader as a kid would somehow make the world a significantly better place, even when killing him would wipe the last person in our quartet from existence."

I paused.

"So she sent us through different times to see just how horrible this man's life was and how much it had hurt other people, then sent us back to his childhood to kill him."

My gaze wandered over to Queenie.

"Obviously, the librarian didn't think things through. This is probably another guilt trip again, this time geared towards Queenie and Carter - Queenie, who pulled the trigger on a five year old and indirectly on the last member of our group, and Carter, who helped scheme up the whole death plan-"

I suddenly felt someone grab onto my arm.

Turning, I saw Kirux was holding onto me - eyes wide as he stared at Queenie. He apparently had been listening to me the whole time; it looked like he had decided which one of us to trust.

Bo nodded slowly. This was a little darker than his last kidnapping. The librarian that brought them here was definitely not set on making them all into better people if she was encouraging murder.

That said, though it was unsettling to know Queenie and Carter had both been guilty of the deaths of what sounded like two people (and maybe more, depending on how many kids this cult leader had), he wasn't phased by being surrounded by people with blood on their hands.

The difference between himself and Queenie and Carter though sounded like that while he now deeply regretted his wrongs and was trying to make up for it, they didn't feel regret. At least, not about actually taking a life. Maybe about the consequences, but not the actual murder part.

But maybe he was jumping to too many assumptions.

"If it were just a guilt trip," Bo replied in a hushed voice. "I don't think me or Kirux or even Julian would be here. Or you, for that matter. The librarian probably wants us to fix something. Not that we can bring this cult leader back to-"

He stopped, his eye widening. Wait. Cult leader. Cult leader? Alex had been in a cult. The leader had been a guy named Jay. Bo had done some research after that whole cruise/train thing had blown over, just to make sure. He'd wanted to make sure Alex was real. He didn't know why it just helped him come to grips with it a bit.

The librarian wanted them to change Jay's history. Alex's history. That was why they'd seen Alex. But if Jay was dead, and history had already changed, how were they supposed to do that?

"... life."

His eyelids fluttered.

Was this timeline without Jay real? Or were they sent here to wake Alex and others from this dream?