In Which I Write

-

Usually, Mattie’s time travel didn’t affect her life. Sure, it made for some pretty awkward conversations as Mattie spurted some knowledge which could never have been explained through a textbook, but those could often be blamed on watching too much Horrible Histories as a child (“Mattie, I swear to God, you’re so bageling British, and yet you’ve never been there, I don’t understand.” “Horrible Histories is a masterpiece! You’re just jealous that you’re too American to have seen it.” “Actual asshole of a child.” “Farrah-!”).

It was going well until Mattie’s freshman year at Giles Corey. And then three of her fellow highschoolers were murdered. And suddenly Mattie had a way to prevent that from happening.

In some stroke of luck, she passed out at the sleepover and didn’t find out about the murders until she was sitting in the back of a cop car, driving to her house to pick up her things. She remembered thinking how weird it was that she wasn’t being taken straight to the station, but brushed that away in favour of ‘going into her wardrobe to change out of her bloody clothes’.

The time machine was cold like it always was and that forced her out of her muddled state quickly enough. She thought back to the victims. Chess. Farrah. Clark. Snapping on her goggles, she pressed a button, whirled backwards through time and space, and appeared at the gate to Riley’s neighbour’s house.

She really wished that she had actually changed her outfit - the damp blood turned cold with the breeze and sent shivers up her spine. The smell perhaps or just her sudden appearance startled the neighbour’s dogs into a frenzy. A figure, Chess, unharmed and merely confused instead of terrified, stood up from Riley’s bench, calling into the darkness. Mattie’s breath caught in her throat. The second figure, knife glinting in the dim streetlight, slipped out of the back door. Their red hair shone in the reflection of the knife with a sick kind of beauty.

Mattie could have stopped them there, taken the knife from the assailant’s grasp, prevented the tragedy of the evening. But she didn’t. She just watched.

Three minutes later, after arriving back in her present time and pressing yet another button on the wall of her closet, she watched the same scene unfold in the bathroom with a much younger victim. Twenty minutes after that, the third attack. This one was different though, an accident.

Still a little desperate and overly conscious of the police officer standing guard outside of her bedroom, she reappeared in her wardrobe, putting on a jumper before turning back time a little further. She appeared in a gymnastics centre as a girl around Mattie’s age did wolf turns on a beam. A coach entered the scene from the sidelines as the girl stopped spinning, her distinctive plait falling still against her back. Something in Mattie ached at the sight of Chess so lively and innocent, willing to give up her life for her dream of succeeding in her sport. As the two wandered into a side room, picking up water with a smile, Mattie edged forwards, collecting soft gym mats as she went. Within minutes, the area surrounding the beam had been double layered with cushioning, and Mattie could only pray that her plan would work. She’d seen enough YouTube videos to know what happened next.

Chess emerged again with her coach, hopping back up onto the beam with practiced ease. Again, Mattie was forced to just watch as she went down into her wolf turn, then rose up, did a split leap across at least half of the beam, and jumped into a twist to land on the floor. It was a messy landing, the gymnast’s ankle caving in on itself, knee twisting unnaturally in the air, before coming down hard onto her side. But, unlike in the previous videos, there wasn’t a resounding crack, only a weak cry of pain as Chess stumbled back to her feet.

Mattie grinned despite herself as snippets of conversation drifted her way.

“-not broken, don’t worry-”

“The Olympics seem out of the picture…”

“Get her a drink to numb the pain! Yes, limeade’s perfect-!”

Mattie arrived in her room again with a whole plethora of new information just inserted into her mind like it had been there all along. There was no longer and never had been a police officer outside her door. Her shirt was clean, her head undamaged. Chess didn’t go to the Olympics, but still did gymnastics in her spare time as her knee made a full and quick recovery. Farrah wasn’t dropped. Riley, in some weird twist of fate, went to the same therapist as Mattie. Life was… good for the Giles Corey Tigers.

Across town, the sleepover was still going ahead as normal. From what weird memories she just gained, Mattie knew that the team was at a rocky patch, their personalities still clashing in any iteration of the evening. But, with some relief, she knew that it would never in this timeline be bad enough for murder to even be considered as an answer. Her phone buzzed. The lies came easily as she covered up her mysterious disappearance from the sleepover she should currently be at.

Reese (school): Where are you???

Mattieeeee: I went home :( not feeling good

Reese (school): :((( that sucks

Mattieeeee: Ikr. I think it was the ice cream.

Reese (school): I told the others

Reese (school): They all say get well soon apart from Kate and Cairo who actually agreed on something for once haha

Mattieeeee: What did they say skjghdjh

Reese (school): “Tolerate the lactose, Wheeler.”

-

In her short-but-actually-quite-long-given-all-the-time-travel life, Mattie had witnessed a number of key historic events (and had caused about 85% by some small accident, but that’s a story for another time). The one which ended up unveiling her secret to someone in her actual life occurred overnight one February. Or maybe July. Depends. Time is weird.

She stepped into a small room, luckily through the doorway and not awkwardly through the window, as done many times before. A man sat hunched over a desk by the window, dressed in brown and using a pen-but-not-really-a-pen to craft a page of writing. From Mattie’s extensive historical knowledge, it could have been anywhere from 1000 BC to the 16th century.

“Hello, excuse me,” she began, “But I’m a little lost.”

The man startled, his not-really-pen skidding across the page and leaving a trail of thick ink in its wake as he blinked at her in the doorway. “Who are you?” He seemed perplexed as to how a young girl was standing there, in the opening to his room, in clothing not of any time now or before.

Something that Mattie had realised after travelling not only to different times, but also to a vast number of different settings around the world, was that somehow, she was never stumped by a language barrier. Instead she was always able to fluently converse with those she met in what appeared to her as American English. It was really weird; she tried not to think about it too much or it made her head hurt. She’d also learnt that it was best not to explain her full situation to her companions, becoming accustomed to pulling the classic ‘I’m not here, you’re just dreaming’ excuse. So that was exactly the tactic she applied here. “A dream figure. You don’t need to be afraid.”

The man narrowed his eyes, glancing down at the paper and then back up to Mattie’s face. “That’s a good line.” He scribbled her words down onto a scrap piece of papyrus. “Maybe I can use that later.”

Mattie grinned, sensing her chance to fuck up history just a little bit. “What are you writing?”

“How the world came to be,” the man explained. “God.”

“Ah, of course. The Bible, huh?”

“Pardon?” The scribe locked eyes with Mattie for the first time, confusion etched clearly on his face. She shook her head in response, having learnt that it was hopeless trying to explain events of the future to people who could never even begin to imagine the future that she came from. Seemingly satisfied, the man continued. “As the vision you are, I wonder if you’ve been sent to answer my queries.”

“Of course. Go ahead.”

“I’m struggling for a name. Not for the book itself, but just for this chapter.”

Mattie smiled as wisely as she could. “What do you have so far?”

“‘Generational Crisis’. The chapter describes how our world came to be - the creation of natural elements, the first humans, the beginnings of emotion. ‘Generational’ as it shall be carried on for generations, and ‘crisis’ as it’s a huge event, a crisis for the higher powers.”

Mattie choked. Her mind imagined a world where the entry chapter to the Bible was named as so, and it was a world of chaos and highly differing language choices. “That is very wise, sir. I have one suggestion: how about shortening it? Make it snappier, more catchy. I’m thinking…” She paused, feigning deep thought, “‘Genesis.’”

The man gasped, scrawling her word down at the top of the papyrus. “Genius! Thank you, child. I should write your name in my finished book, to show my gratitude for your kindness.”

“Mattie, sir, Mattie Wheeler. It’s been lovely to meet you and see your studies.” Over the centuries, Mattie had learnt to leave those she met with some kind of reassurance as the humane aspect of her hobby. “Before I go, I may be a dream spirit, but I can assure you that the work you have done right now shall be greatly appreciated for thousands of years to come.”

“You really are a wonder, perhaps a child sent from the power above.”

Unthinking, she snorted, replying, “Oh, boy, you are not ready to hear about Jesus.”

“Jesus? You mean my sister’s husband? I do hear some curious rumours about the man…”

Mattie hid her laugh behind a hand. Of course, this was hundreds of years before Jesus Christ came to be thought of. “I know, right? Jesus? More like JeSUS.” The scribe didn’t reply, mind clearly tired of its confusion and instead turning back to something it knew well. He picked up his writing patterns again. Mattie turned away, back to the doorway. “I will leave you to your writing again. Sleep well.” Leaving a small vial of dissolved sleeping pills on the desk, she stepped out of the door.

-

The only class that Mattie knew she would see Eva in was Religion. They didn’t actually share the class, but Mattie’s Religion teacher was Eva’s form tutor and the older girl often used the classroom as a quieter study area for her free period. Not that Mattie would call a class of thirty sophomores particularly peaceful, but apparently she hadn’t heard the noise of the senior study area, you genuinely don’t understand, last week Jacob Thomas tried to make toast using the sun on a desk and then, bam, the entire of senior year are creating chants about sun bread, it was so weird, Mattie, I transferred to a school of crackheads.

After her travel to the 7th century AD, Mattie sparked a sudden interest in her Religion classes. Eva, being the older sister that she was, watched closely as the sophomore stayed behind after class to search the Bible for something in particular.

“What’re you looking for?”

“Nothing!” Mattie didn’t look up from fervently turning the pages.

“Well, that’s a fucking lie.” Eva perched on the side of a desk, sliding across to snatch the book out of the younger girl’s hands. “Why the hell are you looking at what is essentially the movie credits for the Bible???”

Eva watched as Mattie bit her lip, eyes darting around the empty classroom. She thought for a long moment, visibly debating points in her head, before leaning over the top of the book to run her finger down a list of names. About a third of the way down the page, she stopped. Eva’s eyes followed her finger as it drew a circle around a certain name. Matte Wheyler  

“See. I was looking for that.”

Eva didn’t say anything for a while. Mattie waited with baited breath as Eva’s brain tried to make sense of what they saw. “Mattie Wheeler, what the bagel.” It didn’t bother to even be a question.

“It’s a really long story.” Mattie slumped onto the desk as well. “Hey, did you know that ‘Genesis’ would have originally been called ‘Generational Crisis’ if it wasn’t for me?”

After a glance at both of their timetables, they decided that their next lessons (biology and latin respectively) were worth missing. Instead, they stayed seated on a desk in the Religion classroom, as Mattie explained in detail how her name came to be in the Bible. It was refreshing to finally spill her secret after fifteen years of complete silence, and Mattie wondered vaguely in the back of her mind if one day Eva might be able to share in her time travelling adventures. That might take a little more explaining though, because Eva sure did have a lot of questions.

“So, you don’t change anything?”

“Not anything major. Like, I can’t stop Hitler or anything, that would change too big an event. Little things, however, like names and stuff, it’s fun to mess around with. Ever wondered why the Italian city, Pisa, has its name? I delivered pizza to the guys who were kind of like the government at the time of its naming. Hence, the Leaning Tower of Pizza.”

Eva cackled. “Wait, what?! God, dude, that’s nuts. What the fuck.”

“What can I say, all I really want in life is a little bit of chaos and also mozzarella sticks.”

-

Mattieeeee sent a photo.

evanescence: is that??? abraham lincoln????

Mattieeeee: Abraham Lincoln was an otter.

evanescence: how so?

Mattieeeee: Point one: look at him.

Mattieeeee: Point two: no seriously. Look at him.

evanescence: oh my god

evanescence: i cannot believe you have a literal selfie with abraham lincoln that’s fucking wild

Mattieeeee: Perks of the job :D

evanescence: literally hire me i want a selfie with cleopatra

-

farrah o’satanic ritual: yall i got out of the shower like an hour ago and i still haven’t changed

Imposter: What can I say, bath robes are in fashion rn

farrah o’satanic ritual: ive told you before clark stop pretending you know how to dress

Mattieeeee: Farrah did you not die in the shower?

katherine: ????mattie???????

farrah o’satanic ritual: no?? i didn’t

SmileyRiley: dang it

katherine: riLEY-

caicrow: riley i thought we’d moved on from murder

Imposter: Plot twist: Mattie was the murderer all along

katherine: CLARK-

Mattieeeee: oops-

-

It wasn't meant to happen, she swore up and down it was a mistake. A true and honest accident. And it kinda was? I mean Mattie hadn’t intended for the scaffolding on the new tower being constructed in Pisa to wobble, she’d already fucked up Pisa once in her career, but… Well, that's what she got for letting loose Giles and Corey (her occasional time travelling companions, who also happened to be cats) in the middle of a Italian city in 1252. She could have sworn the catnip was safely concealed in one of the pockets inside her jacket (which was filled with all sorts of trinkets from her travels in the space-time continuum), yet somehow the two had still gotten into it. She guessed that's what she got for not hydrating-feel-greating and eating-to-defeating.

An old citizen eyed her suspiciously, taking in her struggle with the two cats. Or maybe she was just more focused on Mattie’s goggles - she doubted anyone in 13th century Pisa had seen such a bold fashion statement before. The tower continued to lean in the background.

Finally, Giles and Corey settled down, each in a pocket of her trench coat. Mattie breathed a sigh of relief, which only got halfway out of her before she was sucking it back in as the old lady from across the street began to approach her.

“Young lady.”

Mattie smiled sheepishly. “Hello, ma’am. Is everything alright?”

The lady looked mildly amused. “I couldn’t help but notice your two cats going mysteriously close to the tower before it started collapsing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. My cats are very well behaved.” Giles gave a resounding yelp at exactly the wrong time. A hiss from Corey echoed from the opposite pocket.

“Well,” the lady grinned, “If that’s the case, why don’t you leave the animals with me? You seem fairly preoccupied with the tower - perhaps you can try and assist its reconstruction?” She held out a hand.

Mattie thought for a moment and then handed across the two cats. “Thank you ever so much, ma’am. I’ll try and be quick.” The woman nodded and Mattie sped across the square to the drastically swaying tower.

When she arrived back at the woman’s table, there was a second lady in animated conversation with her. As Mattie approached, she stood up to take her leave, pressing a kiss to the first lady’s hair as she left. Something was definitely fruity there.

“All fixed!”

“I’m glad.” The woman nudged the cats back to their owner, looking intensely over Mattie’s shoulder to the stabilised tower. “It certainly looks sturdier.”

“I should hope so.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “Sometimes,” she said, staring pointedly at an area on the structure, “I think about crabs.”

“Oh?” Mattie tilted her head. “Do you?”

“Yes. And often when I think about crabs, I think that they shouldn’t be in Pisa, and they most definitely should not be crawling over the tower.”

Mattie gasped and followed her gaze, muttering curses under her breath. “I didn’t realise I’d brought a whole crab with me! I thought I’d taken the sea life off the rocks!”

The woman chuckled. “You seem to be a strange character. Child, where on Earth did you find not only rocks large enough to support a tower, but also a live crab in Pisa?”

Accepting her fate, Mattie decided to tell the truth. “They’re from Egypt.” At the woman’s questioning look, she expanded, “I’m a traveller of sorts.”

“Oh. Well, child, you’re a gift of a traveller. Brightened my day. Italy these days is far too serious. Maybe we should put more crabs on the leaning tower, huh?”

Tucking her cats back into their respective pockets, Mattie allowed herself to laugh. “Maybe we should.” With a nod and a smile, she wandered off, eagerly awaiting her portal.

-

“Why were you in Egypt anyway?” Eva asked as Mattie recounted yet another of her time-travel-gone-wrong experiences.

“Library of Alexandria.”

“Oh, yeah, because that explains so much.”

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes. “It was 48 BC, Caesar was burning shit, this random Roman dude set fire to the library.” She pulled a book out of her backpack. “I saved this and stashed away a few of the slabs of rock. And apparently a crab.”

Eva took the book in awe. “Jesus Christ… This thing is, like, thousands of years old…”

“I know, right? Weird.” She watched as Eva flicked through the pages, tracing her finger over certain words or illustrations. “But it was such a beautiful library, I couldn’t let it just burn. So, I retaliated. Burnt the house of the soldier who set the original flame.”

“Mattie!”

She shrugged. “Setting someone’s house on fire is a survival skill.”

“Oh my God.”

“I would have done something more dramatic, but I had to get home. I had a cake which would need to come out of the oven.”

Eva laughed, the sound echoing around the empty classroom. They were skiving class again, this time PE, the one class they had which coincidentally fell at the same time for both year groups. “How are you so normal in school, but so badass when you time travel?”

“I dunno. All I can say is that cake and spite are my only motivators.”

“You’re like a superhero. ‘Time Travelling Mattie: The Only One Who Can Lead A Dual Life Successfully’!!!”

Mattie blushed, shrugging. She definitely needed to take Eva with her one day. A superhero duo. “Okay, that name needs some work. How about: ‘Sanchez And Wheeler, The Ultimate Time Travelling Duo’?”

“I think I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah?”

Eva groaned, sliding down to faceplant into the coffee shop table. "It's true though. I hate everything in the world," She paused, "Apart from you."

"Thank God."

Reaching blindly to the side, Eva snatched up a decorative cushion and pressed it into her stomach. The coffee shop itself had been in the town for years but only recently discovered by the Giles Corey cheer team, the news of its apparently showstopping hot chocolate spread by Reese, and soon the entire team was known by name to the baristas. Kate and Eva liked to go there after school to get away from siblings and parents and pressures. Here they could slide into a booth, get hit in the face by a rogue plastic fern decoration, hug one of the minimal cushions and forget about their problems for a while. Sure, it was a little dark and rundown, but at least it was safe. And, yeah, the hot chocolate was fucking life changing.

Eva groaned into the table again as something bumped her hip. "Noooo-"

"Do you want a hug or not?"

Eva made an indiscernible noise, similar to that of a vocal keysmash, pressing her nose further into the tabletop. With the hand furthest from Kate, she snatched up the second, and last, decorative cushion from the booth, piling it on top of the one already in her lap.

Ceramic scraped against wood as the saucer which held Eva's rapidly melting iced chai latte was pushed out of danger away from her and towards Kate. Then, with a soft flump, a head landed on Eva's back, hair tickling around her ears.

"What are you doing." It was a statement of betrayal rather than a question.

Kate didn't move. "You took all the cushions, so I'm using you as one."

"This is so unfair," Eva protested weakly. "What did I do to deserve this."

The other student wrapped an arm around her waist, sitting up slightly to sip at the nearest mug. "I'm currently the only person not on your hated list - I can do what I like, bitch."

"Bitch to you too, I guess." Eva finally raised her head from the table when Kate froze next to her. "What?" She broke into a grin. "What happened?"

Kate turned, horrified, to their girlfriend. "This is not peppermint tea." She pawed at her tongue with one hand, gesturing to the mug with the other. "What the fuck did you put in this?!"

"It's good!" Eva cackled at Kate's disgust. "You're just lame." She took the opportunity to bury her head in her partner's lap.

"You're so weird." Still spluttering, Kate poked Eva's cheek. "Ugh, ew, and now I'm the pillow. What a bitch move."

Eva laughed. "I don't think I hate everything anymore..." She paused. "...Bitch."

Earlier, this kid probably about Eva's age had come in, all bruised circles under eyes and rude words towards the nurses. Eva had listened over the gentle chatter of her own grandmother as the dark-haired girl had spoken in a voice filled with hurt to a tall couple who must have been her parents. If she strained her ears over the buzzing of a children's ward, she could hear the angry whispers between the adults and child, before this sour-mouthed, lonely patient had been left alone overnight, refusing comfort from Eva's favourite nurses. Eva felt like she should have been repulsed by this outwardly spiteful girl, but instead she was only curious, sneaking glances at her between curtains as though her eyes were magnetised to theirs.

She was pretty.

Eva liked their eyes.

For once, the ward was quiet. Eva's mother slept in a tiny put-up bed beside hers and once again her drowsy but not yet sleepy mind was focused on the angry patient from earlier. She wondered if their parents had come back or if she was still alone across the room.

Maybe she was a little delirious, or still suffering the after effects of her earlier treatment, but Eva found herself desperately struggling out from bed, pulling a blanket down with her and shuffling as quietly as possible across the ward to the other girl's bed. It was naughty and against all the rules, but Eva knew that if she wanted to sleep tonight, she had to know that the kid was okay.

She slipped past the curtain, trying to be as quiet as possible. Obviously, that didn't work.

"Hello."

Eva jumped, spinning around to see as her target leant up in bed, a hand steadying her head. "Hi, sorry, I- I just wanted to check- I mean, I don't even know you, but- I thought-"

She stopped rambling, taking a breath before beginning again. "I'm Eva."

"Kate." The girl - Kate - raised her eyebrows. "Who are you?"

"I'm on the ward too. I saw you arrive." Eva's feet were getting cold.

"Oh. You were watching me," said Kate, filterless.

"Yeah, your parents seemed kinda mad," Eva replied, also filterless. "I came over 'cause I was a bit worried."

"I'm fine."

Eva's heart dropped. She'd expected to feel a little more wanted. With a sigh, she turned to go back to bed. "Oh. Okay, then. Bye."

She tiptoed away, just closing Kate's curtain again when - "Wait! Eva, no, come back!" Kate's voice was a hushed shout. Eva spun around, narrowing her eyes until they continued. "I didn't mean go."

"Oh." Eva paused at the curtain, narrowing her eyes. Her head span a little, maybe from illness, maybe from the sudden change in attitude from Kate. "Okay."

"Sorry."

"Are you okay?"

Kate only nodded.

Still leaning a little on the curtain, Eva decided to change the subject, "Why were your parents so mean?"

Kate shrugged. "They got mad because I got a concussion. Apparently, it's my fault that this girl at gymnastics made me jump so I slipped and bashed my head in." They rubbed their head where they'd hit it, wincing a little before shaking it off to continue. "My brother says our parents just suck anyway. And he should know 'cause he's sixteen."

Eva nodded sagely; sixteen was almost an adult. She thought that she would know everything there was to know when she was sixteen.

"Anyway," Kate continued speaking. Apparently she was chatty once you got her going. Eva liked this about them - it was nice to not have to be the one doing all the talking. "Why are you here?"

"I'm sick." Eva didn't expand on it, overtaken with tiredness suddenly. "I'm here a lot."

Kate squinted suspiciously at her. "Oh. Fair enough." The squinting increased, enough so Eva could see the wheels turning in their head. Eva almost turned and left to prevent the inevitable questioning. Shockingly, it didn't come. Instead, Kate got slowly out of bed, padding across the floor to put a hand at Eva's elbow. "You're shaking."

Eva's brain short-circuited over Kate's acceptance and lack of inquiry. She opened her mouth to protest, before closing it again and taking a breath. She was, in fact, shivering. "You know when you've been awake for so long that every time you yawn, you start shaking?" She waited for Kate to nod. "That's me right now."

Kate smiled, slipping their hand into hers. "Come on." Together, they slowly made their way over to Kate's bed, slipping under the covers.

Eva yawned, prompting another roll of shivers, subconsciously tightening her grasp on Kate's hand as she did so. Trying not to put too much pressure on her sore head, Kate tilted their head towards the other girl. "This is weird."

"Yeah." Happily content that her worries from earlier were unfounded, Eva really wanted to go to sleep now. She fought to keep her eyes open, grinning when Kate giggled.

"You're so tired!" Kate obviously wasn't.

"Mhm."

"Don't go to sleep yet. You can't come over here, wake me up, get in my bed, and then go straight to sleep." She could hear them pout. "That's unfair." Eva hummed a vague response. "I'm gonna be here for all of tomorrow according to the doctor and you're here all the time, so tell me something that'll make it better."

Eva blinked open one eye. "Okay. Sure." She thought for a while. "I have these tiger toys called Giles and Corey. My tía got them for me when I first got sick to remind me to eat and drink enough." Closing her eye again, she gestured in the direction of her bed. "The ginger one is Giles, he reminds me to drink water in case I forget. The other one, the black one, is Corey-" She was cut off by a yawn.

Kate grinned sleepily. "That's so cool. I think you're cool."

"Thanks." Eva shoved her face deeper into the pillow to hide her smile. "You're cool too."

"What does Corey do?" Despite their head injury and earlier angry demeanor, Kate was surprisingly animated over these two cuddly toys. "Oooh! Does he have superpowers??? Can they fly?"

Eva laughed, "No... Corey just reminds me to eat my meals."

"Wow." Eva's yawn caught up to Kate. "You gotta show me them tomorrow." She closed her eyes along with Eva, still holding her hand under the duvet. "My parents are gonna see that I can have a concussion and still be fabulous."