After Eden by Helen Douglas Page A

someone in your time, discovering that your friend is a time traveler from the future must be quite a big deal. How come you seem so unsurprised?”
    I shrugged. “It has been said that I’m hard to impress.”
    “Along with beautiful, smart, and completely unshockable.”
    I felt my face begin to heat up. I wished to God that I could learn to take compliments. “So are you going to answer my question?”
    “You’ll have to remind me what it was.”
    “What year are you from?”
    He hesitated, as though considering for one last time the possibility of not telling me. A flash lit up the room and was quickly followed by a rumble of thunder. The overhead lamp flickered and then died.
    “Hold on a sec.” Ryan rummaged around in his desk drawer.
    He found a pack of twelve candles and a lighter. He put one half of the candles on the desk, the other half on the windowsill. As he moved the flame over the wicks, each of the candles flickered to life, casting a soft pool of wavering light.
    Ryan sat back on the bed. “I was born in February 2105. I traveled back in time from 2122.”
    I tried to work it out in my head. I had been born in 1995. Ryan was a hundred and ten years younger than me.
    “You’re seventeen?” was all I said.
    Ryan nodded. “I just said I was sixteen so I could join your Year Eleven class.”
    I glanced again at the pile of books on the floor beside his bed:
Of Mice and Men
,
Romeo and Juliet
,
Great Expectations
.
    “You’ve already left school. No wonder you keep getting top marks in all your English assignments.”
    Ryan laughed. “Brilliant. I tell you I’m from the future and you’re annoyed that I’m better than you at English.”
    “You’re not better than me,” I argued. “You studied the course before.”
    “I have studied
Romeo and Juliet
before. And
Macbeth
. But Dickens and Steinbeck weren’t on my syllabus. We studied mostly late twenty-first century writers.”
    “You studied writers who haven’t even been born.”
    He shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah.”
    “But Shakespeare is still on the syllabus?”
    “We had to study pre-2050 literature.”
    Outside, the wind changed direction and the rain started pelting against the window.
    “Nice weather you have down here,” said Ryan. “It’s supposed to be summer.”
    I shrugged. “Good try, changing the subject. What’s the weather like on Eden?”
    Ryan smiled. “Nice try. But I can’t tell you about Eden. It’s forbidden by the Laws of Temporal Integrity.”
    “The laws of what?”
    “Temporal Integrity. Laws of time. One of the most important laws is that nothing of the future is ever to be revealed to inhabitants of the past.”
    I gave a short laugh. “Bit late for that.”
    Ryan sighed. “I’m already in more trouble than you can possibly imagine.”
    “I know you’re from the future,” I said. “And I know you’re here because of Connor. Connor discovers a planet.”
    “Which he calls Eden, after you.”
    “Eden is an obvious name for a planet. It probably has nothing to do with me.”
    Ryan laughed. “Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here, but Connor’s best friend is named Eden. And Connor names his planet Eden. Of course it could be a coincidence.”
    I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t matter why he called the planet Eden. What matters is that you’ve traveled back in time and I want to know why. It’s to do with Connor, isn’t it?”
    Ryan sipped his coffee. “I can’t tell you why I’m here.”
    “Ryan, I don’t care about your ‘Temporal Laws’ or whatever they’re called. Like I already said, it’s a bit late for that.”
    “Eden, this is serious. Backward time travel is more or less prohibited. In the few instances it’s allowed, the rules are clear. Do not communicate anything about the future to the inhabitants of the past. Knowing the future can change the future.”
    “I already know the future.”
    “You do. But I can’t risk telling you anything else.”
    “You