A Stitch in Time Read Online Free Page B

yawned loudly as John came in.
    ‘Don’t get too comfy and go to sleep. You need to understand what’s going to happen,’ he said, handing her the wine.
    Sarah noticed it was a very small glass. ‘So do you ever go back in time, John?’ she asked, swirling the wine around her glass.
    ‘No.’ He looked at her aghast. ‘If a Needle ever goes back in time without express permission there are always consequences for him. He would be seriously punished.’ Sarah pulled a face but said nothing.
    ‘OK,’ he said, picking up his clipboard and sitting in the chair opposite. ‘Looks like the three that you are down to save are: a homesteader in the Old American West, someone caught up in the Sheffield Blitz, and,’ he flicked paper, ‘ah, yes, a suffragette in early twentieth-century London.’
    ‘Well,
that
confirms it then. I am having a breakdown.’ Sarah sighed, yawned again, and closed her eyes.
    ‘What does?’ John frowned.
    ‘Well, it’s a bit bloody predictable, isn’t it? I teach all those things in my job, don’t I? My brain has neatly woven them into my hallucination.’
    ‘No, Sarah, you aren’t having a breakdown. It’s partly because of what you do, that
you
have been chosen as a Stitch. You have to know the period well, to be able to blend in.’
    Opening one eye she said, ‘I thought you didn’t know why I had been chosen – that you “just got the information”?’ Sarah waggled her index and middle fingers in mock quotation marks.
    ‘Yes, that’s true, I only know little bits.’ John sighed and looked at his watch. ‘But as far as I can tell, Stitches are chosen because they have hidden qualities, courage and stuff. They don’t always recognise that in themselves and stitching brings it out … in most of them. Look, I need to know, are you going to do this or not?’
    Sarah closed her eye. ‘Hmm, I don’t think I’d be in the
most of them
category. I feel right out of courage at the moment, John, hidden or otherwise.’
    ‘But will you do it?’
    ‘Do I have a choice?’
    ‘Yes … though you will have deaths on your conscience if you don’t.’
    ‘Oh, that’s nice then. Has anyone ever refused?’
    ‘A few,’ John said. ‘One had devastating consequences. There was a guy a few hundred years ago, his name was Norman. He refused, and someone who should have been born wasn’t, and eventually someone who shouldn’t have been born was.’
    Sarah opened both eyes. ‘Who?’
    ‘Hitler.’
    ‘Hitler! God, how awful!’ Sarah said, reaching for her wine glass.
    ‘Yeah, you know that saying, “time waits for no man”? It was originally time waits for Norman, but unfortunately, Norman didn’t care.’
    Sarah scratched her head. ‘But I don’t get it. If I go back to the Old American West and save somebody, their children or grandchildren will already have been born, had children of their own, grown old and may be dead by now. So how can all of that have happened if I haven’t even gone back in time yet? And what I do back in time will totally mess up the future … won’t it?
    ‘No, Sarah,’ John said, shaking his head. ‘You’ve just grown up watching films and reading books that
assume
that’s how time works. Scientists have no real clue. They
say
they do and provide lots of equations and write books to prove it, but unfortunately, they have it all wrong.’
    ‘Wrong? So, how …?’
    ‘Never mind all that now. We really don’t have the time … no pun intended,’ John said, smirking.
    Swinging her legs to the floor Sarah leaned forward and ran her hands through her hair. This was
beyond
crazy now. She decided the best option was to agree to everything and then hopefully John would go. He kept glancing at his watch, so must want to be off.
There you go again, Sarah; he’s not real!
    ‘OK, I’ll do it. What happens next, and who do I save first?’
    ‘Now that’s a little tricky,’ John said, looking sheepish. ‘We aren’t told that bit. It will