over to the sink and filled his Yoda mug with water. He rinsed the vomit taste out of his mouth, then splashed his face, closing his eyes and letting the cold water refresh him. “Who’s after me? Why would anyone be after me?”
“Sit back down. Stay away from the window.” Ash’s hand twitched on the hilt of his katar.
Ashoka faced him. “Listen, this is my house and—”
“No, you listen,” snapped Ash. “There are people out there that want to kill you. I am the only one who can keep you alive, but I can only do that if you do exactly as I say. This is not open to discussion.”
Parvati reappeared. “All clear.” She had a bundle of clothes under her arm and a bag over her shoulder. She gave it to Ash. “And I found this.”
“Hey, that’s mine!” Ashoka said.
Ash paused, then held the bag out to Ashoka. “Show me.”
Ashoka unzipped the black canvas bag and drew out his bow.
Matt black with a magnesium-alloy main body, composite limbs with pulleys to increase the power. The bowstring was made of coated steel cables. State of the art. Right now the frame was folded in on itself and the bowstrings wound into the pulleys so the entire weapon was less than half a metre in length. He’d been given it as a present on his last day in India.
Ashoka held the central body and gave the bow a sharp flick.
The two limbs snapped out and locked. The pulleys whirred as the bowstring unreeled and quivered, springing into tension. Fully extended, the bow was just shorter than him.
“You any good with it?” asked Ash.
“Is that important right now?” said Ashoka.
“You’re right, it isn’t.” Ash tapped his watch. “Want to get a move on?”
Ashoka looked at the pile. He didn’t like getting changed in public. He had enough teasing about his weight in the changing rooms. “Do you mind?”
Ash shook his head, turning away. “This is ridiculous. I am you, Ashoka.”
“How can you be? I don’t look like you. I can’t do what you do.”
“I am you, but from a different timeline.”
Ashoka stopped. “A different timeline. Right.” That was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. The other boy frowned, no doubt seeing Ashoka’s disbelief.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” said the other Ash.
“You’re right about that.”
A distant cousin he could have believed, given how similar they looked. Maybe, just maybe a long-lost twin, some bizarre mishap at the hospital when he’d been born.
But different timelines?
“But if we are the same, right down to our fingerprints and DNA,” said Ashoka, “how come you look like that and I look like this? Which is very different. Shouldn’t we be really mega-identical?”
Ash shook his head. “Things happened in my life that never happened in yours. In my world, in my universe, I’ve a sister called Lucky, I live in this house and my mum and dad are the same as yours. But a month ago my timeline ceased to exist and somehow I ended up in yours.”
“What happened?” asked Ashoka, pulling off his bloody, tattered shirt and putting on his Nike T-shirt instead.
“The past was changed. I’ve spent the last five weeks investigating, and as far as I can tell, it changed ten years ago. A person went back in time by a decade and altered his past. So, from that point on, our existences diverged. Your universe took a different route to mine.”
“Just like that?”
Ash nodded. “Just like that. No big flash or bang. I shouldn’t exist here – this is your universe – but I do. I’m here with Parvati because we’re somehow immune to the effects of the Time Spell.”
“Time Spell? Someone cast a spell? This is truly weird.”
Parvati interrupted. “Your lives are different, but your destinies will be the same.”
Ashoka frowned. “Sorry, I don’t understand that.”
Ash rolled his eyes and, looking around, grabbed pen and paper from the kitchen counter. Ashoka watched over his shoulder as Ash began to draw a line. “This is us. We are the same person. We are born, and then, when we are four, something happens.” He drew a thick dot, and two parallel branches emerging from the same line, one above the other, close but separate.
“Year by year we live different lives, me along this top path, Timeline A, you along the bottom one, Timeline B. Then in December I jumped from my timeline to yours.” He did a loop from the top line to the bottom. “Instantly. There was no going backwards or forwards in time, but I left my universe and carried on in yours.”
“And what’s happened to yours?” asked Ashoka.
Ash frowned. “It could be continuing, everyone living their day-to-day lives without me. I simply vanished and the universe continued. Or it could have just …” he bit his lip and Ashoka saw a flicker of anguish “… stopped. Ended. I don’t know.”
“Amazing,” said Ashoka. “Totally amazing. But I don’t believe a word of it.” He’d calmed down now and was putting it all together. Attacked by demons? It had been a set-up. Clever special effects, plus it had been dark and he’d been scared. Things look different in the dark. Masks might look real, things like that. Any second now Ant and Dec were going to leap through the doorway. This was some new TV series, about freaking people out with stories of time travel and demons and alternate selves. Ashoka inspected the boy before him. It had been dark and he’d been in shock when he’d first seen him. Sure, he did look a lot like him, but there were subtle differences. Stuff that the make-up and whatever prosthetics they used couldn’t disguise. The eyes were darker, more haunted. His lips harsh and stiff. Things this boy had seen and done lay under his skin. Shadows of his deeds flickered in his penetrating gaze. Why had they picked an actor like him? Same height but definitely not the same physique. Ash had the body of an Olympian, all hard edges and harder muscles. Though the months of pulling a bow had built the muscles on Ashoka’s arms and back, they were still hidden under layers of podginess.
“Any second now,” he said. Maybe the presenters were getting their make-up sorted first.
Ash and Parvati looked at each other. “Any second now what?” said Ash.
Even with bad traffic, his parents and Lucky should have been home by now. It was almost ten.
Ashoka smiled. They must be in on the joke.
His mobile rang. It was Dad.
Ashoka sighed with relief. He’d freaked when he’d seen Ash and the girl, Parvati, freaked some more when Ash had told him his bizarre story of gods and monsters, but now normality had returned.
“OK, Dad, where are you? Joke’s over.”
“This
