The man from Somewhen

Some of you know I do book covers and sell the rights and one of the pictures I had created set me thinking.  So this is a piece of flash fiction. This one also arises from the writer's group which holds challenges; this was part of one of the challenges I set

The man from somewhen

Emily woke with a start.  She had fallen asleep over her book again, and the lazy summer’s afternoon had darkened into crepuscular gloom. Her parents would be worried. She jumped up, but something in the woods caught her attention.

It was a spark of light, rapidly growing, until it formed a big glowing disk made of purple and white flames.  Nothing seemed to be catching on fire, however, and Emily stared as a man stepped out of the disk. He was wearing clothes which Emily would describe best as Victorian, including a top hat.  And Emily was pretty sure he had not been behind the spark before it formed.

He looked around, and stared at her.

“What are you doing here?  There should be nobody here,” he said.  He sounded rattled.  “And your clothes ...”

“There’s nothing wrong with my clothes,” retorted Emily. “I’m not the one looking as though he’s going to a costume party.  Are you from the past or something?  I’ve read HG Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’, you know.”

“Hell,” said the man.  “What year is it?”

“2006,” said Emily.  “What year should it be?”

“I was aiming for 1906,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Emily Ward, though I’m not sure I should be telling a complete stranger,” said Emily.

“Emily Ward? You are named after an ancestress?”

“Yes, my great-great-great-grandmother,” said Emily, counting on her fingers to check the number of greats.

Behind him, the glowing disk wobbled, flickered, and disappeared.

“You shouldn’t even exist,” said the man.

“Well, tough shit, mate,” said Emily.  “And you shouldn’t exist now either, but I fancy you are stuck with it; unless you have another time machine or whatever.”

He whirled around.

His language was not Victorian, or Edwardian, or whatever.

“And now, perhaps, as you can’t get at my great-great-great-grandmother you can tell me what you intended to do,” said Emily.

“There was an opportunity on the timeline to make sure she did not meet your great-great-great grandfather,” he said. “And it would have prevented your line being born.  I would not have killed her.”

“You would have killed me,” said Emily. “Why on earth would you want to kill my whole family line?”

“Because one of you invented the first look-back machine, which led to the temporal entropic portal,” he said.  “Which is what I came through.  Have you any idea how much crime can be committed when a criminal can pop back in time, pull a heist, and then nip back into the future, beyond the time of the statute of limitations?”

“How come yours went pear shaped then?” asked Emily.  “To pull a heist like that, you need to get back to your own future.”

“It’s not supposed to operate if there are any other people inside 200m of it,” he explained.  “And you were not expected to be here.  You have a time by which you are supposed to be home.”

“Yes, and I fell asleep,” said Emily.  “I should have been home ages ago.  And by the way, you haven’t told me your name.”

“David Ward, great-great-great grandmother,” he said, mockingly.