The Power of Five Oblivion

dreamworld. I could tell you about Flint and Sapling and the war that happened all those years ago. But I’m tired, Holly. And I’m scared too. I don’t know what’s going on any more. I’m not sure how I got here…”
    He drew a breath.
    “I was on the run from the Nightrise Corporation but I was helped by a secret organization called the Nexus. They were these rich people who knew about the Old Ones because of a diary written by an old monk. They knew the Old Ones were coming but they also knew about the Five. The whole point of the Nexus was that they were there to help us fight them.
    “And there was something else. A long, long time ago, somebody built a series of doors all over the world and they were designed specially for us to get from place to place without taking planes or ships. There was a door beside Lake Tahoe in Nevada that took us all the way to Peru. There was another door in Hong Kong that brought me here.” He pointed at the dark shadow just behind him. “This is one of the doors. I’d just come through it when you found me. It should be able to take me back. I don’t understand why it’s not working.”
    “A magic door,” I said and the strange thing is that although I’d meant to sound scornful, it all sort of made sense. After all, I’d seen Jamie arrive. He’d stepped out of nowhere, just like he’d said. And right now I couldn’t think of any other explanation as to how he’d got here.
    “I suppose you could say the doors are kind of magic,” Jamie agreed. “That’s why they’re always found in churches or sacred places. Over the ages, people vaguely half-knew about them so they built sacred buildings around them. But they forgot about the Old Ones. And they didn’t know anything about us.”
    I stumbled over to the door and opened it, then shut it again. “Why isn’t it working?” I asked.
    “I already told you. I don’t know. We were in the Tai Shan Temple in Hong Kong … all five of us. It was amazing … just finding each other for the first time. And that should have been the end of it. That’s what I thought anyway. But then everything went wrong. There was a typhoon blowing and the whole building would have been knocked down if it hadn’t been for Scarlett. She was holding the weather back. But then Scarlett got shot. She was standing right beside me and I think the bullet was meant for me. Anyway, after that, everything happened very quickly. It was like being in the middle of a nuclear explosion. We had to get out fast and the only thing to do was to tumble through the door. I guess I must have got hurt by some of the debris and that explains why I was so bloody when you found me.”
    “Why did you come here?” I asked.
    “I don’t know.” Jamie shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot and as far as I know, it works like this. The doors take you to places but you have to know where you want to go. We were in such a hurry to get out of there that we all just piled in so we’ve all been taken to different places. I ended up here.” He couldn’t keep the misery out of his voice. “We’re back where we started,” he went on. “Only worse. Scott and I were hardly ever apart and now I can’t find him … not even in the dreamworld. I can’t find any of them. And the door doesn’t work any more. I’m stuck here. And I’m on my own.”
    “There’s something else,” I said. I was thinking about the photograph now, the one that had been shown in church. It had been taken ten years ago but it had shown Jamie’s face as it was now. In a nasty sort of way, things were slotting into place.
    “What?”
    “I know that Hong Kong was hit by a typhoon. Half the city was destroyed and thousands of people were killed. Miss Keyland told us about it in class. But that didn’t happen two weeks ago, Jamie. It didn’t happen the day you arrived. It happened ten years ago. Ten years…”
    Both of us worked it out in silence. We didn’t need to speak. I’d read enough books to be able to work out what had happened. When Jamie had escaped from the Tai Shan Temple in Hong Kong, he hadn’t just crossed the world. He had taken a giant leap forward in time.
    He had escaped from Hong Kong ten years ago and the whole world had changed while he’d been gone. And now he’d finally arrived.
    But he’d left it far too late.

FIVE
    Back to work. Everyone worked all the time, not just because we had to grow food and prepare for the winter but