Chapter 5

His mum called from the freeway to let him know that they were on the way up from Sydney, so he went into the kitchen to start cooking. Tacos; Eddie wasn't a good cook, but anyone could do tacos by kit. They were all ready, with the meat just simmering, when the rest of his family got home. His sister, Jill, who was a year younger than him, was full of excitement about the show they'd watched, the hotel they'd stayed at, the shopping they'd done. His mum was pretty excited, and his father was happy. He knew that his father really enjoyed spending time with his family away from the farm.

Once Jill calmed down, Eddie's dad asked him about how he'd gone. Eddie took a deep breath, gave them a two sentence summary of his weekend, and then said, "There's something we need to talk about. First, come quietly and have a look in my room."

Sarah had still been asleep when he'd checked a few minutes before they arrived, with her arms flung up over her head and a peaceful look on her face. When he called her name gently, she hadn't woken, so he'd decided to let her sleep on. His mum, dad and Jill looked in on her, and then they quietly went back to the house and he served the Tacos.

"Well, Eddie, explain to us why there is a young girl sleeping on your bed in your clothes?" He had expected his mum to cut to heart of the matter, but he could hear the amusement in her voice, she was looking forward to hearing this. He glanced around, and saw similar expressions on his dad and sister as well.

When he finished telling them the story, they were just as amused, and also intrigued, he could see. "Well, Eddie, you sure do pick them," his dad said. "So, you want us to agree that this girl can stay here for a few days, but you tell us she's deluded?"

"Yes, Dad, I do. I spent all day with her. She's so timid and sad. She'll get torn apart if she gets put into one of those homes." They all knew this, from their experience with that relative with manic-depressive syndrome. Her family had struggled with her when she was a teenager, and she'd been in one of those homes briefly, and it had gone spectacularly badly.

His mum was always the thinker. "So Eddie, you think this girl is not dangerous, but she's got some delusion, so she's got some psychological thing going on?"

"Mum, I asked myself this all day because I knew that you'd ask. I thought she'd still be awake so you could talk to her, because if you did, you'd see that she isn't dangerous."

He could see that his parents weren't convinced, and they discussed it at length. Eventually they agreed that Sarah could stay for the night and the next day, and they'd decide at the end of the day whether she could stay longer. In the meantime, Eddie was to spend some time researching delusion that night.

When Jill started tidying up after dinner, Eddie's mum asked what seemed like a simple question. "Eddie, can I have a look at the dress she was wearing when you found her?" Eddie shrugged and went out to his room. Sarah was still asleep, so he grabbed her dress off the floor and took it to his mum.

She looked at it for a little while, turning it over in her hand, and then looked up at Eddie with the weirdest look on her face. "Eddie, why do you think this girl is deluded?"

"Well, how could she have traveled through time like she claims?"

"But she isn't claiming that she traveled through time, is she?"

"Umm, No? But if what she's saying is true, then she must have. Why are you asking this?"

"Well, I've never seen anything like this. It looks like a nightgown from the early eighteen hundreds."

Eddie nodded. This was something that his mum was a real expert on.

"But I've never seen material or stitching like this. This is hand stitched, but very well done. The material is rougher than anything I've ever seen, and it's not evenly woven, not a modern weave. I couldn't buy stuff like this if I tried - and I have."

"So what are you saying?"

"Eddie, I don't know anything about time travel. But I know about eighteenth century clothing, and this looks like the real thing to me. And I only know one place she could get that from."

That night, after he called Chelle, Eddie consulted Wikipedia on two subjects: delusion and time travel. When he finished reading, he went out to his room, checked that Sarah was still asleep, grabbed a few things, and went to sleep on the lounge.

When Sarah woke up, it was still night. She stumbled to the toilet, and then outside and looked around. There moon was nearly full, and there was enough light to see the farm. The Dog came up to her and she gave it a cuddle.

Right now she could just walk out of this place. So was she a prisoner or not? She thought through all the things she'd seen. A lot of things that she'd seen, she didn't understand. At first she'd thought that Eddie and Chelle were devils, that they'd taken her somewhere magical. But after sleeping on it, she was starting to wonder. From what Eddie had said, the other thing that might have happened is that she'd somehow traveled two hundred years into the future. She thought about everything that she'd seen.

This was obviously a farm, and Eddie was obviously a farmer. She took some comfort from this. Farms with animals were something she understood, but just about everything else was different. The idea that she'd somehow come two hundred years into the future seemed to fit better than any other explanation, but Eddie certainly had powerful magic. All she had to do was to find someone who could do the right kind of magic, and get herself sent back to her brothers and sisters. This started her thinking about them, and she was crying silently to herself when Eddie walked out the door as the sun started to rise.

Eddie came over to her, and sat down on the ground next to her. "Hi."

Sarah pulled herself together looked up to Eddie. "Eddie, am I a prisoner here?"

"No, Sarah, you're not a prisoner."

"So, I can go anytime that I want?"

"If you want to leave, I can't stop you. But I don't think it would be a good idea for you to leave, we'll look after you here."

"So, what year is it?"

"It's 2006."

"Oh. I was born in the year of the Lord 1794. Is that two hundred years ago?"

Eddie nodded to himself. They'd agreed last night that if Sarah was deluded that she came from the convict time, it was the little things that would catch her out, like knowing how to use a toilet, knowing about technology, knowing how to read. And he'd thought about her, she hadn't slipped once. So he shouldn't be at all surprised that she couldn't work out that was two hundred years.

For the first time, he found himself wondering whether Sarah was really telling the truth. What he'd read about time travel had come as a real surprise. Going backwards, it seemed pretty much agreed that was impossible. But going forwards in time seemed to be largely a question of mechanics and energy. It was not completely impossible. It still seemed like a totally ridiculous claim, but he wasn't so sure about that anymore, not with the evidence in front of him.

"Sarah, I have to feed the animals, then we'll have breakfast. Tell me about you, where you were born, and why you ran into the hills while we do that."

They walked around the sheds, checking and feeding the animals, while Sarah told Eddie her story. Eddie listened, thinking furiously, trying to catch her out. But it all made sense, it matched what he knew of early convict history, and all the other evidence matched too. Her dress, her accent, what she did and didn't know. Not knowing what a toilet was seemed like a clincher to him.

By the time Sarah finished her story, they were done with the chores and the milking, and he was leading Sarah towards the house to have breakfast. "Eddie, you don't believe me. Why not?"

The pretty much settled it for Eddie. People with delusions couldn't understand that other people didn't believe them, found it insulting. He had personal experience on that subject. "It's the whole time travel thing. Traveling through time is impossible. Don't you think so?"