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Cassie typed in the code and gave it back and waited a few moments as Mr. Webber inspected the device, flicking the screen, his eyes moving as he read. Then he put the phone down on the table, his hand resting on it, and he stared silently at the tabletop.
“What?” Cassie asked, when she could stand it no more.
“It’s from the future,” he said, his eyes flicking up to her. “I am not the Luddite I like to pretend I am, I have my own phone.” He reached into his pocket and removed an iPhone, a much earlier predecessor of the phone Cassie owned. “What you have there is obviously much more advanced.”
“I won’t even be able to charge it for five years,” Cassie reflected miserably.
“And the web page that was open in the browser,” Mr. Webber continued, shaking his head slowly. “It was dated several years into the future. It’s impossible.”
“Yes,” Cassie agreed. “It is.”
Mr. Webber sighed then, a heavy, weary sound. Then he pushed the phone back toward Cassie and she returned it to her pocket.
Mr. Webber sipped his coffee and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been alone most of my life,” he said. “For a long time it was just me and my mother, but then she died, and I was alone.” His brow creased, as if he was wrestling with something he had been struggling to understand. “I don’t really know why I’ve always been alone,” he reflected. “I would very much have liked to have had more friends, someone to love. But my working life was spent traveling around a lot, and I worked unsociable hours. It was hard to meet people, and if I’m honest I think it was easier to just not try after a while.”
Cassie listened, wondering where he was going.
“So I spent my life by myself, and when you’re by yourself you get very good at watching people. I pay attention. I have no conversation to distract me, no worries about my friend or my partner, no drunken nights to recover from. I’ve become very good at reading people. Andthe problem I have is I don’t think you are crazy, my dear. I don’t think you are trying to con me, even though everything you say is ridiculous. I cannot reconcile these things.”
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, and Mr. Webber nodded, accepting the apology. “If I haven’t scared you off yet, can I at least tell you my story?”
Mr. Webber nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me your story.”
So Cassie told her story, leaving out Mr. Webber’s quiet death, and Mr. Webber listened without comment, occasionally sipping from his coffee, or shuffling in his seat.
When she was finished, Mr. Webber didn’t say anything for a while. His long fingers tapped his coffee cup, and his eyes settled on the table between them.
“It’s crazy,” she said, feeling the need to reassure him that she knew everything she had just said was unbelievable. “I know it is. But it’s all true.”
“I don’t know if it’s true or not,” Mr. Webber said. “But having seen your phone... and with what you’ve said you know about me, it’s easier to believe than it might have been. But if it is true...”
“Yes?”
“It falls down on one crucial point.”
“What point?” Cassie asked.
“This magical book you say I gave to you.”
“The Book of Doors?”
“I do not possess it,” he said. “I have no idea what it is, and I have no idea how I could give it to you in the future.”
Cassie shook her head, struggling to believe him. “It must come to you,” she insisted. “Sometime in the next ten years it must come to you. Otherwise you couldn’t have given it to me and none of this could have happened.”
Mr. Webber shrugged. “Perhaps. But I don’t have it now. And I cannot help you get back to your future.”
Cassie felt herself physically shrink in defeat. “But what am I going to do?” she wailed, more to herself than to Mr. Webber. “I can’t be stuck here.”
Tears again, horrible, bitter tears filling her eyes.
“Well, you’ll just have to wait, dear,” Mr. Webber said, and she saw concern in his face, as if perhaps he thought he had made her cry.
“I can’t wait!” Cassie exclaimed, as panic frothed within. “I need to get back. I have no money, no house; what am I supposed to do here, stuck in the past?”
Mr. Webber thought about it for a moment before answering. “You are trying to solve everything at once,” he said. “Why not solve one problem at a time? You need somewhere to sleep. You will think more clearly after a good night’s sleep.”
“Where will I sleep?” Cassie asked. “Homeless shelters?”
