Fantom Epilogue 1

   “It wasn’t your fault,” Tom said to Ruth later.  She was still shaking.  She had not thought that she could use the sword, even when the adjudicator had threatened her with the gun, until the very moment she had done it.  She had not meant to kill.  “You barely injured her, just a cut on the wrist.  It was the fall into the pit which broke her neck.”
   “She wouldn’t have fallen if it wasn’t for me,” Ruth replied.  “I didn’t mean that to happen.  But she was threatening me- threatening all of us.”  
    “It saves someone having to work out what to do with her anyway,” Adam said.  “She’d have had to be locked up for the rest of her life.”
   Ruth knew he was right.  Somehow it seemed better this way, neater, more- satisfactory.  A proper end to the story.  You didn’t want the villain lurking around somewhere in a prison cell, the constant threat of a sequel while you were trying to rebuild your life.  No, the adjudicator had sought to change her story, and she had learned the consequences.
   The historian in Ruth knew that it was rare that you could be certain about what had happened in the past.  You could never know exactly what had caused what effect on the present or the future.  You could change what seemed a small detail, and the consequences to the grand story of life could be massive.  The adjudicator had tried to change her story and to change history by removing Thespis.  But it had an unexpected consequence.  Although in the aftermath of her downfall no scores survived, Ruth and her friends still had the copies they had made when learning the music.  There was much interest from the Gilbert & Sullivan community and talk of a production that would make the show, and them, famous.  Ruth wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  But perhaps it would be safer if everyone knew the secret of Thespis.  Then there would be less chance of anyone being able to take everyone by surprise, as the adjudicator had done.
   Patrick turned out to have been very, very lucky.  Once medical help arrived they pronounced his injuries serious, but not life-threatening.  A few broken bones and a lot of cuts and bruises.  It was some time before he could leave hospital.  
   But there was one more thing to do before they felt their adventure was closed.
   “We still haven’t found out why we were given the TTC,” Tom said when they were all inside it and Agnes, for a change, was making the tea.  “We go so tied up in everything that we forgot about it.  But I’ve been trying to see how it works and I think I’ve found the log of previous trips, and extracted the date it was at immediately before it was left for us.”    
   “So we can go there and ask why they gave it to us?”
   “If we want to,” Tom said, looking round at them.  
   “I think we should,” Ruth said.  
   So they did.  The door opened onto a laboratory, crammed with machinery they did not understand.  The walls were full of doors.  Adam opened one.
   “It’s just like the TTC,” he said.
   “It is a TTC,” said a familiar voice behind them.  They turned.  Ruth recognised the speaker.  
   “You’re the one who gave me the instructions to find the TTC all those months ago,” she said.  “But who are you?  And why?”
   “Who?  You know who I am.”
   “You’re me,” Tom said, “but from the future.”
   “Your future.  My present.  And as for why- well.”  He turned away to look at the TTC and they saw that actually he was not so much older than them.  But his hair and beard were greying, and there was sadness in his face.  
  “I don’t really know,” he says.  “Because I remember finding it, as you did.  Because although what you have been through was painful, I knew it had to happen.  I can’t explain without telling you many things you can’t know yet, but when you get to be me you will understand.  I’m sorry.  I know that’s no explanation.  But believe me- you cannot know the future in advance.  You have to live it- the good and the bad.  And there will be some of both for all of you.  
   “‘Set aside the dull enigma, we shall guess it all too soon,’” Ruth quoted.  “‘Life’s perhaps the only riddle that we shrink from giving up.’”
   “‘Take life as it comes.’” the older Tom agreed.  “It’s the only way you can live.”

Epilogue part 2...