Shades of Time kobo

by Sarah Woodbury

“My first concern is if someone is watching us right now,” Ted said. “We’ve been stopped here a while. Nobody else has pulled over that I can see.”

  “Your mobile is secure, which is why Mark gave it to you,” Livia said, “but if someone is tracking your regular mobiles, they could start pinging cell towers for all mobiles in use near you. If you’ve been sitting a while, it’s time to move and get somewhere where there are more people and more electronic activity.”

  Elisa looked around. In fact, they were currently the only ones on the little road they’d taken from their house in the countryside. Having lived all her life in Pennsylvania, she was used to rain and green landscapes. Kent never experienced much of a winter, however, and it didn’t rain so much as drizzle all winter long. “I’m due at the embassy at ten. We were going to have breakfast and then drop Elen off at school.” They’d learned through much trial and error to leave a long lead time with everything they did that involved London. As a rule, they parked on the outskirts and took the train into the city together, since they all worked near Hyde Park.

  “Have breakfast with us, and we’ll hammer out the game plan,” Mark said.

  “But leave your normal mobiles in the vehicle,” Livia said. “We have to assume they are being tracked.”

  Elisa gritted her teeth, knowing Livia was right. But now that it was time to implement some kind of plan, she was frozen in her seat.

  Fortunately, Ted was not. “This is why we moved here, isn’t it?”

  Elisa nodded. And truthfully, she’d been more afraid at other times. If she could handle the disappearance of members of her family for years at a time, MI-5 or the CIA or whoever was tracking them couldn’t be worse than that. The most awful moment had been at Caernarfon when they’d feared David and Llywelyn had been blown up in the bombing. Mark had tracked Elisa and Ted down there too and told them their bodies weren’t among the dead. They hadn’t known all was well, however, until Gwenllian had told Christopher.

  “If anyone at the embassy knows about what’s happened, I will find out.” Elisa had worked for twenty years at a marketing firm in Philadelphia, and through a series of fortuitous events, just before Christopher had disappeared, the firm had acquired the contract for the United States embassy in London. Before she’d started looking into how to get to Britain, she’d had no idea the embassy had any interest in marketing.

  But of course it did. The diplomats handled the crises, and the marketing department made them look good. Her own firm had been delighted to have someone with her experience volunteer to uproot to the UK, and there’d been so much upheaval in the State Department in the last five or six years, they’d been desperate for anyone who could mitigate anti-American sentiment in Britain, even a little.

  Ted, meanwhile, had taken his financial acumen into the very heart of Treadman Global, which last year had bought out the powerful military-industrial behemoth, CMI (Conflict Management Industries). Once called The Dunland Group, its representatives had pursued David in hopes of tapping into his ability to time travel. They’d been thwarted by Callum and Cassie. Purportedly, the company’s initiative had died after their failure to retrieve him and after the shake up in the CIA and MI-5.

  In the six months Ted had been working for them, however, he had grown close to Chad Treadman, the owner, who shortly after he bought the company had divested himself of all military operations. Subsequently, Ted had risen to the point where he was now the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Ted had even been considering approaching Chad with the story of their family and the now-defunct Time Travel Initiative. But he’d been waiting for someone to come through before he did so, because if he went behind David’s back, there was no telling how David might respond.

  It was Mark who’d had the most difficult job, treading a fine line between serving his country, as he always had, and spying on it. After the departure of Director Tate and Mark’s relocation, MI-5 had been resolutely anti-time travel. It was as if they had their hands over their ears and their eyes closed, shouting all the time, “We’re not listening!”

  In more ways than one, the move to London had been the logical culmination of what began with Meg’s disappearance twenty-five years earlier. It seemed—and at this point Elisa didn’t bother to spend any time thinking about it—that the Middle Ages was the family business. It had been long past time Elisa herself joined the company.

  Chapter Eleven

  19 March 2022

  Anna

  The first thing Elisa needed after she, Ted, and Elen arrived at Callum’s flat, immediately after she hugged Anna, was a rundown of everything Christopher had been doing since he’d gone to live in the alternate universe.

  Anna hadn’t seen much of him herself, since he was David’s squire, not Math’s, but she knew enough—and she didn’t pull any punches. He was the Hero of Westminster, he was a soldier, and the sooner his parents understood that, the sooner they would be able to accept the man he’d become. She also had to tell them she didn’t know his exact current situation and about the rebellion overtaking her world.

  Elisa, Ted, and Elen listened to her narrative with fixed attention, a few moans, and otherwise wide eyes. For years now, they’d heard about Anna’s life in the medieval world. They’d witnessed arrivals and disappearances, but Anna was a mother herself, and she had a pretty clear understanding of what they were going through in missing Christopher.

  Anna hadn’t yet figured out how she was going to return to Math and her boys, but she knew how she felt to have them there and her here; she knew how different it would be to have her own son caught up in something so crazy. She herself had disappeared from her own mother’s life in the exact same way Christopher had disappeared from Elisa’s. It was a loss that simply wasn’t possible to recover from and an ache that wouldn’t let go. Elisa had lived with it for nine months. She’d lived with something similar, in fact, for years, what with losing Anna’s mom, David, and Anna herself.

  Christopher had told Anna a little about the circumstances of his leaving and his regret that he not only hadn’t been able to say goodbye, but he’d parted from his mother on poor terms. Elisa’s reaction now, however, was a far cry from what Anna would have expected, given how Elisa had behaved to Christopher in Caernarfon: she didn’t blame Anna for Christopher’s loss, feelings which wouldn’t have been entirely illogical; she didn’t rage around the room. Instead, she took what Anna had to tell her with a white face, but otherwise just nodded.

  And when Anna finished, Elisa drew in a breath. “It’s what we talked about, Ted.”

  Uncle Ted put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and squeezed. Then he turned to Anna in order to explain: “We met David again when he was sixteen, you’ll remember. He was a soldier and the Prince of Wales. We saw then what was in Christopher’s head, and we hoped he’d grow out of it, but he never forgot seeing David and listening to him speak about the world he’d gone to. Christopher never stopped wanting to stand at David’s side.”

  “So him living there wasn’t what we worried about most,” Elisa said.

  Ted nodded. “What we feared was that he and the children had run into trouble immediately upon their arrival, what with the car and everything. Once he connected with any of you, we told ourselves he’d be fine.”

  “As fine as any soldier in a war zone can be,” Elisa said with a bit of tart in her voice, more her former self. But then she gave a sad smile and put out her hand to cover Anna’s where it lay next to her teacup. “I don’t blame you. I don’t blame anyone for what has happened.”

  Anna decided that since Aunt Elisa was speaking the truth, it was best if she did too. “I know at one time you did blame Mom. And David. In Caernarfon, you were really angry at the thought of Christopher going with us.”

  “That was then. I might as well be angry at the weather.” She wrinkled her nose. “What good does it do to rail against God or the fates or the powers-that-be? For whatever reason, your universe-shifting, as Ted insists we call it
, is in your blood. You can’t help it, so we might as well accept it and work with it. From what I understand, every time you shift, it’s because your life is in danger. That means you’d be dead if you didn’t. How could I possibly prefer that?”

  Anna squeezed Elisa’s hand, pleased her aunt was talking to her as an adult, maybe for the first time. “I have been angry at times too. David, Mom, and I—and now Arthur too, it seems—are thrown around like ping-pong balls. On one hand, it’s nice not to die, so there’s that. But arriving in Westminster Hall on a horse wasn’t easy either.”

  “I’m a forty-five-year-old woman,” Elisa said. “You’re twenty-eight and far more mature than I was at your age. At some point we all have to accept the cards we’ve been dealt.”

  “Breakfast!” Mark raised his spatula in the air to gain their attention.

  He’d concocted a full breakfast, with eggs, ham (though the British called it bacon), sausage, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, and crumpets. There was also plenty of cream and sugar for Anna’s coffee, which she didn’t normally drink but today took like Bronwen. It was real food, and it was nice to know people in Avalon were still eating it. She said as much to Mark.

  Uncle Ted snorted under his breath. “Not everyone eats this well, believe me. We’ve had some scary food shortages.” He eyed Mark. “You know anything about that?”

  “No more than you.” Mark shrugged. “Crops fail. You have to expect bad years every now and again.”

  While everyone ate, Uncle Ted and Aunt Elisa related what they’d been doing over the last fifteen months since Anna had seen them—and particularly the last nine months since Christopher had disappeared with Gwenllian and Arthur. Uncle Ted confessed he’d been eyeing his current job since that trip to Caernarfon and had been struggling for months with how to tell his family what he wanted to do and why. He’d eagerly made the leap once Aunt Elisa got on board after Christopher left.

  Finally, Uncle Ted pushed back his plate, having eaten everything on it. “So what I think we need now is a game changer.”

  “A what?” Anna raised her head. She’d been hungrier than she’d thought and was eyeing her third crumpet, but her difficulty in buttering it herself with her left arm in a sling was holding her back. When she was distracted with food, her wrist ached less—or maybe that was this morning’s painkillers finally kicking in. If she wasn’t careful, she might doze off right at the table.

  “A game changer,” Uncle Ted repeated. “You all have done a great deal of good for the Middle Ages, at least from a modern perspective. Have you considered how some of that good could be undertaken in this world too?”

  Anna put down her knife with the butter still unspread. In fact, several more utensils clattered on plates as their owners stared at Ted.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” Mark said.

  Ted eyed his wife, who had a little frown between her brows. Either she hadn’t heard this before or she would prefer he didn’t talk about it right now. Ted hurried on. “As you know, when all this first came to light for the authorities, certain entities like the CIA or MI-5 focused on the how of your universe-shifting. CMI too. But inquiries in that direction proved fruitless, and ultimately pointless, so they dropped them. And, because they were incapable of thinking outside the box, they closed down operations. I propose we stop worrying so much about the how in favor of looking at the why.”

  “We know why.” Elen’s nonchalance indicated she, at least, had heard this before. “To save Wales.” She reached for Anna’s crumpet, buttered it, and returned it without comment.

  Ted mock-glared across the table at his daughter. “Yes, that’s true, but there has to be more to it. David talks openly about your universe-shifting, and he believes—I think we all believe—that you shift between worlds for a reason that’s more than simply to save your lives. That reason was initially to save Wales. Now it’s to transform England and maybe the whole of Europe, moving it towards modernization at a far faster pace than we experienced in our history in this world.”

  Anna nodded. “What we now call Avalon.” This was bread and butter to them. They didn’t even talk about it anymore, it was so self-evident. “We need a better name to call our alternate universe too, since the Middle Ages doesn’t really make sense. We aren’t time traveling, and that world is its own thing.”

  “We’ll work on that.” Ted waved a hand dismissively. “What I’m interested in are the big questions, the biggest of all, to me, being: what if the ultimate point isn’t to make the Middle Ages a better place, but to make this world better?”

  From the expression on Mark’s face, Ted had talked to him about this too. Now Anna really wished David or her mom were here because one of them would definitely have had something to say right about now, but all Anna managed was, “How?” spoken around the bit of crumpet.

  “You all choose to stay there, right?” At another nod from Anna, he continued. “That right there should tell us something about the Middle Ages we’re missing here. How could anyone in her right mind, a person raised with every material possession, choose to give them up and live for the rest of her life without them?”

  Anna almost rolled her eyes, the question was so easy. “Because those material things don’t make life worth living.”

  Ted snapped his fingers. “Exactly. How many modern people know that?”

  “Surely lots,” Anna said. “It’s hardly news.”

  “Nor is it news you might want to put others before yourself or family comes first,” Elisa said. “Ted’s saying the Middle Ages has proved to be a training ground for greatness.”

  “You want David to permanently return? He’ll never agree to it.”

  “Then let other people learn its lessons and return. Like Mark here.”

  Mark blinked. “Me?” He waved his hands. “Leave me out of it.”

  “Come on, Mark,” Ted said. “What were you doing before you started working for Callum?”

  Mark narrowed his eyes. “I was a computer tech in Cardiff for the Security Service.”

  “And now what are you?”

  “The head of his section,” Anna answered for him. “In charge of software for satellites.”

  Ted leaned in, more earnest than Anna had ever seen him, which was saying something because he had the ability at times to put David to shame. Being King of England, in fact, had given David a harder edge than what she saw now on Ted’s face. “Don’t you think you owe the modern world something? You’ve traveled back and forth from an alternate universe. The scientific advances alone such knowledge could bring are beyond reckoning!”

  Anna watched her uncle over the top of the coffee cup she’d brought to her lips but hadn’t drunk from. “You really mean this, don’t you?”

  “We do.” Elisa nodded, having warmed to the conversation herself. “The way this world has treated you has made you stop thinking or caring about it—” Anna made to protest, but Elisa lifted a hand. “Let me finish. I’m not saying you don’t care at all, only that you care far more about the medieval world.” She stopped and looked at her husband. “We really do need a better name for it, especially if we’re going to go there ourselves.”

  Anna blinked. “What did you say?”

  Ted was sitting next to Elisa, and he took her hand. “We need you to take us with you when you go.”

  “What about Elen?”

  Elen was ready with her answer. “Me too.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Anna set her cup in its saucer. “You realize that’s crazy, right?”

  Elisa looked around at her family. “We’ve talked about it, and we are agreed.”

  “Why is it crazy for us to go but not you?” Ted said.

  Anna had to laugh. “Because I didn’t have a choice the first time, and then my whole family was there.”

  “My whole family is there. You just told us that Christopher’s life may be in danger.” Elisa gazed at Anna. Her jaw was really tight, and she spoke around it. “I need. To se
e. My son.”

  And that was the one thing, of all the things Elisa could have said, with which Anna couldn’t argue.

  Chapter Twelve

  19 March 1294

  Ieuan

  At one time, the sight of a Welsh band riding openly through England would have prompted an armed response, but Ieuan had spent most of the last five years at Dafydd’s side, and the whole world knew England and Wales were at peace. Besides, three-quarters of the men with Ieuan were English or half-English. Ieuan was just sorry they didn’t have any Scotsmen among them, but James Stewart, Robbie Bruce, and their men had gone to Ireland with Dafydd.

  Ieuan’s company had left Llangollen before dawn, heading east following the River Dee. At every farm and hamlet, they’d woken the household to ask if they’d heard a company ride by. Nobody had. As the hours wore on, Ieuan began to fear they were on the completely wrong track. Then morning came, and with it, a growing anger that burned in his stomach and closed his throat over words best not spoken.

  When they reached the confluence of the Dee and the Ceiriog, he turned more north, though how a foreign company could have traveled from south of the Dee to north of it without encountering anyone, he couldn’t guess.

  As Math had promised, he’d sent a rider to Overton ahead of Ieuan, one riding fast and direct. An industrious farmer, through whose lands the river ran, had established an inn at the Overton Bridge. By the time Ieuan’s company arrived there, it was late morning, and the farmstead was bustling with activity. As they’d been riding for hours already, it was as good a time as any to rest the horses, and even with the urgency of their mission, a bite to eat wouldn’t go amiss. To Ieuan’s relief, Cadwallon himself met them.

  Ieuan ordered a halt and dismounted in order to clasp Cadwallon’s hand. Though Cadwallon’s smile was wide, he was looking a bit haggard and unkempt.

  “How’s the baby?” Ieuan said.

  Cadwallon grinned. “A strapping boy.” Then he sobered. “He cries every time I hold him. And all night long last night.”