With no idea of where she was staying, it proved a slow process, and by nightfall, they had not found her. There was also the possibility she was not even staying in this town. If that was the case, they might take days to find her.
Not willing to give up, they stayed the night and the next day they found a clue at the vicarage. When they asked for an American woman of Livvy’s description, the vicar told them that yes; she had been there yesterday, interested in some records, but that he didn’t know where she was staying.
After visiting more than a dozen cottages and finding them empty or occupied by other people, they found the one they were looking for. By pure chance, they met the owner who was cleaning the place. She confirmed Olivia had indeed stayed there, but that she had left early this morning, cutting her stay short since she had rented for the entire week.
Dale thanked her, and then, cursing the timing, turned to Roys.
“What do we do now?”
“Go back to last night, of course,” Roys replied with a weary smile.
“Of course! Stupid me. You’d have thought that by now I would have gotten into the habit of thinking about moving backwards in time.”
“It takes some getting used to. Let’s go back to the ruins and travel to last night.”
***
HALF AN HOUR LATER, they were back on the night before, walking back to town from the ruins. Dale was almost running in his impatience to get to Olivia.
“Dale, slow down. We need to talk about some things before we show up in front of Olivia.”
“What else is there to talk about? We are here, and I’m going to her right now.”
“Dale, we don’t know how things stand. We messed with events, remember? What if she is still married? What if she didn’t travel back in time?”
“She traveled to England. We have confirmation on that. So that means everything else in her life must have remained the same.”
“Not necessarily. That is the big unknown. I also need to look up her sister. We know we saved them that one time, but we don’t know if she is still alive, and if she is, whether Olivia knows about it.”
“Can’t you find out? Look it up. The same way you looked up everything else.”
“That takes time. I would rather do it in the comfort of a pub or restaurant. Not out here in the wild.”
“It doesn’t take that long. Please, Roys. Let’s find a place and look up whatever we need to know and go now. I won’t be able to rest until I see her.”
With an irritated sigh, Roys gave in. “You know, people in love are damn irrational.”
Just as Dale had said, it didn’t take long at all to find out that Olivia’s sister and brother-in-law were, in fact, still alive. Their social media platforms said it all. However, Livvy’s social media had gone completely silent in the last year. Roys kept digging for information about her, but after half an hour of record searching, he still had not found what he was looking for.
He looked at Dale, concern evident in his eyes. “I haven’t been able to find her divorce certificate.”
“Let’s go, then. We will find out soon enough.”
A few minutes later, they stood in front of Olivia’s rented cottage. By then, it was past midnight and all the windows were dark in the house. In fact, the entire neighborhood was quiet.
“She must be sleeping. You are going to freak her out. We should wait until she wakes up,” Roys whispered, looking uneasy.
“I have traveled across two centuries to be with her. Now I’m a few yards away. There’s no power on this earth that would keep me away.”
Roys rolled his eyes. “How melodramatic. Fine. If you put it that way.”
Dale went to the front door. Seeing a knocker, he made to bang it, but Roys pointed to a small little button on the side. “Ring the bell. It might be less disruptive.”
He rang it twice, but there was no answer. Then, for good measure, he knocked too. Still nothing.
“We are probably scaring her to death. You do realize she is probably in there alone and a call at the door at midnight is highly irregular, right?” Roys said, displeased.
“Could we somehow let her know we are here?”
