Hetty took a deep breath, steeling herself against the world, then pushed her hair back over her head. ‘Where am I? What year is it?’
They both looked at her. ‘2023, dear. Central London. Oh gosh, you do look upset – let’s call a cab.’
Aggie raised her arm, and they watched as a black carriage – missing any kind of horse but still, somehow, moving at quite some speed – stopped by the pavement.
The older ladies bundled Hetty into the carriage before she knew what she was doing, gave directions, then Aggie pressed some kind of button which cut off the driver’s reply mid-sentence.
‘Rude,’ Jemima reprimanded, before continuing. ‘So has this really worked, then?’
Hetty swallowed her fear. ‘I’m quite sure … Fairly sure you were always destined to find me and my diary. I did all the correct calculations. I got my numbers right.’
‘But how did you know it was going to work?’ Jemima interrupted, fussing over Hetty’s dishevelled locks. It was rather nice, being fussed over.
Hetty felt her shoulders hunch. Truthfully, she was as surprised as they were that her plan had worked – if indeed this was not a dream.
‘Look, Jemima, you’re not the theoretical physicist here. That would be Henrietta. Best not ask too many questions – let’s leave it to the expert.’
‘And according to the first page of that diary, if she breaks the bracelet, they both swap back? Well, either of you could break it at any time, right? And then what?’
Aggie hushed Jemima. ‘You’re not helping, dear. Come on, let’s get Hetty home.’
She turned to Hetty, and only kindness and concern were on her face.
‘Oh, how I wish we’d found Etta sooner – perhaps this swap could have happened years ago. You poor child. Both of you must be so scared. And we would have loved to have had a niece to dote on all these years.’
‘Well, now we do, Aggie,’ said Jemima, leaning forward. ‘Don’t worry, my dear. We’re going to have such a wonderful time. Just you wait and see.’
Chapter 4
1817
The first thing Etta heard the following morning was birdsong, and the sound of a fireplace being scraped out. Her body was heavy with blankets and she knew immediately that she wasn’t in her poky studio flat under her duvet.
For a moment, she lay still and went over the events of yesterday. Increasingly, against every logical fibre in her being, she was beginning to feel that something momentous had happened. That maybe, just maybe,Doctor Whowas onto something – time travel was indeed possible.
Her every physical sense told her that she was not where she had been only hours before. These sheets felt different against her skin; her very skin felt different against her bones. The bed sheetssmelleddifferent – still clean, but not of cotton-scented non-biological detergent. Thicker, rougher, heavier. Etta took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of dried lavender and soap powder.
She’d breathed too hard and started hyperventilating. Etta rolled herself in a ball and counted in, one, two, three, four, and then out, one, two, three, four – an old pandemictrick, from when she’d strained at the four white walls of her flat – and finally managed to get her breathing under control.
Roll with it, she remembered.Roll with it, because let’s face it, this can’t be real.
She sat up, discovering the room to be much colder than she expected, and felt smooth wooden floorboards under her feet as she looked around.
She was sitting on a tall, metal-framed bed with an ominous-looking chamber pot by her feet which she was going to have to make immediate use of.
She shed the old-fashioned quilt and sheets, and looked around to try to distract herself from the fact she was crouching down, weeing into a little bowl, in the middle of a freezing cold bedroom, with no toilet paper in sight. She hadn’t had to drip dry since a memorable childhood camping trip. Etta winced as she recalled being towed along on an interminable hiking trip with her dad who, unable to find childcare, had forgotten his daughter might need such luxurious amenities as toilets and showers. At least he’d remembered to take her along in the first place.
She could see a writing desk with piles of papers and notebooks next to it on the other side of her bed. A quill and inkpot sat on top. Etta looked down at her hands and saw ink stains on her fingertips which she hadn’t noticed last night. So she was a writer, she thought. Well, that was going to be something she’d struggle to live up to.
If she was going to have some kind of historical adventure, writing was probably the last ladylike hobby she’d put on her list. Music she could do, and her embroidery was great – herlast commission had been rather too obscene for yesteryears, but she could happily confine herself to throwing in the odd suggestively-positioned lily. But writing? Not her strong suit. The C she got in her GCSE had been one of the proudest moments in her scholastic career, and she was very much going to miss spellcheck.
Besides the writing desk, the room was sparse and cold. Paint flaked from the walls and a few threadbare rugs were scattered across the bare floorboards. The only adornment on the walls was a child-like illustrated watercolour alphabet and some framed pressed flowers. Etta was desperate to look in a mirror, but there wasn’t even one of those. She’d read dozens of Regency romances, and this was not one of them.
She got up, finding a dressing gown on a chair next to her bed, and sat down at the writing desk. There was a brand-new red leather diary in the centre of the table, which she opened. She read the first page.
Dear Descendant,
If you’re reading this, my calculations were correct and these years of study have been worthwhile. I am unsure how to describe what it is that I have planned to do. The transformation, the metamorphosis … The Switch?
