ONE
The grand manor house loomed behind me in the dark.
In the twenty-first century, Trevarron House, situated on the North Cornwall coast, was a ruin. I had grown up visiting my aunt in the nearby village of St Nantes and often come to play in its overgrown meadows as a child. Many of its walls were missing; the windows were long gone, and much of the remaining stone had been destroyed by fire. The once-grand steps to the wide front door were covered in moss and weeds.
Yet now, even though it was night, I could see that the steps were free of moss; the walls were straight and clear of damage, and every window was present. Lights shone in some of them; the gardens were manicured, and the driveway was lit by lamps.
I stood, gaping at the scene. It was Trevarron House, but it was also very definitely not ruined. That could only mean one thing.
I was not in the twenty-first century. And that was very, very bad.
TWO
I banged on the door of my aunt Bill’s cottage in St Nantes, my heart beating wildly.
I had run all the way here from Trevarron House, a couple of miles away down a winding Cornish road. It was a road I knew well.
I knew this cottage well, too, and the little lane it sat on. I knew this village. I knew the farm at the end of the road, the fields around it, and I knew Trevarron House, the imposing manor house at the end of a winding drive. I had known it from childhood, and now I knew it as a woman. As the lover of William De Vere Trevarron, its lord, the man my heart longed for. The man I feared had been torn away from me forever.
Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe my beloved Aunt Bill would open the door and saywhy didn’t ye let yourself in, my love? Did ye forget your key?I’d step inside. I’d warm my hands by the log burner, sink into one of the large, comfortable sofas and Aunt Bill would offer me a cup of tea. I’d be home, finally, and I felt as though if that could only be true, I would never leave again.
But I knew it was only wishful thinking. It was the same cottage: I could see the stone laid into the wall around the door frame that said 1678; the date that it was built. But the garden waswild. Nettles dominated, with a few tall wildflowers fighting their way through the weeds.
I’d already seen a different version of Aunt Bill’s cottage, but this was different again, and that realisation filled me with dread. In that other time, the door had been flanked by rosemary and bay bushes. Now there was nothing except a pile of damp firewood.
The old stone wall was still there: it ran around the whole cottage and garden, protecting it from view. It had always felt cosy, before. But now, the whole place had the feeling of being unloved, hidden, secret.
The lane was different, too. There were fewer houses than there should have been. All the way here, I’d wanted to see a car. A bike. Someone I knew and recognised from the village. Anything to show me that I had come home; that I was in the right time again. But I didn’t see anyone. When I’d reached the end of the drive leading away from Trevarron House and the stone gate at the end of it, my blood had run cold as I saw the two stone griffins on top of the posts.
In my own time, the griffins weren’t there – hadn’t been there for a century or more.
The fact that the griffins were there now meant one thing: I was in the wrong time.
I was in the past.
Suddenly, the door to the cottage opened and a woman I had never seen before looked inquisitively at me.
Her dark blond hair was tied up in a scarf. She wore a long grey dress with an apron over the top, and her sleeves were rolled up. Laugh lines spread out from the edges of her eyes, but right now, she was frowning.
‘Help ye?’ she asked, in a broad Cornish accent.
‘I… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.’ I turned to go. Panic had completely overtaken me.
‘What is it, maid?’ The woman stepped forward and caught my arm. ‘Speak your reason. People don’t come to the pellar’s cottage unless they need somethin’.’
‘I’m… It was a mistake. I’m sorry for troubling you.’ I shook my head and put my hand into the pocket of my long skirt, clutching at the journal I’d kept there. It was the most important thing I possessed, now. I hoped that it held the secrets to allow me to get home.
I had wanted to see Aunt Bill so badly. My heart had longed for her, and my home. And, while I had found her cottage, I knew now that Aunt Bill was nowhere here.
‘You be a traveller,’ the woman said, slowly, looking me up and down. ‘I can see it. Your dress. The way you speak. Your skin. I seen it before. You better come in, maid.’ She stood aside in the doorway. ‘If I’m right, then you got nowhere else,’ she added.
She was right. I didn’t.
Inside, a fire burned in the deep inglenook fireplace I knew so well. Otherwise, everything inside the cottage was different to Aunt Bill’s décor.
My aunt’s cottage had been furnished in a mismatched but homely style. The lounge was cosy, featuring two ancient burgundy sofas covered in cushions. It was usually lit with floor lamps that gave off a warm glow, and the wood-panelled floor was covered with a floral-patterned rug.
I had always stayed in the tiny bedroom under the eaves, with its narrow twin beds that hugged opposite walls and a small space between them that held a bedside table where Aunt Bill would leave books – mostly her own well-thumbed historical romances – and an ancient reading lamp. I knew the lamp was old, because the flex was made of braided metal as opposed to covered in plastic like modern electrical appliances.
