Just for excellent food, mind you. So, only if we can live with his mum.
I shake my head, my brain is getting ridiculous now, and take a swig of juice, pouring it so much that it ends up down my chin and over my top.
Excellent.
I wipe it quickly and refuse to look at Fletcher. His mum answers my question.
“Ember won’t be coming with us, but we don’t really need her. It’s probably best that only the three of us go. The less of us that go, the less chance of something going wrong. I think we’ll eat and then set up the spell. Do it first thing.”
I nod. It makes sense. See, in my old life, my before-people-were-trying-to-kill-me-and-I-was-a-witch life I always put stuff off. Why do something today if you can put it off? Delay? Stall? Dilly-dally, as my mum would say. But I am actually a little excited about this adventure this morning.
Who hasn’t imagined going back in time? Only last week I wished I could go back in time and not try to buy the stupid bar of chocolate from the stupid vending machine, so that stupid Thomas wouldn’t have made fun of me. But that was before delicious Fletcher brought my chocolate back to me. So maybe it’s a good thing that we can’t go back in time.
Anyway, Fletcher’s dad’s notes came with an entire list of things you cannot do if you go back in time. And trying to stop someone dying is a big no-no, apparently. Molly. I feel better that I’ve seen her, and forever grateful to Fletcher that he showed me how, but it also made me ache for her, when I had stopped. Well, not stopped but slowed down a bit.
Maybe.
Anyway, we are ready. Fletcher’s mum nods at him and he raises his eyebrows at me, and I nod back. Is this so serious now that we cannot speak?
And then when I try to speak, I really can’t. This is serious. This could be the end of the war, the end of the battle, the one thing that shows the council members that we mean no harm and gives them their freedom.
It’s momentous, really.
I follow the two of them into the front room, trying not to eye up Fletcher’s backside, happily failing, and take a seat on the floor.
We make up a triangle now, and Fletcher’s mum quickly reads through the notes Adam made.
I’m about to leave 2020 and head back to... I didn’t even ask Fletcher how far back in time we are going. Hundred years. A thousand years. What if I get stuck there? What if Fletcher and his mum lose me and I end up stuck in medieval witch land or whatever witch land we are heading to?
It’s too late to ask him.
“Join hands. Close your eyes.”
I do as I’m told, because I don’t want to be the one who fudges it up again. In my defence I honestly thought Zeta and Efa had come back from the dead to take me with them, but I still messed up.
This time I’m good. Eyes closed, hands holding. It’s nice to hold Fletcher’s hand instead of scary old Ember’s hand; her skin was as icy as her smile.
I shudder but keep my eyes closed, my hands holding, and my mind on Fletcher’s mum’s words.
We are about to go back in time and – hopefully – change the world that Fletcher lives in forever. I hope we can do it. I need us to do it.
If we can change his world, then we’ll be safe. And if we’re safe, we can do normal things – like go to the pictures to watch a rubbish film and snog instead, walk along the beach because it’s meant to be romantic, even though it’s too cold, and it’s horrible when sand gets in your shoes and there’s nothing to talk about except waves and sand, and those idiots who surf even when it’s obviously too cold for it, and imagine that we’ll be in love together forever and get married and live in a big house and have three perfect children, including one set of twins.
Not that my mind wanders.
And I rein it back in and focus on the words being said, the air turning hot around me, Fletcher squeezing my hand a little tighter.
This is it – we are getting close. We are going back in time. We are time travellers – which sounds even more unbelievable than witches – and yet I know that’s true too.
I hold my breath.
But then I have to breathe because nothing’s happened.
And then I hold my breath again, because something is definitely happening. I feel like I’m upside down on a rollercoaster, like my body is going too fast or my head is going too slow, or my body is turning inside out and the wrong way round and I might die and then even if I wanted to breathe I couldn’t because I’m moving – and yet staying still at the same time – at about a zillion miles an hour.
I scream and I open my eyes and then shut them straight away because we aren’t in Fletcher’s house anymore; we are literally falling through time and the world is a blur around me and I’m pretty sure that if I throw up right now, I might just change history because my vomit will fly randomly through the air.
Oof!
7
The three of them land in a jumble, Ellis shouting out “Oof!” but Fletcher and Elodie remaining quiet. Fletcher grabs hold of Ellis straightaway and puts a finger to his lips. They have no way of knowing where they have landed so they have to be quiet.
They stand up and tuck beside a tree. They cannot see anybody, and there’s only one building within sight. They know from Adam’s spell that they are where they need to be at roughly the time they need to be there, now they just need
