Here worshipped Jane Austen 1801–1805.
Jane gazed at the plate in stunned silence. She read it again. It was her name. Her heart raced. She shook her head; the two men dressed in black bounded into the transept and Jane had no choice but to leave the plate that bore her name and escape out the back of the church.
JANE TRIPPED INTO the daylight and gasped at the sight before her.
It looked like Bath for the most part. The honeystone town houses lined the row of Northgate Street, as they always did. The Pump Room remained, rooted obstinately at the bottom of the hill ahead of her. But dizzying structures of glass and metal dotted around each building in the dozens, making her eyes water. A carriage made of green steel galloped past her on the road. It moved on its own, with no horse pulling it. Jane yelped and jumped out of its path, hugging an iron railing for protection. A man in black leather drawers, his hair colored purple, moved toward Jane and offered her a handbill. The paper was painted a vicious shade of pink and shone like a diamond. “March for trans rights, tomorrow at four,” he said. “Wear the costume. It’s a scream!” He pointed to her muslin dress.
“Heavens preserve us,” Jane cried. She ignored the man in his underclothes and pointed at something far obscener. “I see your ankle, madam!” she exclaimed to a woman walking past. The lady wore a skirt that ended at the knee, allowing the ball of bone to be seen protruding lasciviously through her pale skin. How did the poor soul move this far down the street without being heckled or kidnapped? Jane shielded her eyes with her fingers. The woman wrinkled her nose at Jane and walked on. Jane felt dizzy at the confusing sights around her. What on earth was going on?
“You there. Stop,” called a voice behind Jane. The policemen from the church appeared at the top of the street and ran toward her. Jane yelped and darted away. She ran south using the faint sun to navigate. The street sign said Northgate, like it always did, but now the sign hung on an impossibly tall building made of steel. She turned left into the lane, which was the shortcut to Pulteney Bridge, but the lane was gone. She slammed instead into a brick wall. She rubbed her skull and turned in a daze, then continued straight ahead instead, toward the Pump Room, the thing she recognized. Jane had known by heart the layout of Bath almost as soon as she first moved there. Since she was a child, she had possessed a mastery of maps and spaces; her brain had always devoured shapes, names, and numbers. She knew every brick in every miserable lane, the columns of every inane assembly room, the paintwork of every stuffy teahouse. But now she felt flummoxed as her memory was insulted over and again. Nothing was where it promised to be.
But while she tried to locate lanes that weren’t there and stumbled around buildings she’d never seen before, the two men who chased her navigated the streets like it was second nature. They rounded every corner at speed and cleared every pothole with ease, and though she had a decent head start, the two men now bore down on her from less than twenty feet away. Jane ran on and attempted to bottle her panic. Being caught by the constabulary in this confusing Bath-but-not-Bath place would be less than ideal.
She glanced toward the plaza and gasped as she saw someone she recognized. “You!” Jane cried. It was the woman from the night before, the one Jane had spoken to in the wings of the theater. She had changed from her shiny dress and now wore a man’s shirt and trousers. Giant black eyeglasses enveloped the top half of her face. The woman scowled and moved off down the road. Jane chased after her. “Wait! You have to help me,” Jane pleaded.
“No, I don’t!” the woman called over her shoulder. She walked into a crowd of women assembled out in front of the Pump Room, and Jane followed her into the throng. Jane shielded her eyes from the exposed knees and bosoms and weaved through the strange multitude. The sea of people parted to reveal the woman walking between two men dressed in waistcoats and little else. Jane grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her into a side passage near the Pump Room’s main entrance.
“All right, fine, what do you want?” the woman said with a sigh. They were shielded from view of the policemen and everyone else. “A selfie? An autograph? A happy birthday video for your grandmother? Whatever you want, it’s yours if you promise to leave me alone afterward.”
Jane peered around nervously, but to her relief could not see the constables. She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know what those things are. But I don’t want any of them.”
The woman exhaled. “Boy, I’ve wrangled some superfans in my time, but you take the cake. What do you want, then?”
Jane stepped backward and studied the woman. “Why do you keep walking away from me?” Jane asked her. “You did the same thing last night.”
The woman placed her hands on her hips. “Let’s see. First, you appeared in a pile of curtains from thin air,” she said. “Then you follow me through the village, like a stalker. Can you blame me, or any sane person, for wanting to avoid you?” She raised an eyebrow.
Jane nodded. “Will you give me the chance to explain myself? Then you may leave as you please.” The woman looked Jane up and down, then shrugged. Jane proceeded. “I fell asleep and woke to find Bath altered,” she said. “The people wear less clothing and the buildings are made of glass and steel. Nothing is where it is supposed to
