Serenity looked at her hand, gently rubbing the ring that sat happily on her finger. She wasn’t sure how to feel. The longer she stayed here, the more... numb she felt. Like a cold, tingling that crept up from her fingers and toes. She struggled to sleep too but Serenity couldn’t just leave. If Wick was left unchecked, he’d just keep coming after wreaking havoc and destruction behind him. She felt... a duty, almost compelled to deal with this. And then there was the other matter.

Stupid to fall into this trap that she saw right from the start but how are you supposed to control your emotions? She had made friends, tended their hurts, ate with them, fought with them. And she suspected she had begun to fall in love. A little boy clung to her when his world collapsed and a man, kind and strong torn between duty and conscience built castles and alliances to protect her. And no matter how many times she told herself it wasn’t real, or it wasn’t feasible, they had burrowed into her heart and would leave.

It would bring them and her nothing but pain. What’s worse is, she had no way of knowing if any of it would survive. When she had dealt with Wick and returned to her time, would this experience be erased and the history she knew resume, or would they remember her as she would remember them? She desperately wanted them to remember and damn history, even is she had to live with the pain of losing them and vice versa. A kinder Norman reign would not be a bad thing. But there were warnings about messing with time for a reason...

She was thinking in circles now. She had to find Wick but where? She jumped

***

He’d said something about when they were both children, so she’d start there. There were already so many shadows there that one more wouldn’t cause a problem. She arrived outside her childhood house but instead of looking for her younger self, she turned away and searched the surrounding area. Where would a young boy be? The nearest neighbours were acres away in every direction and the access road was long. He could have come from anywhere.

The trees. He could have hidden in the small artificial woodland her parents had created for the wildlife. Serenity drifted speedily over to the woodland and searched it. Wick wasn’t there but there were signs of someone moving through regularly. Rather than wait, she jumped a few times to times she knew her younger self felt the shadows and, sure enough, a small figure appeared before her. She quickly pulled away, not wanting to alert him to her presence.

Okay, she’d found a childhood Wick, now what? She could wait for the adult Wick to show up. But there was no guarantee he’d care about his younger self. She needed to learn more about him. Serenity waited and watched for a little while but she couldn’t see anything about the younger Wick. He just stood and stared out towards her house. She didn’t want to risk jumping forward to speed up the process in case she lost him, so she waited and waited. And waited. Suddenly, near dawn, childhood Wick disappeared. He’d jumped! How could he jump so young?? Serenity was stunned. He’d known for so long, he had so much more experience than her, how was she going to deal with this? Her hopes of finding Wick diminished.

“Okay, let’s look for him where I know he’s been.” She thought aloud. Wick had volunteered at many of her digs. She’d start with the most recent one in Cyprus. Jump. It was the first time she’d been in another time outside of the UK and there was absolutely no difference. She was a slightly incorporeal shadow and no one around seemed to see her at all. She spent hours moving around, occasionally jumping to an earlier or later time but there was no sign of another presence. Serenity was determined to find something that would help her deal with this. She systematically jumped to each of her dig that Wick had volunteered at, slowly growing more and more annoyed. Eventually tiredness tugged at her and Serenity suddenly felt weary. The responsibility, the stress, she just want a break. More and more it felt like she’d never find Wick.

On a whim, she decided to give herself a treat and visit one of her favourite archeological sites. She jumped. Hot sun warmed her skin and she basked in delighted, a smiled lighting up her face. A gasp startled her and she whipped her head to the sound. A small crowd of men and women dressed in traditional second dynasty garb stared at her before dropping to their knees and bowing their heads to the floor. They gabbled in ancient Egyptian, which Serenity somehow understood, panicked. Something about a goddess, omens and an angry pharaoh.

In her confusion and startled state, Serenity’s first instinct was to calm the crowd and said the first thing that came to her. “Please calm down, I will be leaving soon.” What came out of her mouth was ancient Egyptian, again which she didn’t know how to speak, saying “Peace children. Soon, the son of Ra shall depart with me.”

The group calmed and gave thanks, never once raising their heads. Serenity began to feel her own panic and decided to keep her promise and leave. She went back to her childhood home, a familiar and safe haven, and sat curled up on the garden bench. She hadn’t meant to jump back in time, just to the site in her present. She fervently hoped she hadn’t messed up something in Ancient Egyptian history, or harmed that group who seemed to be asking for help. Her break hadn’t been restful at all but it had taught her something. She was only incorporeal in her own life time. If she jumped to before her birth, people could see her. She could interact with them, make a difference.

This was dangerous. This was what Wick wanted to do, jump around and change this how he wanted. Serenity didn’t understand how this was possible or why she and Wick were had this ability, but this was her reality and she needed to decide what to do. She may not know what was right or what was true history and what was the result of tampering, but it was her responsibility to stop Wick. He was dangerous and unstable and he had fixated on her. He was already responsible for many deaths, she would let him cause anymore harm. She would find him and she would stop him, maybe find a way to stop him jumping and get him the help he needed. So, what did she know about Wick?

He was obsessed. About power and about her. He wanted to rewrite history to “fix” it and had fixated on the Norman conquest of 1066 but what else would he see as problematic? Hitler? American independence? The occupation of India, French Revolution, Cromwell and Charles I, the fall of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and that’s not even touching the surface! The Chinese and Persian empires, African tribal wars... the world was to big and history too long... there was no hope of finding him by chance. He could be anywhere and anywhen. She needed to change her strategy.