Esther groaned again. Oliver felt relieved that she was alive, at the least. But she was unconscious.
He cradled her in his arms, rocking her gently to try to bring her back to consciousness.
Suddenly, he saw movement nearby.
Please don’t let it be a rogue. Don’t let them have followed us through!
But as the figure drew closer, Oliver saw with relief that it was Ralph dragging himself over to them. He winced with every movement.
“The portal,” Ralph stammered when he reached Oliver. “It must have dropped us.”
Oliver nodded. “Yes. And then it fell apart behind us. There’s no way back. Are you okay?”
Ralph sat there, panting. “I think so. All in one piece, somehow. I think I’m suffering more from having traveled twice through time than falling ten feet through the air. Is Esther okay?”
“I think the fall knocked her out,” Oliver replied. He looked about him at the thick mist and the fields dotted with cows. “Is this where we’re supposed to be, Ralph? In a field? In the middle of nowhere?”
Ralph pulled a worried expression. “I don’t know. We’ll need to look for clues.”
Just then, Esther’s eyes fluttered open.
“Owwww…” she murmured.
Relief overcame Oliver. He breathed out the tension he’d been holding and pulled his face into a smile for her benefit. “Welcome back.”
Esther stirred from his arms and pulled herself up into a sitting position. A hand flew to her head. “What happened?”
“We took a bit of a tumble,” Oliver explained.
Esther grimaced. Then she looked around at the misty, dew-covered field. “So where are we?”
Ralph shrugged. “We’ll have to find someone to ask,” he said. “But if we’re in the wrong place, there’s no way back. The portal fell apart behind us.”
Esther looked troubled by the revelation. “Let’s not think about that yet. Let’s just focus on one thing at a time. We need to find this mysterious I.N.”
Slowly, they heaved themselves to their feet, each of them wincing from the pain.
Just then, something bright orange caught Oliver’s attention. It was a small animal racing across the field.
“A red squirrel?” he said aloud. “They’re native to England.”
Ralph’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think the portal took us to England?”
“Maybe…” Oliver replied. “Keep your eyes peeled for more clues.”
They began to trek through the muddy fields. Oliver’s legs felt very sore and he couldn’t help but limp. Esther wrapped her arm around his waist for support. She was warm, which helped banish the chill in the air.
“It feels like winter,” he said.
“If we are in England, it could be any season,” Esther commented. “Isn’t it supposed to rain every day there?”
“Good point,” Ralph replied.
As they walked, Oliver began to feel anxious about their current predicament. They were fatigued, sick from time travel, injured from the fall, and they had no idea where in space or time the portal had taken them to, nor who they were looking for! Things really couldn’t be much worse.
Suddenly, Oliver saw something in the distance and his heart leapt with hope.
“There!” he said, pointing ahead. “Is that a house?”
Through the mist he could just make out a crude shack in the distance. A plume of smoke rose from its chimney.
Esther squinted. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
They hurried onward.
As they drew closer, the small building came into sharper focus. Now they could see that it was not just one cottage, but several, like a village. The roads between them were little more than dirt paths. The roofs of the buildings were made of thatch. Oliver could tell from the architecture that they’d traveled far back in time, to a period where houses were still built from stone and wood.
“There’s a man,” Ralph said.
Oliver saw a man watching them. He was standing beside a fence holding the handles of a wooden barrow. He looked like a farmer, with a flap cap and big, muddy leather boots. His clothes were very old. Oliver tried to work out what era they may be from, but he was dressed so simply it was impossible to tell.
“Go. Speak to him,” Oliver instructed Ralph, knowing his hobbling was only slowing them down and just as eager to find out where it was they’d ended up.
Ralph hurried ahead, calling, “Excuse me! Excuse me!” as he went.
Oliver strained to hear what Ralph was saying. His voice was faint but he could still make out the words.
“Could you please tell me where we are?”
The farmer set his wheelbarrow down in the mud and looked at Ralph with a confused expression. “What are you doing in the fields at this hour of the morning?”
Oliver realized then that they’d left Boston at night and arrived here—wherever here was—at daybreak. It only served to make him feel more disorientated.
The farmer looked at Oliver and Esther hobbling up from behind.
“And how many more of you are there?” he stammered.
Oliver could now tell that he spoke with a British accent. They were right. This was England!
Ralph ignored the question, asking his own once again, this time with a more persistent tone. “Please. Can you tell us where we are?”
“You’re in Cranbury Park, lad,” the farmer said.
“Cranbury Park?” Ralph repeated. “Where is that?”
But the name seemed familiar to Oliver. He racked his brains trying to work out from where he’d heard it before.
The farmer looked increasingly perplexed. “Why. It’s in Winchester, England.”
“Winchester…” Oliver said. He’d heard of the city. It had once been the capital of Wessex, back when England was divided into seven kingdoms. That had been a very long time ago, though. He wondered if they could have gone that far back. “Do you mean the capital city?”
The farmer turned to him, looking thoroughly confused. “Now I’ve not had much in the way of an education,” he said. “But even I know London is the capital of this fine country!”
Oliver deduced in his head that they could not have gone farther back than the twelfth century, when London became the new capital city.
Ralph turned back to the farmer. “What year is it?” he asked hurriedly.
Now the man’s frown grew even deeper. He looked at the three of them like they were strange beings. “Are you… witches?” he stammered.
Oliver realized then they must have landed some time in the 1500s or 1600s, a time when fears of witchcraft were at their peak. Three oddly dressed children emerging from a misty field asking bizarre questions would certainly be enough to terrify the locals during that era.
“We’re not witches,” Oliver said hurriedly, trying to calm the farmer down. “We’re… um… explorers. We came on a boat from…”
“China!” Ralph blurted.
The farmer’s skeptical expression lessened a little. “Ah. You came on one of those new trade vessels, did you?”
Oliver took in the new information. England’s Royal Navy began trade with China in the late 1600s. He was quickly narrowing it down.
But who were they searching for? Cranbury Park. Winchester, England. Late 1600s. The initials I.N.
If it was someone important to seers it stood to reason they’d be someone important here as well. An aristocrat or landowner.
“Where is the master’s house?” Oliver asked the farmer.
The farmer pointed toward a sprawling apple orchard. “Through there, lad. Top of the hill.”
They headed off. The sky was just starting to lighten as they reached the trees, but once they were inside the thicket the branches blocked out the light. They had to maneuver through fallen apples that were rotting on the ground.
“Ralph,” Oliver said as they trekked. “Can you tell us more about the battle at the school? And the people who stole the Orb?”
Ralph shuddered. “It was terrible. They appeared out of nowhere. Like they’d somehow transported themselves into the school. We all fought. Teachers and students alike. Then everything began to shake and the attackers disappeared again, just like that. That’s when Professor Amethyst realized they’d somehow made it into the sixth dimension and stolen the Orb. And that’s when the clock started ticking.”
It was a horrible thing to think about. Oliver wondered about his friends back at the school, about the fear they must be feeling now. More than that, he felt the pressure of time sifting away from them. He had no idea how long they’d spend in the portal, or whether time was running at different speeds inside the school as compared to outside of it. All he knew was that time was running out and they had to act quickly. They had to find I.N. and rescue the Orb of Kandra.
Just then, they reached the end of the apple orchard, and a neatly manicured lawn spread out before them. At the top of the lawn, on the crest of a hill, was a beautiful manor house. It was a proper stately English home.
They hurried through the wet grass, coming up around the back of the mansion. Then they followed the large walls around to the front, where there was an imposing door. It looked like the sort of place where an aristocrat would live, or a king with hundreds of servants. Oliver felt certain that this was where they would find an important historical figure like the mysterious I.N.
There was a bell pull beside the door. Ralph tugged it. From inside the house they could hear the sound of the bell ringing.
As they waited, Oliver exchanged a look with Esther. Her expression appeared to be a mixture of curiosity and worry.
After a moment, the door opened. There stood a woman in a heavy brown dress and apron. She had a suspicious expression. From behind her came the smell of a log-burning fire and freshly cooked bread.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
Oliver didn’t answer her question. Instead, he asked his own. “Is your master home?”
“My master?” she replied, looking confused. “Who’s asking?”
Oliver didn’t know how to answer that question. There was only one thing he could think to say, and he hoped it would have the desired effect. “We were sent by Professor Amethyst.”
A look of understanding flashed across her eyes. “Professor Amethyst. Why, yes, my master has told me anyone associated with Professor Amethyst must be granted an audience immediately.”
Oliver felt his chest leap with excitement. “We can see him then?”
The woman shook her head. “No, lad. He’s not here. He just moved to London.”
Crushing disappointment took hold of Oliver.
“London?” he stammered.
“We can arrange for a coach to take you there,” the woman added. “My master was very clear that anyone associated with Professor Amethyst be taken to him immediately. Let me call for the horse boy.”
But before she retreated, another question struck Oliver. “Excuse me, could you please tell me… Who is your master?”
The woman frowned, clearly surprised that these three strange children on her doorstep didn’t even know who they were asking after.
“Why,” she said, “it’s Sir Isaac Newton.”