Here is my entry for the 2024 Inklings Challenge. The @inklings-challenge is an annual writing challenge for sci-fi and fantasy writers, using certain subgenres and themes.
This story is a sequel to a short story I wrote many years ago. That story is referenced in this story, but I tried to make it readable on its own, as a standalone story.
I wrestle my huge suitcase through the narrow door of Aunt Aliceās little house. Do they make things smaller in England?
I pause in the familiar entry, breathing in the sights and smells Iāve missed since last year. Aunt Aliceās house is stuffed to the brim with oddities and artifacts. Shelves and tables and walls are lined with interesting things. I could spend hours looking at them.
But Aunt Alice is behind me, laughing at me, holding my other bags. Sheās waiting for me to move.
I drag my suitcase into the sitting room and resume my goggling. I examine old photographs, ancient weapons, cracked vases, and worn tapestries. There are so many things to see! Clocks and seashells and lamps. And thereās a story behind each one. I ask Aunt Alice about them as we make our tea, and she tells me fascinating tales. The stories of how she came to own these things are almost as interesting as the stories of the objects themselves.
Aunt Alice is a little odd at times, but Iāve grown to like her eccentricities. Her wardrobe is interesting, for one. I can never decide what I think of it. Today, sheās wearing a blouse with metallic embroidery and a swirl of bright colors on an orange background. It brings out the reddish tones in her short, dyed hair.
After tea, I begin to help Aunt Alice wash up, but she says, āRun along and take a walk before the light goes. I can take care of the dishes.ā
So I do. I step out the back door into the golden evening light. Only a swelling hill and a stand of trees separate the little cottage from the sea. I smell the salt on the fresh breeze. I take the path through the trees, climb the low hill, and emerge on the crest of it. Below me, thereās a shallow bay with a sandy shore, and beyond it, the sea.
A strange memory washes over me. I walked here many times on my visit to Aunt Alice last year. But the first time was the oddest. Something bizarre happened to me when I stood on this shore. Iāve almost forgotten it until nowābecause it seems almost like a dream.
When I arrived at this spot last year, I found a metal cloak pin in the grass by the shore. When I touched it, I had a vision of an ancient village, a painted ship, and an attack by Vikings. I shudder now at the thought of the Vikings chasing me. It was so real. It happened to me as if I was really there.
If I didnāt know better, Iād say I traveled back in time.
I shake away the strange sense of dĆ©jĆ vu. Today, there is only the empty shore, with gentle waves on the sand and rough grasses ruffled by the cool breeze.
It couldnāt be more natural. There are no Vikings to be seenāand perhaps there never were.
The next day, Aunt Alice and I are on the road, traveling in her battered, ancient station wagon. Itās still strange to me to drive on the wrong side of the road, but Iām no longer afraid that another car will crash into us.
Weāre headed to the site of a Roman fort on Hadrianās Wallāor what remains of one. Itās amazing to me, an American, that something so old could survive for two thousand years, even in ruins. Perhaps thatās what attracted Aunt Alice to Britain. Itās hard to escape history when Iām in the company of my aunt.
The station wagon rattles bravely up and down green hills and around curves, swooping into valleys and over ridges. As we mount one more hill, Aunt Alice lifts her hand and points. āThere,ā she says. āThereās the fort.ā On a hillside ahead of us lies a stony gray gridāa Roman ruin.
A few minutes later, we tumble out of the car and hike up to the fort. Then Iām standing on ancient stones for the first time. The crumbling Roman walls stretch in orderly lines and right angles beneath my feet. Only the foundations remain, but itās enough. It takes my breath away to think that Roman soldiers once patrolled these walls, back when they were still new. These stones are so old, but theyāre still here. Thereās still a low foundation, knee high. Itās amazing that itās survived this long.
Beyond the wall, the countryside stretches away, ridge upon ridge. Hadrianās Wall connects to the fort on either end and follows a ridge line up and down, slashing across the land.
Aunt Alice is watching me with a little smile. āWell?ā she asks. āWhat do you think?ā
āItās beautiful,ā I say. No, itās majestic.
Aunt Alice turns me loose to explore the fort while she goes on to inspect the wallsājust as if she was the fort commander in Roman times.
I wander around the rim of the fort, outside the walls. Below the walls, the ground drops quickly away in a downward slope.
I canāt take my eyes off the view, and Iām not watching my feet. My foot catches on something hard in the turf beneath. I nearly trip. I bend down to see what it is. I pat the grass, and my hand meets something sharp and cold. I pick it up. Itās something made of rough metal, corroded by exposure. Itās as long as my hand is wide, and it fills my palm. The metal is shaped like an arch, with a sharp spike sticking out of it. It looks like a pināa cloak pin?
I suddenly remember another cloak pināthe one I found a year ago that gave me a vision of Viking times. A thrill runs down my spine. This piece of metal could be only a few years oldāor it could be centuries old. What if itās a Roman cloak pin?
Iāll show it to Aunt Alice. Sheāll know. I turn and begin walking back to the fort to find her.
I move too fast, and my head begins to spin. The ground feels unsteady under me. I stumble.
The whole world whirls around me like a merry-go-round. The fort, the countryside, and the sky above mingle together in one solid blur. I canāt feel my feet on the ground. Iām floating, out of touch with the worldāexcept for the hard metal pin I clutch in my hand.
I feel my feet on solid earth once more. The world comes into focus again. But everything has changed.
Instead of a bare hillside with a ruined stone foundation, a high wall rises above me. The fort is no longer in ruins. A town spreads out below it. The slope is paved instead of grass-covered, and itās crowded with low thatched buildings. The place is alive with people. Theyāre dressed strangely in checkered fabrics, draped and pinned at the shoulders. I look down and find that Iām dressed in the same fashion, in a straight garment of thick brown wool.
A horn sounds, and I turn around. A patrol of men on horseback rides toward me. People scatter to get out of the street, and I hurry to follow, after a moment of staring. The men are mounted soldiers with shields and rough leather armor. At their head rides a man in a blood-red tunic with metal plate armor and a red-crested helmetāa Roman centurion.
Chills run down my spine. I stare. Could it be? Is this real? This has happened to me once before, and itās happening again. Just like before, I am in the middle of another time. Am I dreaming, or have I truly traveled back in time?
Someone jostles me in the crowd, and a child darts around me, chasing a scrawny dog. The smoke of cookfires stings my nose, and a din of voices, human and animal, fills my ears. I finger the rough wool of the dress I am wearing.
It seems real. No dream could be so alive.
Then I feel the pinch of hard metal in my other hand, clenched in my fist. I lift my hand and open my fingers. The metal pin is still in my hand. But itās no longer dull gray, roughened by the years. Itās shiny and new, shaped in a smooth curve. Thereās a red jewel at one end of it that wasnāt there before.
The same thing happened with that other pināthe one that took me to Viking times. Maybe itās proofāproof that this is real.
The cavalry detachment disappears through a gate in the high wall of the fort. Dazed, I drift along with the crowd as they follow the departing horses.
A womanās voice snaps at me. āGirl, what are you doing?ā I look down and find Iām almost stepping on a flock of squawking chickens. I hastily move away.
There are so many things to see here. A woman spins with spindle and distaff in the doorway of a hut, with a baby on the ground beside her. Off-duty soldiers duck into the door of a wine-shop. A hunter carrying a spear walks past with a wolf-skin slung over his shoulder. He wears a shining neck-ring and a magnificent cloak pin.
As I keep walking down the street between rows of huts, I look down at the pin in my hand. I think this bow-shaped cloak pin is called a fibulaāand itās Roman, not British. The gem embedded in one end of it might be carnelian, or perhaps only glass, but itās probably not a ruby.
I stare at it in wonder. Once before, a cloak pin took me to another worldāanother timeāthe time of the Vikings. Now Iām here, in a bustling Roman fortāholding a second cloak pin. Itās strange but somehow fitting. But what kind of power could do that? Time travel is the stuff of fiction.
āYou, girl!ā a sharp voice shouts. A man is marching toward me, dressed in Roman armor and carrying a spear in one hand, with a crested helmet under one armāa centurion.
I look up, startled.
āWhat do you have there?ā the soldier demands in an accusing tone. Heās pointing at the cloak pin in my hand. Instinctively, I close my hand and clutch the pin to my waist.
āYou stole that fibula. Itās not yours,ā the centurion guesses.
Other people are looking now. A few of them approach.
I open my mouth to protest. āNo, Iāā But only a whisper comes out. I back away, hemmed in by accusing eyes
āTake her to the magistrate!ā someone says.
The centurion beckons another Roman soldier, and they close in on me.
I look around for help, but there is none.
āShe looks daft,ā a woman says. āLook at her eyes. See, she doesnāt understand.ā
But I understand. The vacant look in my eyes turns to panic.
The soldiers reach out to lay hands on me. I shake them off. I turn and run, bursting through the crowd. The soldiers werenāt expecting me to put up a fight. They run after me and give chase.
My feet pound down the cobblestone street. I donāt know where Iām going. All I can think of is to get awayāsomewhere they wonāt find me.Ā I turn sharply to dash down a narrow side street between two thatched huts.
The Romans are still behind me, chasing me. They follow as I dash down a maze of narrow, zigzagging alleyways.
Once I leave the main thoroughfare, the streets are quieter, but they have no order. Living huts are tangled together with taverns and shops. A cat startles and flees at my approach, shrieking.
The heavy, nailed sandals of the Romans ring on the street behind me. Where can I go?
Just then, someone pops out of the doorway of a hutāa stout older woman. āComeāhide!ā she says.
Thatās all the invitation I need. I veer out of the street and dive through the low doorway of the womanās hut. I press myself against the wall beside the door, ducking to avoid the low ceiling.
A moment later, the soldiers barrel past with pounding feet. Iām safeāfor now.
āTheyāll be back,ā the woman says knowingly. I turn to look at her. āCome. In here.ā She ushers me to a curtain that partitions off half the hut. We duck behind the curtain, and it falls behind us. āIf they come,ā says the woman, āhide under the blanket.ā She gestures to a low bed covered in skins and woven rugs in faded colors.
The whole place smells unpleasant, and the blankets smell worse, but Iām too desperate to care. I smile and nod gratefully. I collapse and sit on the bed at the womanās urging. Only then do I notice how exhausted I am. Iām still breathing hard from my run, and my limbs feel like jelly. This does not feel like a dream.
The woman disappears for a few moments and comes back with a hot, fragrant bowl of meaty stew. I taste it, and it is rich and good. I wonder if Iād still like it if I knew what was in itābut Iām hungry as well as tired, and I eat it anyway.
A commotion outside sends the woman scurrying back through the curtains. Menās raised voices reach me, hardly muffled by the curtain. The soldiers.
I put down the bowl of stew, suddenly terrified. My insides feel frozen, and I canāt stomach more food at a time like this.
I feel the hard cloak pin in my sweating hand. I keep forgetting itās there. I should probably hide it, but I canāt bear to let go of it. It seems like my only lifeline to reality and sanity, to my own worldāmy own time.
The novelty of this adventure has worn off. Maybe later Iāll appreciate it. Right now, I just want to go home.
I screw my eyes shut against the voices at the outer door of the hut. Any moment now, the soldiers will barge in to search the place, and Iāll have to hide under the blanketsāas if that will be enough to keep them from finding me.
Then I realizeāitās quiet. The soldiers are gone.
The woman appears through the curtains, and I jump. But she reassures me: āThey're gone.ā Her shrewd look tells me sheās done this before. āWait a little. Then you can go.ā
I try to tell her how grateful I am, but she waves me away.
A few minutes later, I step out of the hut and breathe the fresh air again. Iām so happy to see the sky. The fort walls tower above me once more, with the town nestled at their feet.
I open my hand once more and look down at the cloak pin. The red jewel glints up at me like a winking eye. I reach out with my other hand and touch it gently.
The world begins to spin around me again, whirling at a dizzying speed. Then everything slows, and the world is steady once moreāand Iām back at the Roman ruins, in modern England. The sun streams down above low, crumbling walls. Tourists wander around the site with cameras and neon-colored jackets. Iām dressed in my windbreaker and jeans.
I look around in wonder. Did that really just happen? Did I travel back in time? Or was it all a dream? If it was a dream, then itās happened twice nowāand it was more than a daydream. It seemed real. But it couldnāt be. Things like that donāt just happen.
But then I feel hard, cold metal in my palm. I expect the metal will be dull and gray. But the cloak pin in my hand shines in the sun, polished and new. The red gem bursts with color in the sun. That jewel wasnāt there before. Maybeājust maybeāthis really did happen.
Someone calls out to me. Itās Aunt Alice. I turn and look for her as she comes toward me, carrying her outlandish, mammoth handbag. āCome up and see the walls,ā she says.
Iām still dazed, but I nod vaguely and start toward her, swaying a little.
Aunt Alice looks hard at me. āWhatās happened to you, my girl? Has history changed you?ā Sheās joking, with a twinkle in her eye. But sheās rightāit has changed me.
āYouāll never believe me if I tell you,ā I say.
Aunt Alice squints, studying me with a wise light in her eye. āIām not so sure about that. Why donāt you try me?ā
I might do just that.
