Chapter 12

Chapter

Twelve

W e didn’t hang around. Between the shopkeeper’s suspicions and my accidental surge of magic, it didn’t seem wise to stay in the area.

An hour or so later, the three of us had found our way to Holyrood Park, the large city park in the centre of Edinburgh, which included Arthur’s Seat, the remains of an extinct volcano. The open space and the lightening sky had calmed me considerably, but there was still a knot of deep anxiety in the pit of my belly.

‘Things aren’t that bad,’ I said aloud.

‘Are you trying to reassure us or yourself?’ Hester asked.

I managed a tight smile. ‘Both. We need to look at the positives.’

They both looked dubious so I elaborated. ‘We’re alive.’

Otis conceded that point. ‘True.’

‘We’ve only gone thirty years into the past – if we’d travelled three hundred years, we’d have real problems.’

Hester said grudgingly, ‘I suppose Otis and I didn’t get to experience the 1990s the first time around. It might be fun.’

I nodded. ‘Nobody else that I’ve heard of has ever time travelled. We’re pioneers. That’s exciting. Plus,’ I was warming to the topic, ‘we’re not necessarily stuck here. At this moment, the golden skull is buried beneath the Fonaby Sack Stone. All we have to do is travel to Doncaster and retrieve it for a second time.’

Hester brightened further. ‘Great!’ Then her shoulders dropped and she scowled. ‘No, not great. You said we should be glad we’d only travelled thirty years and not three hundred, but we’re probably here because Gordon did that rune thing when you set off the skull. He controlled what happened. We need a sorcerer as good as Gordon Mackenzie – and one who understands what he’s doing – to get us back to where we belong. That won’t be easy.’ She pointed at me. ‘You might end up losing control again and we’ll end up three thousand years in the past.’

Otis blanched. ‘Also,’ he said, ‘if we dig up the skull now, it won’t be there for us to dig up a second time in 2024.’

Hester snapped her fingers. ‘If it’s not there in 2024 and we can’t dig it up then, surely we can’t travel into the past so we won’t be here now.’ She hesitated. ‘Right?’

‘But we are here now,’ Otis said. He looked at me, bafflement in his eyes.

I grimaced. ‘I’ve got to be honest, I don’t understand how any of it works. I don’t know if we can affect the future that’s already happened. We should avoid doing anything that might cause ripples in the – er,’ I scratched my head, ‘space-time continuum.’

‘The space-time what?’

I drew in a breath to explain, but my understanding of physics came from watching Star Trek as a kid; I didn’t really understand the science at all. ‘We’ll try to keep everything the same as it should be,’ I said lamely. Somehow.

The brownies exchanged looks, then nodded. Apparently they’d decided by mutual agreement that any discussion of the mechanics and implications of time travel was pretty pointless.

‘We focus on what we can control,’ I said firmly.

‘That’s not much,’ Hester told me.

Otis was more positive. ‘Do you have a plan, Daisy?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure something will come to mind soon. What we need to do is to deal with our problems one by one. Let’s take care of the small stuff and perhaps solutions for the big stuff will present themselves.’

Before Hester could tell me that I was burying my head in the sand and being hopelessly optimistic, I leaned towards her and her brother. ‘Right now, we don’t have any money. The cash I’ve got won’t be accepted because it’s not been minted yet. My bank card won’t work because my bank account doesn’t exist. We’re penniless – literally. The first thing we have to do is solve our cash-flow problem.’

‘That part’s easy,’ Hester said. ‘We steal five pounds from one person and use it as a bet. A horse race would be easiest. We’re from the future so we know the outcome already. We keep betting until we become millionaires. It’ll only take a few days.’

Otis gasped. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a millionaire.’

‘Why stop at a million?’ Hester said. ‘How about a billion?’ She grinned suddenly. ‘Forget returning to 2024. Let’s stay here and become rich beyond our wildest dreams!’

I frowned at them. ‘That won’t work.’

Otis and Hester glanced at each other again. ‘Hugo,’ they chorused.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I?—’

Hester interrupted me. ‘Don’t worry, Daisy. You can meet up with him again in 2024 when you’re sixty years old. He’ll still be thirty-two, but you’ll be rich enough to definitely rock a toyboy.’

I gritted my teeth. ‘I’m not talking about Hugo.’ I gazed at them both in frustration. ‘Yes, we’re from the future, but do any of us know which horses won which races in 1994?’

They stared at me blankly.

‘Football matches?’ Otis asked hopefully.

I had a sneaking suspicion the World Cup was about to take place. Maybe Brazil won? Or was it Argentina? I didn’t know. ‘Nope.’

Hester squinted. ‘Tennis?’ I shrugged. ‘Do you know anything useful about 1994?’ she asked.

‘Nothing specific is coming to mind.’

She groaned. ‘We’re going to be the worst time travellers the world has ever seen.’

‘We’re the only time travellers the world has ever seen,’ I said cheerfully. ‘We’ll work something out.’

‘We’re doomed,’ she muttered.

‘There’s something else we need to think about,’ Otis said. ‘Gordon was coming here to solve the mystery of Lady Rose. Should we go looking for her, warn her something is going to happen to her? She doesn’t go missing for another few weeks, right?’

‘Less. She disappeared on May 30 th – it’s only six days away.’ Right now she was alive and well, and we had time to prevent something bad happening to her. ‘Let’s get some money together then see if we can talk to her.’

Otis protested, ‘But you already said we shouldn’t change things. If we prevent her disappearance, won’t that affect the future?’

I didn’t reply. There was something else I needed to consider, too. Athair – and a few of the other fiends I’d come across a couple of months ago – had known me but I hadn’t known them. There was every possibility that they’d met me in the past before I met them in the future – and that meant I’d been destined to be here in 1994 from the very beginning.

We ended up on Princes Street, Edinburgh’s main shopping area which ran for almost a full mile and provided stunning views of the castle, with not a single useful penny in our pockets. I considered returning to my original plan of heading for the Royal Elvish Institute and asking for help, but if they weren’t keen to let unknown low elves through their hallowed doors in 2024, they certainly wouldn’t have done so in 1994.

The thought of trying to explain to a group of wealthy high elves that I was from the future gave me imaginary hives. If Hugo had been with us, we might have had a chance; he had a smooth tongue and he understood how they operated. On my own, and without his trusty presence by my side, it would be next to impossible to get their help. Besides, there were other avenues I could try first.

Princes Street in 1994 was both very similar and very different to the 2024 version. The buildings were the same, but many of the occupants were different. The fancy Jenners Department Store was not only still open for business but teeming with customers – it wouldn’t close permanently until 2020. And there were other stores that I hadn’t seen for years, such as Littlewoods, Woolworths and Virgin.

A few busking bagpipers remained in situ, and there were lots of buses, but the clothing and hairstyles of the passers-by, while not starkly different, made me feel out of place. The atmosphere wasn’t what I expected, either; the mood of the city seemed lighter than in 2024. The Cold War was over and it wasn’t yet the millennium. The internet existed – but only in primordial form compared to the all-encompassing behemoth it was now.

I thought of all the disasters and problems the world was due to face in the next thirty years. Thirty years wasn’t a lifetime by any stretch of imagination, but it still felt like a huge gulf.

Thinking that we’d be more successful if my elven identity was hidden, I found a spot in front of Waverley train station. I’d suspected that Hester would be too proud to beg, but she and Otis approached the task with gusto. She gazed mournfully at every person who wandered past us, pleading in a pitiful voice, ‘We don’t have any money for food. Please spare some change.’

‘I’m very hungry,’ Otis added time and time again. ‘So very hungry.’

‘Any spare change will make a huge difference,’ I added to their sterling efforts.

None of it was a lie but, after an hour or two, I wasn’t convinced that it being true made any difference. Thousands of people passed us and most pretended we didn’t exist. Many looked disgusted and swerved away, as if poverty were contagious. However, some were kind, and by lunchtime we’d earned a sausage roll, a packet of crisps and the grand total of ￡4.23 in small coins. It wasn’t great but it was better than nothing.

I was subduing the worst of the growls of hunger in my stomach with the sausage roll when a young family emerged from the station. A mother, father and a young boy of around eight years old who were well dressed and walking hand in hand.

The boy noticed us first. No doubt unused to busy city centres, he was staring wide-eyed at the throng of people. When his eyes landed on me, he stopped. I smiled automatically and, a second later, he tugged at his mother. ‘We need to give her some money,’ he said, in a high-pitched Scottish accent. ‘Mummy, give the homeless lady some money.’

His mother looked at me, went very pale and looked away again. She tightened her grip on her son’s hand and started to move faster. Her partner shot me a narrow glance and did the same. ‘No, Angus. We’re not going to do that. She’ll only use it for drugs.’

I stiffened and my smile disappeared. A moment later the three of them had gone, replaced by more disinterested passers-by.

I reached into my pocket and fingered my small bag of spider’s silk pills. The encounter had been humiliating, made worse by knowing that the woman was right. Yes, we needed money for food and shelter, but I also needed money so I could find a dealer and get some more spider’s silk. My stash would only last a few more days, and after that I’d drop into sudden, life-threatening withdrawal. Given the way my magic had been acting up over the last day or so, it wouldn’t only be my own life that would be threatened. I bit my lip, trying to keep my anxiety at bay.

‘Don’t worry about the likes of her,’ a young female voice said from close by. ‘She’ll never know what it’s like to be one of us.’

The speaker was in her early twenties. Her well-worn clothes were clean and her eyes were warm, but her cheeks had the slightly gaunt shape of someone who was struggling to make ends meet. I felt a tremendous surge of guilt. I’d been broke and homeless for half a day; this was someone for whom it was a daily experience.

I tried to smile. ‘Yeah,’ I muttered. ‘Thanks.’

‘I’m Tracey,’ she said. ‘I’ve not seen you here before.’

‘I just arrived in the city today.’ In a sense it was the truth. ‘I’m Daisy. ’

Tracey grinned and nodded at the brownies. ‘Lots of us have dogs but I’ve never seen someone with fairies by their side.’

I winced, expecting Hester to begin her usual anger-laden speech about mislabelling, but she simply said, ‘We’re brownies, not fairies, but it’s an easy mistake to make.’

Otis’s jaw dropped.

‘I’m sorry!’ Tracey sounded as if she meant it. ‘I’ve never seen a brownie before.’

‘That’s okay.’ Hester looked her up and down. ‘You’re a witch, right?’

Tracey blinked. ‘You can tell by looking?’

Hester pointed. ‘Your fingers are green.’

The young woman glanced down then gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Yeah, they are. I’ve been collecting plants from the gardens over there.’ She placed a finger to her mouth. ‘Don’t tell anyone. The authorities don’t like it when unauthorised witches harvest around here. We’re supposed to have a permit, but that costs three hundred quid and there’s no way I can find that kind of money.’

‘Your secret is safe with us,’ I assured her.

‘Thanks.’ She eyed me. ‘You got somewhere to stay tonight?’

It was barely afternoon; what happened tonight was far from my immediate concern. ‘Not yet.’

Her expression grew serious. ‘You can’t sleep out at night, it’s not safe. There’s a shelter not far from here. As long as you get there by eight, they’ll find space for you. You don’t want to become another statistic.’

Otis flapped upwards. ‘What do you mean it’s not safe?’ he asked in a quavering voice.

‘You know,’ Tracey said. The three of us gazed back blankly. She frowned and tapped her teeth with a grubby, green-tinged fingernail. ‘Vampires, of course. There are swarms of them all over the city.’

My mind flashed back to the way the newsagent had reacted when I’d walked into his shop. ‘Yes,’ I breathed. A huge grin spread across my face. ‘ Yes !’ I looked at Otis and Hester in sudden triumph. I should have thought of it before. ‘I know exactly how we can make all the money we need. You, Tracey,’ I told her, ‘are a genius.’

Her face clouded with confusion but I was already getting to my feet and scooping up the small collection of coins. This would be brilliant.