Chapter 10

Travelling in a chardellac is as fast as travelling in a car. If not faster. But for Emma who was crumpled up at the back of the chardellac with all the suitcases it was as uncomfortable as travelling in a carriage. She was tossed from one side to the other and her knee was constantly hitting one of Sandy’s trunks. While Sandy and Mercury sat on comfortable leather sits. Emma understood that it was necessary for her not to be seen, but she couldn’t help but feel irritated.

As Sandy suspected her mother was not at all against her and Mercury going to the summer mansion by themselves. So they packed up and left the castle in a day. Emma was excited not to hide in the room any more but she was also scared. What if they don’t find anything and she’ll have to stay here forever?

After about 40 minutes of travelling (the roads were as good as in Emma’s world) the chardellac finally stopped. Mercury took out all the suitcases and helped Emma to get out. Her back hurt and she suspected that this pain is not going to go away for at least a few days.

When Emma finally looked at the house it was just as big as the castle they came from if a little smaller. “Wow,” she said looking up. “Some summer mansion”.

“My family loves to live at great expense,” Sandy shrugged.

“Some might say it’s butter upon bacon2,” said Mercury teasingly. “But at least we’ll have everything we need to do the research. Now who wants to eat? This driving takes up a lot of your energy”.

“I really have no idea what does butter upon bacon1 means but let’s eat,” said Emma.

As Emma found out chardellacs have to be driven only by people who passed their driving tests. Fortunately for them Mercury passed his test only this summer. It looked like a vintage car. The windows were a little worse: they let in a lot of dust from the outside. But other than that the chardellac wasn’t inferior to a car.

After unpacking (Emma and Sandy had rooms upstairs next to each other and Mercury downstairs near the library) and changing into something more convenient the kids got to the kitchen and Sandy cooked some mac and cheese (they had it here as well; apparently comfortable and tasty things are universal). While eating they decided that first they should look at some maps and history books in the library. So when the food was eaten and the dishes washed they headed straight to the library.

It was as big as a 3-roomed house. Emma couldn’t even see the opposite wall. She remembered when she was a kid and she with her parents went to the supermarket for the first time, it looked to her exactly as big as this library. And an old fear of getting lost returned to her.

“Should we split?” asked Sandy.

“I’m afraid I’m going to get lost here,” Emma said trying and failing to make a joke of it.

Mercury smiled. “Let’s see what a map can tell us first. Then we’ll hit the books”.

And to Emma’s surprise Sandy was the one to explain most of the things they talked about before. She showed Mercury where Emma was at the beginning and how she then came to be in The City of Stones. And she told him about name differences. Sandy looked so different when talking about those things. Almost professional. Like you would expect a doctor would talk while explaining a particularly strange case. It just came naturally.

“Interesting,” said Mercury deep in thought. “So you are saying that we are where your hometown used to be?”

“Well, maybe not precisely but pretty much yes,” I nodded.

“And when did you travel? I mean what date was it in your world?”

“It was the 11 of October, evening. I think it might have been around seven o’clock. I should have returned home at about eight”.

“And what year was it?”

“2019”.

“And we right now are in 1826, if you count like they used to before,” muttered Mercury more to himself. “Interesting”.

“Yeah, about that counting thing. You really have no religion here?”

“No,” said Mercury still looking at the map. “Not since 31353”.

“Why? Did all people just stopped believing?”

“Not exactly,” said Sandy. “It was the year of Black Death”.

“Or two years after it ended more precisely,” agreed Mercury. “And after the Black Death there were a lot of people who couldn’t believe that their precious God wouldn’t save them. Some started uprising. And in two years there was almost no religion left. Of course it didn’t wipe out all of it. I mean, some people still believe to date. In fact, there is a wide spread of religion in Grand Duchy of Lithuania”.

Emma remembered the name vaguely from her history classes.

“I see,” Emma said.

After some silence Mercury said: “Back to our problem. Based on what you said, our planet must be younger than yours. Or you might have travelled back in time. It might be both actually”.

“That what we thought,” said Sandy.

“You think that the portal can change locations, right?” Mercury said finally looking up. Emma and Sandy nodded.

“You were here originally,” he pointed where she showed him her hometown Egham was and where they were now. “And you appeared here,” he pointed at the City of Stones. Then he took a marker that was lying beside the map and drew two dots where he previously pointed.

“What if,” Mercury began in thought. “The portal does change its location? But it’s not random. What if it has some kind of a pattern?”

“If that’s true, then the only thing left for us to do is to find the next location and time when it’s going to open there,” Emma said.

“Exactly,” Mercury said enthusiastically as though it was just a big game for him to figure out. But Emma didn’t feel as excited as he did.

“We still have a whole world to choose from,” she reminded him.

Mercury looked at her: “Then let’s get started”.

They worked in the library for the rest of the evening. Looking and searching in all the books they could find at least slightly relatable to the topic. They must have read or looked through at least 10 books each. And still they found nothing at least remotely similar to what they were looking for. The only thing productive was that Emma found out much more about this world and its history. It was kind of interesting to figure why a particular difference occurred.

“No,” said Mercury while he was explaining to Emma the counting of the years. “That’s not quite right. A lot of people get it wrong actually. You see, the count starts not from the year Homo sapiens appeared on Earth, but from the year they inhabited Brittania. Those things take time”.

“Ok,” Emma agreed. “I was just wondering, how come we are different, but still so similar. I mean wouldn’t those changes effect language for example? Or how about dinosaurs? They could have been domestic pets for all we know”.

“Maybe. But I guess our planets must have undergone mostly similar history. Which means, there are no major changes”.

“What do you mean major? Religion is pretty big”.

“I mean sure some changes took place. Like our women have equal rights with men. But the core didn’t change. We still have pretty much the same language, family is important to us and government still plays a major role in our lives. I guess you could compare it to a novel. For example, say there was a girl who one day went to the market. The core of the novel is pretty simple. But when she went there she made different decisions like which rout to take, maybe later she met a friend or even bought all she needed before she actually came to the market. But the core remained the same all the time. All the little changes effected where she got in the end, but she still got out of the house to go to the market. And now let’s say she decided not to go to the market that day or maybe she got sick. Now the core changed big time. And that made a major difference, because she didn’t even get out of the house”.

“You know,” Emma said, smiling. “You would make a great teacher”.

Mercury smiled. “Really? Thanks”.

They worked late in the evening. Darkness overtook the house and Sandy had to switch on the lights. When Emma felt as exhausted as though she ran a marathon she got up and said: “That’s it. I can’t stand it anymore”.

Mercury and Sandy looked up at her. They were just as exhausted. And hungry.

“It’s decided then,” Mercury said. “We’ll stop for today. Who wants some cat-lap8?”

“You know,” said Emma shaking her head. “You really need to explain me what those words mean some day”.

Sandy nodded smiling. She still managed to cook them some supper (with Mercury’s help; Emma didn’t know how to cook at all).

After eating their dinner each went to their room. It was a long day and all of them had much to process. It was decided that tomorrow they’ll continue on with looking through the books.

But if Emma was completely honest with herself she knew somewhere deep inside that she was losing her hope. “It’s not over yet,” she reminded herself as sleep took over her thoughts.

The only person who didn’t sleep well that night was Mercury. He kept muttering something about travelling and history. His brain tried to help this girl he only recently met even in his sleep.