Page 39 of It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square
‘How so?’
‘It was longer, for one thing. Yesterday we really just stayed in this room and the hall. Tonight we went much further around the house – even outside, for goodness’ sake.’
‘Yeah, that was really odd, wasn’t it? Seeing Victorian London like that.’
‘It felt like we were in a Christmas card.’
‘The square was really pretty with all the snow. But is that how it would have looked back then, or how Estelle wants us to see it?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘If we don’t know how she’s doing this, are we seeing history as it actually would have been, or a version of history that Estelle wants us to see?’
I think about this. ‘I used to write about period interiors for a magazine, so as far as that side of things goes, it’s pretty accurate. But as for the stories and the people, who knows?’
Ben stands up again and walks around the room, feeling the furniture and tapping lightly on the walls. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything dodgy going on,’ he says, turning back towards me. ‘No false walls, et cetera.’
‘Estelle’s not a master magician, then,’ I say, smiling at him. ‘With Angela as her glamorous assistant.’
‘Sadly it appears not. At least that would explain it.’ Ben shakes his head. ‘How are they doing this then, if it’s not some clever trickery?’
‘I really don’t know.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you, not knowing?’
I consider this for a moment. ‘It did at first,’ I tell him honestly. ‘Yesterday I really freaked out after Estelle’s first tale. Going back to the eighteenth century was incredibly odd. They didn’t even have a Christmas tree that time – it simply disappeared. Totally correct, of course. Christmas trees didn’t become popular among the masses until the mid-Victorian times.’
‘But you didn’t freak out tonight?’
‘I thought about it a lot today when I was out walking, and I realised whatever is going on here – and clearly there is something very strange or extremely clever happening in this house – going back in time to really see how people lived, dressed and spoke, even, is an incredible opportunity – however it’s being achieved.’
‘I guess so … ’ Ben considers this. ‘But why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why us?’ Ben comes and sits down in the chair again. ‘More particularly, since you’ve been involved from the beginning it seems, why you?’
I shrug. ‘Dunno. Right place at the right time? Could have been anyone that answered that advert for a writer.’
‘Hmm … ’ Ben gazes into the fire. ‘Make that adverts. Remember how I came to be here too? It can’t just be a coincidence that we both answered adverts that no one else replied to, can it?’
‘What other explanation is there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben says, leaning forward in his chair so I can see the flames from the fire reflected in his dark eyes. ‘But Ireallywant to find out – don’t you?’
Eleven
Bloomsbury,London
21 December 2018
The next day is a quiet one.
Last night, Ben and I sat chatting for a further hour or so about what we saw when Estelle took us back to Victorian times in her latest story, and once again we tried to fathom out just how this was being achieved – but we simply kept going round in circles, getting absolutely nowhere with our ideas and theories.
We’d even spent time discussing if our electric shocks from a couple of days ago, might have something to do with our apparent new abilities to travel back in time. But we’d finally come to the conclusion they were simply the result of the house’s old, and likely faulty, wiring, and not some new-found superpower.
Eventually Ben reluctantly decided he must leave as he had a couple of early meetings the next morning.
