Page 93 of Right Place, Right Time
‘Technically…’ Barney says. ‘I don’t want to poop on your party, Eve. But it would only happen if the sun wasn’t covered by cloud or if the moon was full enough to provide enough light to cast a shadow.’
‘Yes, agreed. But itcouldhappen.’ I look up at the tree again. Although it’s currently casting a shadow over our hidden building, the sun’s rays are fully on the antiques shop right now, bathing it in a warm glow. ‘What if it’s not shadow that causes the portal to open?’ I ask, as another theory forms in my mind. ‘What if it’s sunlight or moonlight that makes the magic happen?’ I look at the other two, who again don’t look quite as convinced as I sound. ‘Think about it. Before time was invented – or recorded, really, I suppose – how did people tell what time of day it was or even what time of the year? By using the position of the sun for the time of day and the position of the moon during its lunar cycle for the time of year.’
‘You’re right,’ Barney says. ‘The sun rises and sets in a very similar position every day, only changing slightly as we on Earth orbit it over the year. But the moon’sposition changes over the period of each lunar cycle. If this portal is as old as Orla was suggesting yesterday, it would make sense that anything to do with it would be measured in terms of the sun and the moon – rather than what we know today as the familiar way to measure the passing of time, in minutes and hours, and days and months.’
I turn to Adam.
‘I guess,’ he says, still looking unconvinced.
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed since you’ve been here, Adam,’ I say, ‘but we get a lot of sun here in Cambridge. This part of East Anglia is known for its dry climate. Compared to the rest of the UK, we get a lot less cloud and rain. Therefore more opportunities to view both the sun and the moon, without cloud blocking them.’
‘OK, I’ll buy it,’ Adam says, giving in. ‘For now we’ll go with the portal opens when the sun or the moon shines directly on number seven. But it still doesn’t tell us how to control the portal so we can choose the dates in history for it to open on to. That was Dotty and Archie’s main problem in getting Ben back, remember?’
I think about this. He’s right, of course. Even with my new theory, we still don’t know how to actually control the portal.
‘If we’re going as far back as the sun and moon controlling when the portal opens, rather than a set measurement of time or dates, then we’re looking as far back as pre-Roman times,’ Barney says. ‘The way of measuring days, months and years that we use today is in line with the Gregorian calendar introduced in 1582, if I remember rightly. Before that, they used the Julian calendar introduced by the Romans. This was the first to include leap days as part of a calendar year, which seemsto be relevant in this case after what we heard last night. But, before that, recording the passage of months and years was mainly based on solar and lunar cycles, just like Eve suggested.’
‘How do you know so much about all this?’ I ask, amazed at Barney’s knowledge on the subject.
‘I’ve just always been interested in time,’ Barney says. ‘How we tell it now, how they did in the past. How we move through time, and of course the possibility of time travel. I’ve watched countless TikTok and YouTube videos about it.’
‘Ah, the modern way.’ Adam grins. ‘So, Einstein, how do you propose we control the sun and the moon so we can choose exact dates and years, then? Because unless you know some NASA astronauts willing to help us, I can’t see how we’re going to get up there to do that.’
‘You said the Romans brought in the modern-day way of us measuring the passing of time?’ I ask Barney, as yet another idea begins to spark in my mind.
Barney nods.
‘Remember that perpetual brass calendar we found down in the office when we first went there?’ I ask Adam.
‘Yes …’
‘It was in Roman numerals, wasn’t it?’
‘Er, I think so.’
‘It was,andit had a sun and a moon on it too. What if we could use that to control the portal, to request a date to travel to?’
‘Wouldn’t Dotty and Archie have tried using that when they were trying to get Ben back originally? I kind of thought that’s why it was left there.’
‘Oh. Yes,’ I reply a little despondently. ‘I guess they would.’
‘Nice idea, though,’ Adam says, trying to sound encouraging. ‘You’ll get there, Eve. I have no doubt about that. Why I’ve been roped into all this, I have no idea. But I can see why you have.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s like Ben said – you’re determined, you don’t give up. Dotty clearly never gave up trying to get Ben back to his right time, even though it was to be her downfall in the end. You’re the same as Dotty. It must run in the family – you won’t quit until you’ve got to the bottom of it all.’
Hearing Adam say that makes me immediately proud. I only knew hearsay of my great-grandmother before all this, stories passed down through the family of what she was like and what she did based on assumption and conjecture – including that about her disappearance. But every day now, I was feeling closer to her and what she stood for. What Ben told us last night had only furthered my need to find out more about her, and to finally discover exactly what happened to her when she went missing in 1904.
‘Thank you for saying that, Adam. It’s such a compliment to me that people think I’m like Dotty. She sounds like a bit of a hero, doesn’t she? I’m definitely not that, far from it. I’m sure I could never be as brave as she was. But your words have made me feel a lot better, when really I feel a bit useless right now.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Adam says. ‘You’re the one who’s got us here to this moment. I wouldn’t have figured it all out on my own. I’d have given up as soon as it got difficult. But you kept pushing until we found ourselves where we are now. I might not like the thought of a tunnel under that building that you can time travel in, and to be fair,until I actually see it working, I can’t fully believe it’s true. But I know you do, and I’m absolutely certain you will be the one who will get us to where we need to be in the end.’
I smile lovingly at him.
Next to us, Barney begins to applaud. ‘You two.’ He sniffs, pretending to be moved to tears. ‘You’re so cute together. That speech.’ He wipes an imaginary tear away. ‘It’s just too much.’
‘Ha ha,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Very funny.’
