Chapter 1
It was an ordinary day – much like the day before, and, Etta assumed, much like the next. A Tuesday. Etta hated Tuesdays.
She had a theory about them. Mondays marked a fresh new week in the office, hot off the back of a relaxing weekend spent eating paninis and embroidering woodland creatures for her Etsy store.
She might not be getting up to much herself, but Etta liked listening to her colleagues talk about their weekends, their many friends and rambunctious families.
By Wednesday, it was the middle of the week – practically Thursday, and Thursday was practically the weekend.
On Fridays she worked out of her tiny studio flat, with half an eye on Judge Judy.
Then back to another quiet weekend lying in bed until lunchtime and poring over her friends’ Instagram feeds while stitching custom embroidery orders for Etsy – when she ever got any, which was increasingly rare.
But Tuesdays – oh, Tuesdays were the worst. On Tuesdays, the week stretched out ahead like elastic ready to snap. Nothing good ever happened on a Tuesday.
Etta clutched her coffee cup closer to her chest as she waited on the platform for the Tube to arrive.
She liked living on the Circle Line. Not really central, but pretty close.
It was worth the mice and the fact she could see both her oven and her toilet from her single bed.
She’d be in work in less than half an hour.
For most people, everything in London took forty-five minutes to an hour to get to.
Not for Etta, though. On the Circle Line, it was thirty.
She found a seat between two man-spreading businessmen and opposite a pair of chattering old ladies.
She dumped herself down, wedging her coffee cup between her legs.
She could smell stale sweat from the man to her left.
Gross. Trying to make herself as small as possible – which was difficult, given she was unreasonably tall – Etta opened up her favourite mobile game and started matching little blobs.
The plot was getting exciting: her character had renovated the entire mansion and Etta was wondering what on earth could possibly be left to do.
She was just about to find out when the carriage jolted. Checking she hadn’t missed her stop, she reached down to save her legs from getting covered in cappuccino foam and felt a prickle of awareness: the feeling of being watched.
The carriage had stopped in a tunnel. Alarming, but not as alarming as the fact that it was empty. Well, nearly empty. She looked across the aisle at the two old ladies, who were now completely silent and staring right at her. Etta became aware of the smell of petrichor on the air.
This can’t be real, Etta thought. I’ve fallen asleep. I hate horror films, but I bet this is what they’re like.
‘Are you going to kill me?’ she whispered.
The old lady on the right smiled widely. ‘Oh no, dear! Quite the opposite!’
‘You’re … going to, what, alive me?’
The lady on the left was assessing her, beady-eyed. ‘In a way, yes.’
Etta paused, horrified. This must be a joke.
She dismissed the thought. She had very few friends left in the city to organise pranks.
Her closest friend had been gone almost as long as her parents had, and the others had scarpered to the countryside after Covid. Work, maybe. Perhaps someone at work.
Etta studied the two women in front of her. They certainly didn’t look like pranksters – or indeed murderers. They just looked like two – vaguely familiar – old ladies.
Rich old ladies, she thought. The one on the left was wearing an immaculate tweed suit jacket and skirt, with pearls.
She could see the collar of a white silk shirt underneath the woman’s buttoned-up jacket and patterned green scarf.
Hermes, possibly. The woman was stately – almost too tall to be old. Almost as tall as Etta, in fact.
The clothing of the lady on the right looked as expensive as her companion’s, but extremely brightly coloured.
She was shorter, rounder, and far, far jollier than the aloof woman next to her, and reminded Etta vaguely of her own long-gone mother.
She wore a patterned pink dress, underneath layers of cardigans, scarves and jewellery.
Looking down, Etta saw a pair of Converse trainers.
Both women were wearing hats, which somehow felt about right.
Etta thought people didn’t wear hats enough nowadays, suddenly feeling quite jealous.
The jolly woman’s bright white feathery mess of hair was escaping from a battered Panama while the woman on the left wore a smart green cloche with feathers, with steely grey hair peeking out from underneath.
They both looked at her expectantly. Etta felt, as the youngest person present by perhaps fifty years, that she should probably say something helpful. She went through her mental filing cabinet, but found nothing under the ‘stuck in an empty broken-down Tube carriage with two old ladies’ tab.
‘Um … I wonder what’s wrong with the Tube? Do you know where everyone went?’
‘I think we’ve got more important issues to cover, dear.’ The lady on the left – cloche lady – was clutching a red leather diary, full of sticky notes and bookmarks. She turned to one of the last tabs in the book.
Etta’s stomach did a strange sort of flip.
The lady in pink leaned forward excitedly. ‘Ooh, dear, say yes! You’re going to have the most remarkable time. I’m so excited for you.’
Etta blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t tell her, Jemima! She won’t believe us – a pair of total strangers. It’s better we just get it over and done with.’
‘Sorry, Aggie. I just can’t help myself. I wish I could go, too.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ Cloche Lady – Aggie? – replied. ‘You’re too old. Besides, it’s Henrietta’s name in the book. She’s the one.’
Etta stared. ‘Go where? How do you know my name? I’m supposed to be getting off in a minute.’
Aggie ignored her. ‘Now listen up.’
Jemima leaned forward, a conspiratorial look on her face. ‘Oh yes, dear, you really must pay attention. It’s terribly important.’
Aggie glanced at Jemima, mild irritation showing on her face, then back at Etta. ‘You’re Henrietta Moore, and it’s 2023. But we’re offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, right here, right now. If you take this bracelet, you’ll be Henrietta Bainbridge, and it’ll be 1817.’
Jemima leaned forward again, her Panama tipping slightly. ‘Take it, dearie. A holiday in Regency Britain! How much fun would that be?’
These women are mad, Etta thought. Completely mad.
As if she could read her mind, Jemima interjected. ‘Better humour us, hadn’t you, dear? If we’re unhinged. The safest thing to do.’
Aggie glared at her companion, then continued, her voice becoming urgent, ‘When we put this bracelet on you, you will swap places with your ancestor. It’s akin to, well, a blip in the universe. And you needn’t worry about Hetty – we’ll look after her.’
Jemima spoke up again, eyes twinkling. ‘Yes, we will. But she was the one that started this – she knows what she’s doing. Oh, my dear, how confused you are! I wish we’d found you sooner, but you’re Charlie’s descendant really, not Hetty’s, so you can hardly blame us for taking a while.’
‘Yes, thank you, Jemima. Now, the best tack is to roll with it. We know you’ve been reading those historical romances, so as long as you’re careful you’ll be fine. The only thing we need you to do – and this is very important – is to write a diary.’
Jemima leaned forward and patted the red leather book Aggie was holding.
‘Every day, dear. And don’t forget to tell us about the Marquess when you find him.
Make sure you do. Every detail. We’ll find it in the end, and it will lead us to you.
I think so, anyway. This time-travel stuff is discombobulating to say the very least. But the Marquess … !’
‘Never mind the damn Marquess, Jemima. The bracelet. She has to know how it works.’ Aggie’s voice took on a new urgency, ‘Hetty – Etta – about the bracelet. Take it off, put it on, that’s all fine. But break it—’
Jemima took a deep breath.
‘Break it, at any time,’ Aggie continued, ‘and you’ll come right back. Holiday over. Only, so will Hetty. The swap will end.’
Etta felt more confused than she had ever been in her life. This must have been written all over her face, because Aggie reached forward and clasped her hands.
‘Best not to think too much about the how,’ she said kindly. ‘Just roll with it. By the end, you’ll understand. If you stick it out, you’ll have your happy ending. We know that for sure, don’t we, Jemima?’
‘Well, we think we do, Aggie. Not very feminist, mind, but that’s 1817 for you, I suppose. Now, what was the last thing we were supposed to say?’
‘Gosh, I don’t know, Jemima. Something about that awful snake, I think. What was her name?’
Jemima was wrapping the thin golden chain around Etta’s wrist as she said, ‘Oh, Aggie, I don’t remem—’
Etta blinked. It was an ordinary blink – the kind everyone does, thousands of times a day. She barely registered her eyelids flickering shut, but there was no way to miss what she saw when she opened them again.