Free Hide in Time by Anna Faversham Page A

had long gone.
‘Hide in History’ invited another. ‘Let your
imagination take you to the adventure of a lifetime,’ the last
urged. Laura remembered when she had first seen it and the picture,
though much faded, was of a smuggler with a barrel on his shoulders.
How fortunate that the caves were now closed to the public.
    Ignoring the rain, Laura faced Xandra.
“Are you sure?”
    Xandra pointed to the last hoarding and
said, “I am ready for that adventure.” She paused before
she said, “Laura, there has been an inescapable magnetism to
this moment. You felt it. I felt it. Yet I take this step of my own
free will. If I were to advise anyone else, I would say, ‘don’t
do it’ or even ‘it’s impossible and dangerous’.
I cannot articulate it in its entirety but I believe I know where it
leads and I want to go. I believe you have been there before me.”
    Laura inhaled sharply – Xandra
knew.
    Despite their need to hurry, they both
stood completely still for a moment composing themselves like divers
on the high board. Then Laura squeezed behind the hoardings and
whispered to Xandra to make certain no one was looking. “I’d
prefer to enter this gateway at night,” she said. Behind the
visible hoardings was a single, older advertisement board. Pushing on
the side of the frame, but being careful not to cause it to buckle,
Laura opened it as if it were a door and gradually forced her way
through the narrow gap. As a cat is faster to enter an opened door,
so the daylight shone through first, allowing Laura to locate the
wind-up torch stored just inside. Shivering, she whispered to Xandra,
“Like stepping into a fridge.” Clutching the bag
securely, knowing it held the plan for Xandra’s future, she
beckoned her to follow. Unhesitatingly, Xandra did so and took off
her wet cape.
    Laura closed the entrance and stood the
dripping umbrella against it.
    “Time to start living the life
you have imagined,” Laura said to Xandra. It just popped into
her head and she was sure it was a quotation. Perhaps Xandra, being
better read, would recognize it.
    They followed the feeble beam –
adequate in the chalk-walled cave. The passage descended to a vast
cavern with tiny rivulets of water carving channels in the walls and
running through the narrow tunnels leading from it. Laura, still
concerned that they had entered the cave in daylight, clutched
Xandra’s arm when she thought she’d heard a noise behind
her. Even a whisper would echo, so she just put her finger to her
lips and indicated to Xandra to listen. Only the sound of dripping,
running water could be heard. They were safe.
    “This is the way you must go,
Xandra,” said Laura pointing to a slit in the wall. “You
must not take the torch. The tunnel will open out after a few yards
and all you have to do is keep your right hand, at all times,
following the curve of the wall and you will avoid the worst of the
rock fall.”
    “I shall miss you, Laura.”
    “I can’t come any further,
Xandra, but I shall be with you in spirit whenever I can,”
Laura’s lips smiled but her eyes filled with tears, “whatever
it costs me,” she added. The significance of this remark was
lost on Xandra.
    Xandra took her bag, held it close with
her left arm, squeezed through, and stepped on the damp, sandy floor
of the cave. Laura stood watching and, in the light of her torch, she
caught sight of her wristwatch. Four o’clock. What a lot had
happened on this twenty-ninth day of September. Shining the beam
through the gap for as long as was useful gave her a few moments to
wonder – would the time be right? Most importantly, she was
sure Xandra would, in all ways, be human. Laura had previously
experimented by taking a mouse from the twenty-first century and
releasing it in the nineteenth. It could be seen. When she'd
recaptured it and brought it back to its rightful time, it could not
be seen. She'd felt terrible, poor little mouse, and she'd not been
able to catch it, of