A Time for Every Soul

Elspeth Smythe: London, 2024

I retched on the bed, neck tendons taut and muscles burning, unable to even look at the place I had paid such a steep price to journey to. The Fair Folk had taken small sacrifices from me before in return for their help. A whittled wooden cup here, a few drops of blood there. But the payment I owed for this incantation… it was unlike any I had experienced before.

My body craved relief, an end to the pain, but oblivion would not come. The Fair Folk were taking what I owed. I held back moans on the damp mattress.

Through the prickling pain, I was grateful. This meant that it had worked. Blurred by eyelashes heavy with tears, I saw a strange little room. Clothes strewn across the floor in all manner of colours, a small table, a looking glass leaning against the wall, and a window through which monstrous sounds roared.

It was undeniable. I had succeeded – travelled down the river of time and into future days.

Oh God, the vomit. I crawled to an ajar door and entered a damp, small room lined with shiny green stone. It somehow reminded me of a chamber pot, and perhaps that was why I saw fit to drag myself up to a stained white structure and retch into it.

The illness was ceaseless.

Ma and Pa and swam in my mind’s eye. Despite myself, I thought of little Margaret, too.

I groaned. It was like something was missing from my body and the pain wouldn’t go away until I found it.

I dragged myself back to the bedroom and caught a glimpse of my own twisted – yet familiar – face in the looking glass. This was interesting. The ritual I’d performed asked the Fair Folk to swap my spirit with the spirit of my descendent, to send me far into the future, away from the oppressive routines of life back home in Avebury.

Yet, I looked the same. Gaunt, haggard and sweaty, yes, but essentially the same. Watery blue eyes, thin straw hair, and the strong, rigid nose of my mother.

It was surely no coincidence that my descendant and I looked alike. Time spoke a different language to us; one of patterns and symbols. My blood and her blood flowed in the same pattern, linking us across the ages. That’s likely how the incantation worked.

I took a deep breath to steady myself.

Something was on the floor, behind the looking glass. A tin box. I grabbed it and crawled back towards the bed. A sharp bite in the flesh of my calf made me hiss and turn. I found a long needle, like for sewing, with a clear tube attached to the end.

As if I wasn’t in enough pain already! I flung the cursed thing against the wall. Upon further inspection, I found dozens more under the bed. A place of hidden dangers, this room.

Sitting back on the bed, I opened the tin box. Inside, there was a booklet inscribed “passport” with the name Harper Smith, and a picture of the drained face I’d seen in the mirror.

Harper Smith.

My new identity.

Harper Smith: Avebury, 1524

Everything ached. I reached for my phone… shit. I snatched my hand back under the blanket. It was fucking freezing. And the mattress was hard and cold, the blankets scratchy. What the fuck? I opened my eyes.

I was lying on a straw pallet, by a fire flickering in a hearth. Stone walls surrounded me, holding planks laden with pots and pans. Crisp winter daylight fell through the windows onto the wooden floor.

This wasn’t my room. Had my debt to Jez for all the brown finally pissed him off enough that he snapped and… kidnapped me to a farmhouse? Nah. I must be cooked. I must have managed to score and it was cut with something bad. I don’t remember scoring… but I must have.

I took a deep breath of the sharp air. The smell of smoke, animals, and straw clashed with the undeniable knowledge that I had knocked out in London. God, I needed something to take the edge off.

I rose from the pallet and pulled the blanket around me. Rustling through the pots and pans with increasing desperation, my clumsy fingers hit nothing but kitchen utensils. Fucks’ sake. I picked up a large knife and caught my reflection in its dull length.

My cheeks were plump and red. Healthy. In fact, all of me felt a little more muscly and strong. I squinted at the impossible image in the knife. This alternate version of me. No way.

Maybe I’d died?

Strange hell, this.

The farmhouse door swung open and an older woman bustled through, wiping her hands on her wool skirt and apron, a linen cap tied snug over her greying hair. She marched over, a fond smile on her broad, ruddy face.

“So, the princess awakens!” She wasn’t speaking normal English; I could tell that much. Yet I could understand her, like the meaning of the words still made their way to me.

“You’ve missed all your morning chores, but I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

“Uhhh,” I croaked.

Her eyes narrowed and she loomed over me. She reached out and put her cold hand on my cheek, taking me in.

“What mischief have you done now? Elspeth…” Her voice faltered and her yellow teeth flashed as she bit her lip. “You’ve changed… something.”

“Listen, lady —”

Her hand tightened on my cheek as she took in my words. I tensed, ready to run from whatever the fuck this was, as I saw a decision resolve itself in her eyes.

“You are not my daughter,” she whispered, her breath sour. Sorrow cracked over her face, soon mixed with pride. “My girl did it. I thought she couldn’t. Or rather, I prayed she couldn’t. But she did.”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

“Language, El –” her lips trembled as she caught herself and dropped her hand. “I’m sorry. You are not her, though you seem to be inhabiting her body.” She let out a great choking sob. “I must respect her decision.”

“Sorry, mate. I’m still lost over here.”

“I… believe Elspeth swapped you two. Took your place… wherever you’re from and gave you her place here. I’m Agnes. What is your name?”

Okay, look. I’d faced a lot of fucked up situations in my life. People dying who shouldn’t have died. People hurting me who I trusted never would. You survive by adapting. By accepting the new situation and pushing through. Or by telling yourself you’re high and playing along until you can figure out exactly what’s going on. I scratched my arms, pacing up and down.

“Harper,” I said.

“A strange name indeed.”

“It’s actually super comm-- never mind. Where am I, then?”

Agnes sniffed. “Avebury, Wiltshire.”

The name rang a bell. My arsehole of a mother was from this end of England, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“And… sorry, this is a mental question, but what year is it?” Something in me, some deep instinct, knew I needed to ask.

“1524.”

I almost laughed in her face. But then, I caught my own hands, gripping the blanket. The skin was rough, like they’d spent years hauling wood and digging soil. My nails were short and lined with grit.

I looked around the room again, really looked. No glass in the windows, only shutters. No hum of the city bleeding through the walls, no socket to charge a phone, no nails in the beams… just wood joined by hand.

For so long I hadn’t trusted my own body, always chasing or numbing, never sure if what I felt was real or just the hit. But there it was, a voice inside telling me this place was solid, that I truly was where I was. Now, maybe I didn’t have the energy to invent a reality that made more sense. But something inside me crumbled, a fragile bit of denial snapping.

Whatever this was, however impossible, it wasn’t London. And I sure as hell wasn’t high. I couldn’t deny it anymore. I felt awfully sharp, painfully clear.

“Fucking hell. 1524 is 500 years ago.”

“500 years?!” Agnes’s mouth hardened into a thin line. “This child of mine has gone too far. Too far by a long shot!”

“Right. So how do we undo it?” My mind reeled and I felt dizzy. If this woman’s bitch daughter was in my room and she touched my stuff, I’d kill her.

“I don’t know! I’m not sure if she even survived!”

“Survived what?”

“The incantation. There is always a debt to be paid when it comes to the Fair Folk. An offering or sacrifice to the powerful ones for their help.”

“Well, that sucks for her, but I need to get back.”

“Best of luck, child. Last night, all the planets were aligned in the sky. The Great Conjunction. The veil between our world and the fairy world was thin. But the planets have moved, by now. Elspeth may have worked her magic on the only night it was possible.”

Not an option. Not a fucking option. Sometimes, to get out of crazy, you have to act crazy.

I stepped close to Agnes. “Listen here. You’re going to help me get back or I will make your life a living hell. I don’t care if we have to push the fucking planets back together, we are un-doing what your daughter did. Do you understand me?”

She slapped me.

“You won’t speak to me like that in my own home, girl. I’ll turn you out into the cold in a heartbeat and I don’t think you’re equipped to handle what’s out there.” She span and picked up a bucket. “There’s a cunning man in the village. Edward the Wise, people call him. Ask him.”

“Fine. How do I get to the village?”

“He won’t be back until tonight. For now, out. The Fair Folk agreed to send you back here for a reason, and best I see it, that reason wasn’t to shirk Elspeth’s chores. Your undergarments, dress and headscarf are all in that chest there, and boots by the door. There’s bread to bake and stew to make.”

In the absence of knowing what the fuck else to do, I did as Agnes said.

Elspeth Smythe: London, 2024

Another wave of nausea hit in unison with a loud knock at the door.

“Harper, it’s Kieran,” a male voice said. “I’m coming in.”

Before I could protest, a large middle-aged man bustled into the room. He wore blue trousers and a floral shirt.

“God, look at the state of you, girl.” He shook his head and sighed. “Listen, you said you’d work in the café, right? Remember? If Steven and I let you stay...”

“Um, yes,” I lied, through twinging muscle aches.

“Well, another day, another shift missed, babes. We wanted to help. To stop you doing … what you were doing to fund your habit.” He crouched down to me, levelling our eyes. His beautiful skin was unmarked, and he smelled fresh and clean, like grass after the rain. And his teeth! Straighter and whiter than even the carpenter John Neill’s, and everyone knew he’d been blessed with his looks.

Was everyone in this time so perfect?

“This is the last straw,” he said. “You can’t bring those dodgy fuckers round at all hours and not even show up for work at the café. You have one week to turn it around. And then we’re done. You’re moving out. Honestly, this time. D’you get me?”

I understood precious little of what he meant, but I did understand this; I had work and a home – for now. I needed to rid myself of this illness and go out and keep it.

“Kieran, thank you,” I said. “I understand.”

“Time is running out, babe. Get it together.” He sniffed and nodded towards the chamber pot room. “Start with a shower.”

He rose and closed the door behind him.

I spent the next few hours experimenting. Through levers, delicious warm water would spill out of the pipes. Harper had soap that smelled divine and was like nothing I’d ever felt before.

No wonder her skin was so soft, in the places where she didn’t have sores.

Beyond the sickness, my excitement grew. There was a village out there to explore, full of beautiful, kind people like Kieran.

Harper Smith: Avebury, 1524

Agnes and I walked to a plot of earth behind the farmhouse in the crisp morning air. She showed me how to slide a fork into the soil, loosening its grip on the turnip beneath. Then, we pulled it out, brushing away the dirt. The soil smelled rich and tangy.

“How long do we have to do this shit?” I asked. I hadn’t signed up for a crash course in farming.

“Until it’s done,” tutted Agnes. “You’d better fix your language before Margaret gets home.”

“Who?”

“Elspeth’s daughter.”

“Jesus. And I thought I was selfish. What kind of mum leaves her kid stranded in the 1500s while she fucks off into the future?”

“It’s complicated. Elspeth is complicated.” Agnes shrugged.

What must Elspeth, that body-switching bitch, be going through back at my flat, in my body? Before the switch, I’d run completely dry. No more smack. I’d gone to sleep crying and anxious about how I’d get the next hit before waking up here. Would the withdrawal kill her?

“Why d’you reckon she’s complicated?” I asked, more to distract from the boredom of fondling turnips than anything.

“Elspeth was never much interested in finding a husband or having children. Said she’d become an old spinster and look after us. And I believed her! She had far too much ambition and thirst for knowledge to settle with a village boy. But just because she didn’t entertain the boys’ advances doesn’t mean they weren’t interested in her.”

“Oh.”

“Well. One of the lads caught her on her walk home one evening and did as men do. Eventually, and despite our remedies against it, she gave birth to Margaret. I raise her as my own. Elspeth doesn’t have the constitution for motherhood.”

“I see.” Shitty mothering ran in the family, then.

Oh yes, Agnes had explained how my blood and Elspeth’s blood must be the same, if the swap had worked. My own ancestor had stranded me in her shithole farmhouse. Lucky me. I wondered what my mum would say if she could see me now, digging up vegetables under the wide blue sky, in our family’s history. Thinking of her spiked a hole in my heart.

God, what I wouldn’t do for a hit right now. What did they have in this time? Was opium a thing yet? I hadn’t exactly focused enough in school to know the ins and outs of mind-altering substances through history. And something told me that asking Agnes would earn me another slap. I threw myself into pulling turnips as a distraction.

After turnip time, Agnes and I went back into the house and passed the rest of the afternoon baking bread in the kitchen. She was a practical woman who filled me in on life in Avebury with sharp wit. Despite myself, I was warming to her.

As the afternoon faded into dusk, the door flung open and Peter, Agnes’s husband, launched himself merrily through it, holding a little girl, around three years old. Agnes had whispered to me prior that if Peter didn’t notice a difference in his daughter, I wasn’t to bring it up.

“‘Ello, my little lamb,” Peter proclaimed as he swooped in to give me a hug, “and mama sheep.” He kissed Agnes on the cheek, and she whacked him with a wooden spoon. Margaret reached out for me.

“Oh, hey kid,” I said, as I took her, carefully. She was warm and heavy in my arms. Her little face, technically my own ancestor’s, looked rosy and bright.

“Pretty flower,” she said, patting me on the cheek. She lay her head on my shoulder. Shadows of my own childhood came flooding back. I didn’t think, in my mum’s mouldy, crumbling London flat, she’d ever held me like this. Would I have trusted her enough to rest my head on her? I’d have gotten a kick, most likely. Or a punch. I gripped Margaret tighter, despite myself.

“Well,” I said, “I’d better get going.”

“Where you off to, chick?” asked Peter.

“I’m sending her into the village,” said Agnes. “We need more of old Joan’s herbs.”

“Hang on, hang on! I have something for you, first.” He pulled out a scrap of parchment with a flourish and waved it in my direction.

“What is it?” I asked.

A wide smile broke across his face like a sunrise. “A poem.”

“Peter, you can’t read!” exclaimed Agnes.

“But Elsy can,” he nodded at me, smiling. “I got it from an educated trader who came through the village this morning, as a surprise for our little scholar. Only woman in the village who can read, my girl,” he brandished the parchment at me with increasing enthusiasm. “And this poem is meant to be a story and a half.”

“I… thank you,” I said, surprised at the choke in my words. I took the parchment, shifting Margaret in my arms.

“Well,” said Agnes, “what does it say?” She leaned in, blue eyes bright.

God, not having Netflix made poetry the top entertainment available. Dire times.

“Ok, let’s see.” I coughed and read out loud;

There was once a trader named John,

Who sold pots and pans by the tonne,

He jumped out of bed,

Knocked his own head,

And the number of pots sold was none.

“Uhh, that’s it,” I said.

Peter looked stunned. Then, he burst out laughing. Agnes joined in, as did Margaret with a screeching squeal. I found myself laughing along with them.

“Well, that’ll teach me to buy a poem off a stranger,” said Peter with a deep belly laugh.

“It’s beautiful,” said Agnes, with a grin. “We’ll put it above the mantle.”

“With any luck, it’ll fall into the fire!” he said.

“No,” I said, “I love it!” Some part of me wanted to protect Peter, thank him for the kind gesture he’d done for his kid.

“You’re sweet, lamb,” he said. “Anyway, don’t let me keep you, I don’t want you coming back too late.”

He and Agnes equipped me with a lamp for the way back and a cloak for the weather.

I walked out reluctantly. It was so warm and cosy in the Smythe farmhouse.

Then, I shook my head. Time was running out. I had to get the fuck away from here and back to my life in London.

Walking across the fields, birds swooped and banked overhead, screeching. I tried to ignore how the dusky winter light turned the bramble bushes into temples of beautiful, twisting architecture. How it haloed the trees. How the countryside was so vast and open and wild compared to London.

Didn’t matter. Had to get back. Had to find some H. It wasn’t a body-compulsion of course, this body having never touched the stuff, but a mind-want. A deep psychological need.

Eventually, I crossed a little bridge over the river and walked into Avebury. Along the small street lined with stone thatch-roofed houses, I knocked on the door of the “wise man”, which was, as Agnes had described it, the fifth house on the left.

Nerves gnawed at my gut.

The door creaked open to reveal a small man, stooped and wiry, shrouded in a coarse brown tunic that smelled faintly of smoke and herbs. His beard spilled down in grey tangles. Around his neck hung a string of charms — bones, knotted twine, and something that looked like a dried bird’s claw. He peered at me through narrowed eyes.

“Edward the Wise?” I asked, feeling ridiculous.

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” Edward said, slowly. “I see Elspeth succeeded.”

A flash of anger burst in my stomach. He was probably the one who told her how to do it in the first place.

“Yeah, a real “success”, buddy. Look, I need your help. I want to go back.”

“I told Elspeth this would happen. That no soul would take kindly to being marooned in time.”

“So why’d you let her do it? Steal my life?!”

He shrugged. “It’s not my place to tell her what to do with the sacred knowledge.”

“You don’t feel responsible for the consequences at all? Tell me how to get back.”

He tipped his head, beady eyes considering me. “I suppose… it’s only fair for me to share the knowledge with you, too. I am a man of the spirit world, not a jailer.” He looked to the night sky. “Unfortunately for you, the planets have moved past their full alignment. The boundary between this world and the world of the Fair Folk is growing more solid, less pliable.”

“So, I’m stuck?”

“No, there may still be a chance.”

“How?”

“The power of the aligned planets hasn’t fully waned yet. If you perform the ceremony correctly, the old ones may still hear you.”

“Okay…

“You will do the ceremony at midnight – this sacred time will help strengthen your plea. Go to the stone circles just outside the village. Their power is ancient.”

“Got it. Magical stones, check. What do I need to do when I’m there?”

“Bring an offering of milk. Invoke the Fair Folk. Then, speak the words of your plea and speak them true. Your petition must be honest and respectful. Thank them. Then, it is out of your hands.”

“That’s it?”

“That is everything. And remember, the conditions for this kind of magic will not come back for centuries. It’s tonight, or never.”

“Then I’d better fucking get it right,” I said.

“Elspeth won’t be happy about this. You have what it takes. Same blood as her. Same determination, too. She’ll be back here in her misery here before she knows it.”

“Why does she think London, in my time, is any better?”

He shrugged. “When your ambition has grown far beyond the confines of your little town, anywhere, any place is better.”

“That doesn’t give her the right to take my life, though.”

He inclined his head. “Perhaps you might find that her life, might also be worth taking.”

“I don’t think so,” I snapped.

“Then speak the words tonight, and it will be over.” He nodded his goodbye and closed the door.

I walked back through the dark countryside to the Smythe farm, my swinging lamp a beacon in the abyss. I had a few hours to kill before midnight.

Above me, the Milky Way stretched like a vast galactic “You Are Here” sign. The sprawling countryside felt so alive – and apparently held actual, real fairy folk and magic stones. I laughed out loud as it finally hit me. Magic had reached out and touched me. Someone like me! Right as I’d felt like dying, my lowest. Magic.

I sighed. I felt lighter, freer. There was no Instagram. No email. No phones. I felt clear of mind for the first time in years.

There was also no smack. Like forced, free rehab, plus I got to skip the physical withdrawal.

Still, I had to go back. Yes, I’d been given a free ticket out of withdrawal. But I wouldn’t have chosen that had someone offered. Though my body wasn’t craving the stuff, my mind was. Itching for it, burning for it. I couldn’t do without. I needed it. And a few days in the countryside wouldn’t fix that. A family like the Smythe’s wouldn’t fix it. I walked, and hot tears fell down my face.

I’d do the incantation tonight, as instructed.

Elspeth Smythe: London, 2024

“It’s like you’ve had a personality transplant,” said Keiran, slicing up a cherry pie I’d baked that morning for the café.

Steven stole a slice and nodded. “Or an upgrade.”

“Wow, thanks, love you guys too.”

“Seriously, we’re just happy to see you happy.”

Indeed, I was healthy, happy and simply astounded by my life here in London. Months had passed, and after the torture of the first few weeks, I was finally feeling better. What lingered was the thin, papery sleep, but still, I had been able to settle into a rhythm, of sorts.

Every day after work, I sat in the British Library and read about the world around me. History, biology, literature – it all fascinated me. I read with an urgency unlike any other I had felt before. I nearly had a heart attack when I fully understood what the internet was capable of.

I walked the city until my feet ached. I learned and learned. I found out that London was not a village full of kind souls, but that you could find the kind souls within the sprawling city. You could find the good.

However, I was haunted by nightmares about the girl I marooned in time, whose life I stole. And I was scared, too. What if she managed to send herself back, and it just hadn’t impacted me yet? Who was I to claim to understand the timeline of magic? She must have been out of her mind with boredom, back in Avebury. From what I’d learned, her life in London hadn’t been the happiest, but still, I’d taken her choice away in my desperation, and nobody deserved that.

The guilt and the shame drove me mad.

Finally, I saved enough to travel to Avebury. Something, I can’t say what, pulled me back there. I took a train west, and when I disembarked, it was all I could do not to choke up. Avebury was unrecognizable. The countryside was still there, but the houses had changed, modernised. Five hundred years is a long time.

I asked around about the Smythe farm, but nobody knew much of anything from so long ago. A farmer told me to get myself to the Wiltshire Heritage and Genealogy Centre, as there I may find any existing records from so long ago. He warned me not to get my hopes up, though. If nobody knew anything around town, it was unlikely there was a written record.

The Wiltshire Heritage and Genealogy Centre was humble but informative. I spent hours scouring texts from the past five centuries, but found nothing. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, honestly. A tale about how a woman had enjoyed farm life and been an excellent mother to a girl named Margaret? How she’d brought joy to her parents for the rest of their lives? I snorted at my own naivety.

Time to go back. I’d have to live with the guilt and fear, just like I deserved.

On my way out, I spotted a little display next to the door. It was a glass case with a few ancient pots and pans from the region. In particular, a large-bellied metal pot. I walked over to it, heart beating fast, eyes filling with tears. I knew it instantly, my own hands having washed the thing countless times. It was my mother’s best.

A label next to it explained that the pot had been purposefully buried (reason unknown) in a box, under a tree on a plot of land believed to have been a farm. It was inscribed with undecipherable writing in Old English.

Face pressed against the glass, I squinted at the scribbles, my mind deciphering the ancient script.

I stayed. Thank you. – Harper