“I know it’s far-fetched, sweetpea, but you’ll never know any different. The Gravitube will seem as impossible there as jetliners do here.”

“What about mammoths?”

“No—but there will be ducks.”

“Goliath?”

“Under a different name.”

I was quiet for a moment.

“Will there be Jane Eyre?”

“Yes,” sighed my father. “Yes, there will always be Jane Eyre.”

“And Turner? Will he still paint The Fighting Temeraire?”

“Yes, and Carravaggggio will be there too, although his name will be spelt more sensibly.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

My father was silent for a moment.

“There’s a catch.”

“What sort of catch?”

He sighed.

“Landen will be back, but you and he won’t have met. Landen won’t even know you.”

“But I’ll know him. I can introduce myself, can’t I?”

“Thursday, you’re not part of this. You’re outside of it. You’ll still be carrying Landen’s child, but you won’t know the sideslip has ever happened. You will remember nothing about your old life. If you want to go sideways to see him, then you’ll have to have a new past and a new present. Perversely enough, to be able to see him, you cannot have any recollection of him—nor he of you.”

“That’s some catch,” I observed.

“It’s the second-best there is,” Dad agreed.

I thought for a moment.

“So I won’t be in love with him?”

“I’m afraid not. You might have a small residual memory— feelings that you can’t explain for someone you’ve never met.”

“Will I be confused?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me with an earnest expression. They all did. Even Lady Hamilton, who had been moving quietly towards the sherry, stopped and was staring at me. It was clear that making myself scarce was something I had to do. But having zero recollection of Landen? I didn’t really have to think very hard.

“No, Dad. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I don’t think you understand,” he intoned, using his paternal go-to-your-room-young-lady voice. “In a year’s time you can come back and everything will be as right as—”

“No. I’m not losing any more of Landen than I have already.”

I had an idea.

“Besides, I do have somewhere I can go.”

“Where?” inquired my father. “Where could you possibly go that Lavoisier couldn’t find you? Backwards, forwards, sideways, otherways—there isn’t anywhere else!”

I smiled.

“You’re wrong, Dad. There is somewhere. A place where no one will ever find me—not even you.”

“Sweetpea—!” he implored. “It is imperative that you take this seriously! Where will you go?”

“I’ll just,” I replied slowly, “lose myself in a good book.”