“What happened!?” cried the robot.

“There was no October 5, 1582,” said Lenora. The woman in the bowler hat had done this on purpose, it was clear, and Lenora was sure she would soon find out why. There were still goose bumps on her arm, and a fluttering sense in her stomach that peril was near. And that rumbling was turning into a roar.

“But how can that be?” said Bendigeidfran.

“Because the ancient Romans got the length of the year wrong,” said Lenora, her eyes darting about for the danger she was sure would crop up at any moment. “They were eleven minutes off. By 1582, things had gotten so messed up that the pope had to start a new calendar entirely and skip ten days while he was at it. You know, I really think we should get out of here.”

“Agreed,” said the robot. He touched the device. But nothing happened, and his eyes began to blink in crimson alarm.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lenora with dread.

“The void seems to be draining power from my time machine,” Bendigeidfran said. “I’ve got almost nothing left.”

“What does that mean?” asked Lenora. “How do we get out without your time machine?”

The robot shook his head. “We don’t. I’m afraid we’re lost in time and space forever, Lenora. Well, not forever. That roar you hear”—which the robot was now having to shout over—“is the void reacting to the presence of matter, by which I mean us! Eventually it will rip us up into nothing, too.”

Lenora didn’t like the sound of that. The roar was now a howling. Her skin tingled. She looked down at her arm and saw it was fading into nothing. She looked at Bendigeidfran. He was fading into nothing, too.

“I’m sorry,” shouted Bendigeidfran over the deafening howl. “This is all my fault!”

“No time for that,” yelled Lenora. The howl was making her skull rattle, and Lenora could barely see Bendigeidfran, or herself. She thought quickly. “You said your time machine had almost nothing left. Does that mean it has a little left?”

“Yes!” cried the robot. “But almost nothing! We’d never get back to your real time.”

“We don’t have to!” screamed Lenora over the din. Her arm was only a dim outline now, and she could barely see Bendigeidfran. “There was an October 4! Is there enough power to move just one day?”

The robot’s eyes flashed faintly, and he grasped desperately at his wrist.

Suddenly, they were standing in a dark forest, the ground covered with an early snow. In front of them stood a girl in a yellow cloak, her arms full of firewood. Her jaw dropped and so did the wood.

“Power restored!” said Bendigeidfran happily.