The Time Travel Diaries

by Caroline Lawrence

  ‘At almost every ancient site in the world,’ said Solomon Daisy over his shoulder, ‘when you go down, you go back in time.’

  I felt a surge of relief. ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘So this is the time machine. Going down into the basement.’

  ‘No,’ he said as we came into a black room. ‘This isn’t the time machine. We’re just going down to the level of third-century London. And we’re not quite there yet. This is just the mezzanine.’

  I had no idea what a mezzanine was, but I saw that the room held three displays, one of which I recognised as a white resin cast of the head of Mithras, the one they found after the Blitz. I wanted to have a closer look, but a male guide in black was beckoning us towards more stairs leading down from the far side of the room.

  ‘Please go down now if you want the immersive experience,’ he said.

  Once again I let Solomon Daisy go first. At the lowest level some black double doors opened into a dimly lit underground space. Here were the foundations of an ancient temple surrounded by a walkway and a low glass barrier. There were about twelve other people already in there, tourists by the look of it.

  The walls of the space containing the ruins were black and so was the ceiling. Spotlights lit the temple foundations from above. Outside, the January day was damp and chilly, but down here it was dry and warm.

  ‘This is the best place to stand,’ said Solomon Daisy. He led me out onto a central walkway like the one models strut down during a fashion show. One of the spotlights lit the top of his bushy black hair and cast his face into shadow.

  Frankly the ruins looked a bit dull. Just a big stone rectangle, a dirt floor and a curved bit at the far end.

  Crazy Daisy pointed over the glass barrier to the far end of the temple foundations, where a big semicircular pane of glass showed a man in a floppy hat and fluttering cloak stabbing a bull. The way the lights shone made the figure glow against the black wall beyond.

  ‘That etching of Mithras,’ said Solomon Daisy, ‘is meant to suggest the cult statue. Experts think the statue was plaster and only the head was marble.’

  ‘The bull’s not very big, is it?’ I said. ‘More like a big dog than a bull … Also, he’s not even looking at it.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘It’s a puzzle,’ he agreed. ‘There are over two hundred representations of Mithras killing the bull, all more or less like that. But we know almost nothing about the cult of Mithras or what his followers did in a temple like this. It’s as if we had images of a man on a cross but no New Testament to tell us what Christianity was all about.’

  I peered over the glass partition down into the rectangular foundations below us.

  ‘Is this the whole temple?’ I asked. ‘Our school cafeteria is bigger.’

  ‘This is it,’ said Solomon Daisy. ‘It’s the same design as many churches, with a central nave and two side aisles. We think that after every service they reclined on the side sections and enjoyed a banquet.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘It does look a bit like my gran’s church. With the centre bit for pews.’

  ‘Only they didn’t have pews in ancient times,’ said Solomon Daisy. ‘That space was left empty unless there happened to be a ceremony. Which makes it the perfect place for a portal.’

  ‘Why does it have to be empty?’ I asked.

  ‘Have you ever seen the TV series Star Trek?’

  ‘No, but I’ve seen the movies.’

  ‘Then you know what a transporter is.’

  ‘Beam me up?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. What would happen if they beamed Captain Kirk into a wall?’

  ‘He would die?’

  ‘Horribly. To travel back in time you have to find a space that you’re sure will be empty.’

  I frowned. ‘You could just go to a field or a beach, couldn’t you?’

  ‘You’re forgetting the ground level,’ he said. ‘It generally rises over time. That black marble staircase we came in down illustrates it perfectly. Imagine if we placed the portal at today’s street level. As you stepped through you would fall seven metres, probably breaking both legs. On the other hand, if we placed it too low, you’d step into solid earth and die. It’s not just longitude and latitude we have to calculate, but altitude. There aren’t many places where we know the exact three-dimensional coordinates for a specific time period. If you want to go to third-century Roman London, then this Mithraeum is the perfect place to put a portable portal.’

  This was beginning to make sense in a strange way.

  I realised I was being sucked in.

  Then everything went black.

  5

  Nama Mithras

  I didn’t panic when we were plunged into darkness seven metres below street level.

  I figured it was part of the London Mithraeum ‘immersive experience’.

  But just to be safe I took a step back from Crazy Daisy.

  For a moment everyone was quiet. Then, somewhere in the darkness, I heard a door squeak open followed by men’s voices and footsteps crunching on gravel. Were actors coming? No. It was recorded sound effects being played over a loudspeaker.

  An animal horn blared, and behind us a slab of light appeared where the main entrance of the temple would have been. While we had been in darkness they had filled the room with mist, which was now illuminated wherever lights shone down.

  Clever.

  More lights came on, their beams forming the walls of the Mithraeum. Hanging pieces of wood made seven shadowed gaps on each side, showing where the columns would have been. I heard a drum and then the voices of men chanting in Latin.

  I caught the word leonibus. Something about lions. Then patri – ‘to the father’. And the word nama over and over. ‘Nama Mithras!’ came the voices of the unseen worshippers. ‘Nama Mithras!’

  The drumming got faster and faster until it stopped. A flute trilled and the image of Mithras stabbing the bull lit up.

  I heard men chatting and the clink of metal cups or forks on plates. That must be the banquet part.

  Finally came a loud creak of hinges and the sound of a door closing and … the wind. (Mrs Eckardt says the wind always stands for desolation and abandonment.)

  It was cheesy, but effective. I have to admit a little shiver ran down my spine as the lights came up.

  Solomon Daisy looked around, and seemed surprised to see me standing some distance from him. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask if I was impressed.

  I gave him a thumbs-up, which they might or might not have done in Roman times. For the first time it really hit me: what if I could go back to Roman London?

  I’d be able to see what a ceremony to Mithras was really like. I could watch gladiators battle each other and maybe attend a chariot race. I could eat stuffed dormice and try the famous fish-gut sauce that Romans were mad about.

  That last thought made my stomach growl. Thinking about food does that to me. Even thinking about disgusting food.

  ‘Have you had lunch?’ asked Solomon Daisy. ‘I can tell you more about the project while we eat. There’s a restaurant in Bloomberg Arcade that serves the best pizza in London. And for dessert we can swing by a hamburger place that does something called an Oreo milkshake.’

  ‘You had me at lunch,’ I said.

  Solomon Daisy gave a snort of laughter. ‘Good. I’ll tell you about the person I want you to find, the blue-eyed girl with the ivory leopard knife.’

  6

  Floppy Pizza

  We got a table for two at the restaurant, so close to the pizza oven that I could feel the heat on the right side of my face. Daisy somehow managed to squeeze his bulk between the table and his chair. The pizzas came in only one size, so we ordered half margherita for me, half mushroom and ricotta for him.

  ‘I don’t know if I’d survive long in Roman London,’ I said as a pretty waitress delivered a massive pizza and two paper plates to our table. ‘The Romans had no tomato for pizzas. Or chocolate. Or chilli peppers. Or potatoes for salt-and-vinegar crisps,’ I added.
/>
  ‘It doesn’t really matter what food they did or didn’t have.’ Daisy used the pizza wheel to cut eight big slices. ‘You’re not allowed to eat when you go back in time.’

  ‘Not allowed to eat?’ I paused with the first slice of pizza halfway to my mouth.

  ‘Yup. Any food in your stomach will be violently expelled as you go through the portal.’

  ‘Violently expelled as in …?’

  ‘Yup. Violently expelled through your “personal portals”.’ He grinned and rolled up a slice of pizza.

  ‘Ugh!’ I said. ‘But how will I live if I can’t eat?’

  ‘People can survive for a surprisingly long time without food,’ said Solomon Daisy. That was when he told me the three rules of time travel, counting them off on his already greasy fingers: ‘One: naked you go and naked you must return. Two: drink, don’t eat. Three: as little interaction as possible.’

  My jaw was hanging open.

  ‘Of course, a skinny kid like you probably wouldn’t last a month,’ he went on. ‘But don’t worry – you’ll only be there for three or four days. Five max. And of course you have to fast for two days before you make the jump. But I’m sure you can go without food for a week.’

  ‘No food for a week?’

  ‘Oh, and I suppose I should warn you about the shortened life expectancy.’

  ‘Shortened what?’

  Solomon Daisy extricated another section of pizza. ‘In the normal course of events, the life expectancy for a boy like you is around ninety-five.’

  ‘I’ll live to be nearly a hundred?’

  ‘Yup. Barring the zombie apocalypse and assuming you don’t walk in front of a bus, you can expect to live for another eighty-three years.’ He dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin. ‘However, my tech guys have calculated that for each hour you spend in the past, it takes a month off your life expectancy.’

  I did the figures in my head. ‘So that means if I spend a day in the past it will cut two years off my life?’

  ‘Yup. Twenty-four months is the price for spending twenty-four hours in the past. That means you’ll probably only live to be ninety-three. It’s much worse for adults,’ he said. ‘Every hour we spend back in time cuts a year off our lifespan. It’s something to do with cell regeneration.’

  ‘So that’s why you’re not going yourself.’

  ‘Exactly. May I try some of your pizza?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, easing a slice onto his paper plate. ‘I suppose I can face living to be ninety-two rather than ninety-five.’ I chewed thoughtfully. ‘Why did Miss Okonmah ask me if I had fillings?’

  ‘My tech guys reckon that if you have anything non-organic in your head, like an ear stud or a filling, it would probably explode.’

  7

  Exploding Teeth

  ‘So if I went through the portal with fillings …’ I began, and then trailed off.

  ‘Your head would probably explode!’ He took a bite of the rolled-up pizza and tomato sauce squirted onto his cheek. ‘A bit like that!’ he grinned, and then wiped his face with the paper napkin.

  ‘And that’s also why I have to go through naked?’

  ‘Yup,’ he said.

  ‘But aren’t clothes made out of organic material? Like cotton and wool?’

  ‘My tech guys think any clothes you’re wearing will go up in flames …’ He took a big bite. ‘They’re not sure why. Do you want to be our guinea pig?’

  ‘I guess not. But naked …’

  ‘Don’t worry. Romans had a more relaxed attitude to nudity. All you have to do is find some clothes as soon as you arrive. There should be some priestly robes in an anteroom of the Mithraeum.’

  For some reason all this talk of exploding heads and shortened life expectancy actually made me feel better. It seemed as if his tech guys really knew what they were doing. I helped myself to a slice of his mushroom-and-ricotta pizza and thought about it all as I ate.

  ‘And you want me to find a blue-eyed girl?’

  ‘That’s right. She was buried in Southwark.’

  ‘Where’s Sutherk?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s spelled South-Wark but pronounced Sutherk,’ said Solomon Daisy. ‘It was the industrial part of Londinium, which as I’m sure you know is what the Romans called London, and was located just across the river. It was very marshy, with workshops, kilns and other noisy or smelly activities. There were a few small islands in that part of south London. Some of them were used as cemeteries.’

  ‘Because Romans buried their dead outside the town walls.’

  ‘Yes. Have you been to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s near the Tate Modern.’

  ‘They were clearing the ground for some new apartments about half a mile south of there and they found several graves. The richest one belonged to a fourteen-year-old girl.’

  ‘So did she do something terrible? Like kill somebody or invent a virus? And I have to go back to stop her?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She was just an ordinary girl as far as we can tell. We know from the DNA in her bones that she had blue eyes and looked like a northern European. But the isotopes in her teeth suggest that she grew up in north Africa. She was only nine when she came to Londinium. She died five years later, aged fourteen.’

  ‘If we can tell so much about her from her bones and DNA and teeth and stuff,’ I said, ‘and if she didn’t do anything terrible, then why do you need me to go back and find her?’

  ‘Simple,’ he said, tucking into his fifth piece of pizza. ‘I’m obsessed with her. Can’t stop thinking about her. And once I had this really vivid dream. I have to know what brought her three thousand miles from Africa to Britain. And why she died.’

  ‘And you’ll pay me a million pounds just to go back and try to find her?’

  ‘Did I mention a four-million bonus if you actually locate her?’

  I nearly choked on my pizza. ‘Five million pounds?’

  He beamed. ‘Yes! If you find the blue-eyed girl from Africa, then you get five mil.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ asked our waitress. I noticed she had bright blue eyes and took that as a good omen.

  ‘Yes,’ I said happily. ‘Everything is very all right.’

  8

  Butterfly Thunder

  ‘So,’ I repeated about ten minutes later, ‘you’ll pay me a million pounds to go back to Roman London, and if I find the blue-eyed girl buried in Southwark, you’ll give me another four million pounds as a bonus?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Solomon Daisy.

  We had just bought two Oreo milkshakes from Bloomberg Arcade and we were sitting beside a bronze water sculpture that showed what the ancient Walbrook stream might have looked like in Roman times.

  ‘Blue eyes is not a lot to go on,’ I said. ‘Are there any other clues I can use to find her? Do we at least know her name? Like from her tombstone?’

  ‘No tombstone,’ he said, ‘but we have some fascinating grave goods.’

  ‘What are “grave goods”?’

  ‘Things buried with a body. Most ancient people believed in life after death. They sometimes left objects with the body to help them make the journey to the next world.’

  ‘Like a coin in the mouth to pay the ferryman.’ I took a suck of my shake.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Solomon Daisy. ‘Grave goods often help us figure out who the person was, where they came from and when they died. The blue-eyed girl was buried with two glass perfume jars, a small wooden box, a small key on a chain and the ivory knife.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘The famous knife.’

  Crazy Daisy put down his milkshake, pulled out a smartphone and tapped up a photo. ‘These are the things that were found with her.’

  I put down my cup too and took the phone. The first photo on the screen showed two little perfume jars. Next was a key and section of chain.

  ‘Is the key bronze?’ I asked, making an educated guess.

  ‘Yes, although we call it copper-alloy these days
,’ he said. ‘The wooden box was placed at her feet. It had bone decoration and copper-alloy fittings, but strangely no sign of a lock.’

  ‘So the key wasn’t for that?’

  ‘Apparently not. If you find her, ask about the key.’

  I tapped the phone.

  The next object looked like a folding penknife.

  ‘It looks like a folding penknife,’ I said.

  ‘That’s exactly what it is,’ he said. ‘The handle is ivory, carved in the shape of a leopard. Ivory was very exotic and expensive back then, because it is made of elephant’s tusk. The blade is iron, very corroded now. Of course, the Romans had no pockets. We think it might have hung from her belt along with the key.’

  I finished my milkshake and put the cup down. ‘There’s something else I’m wondering about,’ I said. ‘Time crash. In Star Trek and Back to the Future they’re always worrying about disrupting the space–time continuum.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A Sound of Thunder.’

  I gazed up at the sky. The clouds had cleared and it was a pale blue. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

  ‘No. It’s the name of a science-fiction short story by Ray Bradbury from the 1950s. In the story, some time travellers go back to the time of dinosaurs. They are warned not to touch anything or interact with the world, as even the tiniest change in the past could cause bigger and bigger changes that over centuries could affect the course of the future.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘One of them steps on a butterfly and kills it. When they get back to their own time they have a different president.’

  ‘So I’m not allowed to kill any butterflies?’

  ‘Kill as many bugs as you like,’ said Daisy, ‘but keep human interaction to a minimum. Rule number three, remember? However, we have made three trips back to Roman London, and Donald Trump is still president. My tech guys reckon that the effect of any trip back has already been accounted for in the present.’