The trouble with elves 7/10

An apprentice witch was called and told to take her to the senior witch on duty for the day. The corridors that she was taken along were just the same as the ones she was used to, although some of the colour schemes were different. It didn’t seem too long before she was sitting at a table with the senior, telling her tale.

“You’ve fairly obviously gone back in time,” said the witch once she’d finished talking, “the only problem, as you’ve already realised, is how far back. Unfortunately we don’t measure time in the same way as you humans, so telling me the year when you got lost is no help. Just to complicate matters, the elves don’t count time in the same way as either of us.”

The witch sighed and looked sad for a moment.

“That’s the trouble with elves; they can change time to suit themselves and tend to be a bit careless. They keep themselves to themselves and live a quiet life by our standards and don’t seem to know or care what is going on in the out of phase worlds.”

“One of my friends once tried to explain that phase business to me,” said Jennifer Jane, “but I didn’t really understand it.”

“I’ll try and explain it as simply for you as I can,” replied the senior. “Time is rather like a wave at sea, we are on the surface going up and down and all the time moving along over the sea bottom. Elves normally move along at the same speed as us, but prefer to go down the wave when we’re up and vice versa. The difficult part to imagine is that the waves are on top of one another, so that they are sometimes on top of us and sometimes underneath.”

She stopped trying to explain, as Jennifer Jane was clearly looking puzzled.

“I’ll get one of the teachers to explain it to you on a blackboard. It’s a lot easier to understand if you can see a drawing.”

“But I’ve got to get back to my own time somehow, isn’t there any way you can help me?”

“I’m afraid not dear. It’s very difficult to make an elf come to see you and even if we could, we wouldn’t know what to ask him. Just asking for Eroin’s dad is no use, you say the boy is about the same age as you, so he won’t have been born yet, that means no elf will know who his father is going to be.”

Jennifer Jane was just about to say something when her tutor interrupted.

“No one else will do, because he’s the only person who knows what time he took you from. I’m afraid the only thing to do is to stay with us and continue your studies. Hopefully someone from your time will be able to contact us in due course and take you back home again.”

Jennifer Jane was absolutely horrified. She might never see her parents or any of her friends again. She was used to being away from home during her adventures, but at least before, she could always try and work out a way to return home.

This time business was very confusing, it would seem that she’d just have to wait and hope that Abigail would be able to find a way of talking to Eroin’s dad and then be able to persuade him to send her back home.