Happy Sunday! Please don't forget to vote and comment :)
***
'Will?' Storm knocked on Will's bedroom door. Will opened it;
'Is it...?'
'It's finished,' said Storm happily. 'They're going to see if they can find Oliver and Rose so I thought I'd better come and wake you.'
Will smiled in what seemed like the first time in forever, 'I could kiss you!'
'Rose said you have a girlfriend,' laughed Storm. 'I don't think she'd be too impressed!'
Will felt even happier at the prospect of seeing Hannah soon.
***
Gaius, Tom, Merlin, Torrent, King Arthur and Queen Guinevere looked up as Will and Storm entered.
Once they were all stood around the cauldron, Merlin took a breath, 'everyone ready?'
They all nodded.
Merlin continued, 'so the plan is that I do the spell and try to find them first, and then everyone else can have a look once I know where and when they are.'
'Go on, then,' said Will impatiently.
Storm rolled her eyes at Will who immediately felt sheepish.
Merlin ignored this and began to speak words that sounded as old as the hills to Will. He watched as Merlin waved a hand over the cauldron, which began to change colour. Will started forwards to see what was in it, but Storm laid a hand on his arm, holding him back.
'Let him concentrate,' she hissed.
Merlin stopped speaking and leant forwards to look into the cauldron. Will almost stopped breathing as he tried to read Merlin's face. Merlin frowned.
'What is it?' asked Will, his heart beginning to thud.
'The map co-ordinates,' said Merlin. 'They're changing... I think they must be moving, not in one place.'
'Is that bad?' Will asked.
'It makes it harder to work out where they are exactly,' said Merlin.
Another number floated across the surface of the potion.
'They're in 1837,' Tom said.
Merlin spoke some more of the spell and the surface of the potion changed again.
'Come and see this,' he said.
Will hastened forward and squinted into the cauldron. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then he realised he was looking at a bird's eye view of a single-track road with two figures walking along it.
'Is that them?' Will demanded.
'I think so...' Merlin waved his hand over the potion and the view changed so that they now appeared to be hovering two meters away from Rose and Oliver.
Will craned forward to see them again, Tom pushed him over a bit so that he could get a look too.
'They look alright, I mean, not hurt or anything,' Tom was surprised, he would have thought that that evil wizard would have kept them as hostage, not let them go.
From what they could see, Rose and Oliver looked tired but unscathed and were talking as they walked along still dressed in the clothes they had left Camelot in.
Will nodded slowly, 'where are they going?' There was no sound with the picture, which made it tricky to interpret exactly what was going on.
Torrent changed the potion so that the map co-ordinates showed again, 'it looks like they're headed South-West?'
Realisation dawned on Will, 'I bet they're going back to the stone circle.'
'Makes sense,' Tom nodded.
King Arthur cleared his throat, 'may we see?'
'Sorry, dad,' Tom moved aside to let everyone else have a look, still feeling a thrill at being able to call someone 'dad' and 'mum'.
The king and queen had mentioned that it was more normal to call your parents 'mother' and 'father', but Tom thought it was too formal, although in front of other courtiers he did as they suggested, just for the look of the thing.
For a minute, everyone watched Rose and Oliver walk along the road. A cart trundled into view and they saw Rose call up to the driver, who appeared to speak to her for a minute, and then moved some boxes aside so that Rose and Oliver could sit on the back of the cart.
Will smiled; they seemed to be looking after themselves.
'So, what now?' Tom asked.
'We carry out our plan,' said Will, more confidently than he felt.
Two days ago Merlin had found a spell in a book that could open what Will had called a Time-Door-Portal-Thing. Merlin had insisted on using a long Latin term for it, but it essentially added up to the same thing. If Merlin cast the spell, some sort of doorway should open up for Oliver and Rose to go into and should bring them back to Camelot.
'What about the cart driver?' asked Merlin. 'We don't want him coming through the door.'
'I wouldn't worry so much about that,' said Will. 'More the fact that magic doesn't really exist in 1837.'
'Actually,' said Tom. 'They just burned you as a witch if you practiced magic.'
Ignoring the shocked look on everyone else's faces, Will continued, 'so can we do the spell or not?'
'Maybe we should wait until they're alone?' suggested Tom.
'But that could be hours!' exclaimed Will, frustrated.
'Well, what do you suggest?' Storm raised an eyebrow.
Will was silent. Then, 'fine,' he said curtly. 'Let's wait until it gets dark or they leave the cart driver and do the spell then.'
***
'Why're you headed to Cornwall then?' asked the cart driver with whom Rose had negotiated a lift.
Rose and Oliver glanced at each other; it was complicated.
'We live there,' said Oliver, finally. 'We had relatives in London and went to visit them for a few days.'
'So where's all your luggage?' the cart driver looked them up and down. Oliver knew they both looked a bit grimy.
'It got stolen,' said Rose quickly.
'Is that so?' he flicked the reins and fell silent.
Then he said; 'look, if you're running from the law, I won't say anything, but if you're caught, don't drag me into it, that's all I'm saying.'
'We're not exactly running from anything,' said Rose, trying to work out if that was true or not.
'It's complicated,' said Oliver.
'Alright,' the cart driver shrugged. 'I'll have got home by this evening and from there you'll be on your own.'
***
'Blimey,' said Oliver. 'Here we go again.'
They had been dropped off by the cart driver and were trying to scout out a place to spend the night.
Rose looked around. From what she could see in the growing darkness they were nowhere near a town or village – the cart driver lived on a farm that was in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside.
Hang on, Rose thought, she knew how farms were set out so there must be a barn somewhere around. Most farms had one that had been in use years ago and had fallen into disrepair.
She scanned the skyline and found what she was looking for – a dark shape on the horizon.
'Bingo,' she said.
Ten minutes later, she and Oliver had managed to force open the wooden door to the barn that had ivy growing up it and were trying to see what was inside as it was now completely dark.
Rose jumped as she heard a crash and Oliver swear behind her.
'What...?'
'I fell over a crate,' said Oliver sheepishly.
Rose laughed and found a pile of old sacks. Hoping there were not any rats or mice in them, she chucked a few to Oliver.
'Here's our luxury bedding for tonight.'
They sat down against the barn wall together; luckily, it kept out most of the biting wind.
Rose felt her stomach rumble and tried to look on the bright side.
'At least he gave us a slice of bread earlier,' she said. The cart driver had been running loaves of bread to and from London for trade. 'He had boxes full of it.'
'Um,' said Oliver.
'If we'd been clever...' said Rose thoughtfully.
'Er,' said Oliver.
'We should have taken some bread,' said Rose. 'I know it would have been stealing...'
'Rose?' said Oliver.
'But desperate times and all that,' said Rose.
'Rose?' Oliver grinned.
Rose turned to look at him, 'yes?'
Oliver produced two loaves of bread from underneath his cloak, grinning sheepishly.
'And that's why I love you,' Rose laughed.
And then the roof fell in.