CHAPTER 1

Flashback

...

I remember that year like it was yesterday. I think about it a lot, but not as much as I used to. That moment changed my friends and my life forever. My best friends and I still can't believe that we were able to go back in time and change the events of history for the better, and it all started like this:

My name is Jennifer Mitchell, but I let my friends and family members call me Jenna for short. I am both European and American. I moved to England about six years ago from New York, and yes, when I came here everyone was excited because everyone loves New York for some reason. I have been in England for a while, but I still have my heavily Brooklyn accent. Yup, I'm a Brooklyn girl and I love British accents, but my voice won't make one, not that it bothers me. I have green and brown hazel eyes, pale skin and long medium blonde hair. I am 5'3 and are more on the curvy side. I have some meat on me, I am not fat or thin, I am in the middle. I am thin in certain places but I have meat on me—if that makes sense. I'm one of those nice, serious girls that anyone can go up to and talk about anything. I don't care one way or another, meaning that I'm more apathetic about most things, unless the reason is important. I know, I described myself as serious, but everyone says that I am—like I can help it. The weird thing is that I don't think I am.

I forgot to mention that I am a senior in high school. I have a small group of friends, consisting of two boys and two girls.

The first girl is Emma Huxley. She is the quieter one of the group, but the rest of us don't mind having her around. Once she opens up, she talks just as much as anyone else, she's just more careful about who she's friends with. The last girl is Victoria Chevalier, the French teen of the group. Victoria is the most social of the girls. She's the type of person you don't want to gossip about or get into an argument with. She speaks her mind and stands her ground, making some intimidated by her. She's very sweet when a person gets to know her, she just has a bad attitude.

The two left are the only boys, Robert Flynn and Andrew Barcone.

Robert Flynn is Irish; he stands at 5'10, and he's the joker of the group. Andrew Barcone is Italian, but he is a pale only stands at 5'6, but he's happy that he's taller than the girls. Who wouldn't be? He's the other joker of the group, but he jokes a little more than, Robert most of the time. Robert's a funny type of guy whereas Andrew is a corny funny. But both of them are a delight to be around.

Now, back to the main point. You see, about two years ago, our history class went on a trip to England to learn more about the Tudors. Yup, the Tudor family, like King Henry VIII, his six wives and three kids, one known as Bloody Mary because she caused chaos and fear through all of England. This is where Victoria, Emma, Andrew, Robert and I became friends. We were originally just classmates, but we were brought back in time and got along, declaring our friendship Somehow, along the way, I found Mary Tudor's diary and a necklace that I kept around my neck. The moment I put that necklace around my neck, paranormal things started to happen. I'm not talking about people being dragged or things being thrown across rooms. The necklace gave the five of us dreams, and it allowed us to go back in time to fix the events of Thomas Culpeper and Katherine Howard. Well, kind of. My friends and I pretended to be poor and they took us in as workers, and that's where our adventure began.

It's a lot worse than people expected. You see, Thomas Culpeper found a poor girl for a servant and her friends helped serve the king. Some of us were servants of the king and some were servants for the children of Henry VIII. Thomas's servant, Hazel Goldwine, aka me, because we had to hide our real names, and my friends, pretending to be servants in the castle soon found out about the affair and stayed out of it, until we realized what the affair was really about. Our fake selves were thought to be part of it when in reality, we tried our best to stop it. We were brought back to the present time before anything could happen to us. That was the last time the King heard from us. People believed that Thomas seduced Katherine Howard because he loved her, but the real reason will be kept for the end of the story because I want you lovely readers to see if you can figure out who sabotaged Katherine, and why. And if you can't figure out who tried to get rid of her, you'll just have to wait until I reveal it.

One person that always interested me is Mary Tudor. She's the reason why the five of us traveled back in time, and it all began with a diary. I found it while I was in her room, looking around. I put my hand on the wall and it felt hollow. I went over to the bookcase and touched a book, and a secret staircase came out of nowhere. My friends and I went down the stairs into a small room where her diaries and valuable things were. It broke my heart to see everything that was down there. There were pictures of her family. Yes, she even loved her siblings, for someone as cold as her. She had diaries and everything, and I picked one to read and Victoria gave me a necklace that helped not just me, but my friends see the past.

Yes, Mary was a smart, clever woman and I think of her as a passive-aggressive woman. She was nice to everyone, but got her way and controlled everything by persuading others, and not arguing with people, but by sucking up. Of course, you have to feel bad for her because her father was basically a womanizer and left her mother for another woman, just for a son. That's Bolsheviks! I learned things about the Tudors that no one knew, and that is Mary's depression over her mother. It was eating her alive and I still feel bad for her to this day. I also learned that when we went there, Thomas started feeling love for someone else, but you'll find out who that person is later, just like the people who tried to get rid of Katherine. Yup, it wasn't one person, it was more than one, two more people were involved, and it will all be revealed later on in the story. The Tudors made the six of us realized something that no one else would have. It made us be more cautious about the people that we love, trust and care for because even if they are family to you, family members can easily deceive someone. For example, mothers or fathers that leave their kids, that's abandonment. Parents that abuse their kids or kids that abuse their parents; that's anger, control, aggression, and hate. Friends that turn against their friends for no reason or of what someone else said, or rumors; that's un-loyalty, hate, jealousy and possibly revenge. You see, just because they're a friend or a family member, it doesn't mean that they are filled with hate of someone.

There is always someone that will hate one person, no one is perfect. Not even the Tudors, but because of Henry VIII's actions, his daughter Mary because one of the most feared and most evil women in history. King Henry VIII died when his son Edward was eight and the boy took the throne. He didn't give the throne to his sisters, but to a different lady and for that, Mary fought her way and the people wanted her because she was a Tudor, but little did they realize that that would be one of the worst mistakes that they would have ever made. She changed the religion to Catholic because the lady who took the throne after her brother for nine days changed it to Protestantism. She had traitors and pregnant woman burned at stake. She was much feared, but her mother's death made her health go down the drain. She became very sick, but that doesn't mean that she didn't get revenge on those who made her life miserable. She had Thomas Cromwell go to court and had him burnt at stake when he was sixty-eight years old. Later on, she was so depressed that she died. Because of her evil ways, she was nicknamed Bloody Mary. Her sister Elizabeth, on the other hand, became known as the Virgin Queen—or tried to be.

The moral of this is that a person doesn't need to have a horrible life to have hatred for someone. It could be for an enemy, a friend or a family member that makes them feel horrible about themselves. It was different for Mary Tudor, everyone had a role in her life and she got her revenge by torment. Everyone has hate for someone, but people like Mary are stressed, aggressive and just think of revenge, becoming cold-hearted later on. That is what happened to Mary. She was full of hate and revenge that she took it out on the whole town, leaving people to fear and hate her, driving to get rid of her, but they didn't have to because she died on her own. She was mischevious, but the one that is mostly to blame is her father because he left her mother for another woman. He killed some of them, like Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, rumors or not, and even though he hated how Katherine had an affair. He had many affairs when he was married to Catherine of Aragon, and a woman gave birth to his first son who died of sickness. Henry may have been a great father to his children, and a wonderful leader that everyone respected, but he certainly wasn't a good husband.