Grace was rather rudely awakened by the thud of her cat's paw against her face.

Her eyes flew open and there was Wilf, poised over her head, with his little pink paws raised for another swatting.

"Hmph, come home for second breakfast, have you?" She asked bitterly.

Wilf meowed and gave her another paw to the face.

Grace groaned and pushed him off her. She rubbed the bleariness from her eyes and slowly sat upright. Even though it was approaching midday, she still felt tired and exhausted after the odd events of last night. The space in-between her eyes was pounding with pain, and those six pints she'd had in The White Horse weren't sitting particularly well in her stomach.

She looked around her abysmal flat with a creeping sensation of discomfort rising in her chest. She wanted to be out of here. As quickly as possible.

Her shower was a biochemical health hazard, so she gave her face a quick splash of water and did her best to flannel her other important bits. The cold water on her face helped to soothe her headache a little, but she was already scanning around the bathroom for some paracetamols. She made a grab at a blue box on her sink, but when she tore open the cardboard and pulled out the film, it was infuriatingly empty. Grace groaned with frustration and slammed it into the bin.

A spray of dry shampoo in her tawny brown hair had her almost ready to go. She was on the last scoops as she tried to tie it up into a ponytail when she paused, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

"Borne like vapour on the summer air…" she mumbled.

Her strange conversation with the Story Teller came back to her in a flash. All of the lines of poetry, all of the tears, all of the odd looks. She let her hair fall back down around her shoulders, recalling the odd "appraisal" he had given her. She recalled too the way he'd been able to see right through her. Right to the core of her. Exposing her and laying her open until she'd felt raw and flayed.

She shook her head, trying to dispel the bad memories out of her.

She knew she was broken. She knew she was bruised. But she didn't need some half-wild tramp telling her that.

Grace was just out of the bathroom when her phone began to buzz.

Up flashed 'Mum Mobile' and Grace cursed under her breath. She remembered that she'd promised her Mum a call yesterday, and if she didn't answer, she'd cause worry.

She made a grab for her phone just as Wilf gave her a demanding meow. He wanted feeding and he wanted it now. But Grace mashed at the screen and propped the phone under her face.

"Hi Mum."

"Hi bab! How are you?" Came her mother's sing-songy voice down the line.

"Fine. Good." She said, utterly sick to the back teeth of hearing that question. "How were Paddy and Harry?"

"Oh lovely! After the meet-and-greet we went for a gorgeous walk up round the Langdales."

"Ooh, very nice."

Grace manoeuvred herself around the mess of the living room and into the kitchen. Wilf followed her, meowing incessantly up at her.

"It started raining a little bit towards the end, so we decided to duck into the pub in Kelbarrow. Do you know the one I mean?"

"Uhh, yeah. The one with the nice garden?"

"That's the one. Me and Gordon had a lovely roast in there."

"Oh that's nice." Grace muttered, only half-listening as she filled Wilf's food bowl and poured him some fresh water.

"I'll take you in for a roast next time you're up here."

"Sounds good."

On the kitchen table, amongst other clutter, she spied another red cardboard packet underneath last month's National Geographic. As her Mum rambled on a little about the deliciousness of the pork and the carrots and the cauliflower cheese… Grace tried to decant herself two paracetamols from the blister pack as quietly as possible. She made a few 'I'm listening' noises down the phone as she swallowed them and put the rest of the packet in her satchel, just in case she needed them later.

"Are you eating properly, Grace?" Her Mum asked suddenly.

"Uhhh…."

She hesitated, feeling the kebab from last night sitting heavy in her stomach.

"Because you need to look after yourself, Grace. Five fruits and vegetables a day."

"Do the toppings on Dominos pizza count towards that?"

Her mother sighed and went quiet. Grace had intended it as a joke, but the silence down the other end of the line made her instantly regret saying that.

"Sweetheart, I'm worried about you." Her Mum said.

Grace felt like she'd been dealt a sucker-punch to the guts. She swallowed hard, pushing down the lump of emotion that rose in her throat.

"Mum, I'm fine. I told you."

"Listen, I've been talking to Gordon and he thinks we could… make some space up here. Get rid of all the clutter in our spare room…"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… perhaps when the lease is up on your flat… you could come up here."

Grace's body went cold. Even though she detested the inside of this flat, the thought of leaving Oxford altogether made her feel sick.

"I know it's not ideal, moving back in with your parents when you've had your own space and your own freedom, but-"

"I couldn't. I'd lose all my income. What about my students? And my wedding work?"

"You'd find new clients up here."

"In rural Cumbria?" She asked incredulously.

"I'm sure you'd find other things too…"

"Why are we even having this conversation?" Grace asked shortly. "I told you, I'm-"

"You don't have to lie to me, Grace." Her mother interrupted.

Grace's throat constricted, her eyes filling with tears.

"What did David tell you?" She asked her mother coldly.

"Nothing. He just sent me a message yesterday. He said that I might just want to check-in with you. You should have told me you were meeting him, bab."

Grace was frozen to the spot. Wilf danced around her legs, begging for more food from her as she stared vacantly at nothing in particular.

"I'm not leaving, Mum." She choked out. "If I go, it's like…It's like he's won."

"Sweetheart. Breakups aren't a battle. It's not about who's 'winning' or 'losing'. You've got to do what's best for you."

"This is my city." She said hoarsely. The tears were coming now, all pretence gone. "I'm not just a footnote in his story."

"I know, sweetheart. I know."

She sniffed, and wiped at her face with the sleeve of her shirt.

"I need to go." Grace said flatly. "I have another lesson to get to."

"Will you call me later tonight?" Her Mum asked, concern ringing in her voice.

"Alright." Grace sighed.

"I'm not saying you have to, but just think about it, Grace."

"Okay, Mum..."

"I mean it, Grace. Think about it."

They both said their goodbyes and once the line was dead, Grace was left standing in the middle of her kitchen feeling hollow. When her heart had returned to a normal pace and her head returned to her shoulders from whizzing around the stratosphere, she found Wilf looking curiously at her.

"I don't know what the bloody hell I'd do with you." she mumbled to him. "Mum's allergic to cats."

Wilf gave her another meow, and she laughed. But the smile soon fell from her face. Was she really considering her Mum's offer? Was she really toying with the idea of leaving?

As she turned her face to the window, curtains still drawn, she heard the sounds of Oxford passing by outside. The chugging car engines and bike bells. The distant chatter of students heading into the centre for their lectures. And her heart sank.

I can't leave my Oxford. I can't. I can't!

But what was the alternative? Staying here to slowly dissolve away in this filthy flat? It was a mess. Her whole life was a mess. And she didn't even know where to start with cleaning it up.

Grace glanced at her wall clock. She'd not been lying to her mother when she'd said she had another voice lesson to get to. After drying her face, she grabbed her satchel and threw a few more necessities in it: her phone, her purse, her keys, her bike chain, as well as a few music books her student might like.

She sighed deeply as she picked up the Wicked songbook and a few other tried and tested Urban-Outfit-Daughter pleasers. Grace was almost out the door when she turned to Wilf.

"Don't you dare go bothering Felicity next door." She said to the cat. "I'll text her and tell her you've eaten breakfast already."

Wilf responded with a meow of defeat and Grace closed the door behind her.

She shimmied her bike out of the downstairs lobby and out into the open air. The sun was bright and warm and stung Grace's eyes. A moan of discomfort rumbled up her throat as she squinted at the sky. Those paracetamols she'd swallowed had yet to kick in and her stomach still felt iffy. As she dumped her satchel in the wicker basket, she glanced at her watch one more time.

Hmm. Perhaps I've got ten minutes to spare for a bit of breakfast at Taylor's.

The thought of putting some food inside her made her feel a little less queasy. She was just about ready to decide between a pain-au-chocolat or a croissant when her mother's voice came screaming back into her mind:

Are you eating properly?

Nachos, kebabs, croissants… The short answer to that question was 'no'.

Perhaps that was the first step. Perhaps that was where to start with the tidy-up.

Perhaps I could get some shopping. Some real food that hasn't come from Deliveroo… Oh, but then I'd need to go through the fridge, see what needs throwing out. And whilst I was in there, the whole kitchen needs a tidy-up. To put it frankly, the whole flat needs a tidy-up. God, I wish I had someone to help me with all that cleaning. But none of my friends can even be bothered to text me-.

Grace closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Stop it." She said aloud. "One thing at a time."

Her heartbeat slowed and the constricting sadness in her chest eased a little.

Perhaps I'll get the fruit salad from Taylor's. With a bit of porridge, maybe.

She smiled to herself, and began pedalling.

A few hours later, Grace emerged from another cream, middle-class house with her ears ringing.

Catriona, her student, had warbled her way through a few songs from Phantom and she had graciously encouraged the girl to choose something else when it was apparent she wasn't a soprano.

Still, it was all money in her pocket. And she found that the good mood that had seen her off out of her flat had lasted the whole day. Grace was feeling unusually buoyant and as she'd been playing the piano for Catriona, in her head she'd been putting together a to-do list for herself. She was slightly annoyed that it had turned dark already, as the top of her to-do list had been to finally throw back the curtains and let some light into the flat.

Her Mum's chat this morning had been the boot up the backside she'd needed. The first shine of light on herself. And as she rode out onto the Woodstock Road, she was ready to pedal into the rest of her life.

As she approached the city centre, the bells for Evensong were being rung from Christchurch Cathedral. The last of the day's tourists were getting the buses home to the park-and-rides as she wove her way through the streets.

A feeling tugged at her insides and she suddenly realised that she was scanning the streets for performers and buskers. Grace hopped off her bike and mounted the empty pavement, eyes still searching. She could see the Communist Party of Britain members tidying up their stall of flyers, the homeless man in the green puffer jacket that could only play 'Stand By Me' on his mangled acoustic guitar, even the Christian evangelist was packing away his portable speaker and microphone.

But the Story Teller was nowhere to be seen.

Her brow furrowed as she scanned the streets around her. Although, she couldn't place why she felt so uneasy. Grace had promised him an audience the next time she saw him. And, truth be told, she wanted to make sure the old man was alright after the events of last night.

She pushed off again and did a little spot-check of some of the other big tourist spots in town. Yet, each time she rode her bike past the now deserted 'Greatest-Hits' of Oxford, she didn't find him. Soon, she'd almost done a complete circle from where she had originally begun her search and found herself at the base of Christchurch. The sound of her sigh mingled with the ring of the bells. Once again, a pang of worry ran through her.

Then, floating over the air, she suddenly heard the ethereal voices of a choral melody.

Her eyes darted to the propped-open door of the Cathedral behind her. The music echoed out from the heart of the building with a strange, alluring beauty.

Before she knew it, she was propping her bike up against the railings, wanting to follow it inside. However, before she fully abandoned her bike, she fished her satchel out of the front basket and flung it over her body. The last thing she wanted was for her good mood to be spoilt by an opportunistic thief spotting her unattended valuables. With her bag fitted around her, she moved inside the Cathedral.

The waves of blended voices flowed over her as she stepped inside the Cathedral. Every hair on her arm stood to attention as the full might and power of the choir hit her. She knew the piece they were performing; it was another part of Mozart's Requiem Mass. The Lacrimosa movement.

Deeply haunting and eternally beautiful. There was nothing she could do but stand transfixed by the performance.

It was clearly a rehearsal as every so often, the choir master would tap on his lectern and the music would stop. He'd give a few hurried instructions to the singers and they would resume, starting it all over again. Grace took a seat in a nearby pew and listened to the music in reverent stillness. Until she saw, amongst the tenors, a face she knew.

David.

A shockwave of horror bolted through her.

Her wild eyes widened as she saw Natalie too standing amongst the altos.

The two of them were staring at their sheet music, but every so often Grace would catch them passing looks of playful flirtation to one another.

White-hot betrayal lanced through her, almost as fresh as the day she had walked in on the two of them. But this was a different kind of hurt. A different kind of pain.

David hated this kind of stuff. 'Your music', he had called it, once upon a time. He'd slumped in his chair like a child with her. Whinged his whole way through the Requiem Mass with her.

So, what the fuck was he doing standing in the Christchurch Choir?

"Alright guys, let's have a ten minute break while I work through the bass-line with the baritones." The Choir master said.

The rest of the choir broke formation and milled about the church. Grace watched with stinging eyes as David approached Natalie and gave her a huge, grinning kiss. She didn't hear what they said to each other. Lost over the noise of the chatter. But she watched their mouths move and their smiles come so easily to them from afar. Watching them like a ghost amongst the pews.

"With her", she realised suddenly.

She ground her jaw tight together to stop the tears from coming.

"With her".

Whatever had stopped him from enjoying all of this stuff for Grace, it clearly didn't stop him from enjoying it with Natalie. He couldn't do it for Grace, but he could do it for her. And that's why this hurt so much.

She couldn't watch anymore. She rose from her pew and ran for the door.

She emerged out into the streets a crying mess. Every little bit of progress, every tiny step towards healing that she felt she'd taken today instantly vanished. She bent double and let the sobs take her.

"He is not worth your tears, my dear Grace."

Grace pulled herself upright and spun around. There, lingering at the very edge of the Cathedral was the Story Teller.

Apart from a new, angry-looking purple black eye, he looked the same as the last time she'd seen him. His hair wild and grey, his clothes dishevelled and billowing about his thin frame, his eyes fixed unnervingly on her.

"Many a brilliant thing has been lost because the man who dreamed it lacked the conviction to make it so." He said reverently.

"Are you following me?!" Grace asked, anger bubbling up inside her. "Because… because if you are, I'll go to the authorities-"

But Grace was stopped in her tracks when the Story Teller slipped quietly around the side of the Cathedral, out of sight.

"Hey…! Hey!" Grace called after him.

She'd already let one man turn her into a pushover this evening. She wasn't going to let another.

"Come back! I'm not finished with you!"

She chased after him, anger making her feet fly. When she rounded the corner too, Grace looked out onto a deserted quad. Her breath was ragged as she scanned the stone pillars and empty cobblestones.

There he was! Half hidden in shadow on the other side of the courtyard.

"Hey! Come back!" She cried at him. Grace began charging over the quad with her fists balled in rage. "What do you want from me?!"

Again, the Story Teller slipped from her sights, tantalising her onwards. A game of cat and mouse. And again, Grace followed him, breaking into a run.

If someone had asked her in that moment why she was following him, she couldn't have told them. Something deep and primal compelled her after the Story Teller. Something in the wild thump of her heart and the raggedness of her breaths. Something in the frantic flick of her eyes each time she spied him on the edge of a corner, on the very end of her vision, and then he'd slip away from her again. Until Grace lost count of how long she'd been pursuing him. Empty, stone-lined streets all blurred into one another. Echoing, barren courtyards all became like the last. And she thought she may have lost him…

Until suddenly, unexpectedly, in an abandoned little alleyway she stumbled upon…

In fact, she didn't have the words to describe it.

A star?

A great, shining star. Floating in the alleyway and burning with the intensity of pure fire.

It ripped through the air, like some great god had stabbed a knife through space and dimension alike.

There were shapes and images inside the Star. Swirling around like pictures circling down a draining plug. Nothing still. Nothing making sense.

It was a moving, pulsating, gaping opening into somewhere else.

And all Grace could do was gasp at it in wonder. Pure, glorious, wonder.

The Star moved and twisted, branching shining arms of energy out around it like a mini-supernova. Each time it moved and bent, it bled out sounds and strange noises. Distant voices, horses braying, rattling gunfire. All of it muggy and heavy, as if she was underwater.

It was…beautiful. And alluring.

Time stilled and quietened as she took in the alien, anomalous wonder of it.

And Grace found herself stepping towards it, with a hand outstretched.

Oh, God. What am I doing!?

Grace snapped her hand down to her side and took a fearful step backwards.

"Don't be afraid. This is for you." A low voice said behind her.

Grace gasped aloud and wheeled round again. The Story Teller stood at her back, seemingly calm and unmoved by the miracle of nature before them. Yet his eyes held an uneasy glint in them. A harsh stare of manic calm that bore deep into her. He stood still. Still as stone. As if he was waiting for her to act. Or to say something.

Grace's breathing was rapid but she managed to stutter out a frightened question.

"F…for… for me?"

"You asked for your own story. So, I give this one to you."

She shook her head. Her head swivelled around, turning to glance back at the Star just hanging in the street behind her.

The voices were still there. She hadn't imagined the swirl of images and shapes hidden inside it. She hadn't made up the almost uncomfortable way it tore through space. A gash in the world.

It felt unnatural.

Despite its beauty, she knew it to be something lawless and wrong.

"Grace…"

Her eyes popped when she heard her name whispered from inside it. Soft and gentle, like a lullaby.

"Grace..!"

Her name again. Urgent and desperate. A cry of violence.

"Grace…"

"Grace…"

"Grace…"

Over and over again, her name layered on top of itself more times than she could count. Said in a thousand different ways, in a thousand different inflections. With laughter, with question, with exasperation, with gentleness, with tears, with love…

"They are waiting for you, Grace." The Story Teller said.

The time of his voice sent a shiver up her spine. She shook her head again, fear squeezing her stomach.

"I…I don't…"

Then he pushed her.

And Grace fell.

Backwards and backwards and backwards.

Through the Star.

Through worlds.

Through blackness and nothingness and endless time.

Until she felt like she'd been falling forever.

And then, she woke up.

When Grace opened her eyes, she sucked in the deep breath of someone who had been drowning.

But as she looked around her, not the interior of her flat in Jericho, nor the soft face of Wilf looked back at her.

She was in a box. A softly rocking box with…curtains and soft furnishings inside.

A gentle, rhythmic noise sounded out from beyond her box that she recognised as the sound of horses hooves. The wild beating of her heart seemed to match the pace of the horses and only grew as she took in more and more.

Her clothes were gone. At least, the ones she'd been wearing before were gone. Instead, she was now clad in huge, billowing skirts and a tight bodice that sucked in her stomach, pushing all of her breath up to her throat. Her frantic fingers also felt out the ribbons of a hat tied underneath her chin, a pair of delicate lace gloves on her hands, even boots on her feet. All of it staunchly black. All of it not hers. And all of it old.

Not just 'old'. Antique.

"Oh my God, Oh my God…" she breathed, hyperventilating by herself inside her softly rocking box.

She braces herself against the walls, as if trying to stop the gentle movement. But her stomach turned into worms and she fought against the rising nausea inside her.

"Oh, Christ on a fucking bike!" She muttered, realisation dawning on her.

This was a carriage.

She lurched forwards, tearing open the plush curtains over the window. A lush, bucolic landscape rolled by outside.

That wasn't Oxford.

Fields of swaying wheat waved back at her. Horses pulled hand-ploughs through the rows of golden ears. And men, bent double with grey peasant blouses clinging to their backs, hacked at the crops with sickles in their hands.

"This isn't… this isn't…" she stammered, but she found that she didn't have the vocabulary to complete that sentence.

This place wasn't… what?

This place wasn't 'now'?

This place wasn't the summer of Barbenheimer and Taylor Swift. It wasn't the year of Charles III's coronation and Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. It wasn't the year of the Titanic Submarine disaster or 'Spare' by Prince Harry. All that was now.

But this place was…

This place wasn't now.

Her breathing had quickened to an alarming rate. Every muscle and pore of her body was on edge and in panic-mode.

"Not long now, Mademoiselle." A voice called to her from up somewhere on top of the carriage.

Grace gasped and shut the curtains with alarm. All-consuming terror gripped her as she slid down her seat, tears welling in her eyes.

"Oh my God… Oh my God…" she muttered again, over and over.

Crushing, awful, impossible realisation crept up to her with each passing moment. And she collapsed in on herself. A self-imploding woman.

"No. No no no no no no… It can't be that." She mumbled erratically. "You're mental. You've had a psychotic break. This isn't real. It can't be real. You've… you've done that thing that the teenagers on TikTok do when they convince themselves they've really gone to Hogwarts."

The carriage lurched and rocked about violently. Grace screamed and slammed a hand over her mouth.

"Sorry, Mademoiselle. Hole in the road." The voice on top of the carriage called out to her.

She bit down hard on the hand that had covered her mouth. Grace winced at the pain. She drew her hand away and saw real bite marks on her skin, real drawn blood underneath the scratchy lace of the glove. It felt real. Whatever this place was.

Because it is real. Her mind screamed at her.

No matter how much she hoped that she was mad, or dreaming, or hallucinating, or maybe the victim of an impractical joke, as the moments ticked by, in her rocking four-walled prison, the awful, terrible truth crept up on her. Whatever she was left with, however impossible, had to be reality.

That bastard... The Story Teller! He did this to me.

Her panicking mind instantly recalled the strange old man, the Star, the falling…

"He pushed me… HE PUSHED ME!"

Grace's neck and chest felt warm. She pulled at the tight neckline of her dress, desperate to catch a breath in her fear. It was so restricting. So oppressively hot.

She reached a trembling hand back out to the curtains again. Terror coursing through her veins, she opened it a crack and peered outside once more:

They were now rolling up the drive of a rather splendid looking estate. Two men stood chatting by a bush of purple irises; A gardener, bearing a hoe and wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a gamekeeper, holding the limp bodies of two pheasants over one arm and the barrel of a long rifle over the other. They both turned to wave at the carriage as it passed by and Grace slammed the curtains closed again.

This place isn't 'now'. She realised. It's the past.

"Bloody hell, I hate Outlander." she cried, slumping back into her seat. "And Life on Mars, and 12 Monkeys and Back to the fucking Future!"

The carriage ground to a sudden halt, and Grace's stomach lurched. She froze still as she heard her footman dismount from his roost, his boots crunching underneath a gravel path.

Soon, other noises filled the space beyond the four walls and Grace began to shake. Voices from both a man and a woman. Horses whinnying. More crunching feet on the gravel.

And suddenly, light burst into her carriage.