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numbers on a luminous background. If I concentrated really hard, they became a giant black and white striped snake swirling around us at about a million miles per hour.
    “Who are you?” demanded Chris, snapping me out of my hypnotic daze. “You were in the woods. What did you do?”
    “I’m Drustan,” replied the man cautiously. “I expect you’re slightly bewildered, but there is a good explanation.”
    “What is this place?” I asked.
    “Ah, excellent.” The man sighed, turning to me with a small smile. “An excellent place to begin. This is TIC, our Time Irrelevant Capsule. And you must be Willow Ervant.”
    Two words jumped out at me and put all the others in the shade. “Time Capsule? Is this a joke?”
    “Not a joke,” muttered Chris. “He kidnapped us, that’s what. And probably drugged us as well.”
    “I do feel kind of hazy,” I said.
    “That would be the Leaping,” offered the man kindly. “It takes some getting used to, I’m afraid.”
    “No one’s getting used to anything,” Chris said, walking away. “Come on, Willow, we’re leaving.”
    I gave the man an apologetic shrug. He seemed quite nice—yeah, right, for a psycho who believed he’d kidnapped us in his time capsule. I looked at him uneasily, expecting a rush of panic. The thing is, there was something comforting about this man. I know, crazy. But there it was. He looked more like a dusty professor who’d come up for his annual airing than a real threat. Not that he was ancient, closer to thirty than forty at a guess.
    I swiftly turned and limped after Chris.
    It didn’t take long before we were right back where we’d started. Did I mention how tiny the room was? No, it didn’t take long at all to discover there was no door.
    “How do we get out?” fumed Chris. “Where’s the door?”
    “You must trust me, Christian. I mean you no harm.”
    “You kidnapped us.”
    “I suppose you would see it that way.” The man rubbed his forehead. “I’d really hoped to explain all this before I brought you here, but I barely made it in time as it is.”
    “How did we get inside here?” I wanted to know.
    A soft glimmer lit his eyes. “Leaping, of course. Travel outside the linear boundaries of space and time.”
    “So,” I said, desperately trying to pretend I was dealing with a rational adult, “this leaping can move us through walls?”
    “Through time and space,” he said. “We didn’t just move through walls, Miss Ervant. I brought you back with me to the year 2106.” To Chris, he added, “A temporary measure, I assure you. An absolute last resort. If there were any other—”
    “Time travel,” exploded Chris.
    “Why, yes,” said the man. “I thought I’d mentioned that.”
    Chris narrowed his eyes on the man. “What did you say your name was?”
    “Drustan,” he answered in a careful, restrained manner. “Drustan Corwyn.”
    “Jack put you up to this, didn’t he? How do you even know Jack?”
    “I wouldn’t say I know Jack Townsend,” hedged Drustan, “but I do know he’s involved in this mess.”
    “Great.” Chris fell back a step, shaking his head. “Absolutely bloody great.”
    “That’s quite enough, young man.”
    “Don’t call me that.”
    “Very well, Christian.”
    “Don’t call me that either.”
    Drustan frowned at me.
    Well, why not? Everything else seemed to be my fault.
    I poked Chris in the arm. “You’re acting weird. What’s going on?”
    “You were right, that’s what’s going on,” he told me bitterly. “This is all a big fat joke. Jack’s having a good ol’ laugh on me.”
    “Jack?” Call me slow, but wherever Jack was, I doubted he was doing much laughing.
    “This is about my article in Zany Science a couple of weeks ago.” Chris shot a dark look Drustan’s way. “I wrote a piece on the past being an interwoven lattice of hidden dimensions that never fade completely. In theory, it should be possible to find your way back to any event at any point